National Day 2016

National Day 2016 begins with an early morning walk along the Marina Bay area with dogs in tow. Also a good opportunity to GO, if you know what I mean. Heh.

Good food goes with good company. Not finding the cafe we intended to park ourselves and dogs, we blundered into Bread Street, which gladly accepted our canine companions at the al fresco tables. When we were being seated, it dawned on us that this was the Bread Street by Gordon Ramsey.

To our relief, the price of breakfast was very reasonable. That is to say, not different from anywhere else that serves a similar menu. My Eggs Benedict was delightful. Eggs poached without being too runny on top of a generous helping of smoked salmon on top of a crispy, fluffy inside English muffin. The whole thing held together by a lovely Hollandaise sauce, creamy and smooth. Staff were attentive and friendly, offering our dogs iced water with lots of ice.

Scored tix to National Day Parade 2016. It was the debut of the new National Stadium as an NDP venue. A big flash and light show, the presentation was spectacular, but relied so much on special effects that much of the human element got lost during the mobile display segments. Dance movements were barely visible, overwhelmed by the massive sets and the barrage of ever-changing colours in a constant swirl. Individual performers were barely recognizable in the mass, lost in the alternations of bright and dark spaces in the performing area.

 Acted on some good advice and left the stadium just at the start of the finale to go outside and get a good view of the fireworks.

We picked out a great spot with fireworks almost literally exploding above our heads. Never been so close before. A superb closure to a fulfilling public holiday!

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?

Hats off to Hatter Street

Chillin' at Hatter Street. This Alice in Wonderland theme cafe is charmingly whimsical, with little odd touches of decor. Mainly serving desserts, the menu offers quirky, inventive cakes and pastries flavoured for Asian and local tastes. Kumquat tart, Macau pudding, Snickers cheesecake, white and dark chocolate brownies, anyone? The friendly proprietor took great pleasure in walking us through the different delectable treats featured in the display case where everything is made on-site, even the ice-cream. Above is the salted caramel waffle, which sounds quite off-beat, but the savoury taste of the caramel worked well with the fluffy, lightly crispy waffle batter and the vanilla scoop on top; avoiding the sensation of oversweet surfeit you get from some places when they've been overgenerous with their sugars. Nice selection of teas too, some with unusual flowery or fruity infusions that are good for cleansing the palate between desserts. Another cafe on the list checked off satisfactorily.

November ate

All-day breakfast at November 8. This is the Grande Sandwich comprising two poached eggs on ham on toasted foccacia. The sides are two rolled-up slices of smoked salmon, a small portobello mushroom, greens and tomato. Can't go wrong with a combination like this -- the portions are reasonably generous and a pleasing blend of fresh flavours with bright colours. This cafe is great for hanging out in over a long, leisurely lunch stretching to teatime. It's quiet with bright window-side tables for reading and a dimmer nook for resting the eyes. But if you're in a hurry, this place is probably wasted on you. November 8, like its food and easy-going service, is meant to be savoured. Slowly.

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...!

Dog play date

Tasha's going to meet a new friend over dinner so she's spending the morning at the groomer's to get her presentable.

This is Twinkle, a fellow maltipoo. Although they both belong to the same designer breed, their genetic variables make them look and behave very differently from each other.

This is the location of our date, III Cafe. It's on East coast Road, around the corner from Siglap. But to find the place you have to first enter George's Mad Grill, then keep right to slip in through a side door and up the stairs to this little pet dining haven.

The menu for humans offers simple dishes without too much variety. We ordered two sides of ham and bacon pizza to share among our party of four.

The baked salmon was the overwhelming favourite main course, beating out the wrap 3:1. The salmon came with a zesty fruit salad which was sweet and refreshing. The salmon itself was a bit dry and overcooked for my taste -- but then I prefer the sashimi style any day.

Dog dish: huge meatballs (your choice of meat). And this is Tasha wolfing down her share like there's no tomorrow.

Group photo time! And yes, Pebbles came for the ride too. But he stuck close to his corner of the sofa and socialized with the others... from a distance. other diners brought other kinds of pets than dogs too. A couple of kids, who got somewhat more attention from Tasha than they liked, brought a guinea pig in a small mammal carrier.

Ok, so food-wise, Sun-Ray Cafe offers a better quality menu at slightly higher prices, but this place is more spacious, offering the dogs more room to run, play and mingle. The atmosphere is bright, open and friendly, so be prepared to entertain strange dogs coming right up to sniff you at your table while your dog does the same to other tables.

A taste of Penang

Considering we are a group of friends who met to eat so frequently once upon a time, it's nice that we can find the time these days to meet once in a while, when one or the other of us makes a return trip to visit us here in sunny (ahem) S'pore.

Anyway, here we are at Penang Place. Really good Penang food buffet where we can stuff ourselves silly with authentic street food for a very decent price of $29.90++. How authentic? The char koay teow has see hum in it! The rojak is deliciously fruity. Beware the assam laksa -- hot on the tongue, hotter in the stomach! Be thankful for the chendol and ice kachang to cool you down after. Definitely a place we can bring parents to.

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! :)

Untweakable

Just rehearsed with the footage we shot on Wednesday. I now realize why we try to avoid such multimedia effects. The projection is fixed. I can't tell it to do anything else apart from being what it is, whereas with 'live' performers I can still say, "try this" or "try that..." It's the ability to continue tweaking scenes and characters that keeps the eventual quality on the upswing. Now I just have to work around what I have. Not that it's bad, or anything, it's just untweakable.

Now, why don't I just trash the footage idea and just bring everybody back onstage? Because Mags and her crew, who helped me shoot the video and are currently doing post-production on it, will kill me for wasting her time and effort, especially on a public holiday morning. She is apt to drown me in a flood of tears -- she was already about to go there when I suggested that a scene might have to be re-shot.

Next time I want to shoot, it'll be a short film format or something. No more mixing media.

It's a conspiracy!

Spent the morning shooting footage for Drama Night. It'll be the first time we'll be featuring video for our stage productions and I'm quite excited about that, though it also creates a heap of new staging problems I have yet to wrap my mind around. Balance and scale, mostly. Onstage, 'live' action and sound will pale in comparison to the video projection and soundtrack amplification. So how...?

Also, just returned from Jen's dad's wake. That's like six wakes now in four months. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd be very suspicious of the common thread linking our recently departed: all but one were in their 80s and all succumbed to lung cancer. None, as far as I know, were smokers, but they did live through a time when second-hand smoke was more common than first-hand air.

I'd like to request the-powers-that-be to put a temporary moratorium on more people I know dying. I'm particularly unsociable and wakes are terribly difficult places to have to show a social face in. And I'm exhausted. So, please, nobody else die for a while, 'k?

Thank God for Monday

All I ever wanted from my weekend was to catch GI Joe: Retaliation and a great deal more than a mere 40 winks. And maybe some time to memorize my script for Drama Night.

What I got was shopping for flowers for the parentals' wedding anniversary, dropping off said flowers at the ancestral abode, dropping in at the hospice to look in on Jen's dad (who's seriously ill) and attempting to comfort him with our mutual akwardness, shopping for discounted unmentionables at Northpoint, taking Tasha to class and having a fantastic dinner to close off Saturday.

Today, took Tasha for her first grooming (paid for by voucher), shopped for more discounted unmentionables at AMK Hub, joined Jen in a celebratory tea to celebrate her dad's 80th at the hospice, joined the parentals for their anniversary dinner along with the sibs, et. al, and made Tasha do her homework -- somehow, the trainer made it look a lot easier in class yesterday.

No G.I. Joe: Retaliation and I'll be lucky to catch even 10 winks in total over the weekend. Since when did I ever become such a social animal?

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.

Exit, stage left

Friday evening, we attended Tina's memorial (above) dressed in our old "z-Friends" costumes. Comprising a solid colour T-shirt underneath denim overalls, this was what we wore for our street gigs. Using (or rather, misusing) buckets and mops, we devised many ridiculous scenarios such as "astronauts"; "circus" and "Olympics" for the purpose of entertaining children and for other fringe activities. Of course, my set of overalls had gotten tight over the years. Sigh.

Anyway, a number of very eloquent people said a lot of very nice things about Tina which we all could nod to. Her straightness of back; her humility; her giving of herself to project, people and the community; her sense of quick-witted and spontaneous fun; her discipline; her genuineness; her respect for others regardless of age, background or experience... and so many other things we will miss now that she's gone.

So with red wine and white wine, masala tea and tetra-pak drinks, we toasted Tina even as we vowed to keep her memory alive while we kept theatre alive and thriving even though one of our biggest prime movers has exited, stage left for her curtain-call of great applause.

Keep the memory

As the wife and I are getting over our loss of Q-tip, Elim so thoughtfully shared this handwritten poem with us. Though sometimes we want to forget the pain of separation, it's also good to keep the memory of our happier times together. That way, Q-tip will always be a part of us and have meant something special to us.

"until we meet above"!

Don't cry for me, Sergeant Tina

One day, I ran off to join the circus and when I came back, part of the circus came back with me. Back then, I was young, energetic and didn't know what I wanted; but I knew what I didn't want: to live according to the usual cycle of drudgery that everyone else seemed destined to live.

What I had to offer was mime. Learning the discipline as a church activity, occasionally taking it out onto the streets (it helped me establish some common ground with my more hellfire-and-brimstone bent brethren), and later honing the craft in an undergrad elective course, it became a crucial aspect in getting my early life back on track again. Through mime, I learned that I didn't have to be good at everything -- I just had to be good in one thing, and then everything else will fall into place around that thing. That thing for me just happened to be mime.

So when I joined the circus, you could have called me a practiced hand already. I joined on a whim, because I knew someone who knew someone who was holding free after-hours classes. I needed the exercise and an excuse to maintain my muscle memory and because working the arts scene was... a different life, here in S'pore almost two decades ago.

Where there is a circus, there is a ringmaster. Tina held centre-ring for us in Mime Unlimited. Beyond the exercises and skills training which she led us in, she encouraged all of us to train each other with what we ourselves had learned from whatever our backgrounds were. We threw in a little yoga, Pilates, Alexander, and later on some of us learned ever more exotic techniques of movement theatre and passed them on to our pool of performers.

Our pool comprised many, like myself who had full-time jobs by day but found time to train, rehearse and perform whenever we could; while many others joined the local professional theatre scene in one capacity or another in time. You could say that Tina clearly had a personal hand in shaping theatre in S'pore with so many current professionals having either trained under her or worked with her at some point in their careers.

So although I joined her merry little band of itinerant mimes with some skillz, Tina opened my eyes to the production aspect of theatre. Working with her on a number of productions showed me that the magic of theatre rested on the hard work of every crew, every talent, every hand working together, coordinated, organized and tick-tock, and yet being prepared for the unexpected because every show is not like any other. Some of us would give 110% to the production, which was great, but Tina could also find a use for those who could only give 20% as long as they gave 100% of their 20%. That kind of welcome valued every contribution and made everyone involved proud to be in the production.

Apart from working on the 'now' of producing shows, she was also very interested in preparing for the future. She played a big part in Drama Education. In the early days, we took shows into the schools. Later we started training school-based drama CCAs and helping them produce their own productions... and that's about the time I left the circus and brought it with me to my current place of employment where I'm doing all I can to carry on what Tina started in building into a new generation a love for theatre, whether as audience members or as contributors in one way or another... or at the very least, to give kids who might never have an opportunity to have a taste of what magic theatre has to offer once, even if they never go back to it again.

And now with Tina's sudden passing, the whole of our country's theatre and arts industry is going to feel the enormity of the vacuum she's left behind. We'll go into a period of shock and sadness for a while. But if Tina's done her job like I know she has, she's already trained a fantastic group of people and influenced many others in such a positive way that we're going to pick up the torch she's been holding up for us all this time and continue running in her place because it's now really our torch to carry.

I'd say this little island owes much more the this crazy American lady (who became as S'porean as any of us) that many of its inhabitants will ever know. Director, teacher, mentor, friend... and in many ways the indirect influence behind many things that have gone right in my life whether she knows it or not, at least this little islander does.

Till we meet again, peace out, Tina!

Omakase and Coke

Oh, yes. Been looking forward to chomping down on an Omakase burger since I read the review on Yahoo! Was also intrigued by this other unique selling point: Coke imported from Mexico (above), supposedly made with natural cane sugar and comes in a nostalgic glass bottle. Dunno, maybe this old palate is losing it's sensitivity, but other than going down a bit smoother (less 'dry', as I was explaining to Elim) it didn't taste that much different from the local variety. It's good for bragging rights, as in "I drank stuff Mexicans are drinking -- Arriba!", and for the novelty, but not much else.

But this is what I'm here for: the deluxe burger, meaning everything including cheese, onions, and 'shrooms. Actually, I meant the Ultimate which would have included bacon as well, but I had a slip of tongue at the counter so a deluxe it was. Served medium, it had a fresh beefy taste -- nothing like filling your mouth with juicy chunks of cow -- soft and tender, grilled evenly with no crispy burnt bits around the edges. Mmm...oo! On the left is a cupful of accompanying truffle fries. Cooked with truffle oil, the crispy outside, fluffy inside fries had an subtle flavouring of mushroom (a rather crude description, but I don't have the vocabulary for a flavour like this) that was as delicious and it was addictive.

Altogether, the set cost a little over $25, which some people would say is expensive for the size of the burger. But quantity isn't everything. It's a reasonably filling meal already, but you're paying for a quality food that sings in your mouth. It won't be an everyday affair, obviously, but it's a great place to go with yo' homies when the occasion calls for it -- and when you can round enough of 'em up to make the trip worthwhile.

Back t'work, ye scurvy dog!

When the two highlights of the day are visiting the clinic for flu meds and sending a friend off at the crematorium, it's no wonder I'm feeling lousy today. Can't tell if it's physical because of the illness or emotional because it's a crappy start to the year, or a combination of both. Or maybe lately, I've been having too much time to think. Even though I'm not looking forward to it, going back to work may just be the cure to the post-holiday blues. Oh, the irony.

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.