I'm trying to journal at least half and hour a day as a discipline. Looking back, I think I've been doing well so far, and I've got lots of stuff written down to show for it. But there are days, like today, where I'm feeling dry and there's nothing really worth talking about. How far can I go on talking about nothing? Hmmm...

Step one: Sift through the mundane
Organizing a trip for 120 students and staff to a military installation is something to look forward to, yet so many things can go wrong.

Step two: Find point of conflict
As it is only 120 are going instead of the 150 expected and of the 120 who have signed up, what are the actual figures going to be like tomorrow when I have to take attendance? I've got help from Jong Yann and San Chye, but I'm going to miss Vince and Tsui Wei who have classes that they can't miss. I gave a briefing this morning to our contingent, but how many were there to actually listen to the briefing? How many will remember? Which tutors will flip because I'll be pulling so many students out of class prematurely on Wednesday morning? Will they make it a point to be punctual tomorrow so that everything will run according to schedule? It wouldn't be so much of an issue if our college was the only one going, but we are just one of many colleges visiting the same place and it wouldn't do to keep everyone else waiting for us.

Step three: Examine psychology behind the conflict
It seems like I'll be just going along for the ride, but it's also my responsibility to see that we conduct ourselves appropriately and I just can't relax until the whole visit is over tomorrow evening. I may look calm on the surface but inside anxiety has free reign while "the Sword of Damocles is hanging over my head."

Step four: Derive conclusion (regardless of how lame it is)
For now I can only hope everything goes well tomorrow and then maybe I can rest again. Hur hur...

Other events to note to avoid writing off today as being completely boring:
Had dinner at mom-in-law's place and I realise that I haven't paid her a visit since Chinese New Year! Q-tip came with us to pay a return visit to Mimi. Celebrated bro-in-law, Tong's, birthday with a beautifully rich lemon cheesecake from Hiestand Swiss Gourmet Bakery.

June met the cat auntie at the square while doing her rounds and they got to talking as usual. Auntie has some wonderful horror stories about our neighbourhood strays. It so happens Void is missing today and June is so worried for her. Cat auntie is telling this story about some nutty Thai guy leaping into bushes to catch stray cats for dinner. Void is such a friendly sweetheart. We really hope she hasn't ended up in someone's tom-yam soup. Cats in our neighbourhood have been known to disappear from time to time only to reappear in their last known location after a couple of days. Maybe she just went on vacation? We'll keep our eyes open for her in the next few days. Hope she's ok.

Right. Not bad, I guess, for a day of "nothing."

So close to midnight, almost bedtime. What's wrong with Blogspot tonight, anyway? Graphics not loading properly.

Watched the Nick Berg execution video with 03A2 today. Everyone so grossed out and quite upset. Understandably so as no one can imagine such a horrible thing happening in a world that is supposed to be humane and civilized. Unfortunately, while pockets of sanity exist in the world, the vast majority of our human population live, and even thrive, in squalor, misery and horror. Civilization is the exception to the norm, a truth we don't really want to acknowledge.

So the beheading is ostensibly in retaliation against the abuses in Abu Gharib prison. So what's going to be the response to the retaliation? More violence? It doesn't seem to have an end and on the one hand, I'm saddened that this is the world I'm passing on to my students (sorry we've made such a mess of things for you), and on the other it is so necessary to see the world for what it is instead of deluding ourselves that everything is 'just fine' when it obviously isn't.

I recall these thoughts as my phone rang in the middle of my last bowling game tonight. You're wondering right now how I could get so frivolous by changing the subject so abruptly, right? Just play along, ok? My caller was in pretty bad shape, facing a situation that no one should have to. I would love to lend a hand but I also realize my limitations and I know there are many things that lie beyond my ability to control. How do I advise in this kind of scenario? I'm sorry, but all I have is common sense: identify the areas that are your primary responsibility and take control over that which you can take control over, regardless of how small it may seem compared to the big picture. Seek help and accept what help you can get. All that stuff outside your scope of control, don't pretend it doesn't exist, but avoid expending more energy worrying about it than necessary. Seek to control your areas of primary responsibility first and be grateful always for small triumphs along the way.

In our own way, we deal with the frighteningly enormous picture of a world all gone to pot. Individually, there is so little we can do, but that doesn't stop us from doing what's necessary as an individual. We can only trust that our collective efforts (whether intentional or not) will take us human beings to a higher plane of existence in time. Considering where we are now, it'll take us many more generations to get there; so all you young'uns, listen up -- learn where we, your predecessors, went wrong and do it a little better, do it right, when your turn comes around. Teach your young'uns to learn from you, and so the cycle goes.

And on the the frivolous stuff.

When my phone rang, I was having a real lousy game. I just couldn't keep the ball straight and hit what I was aiming at. As I took the call, June had to stand in for me for a couple of frames and I must say she did well to maintain a reasonably respectable score for me. I felt energized after the call and though it was a tough struggle it came down to having to score a strike on my last roll in the 10th frame in order to win a(nother) keychain. 130 pinfalls awaiting 10 for a score of exactly 140. I am now the proud owner of 2 new designed flashlight keychains from 3 games in total. Messed up my first game and missed the keychain by 4 pins! Grrr!

Good company tonight with regulars, Anthony and Wendy, June joined me at last and bowled a credible 90+ average, and Celine and hubby, Chang Wei, came as well. Under pressure from lanes on both sides. On the right lane was a guy who scored a 6-in-a-row and chalked up the lane's high game of the day! On the left, the SYCC-Cathay Bowl league championship was going on and the bowlers were of the above 200-250 pinfalls category. I bowled a 3-game average of 147, which I should be proud of. And I am.

Other thing to be proud of: The Odyssey got a Bronze award at the SYF. Well done, everyone! We've worked hard at it and we have achieved a very decent result. You've kept the tradition of English Drama alive at our college and we are grateful to you, NYeDC 03-04, for your enthusiasm, teachability, and tenacity that got us this far. Celebrate we shall, so maybe this Wednesday for a change, NYeDC will focus on putting together the all-important PSYFP. Lookin' forward to it!

Blah! No such luck with Troy last night. Hard to make charm work if subject has pulled a sleeping beauty on you. Yup, wiped out on the carpet lost in dreamland. Hong Kong serials can be quite a powerful sedative, especially if you've seen the episode once already. June only woke up at 8, time enough to go to dinner and back for a DVD in front of the TV. Nvm, there's always Tuesday's cheap movie night!

Watched The Missing (Blanchette & Lee Jones) on DVD. Wasn't quite the movie I was expecting. I thought there would be horror elements in it (where did I get that misconception from?) but the story turned out to be quite mundane after all. Bunch of Army deserters of Apache descent have a career switch and make it their mission in life to kidnap 8 (lucky number) nubile females and sell them off in Mexico. They happen to make off with Blanchette's eldest daughter and she enlists the help of her estranged Pappy (Lee Jones) who had abandoned her during her childhood to live as an Apache in the wilderness. Heaven help the kidnappers and their shaman leader when father and daughter pick up their trail.

Typical of made-in-China DVDs, the movie went well until the climactic battle when the picture started freezing, jerking and losing resolution. Who needs the censorship board when there's always poor quality recording you can count on? As soon as the battle was over and it's time to count bodies and see who's died, picture's back to normal again until the end of the credit roll. *sigh.

For most of what happened today, however, see yesterday's entry. It's like deja vu or Groundhog Day, only difference is, I'm leaving for dinner at my mom's place in 10 minutes. GTG!

Woke up at almost 10 this morning, a new experience for me since I'm usually an early riser. Sometimes it's not by choice, but most of the time I can't sleep any more after 7-8 o'clock. Too restless, I guess. Had the intention of breakfasting at the Ya Kun Kaya Toast place that just opened at Northpoint. Ya Kun's advertising is so counter to that of the trendy coffee joints; I appreciate the candour and the veritas of it. But seeing how late it was already and how excited Q-tip was about the prospect of her weekend morning walkies, we made things simple and ate downstairs instead.

Took Q-tip on a trek through Yishun Park. We saw a line of ants, a section of which was carrying an unfortunate worm off to dinner. It was amazing how fellow ants swarmed to help carry the worm over difficult terrain even though many ants would have known they wouldn't be sharing in it. Once they had helped the main carriers over a bump or crevice the 'volunteers' would go on with their own tasks again like nothing happened. June must be part ant 'cos she heeded the call for assistance and picked up the entire dinner party with a twig and transported them straight to their doorstep a staggering 3 metres away. How altruistic. When she discovered the worm was still alive, however, she felt bad and wished she had helped the worm instead. Veritas, one can only do so much, I suppose.

Q-tip had her bath on our return home and the pet supplies arrived on time. I spent the afternoon replaying KOTOR and munched on Ruffles (cheddar cheese and sour cream flavour) for lunch. (Read Mei's entry for today -- the coincidence is eyebrow-raising).

Wonder if I can persuade June to go watch Troy tonight. She missed out on Thursday's treat 'cos the show was too early for her and she couldn't get off work in time. I know she'll regret missing it on the big screen. I want to buy the DVD (Code 1, preferably) but there's nothing like watching an epic like this in 70mm, Dolby Digital sound. Time to put on the >ahem< charm... Wish me luck!

It's nice to look at your weekend and think, for a change, that there's nothing pressing on your schedule. At least, nothing more complicated than waiting for a delivery of pet kibble and kitty litter tomorrow and breakfast with the in-laws on Sunday morning. The rest of the time, hmm... who knows? Think we all worked hard for this weekend, and we are going to enjoy it by doing absolutely nothing. Such inactivity makes for uninteresting blogging, but I don't know. We'll see, won't we?

Finally got my bowling trophy 3 weeks after the event. It was presented at assembly yesterday, but I forgot to mention it in my previous entry. The trophy is actually a quite smallish gold cup bearing the college crest. It is heavy for its size and feels satisfyingly substantial to carry around. I can't decide whether to bring it home and clear a space for it (like as if it's the size of an amphora) or leave it on my desk to accompany the growing collection of aluminum root beer cans waiting to be recycled. Hope I don't recycle it by accident.

Promised to send 150 visitors to Tekong next week, but final count only comes up to about 120 including staff. Hope Ee Ling isn't too inconvenienced in helping us make these arrangements. She's on MC today, so she must be under some stress already. Feel a little bad about making her work on this trifle when she returns to work tomorrow.

Lunched with Anthony, Vince, Cara, Darrell and the new relief, Sheena. What new relief? Sheena was in the Student Council the first year I arrived at college. My first CCA was the Council, and Sheena, of course, remembers me from then. It was the year June and I got married and we invited all the Councillors to dinner. All I remember that they were very happy guests who after discovering our cache of red wine became even happier guests that night. The Councillors gave us the most thoughtful present of all, erm... practical things to use on our honeymoon. Thank you, Clifton and the 22nd SC. 'Nuff said.

It was only a matter of time that someone I might have taught would turn up again as my colleague. Now that she's experiencing college life from the other side of the staff room door, much of our mystique has vanished for her. One lunch was all it took. In case you haven't seen it yet, I'll sum it up as: Veritas, no one truly grows up.

Lunch was at Nonya Wok in Bishan. Food prepared by an authentic Nonya lady in the kitchen. I ordered the Special Fried Rice which came with bits of luncheon meat and crabsticks, but the secret ingredient was the sprinkling of what I thought was ikan bilis but Cara said it was silverfish(?). Whatever it was, it was light, crispy and flavourful. So was the rojak, the turnip bits in particular were so fresh, just slightly sweet and very juicy. There is much freshness in the otah too, lemak with chunks of fish meat to get your teeth into.

Nonya Wok is right next door to the McDonald's at Bishan bus interchange.You can't miss it. Just outside the round building housing the two eateries is a small playground in which there is a concrete children's slide. The slide is spray painted with graffitti that reads, "Max Sux." Considering the kind of food you can get next door, I have to agree.

Overwhelmed. How many of us can say they sat through Homer's Iliad AND Odyssey in one day?

NYeDC gave an excellent showing of the Odyssey -- the best performance to date, and sadly, possibly the last performance too, finally putting the old girl to rest after so much hard work. Cast energy was high and relationships between characters were better fleshed out today. There was a small technical hitch with our miscued music, but the cast performed admirably, recovering and continuing like it never happened. Strong performances by Ramzi and Sam, who persented taut exchanges between the two in-laws. Nice tension and the audience could feel it too. Gid was starting for feel something for his character, Odysseus. It was Odysseus who stood on stage today, not Gid. Hasif, crowd pleaser, kept the audience quite amused with his campy Hermes, and as Tiresias he opted for a blend of what we rehearsed -- deadly serious -- and yet kept some of the fun we used to have when Ain played the same role at Drama Night. The audience got the "blind old bat" gag and Gid did well not to overplay it. Meixian has gained much more confidence delivering Circe's dialogue and the audience reacted well to the cheeky minx. Durga's transformation from stern bouncer to airhead was a nice surprise for the audience and it lightened the scene a bit before the play got too dark. Crew and judges performed credibly although I would say a few more rehearsals were needed to sharpen the comic elements of their scenes. Chorus, clear, coordinated vocals and movement, sharp and disciplined in execution. Well done, folks!

P was in the audience and she was genuinely startled at our ending as were many of our audience members too. Gerald and Anthony came to support us along with a number of Year 1s. Thanks for the back-up, everyone!

SYF judges are a strange lot who seem to be moulded from Simon and company from American Idol, only not as vocal. My guess all judges look like that after a number of auditions. Wonder how they took to our parodying them in the 1st suitor scene?

Anyway people, you did good today! All we can do not is wait for results and see what the judges really thought of us. It's out of our hands now so there's little that worrying can do. Just take the opportunity to breathe and relax for now, and maybe -- when you can fit your lives around it -- go study! Do us as proud at your 'A's as we are with your SYF showing today!

Watching the Odyssey before Troy feels like putting the cart before the horse. Nevertheless, most of us made our way to PS for Troy. Of course the "gergers" must drool over Bloom, Brad, Bean and Bana; muscular things they are, hunky and smart. Battle scenes were beautifully choreographed, particularly with Achilles and his favourite airborne assault maneuver. It's Saving Private Ryan all over again only this time it's men in skirts hacking at each other and trying to poke each other's eyes out with their pointy sticks. Sets were lush and gorgeous, poignant scenes were moving, there's a lot that can be done with the right budget.

Might say a bit more about Troy, but not tonight. It's been a long day, too tired to think anymore. Goodnight!

Set 03S3B an essay assignment to work on and decided to keep them company by writing an essay of my own from the choices of questions I gave them. I wanted to see how I could cope with the 90 minute time constraint and to see if I still had it in me to write an 'A' grade paper. I estimate I took about 75 minutes to come up with this Cambridge not approved 994 word monster which I will not force anyone to read. Understandably, the essay does contain argumentative flaws, underdeveloped and unsubstantiated points and some clumsy phrasing. Nevertheless, I wonder how I did in the eyes of an impartial 3rd party. If you want to read and grade the essay, "What value do you place on privacy?" click here. Let me know what you think.

The essay is mainly in it's unedited version apart from correcting a small number of annoying initial typos. To save time, I planned the essay and wrote my first paragraph simultaneously. This method is likewise not approved, but it did save me at least 15 minutes writing time.

By the way, I'd also like to know if people are having problems loading up the pictures I'm hosting at Geocities. Please feedback if you can or can't see them. I'd appreciate it.

One day left to Odyssey SYF central judging. Last rehearsal is done, we've done everything we can with it and now it's totally in the hands and voices and bodies of our cast and crew. We trust you enough to let go now and to call it truly your show from this point on. You are well trained, fully prepared and ready-to-go. You are motivated and willing to give all you have to our endeavour. There is nothing that stands between us and a good showing tomorrow, one that we can all be proud of. We ended rehearsal early tonight, so rest well while you individually psyche yourselves up for tomorrow. Be bold, be confident, be aware. NYeDC, stake your claim and rule the stage!

How apt that Troy opens the day we perform The Odyssey at the SYF central judging. Cast and crew deserve no less than a treat from the Drama Club, so we’ll go north where we are more able to get a block booking. I just hope they won’t be too tired to join us for an evening of popcorn, coke and Greek mythology. All Odd-balls, please join us, ok?

One more rehearsal to go before we finish the journey we started last year. How does everyone feel, I wonder? I feel proud, anticipatory and I know that we’ve got a good show on our hands. We have everything to be proud of. It’s not easy to compress a classical epic into the “short half hour of monsters, storms, romance and treachery” but that was the challenge we set for ourselves and that’s exactly what we’ve done. So let’s go in knock everyone’s socks off and leave with a sense of accomplishment and achievement. And then we’ll go see how Hollywood does it on a bigger budget with Troy, the prequel to our Odyssey. I’ll take my 1% inspiration any way I can!

Had lunch again at Jalan Riang. The drinks uncle knows our “usual” drinks, not that he’s 100% correct all the time, but he makes good guesses, and the economic rice is definitely a draw factor. Went early today and it’s so nice to see the trays of dishes almost untouched for once. Discovered that he has a tray of sotong that must be very popular because I’ve never seen it before today. I’m not a big fan of sotong, though, so it makes no difference to me, I’m not likely to order it anyway.

Took a rain check on June’s homemade (can you get it anywhere else?) corned beef rice to go bowling at SAFRA last night, so tonight we had it for dinner. I used to think Libby’s corned beef was the best we could get, but June said it tasted too much of cow so she tried a substitute instead. Her choice was a good one: S&W, which seems to fly off the supermarket shelves leaving poor old Libby’s behind.

Good stuff, corned beef rice. Simple to prepare. Just mix up a can of corned beef with steamed rice while it’s still in the rice cooker and let it steam a little longer to make the mixture nice and hot. Also thrown in to steam are some baby corn (fresh, preferably, but canned will do) and broccoli. A note about broccoli: please don’t ever overcook it! The closer it is to raw the better. Raw broccoli is perfection, but many people don’t like it raw. Too “green,” they say. Serve corned beef rice with a liberal sprinkling of pepper and some fresh, sliced chilli padi. Q.E.D.

Arrgh! I lost my previous posting 'cos not familiar with the new buttons on this site! Nice that everything's new and there are lots more toys to play with, but have to learn to be careful what I click or lose an hour's work.

Not to say that my last entry was irreplaceable, but I don't feel like discussing that topic again. Too much thought, not enough entertainment. Anyway, it didn't sound like me. Don't want to scare my audience away with too heavy stuff. At least not yet, until we get more used to each other.

Good to have Tina drop in on us at this evening's rehearsal. Though we still couldn't round up full cast due to the odd early timing, it was enough for her to spot areas that could use strengthening and work on them. Various cast were put on the spot and worked over and the results are most satisfactory. Tension between Mother and Penelope is more dynamic and credible and the windbag scene makes much clearer sense now. Rest of the cast would do well to follow Tina's advice for themselves as well.

The simple rule that when you walk don't talk and when you talk don't walk is a very powerful rule to remember. Stand your ground, but also, don't root yourselves to the spot either. Move as your motivation moves you. Don't move because the director told you to do so. Either way, it's very clear to the audience why you are moving. Hopefully the audience will see more of the former.

Also, don't be discouraged when we repeat scenes over and over again. Few of us ever hit the mark on the first attempt. Do->repeat->learn->repeat->add on->repeat->practice->repeat->perfect. Repetition is a key strategy in the learning process. Get used to it.

Rehearsal ran a bit longer than I had budgeted for. Had to leave during our wrap-up briefing but I had to get us a lane at SAFRA for Monday Nite Bowling. Shoulda' stayed till the end of the briefing 'cos Anthony & co. came late anyway. Anthony's pride and joy, his Mazda 3, got it's first major dent after 2-3 months since he acquired it. Proximity sensor apparently didn't pick up the pillar he was reversing into. Key point: when driving, trust your eyes and not your ears. I nearly failed my driving test because of this principle. Now that he's got his first dent, the pressure to maintain his car's pristine condition is off. Guess there's a bright side to everything.

Joining us on the lanes tonight were Wendy, and two of Anthony's petanque teammates, Edward and Cheryl. Vince and Lawrence came too. Edward took a couple of games to warm up but he finished his last game very well with 176, winning a drink for himself. Anthony was a bit distracted because he kept thinking of his new dent but he, too, on his last game hit 202, which was the lane's high score for the day. He won the coveted silver pewter keychain and I know he'll gleefully show it off to Eunice tomorrow.

Me, I got in 4 games tonight the first game missing the gimmick keychain by 3 pinfalls. I won 3 keychains in my subsequent 3 games, bringing my average up to 152 tonight. Quite happy with my performance. All I have to remember from now on is to line myself up properly, aim for the middle arrow and power the ball down the centre. Striking well, sparing accuracy could be better. Next target average: 170. I'm confident that it is reachable now.

Just a quick note: By request I've put up the link to Iraq the Model in my Blogroll (see sidebar). Blogger, Ali, has included other Iraqi blogs in his sidebar. Dear_raed is still on "hiatus" but you can read Raed and Salam Pax's archives detailing their experiences during the "liberation" of Bhagdad.
Counter views can be found in Baghdad Burning written by an Iraqi girl. Trace her links too!

Spent most of the afternoon plowing through blogskins looking for a design that I could use for this blog. As nothing's changed you can guess that I couldn't find a skin I liked. I was toying with the idea of a skin called "The Pressure's On" featuring a silhoutte of the Grim Reaper and the text, "Get better grades or else," but it's so unsubtle and not me at all. Just have to keep looking, that's all.

Q-tip just loves car rides. She watches intently everything that goes on outside the car windows and always has a big grin on her face. We don't take her out too often, though, because taxi fares are expensive and we can't bring dogs into buses or the MRT. Oh, the places we'd go if we could!

We did take Q-tip to "Pets' Night" at Robertson Walk this evening. We got lost because there were no direction signs telling us where to go. Saw lots of other dog owners wandering around the place trying to find the event too. Took a stroll along the river and eventually had to ask for directions. Oh... along the river is Robertson Quay; where we came from was Robertson Walk. Ah ha!

In the process of our wanderings, Q-tip managed to shake off and lose the clip holding up her topknot and we misled a Jack Russell and a lab who assumed we knew where we were going. Finally as we retraced our steps, we met a chihuahua who happily followed us to the right location this time. Of all the stupid...! Robertson Walk is actually the name of the the square of restaurants just behind SRT, where we usually hang out during the intervals of plays we watch at SRT. Doh!

The square was full of dogs and their owners today. By the time we found the place, all the goodie bags had already been snapped up and the lines for the free dog massage(!) and free hand-drawn dog portrait were too long to bother with. Food, food, we need food! Considering that we hadn't had any lunch barring the leftover Ruffles potato chips and the bar of Lindt chocolate, June and I were starving. Food was our #1 priority! Everything else could wait!

We settled for Sketches which offered a better variety of food options than the other joints and because the crowd hadn't arrived to fill up the al fresco dining area yet. We ordered a side of chicken wings which Q-tip had a share in (it was, after all, a dinner date with your pet), a warm mushroom salad, a spaghetti vongole for June and I had a linguine served with 2 lamb chops.

Wings are wings; what can I say? Q-tip was quite happy to share them with us. Vegetables in the salad were fresh and very green topped with sauteed shiitake in a creamy, tangy dressing. June's order was very generous -- lots of clams on a mountain of spaghetti. I don't know how it tasted; she polished off the lot all by herself. My lamb was meaty and tender, cooked in plenty of garlic (whoo!) and served in a pleasant honey sauce. Q-tip was not averse to sharing some bits of lamb with me either. Nice thing about Sketches: they leave the carafe of ice-water on your table so you can help yourself any time you want. Too full for dessert.

We sat between a schnauzer and a (possibly) mini-maltese sporting a schnauzer cut. The latter was excited and quite noisy, intermittently screaming at all the other dogs around it. Cute, but irritating after a while. It's times like this we appreciate Q-tip and her quiet nature.

Hey, gimme a break! My day has barely started! A couple of links to keep you occupied while I go live:

Little shy girl (We all know someone like her, don't we?)

Pingu Extreme (Let me know when you beat my score of 1281)

It's Saturday. Why should I have to wake up so early? Especially when not long after I got to sleep (it was already about 2am!) June shakes me awake and asks for my comments on the flower arrangement she had been making for my mom for Mothers' Day. Truthfully, I thought it was well-arranged for a first attempt and I thought I gave her my verbal assurance and approval, but apparently, according to her, I started to say something then became incoherent then there came a short silence and finally I resumed my gentle snoring. So, my brain sort of functions but it doesen't translate into words when I'm in that state. June wasn't discouraged and continued her arrangement until she crawled into bed at about 4am. She is such a perfectionist and I love her. [Hmm... she's a perfectionist. She married me. What does that make me? ;)]

I officially arose at about 6:30 so I could get to the GP Seminar by 8:45. Simple breakfast at the coffee shop downstairs. GP Seminar was on the topic of the biomedical hub that Singapore is being designed to become by our economists and the ethics that govern said biomed research. This topic is especially relevant as our growth engine in the near future is being tied to this untamed wild horse that until recent times was never even conceived to exist.

Biomed offers us control over what we had once merely accepted -- health and, up to a point, even life itself. As an engine of economic growth, such control, if it can be bought, will be highly sought after by the growing population of wealthy people in our region whom we are now viewing as a vast, almost inexhaustable financial resource in the years to come. As long as people will continue to fall sick and/or die, when we build Biopolis they will come!

Bioethics is like the reins of control as we are breaking in this powerful wild stallion, making it manageable and ultimately exploitable to us. Bioethics reminds us that if we wish to take control over the once-uncontrollable, then are we responsible enough to make choices from options that were never available to us before? From the issue of abortion to stem cell research, we are already making choices over life and death -- choices that now rest in the hands of individuals when once life and death could only be a decision made by collective society.

All these issues would have been very interesting to discuss, probing further into the future of this country and what kind of services we will make available to the world in 10, 20 years time. What will Singapore be famous for then? Will people from around the world flock here to be cured of cancer or other life threatening ailments? Will they also take the opportunity to determine the traits they desire of their next generation while they are visiting or do other more frivolous things like being genetically altered to sport luminous tatoos on various parts of their bodies? Will people be coming here with diseased body parts and leave with fresh, new, healthy replacement parts harvested from a lab cultured pig or some other animal?

Would have been interesting if in our Q&;A session we had asked our speakers more questions on current research and project that towards their future practical applications, or more about the guidelines that our ethics council are currently considering so we can guess at what treatments will be or might become common practice tomorrow. Instead, we became fixated on the type of scholars we are sending to read up this field of research, their personality types and their qualifications, which I suppose are relevant considerations, but I'm not sure the speakers came down to field such mundane questions. If even our teachers are this pragmatic, I fear we are slowly losing what imagination we have left, destined to only follow and copy rather than pioneer and lead as we must in this field that remains largely unexplored. To be successful, we have to be able to identify the possibilities first then work our process to get there and not get hung up with procedure right from the start and go nowhere as a result.

Ouch. Did I just write all that? Wonder if there's anyone else left to read my blog after this outburst? Had a tea-break in between speakers.

Lunched with Agnes, Avril, Cynth and Joanna at the Dome, Bishan. Herb striploin sandwich on multi-grain and walnut bread (untoasted). Pumpkin mash made the sandwich mushy but as the flavour was pleasant and unusual I forgive them. Macchiatto to wash it down. Macchiatto... reminds me of Teresa. Wonder how she's doing today. Haven't written to her in many years now. Wish I hadn't lost her email.

College Day, and I had a good time catching up with some of the guys of S4D: Ki Han, Eric, Jian Wen, Kevin, Marcus, Wei Xiong... did I miss anyone? Also Drama club alumni: Gwyn (who sweetly offered to help work with Yr 1s), Michelle, Saz, Donnie and Millicent. Watched Thad and Bernard get dunked at the dunk tank, and was badgered into purchasing a gift set from the Drum personnel who took so much trouble over it I think they deserved their $3. Bought a panda rock painting at $8 for June, whom I hope will gain more confidence that her own rock paintings are quality pieces as well. Mei, sorry I didn't get back to the Drama booth for Ramzi's brownies. Too many people, too little time.

Had College Day reception: mee siam, kueh pie tee, sung kueh, siew mai, and the other usual catered stuff at the usual catered quality.

Went to mom's for dinner. Gave bro his spending cash, and lent him my digicam with charger to use on his tour. I feel naked without my Lumix now, especially since I can't take any more Odyssey rehearsal photos without it. Maybe Boon Sin will be kind enough to lend me hers? Anyway, to my kid bro, "bon voyage!" Come back soon!

To sum: I had 5 meals today. What a pig!

Lit students went to watch Luther this evening. Me, the thrill junkie, went to Van Helsing instead. Mei's review now makes me want to watch Luther too, but VH is a visual treat not to be missed either!

Gonna be so busy tomorrow with the GP seminar in the morn, Homecoming & College Day in the afternoon and visiting Mom in the evening, I'd better make this note for VH while it's still fresh and while I still remember to do so.

VH is a non-stop action thrill ride with jaw-dropping brawls and catfights, curiously archaic looking tools and weapons of high impact, spectacular explosions and vistas of massive objects breaking, shattering satisfyingly loudly into splinters, shards and shrapnel. The screams of really horrid creatures and a couple of gasp-inducing shocks keep the atmosphere tense and the audience ready for another breathtaking stunt -- animated or live -- or another revelation of VH's or Dracula's past. Don't expect too much exposition, though, what's important happens in the here and now of their on-screen confrontation.

Plotwise, VH takes after LXG, fusing together the stock characters of the horror movie tradition in one roller-coaster thriller. Jekyll & Hyde make an appearance but it's Frankenstein's monster and the werewolf who are tied into Drac's diabolical plot in a sort of twisted S&M procreation fantasy involving straps, chains and lots of voltage. Uh huh... so the plot's a bit thin, but it's still one heck of a campfire tale! Lots of convenient plot advancing events occur showing the hand of deus ex machina, but who cares? VH delivers some little humour, even less romance but most importantly, an orgy of edge-of-the-seat action almost without reprieve and that's what we're there for.

June's rating: 5 stars (& as a critic she's hard to please).
I don't give out stars. However, the grin on my face at the end of the movie exposed right up to my back molars so I guess it was pretty enjoyable.

So grab a ticket, a bucket of popcorn and a flagon of Coke from the concession stand and go watch Van Helsing. Meantime, I'll see if I can score a couple'a tix to Luther. See you at the movies!

I could'a gone to Ivin's with my lunchmates again, but I needed some time to myself again free of noise and socializing so I need do nothing more than sit and think. And recently, blog as I am doing now. Don't expect anything profound though. It's also a chance for me to wrestle the z-monster whenever it should choose to show up. I'll be ready.

Oh, Ivin's. I thought Vince just managed to con the trainees, Lynette, Julie, Alice & Dawn, into buying us all lunch. I didn't realize that it was to be their farewell lunch -- they're going back to NTU to continue their course and who knows if they'll get posted back to us? Just a minute before I discovered this sad fact, I had turned down the lunch offer, citing my bad stomach, which was true. I still shudder at the thought of ingesting and more curry/chilli-based foods for a while. In the last two days I have had, let's see, prata, mee pok, and yesterday's superb roti jalal a la chicken curry from the mak cik in our college canteen. I've hit my limit and a wise man knows when to stop. The company at lunch today would have been so very stimulating, but I'm just not fit company myself. Social burnout and dihorrea, thats me today.

June has gone to change some cash for 100 Euros. She is so efficient and thoughtful, quite the opposite of me. It's good that we're married to each other instead of being just colleagues with each other. We'd just kill each other in the office. The Euros are a gift to my brother who's going on tour to Ireland, the UK and France. He's departing tomorrow night and we have to arrange to meet him to present him with his gift. His trip is frighteningly expensive, in the range of $6K for flight, meals and accommodation, excluding personal expenses. Thought we'd chip in a bit 'cos he's travelling "by faith" and we're not about to let God let him down. He sent June his entire itinerary which was more info than she had asked him for and she's quite jealous now. All the wonderful places in Europe he's going to visit, many places of which she and I have never even heard. Make good use of your 100E, eh? It's not much but it'll come in useful, I reckon.

We initially wanted to meet him at the airport tomorrow to see him off and at the same time get us some Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits. Generous-sized chicken portions; crispy skin; and a juicy, tender interior. If KFC is 'finger lickin' good,' Popeyes will have you stuffing your gob with your fists. Not pretty, I know, but it is Popeyes! There's no canned spinach on the side, curiously enough, but the buttermilk biscuits and mashed potatoes feel so wholesome going down and they make you feel like a total pig after. I only have one regret after a meal at Popeyes: why did I eat so much? Urrrgggghhhh! Changi Airport, either Terminal, if you're looking for the nearest outlet. Unfortunately, my bro will only be going to the airport late so we have now agreed to meet him at Mom's instead. So much for Popeyes. *Sob.

Anyone for Van Helsing tonight at Sun Plaza?

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a show! The Odyssey is back on its feet with more fun and action. Energy is high today and hopefully will pick up even more over next week. We’ve finally got the play down to a manageable half hour and even rough as it was today, I’d say it rox! Everyone was more purposeful in everything they were doing and the new motivations for some of the characters worked nicely. The addition of subtle and some not-so-subtle movements by certain characters do add a visual cue to the spoken lines, aiding the understanding of the action onstage.

Only a couple of minor errors in today’s run which are understandable due to the newness of some of the scenes, but unless corrected immediately could be disastrous to our performance next week. Silly things like breaking out of character with the giggles or acknowledging a fluffed line or appearing onstage without being appropriately attired or not carrying on the proper handprops are definite no-nos and will not happen from next rehearsal onwards.

Other than these minor hiccups, everything else seemed to work ok, and I found myself suppressing laughter in certain scenes where there was once dull delivery before. The tweaks to the crew, Odysseus and Mother work well; though I hope we’ll be able to get a 2nd opinion in time before the SYF. Would love for Tina to come in one last time for her last nuggets of advice.

Scary that our actors are still falling sick. At this late stage it's so hard to work without a full cast. Still, it shouldn't be surprising as they're all so stretched in their committments. You must take better care of yourselves; do everything you can to keep yourselves in good health: eat well, sleep well, drink plenty of fluids, engage in regular exercise, look both ways before crossing the street, etc. Your health is a priority.

Van Helsing opened today, and usually I’d be the first in line at the box office for a movie like this. I couldn’t today because of Odyssey rehearsal. Considering what we accomplished tonight, it was an evening well spent.

Hermes leaps into action again

NYeDC Yr 1 and Yr 2 bonding session, pizza to follow

Tired. Knees wobbly. Sweatier and smellier than I was last Wednesday (see respective entry for details). We had a blast playing Captain's Ball in the abandoned canteen. Audrey says it makes a good skating rink too and I understand ODAC is already using it for just that.

Great to see NYeDC running around having fun again. You people are lunatics! We played 2 games split in 2 halves, broke for dinner and you insisted on playing some more after pizza. Have mercy -- I'm too old for this physical abuse. If this keeps up, PE Dept will send PFT failures to us and we'll train them for PFT gold in a month's time.

Year 1s joined us which was more than I expected because they were busy with painting the banner for Saturday and I thought they would be tired. Duh! Nice to meet them and interact with some of them for effectively the first time. *waves at all Year 1s if you're reading this.

Also unexpectedly, the Debate team with Anthony and Greg joined us as well. It was the first time since the split 2+ years ago that Drama and Debate had gotten together for an activity. Fine. The Debate team won their games but we had a great time anyway. Well played, fellas!

Pizza delivery put me in a state of panic for a short while. Bill amounted to what we had agreed on amongst Yee, Cara and me, but I hadn't collected the cash from all of them at the time. I had enough on me to pay for half the bill and I was wondering where the money for the rest would come from. Yee showed up at the nick of time. It must have been funny to see us tutors pooling our cash and counting up the combined liquid assets on our persons which was just right to pay off the pizza dude. We were so grateful we let him keep the change, all 70 cents worth. Don't spend it all in one place, ok, buddy?

Seldom do I walk off a playing field without some damage to my corpus. It's been a habit since my youth. There's something about the image of the bruised, battered, bloodied body of a gladiator who's lived to fight another day that somehow I'm enarmoured with. It draws attention, sympathy or at the very least a seat on the bus because few people want to sit next to a walking human disaster. Who knows when the latter might keel over, causing the nearest person to undergo a police interview? Today was no different. In a mad scramble for the ball I collided with one of the pillars (actually an I-shaped steel girder) and in the process dented both my wristbones and caused what looks like a bruise on my right forearm. I can still type so I guess nothing's broken. Maybe the bruise will fade by tomorrow. June promised to rub me down with medicated oil before bedtime. Sounds good to me! Attention, sympathy...

If the X-men can break for a mad game of Bball with hilarious results I think we can have a game therapy session too! NYeDC, thanks for the game!

A week and a day to our performance of The Odyssey at the SYF. It's a risk not having a rehearsal today but many of our cast are rehearsing for Homecoming/College Day this Saturday and so we had a choice: to rehearse scenes in which cast were available or to forget everything for a day and play our brains out.

We've chosen the latter and once the cast & crew are done with helping the Year 1s with the Homecoming banner, it's off to simple pleasures again -- of running, throwing, catching, cooperating with some, competing with others, and getting sweaty and out of breath while doing it -- back to primeval basics. In prehistoric times, the hunt was the thrill of the week because our lives depended on it for food and materiel, to sustain and maintain our very lives.

Our hunting skills badly need sharpening. We have to remember what it's like to be hungry again. We need to know the importance of playing the game as a team again. We have to look our opponents square in the eye and be sure that constraints or no we will prevail. We will prevail because we will it to be so. Hence, the game is an analogy for our will to survive. How badly do we want to survive?

It's not about winning, it never was. It's about learning to cope and still coming out on top, as Odysseus himself did in Homer's epic. Odysseus had no reward waiting for him at the end of his journey, all he wanted was to come home. If this isn't motivation, silver and gold are even less of a motivation in the long run.

We need our achievements, great or small, to give us the confidence to face harder and tougher challenges as we progress through life. The harder we strive to win the sweeter our victory if we achieve it. If we don't, there is a vaster pool of learning that accumulates towards our victory next time around. Regardless, as long as we can keep on looking for and looking forward to the next time we are already a success.

The contest is not yet upon us, folks. There is still time to prepare. Let's sweat hard for a sweet victory. A week and a day. Let's give it all we've got. For today, LET'S PLAY BALL!

Well, that was terrible. I fell asleep in the middle of making my previous entry. When I awoke I had barely enough sense left in me to sign off properly. Can't imagine how I got so tired. Must be getting old.

Anthony's back from playing petanque in Bangkok. The Thai team is so good, his focus was "not to get his ass kicked," which he successfully accomplished, he reported.

Lunched at the prata place off Rosyth Road. Their maggie mee goreng is quite outstanding, if you can stand the MSG it's cooked in. We had to repeat several times that Mun Yee's order must not have any chilli in it. Must not have any chilli in it. Bad memories from last week's mee kuah, which he ordered and found to be as edible as a spouting flamethrower. Sensitive, that guy. Andro's nasi briyani looked good and his order came quickly too. Definitely on my list to try next time I'm here.

Ordered an ice Milo which was rich, sweet and very cold. Delicious. The ice Milo is quite good enough, but if you're really thirsty you could try the "Milo dinosaur" which is an up, no, supersized ice Milo, beaten into a fluffy froth on top and liberally sprinkled with Milo powder. For most purposes it's overkill, but feel free to indulge. There are worse ways to spend $2.50.

Service is very friendly. Very. The mak cik is very patient taking orders. Dealing with large groups of screaming schoolboys from St Gabriel's(?) ordering a myriad of prata combinations and frequently changing their minds and their orders is liable to drive someone bonkers or imbue a serenity, patience and longsuffering on the victim. Glad to say Mak Cik is of the latter calibre, and can still maintain her sense of humour to boot.

The usual verbal horseplay goes around the lunch table, which sometimes gets too intense for Mun Yee. Andros himself contributed a paraphrase of "OMG" in response to our irreverent banter. Tried to pull a fast one on Vince but he's wise to us now. Mealtimes are fun.

No rehearsal tomorrow. Cast & crew bonding instead. Need the energy boost and the reminder that team spirit is still alive and ready to take on new challenges. Once we get our Homecoming prep done it's off for food, fun and a round of Captain's Ball. Wa-hey! Thinking of using the abandoned temporary canteen grounds to use as our court. Whadda'ya think peeps?

Hi Farisa! Hi Mei! Hi Yan! >big wave< You've discovered who is responsible for this abomination!

As you can see, this page is quite blah and the html is going to take me quite some time to figure out. I'm just cutting and pasting text in my template right now and seeing what works and what doesn't. Would be grateful for any assistance you could provide in making my blog look prettier. Also anyhow signing up for all kinds of odd blogging services to see what they actually do. As long as it's free I don't mind experimenting.

My mind is almost totally incoherent now. All I know is that I've been fed, so now I'm in a better mood, and my blog's had a couple of visitors today that is a pleasant surprise. But, neeeeed sleeeeep...! Brain refusing to function. C u tomorrow!

The college seems to be shut down today, i.e., no one's allowed to log on the 'net for fear of the Sasser worm infecting our systems. Warning came too late for me! I was already online and my laptop suddenly flashed a window showing a countdown timer and shut down my system in a minute.

Very cleverly, I tried to download the Windows patch preventing the Worm from taking further effect (was that the proper procedure, I wonder?) but because the stupid worm kept shutting down my laptop during the installation of the patches (guess I haven't updated for a while!) I screwed up my Windows and now it won't start up properly anymore. Crap!

Moral of the story: update Windows often, before it gets too late. Gonna have to take my laptop to our tech who is probably up to his neck fighting Sasser on our LAN right now. Wonder when my laptop will come back to me?

As a public service, here is the link to d/l the Sasser removal tool from Symantec if you've been hit.

Very annoyed now. Nobody talk to me! Wait till I'm in a better mood. Grrr...

Lunch at Adrian's. He made a seafood pasta for us which was yummy. Said he woke up early to get fresh ingredients from Chinatown, about an hour's bus ride from where he lives. His seafood pasta comprised spinach fusilli with fish, shrimp and calamari topped with a tomato-basil sauce and accompanied with sauteed champignon mushrooms (I would have preferred raw champigons, thinly sliced) and steamed asparagus. Slices of baguette from Delifrance to sop up the sauce and our contribution -- Waldorf salad -- on the side.

It seems I have very poor hand-eye coordination. As I was inserting a bit of sopping baguette into my cakehole, it bounced off my teeth and landed sop-side down on the chair I was sitting on before bouncing off again to hit the floor. It left a couple of faint sauce stains on the cream-coloured upholstery which sent Adrian scrambling for the Scotchgard. Oops, 'scuse signore. Hope the stains are not permanent (crosses fingers).

I make a simple Waldorf salad based on the recipe the American tourist recited to Basil Fawlty in an episode of Fawlty Towers. Green and red apples cut into small cubes, celery, walnuts and raisins well mixed with mayo (we use Kraft). The apple cubes should be thoroughly soaked in lemon juice to prevent them from turning brown. The apple cubes are cut by June herself 'cos she doesn't let me play with sharp objects -- soaking the cubes in blood makes them turn brown faster. Adrian doesn't like raisins, so we kept them on the side for ourselves. I don't know. It just isn't right without the raisins which, if used sparingly, give an occasional sweet surprise to the generally sour salad.

The rest of the afternoon we reminisced over our Hawaii trip, pouring over the photo albums we brought over to his place and seeing the shots he took of his trip to Europe and Japan. The lucky pig spent a couple of days in a Japanese onsen! He said if he was going on vacation again this year, he'd like to go see some real snow once again. It's been years since I've seen real snow too. Will I get the chance this year? Hmm... (thinking hard).

Just a quick memory test because I'm bored. Name the dishes from our dinner at Loy Sum Juan:
Sharks' fin soup
Abalone/jellyfish cold dish
Scallop-celery salad
Har Jeong Gai
Braised duck
Steamed fish
Tofu spring rolls
Obligatory noodles
hmm...
Longans with almond jelly

Seems to be a dish I can't remember. Or was it an 8-course meal + dessert? Whatever. I am so full now. 10 people at the table but only 7 effectively eating. 3 are under 5 years old so they can't each much. Cause for celebration: my kid brother is going to be 32 in a couple of days' time. We won't see him on the date of his actual birthday so, "Happy Birthday" in advance! And if he is going to be 32, I am going to be ancient. Maybe that's why I can't remember... er, what were we talking about...?

It's the Labour Day public holiday today! But I don't have classes on Saturday so as a holiday, it doesn't count for much. Still, there's no other reason to go back to work either 'cos everything's closed, so yahoo! June gets the best deal when it comes to public hols falling on a Saturday. Because her work contract is for a 5-day week, it means she gets Monday off-in-lieu. Hey... I wanna review my contract now!

Found a link to the history of Labor Day, if you're interested. People died to get us this holiday, so better be grateful!


Belle has her favourite hiding spot.

Our filter is gonna need some SERIOUS cleaning after this!

All because Auntie Mimi (right) is visiting!

As before, the cats have a cold truce with the visiting dog. Mimi is out of her natural element in our house, so she knows she has "stranger" status here. Belle isn't much afraid of Mimi although she takes on a defensive pose when Mimi gets excited and barks (screams, rather) at her or passing shadows outside our front door. As for Momo, she's peacefully hiding out of sight -- behind the washing machine, in the dryer (as pictured), on top of the kitchen cabinet, under the bed, like the unsociable thing she's become.

As a kitten, Momo was the friendliest member of our household, always ready to greet strangers with a sniff and a chin rub. Ever since 2 chubby (June says "fat") kids came over and terrorized Momo, she becomes a complete recluse whenever guests arrive, whether human or animal. It's like we gain a guest but lose a family member in exchange. Hmmm... aren't all families like this? Whenever a visitor comes a-calling, Dad or someone else (depending on who did the inviting) disappears only to reappear after the 'invaders' have left.

Anyway, there is peace in the household, which is more than I could hope for.

Going to celebrate Aun's bdae later at some Cantonese restaurant called Loy Sum Juan in Tiong Bahru Plaza. I thought our family usually goes for a buffet meal on special occasions such as this, but it seems like we've been there, done that once too often already. So, Guangdong cuisine it will be tonight. And I was looking forward to sashimi and half-shell oysters too.

June's put together the photo album of our Hawaii trip last year. Not the online one but the um... hard copy one. We're now ready to share them with Adrian who's got some shots of his own to show us too. We'll see him tomorrow at lunch, though I'm not looking forward to lugging 2 monstrously sized photo albums over to the East and then lugging them all back. But the photo layouts and the photos themselves are beautiful and deserve to be looked at by people other than ourselves. We'll manage somehow.

This is Mimi.
Mimi is June's first dog.
Mimi lives with June's mom.
Today, Mimi is coming to visit us for the weekend.
What fun!

Auntie Mimi can play with Q-tip, whom she knows quite well.
Auntie Mimi will have lots of fun with Belle and Momo, whom she's never seen before.
Auntie Mimi loves to chase cats, which Belle and Momo are.
Wonder what she'll do with them once she catches them?

The cats think they will be safe because they can jump to high places.
Guess what?
Mimi can jump too!
Mimi's no Q-tip, that's for sure.

We had the same problem when Dot-Dot came to stay with us while her owners, Samson and Charis, visited Australia. Dot-Dot loves to stare at cats, and we were a bit apprehensive about how the cats and Dot-Dot would react to each other. Let's just say there was a cold truce between the species. No trouble there. Hope Mimi and the cats will adjust to each other as easily.

Sort of stuck in between things again. Done for the day, yet waiting for rehearsal to begin. It's at Chinese High today and it's the only "full dress rehearsal" we'll get before the SYF. Maybe I should'a gone home to chill for a while but I'm stuck here now.

Finally got the souvenir Odyssey VCD-photo CD package burned for NYeDC. Packaging is cheap, though, and many are liable to fall apart very quickly. They were the only 2-disc jewel boxes I could find so I was desperate.

Yee's working on getting the CD covers designed and printed & I hope they'll be ready in... oh, 10 minutes time! Hope it will raise cast & crew spirits a bit to see how far they've come already and what they can accomplish when they have the confidence. NYeDC can achieve greatness -- we've seen it happen before -- so let's just get there a little faster now, for the recognition you deserve. SYF, here we come!

Kids of NYeDC have seen how the Odyssey is being stripped of parts in order to cope with the 30 minute time limit in the SYF. It can be quite disturbing to see so many beautiful, but time and materiel-consuming scenes disappear just like that. To cheer them up, I told them about how I went through a similar production a few years ago.

I was cast in a local movie called The Wasteland. It was set in an indeterminate country in the throes of a civil war. I was cast in the role of a rookie helo pilot on his first combat mission. My co-pilot, a veteran was supposed to torment me with terrifying tales of air disaster and enemy activity in the vicinity while we waited to extract the squad we carried into battle. This role was a showcase piece for a minor character in that it had some significant airtime and it called for quite some versatility to portray. I was good in the role, and I looked forward to performing it.

I, being a viable human resource, was also double-cast as an elite footsoldier and I enjoyed having another role to keep myself occupied with while waiting to get my scene shot. As a soldier, I was filmed with my squad assaulting enemy locations, “assisting” the interrogation of a captured enemy, and frantically radioing my helo for an emergency evacuation when my squad took an unexpected defeat.

When the time came for the scene with the two pilots, our director suddenly decided that since I had already been identified as a soldier, it wasn’t believable that I could be both the soldier and the pilot because we would have been in two places at the same time! So I was replaced and that was the end of rookie helo pilot for me. Noooo….

Further disappointments were to follow. While the movie was intended to be a commercially released full-feature, our director decided to submit it to the Silver Screen Awards and cut it as a short film instead to fit the judging criteria. More of my scenes, along with others’ were trimmed out, never to be seen by an audience, ever.

Still, in all of this wild decision-making, I am still very grateful for the fact that I had one scene left intact in the final cut – the scene of my panicky soldier and his radio calling for a “code purple” evac. 7-8 seconds worth of air-time. This is considering that all shots of the minor and supporting characters had been reduced to a minimum and this shot featuring me was the only one to survive with actual spoken dialogue rather than narrated through a voiceover. The scene with the two pilots never made it to the final cut.

So, I told the kids, in the arts, change comes suddenly, swiftly and savagely. We do what we can to adapt as quickly as possible to change. There is no reason not to give off your best in whatever role you are playing, regardless of the size of the role. The success of a production depends on the actor who delivers the weakest performance. Nicole Kidman couldn’t pull off an Oscar winning performance if 2nd-soldier-on-the-left sucked. On the other hand, who knows how your best performance might pay off?

In between right now. Done with classes, but waiting for Odyssey rehearsal to start. Got some other work obligations done, now twiddling my thumbs and writing again.

Amazing how much chaos can come out of introducing an unusual event into a closed, organized system. Guest speaker for today was Amb. M. Hong, who had stuff to say about "Globalization and its impact on SEA youth." Apart from the sudden change in guest speakers (it was supposed to be Mr "pany," remember?) it was a surprise to discover the venue we planned the event in was actually being used for something else at the same time. A quick shuffle later and things got sorted out though arrangements were not exactly ideal. Bigger venue used for smaller audience, but floor seating only making writing inconvenient. Smaller venue used for bigger audience, proper writing space available but no writing needed to be carried out. How adaptable a species we are.

Talk was informative, very densely packed for an hour's duration. Intesting observation: during the Q&A, some controvertial questions were raised about how much we support American foreign policy and whether local youth function under intrinsic or extrinsic motivations; however, the questions were raised by our foreign students, leaving our locals with the more mundane concerns. I guess that answers the second question quite effectively, doesn't it? >Sigh<

I was just going to say life is too safe here to have many other meaningful concerns than ourselves and our entertainment but I just got the news from June by SMS as follows:

1 dead, 15 injured in Ayer Rajah building cave-in

A basement cave-in at a construction site in Ayer Rajah has left one person dead and five others missing. Fifteen casualties have reportedly been sent to the National University Hospital.

The collapse happened just before 2pm at the worksite of the Fusionpolis building and the MRT station at One-North. Engineers on the site say this - at 30m - is the deepest construction site in Singapore and that six or seven people may be trapped at the bottom.

This cave-in comes a week after a portion of the Nicoll Highway collapsed, leaving four people dead. But this is an industrial accident that is not related to last week's cave-in at the underground site of the MRT Circle Line.

The Fusionpolis complex, which will house info-communications and media firms when completed in 2005, forms part of the Jurong Town Corporation's One-North development in Buona Vista.

OK, June only SMS'ed me the news, I got this off the STI website.

2 major collapses in the last week causing loss of life and infrastructure damage. We're not used to this sort of thing happening to us, and I wonder if we can cope emotionally even if our 'systems' are in place to deal with the physical disaster.

Regardless, my chaos of this morning is nothing like what is happening out there right now. How could I possibly say my day was crap? Actually, I never did, did I?

Say a prayer for the injured and the trapped, ok? Hope we get them out in time.

I’m pretty sure you don’t want to know how smelly I am today.

Got chewed out a little by Maj Chia this morn for not being able to provide enough seats for the MI kids, but I only found out about our seat shortage late on Monday, so there was nothing much anybody could have done at this late stage. Still, thank God for Mr Pau and the AVA crew who were up to their mark today getting everything ready for the MI S-cube seminar in our Hall this afternoon. Must also thank Shun De (check spelling please) and the Council ushers who were punctual, and genuinely welcoming to our guests. I was running around like a mad thing getting the directional signs from the music room and placing them in strategic positions so no one would get lost, and coordinating things in the car-park area to the transit area to the Hall to the AV control room. So, blazing afternoon sun + me working up a real sweat = 1 smelly, sweaty T-shirt, so bad I could even smell myself >yuck<. I apologize to everyone I sat next to subsequently including Sharmala and Ee Ling (who’s been a pleasure to work with in coordinating this event). Also sorry to cast & crew of NYeDC whom I worked with at SYF rehearsal today.
I surmise my sweat reacts with different T-shirt pigments in different ways and today’s combination was particularly bad. That’s why I try to avoid wearing black Ts – worst possible combination yet.
Still have our Senior Civil Servant’s talk with Mr “pany” of ISEAS to look forward to, which means more of the same tomorrow. I need a vacation…
More scenes chopped off The Odyssey today to fit into the half-hour slot we’re given for SYF. It seems a shell of its former self now; kind of a long trailer mostly. Just hope it makes sense to our judges in its present incarnation.
Also as an anti-climax, I didn’t get my trophy today. No one important enough around today to give away prizes at assembly. Maybe tomorrow then.

Officially getting my bowling trophy tomorrow. I haven't won a trophy for years now. Decades even. That's probably why this one is so important to me, trivial as it is in the grand scheme of things. I've never won a championship before. My previous trophies are a silver medal for a relay sprint event in primary school, a silver clamshell for soccer in Sec 2 and a bronze trophy for high jump in JC (from which I dropped out eventually). The high jump one wasn't that big a deal, there were only 4 competitors in that event. I got a medal for indoor soccer in an intra-varsity tournament playing for a team I had no business to be playing for. I was a York U student playing for a U of T club, and the circumstances under which I received the medal were just as dubious. As I recall, we lost every match that we played and yet we were still runners-up in the tournament. I'm also pretty sure there were more than 2 teams participating then. Strange.
But there are no controversies over the bowling championship. Our scores are clearly above every other competitor, even without adding our handicap of 10 pinfalls each. I've never picked up a gold before, and I never thought I would ever. Could this one be the start of more golds? We'll see...
All right. All this might seem quite petty and inconsequential to you, making such a production number over such a small achievement. Give me a break, please. I entered the contest with confidence, I took my training seriously, we even attempted to train our competitors so we could have more opponents and more skillful opponents to challenge(!), as partners we gave each other the moral support we needed during rough spots during the game, and hell, yeah, it all paid off in the end! If this isn't the sum of the ingredients of a success story, then what is?
So here I am obsessing again... what else is new?

This week promises to be mad. I'm arranging for our campus to be invaded by another college and I've inadvertently 'volunteered' myself for fatigue duty -- helping to carry and arrange chairs in the hall for 500+ audience members! Me and my big mouth. Luckily, our furniture store only has 200+ chairs so most of the audience will have to sit on the floor. Also stage arrangements have to be done, but I think I have a handle on that, thanks to Mr Pao. I've got till tomorrow to sort out and make directional signs, "Hall this way --->," "TOILETS --->," etc. Should I arrange for volunteer ushers as well? Do I have time? My brain's scrambled right now. And that's just for Wednesday.
Thursday I'm overseeing the stage arrangements (again) and the AV setup (again) for our VIP guest speaker to the whole year 2 cohort. I'll be glad when this week's over.
Also by Wednesday, I have to confirm the number of students who want to visit P. Tekong, but I'll just peg it at 150 pax, as allocated. I'm sure I'll find takers for this once-in-a-lifetime experience for many of our students.
NYeDC is going to be busy as well, with 3 rehearsals this week. Friday's rehearsal is a sort of tech run at the Chinese High stage, venue of the SYF Drama this year as every year. Will I get a Saturday off this week? One can only hope.
Had my weekly bowling session at SAFRA with Anthony and Wendy. It's never too early to start training for next year's Tourney. But Monday evenings might be a little inconvenient after SYF; I want to attend the open rehearsals at Mime Unlimited again. Miss all the stretching and toning. Feel so out of shape. Look it, too! Could also use a confidence boost and work a production at the same time. Oh yeah. Tonight's 3-game average: 143, not bad, I guess, but lots of room for improvement still.
Funny, I don't usually blog my future plans so far in advance. Must have been a boring day.

"Friendship Sunday" (to us) means a potluck breakfast before service. There are regular entries, staples more like, such as Tony's super excellent bee hoon cooked in fresh chicken stock the night before. This is the one thing that June and I make a bee-line for as soon as we arrive. It is light, dry and liberally sprinkled with crispy vegetables and beancurd skin (I think that's what it is). A monthly treat that cannot be missed.
June's contribution to breakfast is also a staple, and also a great favourite. Egg salad sandwiches. She uses Gardenia white bread which she cuts into quarters once they have been filled. The filling is made of mashed (doesn't have to be too finely mashed) hard boiled eggs with a dash of cooking sherry, some finely chopped spring onions and parsely, two tablespoons of Kraft mayo and a tablespoon or so of dijon mustard mixed in to taste. Exact proportions have to be the result of personal experimentation, trial-and-error. Ideally, the filling should be well mixed but have a pasty, viscous consistency rather than runny. Not a good idea to have sandwich overflows during a buffet-style meal. Also, the filling should be prepared the night before and only used just before serving (or transport as the case is with us) to avoid the bread getting soggy. Thanks to Jen Lim for generously sharing her recipe with us. It's made many breakfasters happy at 930 SAC.

Cable guy was just here. Our cable channels tumble on occasion and we have finally got irritated enough to call Starhub to see what they can do. Just our luck. Cable guy arrives to find our cable decoder behaving perfectly nicely, no signs of giving trouble at all. He's gone and switched cable boxes on us and now we're just hoping for the best.

June reminded me that we haven't seen our respective parents in what has become several weeks! Everyone has been so busy. So, we're visiting my folks tonight and will arrange to visit June's folks sometime next week. How neglectful we have been. Sorry.

There is something to be said of Pai Mei, Gordon Liu's character in Kill Bill Vol 2. As a teacher, his pedagogy sucks big time. He is a taskmaster; he is insulting, demoralizing, demonstrates a technique only once and expects replication, and causes actual physical harm to a student who disrespects him. What does works for him is that he knows that his students' success does not lie in his skills as a 'teacher' but in their own determination and reslilience to learn the skills that he is master of. The key is that the students truly desire to learn and master the skills and will go to any lengths involving humiliation, tedium, pain and deprivation in order to acquire them. They know 'why' they want to learn, and thus they can do little else but learn.
Endless repetition, doing the same piece of work over and over again, constantly being told it isn't good enough is par for the course in the learning experience. As with physical exercise, doing 10 push-ups perfectly once isn't going to make an Arnold Schwarzenneger out of you. Likewise, learning is a muscle that needs to be stressed daily in order to develop. It also needs proper nutrition and rest, but without the student's will to do until done it's just going to get flabby and flappy and pretty much useless.
Pai Mei doesn't bother himself with caring whether they are learning or not. He knows a good student learns regardless of circumstance, regardless of the teaching approach. It's a tough world out there, beyond the institution that the students will one day have to venture into. Their survival, not even their success, depends entirely on how much effort they were willing to put into their training when they had the opportunity to. You either learn to survive or die. It's really that simple.
Perhaps that's what's wrong with the 'education system.' In trying so hard to develop the best teachers, the best curriculum, and throwing money on the best facilities, we have forgotten that the students lack the motivation to learn because they are given everything even before they know to ask for it. They need to need, they have to learn to want, more than anything else. They have to search themselves for the reasons why they are studying the subjects they are taking. How badly do they want to master these subjects? What are they willing to tolerate to achieve this mastery? On this basis, they can truly assess for themselves how well they are likely to succeed in their course of study. No other report card/book could be a more accurate assessment.
The other point to note in the film is that Pai Mei, who lives by the sword dies by the sword, so to speak. I guess he deserves it for being the kind of teacher he was.

I've had less than 3 hours sleep today. 2 hours last evening and 1 hour this morning. Wonder if I will survive the rest of today on my feet? Had an eyeful of blood and gore at the Kill Bill double bill at GV Plaza, which explains my zombie-like state. Had initial complications with the online booking at the GV website. Was impatient with the processing of payment and I must have hit the refresh key or something, thus halting the system. So I redid the process and discovered "to my horrible" that I had just spent $80+ on 4 tix instead of $40+ for 2! Resolved to talk my way out of paying for the extra 2 tix at the box office.
Box office clerk was understanding. Happens all the time, I guess. Said that he'll try to sell the 2 extras for me but I'll still have to bear the processing costs of all 4 tix anyway. Fair enough. The double bill must have been in high demend. The 2 tix were sold immediately to a lucky pair (not couple, mind you) who were just trying their luck. The lucky dogs got 2 great seats and I was saved from having to fork out cash for nothing. Actually, that wasn't my main concern. I didn't want to deprive 2 movie buffs a chance to catch a movie they wanted to watch simply because I had bought their tix by mistake. That would have been unnecessarily selfish. Right. Oddly enough, the 2 who bought over my extra tix look very familiar. I think I saw them at Hellboy last week at Sun Plaza. I think.
Got a free-flow of popcorn and drinks for the double bill tix. Also got a freebie notebook with the Kill Bill Vol. 2 poster printed on the cover. The one with the death list, first 2 names crossed out and a katana blade piercing the list through the centre.
I hadn't seen Vol 1 when it came out last year so I enjoyed its hyperbolic violence, knowing that I'll reach closure without having to wait for months to finish the story. Think I preferred 1 better. Seemed more movement based with extravagant fight choreography and had more aesthetically composed cinematography. I'm referring to the battle with Ishii in the snow-covered garden, snowflakes gently, peacefully drifting down in contrast to the sharply coordinated cut, thrust and parry of the warriors engaged in a game of sudden death. White background, splashes of crimson. Also the anime sequence in which Ishii's origin is told came as a surprising change of pace and medium, telling Ishii's story in a way that suggests a blend of fact and legend. The dance-floor fight sequence vs the Crazy 88s was pulse-pounding but ultimately ridiculous. Shows up 'The Bride's' maternal instinct in her confrontation with the last 88 standing, so I guess it does count for something.
Vol 2 had more focus on plot and tying up loose ends. Tarantino substitutes the anime sequence from Vol 1 with an unconventional, punctuated longshot focusing on sound rather than visuals. This device does a little foreshadowing of Elle's come-uppance, but it does get uncomfortable after a while (like it's supposed to, I guess). Bill dies, of course, but you knew that from the start anyway. The manner of his death is likewise predictable, though how 'The Bride' gets there is what holds our attention.
One more movie on my list crossed off. I feel so accomplished.
Dawn of the Dead,
Troy,
Van Helsing,
Spider-man 2,
you're next (though not necessarily in that order).

Looking forward to tonight! Got tix to the Kill Bill double bill at GV Plaza. June & I haven't done a midnight movie marathon for years, so tonight will be quite special. Gotta get some sleep in a while but haveta blog first. Writing this crap's getting unusually addictive!

Day was pretty routine with only the mad running around to fill up financial assistance forms, log PEARLS activity with PE Dept and attempt to arrange AV and logistics for next Wednesday's S-cube Seminar for Millenia Institute to break the monotony. Couldn't find Messrs Lee and Pao so maybe I'll have to do the latter thing tomorrow before Odyssey rehearsal.

With ol' faithful lunch partners Anthony, Vince, Cara and Darrell, we went to Ivin's Thomson branch for Peranakan food (sorry, Ray, for patronizing your mom's rival restaurant). Had satisfyingly lemak nasi lemak that came with chicken curry, fishcake and a generous portion of omelette. We ordered sides of sotong, ladies' fingers, homemede otah, another shrimp-crab omelette, and bakwan kepiting, a tasty pork-crab-shrimp(?) meatball soup. Darrell & I split Cara's chicken because she only eats fish on Friday. Finished up with gula meleka sago for dessert and bandung. Dessert was sweet and thanks to the addition of crushed ice, cold and oddly crunchy. Mildly spicy meal with a number of different flavours pleasantly rioting in your mouth.

Without warning the sky burst open while we were lunching. Torrential rains fell, trapping us in Ivin's row of shophouses far away from our respective transports. Took the opportunity to explore the couple of petshops in the vicinity to look at puppies on sale. The first pet shop we went to suddenly sprung a leak, flooding most of the shop floor in seconds. The shop assistants bravely assaulted the leak with a mop and pail. The effort was valiant but futile. One lucky plumber is going to be real busy tomorrow!
Someone rescued a schnauzer and his chihuahua friend from the cage on the floor before they all got wet. They must have joined the shih tzu on the cash-counter top.
We hastily but without drawing much attention to ourselves departed the rapidly sinking shop before they ordered everyone to wear life-jackets and man the lifeboats.
The other pet shop we visited was much dryer, of course. It sold chinchillas rather than puppies. The little things are so fluffy and would be hard to resist if not for the prohibitive price tag -- $1440+ for one of these fuzzballs. It would be the most expensive meal I could feed Momo with if I was ever to get one.
Ran for the bus stop when the others decided to get a massage while waiting for the rain to stop. No time to waste getting a massage and blowing $40 which I didn't have on me then (great -- I sound like a skinflint now; I'm not, honest). Managed to catch a cab from the bus stop (see, I can spend cash when I need to) and now I should prepare for a very late night tonight.

All along I thought I was a blue! My life must have changed after York U!


you are red....Reds are physical and sexual. They
love expressing themselves through their
sensuality and their physical bodies. They live
their lives in the here-and-now with zest,
strength, courage and self-confidence.

Reds love to live in physical reality, to
manipulate their environment. Reality must be
tangible to them. They must be able to see,
touch, hear, taste and smell it. Reds are not
abstract thinkers. A wall is a wall and there
is no need for further discussion or
speculation. Reality is literal, not ethereal
or complicated.

Reds require proof that something exists. It must
have a concrete and tangible substance. Reds
remind us that we have bodies, that we are
matter flesh and blood. These robust
personalities enjoy the physical aspect of
life. They dont try to see life as an illusion
or try to escape from it into a fantasy world.

please rate my quiz!!!!!


what color is your aura and how does it affect u?(cool pics)
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I'm happy that the kids in 03A2 can play so well together. My concern is whether they can work together. I'm imagining an office scenario with 03A2 as the staff and I wonder how long the company will survive. What seems to be lacking is a central uniting personality, a strong leader who has an eye on what's important and to rally the troops towards a common objective. It sounds so cliched, but I don't know how else to describe the situation. Those from amongst the group I thought could be that leader have given all they could and yet the inertia seems too great to overcome. We're wading in molasses, looking for the 'do' and not so much caring for the 'why' (the 'quid' as above). Apart from our own entertainment, can we find any other reason for getting a project done together? Can we see that something is worth doing and therefore do it?

I can't be that leader, in case you're wondering. As it is, they already think they work for me. It doesn't matter what I do, I'm still an Authority Figure. As the perceived 'employer' they don't trust my leadership. It's the Dilbert vs pointy-haired monster relationship. They have to find a leader that they perceive as their equal to give their trust to. Trust is a hard-earned commodity these days.

Old story but worth repeating:
A skilled craftsman has been in the employ of a building company for many years. His skill is such that the company comes to depend on his expertise in most of its building projects. He is now about to retire and his employer asks him to complete one last job -- a house by the beach. "OMG," he thinks, "they're never gonna let me off the hook. They'll just keep exploiting me until I drop dead! I'm so close to retirement and I still want to have some energy left to enjoy my golden years!" He figures the faster he's done with this last project, the sooner he can quit and run off to enjoy life. So he rushes through the design, he orders materials without thinking through the specs and he isn't so careful with the supervision of the workers. He meets his deadline as usual, but while the house looks fine on the outside, the pipes and roof leak, the tiles could fall off at any moment, and the foundations are unstable. Still, the job is complete and he turns the house over to the company. "I've finished my last job for you," he says, "as of today I'm officially retired." And the manager replies, "Yes, you've been waiting for this day for so long. We thank you for the good work you've done for the company for so many years. Looking back, we feel that we haven't really appreciated you enough. Going by your past record, we know you've done a splendid job on your last project and we know that it will make the perfect retirement gift for you and your family. Here are the keys to the house, you can move in any time you want."
03A2, once you realize that you don't work for the College, the Principal or your tutors, but rather for yourselves; and that the work you do is for your benefit and not anyone else's, I think we've taken our first step together as a CT for the right reasons. We are all responsible for our learning so let's not let each other down.
List of missing things:
Trust, belief, vision, leadership, shared purpose, common direction, work ethic, urgency, courage to speak your mind in public and raison de etre.
We only have 5 months left to find these. Why? Because you need to tap on each other's strengths to be satisfied with yourselves at the 'A's. Because I don't want to see you forget each other once you've taken your 'A's. Because individually you have the talent, verve and passion to thrive in this world, so can you imagine what you could do if you were united? Because your friendship, regardless of all else, is the most precious thing you can take from the College when you leave. For your own sakes, don't settle for anything less.

Today's Casualty list:
'nette : food poisoning
Yan: sprained ankle caused by fire evacuation from the apartment she stays in
Kareen: stomach flu with other complications
Please take care of yourselves, ppl. Your health is important too.
So unnerving when Kareen called in sick today. The pain made her unintelligible over the phone and I decided the best thing to do was to send Lynn, Chun and Ray over to her place to take care of her. Ray's question to me reflects the general dependence on Authority for specific direction, "What can we do?" The answer is a rearrangement of the words in the question, thus, "do what we can." You are heading out into an unknown situation, the urgency of which does not allow you much prep time. On arrival, you observe the situation, identify the specific needs and do your best to meet them. The reason why you did this today is based on the value you place on your friendship; you are after all her closest friends. I suspect she needed to know she wasn't alone in her situation and that all you had to provide at that time was your company and emotional support rather than carry out CPR or open-heart surgery. Interesting this happened during our I&E discussion. You really got a practical lesson in Innovation if not so much Enterprise today.
Hope Kareen, 'nette and Yan get better real soon.

No more excuses. Got papers to grade – backlog and this week’s assignment, not forgetting that there will be another assignment to be given next week too – a mid-year test to put together, and the SYF to think about. No more excuses: the tournament is OVER and maybe now I can get it out of my system.
Bowled a totally crappy first game, a score below 90 using a combination of 11 and 12 pound balls, trying to find one my fingers could get used to. Didn’t help that at the same time there was so much excitement and activity around me from all the beginners looking for bowling tips ‘cos they hadn’t come for training with us over the last few weeks. Expected this to happen, so I’m bouncing from one beginner to another correcting grip, demonstrating swing and encouraging them to ‘just roll it down the middle.’ And there I am rolling wildly left, right and hitting the occasional gutter. Thank goodness the first game was just a warm up and the score, pathetic that it was, was not counted.
Started the tournament stuffed full of Middle Eastern food from Café de Caire (how do you pronounce that?) on Arab Street. I had a Greek salad which was called an ‘Arabian salad’ on the menu. I’m a sucka for feta cheese. Followed that up with ‘foul’ (Arabian bread) with sausage and they were so generous with the foul I couldn’t finish it all. Thinking back, I should have brought the leftovers back for Cara to accompany the vegetarian kebab we ordered to go for her. She might have liked it, I don’t know. Anthony had his apricot flavoured sheesha and I think it was an afternoon well spent, even without the bowling to follow. Mei Lian, Jong Yann and Lawrence were supposed to join us but they decided that parking on Arab Street was impossible at lunchtime, so they went to Bugis Junction instead. Wonder what they had for lunch?
I changed into my Bermudas to be comfortable for the game, but I made the mistake of bringing my short Berms instead of my longer ones. Result: in the first game, given my knee bashing bowling style, I put a hole in my right knee in the first official game of the Tourney. The epidermis on my right knee sort of peeled off on a careless, violent throw. It wasn’t serious enough to sideline me but it was enough to remind me that every throw would cost me some >pain< from then on. Fortunately there was no bleeding else next year the College would classify bowling an extreme sport and we’d all have to pay insurance as well as lane fees.
Our closest competitors, Yee and John had to drop out of the Tourney because of unforeseen circumstances involving work, so erm… it was good news for us, I suppose? Mixed feelings about that. Not having to worry about Yee meant that our next closest competitor was one of the Bowling Club students. I don’t know his name, Tan something, but he was awesome. He clinched the highest individual pinfall and High-Score (201 pinfalls) awards. He and his partner came in third in the Tournament, so hats off to them both.
How did Anthony and I do this year?
Score, just for the record:
(3-game total)
Anthony: 449
Me: 447
Team Total: 896 :)

In the unforgettable lyrics of Queen:

We are the Champions – my friends
And we’ll keep on fighting till the end
We are the Champions
We are the Champions
No time for losers, ‘cos
We are the Champions
Of the World… (Queen. “We are the Champions.” 1977).

Team Pegasus Rules Nanyang bowling!!!

Now, how is this supposed to work? I've been faithfully updating this blog with some dumb diary entries over the last few days, and I'm not sure if this really is the point. The options remain open that I could still write something more meaningful in here, but nothing in my life right now is particularly meaningful -- except maybe bowling. Not that that's exactly earth-shaking either.
How does it work? Aren't blogs public? Aren't they open for anyone to look at them and identify with them and comment on them so you either have people comiserating with you or lending their textual support or something? I haven't got an audience at the moment. Is that why I'm feeling a bit let down? Then again, is my motivation really to write to an audience? If this is the case, then I only included the Shoutbox and Comments only because I was showing off that I could; that html was a code I don't have to fully understand to use. Right, begs the question, who am I showing off to?
This meta-thinking is geared to asking myself one question: how am I going to get myself an audience for this junk? Do I invite people to read it, or do I let them find it on their own? How do I know who's looking for this content and how do I wave a banner in their direction? & most importantly, how narcissistic can I get?
No, wait. it's not about narcissism. It's good to have an audience -- it helps you focus your thoughts and helps you express the one thing that you want your audience to know, and that one thing simultaneously becomes an insight into yourself seen from outside yourself and thus you see yourself a little clearer. That's what I want -- memory and clarity. If I am going to be my own audience, then so be it. I seem to be entertaining myself pretty well at the moment and for now I will be happy.

I'm procrastinating again. Lots of things need to be done that are probably more important than bowling but the handy excuse is that I'll get round to it "after the tournament." After tomorrow, I'll have run out of excuses --but don't count on it.

Can feel my mind losing coherence right now. It's after midnight already, so what can I say but, "goodnight!"

Discovered black-pepper pork chops at 'Gerald's favourite coffee shop.' They were so good, I must have downed the stuff without much chewing. Still feeling indigestion from lunch. It's a worrying trend 'cos I felt the same after breakfast yesterday. It's not indicative of anything unhealthy, I hope.
Forgive the fixation on bowling. That's all I can think about now that the tourney is only 2 days away. It's safe to say I played my usual game today, though scoring below 100 AGAIN in one game is really scary. It cannot happen again. I don't have 5 games to bring my average up to par. Really hope there is a warm up round or Pegasus will be in trouble. Anthony isn't faring much better either. We're both underperforming today. Can't strike as well as usual, can't spare even the easy ones.
SAFRA Yishun has a 'tikam-tikam' night every Mon & Tues. They give out keychains with a tiny flashlight at the end for 140 pinfalls and above in a single game. Beyond 180 you get other nifty prizes right up to a car vacuum cleaner and a made-in-China mini-compo set for a near perfect game. Anthony and I usually get a nice haul of keychains between us but today we only managed one each. Pathetic. (SAFRA owes us our keychains tonight 'cos they're out of stock. Lame-o).
Hope this is just an off day and it's not that we peaked too early. Let's just save it for Wednesday and we'll see how it pans out. Relax. Cool. Chill. >phew!<
On the Phoenix front, with a little more consistency, Cara could almost be Vince's equal. Phoenixes, don't lose your nerve just because it's a competition. Just play your usual game and you'll be fine.
Yee will laugh if he ever finds out our scores tonight. Maybe we should just tell him and get it over with. Hey, it's not Wednesday yet!
Funny how competitive I can sound when I think I have a chance of winning. Does that mean I give up too easily too often? Hmmm....
Trainees have upped and gone to bowl for Griffin, even though Dawn & Lynette had earlier agreed to bowl for Pegasus. Eunice's decision. Since she's running the Tournament, we're not going to argue with her. Not when she has the power to toss us out of the game even before we throw the first ball. Let's not antagonize her unnecessarily. Trainees were supposed to train with us tonight, but decided they'll score with beginner's luck. There's true confidence!
Good fortune, y'all, and may the Force be with you!

Lazy, lazy, lazy. Got zilch accomplished though June was busy. Q-tip got her bath and the floor is clean again. Bought bamboo poles to hang our clothes out to dry on; red, yellow, yellow. Sold off our VCD player (still in good working condition) and our VHS player (confession: I bent a transistor or something trying to remove a stuck tape and now it's screwy). Karang guni man paid us $5 for each appliance, hence we made a killing on our VCD player which we got for free! Not too happy about our VHS, though. June bought a replacement with only 2 heads and the one we got rid of had 4! Heartache.
Thought of having steamed crab for dinner but the crabs available downstairs were small & pathetic looking. So we settled for 1 durian for dessert instead. Very yellow, flesh curiously triple layered. One tougher outer layer, creamy centre layer and another tough layer close to the seed. Taste -- dee...licious, wish we had bought another.
Oh yeah, got a haircut too. Young whippersnapper of a barber asked, "A lot of hair falling out, ah? Why, ah?" I like him, he gives me the best haircuts -- made me look like a Marine just before my Hawaii trip last year -- but please spare me the running commentary on my state of alopecia, thank you.
A most unremarkable day. I am grateful.

What is this? Now I'm starting to correct grammar AND spelling on my previous entries! Get a life, man!!!