If

Rudyard Kipling - If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

Love this poem!

I quoted it in what I wrote for the Convo booklet. Unfortunately I have a feeling that my 267-word piece is going to be edited to high heaven because I made sure it was different from the bland dissertations that were served to previous batches. I honestly think there is no value in deluging the reader with laundry lists of your achievements -.-

Blimey, Dawkins!

Good news to share (if you haven’t already heard): Herng Yi won the First Award in the Computer Science category at ISEF, as well as 2 Second Awards worth US$650 in total! It is believed that he has also had an asteroid named after him. GOOD ON YA (Time to claim our dinner treats)!

Our Stats teacher has also won US$5000 for being a nurturing and dedicated project mentor. As his favourite Year 6 class, 02 will rally behind him because he regularly demonstrates these outstanding qualities. These are most aptly manifested in his singular belief in the importance of Reading (our Stats notes) Aloud

Now, about the title of this post. Richard Dawkins wrote a very spirited letter to Prince Charles. Presumably, the letter is a retort to a speech by the latter on GM. (GM, in this case, is not a reference to friend Greater Mind, but to Genetically Modified foods.) I am particularly struck by his analogy of Darwinism:

Natural selection is like a robot that can only climb uphill, even if this leaves it stuck on top of a measly hillock. There is no mechanism for going downhill, for crossing the valley to the lower slopes of the high mountain on the other side. There is no natural foresight, no mechanism for warning that present selfish gains are leading to species extinction – and indeed, 99 per cent of all species that have ever lived are extinct.

A politically incorrect definition

Quote of the day:

“Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”- Author unknown