May 08 2009
Welcome Post and Defining the Scope of my Study
Welcome to my blog! As you will expect, I must introduce myself in order to have any sliver of credibility at all, so here goes:
I am Norman, an undergraduate at the National University of Singapore, current pursuing a degree in History and a minor in Science, Technology and Society. I worked in a local publishing firm for 2 years or so while serving as an administrator in the army. I left the army subsequently to pursue my current degree and will continue to contribute actively to the history writing and research community for the foreseeable future.
Early Experiences:
My experience with writing goes back to high school (for local readers, the term would be secondary school) where I occasionally sent articles up to writing competitions and actively wrote on fiction boards to hone my writing skills.
I was in a small, but tight knitted class of literature students that, for many of whom might be reading this introduction here, had all impressed me with their willingness to contribute and to actively aid the learning progress considerably. For that, I was and am still truly grateful. Special kudos to personalities that shared those intense debates with me over key passages in Shakespeare’s work; Those who like me, felt the depressive element in I am the King of the Castle likewise have my empathy, and it was this commonality that bonded us to a large extent; Those who struggled hard to cope with the demands of the subject have their place in my memory too, and I do look back and hope that I had in some ways been helpful. I look back to those days with a strange nostalgia, but it is a good thing now. This memory of myself and all of you spurs me on and defines me.
However, reading literature texts was not what I had in mind for the rest of my life. I soon found my calling in my pre-university (or what you could call College Preparatory or Senior High years), when a totally novel system of schooling and teaching was opened up to me.
Previously, having been stuck in stuffy classrooms and forced to take in knowledge via a mundane route learning experience, I was mollified at the prospect of continuing my education for the subsequent 6 years of my life. When lecture and tutorial styled classes were introduced, I was truly impressed. Thereafter, the abundance of opportunities in my first year to pursue what I thought of as gateways to more extensive learning truly changed my view of education and learning.
I took the opportunity to excel in the subjects of Southeast Asian and European history as offered by the teaching staff. I took my time researching articles and actively contributing them to the online journalism and multimedia library club archives, hoping that in the foreseeable future, someone would come and pick these dusty old nuggets of days long past. I had progressed from fiction writing to a burning zest for writing history and discovering the truths behind our ancient and recent pasts, something which I still carry today.
Perhaps I could explain this shift in ambition as a by-product of mass education. The People’s Action Party (PAP) government of Singapore, since its inception in 1965 (come on, who hasn’t already heard of this), has been firmly in charge of the pedagogy of our education. Consequently, it would take a good 35 years before a History Syllabus was first implemented in public schools (the majority of Singaporeans go to public schools unlike other developed nations) in 1997. Historical writing as an entreprise had not yet crossed my mind as anything worth doing at that point in time.
These papers are the products of my own free will, express explicitly my own opinions, are not shaped in any way by any commercial organization (much less today.com since it has no particular interest in Singapore anyway) and do not reflect the views of my university. This is a purely solo undertaking from me.
Topics Covered in this Blog:
I’d like to tell you more about what topics I’ll be covering, just so you’ll get a gist of what to expect in the coming days. Given that I have 3 years of grounding in Southeast Asian studies, I would daresay that most of my research will be centred around my continued interest in the region. This is particularly advantageous because Singapore is known as one of the foremost research grounds for Southeast Asian studies, and the National University of Singapore (where I’m from) also hosts a large archive of knowledge that include professors in history that specialise in this region and their individual countries and a trove of knowledge in books, journals. I most definitely intend to make full use of this fact. I will also cover topics in archaeology of East, Southeast and the Middle East, historiographies of the various historical traditions and the history of science, technology and the environment.
