Papers & Pens, Nurses & Needles

Trrrrrrrng! Either the alarm clock or the school bell is ringing, and in both cases you feel like a patient in a ward full of hot nurses...all preening at you...while holding large needles.

For most of today's generation, education - to put it very formally - sucketh. I mean take my case for instance. Back in the days, when mobile phones were big enough to be used as a weapon, I found myself sitting in class 3. I was a typical kid wearing overgrown khaki shorts, black socks pulled up to the knees, and had hairy little match-sticks for legs [the lil' ladies were so digging my bronzed physique - it just took them 18 years to find out].

A year passes and I can count to 'one hundred hundred hundred', which is a kid's way of saying: I have no clue what comes after hundred so I'll just repeat myself.

"Go to school, my son! Education is the only way!".

Another year and I learn how to spell 'hippopotomus' so I can get some bling bling: a tiny paper star, painted gold and worth jack shizzay.

"Go to school, my daughter! Education is the only way!".

Time marches on and Miss Fannie, the maths teacher, shows us how to say 'cuboctahedron' then go home without looking like someone put strange mushrooms in our lunch soup.

"Go to school, my children! Education is the only way!".

18 years pass and I found myself still in school. Of course by then the lil' ladies mentioned earlier were totally grown, and so was I [my muscles had muscles!]. I could calculate Pi to 78 decimal places, I knew the formula for the volume of a sphere, I was told men came from monkeys, I was told the universe came with a big bang, and I had seen an elephant break-dancing in a thong.

"Don't sweat it, kiddo! Shizzay happens!".

And then you go out to get a job but they say, "why pardon us, young sir, you need to go back to school for another 7 years - we only hire PhDs". Like I said earlier, for most of today's generation, education sucketh. Or more accurately, the *implementation* (not the principle) of education sucketh. It takes far too long, costs far too much and teaches far too little.

Now come the questions.

What is the purpose of education?

How can we produce employable students faster?

Can 2hr exams really reflect a student's abilities?

What role should parents play in their children's education?

Does making education free and compulsory solve or compound the problem?

What is the meaning of life, ketchup and mayonaisse?

He Liveth!

So the other day I walk into a bookstore and without warning, begin frothing at the mouth, convulsing like a man doing the African Moon Dance (in which you basically eat roast gazelle washed down with Heineken - and don't ask where we get the Heineken).

The reason? I haven't got a clue, but I just thought I should let y'all know, because details like these make the world a better place...'n' stuff.

Where have I been all this time? Around...as usual. I went quiet 'cause it went quiet. CQ and Vics are *still* tolerating my absence (I dunno where you two get your patience, but I'm thankful!)...sadly, Dawn seems to have melted into the blogsphere [looks genuinely disconsolate].

I also have a confession to make - most of my disappearing acts have nothing to do with electricity problems. We get plenty of that when it matters, and I spend a great deal of time on the net...working...hard.

Working on what? Well, literally everything, a lot of it geared towards finding a glimmer of hope for this dear Motherland of mine. I am a lot older than I was when I left here some years ago, and looking around with a more mature eye, I see many things that are cause for sorrow...and many that are a cause for hope.

There is a kabzillion things we could discuss in relation to this issue, ranging from theories of civilisations, to politics, to economics, to sociopsychology. I've held back on these topics thus far, but would you stay if I ventured into them (with my usual comical-cynical style ofcourse)? Do you believe well-reasoned and thoroughly discussed ideas can change the world?

I stand and before me lies a vast expanse of land, home to over 800 million people...with over 800 million dreams. It is a lofty goal to think that one man can change it all...but then again, no one ever got occassion to stand tall by thinking small.

Made In Africa

Aye, 'twas a fateful day indeed. I was surveying a new neighbourbood where people left curtains open to reveal dressing tables that might as well have been labeled: 'Hubby Not Home - Kleptomaniacs Welcome'.

As I rounded the corner, I was automagically greeted by a ginormous mall. You know - the kind so big, you could get a toned derrière just by walking end-to-end. Things were looking good and good looking things were just calling my name.

Getting past the guard was ezay: he was in fact a 'she', so I bribed her with the new Screamless Waxing Kit - All Of The Hair, None Of The Screaming^TM. She took two sets and it was business as usual. I went in, borrowed a thing or two, from a shop or four, then proceeded to the Walk Out [it's like a Check Out, only you deliberately forget to pay].

I am soh-ree, I am looking for zeh rah-shee-un vo-dee-kah. Do you know wheh-rr I can find zis? I turned around to face a pig-tailed, 5'8" redhead, in a tank-top and hot pants...on roller-skates. Now, I'm not sure which deity one thanks profusely in such cases, but I was ah-thanking!

Vy certainly ma'am, vee shall go zis vay. I pointed back down the isle and she skated off ahead of me. I couldn't help but notice the letters on the hot pants: 'Made In Africa'...and with a wow-wow-wow like that, a brotha couldn't do anything butt, er, but. Yes ladies and gents, this is the stuff the truest of true gentlemen are made of [flicks speck of dust on shoulder].

So we got "zeh rah-shee-un vo-dee-kah" and the innocent lady actually wanted to pay for it. I spent the next 30 minutes finding the Russian equivalents for 'hot', 'chick', 'dazzle', 'guard', 'steal' and 'vodka'...32 minutes later she got with the program. Shweet.

Now I find myself in a house full of bouncy, half-African half-Russian toddlers running around with AK-47s, screaming "death to zeh in-fee-del!". What of my Russian bombshell? She's cooking and cleaning and ironing and preening and tending to my every...dang nabbit! [the alarm rings and the MuttaMan hauls his behind out of bed and back to paying taxes].

Four Words

So there I was doing whatever it is that living beings do: breathing, more breathing and the occassional inappropriate scratching. After discovering fire and burning down the TV Licensing Department [long live democracy!], I figured it would be a good time to ramble about something half-way coherent...you know, for the good of mankind 'n' small animals.

Men are fearless. We'll go to bed and snore the house down, knowing full well that the wifey came home that evening with a packet of anthrax [it was 'Buy One Get One Free' with the Gucci bag - what's a woman to do?]. We'll smack our kids black and blue, knowing full well that they'll be the ones to choose our retirement home. Like I said - fearless! [flexes some muscles in the mirror then quickly tucks away the potbelly].

But for all our fearlessness, there are four, four-word phrases which when spoken by women, can put the fear of God into a man:

do you love her? - spoken by a wife upon discovering you-know-what.

just like your father! - spoken by a mother during World War III with her son.

are these magazines yours? - spoken by a wife/mother upon looking under you-know-where.

I am feeling fat! - spoken by ladies to whichever poor soul happens to be caught in the crossfire.

The fourth one, being the most common, is going to be the topic du jour. Let us co-men-seh leh disc-uh-see-on seel-voo-pleh [hah! and to think I got a 'C' in French].

We live in a weight-obsessed world.

I mean, when I think of weight, I'm usually wondering how many pounds of TNT I will need to blow through the bank vault...or how many gold bars the suspension on my get-away ride can handle without tanking. Even after tuning the lady at the counter [like FM radio, huzzaaah!], I never once wonder whether I can sweep her away without needing a hip-replacement operation.

But when I happen to trip over a copy of Cosmo [happens every time the frogs in my backyard sing Beethoven's Concerto No. 5], I see the word 'weight' means: thou shalt be stick-thin, for in the day that thou art, thine admirers shall be plenty - selah!

Wrong. Alright then: half right. As any construction engineer would tell you [rattles his belt of grenades, blades and noo-kel-ar weapons], it's never about size - it's always about proportion. However, before we begin, er, philosophicating about beauty, let us historificate for a moment.

Once upon a time, I was laying in a hammock somewhere, meditating on the seventh parallel [you know, that place where ketchup and mayo are one and holy]. My meditation was interrupted by seven damsels ranging in body size from 6 to 18+. After falling off the hammock and gawking a lil' bit, I heard them speak thusly:

Why, pardon us oh big-brained, good sir. We most assuredly did not wish to interrupt your meditation on ketchup and mayo, the Ying and Yang of the seventh parallel. Selah! But pray tell, could you be so kind and judge as to whom among us is the fairest of them all?

It was definitely a trick question, but the only problem is, it was never really asked and still hasn't been asked today! I have never heard of any large-scale questionnaire asking men what female body size they prefer. And after Stick-Thin Is Good^TM has been shoved down our throats for so long, such a questionnaire is bound to meaningless - we've been programmed to give the desired response.

Now back to philosophicating about beauty. In reality, the obsession with weight, or rather the absence of it, is just a symptom of a larger epidemic: materialism - an obsession with possessions [bling! bling!] and the things that are seen, aided by utter ignorance of the things that are unseen.

Some of what is seen does matter a little however, and on the issue of body size, like I mentioned earlier, proportion - not size - is the real clincher [I'm sure the gents agree - those who don't would do well to note that my trigger-happy cousin Larry is being released from a prison near you].

So, whether you are a size 8 or size 18, if the relative proportion of your merchandise is balanced, then you've got nothing to worry about [e.g if you're size 6 and armed with a pair of 44FFs, everyone will point and scream "silicooooooone!!", but if you're a size 14+ they'll just go "whoaaaa momma!"].

With all that said, let us finish with a double four-word reminder to the gents:

Is she gravity proof? True beauty lies within!