I’m not against the pruning of trees, because pruning does help at times in terms of improving the aesthetics or safety of a place.
What I’m against is the excessive pruning of trees all over Singapore that takes place on a regular basis.
(At the same time, I do wish more trees could be planted in Singapore, but that’s another battle for another time).
That tree gave some much-needed shade to Pooters – something I appreciate because I hate sitting on an over-heated seat and I hate knowing Pooters is exposed to the elements.
There are other benefits to trees in our urban environment too: carbon sequestration, reduction in ambient temperatures, etc. Read more here.
That’s why trees are especially important in a place like sunny Singapore and in a world stricken by global warming.
However, I’ve always felt that whoever makes decision like these – e.g. to prune trees excessively – do so in the right spirit: to neaten and hence beautify the place, to prevent tree branches from falling and killing people during a gale or a storm, etc.
Unfortunately, these decisions seem to always be made in a vacuum, without consideration of other important factors like the ones I mentioned above: shade, shelter, preventing global warming, etc.
Why?
I think this has to do with encouraging critical thinking and providing these people with an actual knowledge of circumstances in our world today.
And that’s why it has never been more important for us to move away from subjects taught in the traditional curriculum, to teaching slightly more multidisciplinary and ‘real-world’ subjects like biodiversity or environmental ethics now.
Perhaps it’s not made so explicit i.e. perhaps teachers don’t teach students how to write e-mail messages per se.
But I know for a fact that teachers do prepare their students to write formal letters – the structure of which can be used in e-mail messages.
So it’s either one of two things:
Most people need to be taught specific actions for each scenario in life; or
Most people have been taught to the test so much that the ability to transfer and/or apply knowledge learnt in class has been lost entirely on them.
In any case, I’ve also learnt that if people make mistakes and aren’t corrected at specific points in their lives, they go through the rest of their lives carrying said mistake(s) with them.
THEREFORE!
So that I don’t need to keep on repeating myself over and over again, this is the Mr Laremy guide to crafting an appropriate e-mail message!
(Round of applause, please.)
—
Dear student,
Thank you for your e-mail message. Please take note of the following:
For future correspondence, you must include a salutation that addresses the recipient of your e-mail or letter e.g. Dear Sir, Dear Madam, Dear Mr Laremy, etc.
You must also include a paragraph or two of text that explains the purpose of your message. A blank e-mail message literally does not say anything.
Use a valediction or a sign-off appropriate to the content and tone of the message e.g. “Yours sincerely” or “Sincerely” since you are a student writing to a teacher, in this case.
An example of how you can craft a simple but appropriate e-mail message:
“Dear Mr Laremy,
I have attached my assignment to this e-mail message.
Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
A. Long-Suffering Student”
Other things you will find useful:
If your work is late, it is courteous to provide an apology for not being able to meet the deadline. This would help your case if you need to request for an extension to the deadline.
The word you want to use is “deadline”, not “dateline”.
When writing to teachers, do not adopt a superior tone in your message; we are not your subordinates. This means that I have a bit more leeway in terms of using phrases like “Please take note” – but you don’t.
Neither should you adopt a familiar tone with teachers in your message – we may be friendly, but we are not friends.
You can refer to this website for more info about this. There’s a little activity at the end which you can try too.
(Just to clarify that I’m neither a military nut nor a fanboy of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). I just have a keen interest in SAF-related issues for reasons I will not mention in public.)
I think the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) has produced a good advertisement that makes use of the principles of literary technique to effectively communicate its message to the viewer.
The voiceover text, if you want to read it while the video is being played:
I am the wind.
On land, no blade of grass moves without me.
At sea, every rising wave is touched by me.
Wherever you are, I am high enough to see you
and strong enough to reach out to you
5
and place strength in your hand.
You may not always see me
but you will always feel me
for I am here
for a higher purpose.
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I won’t discuss the visual semiotics because that isn’t the point of my post.
However, I’ll carry out a bit of literary analysis on the first ‘two’ lines of the text to demonstrate some sense of its literary merit as well as articulate some of the ideas that the advertisement aims to convey to the viewer.
As the “I” in the text represents the entity that is the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF), the “wind” is used as a symbol of the RSAF’s ‘invisibility’ (i.e. how it can operate without being detected by the enemy), its speed, its power, and its versatility at being able to be both strong yet gentle in different times of need.
On one level, the line “no blade of grass moves without me” is an image which evokes ideas of the RSAF’s power – the RSAF has the ability to influence “move[ment]”, especially in inanimate objects that would otherwise not move on their own.
However, if we also imagine the “blade of grass” to be a metaphor for the infantry soldier, which is a symbol of the Army, then the line is also meant to convey an idea of the superiority of the RSAF in the SAF’s war-fighting capabilities: it is at the forefront of military operations in terms of intelligence gathering efforts and attack manoeuvers, to say the least. {This is reinforced in the “sea” imagery used in line 3, which I will not discuss now for want of time/space.) At the same time, the combined image of objects “on land” and “at sea” moving with the assistance of the “wind” also conveys ideas of the interconnectedness of the three arms in war-fighting operations.
Okay, I know this is somewhat wankerish and some people might think I am stretching the limits of plausibility with my analysis, but do me a favour: assume that I am right for the time being.
Now that we’re all on the same page i.e. my analysis is right, what’s the significance of this advertisement in the larger scheme of things?
A well-wrought out advertisement like this can achieve many aims. Besides its primary aim of enticing people to sign on with the RSAF, the advertisement:
Instils a sense of national pride in the SAF, from the point of view of the citizenry, thereby increasing national confidence etc., and
Acts as one form of deterrence (among other deterrence strategies that the SAF uses) to ward off would-be aggressors, from an external point of view.
So one doesn’t need to know literary devices or techniques in order to consciously or unconsciously receive the implied messages that are sent to the recipient i.e. the person watching the advertisement.
But one would need to have some sense of literary technique in order to be able to create an advertisement as good as this one to achieve said aims I mentioned earlier.
And that, my friends, is another reason why there’s a point in learning literature as a point of departure toward doing other things in life.
P.S. I know I said I wouldn’t discuss the visual semiotics of the ad. But seriously – jogging girl is pretty cute.
