Out of the Stone-Age

Finally pulled myself out of the Stone-Age and shelled out for a Blu-Ray player. Can't believe how much prices have fallen. This thing I had girded myself to pay in excess of $2C for came in at less than $150. Yes, it's a simple model and apparently "smart" too. I thought that meant wi-fi "smart". It just turned out to be that it had a LAN port on the back. Eh, no wonder so cheap.

Happy hols, x13!

I have a good civics group this year. "Good" as in um, well, "good". Even our wild, informal college annual photo is trying very painfully to have some semblance of wildness and informality. I told them that based on our year-end results, we're not exactly the scholar types. Success doesn't come easily to us. Instead, we number among the majority that have to work like crazy just to remain afloat. But if I know this group, work ethic is something I don't have to worry about. It'll be a tough, uphill struggle against a steep learning curve next year in J2 and these guys will have their noses to the grindstone all the way. I'm proud of them now, and I know I'll be even prouder of them when we finally get to the end.

My jaded eyes

Finally coming down to the tail-end of supervising the kids' projects. Now it's time to assess the final submitted artifacts. Our rubric is based on a scale of expectations where the highest attainable band is at the point where the work produced surpasses what we could reasonably expect of it. And here, things get sticky. The more the kids seek the supervisor's advice, the higher the supervisor's expectations get. And this year, the kids have been exceptionally diligent.

Because neither they not I have left much room for personal insight and inspiration, I cannot honestly say that anyone's work has gone that step beyond. Sorry kids, but ironically this is one instance in which our hard work throughout the year has not paid off. Well, from my perspective, anyway. Hopefully, you'll be able to score more points in other parts of the assessment that other eyes (apart from my jaded ones) are prepared to be more generous towards.

Oil have nothing to do with that!

On Elim's recommendation, we purchased a bottle of salmon oil for the benefit of the animals' coats. Who wouldn't want their pets' fur to be luxuriant, smooth, fine and shag-carpet like? And what feline could resist the aroma of fresh fish essence? If I were a cat, I'd be clawing my owner's face off just to get at the bottle of tantalizing promise. But no, not my cats. They can stomach lizards, 'roaches and each other's vomit when we're not looking, but 5ml of SALMON oil a day they sniff suspiciously and gingerly back away like it's the Worst Thing on Earth! Fortunately, it's not going to waste. Q-tip just loves the stuff; can't get enough of it. Fine. Nice coat for the dog, then.