Happy days

• Week 2 and I’m already burning the midnight oil, struggling to finish my readings about brains. Yes, brains. You would think you dodge that bullet by avoiding med school and going to a management university.
• Worlds (World Universities Debating Championship) was a running disaster, but I learned a lot and ready to go back and kick ass.
• But Assumption Worlds was horrible: bad schedules, scant Thai food (criminal!), assumption that Hainanese chicken rice=Thai food (awful).
• Competition was a white-wash (hee hee hee). Motions kinda sucked – “This house would assassinate Vladimir Putin now“. Opp-weighted motion? Really?
• Before that was World University Peace Invitational Debate: didn’t debate, but adjudicated some rounds. Fresh insight into ang moh adj-ing – persuasion counts. A lot. They aren’t like Singaporean adjudicators (God bless their souls) who re-debate the debate. They take arguments at face value.
• But I split wine on the new Worlds Council Chair, Neil Harvey Smith. Erm.
• Ivan Ah Sam (who is 1/8th Chinese) knows my name. Good.
• Jess Lopez doesn’t. Bad.
• Christmas was good. Wished I had more sleep the night before.
• Must apply for Frequent Traveller’s Pass. Makes Causeway-life easier
• Plans for the next few weeks: write essay for St Gallen, join Bain & Co case competition, consider whether to debate this term, sob unceasingly in a fetal position come Week 7.

There must be a better way

The government, facing huge cooking oil shortage and general-purpose flour, pumped in the market with more of the good stuff. In the latter case, cajoling millers to produce more of the price-controlled flour (which is priced at least half of other flours). Hmm, isn’t there a better way to make sure miller grind out flour as soon as shortages in the market appear? Something like a mechanism, where they automatically go, “Hey, lets put up more of those”.

And something perhaps to prevent hoarding, instead lowering consumption when flour becomes more scarce. Hmmm…