The sample questions from the most recent draft of the Australian Citizenship Test for migrants has hit and it's as predictably incomprehensible as one might have imagined. Really, does knowing who Phar Lap is make you Australian? Let's remember anyway that while Phar Lap has historical significance in Australia, he was actually a Kiwi born and bred horse!
Of The Age's 20 sample questions I was able to get 16 correct with the other four being wrong on technicality. Clearly they did not have an English teacher or any kind of editor proof read their questions because the vagueness of many of the questions leaves room for multiple answers and yet they only give one possible correct answer. Having heard some of the other questions, it really makes you wonder what the hell they are thinking!
Q: In which capital territory is the parliament of Australia situated?
A: Canberra.
In actuality the answer to such a question would be the Australian Capital Territory, not Canberra which is the city in which parliament is situated. This kind of stupidity leaves me breathless.
The other issue to consider is what is the point of all this. Prospective migrants will learn the answers to the test by Rote memorization and then forget the information as soon as they walk out Again... what is the point of all this?
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Thursday, July 05, 2007
First Post
It was only a matter of time. I honestly think that every time something like this happens, John Howard rubs his hands with glee seeing opinion poll numbers increasing like a broken pokie machine. But yes, Little John has begun to play the terrorism/oil card in the lead up to the election. *Yawn*, could he be any more boring and predictable?
If one was a clever polly then you'd be playing up more stringent gun control as an election issue. Examples outside of the recent Melbourne shooting can be found here, here, here, here and here.
While admittedly, the above examples are all from one source and a couple of them are the results of trials from gun-related violence earlier in the year, what becomes more sinister is that all of them are from the last 8 days. Clearly Australia needs to consider the proliferation of illegal (and perhaps in some cases legal) firearms which seem to be making their way to our streets. As I said, a clever polly would raise this issue.
What kinda of B-grade journalists are currently being employed by The Age?? I'm pretty sure her size is not in the public interest. Nor are descriptions of how large her family's house is or how poor and ratty her husband's family's house is. It's almost like they found a Wikipedia article about these people and just through as much information as they could into the article with a complete disregard for what the article was actually about.
In Sg
Yes I'm here. Living in a new place and having started a new job. Obviously it's obscenely hot here much of the time and while I like to think that I think green, that's pretty much gone out the window. Though interestingly I still employ many of the same water-crisis techniques that I had to endure in Melbourne for the past couple of years. I am able to get weekly doses of AFL here as they show three or four games every weekend on the Australia Network. They seem to have an affinity for Collingwood and Richmond games which suits me just fine. I live in an apartment building about ten minutes walk from Orchard Rd. Prime real estate if you know Singapore at all. Unfortunately due to the insane increase in real estate price (there are reasons but I can't be bothered going into it) I live in the tiniest apartment imaginable. Still it's mine and that's all good.
The job itself is quite good. I'm getting my head around their way of doing things as much as I can and am stoked to learn I have 12 weeks paid vacation a year!!! I think this is karmic. The universe is repaying for being such an excellent worker. It's the only possible explanation. Right now I am teaching primary and secondary students though in about a month I will go back to teaching adults. Surprisingly I really love teaching primary because they're pretty much on my same intellectual level.
I've watched a number of movies since being here. On the more expensive days (Fri/Sat/Sun) a movie here costs SGD$9.50 which I guess is about AUD$8.40 very very roughly. So since arriving I've seen Fantastic Four (stupidest epilogue in the history of cinema - it literally makes no sense or is horribly racist), Deathproof (ok, but I'm still not entirely sure whether I like it or not) and Transformers (which I loved loved loved). Lots of stupid segments in Transformers but I knew what I was getting into by paying money to see a Michael Bay film. I realised just now that I've actually only seen one of his films before which was Armageddon. Watched in Japan where you consume every single crappy English language movie you can get your hands on. However, there were giant robots belting the axel grease out of one another and that's what I paid money to see. Using the original cartoon's voice actor for Optimus Prime for Optimus Prime in the movie was genius. The nostalgia all comes flooding back as soon as you here his voice. I'm also now sold on the idea of Shia Labeouf as Indiana Jones' son. He has the right kind of comic timing and stupidity to do it justice.
If one was a clever polly then you'd be playing up more stringent gun control as an election issue. Examples outside of the recent Melbourne shooting can be found here, here, here, here and here.
While admittedly, the above examples are all from one source and a couple of them are the results of trials from gun-related violence earlier in the year, what becomes more sinister is that all of them are from the last 8 days. Clearly Australia needs to consider the proliferation of illegal (and perhaps in some cases legal) firearms which seem to be making their way to our streets. As I said, a clever polly would raise this issue.
"We don't know what Sabeel did with it or who he called. I am convinced that it's the card that has got my husband into trouble," says Firdous, still looking big after her pregnancy.From this article.
What kinda of B-grade journalists are currently being employed by The Age?? I'm pretty sure her size is not in the public interest. Nor are descriptions of how large her family's house is or how poor and ratty her husband's family's house is. It's almost like they found a Wikipedia article about these people and just through as much information as they could into the article with a complete disregard for what the article was actually about.
In Sg
Yes I'm here. Living in a new place and having started a new job. Obviously it's obscenely hot here much of the time and while I like to think that I think green, that's pretty much gone out the window. Though interestingly I still employ many of the same water-crisis techniques that I had to endure in Melbourne for the past couple of years. I am able to get weekly doses of AFL here as they show three or four games every weekend on the Australia Network. They seem to have an affinity for Collingwood and Richmond games which suits me just fine. I live in an apartment building about ten minutes walk from Orchard Rd. Prime real estate if you know Singapore at all. Unfortunately due to the insane increase in real estate price (there are reasons but I can't be bothered going into it) I live in the tiniest apartment imaginable. Still it's mine and that's all good.
The job itself is quite good. I'm getting my head around their way of doing things as much as I can and am stoked to learn I have 12 weeks paid vacation a year!!! I think this is karmic. The universe is repaying for being such an excellent worker. It's the only possible explanation. Right now I am teaching primary and secondary students though in about a month I will go back to teaching adults. Surprisingly I really love teaching primary because they're pretty much on my same intellectual level.
I've watched a number of movies since being here. On the more expensive days (Fri/Sat/Sun) a movie here costs SGD$9.50 which I guess is about AUD$8.40 very very roughly. So since arriving I've seen Fantastic Four (stupidest epilogue in the history of cinema - it literally makes no sense or is horribly racist), Deathproof (ok, but I'm still not entirely sure whether I like it or not) and Transformers (which I loved loved loved). Lots of stupid segments in Transformers but I knew what I was getting into by paying money to see a Michael Bay film. I realised just now that I've actually only seen one of his films before which was Armageddon. Watched in Japan where you consume every single crappy English language movie you can get your hands on. However, there were giant robots belting the axel grease out of one another and that's what I paid money to see. Using the original cartoon's voice actor for Optimus Prime for Optimus Prime in the movie was genius. The nostalgia all comes flooding back as soon as you here his voice. I'm also now sold on the idea of Shia Labeouf as Indiana Jones' son. He has the right kind of comic timing and stupidity to do it justice.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Post Erection Blog
Labor is here to stay. No real surprises as the ALP and Libs basically had the same policies on many key issues and nobody really knew who the hell Ted Bailleau was. Pretty hard if you only become the leader of the party 6-8 months before the election. So it was all about familiarity. And the devil we know seemed a better choice than the devil we don't.
Have finished marking for the weekend. In general I'm fairly happy with their marks, though I may kick the ones that didn't listen to me in the head. I have no idea what I'll teach them tomorrow and haven't really had the time to create the new materials I wanted to for use tomorrow because of the marking. May sit there and do it tonight otherwise I should have time tomorrow morning. The joy and curse of teaching the afternoon class!
I must say that coming back to the classroom is soooooooooo much better than learning about being in one. But then I'm the quintessential bad student. Skipping classes whenever possible, playing noughts and crosses during lectures, perving on hotties and writing things up at the last minute. Weird that I should be the one teaching people study skills and university level thinking/writing.
I've been spending a lot of time creating new materials this term. The culmination of which is writing the end of term reading and listening exam for the university entrance kids. God knows why they want me to do it, but it would appear they don't realise just how shoddy I am lol. This is a different kind of test to previous ones, whereby the skills will all be integrated rather than tested separately. I'm down with the rationale behind this. I'm constantly reminding my own class about how this skill relates to that skill and that nothing is a waste of their time (how much do I sound like the stereotype teacher!). So this is nothing exceptional, just a pain finding the time to write it. And fuck that, I feel justified in taking a break to update my blog too!
When I eventually crawl into bed tonight I have some season 5 episodes of Angel waiting for me. Only saw a handful of episodes from season 5 so this feels like a reward for finishing up with uni. Yeah, I'm going to continue rewarding myself every time I want to do something indulgent. Sneaky eh?
AFL draft happened over the weekend. Collingwood seem to have a few likely prospects, but then so does every team. It was touted as the super-mega-ultra draft of all time, so it'd be pretty rough if any team came out of it without any bonuses. Essendon have scammed Mal Michael and here's to hoping they get well and truly done for their shady dealings in securing the ex-Lions fullback.
Have finished marking for the weekend. In general I'm fairly happy with their marks, though I may kick the ones that didn't listen to me in the head. I have no idea what I'll teach them tomorrow and haven't really had the time to create the new materials I wanted to for use tomorrow because of the marking. May sit there and do it tonight otherwise I should have time tomorrow morning. The joy and curse of teaching the afternoon class!
I must say that coming back to the classroom is soooooooooo much better than learning about being in one. But then I'm the quintessential bad student. Skipping classes whenever possible, playing noughts and crosses during lectures, perving on hotties and writing things up at the last minute. Weird that I should be the one teaching people study skills and university level thinking/writing.
I've been spending a lot of time creating new materials this term. The culmination of which is writing the end of term reading and listening exam for the university entrance kids. God knows why they want me to do it, but it would appear they don't realise just how shoddy I am lol. This is a different kind of test to previous ones, whereby the skills will all be integrated rather than tested separately. I'm down with the rationale behind this. I'm constantly reminding my own class about how this skill relates to that skill and that nothing is a waste of their time (how much do I sound like the stereotype teacher!). So this is nothing exceptional, just a pain finding the time to write it. And fuck that, I feel justified in taking a break to update my blog too!
When I eventually crawl into bed tonight I have some season 5 episodes of Angel waiting for me. Only saw a handful of episodes from season 5 so this feels like a reward for finishing up with uni. Yeah, I'm going to continue rewarding myself every time I want to do something indulgent. Sneaky eh?
AFL draft happened over the weekend. Collingwood seem to have a few likely prospects, but then so does every team. It was touted as the super-mega-ultra draft of all time, so it'd be pretty rough if any team came out of it without any bonuses. Essendon have scammed Mal Michael and here's to hoping they get well and truly done for their shady dealings in securing the ex-Lions fullback.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
How to take advantage of a coup
I think I've blogged about The General sometime in the past. The General is my friend's father that is a general in the Thai Army. I called her when I got home from work to make sure her family were ok only to find out that "of course they are. Dad's stoked!". While apparently her father knew nothing about it (he's in the process of retiring), it does take a majority of generals to approve a move like this and apparently it was 5 generals in particular that led the charge, according to The General. Hmmm... sure sounds like he knew nothing about any of this...
Anyhow, a coup generally gets people like me thinking. With a state of emergancy declared and an effective short-term dissolution of the constitution, the old laws no longer hold sway. Military law appears to be the standard for the next two weeks (which is the length of time my friend said it will take for the King to appoint a new PM). So in the meantime, there's no lengthy court processes. No hearings and appeals. Just the glory days of the immediate and irrevocable use of the death penalty.
Me? Well, if I was any of the other Thai law enforcement agencies I would be using this as an opportunity to take out some of the more powerful criminal elements. Who needs the insertion of undercover operatives into an organisation? The constant dead drops? Loss of operatives because their wife called, forgetting they were undercover, again? Lengthy RICOS (yes, I'm watching Sporanos again...)? Fuck all of them. A coup can be for more than just getting rid of corrupt politicians. Why not eliminate some of the seedier elements of society in the changeover period? Democratic rights hold no water right now so there's nothing to stop agencies, assuming they hold a high up military type in their pocket, from accomplishing some of their long-term goals.
I'm just sayin'.
Anyhow, a coup generally gets people like me thinking. With a state of emergancy declared and an effective short-term dissolution of the constitution, the old laws no longer hold sway. Military law appears to be the standard for the next two weeks (which is the length of time my friend said it will take for the King to appoint a new PM). So in the meantime, there's no lengthy court processes. No hearings and appeals. Just the glory days of the immediate and irrevocable use of the death penalty.
Me? Well, if I was any of the other Thai law enforcement agencies I would be using this as an opportunity to take out some of the more powerful criminal elements. Who needs the insertion of undercover operatives into an organisation? The constant dead drops? Loss of operatives because their wife called, forgetting they were undercover, again? Lengthy RICOS (yes, I'm watching Sporanos again...)? Fuck all of them. A coup can be for more than just getting rid of corrupt politicians. Why not eliminate some of the seedier elements of society in the changeover period? Democratic rights hold no water right now so there's nothing to stop agencies, assuming they hold a high up military type in their pocket, from accomplishing some of their long-term goals.
I'm just sayin'.
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