Still hee hawing my way through. Stayed on campus till late, editing stories for the NY-X print edition with Vince and Amy until Auntie really, really had to lock up and go home. We broke for dinner at Cartel, Gardens, then off home for further editing, still keeping in contact with the two by MSN. And that was just last night!

After barely 2-3 hours sleep, we're back on campus rushing the final edits before submission to the printers.

This donkey is so lucky to have such willing assistance from two great pals and he is grateful.

We finished the final edits early this evening, and now the roughs are with the printer, ready for a more professional layout job, though I daresay we did a reasonably credible job struggling with MS Word as a layout programme. We've worked like mad, and there were lots of silly, frustrating obstacles throwing up unexpected panic moments, but we survived.

My only regret is that we didn't specify for some of our Journalism students to be attached to us as we worked so they'd see for themselves how many steps and processes their stories have to go through before it appears, as if by magic, on A3 newsprint.

The students have to learn to take over the job from us, leh. It is their paper, after all!

Well, NY conneXions issue #3 is up and running! Half the stories this week were written by our JC1 reporters so, hey, welcome aboard! As usual, I'll put a link here for easy reference.

If things go according to plan, we'll be migrating the site to a new server [and launching a new look too!] by 21 Feb, so this issue should be the last one with any ties to "The Red Pill" which shall be finally put to rest after a troubled existence.

Don't know what the originators of the Red Pill think of how their brainchild has morphed over the last few years, but I hope the spirit behind the concept still lives on in NY-X.

Since yesterday's online update, I've already started editing for next week's PRINT edition. Yup. Next week, NY-X gets a limited dead-tree run. Because of the complexities of printing, we're cramming to the tightest of deadlines. Stories to edit, stories to chase then edit, stories to prioritize, a photo-shoot to call... all done and confirmed by Friday morning so that the printer can help us with the layout, the final approval, the colour seps, the printing, cutting and delivery on the morning of Thursday next -- Launch Day.

Online publishing seems so much less complicated, but there's nothing like holding a piece of paper hot-off-the-press, getting heady with the scent of printers' ink coating the finger-tips black, and devouring the printed word that burns a hole through the conscience of the school *lightning flashes majestically and a hush descends as thunder prepares to make an entrance.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. There's the donkey work to be done first. Hee haw.

Rushing out the final edits to tomorrow's issue of NY Connexions. Everyone's been working so hard and under such tight schedules too.

And then, this close to deadline, Kaiser has to go and smash the porcelain vase of artificial flowers June bought to brighten up our house for CNY. Stress, man! Must go clean up before someone hurts HIMself on a shard. Grumble...

Took M2 back to the Mazda workshop for his 20k km servicing. Yup. Have already travelled the approximate equivalent of a road trip from Singapore to Luxembourg and back within the few days shy of a year from the time he began driving with me. [In case you want to know how I came up with this comparison, I used a distance-between-cities calculator, here.]

Amazing how many Mazdas show up at the workshop daily. It's like a clinic that starts filling up with patients when the doors open first thing in the morning. Some patients, like M2, are there for a routine physical. There are many others who are there for assorted scrapes, bumps and bruises, like the one in the parking bay next to mine, whose owner was a little grumpy and understandably so.

There was a newish-looking M3 that drove in whose rear end had caved in. It was probably a truck that left a long bumper-like indentation on it's rear fender. As it drove past me in the workshop, the trunk popped open on its own and flapped helplessly along as the driver sought a bay to put into. I could barely hold back my tears.

I inquired about repairing the scrape along M2's left rear door. The mech advised me that it wasn't worth the $400 to get it knocked back and resprayed as the scrape wasn't so deep that there was a risk of corrosion. So M2 will have to live with his scar. Guess it adds character. Hur.

JY and Thad 'bladed into Bish Park from Bishan to join June and me this morning. Well, actually me, 'cos June's resting her knee for the next x number of weeks. Incapacitated, June contented herself browsing through the latest Her World, and looked after Q-tip who got to go out to the park and hence, was the only one to gain from her accident.

Getting more daring, JY suggested we try out some other pathways in the park she hadn't taken before. Some steep downhill runs, and a couple with quite sharp turns too. Alarmingly, her courage got the better of her ability, and she took a few nasty spills. She now has a bruised knee in almost exactly the same place as June's. It's like they're Corsican Sisters or something.

JY's injuries don't seem as bad, though. But Thad and I had to be firm with her and insisted that she learn to brake properly before she becomes so adventurous again. She wasn't hard to convince. Sensible girl.

Will insist on the same condition once June recovers and wants to strap on her blades again.