"I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it." - Rita Mae Brown

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Quotes:

Hi ***. Why're you ignoring me? [Student 2: She's elected already. She doesn't need to talk to you.]

[Student: Communion with God is a good thing right.] Erm. So they say.

He only honour those who do normally good sins (honours those who normally do good things)

[On a Secondary School in the East] There're at least 4 pregnancies every year. STDs.

[On my flicking my hair in her face] It was like a fa... [Student 2: It was like a fuck?]

[On Cricket examples] It's a dangerous thing, when you have all these Indians here... Cricket is not big here in Singapore. so most of us don't know what's going on.

[Instructor: Why don't you have tennis balls with dimples?] So it won't damage the floor when it drops.

[On paper airplanes] One or 2 of the designs, you may have noticed, flew better upside down.

I know people who are very snooty about tourists... The backpacker ethos... They're getting a more authentic experience... Privileged connection with the locals. Many backpackers would cringe if you called them a tourist... They get incredibly indignant.

It's gonna cost us 60 US dollars to visit the Angkor sites. It's more expensive than Disneyland.

[On contested narratives and it being problematic to privilege some] At the other end you have the post-modern idea: everyone has a say... High school English class in America. Everyone is right, no one is wrong... The end result is no one knows how to use grammar effectively... You guys write better than your counterparts in am American university... 4 years of high school - never being told you're wrong. The idea was to encourage creativity.

Angkor... Part of Tomb Raider was filmed there. Angelina Jolie runs out of the jungle and does her thing. People recreate the Tomb Raider escape.

[On a 'Dayak' cultural performance] Night Safari. I went there with my folks... They had this performance. It was so kitsch... Someone recommended it: 'You were in Borneo, you'll like it'... They had a mishmash of outfits. They didn't belong to any of the cultures in the Night Safari... It's not even close to anything in Borneo.

[On why problematising everything is not an ideal holiday plan] Very few people come back from a place and go 'I had no idea what was happening'

One of the things tour guides do that's incredibly annoying: they like to point out natural features and their resemblance to political figures... There's one cave in Borneo... 'What does that rock look like?' Somebody will go 'Abraham Lincoln'. The tour guide will get very excited and everyone will take a picture.

[On good degrees in a cross-cultural context] The smartest students will study X. Then they'll study Y. And if you're at the bottom you'll study anthropology... One of the top jobs in Egypt... Being a tourist guide. People study at the University of Cairo for 5 years... We have our guide at Sentosa here.

There're 4 or 5 countries American citizens cannot go to. You can go to Cuba - but you can't spend any money.

[On packaging heritage] This is what they tell people. Heritage Startup Kit. Make your town a Heritage Site. 'Make sites come alive'. I don't know what that means... This is a Heritage Kit for small

[On Cambodia] There're tons of internet cafes there, so you can go there and download pictures onto Facebook. Yes, I do go on Facebook.

I use bottled water to brush my teeth. I've had dysentry a few times so I take no chances.

Whenever you get a chance - sleep... When you're on the plane, sleep. When you're on the bus, sleep. When you're on the boat, sleep. Whenever we're not doing something, I'll be in a corner with my hat pulled down, don't bother me.

I went somewhere. I used my *** card... 14,000 was taken out of my account in 4 days from Bangkok... I actually had to threaten the President of *** to get my money back... 'A goodwill gesture' was how they termed it.

Please bring umbrellas... Raincoats are unflattering, so nevermind.

Girls: I don't know if you realise this... Because girls' shirts tend to be more fitted, girls get fitted across the small of their back... It rides up... You don't want to be sunburnt.

Apparently most women prefer it without [protection]

Without breaking the crips (chips)

The world's first erotic photograph was taken on a daguerreotype. If you really want the picture I'll send it to you after class.

[On the test] If you've been looking at the wonderful world around you and seeing where Newton's Laws and Bernoulli's principles apply, you'll probably be able to answer all the questions.

Today is one of the rare days when everyone is here... You think I don't know - I know. What do you think I'm doing when I'm standing here?... Today everyone is here. Probably because people want to find out exam hints. (get)

[On GEPpers] I was from Henry Park... Everytime I'd just look at them. They look weird, and they behave weird.

[On anonymous feedback] Maybe it's not anonymous. [Student 2: 'Gabriel Seah has sent you anonymous feedback']... If you get a B you'll know why.

Higher level classes are more stressful. I know. I've been through more school than any of you all.

[In Week 6] I'm moving on to my 4th laser pointer of the semester. We'll see how this one goes... Now I come around with 3 laser pointers per class.

core no equilibrium (Cournot)

I'm dumbfounded by why laser pointers can't last more than an hour. I'm thinking maybe I've some magnetic field around me... I asked other instructors, they say they wear out in the middle of class... The annoying thing is when you go back to the office they start working again.

Price discrimination... If I charge every guy $1- for lunch and every girl $5... There're ways to get around it. Every guy just taps a girl on the shoulder and says: 'Will you buy lunch for me?' and she does it. Because girls are nice.

[On a choice between 2 questions] If you don't like that, there's number 2... If you don't like that - oh, sorry.

[On the midterm] Please don't expect that I'm expecting you to come up with, from new cloth, a spanking new moral theory. I should have my license taken away if I do that.

Why would Robin William's character, whose name is Chris, want to get his wife out of hell? It's not a trick question, again... What could possibly motivate someone to try to get his wife out of hell? [Student: He loves her] He loves her. That's nice.

[On brevity] I just didn't want you to think that I'm changing their argument around for any illict purposes.

How many first tiers do you have left? [Me: Minus 1]

[On motivating vs normative reasons] This is actually false. 'Beer-drinking typically induces in [his name] belligerent and abusive behaviour'.

[Student: What's etiology?]... They're just being fancy.

[On Lineage 2] All the Dark Elves - don't know come out from which FHM. Their boobs [are] all damn tua [Ed: big], and their armour - whether it's light armour or heavy armour, shows their underwear. (come out from I don't know which issue of)

I hate girls. [Me: You're sitting at a table with 3 of them.] They're not girls. They're friends... [Female Student: I'm asexual.] There're 2 senses of the word. 1 refers to sexual identity. 1 refers to sexual preference. [Female Student: Remind me not to talk to you ever again.]

Now the only guy I want to be in my life is Newton. [Female Student 2: Bernoulli]

The only people I meet are in class. [Student 2: That's not meeting. That's called Class.]

Everybody got 1/3? You all work things out together so when 1 of you gets it, all of you get it.

[On zaogeng] There's nothing wrong with it... I don't really care about the guys who are looking.

[Me on banning contraception to raise the birth rate: Anal sex lor.] Then the girls how? [Me: Ask the guys to eat them out. Or sex toys.] Disgusting. [Me: What's disgusting? Eating out or sex toys?] You saying it.

Do you want to join my amoeba club?... It's for people who are weird, intelligent, single and don't like anyone at the moment.

[Me: If you hit on guys, they will enter a hitting-on dialectic with you.] It's called 'flirting', not 'hitting-on dialectic'.

In the lecture I said that that was absurd. Wow. Did I say that?

You can say you can't say anything about God, but that's self-defeating... 'You just said something about God'. That's just a trick, I suppose. You can't say anything substantive about God.

[Student: Their argument seems quite convincing to me. I don't see what objections there might be to their argument.] Everything that I've said in the last 45 minutes.

[On Choice and Escapism] Maybe you're in Heaven and you're sick of being around all these boring people and you want to take a vacation in Hell to refresh yourself.

[On a Level 1 Exposure] His lecture is: you just sit there and laugh brainlessly.

[On Camp] We wanted to call it USC: The Next Generation... Then the director would be Jean Luc Card.

Why are Indians most likely to be the casualties in the MRT? Because the Indian accouncement is always last. (Tamil)

I just noticed that the whole room is filled with boys. [Male Student 2: Shall we have a mass orgy now?]

[On the test] I hope you enjoy the questions. I scratched my head to come up with something interesting and creative and unusual for you all.