It's one of those days where I need to be in 3 places at the same time. Everything happens on a Wednesday afternoon and it's a matter of trust for me that those who go in my place will make things happen the way they are supposed to.

First, I should be with the tour group to Tekong, but I couldn't so I sent 'Statesman' instead. Yesterday, I was quite proud of myself for experimenting with non-conscription and getting some reasonable results from it. A whole bus-load of sign-ups to me was an encouraging indication that the new LJ scheme was going well. Yet today, I want to do unspeakable things to the 10-12 kids who stood me up. Instead of a full busload, only just more than half showed up by departure time, the rest having conveniently "changed their minds."

It's one thing to be "voluntary," I didn't put a gun to anyone's head to sign up; but once a name's on the sign up sheet it's a committment to see the event through; it's undertaking of personal responsibility, and yet the kids simply renege on their agreement, taking their dishonour so lightly. Their dishonour? What about MINE? I gave my word that I would send a busload (already far short of my original allocation) but because of their convenience I could in reality send far less than I promised. That makes me a liar, and I'm thoroughly pissed about that.

The self-motivated LJ depends on the honour system in order to work. I'm going to have to instill some honour in the kids because it's clear to me that they damn well need it. Well, there is a procedure for this kind of thing. Let's get the wheels turning...

Place #2: I should be with the Drama kids as they rehearse for next week's N Day celebrations. I should be with them as they sort out who is going to be in the Celebrate Drama event this weekend and what they are going to do for it. I should be with them as they rehearse for their MU debut in the coming weeks. But because I have so many other things on my plate, Fran, club pres., has to take care of these things for me. So because of my absence from Drama Club these last couple of weeks, I'm out of touch with things and I'm insecure and confused, especially since Tina needs the participants' details immediately and I'm like... wth's going on?

Where was I this afternoon? Having my last class at SMU for the New Subject. It was basically a summary of what we had covered over the last 3 weeks in building a toolbox of logic for ourselves and our kids next year. Mark suggested conducting formal debate sessions and how to minimize free-loaders in group-based term-papers and presentations. He asked us how we might go about teaching logic and critical thinking now we've been through this course and for me, I'm going to have to teach myself the stuff first -- practice using the tools myself first before I inflict them upon my students next year. The logic tools are new, weird and unfamiliar to me and I'm going to be pretty ham-fisted with them, so, NBS, watch out!

I also noticed during tea-break that I still am having major problems socializing with the other course participants. I haven't got the urge to talk to anybody, and I suppose I've got the kind of face that nobody wants to talk to anyway. If NBS isn't conversing with me, my feet want to take over and explore the rest of campus until break is over. Or I just get very busy with my snacks or coffee and ignore everybody else. I thought I'd outgrown this behaviour already but I guess not, huh? I wonder if that's a symptom of autism?