POSKOD.SG: Ten Steps to Effective Driving

Mon, 26 Nov 2012
2 min read
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Vroom vroom.

My latest article on POSKOD.SG.

Ten Steps to Effective Driving.
A guide to burning up the road. (Mostly burning.)

In addition to having good communication skills, Singaporeans have extremely awesome motoring habits.

That’s hardly surprising: 12% of Singapore’s land area is made up of roads, so getting around speedily means that you’re gonna need to get your Ma Chi on faster than a traffic light turns green.

Before you do so, however, here are ten steps to effective driving, the get-out-of-my-Singaporean way.

  1. Communicate effectively.
    In keeping with our culture of communicative excellence, don’t use your signal lights.

    Who invented them, and what are they for, other than to overwhelm drivers with useless information?

    Alternatively, communicate in a betterer fashion by signalling a right turn but making a left turn instead.

    Routine breeds complacency, and you’ve got to keep people on their toes – even if it means them keeping their toes on their brake pedal all the time.

    Here’s a quick quiz to test your understanding of this:

      Question:

      • You are approaching a junction. You plan to make a left turn into the filter lane.
      • There is a driver at the opposite end of the junction waiting to make a right turn.
      • Do you signal your intention so that he doesn’t have to wait in vain?

      Answer:
      No! Don’t demean him by assuming that he doesn’t want to wait for you.

  2. Be flexible.
    Jam on the brakes when other motorists least expect you to. Better yet – make abrupt U-turns.

    Inject a little spontaneity into what would otherwise be a mundane and boring drive.

    Here’s another quick quiz to test your understanding of this:

      Question:
      While driving, you realise you need to make a U-turn. What do you do?

      Answer:

      • Stay in the left-most lane.
      • Jam on the brakes.
      • Turn your steering wheel sharply to your right.
      • Make the U-turn.
      • Bonus points if you signalled a left turn before doing so (in keeping with Step 1).
  3. Keep a safe following distance.
    One bumper width is fine, especially in land-scarce Singapore.

    In fact, the closer you can get, the better – Singapore is all about motor-racial harmony.

    Furthermore, personal space is an alien concept introduced by corrupt Westerners, and has no place in a society built on solid Asian values like filial piety, meritocracy and ERP gantries.

(continued…)

Theatre Talkback: I hope it works.

Sat, 27 Oct 2012
3 min read
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Theatre Talkback!

I just heard about this project called Theatre Talkback, so I thought I’d do my bit and help spread the word.

However, I thought I’d also do my bit and say something about it as well (as usual… LOL).

***

As someone who supports artistic development in Singapore, I’m quite supportive of efforts like these.

But as someone trained in both education and writing, I’m also worried this effort may not be as efficacious as it could be because of the following:

  1. A seeming lack of sustainability: Time is required for incubation and revision during the process of art creation.

    Hence, will the process be sustained after this session? If no, why have it in the first place? And why not spend the money/time/effort on something more sustainable?

  2. The lack of a filtering mechanism: Feedback will be provided by “the general public and…an acclaimed line up of panelist (sic) (consisting of a playwright, a director and an educator…)” to a target audience of “budding artists”.

    How will budding artists filter out information that is crucial and relevant to them from noise/irrelevant feedback?

  3. The probability of ineffective feedback: I have, on many occasions, asked myself – via an interior monologue – this question upon receiving feedback from a countless number of individuals, both useful and useless: “How is what you’re saying going to help my life or help me become a better teacher/writer?”

    Reason: a lot of the feedback tended to focus on one thing – what I was doing wrong.

    But any hmstrfckr can tell you what you’re doing wrong. It’s a great teacher, however, who can tell you what to do instead and how to do it, in order to be more effective.

***

To practice what I preach, I’m now going to work some of my LareMagic and suggest that:

  • The organisers should please, please adopt this feedback mechanism for the project:
    1. Tell the playwright what s/he is doing wrong;
    2. Tell the playwright what to do instead;
    3. Show the playwright what to do through an example.

      For example:

      • You’re narrating what’s going on to the audience. This reduces dramatic tension.
      • Show, don’t tell.
      • Instead of getting your character to say “I’m so angry with what you’ve just said!”, is it possible to ‘show’ it via the use of this stage direction e.g. CHARACTER slams his cup down on the table. Silence.
  • The organisers should please, please make it mandatory for every hmstrfckr who wants to provide feedback to adopt this feedback mechanism, otherwise her/his feedback will be ignored.

These two measures will solve problems (2) and (3) which I outlined above.

I can’t solve (1) but I hope some sort of workshopping will eventually take place over a prolonged period, much like TheatreWorks’s Writers’ Lab.

***

I expect some criticism about what I’ve just raised. That’s fair.

But let me work my LareMindReading LareMagic and pre-empt the criticism:

  1. This is too pedantic/structured.
    No – this is friggin’ education. You have to be pedantic and provide an order and a structure before creativity can flourish.

    But I say again – it must be a good order and structure that is derived soundly from theory and not something stated on a whim.

  2. But this is art! Art is supposed to be felt! How can you –
    Bye.