faulker059

I've blogged about alternative career paths before, here . Definitely not as much as Tiara though. Those of you who are interested in an alternative take on education should definitely take a look at her blog . Wanted to highlight the story of Corrine May, a Singaporean singer and songwriter who's currently based in LA. You can read about her here . She graduated with an English degree from NUS in Singapore and then went to pursue her dreams of making music by going to the Berklee School of Music , not to be confused with UCal at Berkeley. She's pretty accomplished by now and I think she's going to be a name which many people in the music industry will soon be familiar with. (She co-wrote a song with Carole King for a songwriting competition! How cool is that!) You can listen to her music here and here . She definitely does NOT sound Singaporean or Asian and the content of her songs is also very 'unSingaporean'. Take a listen to see what I mean. I know of anoth...

A friend of mine, Tzu Anne, pointed me to this post that was originally from a Singapore newspaper, the Electric New Paper, and reproduced in Lim Kit Siang's blog . The story is about a certain Lim Wah Guan. His story is one that is not that common in Singapore. He did pretty well in his primary school exam (PSLE) and for his O levels but did horrendously for his A levels which caused him to be rejected by NUS four times. He finally applied and got into UNSW in Australia for a degree in Chinese and Theatre Studies which he excelled in. He later did a Masters in Oxford and is currently pursuing a PhD in Princeton. His story is not a typical Singapore story in that, as far as I know, very few students who score a C, E and O for his or her A levels and B, D and D in a repeat exam actually end up doing a PhD in Princeton. It does highlight the fact that there needs to be some flexibility in an education system but having some flexibility is usually not costless. (For those who are fami...

Got this link from a mailing list I'm party of (the Malaysian Forum started by a group of Stanford students). It's an interview with Tan Twan Eng, whose book, the Gift of Rain , was long listed (as opposed to short listed?) for the Man Booker prize in 2007. I have not read his book yet but I have read Tash Aw's Harmony Silk Factory which is also set in a similar time period (World War II), which I enjoyed thoroughly. It's always nice to read about a Malaysian author gaining some recognition on the international stage.