Concept of education

The concept of education is not as simple as most think. You can listen to people talking about it at coffee shops, in passing, or even on the bus, but if that's the only level of understanding you have towards education, you are in no position to judge Malaysia's recent airing of Khairy vs Rafizi debate on PTPTN and, indirectly, Malaysia's education.

To paraphrase a quote in the debate, Ibn Khaldun said education is an investment. But it was just a touch-n-go, so most people wouldn't understand what he meant. The truth is, education can be considered the biggest investment a country can make.

Let's take the nearest country as an example. Singapore's literacy rate is 54th in the world. Their national university, National University of Singapore (NUS), is one of the world's finest. And we can see that their economy is booming. Their whole system is better than most Asian countries. The people's mentality, their economy, hell, even their public transportation system is better than Malaysia's.

How about Indonesia, where their literacy rate is ranked 92nd in the world (Malaysia 90th). I don't even need to elaborate on this, you guys know your perception on Indonesians. Ganyang Malaysia this, riots there. Do I even need to add?

Let's take Norway as an example (9th on the world ranking in terms of education). Their education is in the top 10 of the world. Not to mention they give free education to their people. So everyone is educated. Nobody is left behind, not even the poor ones. With that level of education, the people is able to regulate the economy by themselves without needing much interference from the government.  They are able to understand how business works and follow their instincts to do the right things right. And how does that affect the economy? I know of someone from Norway who worked only one summer and could afford to travel for a year. Their economy is so great their wage rate is extremely high and their exchange rate is amazing (a bottle of mineral water costs RM16 there). In the end, with the people being able to control their economy, which later leads them to have great economy, which leads to higher wage rate, which leads to higher tax revenue, which in the end, makes the country able to support the country's education expenditure.

You see, that's what happens when we don't use brute strength. When we only focus on doing one thing, it will be the only thing that grows. We would oversee other important things that are actually the essentials. In Malaysia, we spend too much on economy and not enough on education. We seek more money but our mind never grows. So in the end we have more money but we don't even know how to use it.

As Ranchoddas Shamaldas Chanchad said, "Pursue excellence, and success will follow, pants down."

References:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_Norway

Hard to get

Girls are known for their hard to get flirting technique. It's supposed to work by piquing the guy's interest so that they would stand out more and therefore, being more irresistible.

While it does work on guys, it's quite hard for you to guess when is the optimum time to stop the act. Too soon and he loses his interest, too late and he's gonna leave you anyway. Even if you succeed in finding the right time to drop the act, you have to take into account that the person he's attracted to is not the real you. He likes the you who is interesting, and apparently the real you is not. So in the end, the relationship is only waiting for its time to end.

Besides, there are other alternatives to stand out more. Like giving a better head, as an example. That would be very interesting.