Mix-tape.

Mon, 5 Sep 2011
2 min read
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So it was Teachers’ Day last week.

I think my, er, advice worked – I received enough Ferrero Rocher to set up my own distribution centre.

Jokes aside, one present which stood out was the Teachers’ Day video done by 10A04.

Initially, when they bounded up to me to give me the DVD, I was like, “Wow! Mix-tape for me?”

I was genuinely elated; I remember thinking: Wow, these piglets have grown! They put their PW skills to use and realised that a mix-tape would be a great gift for me because:

  • I like music,
  • Mix-tapes have symbolic value, in that they hearken back to an era that I often romanticise, and
  • Mix-tapes have artistic value, in that the choice of songs are not arbitrary but curated in order to achieve a certain effect on/send a certain message to the listener e.g. I’ve chosen these songs that I know you like because I want you to know I care, or I’ve chosen 12 of my favourite songs because I want to share my music with you (a deeply personal gesture, IMO).

Sadly, my happiness lasted for a while, because I soon found out that:

  1. It wasn’t a mix-tape, but a video, and
  2. ALL THE OTHER TEACHERS THAT TAUGHT 10A04 ALSO RECEIVED THE SAME VIDEO.

Wah lao eh! Felt somewhat cheated lor. LOL… Kidding, ya.

I really like the video; in fact, I like it so much that I want to share it with all of you here:

Click on this link in case you can’t see the embedded video.

Nice right? (BTW if you want to watch more stuff by Ansen Goh and Co., check out “A Measured Distance Away” and ObscuRed.sg .)

I’m so glad they came together to do this, not only because the video shows how much they’ve grown as a class, but also because receiving the gift has made me re-evaluate my ‘preferred present list’ – I’ve just included a section called ‘Digital Art’.

So thanks, kiddos, for all the love. I’m proud of all of you.

Text message of the day.

Sun, 4 Sep 2011
1 min read
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Woke up this morning to this text message that was sent to me at 5:09am:

rmb call me. i scare cannot hear alarm 🙂 thankies

A translation is as follows:

Please remember to give me a call (at the presumably pre-specified time). I’m worried I might not be able to hear the alarm when it goes off. 🙂 Thank you.

I don’t know who this person is as I don’t have her/his number in my phone book.

Nevertheless, I responded, saying:

Hi, just to let you know that you sent your wake-up call request to the wrong number.

This was uncharacteristically un-snarky of me; I wanted to add:

Just in case this has any bearing on whether or not you get any in the future. Cheers.

However, it did occur to me that the recipient might’ve been an ex-student – in which case, it would’ve been hard to explain my humour if I needed to do so – hence my decision to err on the side of caution.

Then again, it could’ve been Jun Liang – to which, coincidentally, it’s three years to the day!

Response to the US Embassy cable published on Wikileaks (Aug 30, 2011)

Sun, 4 Sep 2011
3 min read
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Lynn Lee.

From my sister’s Facebook Fan Page.

—

Sept 3, 2011

Hi everyone,

Thanks for reading The Straits Times and for your support of this FB fan page.

I left Jakarta the week before last, after 2.5 years of an extremely exciting and meaningful experience reporting on Indonesia. I have since left The Straits Times to pursue a new career outside journalism.

A few days ago, Wikileaks released a US Embassy cable that quoted my name. This is my response to it. I sent an excerpt of this note to my former editors at the ST. They replied to thank me for making these clarifications.

I met with a political officer of the US Embassy in 2008 for an informal contact meeting, prior to my Jakarta posting.

I am not making excuses – his cable misrepresented what I said and I would like to place on record what actually transpired.

I did not say or suggest that there was a “disconnect” between editors and reporters at the The Straits Times. Neither did I say I would “never write about racially-sensitive issues”. My comments were taken wholly out of context.

The political officer was interested in whether reporters and their supervisors in the ST newsroom ever disagreed on story angles. He suggested that reporters – especially those who had gone to school in a liberal environment such as in the US – would feel constrained for whatever reason in the newsroom.

My response included these points: That reporters and their editors did engage in discussions over how stories should be written – with the ultimate aim being to produce balanced reports – but that the editors would of course have the final word on what went into print.

What I also said was that I believe that the ST is run by smart people who strive to do what’s best for its readers, even as they face pressure from a government seeking to set the tone and form of media coverage.

This is a position I held openly and consistently throughout my eight-year career at The Straits Times.

I also stated that I would not want to write articles containing racially-charged remarks that could incite hatred or create rifts within society. I pointed out an example of how baseless comments could create or aggravate tensions among people. I am surprised that what I still believe to be a responsible position to take was misconstrued as self-censorship.

Neither did I suggest in any way that I was “discouraged” with my life as a Singapore journalist. I expressed my readiness to take on a new challenge and learn about a new country. I said that I would need a year at the very least to assess if the role was right for me.

My recent decision to leave journalism had everything to do with my own personal goals. I wanted to try something new and the right opportunity came up. It was not related to opinions referred to above that I openly held nor to the suggested – and misrepresented – angst the cable indicated I felt.

I have had a fulfilling and rewarding time working with my editors at the paper.