Your justification stops a bit short, and in the very first paragraph of your email to the bride, you expose a giant gaping hole in your argument: you only shoot weddings 4 months a year!  What do you do in the remaining 8 months ?

I’m no accountant, but I have been running my own consulting business for many years (I.T.), and in the last year it has finally become a full-time affair.  As with any contract work, the amount of work coming in is quite variable, so the key thing I learned in budgeting is to separate fixed costs from event-related costs.

Fixed costs would be tools/equipment you only replace occasionally, computers/laptops for me, cameras and lenses for you.  Whether you work one day or 365.25, these costs remain the same.  Event-related costs are things like your prints, blank DVDs, suit rental, and any other expense that is specific to one event.  Your labour does not count, we’ll get to that later.

You then divide your fixed costs by the number of weddings you shoot.  The result is how much you need to charge on-top of your event costs to break even.  This is your base cost.  You will deduct this for tax purposes.  You then mark it up to account for your time.  If you work 35 hours per wedding, and your goal is to earn $30/hour, then add $1400 to the total price.  This is the amount on which you are taxed, your profit or net income.  If that’s not enough money for you, either you raise your prices and cultivate your brand accordingly, or you book more photo events.

Sure, if I consistently got emergency consulting gigs at $150/hr, I could work four months a year too.  Conversely, if I worked four months at my sustenance rate of $30/hour, I could afford rent and eat ramen and not much else.  You have to be realistic in your expectations.  If your photography is a 4-month a year thing, that’s not the bride’s fault, it’s yours for being too lazy to work year round like the rest of us small business owners.

Meritocracy begets Measurements.
Measurement begets Performance.
Performance begets Priorities.
Priorities begets sacrifice.

Pragmatism has been deemed to be the national creed. Learn to live with it

Being a Christian family, we place first emphasis on bringing up the kids on biblical values and principles based on the Word of God – the Bible.

Along with the Bible, we turned to books written by the many experts in the field of child psychology, behaviour models and educational philosophies.

It is only recently that we have begun to realise that we could and probably have been doing it all wrong. Why do we try to learn from so-called industry experts who have only done case studies and observed behaviour of children from other countries?

Each country’s laws, educational policies and social climate is different, so why do we follow a ‘standard’ western point of view?

Singapore is unique in its own right with an ever-changing education system. Globalisation, the influx of Foreign Talent, Job types, law, yes LAW (we have capital punishment)… are all factors contributing to the environment in which we are bring our children up in…

Why no cues and pointers from local Psychologists? where are the education Experts in Singapore? if there were any… why aren’t their findings, theories, philosophies widely circulated, encouraging parents to listen and pay heed to the unique environment our children are growing up in?

Technology has surpassed legislation… the lawmakers cannot keep up with the pervasive influence of technology… our kids want iPhones at 12 years of age… Singtel offers Youth Plans with Unlimited SMS and data usage…

We don’t even know what our kids want anymore (in the deeper sense)… fulfilment? Ambition? Recognition?

The step to beginning to understand… to find the answers starts with me.. right here…

..

Nathan told us early in the morning (on a non-school day) that he needed to go to his friend’s place to finish a project that was required to be turned-in on Monday.
Naturally we said, ‘No’.

Firstly it was too last-minute, second there was nothing written in his handbook (as usual)… third, no notification from his teacher.

He resigned himself to not-being-able-to-contribute to the project which was to pen a poem in the likes of Roald Dahl.

later in the afternoon i clarified with him on the urgency and necessity of this poem. Needless to say, he DID need to contribute in some way or other with his project mates.

i then reasoned, ‘Why does he have to go to his friend’s place? why can’t they come to ours? (where we can monitor and make sure they actually WORK on the project.)

Nathan said that he thought that we would not have allowed it and told his friends the same.

And then i thought, ‘why not use some online collaborative platform to work on their project?’

After a few hit and misses with some sites requiring payment, some offering 30-day trials… i finally got the one that looked most similar to the one i use at work (MeetingPlace)..

Its called, dimdim.

http://www.dimdim.com/

Its easy to use, requiring only one person to create an account and start a meeting.
You get to invite anyone before and during the meeting.

You can share your Desktop, a Presentation, a Whiteboard.

You can chat Publicly or Privately.

Meeting host can kick out any invited member.

For what its worth (FREE)… it does almost everything my company’s solution does… just without the security features.

You can even record your meetings.

What more do you need?

What it really accomplishes for me is this:

My son can work on his projects with his friends using any web browser and produce collaborative work without the need to go to each other’s house.
Save time, save money, save the hassle…

try it
..

Level 5: Needs to know and understand
Level 6: Aesthetic needs – beauty, symmetry and order
Level 7: Self-Actualization needs – Self-fulfillment, realizing one’s potential
Level 8: Self Transcendence Needs – Helping others reach their potential

——–

Other strategies to help gifted kids:

1. Focus on Effort, not just the outcome

2. Reorganize accomplishments

3. Participate in joint activities

4. Avoid “Yes, buts…”

5. Be sensitive but also specific

6. Seek mentoring opportunities

It’s a thick book with small words, to me at least… i hate thick books with small words… that’s why i still wonder why i bought “Men in White”…

After reading this book i will still have to figure out how this applies to our kids here on this sunny island of Singapore… no way I’m gonna take this wholesale

Anyways…

The reason I wanted to read this book was two-fold: – to find out more about myself, and to find out more about my kids. After 3-4 chapters… a lot of it was beginning to make sense, and quite a bit of it I sort of already knew.. or at least suspected for quite some time..

Also, after a chapter or so… I started to realise that i had to write some notes down… so here’s a little of what i wrote… mostly key points that struck me…

————-

A new term i learnt was ‘Overexcitability’. This term was presented by Kazimierz Dabrowski…

He says that one of the most common issues that gifted children face, is that they are too sensitive. Some common criticisms they face are:

“You worry about everything”
“Can’t you just stick with one thing?”
“You’re so sensitive and dramatic”
“You’re so demanding”
“Can’t you ever be satisfied?”

See anything familiar? I bet you do… because I did…
Three areas of overexcitability struck me:

1. Intellectual Overexcitability

- Curious, problem solving, theoretical thinking
- Active minds that seek to gain knowledge, search for understanding and truth, endeavour to solve problems
- When young they devour books, when they become adults they remain avid readers.
- When young they ask endless questions, as adults they are introspective
- Content to simply sit and think by themselves for long periods of time
- Focuses on moral concerns and issues of fairness
- Impatient or upset if others do not share their excitement about an idea

2. Emotional Overexcitability

- Worry excessively about the well-being of others
- Strong, emotional attachments to people, places and things. Often accused of over-reacting
- Intense feelings. Compassion, empathy, sensitivity and anger
- Temper tantrums; rage related to losing a game, feeling left out, needing to be the best, not getting their way

3. Sensual Overexcitability

- Smell, seeing, taste, touch and hearing are more heightened
- Focuses on pleasurable experiences so intently that the world around them ceases to exist for a time.
- Easily exhausted from the continuing presence of classroom noise
- Odors or perfume may overwhelm
- They attempt to avoid settings where they might experience over-stimulation

I ended up realising that i identified with quite alot of the areas above. Scary thing is… I still do, just that as an adult, i have learned to mask my feelings and accept/deal with these issues.

The problem is that these things are natural, they cannot be ignored. So, identifying these traits in our children is important because if they are glossed-over or treated lightly, the consequences can break a child’s future and their opportunity to really live life fully.

Next up… an old friend, Maslow… and his advanced levels of needs (growth)…

..

———————–

just got back… (10am) day after Vesak day

funny thing… camping with my 12-year old last night versus camping out with him when he was 8 years old was a very different experience.

we used the same 4-man tent (Overland – S$20++ at Carrefour) that we used back then… still good condition… we brought plenty of lights (boys love lights)… and 3 battery fans… some snacks, bread, hot water, 1.5l mineral water, some 3-1 coffee, some old seat pad that we wanted to throw away (to make the sleeping a little more comfy)…, and the usual toiletries for an over-nighter…

we had some light rain, no wind, the park was noisy until the rain started (about 10pm)…

we camped in Camp area 3 (WCP designated camp grounds)

i also noticed that most of the camps had little or no activity in them.. my guess is that they were occupied by ‘regulars’ … (ask me more by PM)…

the toilet was 50 meters away, park lights were ‘on’ the whole night and we also had a full moon… i.e. plenty of lighting

issues:
1. The tent wasn’t really waterproof, more like water resistant, we’ll be investing in a better one by Coleman

2. i shopped all over for a decent rechargeable camping fan/light. they are very hard to find – and we NEEDED it. there was no wind, the battery fans we brought died every 2 hour or so, requiring changes in batteries

… basically we perspired the whole night through… very unpleasant. i really need to find a good unit that will last the whole night ..

3. our bread and snacks were contingency.. we ended up in Macs for most of our meals.. we adjourned to the air-conditioned environment frequently!

costly.. ended up spending quite abit on fast food.

4. the stuffy tent really put a dampener throughout the whole night… our Scrabble marathon ended up halfway coz it was just too hot to think…

…

The good:

1. my son had me all to himself for a goodly 16 hours

2. we had opportunities to pray together

3. i appreciate my bed more

4. we had opportunities to share about issues he was going through in school, PSLE, teenage years-to-come

…

all-in-all, still a PLUS point despite the heat.

conclusion:

we’re scheduling another in December at WCP again… the environment
is healthier due to the fact that there’s no alcohol for sale anywhere nearby, the crowd is different from ECP.

WCP is cleaned up just past midnight… so most of it is pretty clean in the morning when the joggers start pouring in…

more like a middle-class income park if you know what i mean…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark

Oviparity, Viviparity and Ovoviviparity… simply amazing.

Oviparity – Lays eggs externally in a Mermaid Purse

Viviparity – internal placenta, mammalian-like..

Ovoviviparity – Sperm kept for months within the female, eggs within the female – birth young alive…

si beh cheem….

I am a Secondary Four student at Nan Chiau High School, and am due to take my O Levels this year. Being shown first-hand what the education system is like, especially from a fairly unflattering point of view, has made me realise much about the education system that I do not like. Of course, I am fully aware that no education system is perfect, yet in the spirit of transformation the PAP has hopefully adopted since the 2011 General Elections, I write this letter to you in the hope that some of these problems with our system will indeed be changed, or if not, at least reviewed.

I speak just for myself, and not for all other graduating students in Singapore when I say this, but I do feel strongly about many methods being employed in secondary schools, especially for graduating classes. For one, I have come to realise the serious emphasis the education system has placed on factual memorisation. Perhaps it is just used in my school, or maybe even a method most autonomous or government schools apply, but based on personal observation, I have come to the conclusion that students are often not taught to ask ‘Why?’

Children are curious and inquisitive, asking their parents questions many parents themselves are not able to answer. As a parent yourself, I believe you can testify to this. Too often, I have heard toddler cousins asking their parents why the grass on my front lawn is green, and how their baby sister was created, or why fruit punch is reddish-pink. I therefore strongly believe that the education system is indeed stifling to a child’s inquisitive and curious mind.

Albert Einstein once said: “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” Yet, what is it we are doing to our students today? We are training them not to question, Mr Heng.

I once had to do a Chemistry paper in which I was asked ‘Why?’ for many things, such as ‘Why is carbon a non-metal?’

Perhaps it is just my school’s teaching methods, but for the life of me, I was never once taught why carbon was a non-metal. Since I started with Chemistry in Secondary Three, I learnt that the staircase line divided the Periodic Table into metals and non-metals, and that metals and metals took part in metallic bonding.

That, I believe, is one of the key flaws in the education system. This is a flaw that is not only serious, but also has wide-reaching effects. The most common definition of education is the one provided by the Cambridge dictionary, which states that education is ‘the process of teaching or learning in a school or college, or the knowledge that you get from this’, but I prefer the one found in the students’ favourite dictionary. Education itself, as defined by Dictionary.com, is ‘the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.”

The beauty of education is to ask ‘Why?’ and have those questions answered. To be aware of knowledge one never knew about. To constantly discover new insights and new things every day, to answer questions lurking in our minds. But far too often, we are taught not to ask why, to just memorise. To get an A1, all we have to do is memorise our textbooks inside out and upside down, and be able to regurgitate them on the very day, tweaking them minimally to answer the questions asked. In the pursuit for grades, I believe we have lost the beauty of education: The ability to ask ‘Why?’

Maybe I’m still a teenager. Still sixteen, still not quite mature in my thinking processes and ways of speech. Maybe I don’t know exactly what type of education system I want, but I know one thing: I want a system where I’m not a product on a factory line, but a real human with an inquisitive mind, always taught to ask and wonder. Memorizing is indeed the fastest way out. Fastest way to good grades, the fastest way out of poverty, the fastest way to a good job and a good salary and a good life. The fastest way to a First World Country. But is it really the best way to educate?

Minister, the purpose of education is to ‘prepare oneself or others intellectually for mature life’. Singapore is a First World Country with developing quartenary industries and a high Human Development Index. It has a stable economy, a thriving political landscape and top-notch healthcare systems. No longer can we adopt the same methods it took us to get here. Instead, what the country needs is more thinkers, more creators. People who dare to ask ‘Why?’ and ‘Why not?’. People who are not slaves to change, but create the change. How do we train the leaders of the nation, if many of our brightest young minds are not bright because they can think, but are bright simply because they know how to maneuver their way around school exams and the education system? It is no surprise then, that many of our local policies are all recycled from those of other countries. They lack imagination and creativity, because it is my deep-set belief that other than curiosity, those are the other things the local education system kills.

My friends are constantly telling me that Singapore has no talent. They are constantly swooning over foreign celebrities, actors and actresses, but in comparison, the support and fanbase for our own local talents are negligible, save for a few. I do not believe that Singaporeans lack talent. In fact, I truly believe Singaporeans are a talented bunch. Art, music, dance, you name it, I can name someone who’s good at it. So what is the problem here, you may ask. The problem is that Singaporean youths are often not taught as individuals with separate talents, but as a collective who are all the same. Often, we suppress our own natural talents for what the education system wants. I have had so many Chemistry and Biology answers marked completely wrong just because I used my own words to express the same idea. ‘Cambridge wants this, so we will give them this’ appears to be the mindset of most of the teachers, who throw us model answers to be memorised. We cannot change the markers at the University of Cambridge, but I am sure you would agree with me that this is not the way to educate youths. Many times, in English, I have been told to follow a certain structure and certain format for even free writing tests. Youths are brimming with creativity and fresh ideas, but we lack that same outlet to express them. Why do you think social networking is such a crazy trend? Social networking gives students a voice that the education system never gave them.

How do we cultivate talent in this manner, by not giving youths a voice? By memorizing tons and tons of model answers and essays to be submitted? In this way, the education system is sending a message to Singaporean youths that it is not wrong to have a voice, but it is wrong to use this voice in the system of education. What it does not realise is that it is the education system that is supposed to give Singaporean students their voice! By educating students, we are giving them the ability and knowledge to speak their minds, yet take this privilege from them away all at the same time.

Is this really what education is? Stifling voices in favour of appeasing examiners, memorizing facts to get that A1, yet all of these are forgotten by the time we start work?

Call me naive, because I am still young, but I believe an education is not about imparting facts and figures and making students digest it all. It’s about shaping a mindset. Creating a person. Nurturing what God gave each one of us. I fear that in the pursuit for the Singaporean Dream, we have lost the initial purpose of education: to create a person, who is opinionated and articulate and creative and imaginative. Who is not afraid to think out of the box and come up with new ideas and policies.

We may be a First World Country, but if our education system still holds the belief that we are in a Second or Third World Country, and need to furiously cram facts in our head to get out of the cycle of poverty fast, then we will never truly raise First World leaders. Leaders who can think about the solution to an exact problem, and not recite whatever they learnt in their political science or economics courses in university.

—

Another gaping flaw in the education system is the premise of character development. From the way it is taught in schools, it often feels like schools are introducing character development just purely for the sake of it, and not for inculcating values important to working life.

Mr Heng, we are taught Civics and Moral Education from a FILE, and from TEXTBOOKS. We are given CME EXAMS. Surely you would agree this is not the way to go about teaching values? Values cannot be taught, so the education system tries to force it down our throats by teaching us morally-correct behaviour.

Since Social Studies in primary school, we have been fed the system’s easy way out. Instead of actually having values instilled into us, we are taught to give morally-correct answers. We are taught to help old ladies cross roads when they look like they need assistance. Though the last sentence may be a bit of an exaggeration, one cannot deny that it is true. Character is not the knowledge that we should help the old lady cross the road, but the actual act of helping her do it.

The sad but true reality is that most teenagers know that the old lady needs assistance, but would rather continue checking Facebook statuses and giving Twitter updates on their smartphones rather than going over and helping the poor soul.

Granted, who am I to make a generalisation and say that all teenagers are this way? I know that there are teenagers and youths out there who are truly compassionate, who would truly go out of their way to help, but I have no arguments in my bag of tricks to argue for the stand that this behaviour is taught by Civics and Moral Education lessons in schools. Rather, more often than not, it is good parenting that leads a child to do so, not CME lessons.

Teachers often ‘eat up’ our CME lessons to have their own lessons, for one. Though this may not be a commonplace occurence, it happens extremely often for graduating classes when teachers are rushing to finish up the syllabus. Again, the system sends out another message: As long as you can get all A1s for your O levels, your character does not matter.

I am sure this is not the intended message, but it is certainly what most of us are hearing. The common mentality is ‘So what if you have a good character? You’re failing most of your subjects.”

I find this rather peculiar, because I for one have always found that with a strong character, good grades come naturally afterwards. With self-discipline and self-motivation, a student can certainly get good grades. Thus, character development should in fact be more important than academic education, because after all, an education is not about pure academics. Instilling values in a child is certainly an important part of preparing them for maturity, for maturity does not come with grades, but with wisdom and growth no amount of midnight-oil-burning can develop.

—

As a Secondary Four student, I experience first-hand the ugliness of the flaws the education system has. In fact, I spent one hour and forty-five minutes writing you this letter. Though I am not sure if you will ever get to read it ever in this lifetime, but this is something that I believe in. I believe in being the change I want to see in the world, or at least in my environment, as cliched as that sounds. Every one else will tell me that this is a waste of time, because I have Preliminary examinations next week and I could have been studying instead of typing this long Facebook note out.

This is the type of education system the Ministry of Education’s policies have cultivated. A system where fighting for things one believes in are seen as a ‘waste of time’, where reading anything non-school-related is seen as yet another waste of time. Is this the type of education a First World Country should have, one where students’ thoughts and abilities to express themselves are confined within the front and back cover of their textbooks, where it is better to be passive and just study hard under the system than fight to change it and waste one’s time, where having your own thoughts is a liability.

Have we lost the true meaning of education somewhere in the paper chase, buried under all the degrees and diplomas and paychecks? Or were we lost all along as to what education truly means?

I have not given up hope that there is still space for change. I have not submitted myself to accepting that ‘this is the Singapore system and I cannot do anything about it’. I am fighting for the changes I want to see in the best way that I can, because I believe that someday, my children will be educated in such a way that they are taught to never stop asking, and to always care about the people around them. I believe that you have the power to make these changes happen, and if not, at least a thorough review of the policies made by your predecessors.

Thank you very much for your time.

.

Janelle Lee

1.) Reboot the machine
2.) Press F8 to load up the boot options menu for Windows
3.) Select Safe Mode and then select your Windows Installation
4.) After Windows loads into safe mode, it’ll ask if you want to continue working in Safe Mode. Select Yes.
5.) Start >> Run >> “regedit” (without the quotes). Press Enter.
6.) Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
7.) Look for the GinaDLL Key
8.) Select and delete this key. DO NOT delete the entire Winlogon folder of keys.
9.) Close Regedit and reboot the machine