Welcome.

I find that I'm starting to like penning down my thoughts more often. I don't do it for people to read (although they are most welcome to give comments and start more discussions), I do it more to make me thinking more thorough and complete. I have many ideas in my head that just slip away just because I did not bother to put them to paper, which is such a waste.

Anyway, I just had a conversation with my dad and his close friend from Myanmar, my uncle Than Win. Talking to uncle TW made me realise how much our schools really don't teach. Have we ever come across the task of cleaning used lubricating oil from cars in our comfortable world here? I finally see that these are the 'practical things' my father was lamenting that we did not know how to do.

And it's not like uncle TW is only all about practical things, he even discusses with me about the Higgs Boson particle, about spirituality, about chemistry, basically about all kinds of things. When I asked him how he managed to remember facts that he learnt in school from the 70s, he gave some pretty interesting solutions.

One was that he constantly reminded himself of the facts, and whenever he has a new question he immediately acts and seeks out new information. So in that sense, he continuously builds upon his mountain of knowledge. This definitely requires some level of perseverance, and you can imagine the level he is at when he can recall facts from an entire textbook.

The second is more interactive and less methodical. He takes every opportunity to teach someone about something new, to constantly remind himself of the knowledge that he has obtained. I could feel that he was doing just that when he was talking to me about the Higgs Boson Particle. When I reflect back to myself, I now feel as though I have missed many opportunities to cement my learning because I dissed people off when they ask me about something. Like my sister for example, when she was studying for her O levels. We both could have benefited more if I had just adopted this 'teaching yet learning' attitude.

As an engineer, uncle TW has been telling me that I must "get that knowledge, then apply it". It doesn't really matter how you get that knowledge, heck there is an even wider category of knowledge than we are used to. What we normally define as knowledge now is mainly theoretical, perhaps about how many electrons there are in potassium and their orbitals. But what he has shown me is that knowing what crank size for an engine of so and so power by observing his environment on board a ship is also knowledge; being able to tell the carbon content in steel just by the colour of its spark is also knowledge. More often than not, knowledge for practical purposes is gained through more empirical and observational methods.

And to think that we think that we have seen the world if we travelled all around the Western world. I would think that we would learn much more if we go to places like Myanmar, to learn about their can-do attitude because of their having to survive in a much harsher world. I am certainly excited at the prospect of going to Myanmar this January before I enlist, to learn more about the practical side of life.