Leg day

A healthy staff Wednesday with a contingent of colleagues taking a morning walk starting from campus and making the return loop at Potong Pasir, with a brief stop for a hot drink at the kopitiam opposite the Hindu temple on Meyappar Chettiar Rd.

The highlight for me was this stretch of park connector following the bank of the Kallang River. Such lush greenery supporting local wildlife. There were tortoises and fish in the water, and someone mentioned a monitor lizard, though I didn't see it.

While the kids take a day off from work just before the summer hols fully kick in, it's nice for us staff to take a little break for ourselves too, just before grading madness begins again.

One in a million

This is the tree I planted with colleague Win. Some of us staff joined the Outdoor Activities kids in this tree-planting exercise, organised by NParks under the OneMillionTrees movement.

It was a good day for planting trees. Overcast with a distant possibility of thunderstorm, but the weather remained dry and cool throughout. Still, wielding a changkul and fully putting our backs into digging a hole deep and wide enough to support a sapling taller than myself got us in a sweat real quick.

Since the nation started this project in 2020, we're by now just over the halfway mark with the number of new trees planted islandwide. And this one is mine. And Win's. It's location is directly in front of the letter 'Q' of the name of the building in the background, TechQuest.

The tree itself is of the genus Lagerstromia floribunda Jack, and though it's listed as a myrtle, the flowers are reminiscent of the Japanese cherry blossom. So, according to the NParks lady, it's a local version of the sakura. Ok, that makes me happy since I've temporarily gone Japanophile, digging deeper and deeper into the BM foxhole.

Staffed duck

Staff retreat. Just ridin' a Duck and feeling like a tourist in my own country.

Getting our flippers wet

Water under the bridge

City skyline

I don't get seasick, else I'd be doing the same

The Sands: view from the Bay

Trusty duck

Unscathed

Nice to know that I didn't get shredded this morning. It was a presentation to an audience of very experienced cross-department colleagues on a perspective that could have come across as heretical if taken the wrong way. Instead, the audience asked the right kind of questions during the Q&A and was very kind with its feedback. Perhaps the ground is ready for some new ways of thinking?

Personal insight gained: I can diagnose problems and prescribe workable treatments, and maybe I can make a convincing case to my fellow physicians. But what I haven't yet learned is how to make the patients take their medicine.

Atlas

Once again, the feeling has returned. The one in which expectations on you are so high that only perfection is satisfactory, but you are only capable of delivering not nearly good enough.

Thankfully, there are people around who will share the load. The whole show isn't resting on your overburdened shoulders alone. If it feels like it does, however, that's your own ego talking.

Inner child

Workshop on using Transactional Analysis to establish a better rapport with the kids could have been useful, but I got distracted by the results of my personality test. Good teachers apparently are able to balance the Parent-Adult-Child states and can call upon the appropriate state to keep interpersonal interactions civil and constructive. When the other party approaches from a destructive state the balanced teacher can neutralize and defuse the situation without it escalating.

It shouldn't be much of a surprise, but my test results came back snowman shaped -- tiny Parent; below ideal Adult; oversized Child states. The rest of the workshop, I was a pest and a disruptive influence. Even after it was over, I continued to be rude and obnoxious to my colleagues and friends while being clearly aware of the negative Rebellious Child persona that was starting to take over.

Now I don't know if how I behaved was 'normal' behaviour for me, or if it was triggered by being made aware of the big inner kid that's driving my motivations. After all, awareness is licence to act up, and that's just what I did. So that's my conundrum of the day: is my behaviour normally childish and because of the workshop I am now aware of it; or is it because of the workshop that I put on the mask of childishness and played along accordingly? And do I really want to know the answer to that question?

Briefing drama

Awaiting an important briefing at Goodman Arts Centre. Arrived an hour early so keeping company with a peach melba and an earl grey tea at Cafe Melba to pass the time. Some nice touches in the dessert: a raspberry topping, blueberries and almond shavings. However, not enough ice-cream and too much grenadine syrup made for a sour-bitter last spoonful.

At the briefing in the GAC Black Box with my esteemed colleagues representing their different institutions.

The highlight of the briefing was the announcement of some format changes to the Festival. Some people do not adapt well to change. Quite a bit of whining and moaning from a loud couple of crybabies (I'm sorry to say), as if preparing their defence in case they achieved an undesirable result this year.

A major objection was that the lighting rig will be in use by other performances throughout the run-up to the Festival. While GAC promises that the rig will be set to a standard default, there are worries that the set-up may not be in exact alignment for both our tech rehearsal and performance dates. Then they went all non sequitur about what kind of values we are teaching our kids if the performance doesn't go according to how they rehearsed it. O_o

First of all, the kids will have the opportunity to exercise their values when things don't go according to plan. Values of resilience, resourcefulness, teamwork and adaptability come into play under less-than-perfect conditions. Second, the kids are performing in an actual professional space with real-world constraints, compared to performing in what is basically a test-tube of a campus venue, luxurious as it may be. Third, get over yourselves and your egos. Set an example for your kids and deal with the problem with the resources available rather than just demand your way based on your moral high ground and shrillness of voice.

But then, we're drama instructors. We're artists. We're temperamental and passionate about our jobs. We're demanding and to a large extent, perfectionist; otherwise we wouldn't be doing what we're doing. Tantrums are par for the course and some of us are more diva than most. Gotta love us all!

Getting in sync

This post is a day late, but dNYel went on our annual retreat. While we're planning for the coming year, we're also taking the opportunity to bond as a department with a coordinated activity. 

This year, we're learning to synchronize with each other through percussive rhythms. Our instructors are from ExtraOrdinary Horizons, a group of hearing-impaired musicians who put our own sense of rhythm to shame. dNYel comprises many different characters with many different styles of self-expression, so getting us to move to the same beat would be quite an achievement.

You can see how well we did in the vid below:

Circle-Line lunch quest: Breko Cafe

Not often we get to go out and have a proper lunch as colleagues. We're making the most of our current opportunity during this exam-marking period to enjoy something a little more leisurely than the usual grab-and-run, if at all.

The rules of today's game: see where the Circle-Line will take us to nice, reasonably-priced food.

We went as far as Holland Village and bounced between eateries looking at their menus before settling on Breko Cafe.

To accommodate seven of us, we occupied the upper deck. Dim lighting, comfy couches to slouch back upon, but the tables felt slightly higher than optimal, but you can't have everything. We were looking to relax, and we got what we wanted.

The menu here is quite varied: burgers, ribs, steak, pasta, breakfast items (up till 1200 hrs) and cheap beer, smoothies and desserts -- something for everyone. The ribeye I had (above) was satisfactorily pink inside, so none of my usual complaints about the conservatism of the chef. It was juicy and had just enough fat left on the rind to down smoothly. The portions were reasonable (looking at the other dishes the others ordered), though I could have done with more steak. That's me being greedy, and also finding something that's quite close to the perfection I have been looking for in a while.

Where will the Circle-Line take us to next? Stay tuned...!

Fellow flailers!

Following up from my previous entry, I got to see a lot more of my colleagues who are enthusiastically flailing about in unfamiliar territory than I gave credit for.

The souvenir book (left) the organizers handed out is quite a thick compilation of lesson plans and strategies used across all levels of education designed to get the kids off their lazy butts and take a more active and purposeful role in their own learning.

Some of the stuff that I got to observe were tools I and anyone else have easy access to for free over the 'net. The strategies they shared were simple enough, and up to a point I'm using them the same way. It's good to know how closely parallel we are in our objectives, and even better to learn from the variations in the way we use these tools.

Dean Krishnan would be happy to see how so many of us are trying out new methods of student engagement rather than stick to the old tried-and-true formulas that we have grown accustomed to.

Maybe the four-lane highway we're all waiting for our pioneering flailers to construct is closer to realization than I had imagined...?

Magnum Oh PUS

PUS has been keeping me busy this week, which explains the couple of belated posts below.

My job as facilitator for a conglomerate of participants hailing from three separate institutions is a tough balancing act between aggregating many different ideas and perspectives from all these very enthusiastic young 'uns and distilling a consolidated idea from the group.

The other difficulty is in communicating the consolidated idea back to the group in a way that they 1) understand, and 2) still believe it was their idea in the first place -- which it is... but with some assembly on my part.

Meryl helped too, despite the fact that she just got married over the weekend. Hats off to her and my fellow PUStules who have to camp out with the kids throughout the four day three night experience 'cos they're organizing the event. Awesome job, ppl!

Cherry red

Cherry red Pebble arrived a couple of weeks ago, but has remained unboxed until now. Initially purchased for the wife, but it's not quite her style. Been debating what to do with it. Thought of wearing it myself, but red really isn't my colour either. But I found a happy buyer in my neighbour, so I'll be selling it off at cost. Yay for colleagues with geek cred!

Off campus rom-com

Who would have guessed, when we arranged a weekend road trip way back in '09...

that this pair would find themselves on a leaky boat

and wind up tying the knot in '13?

Congrats, Ton*y and Pauline! :)

A Rocky morning

The Animal Rescue Squad swung into action again, reuniting this naughty runaway dog with his owner.

This bad boy was running around loose on campus with one of our students in hot pursuit. She eventually pinned him down, while I arrived huffing and puffing to see if assistance was required.

Fortunately, his owners had tagged him with his name (Rocky) and their cellphone numbers. A couple of calls later and we established contact; the owners' daughter would collect him from us.

Unfortunately, he decided not to wait with us any longer. Sensing a slight lapse in attention, he bounded off again and I had to run after him. He ran out of the main gate (without signing an early-leave form!), but at least had the good sense not to cross the main road; and even better sense to know that the construction site he ran into eventually was not any more hospitable for him. Making a U-turn, he ran back into my arms.

With a firm grip on his collar, we both marched back to campus. For safekeeping, we locked him in the new HODs' room with air-conditioning and lots of well-meaning company.

That would include Wayne who fetched him a bowl of water; Josh who feels it was partially his fault Rocky got away the second time; HOD PE who ran with me after the escapee; Gurmit who fetched a hefty hemp rope to secure him; Amy who rescued my tea from breakfast when we were so abruptly interrupted by the unauthorized new arrival, and offering her room to keep him in; and all the kaypoh little children who tried to make him feel all warm and welcome while we waited for owner to show up.

And that's where his owner caught up to him. Mission accomplished.

Ways we've gone and ways to go

If the first day of the new year is any indication of how the rest of the year is going to turn out, it's going to be a bitter-sweet 2013 for me.

Spent the afternoon bowling with extended family. Now, that's something that occurs only once in a very long while 'cos as a group we prefer eating to physical activity. Seeing that the last time we did such a thing was conceivably a couple of decades ago, today we got a true sense of how far we've advanced in our years. Two games apiece and collectively we're creaking in the joints; muscles stretched and tender; stubbed toes and much wounded pride from the number of gutter balls thrown. Not that our scores were very much better twenty years ago, but still...

And like we did back then, we gathered to dine. But tonight's dinner conversation was more polite and focused. We didn't harass the staff like we managed to do before, and we actually got some talk going on a joint tribal vacation. That, we've never done before, but it's a lot more feasible now that we're all working adults with some kind of disposable income. The only question, then, is to coordinate the timing. Hold onto your hats, folks, it may yet happen!

The later part of the evening was more sombre. I've never been to a wake of a friend before, let alone a working colleague. Aggie (later known as Deb) battled cancer over the past couple of years. It finally ended just before the beginning of the new year.

With Aggie's passing, I've lost both my mentors from when I first started teaching. Mim went earlier via an untimely accident. Mim taught me the rules to obey while Aggie taught me to organize and colour-code everything, and something called a "CRAFT" book, which stands for "Can't Remember A F****** Thing" in which I was to write down everything I was supposed to remember but was likely to forget.

I appreciate the lessons these veterans imparted to me. They practiced what they preached. They were ready to teach; effective at their jobs; and their lessons stuck with their kids. They were loved; respected and unforgettable to their students. They were looked up to by their colleagues.

Yet every class has a black sheep (baa!), and this one knows the distance he still has to travel to get to where they left off.

Some assembly required

dNYel goes on retreat and we get an expensive toy to put together. This is not the Lego I grew up with. The Lego I remember comprised simple blocks of varying shapes and sizes, though nothing approaching this level of complexity. The manual for this Rhino truck equivalent contained 76 pages of plans and looked not a little daunting at first glance.

Amazingly, the steering wheel really controls the front wheels; the doors open and close; and the lights light up at the flip of a switch... or at least they did for a while, until the batteries ran out, or something.

Building something this complex in the time we had was quite a feat of cooperative work. With a personnel strength of nine at the table, and without prior discussion of resource allocation, the group divided itself into an assembly team and a resource-gathering team and worked furiously to complete the task. None of us would have been happy to leave it partially assembled. It was a matter of pride and an internal assurance that it could be done in time that motivated the effort.

Of course, there was a lot more on today's agenda. The year may be over, but there's a staggering amount of prep that we have to get done for next year. With major personnel redeployments; the pressure of rising expectations; and a brand new year to do better what we did the year before, the team's got to pull together and simply get the job done.

I have a sense that collaboration is the name of the game for 2013. Good. It's the same game the kids will be playing too.

Spot this!

GP 2012 was a bag of mixed nuts. Let's see what questions I can recall (in no particular order):

• Something about the functionality and beauty of math.
• Something about the value of preserving the world's minority languages.
• The protection of animal rights in your society.
• Can violence be justified?
• Should technology be used for financial gain?
• Is the economy the criteria for good governance?
• Can humour be serious?
• Something about the donation of "suitable" organs after we die... though I can't imagine why I would want to donate UNsuitable organs at any time.

And four others that probably left no impression on me.

I do recall my first response being that if the kids prepared themselves by "spotting questions", good luck to them. These questions appreciate a broad, current coverage of material, and can be a lot of fun to write as they present a nice range of thought-provoking assumptions. But then, those who rely more on a cut-and-paste approach would hardly find this exercise fun at all.

For my colleagues who like to identify "patterns" and "trends" in essay question setting, the vibe I'm picking up from today's experience is that the paper is being designed to be less predictable. Guess Cambridge is getting tired of our cookie-cutter essays and is hoping to encourage more originality of composition -- for the sake of their own sanity, if anything.

Over on Paper 2, the discussion was music and its function in society. Even if we don't raise the subject of music much in class, hopefully the kids do listen to some music and can talk about that... though extending from the individual perspective to the social perspective is what they realize they have to do. *keeps fingers firmly crossed

Ah, well, it's over. Whatever the kids did, we hope and we pray that it was enough.

A celebration of "Decade-nce"

Congrats to Jo and Derek who are celebrating their 10th anniversary with a luncheon at The Wine Company. This rather unflattering pix shows one table of us colleagues all busy stuffing our faces.

The menu was pretty decent, starting with a seafood bisque that was rich in crabby flavour. The pix shows us chowing down on the Caesar salad topped with crabmeat. The main course was a thick slab of fillet mignon which I was looking forward to. I ordered rare but it was served done on the more... conservative interpretation of the word, shall we say? Dessert was a baked Camembert which was nothing I'd expected in generosity -- a whole wheel of Camembert baked over apple slices in a caramel sauce. The whole thing was thick and melty, and so good. But there was no way I could eat another. One serving was quite enough.

It was fortuitous to be at this particular table as we were short of one diner, which meant more food for the rest of us since the number had already been catered for and we didn't want be responsible for any wastage.

The event itself was quite an easy-going affair. Jo renewed her vows in the style of "Green Eggs and Ham" while Derek's was more conventional but culminated in  a surprise presentation of a huge bouquet of flowers. Otherwise, the guests were left to their own devices and entertainment... mostly. The finale involved a lucky draw, prize winners having to dance "Gangnam Style" or shuffle with "Party Rock Anthem" in order to claim their gifts. Fortunately, there weren't too many gifts and our table wasn't particularly lucky. Wait, does that mean we were lucky or unlucky?

Anyway, Mr and Mrs Lee, 10 years under the belt and many more to come!

Looks good on paper

Staff bonding exercise bringing today's big meeting to a close. As delicious as the pix look, that's just colour paper made to resemble food. These were the exemplars.

And this is my table's creation. No prizes for guessing what it's supposed to be. An entertaining, mindless table game it turned out to be... despite us having to make fake food while the real food awaited us at the back of the hall.

'chers' Day 2012

Lots of things to be grateful for this 'chers' Day. The Drama Club's 'recruitment ad' skit went off nicely. The story was focused and tight, nothing extraneous or distracting, intentions crystal clear. Our performers could use more practice hand-holding their mikes, though -- we occasionally lost sound with a couple of characters. I'm sure Sirius had a hand in the final tweaks prior to curtain, and that's really decent of her because it wasn't any of her contractual obligations with us.

Nice of the kids to present me with a hand-made card fronted with a portrait of myself. Ahem. What's really nice were the many hand-written notes appreciating how different their GP experience has been, and how they've been able to learn from it. Good to know because most of the time I get more flak than accolades for the kind of classes I run. I have a great bunch of kids this year... or maybe it's just Stockholm Syndrome. Hope their faith pays off in spades with their final grades.

Combined schools dinner with the usual crazy bunch seated at a table far from the main proceedings. Best case scenario, as we were generally left to our own devices for entertainment, and we are usually our own best entertainers. That, and a little good news of a general modest raise all round for every rank-and-filer in the industry. As someone said, it isn't just about the money... but a little mo' money doesn't hurt. Yays!