Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld.

Bought with a gift card that I received for Mothers Day.

***** "Must read!"

From the back cover: "Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. In just a few weeks she'll have the operation that will turn her from a repellent ugly into a stunning pretty, she'll be catapulted into a high-tech paradise where her only job is to have fun. But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to become a pretty. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world - and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally a choice: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. Tally's choice will change her world forever..."

Wow, it was a hard decision to choose a book to buy with my Mothers Day gift card! I agonised over the choice, but I'm glad I decided to go with Uglies. I really enjoyed it, and now I know that I have Pretties, Specials and Extras to read! Also, I've recommended it to my 12-year-old daughter Alana, and I'm sure that it will create many opportunities for discussion between us.

Uglies has a sci-fi element to it. It is set in the (near?) future, where scientific advances have allowed fully-recyclable cities to be self-sufficient and not put any strain on the environment. Within these cities, children learn about the "Rusties", a former civilisation that damaged the environment so much that made themselves extinct. The Rusties were a war-like people, where injustice abounded. Sound familiar?

Through social engineering, the world of Uglies has manage to eliminate all forms of injustice, right down to the fact that all sixteen-year-olds undergo an operation that renders them uniformly beautiful.

Tally is the youngest of her friends, left lonely in Uglyville awaiting her sixteenth birthday, when she will move to New Pretty Town and be reunited with them. But in her last few weeks of ugliness, everything she thought she knew is turned upside-down when she meets Shay. Shay shares a birthday with Tally, so is due to turn pretty on the same day, but she has some serious reservations about the operation. It seems to her that uglies look ok just as they are, and she's disturbed by the fact that all new "pretties" seem vacuous and boring. She has heard of a place that uglies run away to and never turn pretty, and she wants to go. 

I think that this book would be a great addition to a reading list or English curriculum for secondary students. It raises very important issues about body image, equality versus uniformity, and social engineering undertaken by "the powers that be".

I recommend this to anyone that enjoys young adult fiction and/or sci-fi, to teenage girls, and to the parents of teenage girls. I'm hoping that it will start a number of interesting conversations between me and Alana. One of the most important things for parents is to find "teachable moments" - opportunities to grasp as they arise to discuss important issues with our children. I think this book could open up quite a few of these moments.

Highly recommended.

Study Visit Day 4

Well, the study visit is finished, but I'm still processing everything that I experienced. I think it might be a few days before I can express what I've learned in any meaningful way.

Today we visited the State Library of NSW, and if you are able to, I advise you to visit. If that's not geographically feasible, why don't you check out the website.

Click here to visit the website.

That's it for me for now. If you go to the State Library website, make sure you look at "Discover Collections" (on the top menu). It has fascinating original historical documents that have been digitised.

So I'm back with updates...

Hasn't been updating, here to upload some pictures what happened this week. Gonna be 2 sleepless weeks as I will be rushing my log book and final internship report. And after that... I will be off to Bangkok! Hope I will get out of that country alive and safe...


So yesterday was Bosch official opening, but photos were restricted... so could there's only limited photos lah. Bought muffins for my office colleagues yesterday...


We wanted to reach at 8am... but end up Ivy was the only one who reached at 8am... haha.


Clarice reached after me... 8.20am. She's the key usher who's ushering the VVIPs... so dressed differently from all of us lah...


Ivy and myself were the ground floor ushers... entertaining guests at the holding area, with refreshments and photo booth. Clarice and myself are also pre-runners for the tour... we had to reach the next station before the group, so as to ensure the station masters are ready to give the explanation...


Amanda reached around 8.25am... and Vincent reached around 8.40am... haha...so basically all of us were late lah.

Was a tiring event... but was able to witness such a grand event... it's just like a mini hotel management service, from ushering guests at the lobby to the holding area...and to bringing them for tours... who say Singaporeans are unfriendly and attitude? We prove them wrong! =)


Next day... (just now), went to work in Clinic...was late for 30 mins, was stuck in office for a meeting that last for 3 hours... first time sia. By the time I came out...was totally brain dead, as I was focusing so hard to catch what the managers were saying, and trying to note down minutes...


Here's myself with Adeline and Zhiyen, new staff at clinic.


Adeline...who's doing her internship too... Dr Yuen said she dressed like a aw biang Chinese teacher. Hahah...


And Adeline took a snapshot of me...

LoL... okay, enuff of updates... I should be extending my internship till 13 August if nothing goes wrong. Not extending with NTU, but just doing my supervisor a favor to finish up some projects...

Alrights... God, please give me strength for the next 2 weeks! 加油！！！

Sydney Study Visit Day 3

So...I didn't take any photos today, but I wish I had! Today I visited the Australian Museum Research Library, and there were a lot of photo-worthy moments. For a start, there are taxidermied animals and birds dotted about the library, even on the librarians' desks! Also, they have an extensive collection of scientific monographs going back to the 1800's, many of which have hand-coloured drawings of animals and birds. It makes this library very, very different to the others we have visited, with their emphasis on a move to electronic information.

During the afternoon I visited the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. We were shown a sound stage, a recording studio and a digital mixing theatre used for post production on feature films and documentaries. We were all sent home with DVDs of students' short films and other multimedia projects. The library houses a very specialised collection of scripts, DVDs - even press kits! 

I'm tired again, but still have one more day to get through :) 

Study Visit Day 2

Yay! I took one photo today! Admittedly, it was before the first session began, and once the actual day began I didn't have time to take any, but anyway...here it is :)

I took this photo in the foyer of the UTS Library (University of Technology Sydney). I took it because I had never seen a vending machine like it before, and I thought it was cool. Maybe I'm just extremely naive and not very worldly wise, but I was pretty amazed to see a vending machine with notebooks, highlighter pens, staples and blank CD ROMs.

Today I visited UTS library and St Andrews Cathedral School library. Once again the tours and presentations gave me a lot of food for thought. Unfortunately I'm tired now and don't feel able to write a long post, but I'll catch you up when the week is over :)

Feel free to comment on vending-machines-you-have-seen! 

Study Visit Day 1

I really thought I would take lots of photos today...you know the sort of thing...

"Here's me in Sydney on the study visit"..."Here's the group in front of such-and-such library"

Not so much...

Had a great day, but I was constantly on the go and didn't really get to the "photo opportunity" stage!

I had my first experience of "commuting" in a long time, driving to the train station and trying to find a parking spot in the designated commuter parking. Ughh! Then an hour and a quarter on the train and a short walk to the first venue of the day. And the same in reverse coming home. The good news - plenty of time for reading Uglies by Scott Westerfield. The bad news - I'm going to need another book!

I found our visit to Ultimo TAFE library quite inspiring. It's a large library, with a lot of staff who seem to be passionate about meeting the needs of the community of staff and students that they serve. Particularly interesting for me was information literacy workshops provided, including help with using the Australian Bureau of Statistics website (apparently a minefield!), advanced internet searching, and help setting up iGoogle and RSS feeds to suit individual information needs. As far as I can see, the library is a dynamic workspace with large tables for group work, wifi access throughout, and a collection tailored to meet the current needs of the (often industry-related) courses that are taught. The library also serves International students studying at the English centre with a designated collection of "easy readers" and "easy reader non-fiction" (equivalent to junior non-fiction).

Customs House public library was not so inspiring for me. Although the building has been redeveloped, and the library looks as up-market as they come, I'm not easily fooled by flashiness! The ground floor of the library is designed like a hotel lobby, there's a cafe, lounge chairs and a model of the city of Sydney under a glass floor (yes, you can walk on top of it!). It's noisy and the architecture is fabulous, but what's with having the cafe tables so close to the newspapers that they seem in constant danger of spillage??? I don't get the impression that meeting the information needs of the community is the highest priority. The fact that the library space doubles as a gallery with ever-changing exhibitions does however make it a very interesting public space.

Now I must rest up for Day 2!

Sydney Study Visit

I'm so excited! From tomorrow until Friday I'll be completing my Study Visit, a required part of ETL507 "Professional Experience/Professional Portfolio" for my MEd (TL). I am attending a university-organised tour of various libraries and information agencies.

From my subject outline:

"Study visits are an excellent opportunity to see the information resources and services of a range of libraries and information agencies and to reflect on the diversity and commonalities in the goals of these organisations and the manner in which each works to fulfil these goals."

I'll be commuting via train to and from Sydney each day, then travelling by train, bus and foot to different venues with the CBD.

Libraries I'm visiting:

1. Ultimo TAFE Library
2. Customs House Library
3. University of Technology Library
4. St Andrews Cathedral School Library
5. Australian Museum Research Library
6. Australian Film TV & Radio School Library
7. State Library of NSW

After the visit is finished, we must hand in two reports. From my subject outline:

"The reflection report gives you the opportunity to overview and discuss what you have gained as a developing information professional from the sites you visited during your study visit and from the overall experience. The evaluation report gives you the opportunity to assess the value of each site you visit."

I'll keep you updated during the week as to how I'm getting along. Wish me luck!