It was a strange experience sharing my blog in an impromptu show-and-tell at an IT course I attended today. The course was about how to create a website for our Civics Tutorials and there was some sharing on getting resources to help maintain the site and other materials to help our students with their study and other needs.

My show-and-tell was unplanned and haphazard and I doubt anyone else but the instructor knew what I was talking about. On hindsight, I should have focused on showing them how easy it was to create and maintain a blog page using the WYSIWYG and html interfaces, and how all the other plug-ins fit into the Template editor as simple lines of html coding. But, as usual, my mouth got away from me and I just showed them the various features of my page without telling them how it was done, which was why they were there in the first place. Maybe next time K decides to teach the course again, I'll offer to co-instruct with her and do it right (if she'll have me back again!).

My page is too unfocused to be a proper CT web page, but I don't mind experimenting with it. Hence, I'll try install a calendar in the sidebar next to remind us all of what few important dates there are left in this year. Let's see if I can do that right now...

Edit 01:
There. Calendar up and running. Not quite what I expected, though. Still have to click the button on the sidebar to see it. As best as I can figure, I've uploaded the prelim timetable, though I won't vouch for accuracy. It's an experiment, after all. Feedback to me what you think of this facility. I'll update the calendar with other important dates if you think it's useful.

Dropped in on Pris. She was looking tired and it was sad to see Her Voraciousness on drips for a change. Found out that Yan is in hossie too for asthma. Might drop in on her tomorrow; Yan, be warned!! Must nag y'all again to take good care of yourselves. How worrisome...

That's it! The last day of formal curriculum for our current JC2s. Time is now yours to manage and though there are still some common exercises for you to work on and we're still around to help you out right until the last minute, you really are on your own. Enjoy the September study break next week and 3A2, please look after your health. Too many of you are falling sick at such a crucial time. Work as you must, but it's important to have adequate rest and a proper diet as well. So much to nag, so little time...

Me, I'll be around for personal coaching if you feel you need it. Call me and let me know when you want to drop by so I can schedule my time accordingly. That, and I'll be doing my best to conserve my own energy for the next mad round of marking prelim papers. I've maxed out on invigilation duties so my marking tme is going to suffer badly. This deadline is unalterable, though, so good luck to me.

Started my destress protocol from this afternoon with a long, leisurely lunch with Vince, Cara, Amy and Anthony at the prata place. Coincidentally, we all wanted some kind of byriani today, except for one order of Maggi mee goreng. It rained heavily and we had to run from table to table to find the best seating to avoid getting splashed. The noise on the aluminium awning was loud, though no more so than the noise of hand tools coming from the bike repair shop immediately next door. We were determined to have a nice lunch so we resolutely sat and ate and yakked until our other committments became pressing and unavoidable. Unfortunately for Sarab, I kept him waiting through lunch before I could attend to his administrative detail. Sorry, dude!

Finally caught AVP tonight. As with the first AVP comic book series (and in the Alien movies), the main character is a tough, resourceful woman who survives the ordeal while others around her fall like flies. Feminism isn't an issue one would expect to pop up in a genre like typically male dominated science-fiction but the Alien franchise is full of women's issues.

The movie was exciting though limited by the artificial environment of an isolated island in Antartica thousands of miles away from the next habitable landfall, and buried under 2000 feet of permafrost. So the implications of this earth-shattering secret from ancient history doesn't hit the world with any impact at all. It's like observing a tempest in a test tube, and then going away knowing a little secret that noone else in the world is likely to share, or even believe.

Aliens take the form of their host bodies. This fact was established in Alien 3 and in AVP. I was just thinking, wouldn't it be unfortunate for an alien if it's host was a bunny rabbit or some other fluffy small herbivorous mammal? Oh, the complexes it might have to live with, growing up with it's bretheren who had picked their hosts more sensibly. OK I'm getting silly here.

Quote of the day: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," Alexa Woods in AVP

Had a weird dream. I dreamt I had woken up at 8:10am and I was in a panic 'cos I was missing a class at the U that started at 7:50am. Then I woke up for real and I got into a real panic 'cos it was almost 7am and I was late for real. There was no way I could make it from home to campus in time for 7:25am assembly but I still managed to arrive just as assembly was ending, so I guess I didn't miss much.

Disturbing that 3A2 is so under the weather. Fever and other ailments have ravaged my CT. Pris is in the hossie just after 'nette came home. Various other absences blamed on some bug or other. Time to take precautions like not sharing food and drink, which sounds anti-social but considering that goodwill isn't the only thing that's being passed around right now I think it's good advice. Apart from prepare for the prelims, please take the coming hols to rest and recover.

The year has been that stressful for all of us. The hip-hop crew gave me a souvenir coffee mug bearing the inscription: "I'm not over the hill, I'm still climbing, and that's why I'm tired all the time." Thanks for giving me a reason for my fatigue. Getting tired trying to keep up with you is worth sweating for.

Gave up AVP tonight for Singapore Idol. I will catch that movie someday, I just don't know when. Idol contestants not so outstanding this week. They all look like they have worked hard at their shot tonight, they've all got decent voices, but nothing that I can imagine a true star might have. Tough fight tonight then, though I can't really care who moves on to the next round.

Fragmented entry. Hate when this happens.

Day of rest. A timely one too, physically exhausted as I was. Too many late nights, too many early rises. Sound familiar? I'm glad I could use today just to unwind.

Woke up at a luxurious 7:30 a.m., in time to bundle Q-tip off for her quarterly haircut, then it was just me and the cats. Got bored after a while so I met June for lunch at her workplace. Wanted pasta, but Fiestamama's had a pretty standard and limited pasta selection. Went for the daily set instead.

According to June, the restaurant doesn't get very good business. Can't imagine why, though. Servings are generous and the food is well-presented, looking like it has been prepared with a lot of care. And reasonably priced, too. The set lunch comprised a brothy chicken soup, seafood/fruit salad, beef medallions for the entree, an odd Thai sweetcorn-red ruby dessert, and coffee or tea; and all for $9.90 before tax. Perhaps one thing that might keep customers away, though, is that the hot beverage arrived at the table first instead of last, which could offend purists and etiquette-mongers; or perhaps their choice of rap music to accompany lunch might have had something to do with it. I'm not sure which.

Planned to go watch AVP tonight, but got held up at mom-in-law's where we celebrated my nephew Shaun's 1st birthday. M-i-L went through a lot of trouble cooking up a festive dinner menu and by the time we blew out the candle, it was too late to catch our movie. Nvm. Tml we'll try again.

What a great Teacher's Day! Judging by the publishing time of this entry, you can tell I didn't have the chance to blog yesterday. So many other things keeping me occupied.

The 'workout' crew debuted our hip-hop number -- the one we've been working on since June. People said nice things about the item, and from my own perspective, it felt good, performance-wise, mistakes notwithstanding. Well, cheers to crew members; Staff: Cara, Jong Yann, Lynnette, me; Students: Hasif, Ramzi, Jane, Jasmine; guest breakdancers: Daniel, Leon; Choreographer, Chief make-up, Solo and Boss: Shyadina. Thanks, everyone, for your patience, committment and belief in us, and for imparting just a little bit of your talent to us, keeping us one step further from premature aging.

Photo time!


The crew showin' a little 'tude


Celebrating a great experience

For more pix of our backstage and post performance antics click here. 3A2, hope you don't mind me using our Webshots account to host these pix that aren't exclusively ours. And thanks for the boxers! Could be the start of new wardrobe trend for me. Love the colour too!

Lunched at Country Manna (Gardens) with Thad, Anthony, Cara, Mel, Amy and Shahida. Someone couldn't resist the cheap Tiger. Too bad yesterday was the last day of the promotion period though.

Had to get costumes ready for staff dinner. The theme was "Movie Night" and our table had the idea of going as Hogwarts School. NYeDC, honestly, we both came up with the same idea, though independently of each other. Because of your item in the concert, it took some soul searching before we agreed to proceed with our plan even though it might have been misconstrued that we ripped your idea off for ourselves.

Dinner was standard 8-course Chinese at the Royal Plaza Hotel, same location for the last 3 staff dinners. Same routine of presenting long-service awards to staff of the 3 schools, same compulsory speech by a rep of our SMC. But our table (No.9) rocked! We made off with the prize (memo pad holder) for the movie title identification puzzle with the only perfect score. We won 3rd best dressed table (a handy clothes peg basket), and 3 of our table members; Yee, Cara and me along with Agnes and How Wie won the movie trivia quiz (a cool water bottle). So in terms of dinner games, NYJC, in particular, table No.9, came out tops. We're definitely sitting together again next year!


Making magic at the Teacher's Day staff dinner


The Hogwart's table with 2 guest Olympians

More photos!

Phew! Almost done. Went for after-dinner drinks with Vince, Anne, Cara, Amy, (a very tired) Anthony, and were properly introduced to new PE staff, Victor and Chew Ring. Weng popped by to wish us a happy Teachers' Day too. Long day, but a lot of fun. Thank you, everyone.

Finally, it's showtime! Came home late from the College's Teachers' Day concert rehearsal and am now thoroughly sweaty and exhausted from the experience. Part of the reason why we ended so late was because of the scheduled power outage while the construction workers did something with the circuits in the new building. The outage occurred later than scheduled, and hence, all our other plans got pushed back. Spent a long time hangin' out backstage before it got to our turn. It was great to finally get a chance to chat and gossip with our crew. It's all been work, work, work so far and it's nice for us to interact with each as friends now. We ran our item once and >phew< no need to repeat.

Now I'm home, there's still a few things I need to prepare for tomorrow's programme. I'll just work on that now, and hopefully get to sleep soon. Big day ahead!

June needed help preparing sandwiches this morn. We both woke up late, no surprise there. Bird flu meant no egg mayo from us, and we suspect is also the cause of Tony's absent bee hoon as well. People had to make do without two breakfast favourites, but hey, hope the chickens get well soon.

New guy preaching in today's service. A very energetic American who couldn't stop bouncing around and delivered a schizoid message. I suppose it was innovative having someone on-stage for a brief role-play during the sermon, but keeping him there and talking to him from time to time, referring to him sometimes as himself and sometimes as his role-play character, while at the same time talking to the audience(i.e., us) gives one the idea that, yes, at times there can be too much innovation. His message: hardship is God's way of refining us, and that there is a greater purpose to our lives than is obvious to us right now. Solid message, he just has to work on his delivery, in my humble opinion.

Had dinner at S.T. Restaurant (coffee shop, actually) bro-in-law, Irwin's, treat for the family. Food took a while to arrive, but the rice and dishes we ordered turned out to be pretty good. No, I won't do a coffee shop food review, though. Spelling the names of the dishes is already quite a pain.

On the way home, I received a distressing phone call from a concerned parent. Sad to say there is a confirmed case of dengue fever in 3A2. Around this time last year a number of staff and students went down with dengue too. Hope this isn't the start of a new epidemic. 'nette, please recover quickly.

Finally a weekend to do some fun, crazy stuff! I might have started the day attending a lit course at NIE, but I turned it down thinking I had already signed up for another IT course instead. The course I signed up for is actually going to be next week, so I found myself with a blank on my calendar for a change.

After breakfast I went to chop my hair off then went to see Mr Leow about a new pair of contact lenses. About time for a change as I've been wearing my current pair for well over a year already. Good to know that my eyesight is still stable and I don't need bifocals yet. Yes, Leow tested that too. June got her eyes tested as well, but only out of politeness. I don't think she's in the market for optical prosthetics right now.

It was so crowded at Taka that June's okonomiyaki hopes were dashed when we couldn't find a place to sit and eat. We had to settle for a snack of tako balls and Beard Papa cream puffs instead, which we ate on the hoof.

Met Cara and Jong Yann at Far East Plaza for some coordinated shopping. Anne tagged along for a quick lunch but left immediately after. We needed things to wear for Teachers' Day, especially since our annual dinner with the Chung Chengs and our SMC this year has the theme of "Movie Nite." The girls ran around 77th Street but considering that we were buying stuff that we weren't likely to wear too often again, it was too expensive.

We focused our attention on Lips Enterprise which carries an eclectic range of mix-and-match costumes and accessories. Most patrons, apart from ourselves, sought costumes for some theme party or other and I think a couple of them discovered they would meet each other tonight at the same do. Shock! Horror!

We didn't find exactly what we wanted at Lips, so we moved on to Cheeks Enterprise, Lips' sister store. Here the sales staff were extremely helpful, and quite amused at attending to us, trying to educate us in the 'proper' wearing of the hip hop look. She was very patient as we tried on tops, bottoms, hats, erm... and the girls tried on some assorted bling bling as well. Lynnette couldn't join us today so we bought her her set by proxy. We eventually carted away a bunch of quite reasonably priced stuff, and I hope it'll all pass muster with our boss, a certain Miss S_.

After getting most of our gear, we went to the basement for a quick snack. June and I got a sundae from New Zealand Natural Ice Cream. Double chocolate, Macadamia Supreme and English Toffee topped with whipped cream. Then we left Cara and Jong Yann to continue shopping while I went to check out the Comex at Suntec City Convention Centre. I bought a TDK Internal DVD-RW for $149. Lots of people lined up for this bargain, but I bumbled onto the line just at the right time, when new stocks were just about to be released. It was meant to be :)

Kenny Roger's Roasters for dinner. The chicken is tender, juicy and wood smoky like it's supposed to be, and the chickens are Brazilian so no fear of avian flu, but I think it's the side-dishes that give the outlet its appeal. Love the corn bread and mashed potatoes.

Wandered around Carrefour to round off the evening. Nothing much there except Snapple at $1.35 a bottle reduced from $2.20. Kiwi-strawberry.

Cabbed home. Installed new hardware without a hitch. Now blogging. Zzzz...?

[Is it just me, or is Blogger getting very slow?]

The woes of Watson are never-ending. Against all advice, I downloaded and installed the much hyped Windows Service Pack 2 just to be the first on the bandwagon of the latest Windows update, because MS insists it's the greatest thing since XP came out, and despite the problems other downloaders have been facing, MS invites us to install it first THEN sort out the problems later 'cos apparently it's worth it. As far as I can tell, SP2 offers an improved firewall and an option to automatically download Windows latest updates as and when there arises a new hole discovered and needs a-plugging. Like, I've got Norton Internet Security running already and it does a much better job of keeping intrusions and viruses out than SP2 even pretends it does, so WTH, there is no rush, is there?

MOE, like many other heavily networked corporations, advises employees to adopt a wait-and-see approach to SP2 just to make sure there aren't any compatibility problems that it might bring to their networks. I don't listen too good, do I? SP2 immediately crippled both my browsers (I run both IE and Mozilla. Why? Dunno, maybe just greedy), slowing down surfin' to a snooze. It could only handle text downloads, graphics were too much for it, and soon I'd come to a stage where I would simply get "Server not detected" messages. I was facing offline status again, and contemplating reformat... etc. Boy, was I ever moody today.

Fortunately, SP2 has one saving grace. It is uninstallable. Hence, I'm here blogging away again :P and warning one and all: install SP2 at your own risk.

Topic switch:
Q-tip is on a hunger strike today. For a small dog she has a nerve-wrackingly loud tummy rumble when she's hungry. She's been rumbling all evening, refusing to eat, even when June tried to tempt her with food scraps from our own dinner. Admittedly, the chicken was stringy and dry, but that's never stopped Q-tip from begging before. Tonight she kept her dignity and staunchly continued to fast. Hope she's ok. Wonder if she's sad that Mimi has gone home?

Word got around that I had studied abroad before. Was approached on this basis to respond to a JC1 project survey questionnaire. Spent a bit of time answering the questions so I thought I'd make it my entry for today.

Q: After studying abroad, why did you come back to Singapore?
A: Student visa expired before I could find a job.

Q: After pursuing an education abroad, would you migrate to that country with your family if you could afford it and had the means?
A: Possibly. Depends on which country is more able to support good family life, I suppose. If I had started a family there, I guess I would have stayed there.

Q: If you were on a bond while studying abroad, would you forfeit the bond and work abroad?
A: Probably not. Though it depends on how attractive the counter-offer was.

Q: How does the education system abroad (way of teaching) differ from Singapore?
A: In terms of teaching and learning, it doesn’t, really. Perhaps more emphasis on learning through student discussions and public presentations, though not as often as portrayed in the media.

One thing that is different is that students learn and apply academic research techniques from young so they read and write more maturely than their peers here. Students are assessed by continual assessment, with a strong weightage on classroom participation, much more than the measly 5% max we generally give to our students here.

Q: How different is the school culture in Singapore and abroad?
A: Maybe the students have a greater sense of independence because they are not so closely supervised by the authorities to the minutest detail. The authorities only set broad guidelines. The students make up their own social rules with their own peers and they obey these rules closely, rather than have very specific rules applied to them from top-down. There are pros and cons, of course.

Q: Singapore versus the country you have studied in, which country focuses more on academic achievement?
A: No difference. Education is important everywhere. However, in Singapore, students tend to pursue their studies almost exclusively, as if there aren’t any other aspects of their lives to develop. Singapore students feel guilty doing things other than their studies because of this.

Singapore society tends to belittle other achievements if academic achievement is not commensurate. All other activities that Singapore students participate in are for the purpose of “enriching” their academic achievements through schemes like PEARLS and CIP, rather than enriching themselves by their participation in these activities. As a result, Singapore students lack initiative in doing things for themselves because too many activities have been programmed for them already. After they’ve done their programmed obligations they’re just too tired, or sick, or bored to do anything else on their own.

Too much supervision, too much accountability, too much emphasis on doing things that have a foreseeable profitable outcome, too little independence – it’s not so much which country focuses more on academic achievement, it’s which country focuses too much on it?

Q: Singapore versus the country you have studied in, which is more stressful in terms of work load?
A: As long as we can prioritize our tasks, be realistic with what we can or cannot accomplish, including rest and recreation, in a 24 hour day and be consistent with our readings and assignments, student stress is quite manageable.

Unfortunately, in Singapore, we give priority to EVERYTHING. However, those things that have no obvious academic profit are things we engage in as guilty pleasures. When we rest or do something other than study, our conscience tells us we are doing something wrong even if we need to do it for our personal health and psychological well-being. Hence, we NEVER get any rest. No wonder we are such a stressed-out bunch.

Q: After those who have studied abroad and came [sic] back to Singapore, what impacts do you think [they?] will have on Singapore?
A: They will get sucked back into “the system,” or leave, or try to change things around them however they can. Hopefully, more will do the last.

***** THANK YOU *****

Watched Tina & co performing tonight. Must say that performance discipline, the attention to form and line, and the patience of execution were visually very interesting. On the whole, movement was clean; simple clarity works everytime. However, at times the storytelling did get fuzzy, losing itself in a little too much detail. It's good that the company did focus on detail, but here and there we lost the stylized minimalism when certain movements became fussily realistic. It's a fine line.

Stories ranged from the bizarre supernatural to whimsical portrayals of human relationships and break-ups. The final item, "Re:cycling," is nostalgic for us alumni-types. Most of us have performed in this ensemble piece at some point of our stint with Tina. Competition, compassion, constancy, continuity; these main themes haven't changed from way back when.

There was the usual "audience participation" routine where random members of the audience were shown character portrayals within particular scenarios and then had to reenact them to tell the story, in this instance, "Romeo and Juliet." Nothing "random" about Fran being the choice of male lead -- after all, he's an old friend of the company and this might as well be his swan-song performance before he returns home to Winnipeg (for good) in the next couple of months. The woman selected for the role of Juliet was chosen at random, and as it turned out, she was a performer with another local theatre company though Tina, who did the selecting, didn't know it at the time. So we had fraternity performing as "clueless" audience participants, and they did their best not to look too "professional" as they were performing the antics Tina got them to do as the ill-fated couple.

It was nice to see old friends again too. William on sound, and performing were Caleb, Charlotte, Serena, Keng Shin and surprise, surprise, Flo, whom I haven't seen in years! It's great that continuity flows in the company with founding blood mixing with the new talent (so new to me I don't even know their names). I'd love to play again too, but time-wise and responsibility-wise it's going to take a lot better time management than I can cope with.

Still, in my capacity I am exploring interesting directions for closer ties between MU and NYeDC and, hopefully, the NYeDC programme will become an even more credible training ground for young stage talents to grow and cut their teeth on. Well, perhaps that's a little too early to say, so watch this space for further developments. There, now I've said it, I'd better do something about it.

Hope the four NYeDC members I brought with me enjoyed themselves this evening. If you're reading this, feed back, ok?

Once again, reading segments while in transit, I finished Gaiman's Stardust. A fairy tale for adults and a very easy-going read. 2 worlds, 1 cold, mundane, pragmatic, the other wondrous, full of life and surprises, and hidden dangers. 1 young man standing between both worlds and forced to choose between one or the other. As things go, the choice is not a hard one to make. He goes where he becomes most involved, where he has suffered the most, and where his heart's desire lives (literally speaking).

Tristran is a most peculiar boy who does not pursue his birthright until he is himself good and ready to do so. Most of the time he's ignorant of who he is anyway, but even when he does find out he absolutely refuses to claim what's his until he's settled all his other prior obligations first. 'Prior' here means having nothing to do with what he was born to do. So, a bit of a deviation from the regular fairy-tales that simplify destiny to a simple process of wanting and having.

The invocation of children's nursery rhymes as powerful event controllers is similar to that in Alice: Through the Looking-Glass, and the one rhyme, "The Lion and the Unicorn," is exactly the same rhyme Alice invoked, though the version in Stardust appears to have been re-worded to acknowledge the Lion's victory over the unicorn. But political power is fleeting -- the lion accepts his crown and is never mentioned in the tale again, while the loser, the unicorn, plays a major role in saving the life of Tristran's fallen star. The power of love, apparently, triumphs in the long run.

Complications in the relationship of Tristran and his star arise, but are quickly and cleanly resolved. Misunderstandings and misreading of messages occur but there is no time wasted in hand-wringing long-drawn out melodrama as these plot devices might be overplayed in Hong Kong TV serials. I guess people who love this sort of maudlin are going to feel cheated emotionally, but I think it just gets in the way of a good story.

Didn't get to watch AVP again today. Came back too late, but June prepared a nice seafood soup using fresh fish and frozen oysters (mmm...). Considering the small plate of mee rebus this afternoon was all I had to eat all day, a hot home cooked meal was most welcome.

Oh, the mee rebus came from the reception for Mr Niam, Number One guy from HDB who came to visit us and talk with the JC1s about "Principles of Governance." We shouldn't have worried that the Q&A session would be totally silent. The JC1s asked some politically touchy questions which our guest had to respond to very carefully. For example, the succession of LSL as PM, the casino conundrum, and the lowering of CSL standards as a qualifying criterion for uni admission. While the questions were thought-provoking, the questioners appeared a little belligerent (despite the reminder this morning), like they actually cared about getting a satisfactory answer to their query. Their words were polite enough, but their tone suggested otherwise. Interesting bunch, our JC1s.

Gave blood today. My prevous appointment was in 2002 so I skipped out of this blood-letting ritual the last two years. Blood Bank just chose the wrong days to show up, and I have been too lazy to go look for a blood donation centre if it didn't come to me first. Bad boy.

Today I remembered what's so scary about donating blood on campus. It takes 2 hours between the time you acquire the health questionnaire and declaration form to the time they let you have your milo and cookies. Next time, I'll bring a book to read while I wait.

At my last appointment, the nurse could not find the vein in my left arm. She poked and prodded with the needle, making 4 or 5 attempts before she hit the motherlode. I was a bit apprehensive that this would happen again and I said so to the nurse today. She made me feel really stupid when she just switched me over to a right-arm donating station. The vein was perfectly visible on my right arm.

The initial pinprick only stings a little and that's all the pain there is. 10 minutes of gentle forearm clenches to aid the flow and I was done. 1 more bag of B Rhesus Positive to add to the Bank's collection. Gratefully accepted a pack of Ca fortified Jacob's cream crackers (a bit too healthy for my taste. Last time they gave chocolate biccies), a packet of Milo, a week's supply of Fe tablets and an appointment card asking me to come back soon. Well, only if it's convenient I guess.

Intended to go watch AVP after dinner. 9pm show at Sun Plaza. Thought I'd watch a little TV before setting off. Fell asleep, woke up at 10:30. So much for tonight's popcorn-and-coke movie treat. Must be more tired than I thought.

It's easy to be discouraged when our last medal hopes vanish into the elusive vapour that has always dogged us whenever we attempt to reach for athletic glory. To come so close, and then lose it all when at the last stretch it gets snatched away again. It's natural to wonder what went wrong, and to ask if we have actually set our sights too high, or if our hope is nothing more than a fool's cause.

The answer will be affirmative, if we let this setback prevent us from stretching out and attempting another grab at the next opportunity. If we no longer make another attempt, if we no longer do something to improve our reach next time around, then we are truly defeated. Then we can sit in the ashes and wait to die, and no one will care.

As far as Olympic table-tennis goes, considering the number of paddlers in the running (172 if you're counting, and roughly half that if you want to get picky) finishing 4th in the Olympics is already jaw-droppingly amazing. Celebrate the achievement and get over the disappointment, then let's take another swipe at it come 2008 -- and this time, the Sports School might be ready to field some new talent as well. 4 more years in personal time is an eternity, but to the national, collective will it's just barely breathing space to take stock and train harder and smarter before the next sally.

Also today, the new PM made his first NDay Rally Speech, and boy, did he have a lot to say.

1. Old people worry that he will be a young people's PM, so we've got to take care of the old people too.
2. The young people must be geared up and ready to take on the challenges that they will face when they go out to make a living and a life for themselves, so they must be educated to be intellectually sophisticated, physically resilient and psychologically flexible, to appreciate and participate in the cultures of others but in so doing keep their identity rooted at home here in S'pore, and to discover and pursue their individual niches because then they will carve out for themselves markets to exploit according to their own interests and abilities.
3. That puts a lot of responsibility on their teachers because teaching kids to pass exams is the easy part of our profession. It's much harder to teach and be accepted if we have higher objectives for them. (Also, something I think PM missed: young people have to start believing that their work and what they achieve is for themselves, not for their parents, and certainly not for the 'government,' although how we're going to convince them of this is beyond me for now).
4. Then if the new generation is for the young, then where are the young coming from if we don't have more kids today? Erm... 'nuff said about that for now.

A number of sacred cows killed tonight too, PM holding the sacrificial dagger himself. I'm most interested in the policy of the 5-day work week for the civil service. That's going to change a lot of our programmes and just the way we do things in the college, for sure. Will we really be able to let the students off from Saturday remedials, make-up lessons and CCA?

PM said we need to reduce our curriculum and homework quotas and give more time for the students to explore life outside their academic ivory towers, but that seems in direct conflict with what their parents and our paymasters want for them. Some students themselves are going to be upset about this too.

This one could potentially raise a stink and I hope it's handled properly. Worst case scenario is to give us all (staff and students) Saturday off and then require us to account for what we did to justify the off day. Messages from a well-meaning top get messed up in the middle and become nonsense when they implement their derivative policies with us bottom-dwellers. Let's see, shall we?

Today's when all the willpower and focus comes in to play for me. Today I can say that I have put a very serious dent in my marking deficit. I just need to put up the same performance tomorrow and I will be done! Past the deadline, but done nonetheless.

It's so hard to concentrate during the weekdays. So many distractions, so many duties and obligations to fulfill, so this one significant weekend is 'burned' just clearing my in-tray. I guess when I do find the time, and the imperative, I can be a machine, getting what I need to do done; but please, (mental note) not too often, ok?

Sadly, I had to sacrifice the NYeDC's seniors farewell party tonight. I would have loved to go and show my gratitude to 'sif and company for their time and effort in The Odyssey, and have another opportunity to see the 04-05 batch in action and show my support for them as well. Apologies all round for my tardiness.

Meantime, I hope Watson's completely virus-free now. Over the last couple of days I went through a routine of virus scan, delete infected files, edit Windows registry of virus program initiators, only to have to repeat the process again and again when Norton rediscovered the same virus I had just deleted resurrect and infect Watson again. WTH was happening?

Eventually I traced the problem to an innocuous-looking .cab file sitting in the root directory of my c: drive. Scanning it, I discovered it was a compressed file containing all the files the virus needed to activate again. Gotcha! I gleefully deleted it off my c: drive and... minutes later, the virus activated again!!!

Fighting to stay calm, I did a search for all references to the miraculously reappearing .cab file in my c: drive, and there was the culprit: a file in my Windows/Prefetch folder with the same name as the .cab file. This file explained why the virus kept reappearing after I had deleted it. The files in the Prefetch folder automatically download themselves whenever we go online. It's a convenient service MS provides, but it is also exploited by clever virus designers who ensure that their virus continues to be downloaded into the victim's PC after the virus has been dealt with already. Not taking any chances, I also scanned my Registry for any mention of the Prefetch file and deleted them all when they showed up.

Hopefully, I've done all I need to do to kill that damned virus (BTW, it was an IRC Trojan with an accompanying Hacktool, so it could have been quite nasty). I hope Watson's really ok now! Else I'm out of ideas.

Ooh... look at the date. It should mean something I guess, but nothing feels different.

I am still behind on certain obligations, but am accepting a few more regardless. Cara invited me to be one of the staff speakers at the Farewell Assembly to represent the Arts fac and I will most likely accept. For me it's an opportunity to remember and state for the record my memories of this year and have others share in them at the same time. Cara thinks I will be an entertaining presenter, but I have my doubts about that. It's hard to be cheery and light-hearted when the occasion is to say good-bye. I know my heart will be heavy even though I will probably be sporting a mad grin throughout the ceremony. Letting go of the familiar and facing the unknown -- next year's batch -- is a difficult thing. I will be a year older and they will be a year younger, and the gap widens. How will I relate then?

What's left as of today's date in terms of formal curriculum time numbers as four tutorial and two lecture slots. It's all countable on the fingers of one hand now (unless you count them all at the same time, duh. Well, I once had a classmate who had six fingers on his right hand...).

After the prelims, the next step for them is the free-for-all last few weeks where they work at their studies according to their own time-table as they negotiate for personal time with their respective tutors. This is where the true learning begins. These mad few weeks, students are really left to their own devices, to involve themselves in independent learning; not as an "educational initiative" but rather as a practical necessity because there really will be NO MORE LESSONS! The quantum leap in their learning at this time will be tremendous, as long as they fully engage in and take responsibility for their own success. Free from the formal curriculum, students will actually find time to study. Or slack-off. I hope for all their sakes that they choose wisely, and take the option that's right for themselves.

The Earth swings once more around the sun, and time marches relentlessly onward...

It's so irritating! Must be my week to pick up viruses. Norton just discovered I downloaded a 'hacktool' from who knows where. Going offline again to kill the bloody thing! Damn it!

Past few entries have been rather inward looking. My computer, my room, my (lack of) health. So many other things happening around me that are historic, spectacular and amazing, like LSL becoming PM, the nation turning 39 last week and the debut of Singapore Idol, but all I can think about is me, me, me. I must be losing my perspective.

Today, the countdown banner reads 79 days to 'A' levels. To the students it means 79 days left to work towards making their year-and-a-half in college as profitable as possible. Sometimes, the countdown can be a major discourager rather than a motivator. 79 days left, not enough time to study, might as well just give up and enjoy life before the end (now THAT's 'eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die'). I hope they don't adopt this view, though. That's the pessimist's half-empty glass. Of course, there will be the incorrigible optimist who sees 79 dys as 'plenty of time left to study,' which obviously isn't true either.Yup, let's all have a perspective check and make the best use of the time we have left together.

To me, 79 days left means just a few days left before my nest is empty again. I'll miss this brood a lot. I've probably learned more from them than they have from me, but then it's because I've discovered long ago that every encounter, on condition that there is full engagement, is a learning experience, and a fulfilling one at that. Anyone who learns this idea and appreciates it can claim to be properly educated. Anyone with academic achievement without learning this has learned nothing at all.

79 days to the parting of our ways. These last few days, let us walk together. Let's not let this happen, eh...?

This picture made me really upset. I hope it's a fake.

As I look around my room, it occurs to me that I have way too much stuff. Most of it is probably junk and needs to be thrown away, but it's all still here, hanging around me, not allowing me to move on with my life. I'd take a picture of my desk, but I'm too ashamed of the way it looks right now to let anyone see it. Take my word for it: I've got an accumulation of letters and old bills, flyers, brochures, tatty magazines, media disks, assorted packaging that used to contain PC peripherals or software, a nightmarish tangle of cables connecting Watson to everything he's supposed to be attached to, an empty snack container, scattered stationery and mainly, no place for me to do any actual work on. My little bookshelf is crammed with books, as it should be, but other er... things squat there as well, and the shelves are sagging under the weight.

I like a mess -- it has a 'lived-in' look but when I can't find a comfortable space to do what I need to do, I get the feeling enough is enough. Some drastic junking is going to have to take place soon. There is so much unnecessary blockage that must be cleared or all that inertia is just going to pull me down.

Jen commented last week that when she visited us when we had just moved in she was amazed at how neat and sparse our house was. At how little we had. It's not like we went on a campaign to acquire things, it's more like we got the things necessary for our daily needs but just couldn't be bothered enough to discard the packaging that came with them. What Jen said sparked a memory of our place back then. I liked it that way too. Can I now go back and embrace the freedom of having nothing again? Well, a large garbage bag or two would be a start, oh, and if I could find a way to get all this stuff recycled responsibly that would be nice too.

June, this is my war. I know you'd love to help, but the mess is my mess, the desk is my desk, and so the responsibility to dump the junk is mine too. Let's see... when would be a good time?

Ahh... it's great to be back online again. Back last week when everything seemed ok with Watson, little problems started cropping up over and over again eventually leading to a totally unstable OS, shutting down and restarting endlessly as soon as XP booted up.

In desperation, I reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled XP from scratch and *fingers crossed* things seem to have regained some normality again. Lost a lot of files in the process, but they were mostly junk files that I can live without. All my important files are in a separate disk altogether, though that disk needs some tidying up now.

Short entries this week. Marking deadline too close to play the fool now. Focus...

Temporarily going offline. ADSL modem driver becoming unstable. Need fix...

Having an extremely boring weekend, which is good because I haven't had one in a while. Swamped with the marking of Term 3's common test and while we've got our deadline extended to Thursday, I'm stll hard pressed to make it. It'll take every ounce of discipline and determination to get it done, so wish me luck folks.

The one healthy thing I did today was to take a short walk around Yishun Park with the dogs. I'll take whatever exercise I can because my recent weight gain is quite worrying. Last night my weighing scale read 80kg, way over the limit for my height. I suspect I started gaining weight since I began having a regular 3 meals a day, and what I usually have for lunch now is almost, if not more substantial than dinner. It's weekday lunches at our unofficial canteen that's to blame for this. I've not eaten so well before we discovered GFC (a.k.a. Gerald's Favourite Coffee-shop, no, I don't know how that name came about). Must restrain myself from now: regardless of what the others order, I have to order much less for myself. Noodles then while they have rice. Still have to decide what I can do to exercise more. Hmm...

Anyway, while I'm geting these petty details sorted out in my life, here's a link to someone who is observing Hurricane Charley over in Florida. Hope she and her family will be ok.

Joined Mary, Jen, Adrian and June for dinner at Thai 1827, the Thai-fusion restaurant of the Art House (or what used to be the old Parliament House). Mary's a regular figure there as she works in the building so she arranged dinner for us. It's nice for us to be able to meet up again over a meal; our schedules are so unpredictable it's a rare occasion when we have a free evening together.

June and I were first to arrive, on time as usual, Adrian joined us 15 minutes later, and we waited for at least half an hour before the three of us simply had to order first or starve to death waiting. Told you everyone was busy. Ordering a la carte would have been an expensive proposition, but the restaurant offers a 3 or 4 course set for $30 and $38 respectively. The set comprises any combination of starter, soup, main course and dessert followed by a coffee or tea.

My starter was a Vietnamese-style maguro maki using Viet spring-roll skin to hold the maguro slice and vegetables together. My spicy beef soup wasn't all that spicy, but the beef chunks were tender and went well with the mystery dip provided. I ordered the rack of lamb (this is Thai?) which was light and delicately flavoured, with a fine layer of fat for the added yummy factor at the cost of mounting calories. Dessert was a goreng pisang a la mode: deep fried banana fritter coated in cinnamon powder and served with a scoop of coconut ice cream. It was a little too sweet for June's taste, but I enjoyed it. *burps satisfyingly

We discovered at the end of our dinner that Thai 1827 throws in a birthday cake with the wait staff singing the birthday song with any table reservation on the occasion of a birthday celebration. The cake came from the restaurant's sister operation, The Stage Door, and it seemed to me to be a mango sherbert cake, though I'm pretty sure there's no such recipe. It was very cold, like an ice-cream cake, only more ice less cream. The first mouthful was a refreshing, sour surprise that quickly resolved into a pleasant mango flavour on the aftertaste. Nice cake. Wonder what they did with the half we couldn't finish? We were so full by then.

Jen was nice and drove us home from downtown. Adrian's given up his idea of buying a car. Now he just wants to save up and retire as soon as possible. He must have been talking to his Mom. Hee hee.

A couple of pix:

Our nicely set up table, too bad it's missing FOOD!


The 'after' picture. We waddle home. 

There. Finally deleted a .exe file infected with the spybot.worm. Persistent little irritant just would not leave and always popped up again after I thought I had got rid of it. This time I edited my Windows registry manually, then started Windows in "safe" mode so the .exe file would not be loaded into Watson's memory thus eradicating the "no-write" access it usually has. I hope I'm completely virus-free now, but let's see, shall we?

Totally physically worn out, having had a male bonding session with the guys in a kickabout in the basketball court during CT period. Gals were off learning to groom themselves properly (ha ha). It'll be the guys' turn next week, so I wonder what I'm going to do with a bunch of gals during CT next? Suggestions?

Discovered that I am really getting old. Can't run for long, wheezing and panting away, quite unable to turn with the ball and beat opponents like I used to do oh, 15 years ago? Weak joints don't support this kind of body weight and I ended up on the floor a couple of times too. Still, we played in the midday sun, under which only "mad dogs and Englishmen" would dare venture outdoors. *consoles self

Rehearsal went quite well today, I thought. We seem to be getting the steps sequenced together and the routine doesn't look like so horrifyingly difficult any longer. Now, if we could just get a bit more confidence, sharpness and slickness, and a whole lot more 'tude, I think we got a show. Couple of rehearsals more should do it!

Here's the text of the article I wrote for Contact, the Ministry's newsletter about happenings in schools. I wasn't inspired this afternoon, so this was a laboured piece of writing. It's quite long, so please bear with it. I tried to be factual but the journalistic lingo, I feel, is lacking. It's about our Cultural Adventure:

Most people take their immediate neighbourhoods for granted. They commute between their workplaces and their homes and spend so much time in either location that they seldom notice the neighbours they live with, and the community around them is usually ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ For Nanyang Junior College, this National Day commemoration event, held on 6 August 2004, aimed to open up Nanyang students’ minds to their own ‘backyard’ by organizing a walking tour around the community surrounding the campus.

Decked out in eye-catching red and white, NYJC students and staff began the celebration in the newly constructed gallery facing the college track. The ceremonyof the flag-raising accompanied by the Concert Band, the solemnity of pledge taking, and the Principal’s reading of the Minister of Education’s National Day Message to Schools grounded the festivities in the serious matters that are the nation’s independence and social cohesiveness.

The college’s Dance Society followed up with a celebratory dance number incorporating different dance styles, and the Drama Club presented a light-hearted reenactment of the Japanese Occupation and the racial riots of the past and postulated what would happen to Singapore in the future if we forget our history.

After a rousing round of community singing, the NYJC Community Adventure got underway. Civics Tutorial Groups from JC1 and JC2 competed against each other to reach their checkpoints and, once there, complete the tasks allocated to them. Accompanied by their Civics Tutors (one CT by the Principal, Mrs Ho Woon Ho, as well), each group walked routes that took them past the various community features such as Neighbourhood Police Posts, Community Clubs, sundry shops and marketplaces where the students could observe for themselves people’s lives beyond the college fences.

Each checkpoint, housed within common areas and void decks, posed activities that were both fun and challenging, but they all emphasized group participation, cooperation and communication in order to succeed. Groups performing the tasks were also competing against each other and received points according to how successfully they met their challenges. The points accumulated towards some attractive hamper prizes at the end of their Adventure.

All groups gathered in the college hall for a final round of community singing before the prize giving. There was much spontaneity as students sang, clapped and jumped along with the music, formed conga lines that snaked through the hall, and the occasional, if brief attempt at “body surfing” by some members of the crowd.

In college there are few occasions for staff and students to let their hair down. NYJC fully took this opportunity to do so, and learned to appreciate each other beyond the usual classroom context. Nation-building begins in the hearts of all citizens. These occasions make for lasting bonds, and are hard to forget.

Well, an echo anyway of what went on from a PR point-of-view. Wish I had read the Cikgu's email properly, though. Contact only wanted a 150-200 word write-up. Sigh. Time to exercise those old summary skills...

Haven't done one of these in a while!


You are Tifa.

What Final Fantasy VII Character are you?
brought to you by

Wandered a little further in the dark, hunting monsters, trying to stay alive, ammo constantly running worryingly low. Monsters teleport in, sometimes from behind, and sometimes they swarm. Hmmm... whatever happened to the rule that different monsters will fight each other first? They must all have had a change of attitude after Racial Harmony Day. Now they all just want to beat the snot out of me, and they seem to be cooperating too.

Lots of wild waving of the ol' weapon around, keeping track of multiple hostiles, trying to prioritize each one before they get too close and getting frustrated during reloading sequences, being ass-kicked while getting the next clip in and ready to fire.

Don't know which I like better, the chaingun or the plasma gun. If I was the aesthetic type, I'd go with the latter 'cos the plasma discharge is pretty, and also hard to miss. I think somewhere along the way, I missed out on getting the BFG. Must have left it in an area I forgot to explore. Hope I can pick up another one soon, or else I'm really going to regret it. Oh, I do like those little sentry bots, walking machine-gun turrets that shoot monsters while I hang back and bring up the rear. Not too many of them around, though.

Yes, my social life has taken a turn for the worse again...

I looked at last night's pix and decided that they're terrible. My cam's crap when taking night shots. Still, y'all gets a coupla' samples:


Aloha! To my cousin and his blushin' bride.


Just a section of the feast. Not a traditional luau menu, but still a great feed!

The nightmare that is Doom 3 is finally over! With me desperately trying different combinations of install configurations, I accidentally discovered that it wasn't the install disks that were the problem. It was my DVD-ROM drive that was being finicky. Doom 3 installed without a hitch on my secondary CD-RW drive. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Now installed, I've been through the first couple of missions and one thing I can say about it is that the environment's dark. Not gothic dark, just absence of light dark. Things jump out at you or fall on your head while you're frantically pointing your piddling little weapon all over trying to locate the thing that's screaming and causing your screen to flash red at the same time. It's scary to hide things in the dark, of course, but it's also plain annoying because id's put so much work into creating the environments and the monsters, but you just can't see them so well 'cause it's dark. Some balance would be nice.

Haven't been able to do much Dooming, though. When I went online last night, and again this morning, I went surfin' naked. Don't get excited and drool all over your keyboard. I mean I went in without my trusty Norton Internet Security (NIS) and Anti-virus 'cos I had uninstalled them the night before in hope that by doing so I could load up you-know-what. Apparently, uninstalling Norton is easier than reinstalling it. The one time I go surfin' without Norton, I download a bunch of viruses that are still persistently hanging to shreds of their miserable existence in my hard drive. If they have spread to other people's PCs I am sincerely sorry.

I called Symantec technical assistance and I actually got to talk to someone who really did help me with my situation. Whoever you are, many thanks for working through National Day and solving my problem for me. I finally got my NIS installed and the viruses are now more or less rendered harmless, and I should be protected from any further attacks. *crosses fingers

My system is up and running again after three days of teeth gnashing anxiety. There are still some niggling little problems left in Watson to solve, but after all I've been through, I'm just grateful for small mercies (oh, did I mention that before?).

OMG! I'm back on-line at last! Where have I been for the past day? Lots of fear and trembling, lots of cussing and swearing, lots of mental anguish and several attempts at violent acts beyond all reasoning. If you think all this has something to do with Doom 3, you are mostly right. Trouble is, I haven't got past the Doom 3 installation screen yet!

I want to scream and cry and string the longest chain of multi-lingual swear words together for the uncensored Guiness Book of World Records, but I still haven't got the bloody game running. In the process, I did some desperate things like uninstall my Norton Virus-scan, Norton Internet Security, and did a reinstall of my Win XP, thus effectively wiping out my ADSL connection to the 'net and I've only just managed to regain my connection again after lots of trial and error. My document and picture files remain undamaged, as far as I know, and now that I can surf again I am just relieved of this small mercy. I have a bone to pick with the dealer of my wayward PC game, but let me just install all the other programs that I know are still working first.

Odd thing is, the installation disks worked perfectly on the dealer's PC when I brought it in to exchange yesterday. His PC is in worse shape than mine, but no problems with installation. They just refuse to work on my PC. Pah! Why should I be so special?

Alternated today between taking the dogs out, to inducing hypertension trying to get Watson running again, to attending my cousin's wedding lunch and dinner which happened to be quite fun and helped take my mind off Watson for a bit. Maybe I'll u/l some photos later, when I'm not so tired. Perhaps more tomorrow, and BTW, Happy National Day!

Boo hoo hoo! It's not installing properly. Looks like a faulty installation disk. Back to the dealer I go tomorrow. Aaaarrrrggggghhhh!!!

I must say it's great to be proven wrong about our teens. Today's festivities were such fun because everyone got themselves involved with the activities that went on today. My earlier observations were inaccurate because the context of the involvement was totally inappropriate then as opposed to today's. It's hard to be festive on demand, as was the case on Tuesday (just scroll down). The social setting -- neat, sequentially arranged rows; uniform attire; ritual responses by command; mundane announcements and pronouncements -- everything set up to exclude 'fun' from the proceedings. Sing-alongs just can't be conducted in this environment.

Today was a whole different thing altogether. People wore what they wanted (within guidelines of course), moved as they pleased, arranged themselves by social groups rather than by subject groups. They spontaneously jigged, jumped, waved, ran conga lines in the hall, and chorused out of turn, and everyone was really having a good time. Wonder what school would be like if every day was like this?

For a peek into our National Day '04 event just click here. This would be from 03A2's POV, naturally!

Here's a couple of samples:


Can't resist. We look so 'patriotic,' all in red and white.


Community Adventuring. Dunno what 'nette has swallowed.

Must commend NYeDC 04-05 on your first public performance. You've shown guts to perform on such an unusual space, worked well together within your tight schedule, and with minimal 'teacher' input. Crowd response was generous from where I was sitting (inadvertently sandwiched between VP1 and Cikgu Ibrahim). Most importantly, you've shown the hunger to perform and this kind of spirit is going to be the driving force behind our quest for eliteness. Oh, I have some pix of the performance, so up on the NYeDC board they go!

Here's another sample:


NYeDC's renditon of "Home"

Had another 'workout' after everything was over. (I started way late because of an unexpected screw-up with a CIP I was helping to arrange. The email I received contained the line, "To add value... your students are invited to..." which suggests to me that attendance was optional and refusable. Duh. "Invited" in civil servant speak means "go or die." So I suddenly had to arrange transport for 20 students who will be serving their CIP in a more important capacity than they had been briefed). Anyway, the routine is coming together and it's no longer the monster it was when we first encountered it. I am still in need of polishing and constant revision, but at least confidence levels are higher now.

Thanks to June for doing my shopping for me and getting me that most desired piece of software >bwa ha ha!< that I have had no time to go get for myself. And now for more sleepless nights...!

And then there are days when we feel snappy, impatient and when stress lowers the boiling point of blood until minor irritations make us want to bark at people who are slow or forgetful or just unaware. On these days, the less said, the better.

Show a couple of stray cat photos instead, taken fresh today.


This is Girlfriend, Bubbles' first girlfriend


Nabiki is from Girlfriend's first litter. We don't think Bubbles was the father, though.


Funny Eyes and her family living up on the coffee-shop rooftop.

I guess we can call this period the mid-term break. With classes to run, National Day to gear up for, various admin ranging from examinations to fund raising to External Validation, new CCA leaders to break in, Racial Harmony Day (thankfully over, along with the embarrassment of giving away moldy prizes), holding consultations with students outside curriculum time, learning steps for our 'workout' routine, and tons of new marking to muddle through, the long weekend is certainly going to be welcome.

Before this job, my life has never been this active (I like to think this is being 'active') and in many ways, I think that this kind of activity is likely to keep me positive for a long time to come. Some stuff I could do without, of course, but most of it is, well, quite fulfilling.

Don't know why I feel embarrassed about saying that, but perhaps I feel that I've got more than my fair share of fulfillment right now while many people are still struggling with their daily lives. I am thankful, but it still is tiring, and right now, I need the break. So this long weekend has been long awaited and longed for. So rest, mark common tests scripts, and Doom 3, although I have yet to go buy it. It's supposed to be in the stores today but I just haven't had the time to go see it for myself. Obsessed gamer, what can I say?

With all this in mind, I refer to the conversation I had with Vince during lunch about promotions. Knowing myself, if there was an opportunity to be promoted but lose all this chaos as a result, I would seriously think twice about movin' on up. Being on the frontlines dodging bullets is still a lot easier than moving to HQ and having to decide what orders to give next. Told Connie managing naughty children is way better than managing naughty adults. Takes one to know one, eh?

Better go mark stuff now, or lose gaming time over the weekend... buh bye!

Council has the unenviable job of motivating the unmotivatable. Inexperienced, the Councillors use every trick they know or can improvise in order to elicit some cooperation from a tough crowd too full of teenager 'cool' to join in as a member of the community in community events.

Yes, teens don't want to be seen as 'conformists' doing the will of the authorities. That would be so uncool. Teens are individuals -- 'no one can tell us what to do.' So they conform to their own brand of uncooperativeness. Thus united, no one can tell one teen apart from another. The only ones who do stand out are the Councillors who boldly, some say stupidly, stand in front of a hostile audience and hope to get some kind of positive reaction, but usually, expectedly, in vain.

Councillors try every trick in the book to help them get their jobs done. They cannot command, no one respects them that much. They try cajoling, but no one takes them seriously. They know that the student body holds them up as objects of ridicule, so they can only entertain as clowns can. And when they make mistakes, as they did today, everyone reviles them for being insensitive, or not being serious, when really they are at their wits' end.

Teens will not even follow their own student leaders. Teens choose rather to follow their own inertia, their own self-imposed ennui. They are a depressed, repressed bunch we are supposed to feel sorry for, or we don't care very much for (insert your own favourite catch-phrase here). They are unwashed as they are unloved. No matter. Teens are like that everywhere in the (developed) world. And when they grow up, they become accountants.

The failure at this morning's assembly was not the sole fault of the Councillors. But they are the scapegoats, as they are everytime they try to do their jobs. Councillors, you are brave and foolish. Can we add resilient to your list of qualities too?

An afternoon conversation got me thinking about the nature of love and why it seems so elusive to some people. Do we try too hard to find love, do we overanalyze situations, do we lack a sense of commitment, are we constantly plagued by uncertainty so we never recognize it even when it hits us in the face? Or are we just looking for love in the wrong place? Perhaps it's all of the above.

Or perhaps there is no love to be found in the first place?

Before you get up in arms and accuse me of pessimism, nihilism or worse, let me explain. After today's conversation it occurred to me that love and life might not exist on the exact same timeline but that love is always one step or more slower than life. The reason why people can't find love is because they are looking for it in the present when love can only be found when we look backwards into the past. It is in our memory that we recognize if the things done for us, words said to us, gifts given to us were done, said or given in love or for some other reason. Time would have proven the worth of the gesture.

What other reasons could there have been? At the time of doing, saying or giving, there is always a nagging suspicion (that varies in intensity) that there could be ulterior motives or misunderstanding behind the gesture. We worry that when we receive a token of affection, the giver could have just meant to be polite, or was confused, or under some kind of pressure, or they could be really out to take advantage of us. So within the moment there are too many suspicions, too many doubts to be able to see love for what it is.

As a relationship sustains itself and as it matures, we can look back and over time realize that, as we grow old together, the love we sought has been there all along. Love is clear in hindsight; love follows us through our lives, and it is pointless to pursue because it never exists in our future (or even in our present) but rather in our past.

So, the harder we chase after love, the more frustrated we get. Love isn't for the impetuous, the impatient or the ungrateful. It is the privilege of those who have maintained strong relationships over the long-term. So appreciate those who are close to you today, and know that love is there even if you can't see it.

So ends the sermon of the day.

Looks like Singapore isn't the only place in the world with a stray cat problem. Check out what's going on in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Look up http://www.saveagato.com for more details!

In MSN today:

From More Things You Need to Be Told by the Etiquette Grrls (EGs), Lesley Carlin and Honore McDonough Ervin

• Polite boys stand when a girl enters the room, and when she departs. Actually, everyone, regardless of gender, should stand when an elder, or a very important person, enters or leaves. Boys should open doors for girls. Please actually hold the door for the girl, instead of merely flinging it open and running through, leaving her to sprint through before it slams. Open the door and step to the side while the girl passes through (perhaps saying, "After you," if she hesitates). At this point, the girl should politely thank the boy. He then says, "You're welcome," and, when she is through the door, goes through it himself. See, dear reader, this is really quite simple!
• Girls precede boys through every door except revolving doors. Boys, if you encounter a revolving door [like at the Fullerton] when you are walking with a girl, you should enter it first so that you may push the door. (Of course, you should not push it too fast, so that the girl has to leap like a gazelle to enter the revolving door you've set spinning out of control.)
• Boys graciously give up their seats on buses, trains, etc., when all the seats are taken and a girl is forced to stand. Simply say, "Excuse me, please take my seat." He should also offer to assist her with her luggage, especially if she is obviously attempting to heave her heavy Pullman suitcase onto the awkwardly placed luggage rack. (Girls, of course, should immediately thank the boy for his kindness.) Again, the same principle applies to when the elderly, the infirm, the obviously frail, or the pregnant are standing, no matter your, or their, gender.
• It is very nice for a boy to help a girl into her coat. Just stand behind her and hold the coat by the shoulders while she puts her arms into it. There is no need, however, for you to button it up for her [darn!], or help her on with her mittens.
• In a bar, if there is no table service, it's nice for the boy to fetch the drinks.
• Very old-fashioned, polite boys sometimes order for a girl in a restaurant. Now, if you're going to do this, you should inquire what the girl would like to eat before placing the order with the waitress. It would be very bad for her to have to correct you because she breaks out in terrible hives when she eats shrimp, for example. Also, you really have to be a traditional, perfectly chivalric boy to pull this off with grace, since your waiter at, say, Bennigan's probably isn't going to expect it.
• If a boy has asked a girl out on a date, he should pay. This is just the polite thing to do. If for some reason the girl has done the asking, then the responsibility of paying is hers. Under no circumstances should anyone on a first date reach for the check and demand the other party pay up! In longer-term relationships, you may find yourselves switching off occasionally, as both parties will be making plans, and this is fine. The EGs just think it's nicer to alternate than to have both of you reaching for your wallets every single time you go out.
• When you are taking seats at a theater, concert hall, movie theater, church, lecture hall, etc., the girl precedes the boy into the row of seats. In a restaurant, when the maitre d' is leading you to your table, the girl precedes the boy.
• When a girl is taking a seat at a table, the boy pulls out her chair for her. This is a maneuver that takes a bit of practice to be done gracefully, however. (The EGs have heard embarrassing stories of teenage boys who know they should do this at, par exemple, the prom, but get a bit over-zealous and yank the chair completely out from underneath their poor dates. Not a pretty picture, dear reader).

Something about this 'etiquette' thing makes the modern guy's skin crawl. But, hey, if the ladies like this sort of thing, it's a small price to pay for their company. Until you bump into that ol' gang of yours, that is!

I survived the day a little short of breath. There's a nasty phlegm build-up in my bronchial passages though I haven't started coughing yet. Decided to skip this afternoon's rehearsal to prevent weakening my body further through physical exertion. Apologies to everyone involved.

Found out that the abandoned canteen where we were to have our in-line skating lesson last evening was out-of-bounds to students AND staff because it no longer belongs to our campus and it's scheduled for demolition so it's quite dangerous to hang out in. I wonder where the lesson was moved to?

Must also confess spending another point six k again, this time on an LG 17" LCD monitor. Gave my brother my 17" CRT to save him $200+ since he is on such a tight budget. (I sound so noble, don't I?) Helped him pick his parts which the dealer assembled, and for what he paid I think he got a really good bargain. His new system can take a slew of upgrades, more than my current could ever handle, so he's quite future-proof. Between his and my purchases, he paid less for his new system than I paid on my upgrades. There is no justice!

As for me, I repaired my stupid RAM problem without having to go to the dealer's. Actually the RAM wasn't the stupid one. Now I know: RAM has to be placed in the computer in descending order, i.e., biggest chip goes in slot 1 and then downwards from there. With a lot of ham-fisted pulling out and shoving back of VGA card and installing the memory chips in different configurations, I finally figured it out. So now I'm running 1024Mb worth of memory like I paid for. Yay! Now I have to figure out why my new benchmark is lower than my previous when I was using less RAM. It's going to be a long night...

It's getting to mid term and it's good that students are already approaching me for consultations on their GP. What's taken them so long? The best lessons are really with tiny groups and 1-to-1 sessions. We talk, we think, we discuss and the teaching becomes so effortless because the student/s learn without noticing it. Full engagement counts so much towards our ability to learn.
Conversely, large classes are counterproductive. No one learns, everybody distracts everybody else, or else are cowed into compliance so that the work done begins and ends in the classroom with little to show for it in the long run. No wonder parents pay for private tuition, the Sports School and other elite schools are deliberately keeping their classes small, but we civil service types face larger and larger classes each year. When accountants run the show, I guess this is the kind of logic you can expect: low costs and high profits tend to override wisdom and reality.

Fine. Enough editorializing and getting sidetracked. I just meant to say that as the time draws ever closer, I'll be expecting more students looking for more of my time. I look forward to it. Let's get some real learning done, and done right.

I must note my expenses for the day: at least a sixth of a kilo dollars, mostly spent on a new 9800 pro :) and 512Mb of RAM that doesn't seem to be working!!! Watson isn't detecting the new RAM at all, pretending that it doesn't exist >___<. Hey now, wassup? Think I'll bring him back to the dealer tomorrow and find out what's wrong. Still, the pro board has nearly quadrupled Watson's performance from my previous ti4200, according to 3DMark2003. Watson now proudly wears the "Fueled by Sapphire ATi" sticker on his chassis next to his power button, and when I can get the stoopid RAM to work he'll be prouder still. For the VERY curious, here are Watson's specs as of today.

This evening I was supposed to join ODAC for an in-line skating lesson in the abandoned canteen. I would have gone if I hadn't reached home in the afternoon then realized I had left my keys back on campus! Must've left my brains on my desk at the same time, if you ask me. So I grabbed a cab, drove back, ran to the staff room, grabbed my keys, left my brains alone, ran back to the cab and drove home. 16 wasted bucks for the round trip, and a lost half hour or so too. I was so annoyed! Didn't feel like going anywhere again after that. Hope the next round  of in-line lessons will start again soon. Bah!

First set of block tests over for this term, and another one to go next week. The marking load is mad again and only 3 weeks to finish the marking. When am I going to have the time to do it, I wonder? Please don't say that's what my National Day long weekend is for 'cos I've got erm... other things planned. Must work really hard this weekend then, else I'm going to regret it. *psyches self up*

Stress of External Validation is over for me, having gone through my interview today. My group represented the CCA and enrichment aspect of the college and I think we managed to convince our Validator that we have a pretty good CCA programme in place. At least the round table chat was amicable and we were backing each other up with our answers, and everyone was smiling, which I'll take as a good sign. Questions about student leadership, interdisciplinary collaboration and alignment to overall Vision, Mission, Goals came up.

If anything, the interview helped me see how closely knit our CCAs have become in helping each other out in our various college activities; even more so than we have been in the recent past. The Validator asked us to think about how we can evaluate the effectiveness of our current programmes in terms of helping our students become the people they need to become. I guess the best way is for our students to tell us what they think of the experiences we put them through after they move on to the next and subsequent levels, so, oi, people, feed back, ok?

On the homefront, Mimi's come to stay with us again. This time for 2 weeks, after which we'll decide if her residence will be with us permanently or not. We'll see...

As the sun slowly disappears behind the darkening horizon, we sadly bid goodbye to the senior members of NYeDC, who officially, though informally, have stepped down to focus now on ace-ing their 'A's. It's been a wild ride, with lots of ups and a few downs and it's been a pleasure working with you guys. The last official thing we did together was to approve the new NYeDC leadership and I think the line-up is certainly a promising one. It's sad to see 'sif and co. go but you all have outgrown this little sandbox and bigger and better things await you now. While you're out there pursuing your dreams, we'd love to have you back once in a while to play with us again. (Gwyn, where are you?)

Congratulations to Fazli and the newly minted Exco. You've stepped forward to take over the reins of some ornery ol' horses, and as you asked, so shall you receive. NYeDC is now in your hands so let's ride on to greater glory. As far as your expectations go, the goal this year is "elite CCA." What does that mean? Here's my 2-cents worth, and see if you agree:

• All members are immediately recognizable through their unity of spirit and bearing.
• Despite the homogeneity of college uniform, all members wear their Drama badges with pride. As such, the uniform must be worn in such a way that the badge looks bigger than it actually is.
• There is so much passion for theatre and for productions that members, whenever they gather, talk drama as a reflex rather than as an item on an agenda.
• All members must have an attitude of train and re-train in pursuit of perfection. Nevertheless, less-than-perfection will never be an excuse that overrides the desire to perform.
• All members will use every learning opportunity during club activities to connect with and support their academic learning.
• Remember that the best performers can be either introverted or extroverted in their personality. No one is to be underestimated in their ability to deliver on their promises.
• If things seem overwhelming to the individual, the group rallies behind and supports the effort. Do not hesitate to seek assistance from fellows or tutors.

Notice I haven't mentioned anything about awards. Awards don't make a CCA elite. An elite CCA wins awards. So let's focus on making our CCA elite first, then the awards will come in as a side-effect.

We've already taken the first few strides towards elititude, thanks to our seniors in shaping the unity and spirit that lives in NYeDC today.  NYeDC 04-05, get your 7-league boots on and grab a big stick. We've got some hiking to do!

OK, change gear...

June rescued a tiny kitten from a storm drain during her stray cat run before dinner. It had fallen in and couldn't climb out again. So June reached in and pulled it out, then returned to the table where I was sitting and asked if we could adopt it in case it was dumb enough to fall in the drain again. This was a serious consideration, especially after June had earlier said that Mimi is likely to come live with us permanently very soon.

We went back to look at the kitten again after dinner and the stupid thing had now fallen into the monsoon drain which was next to the storm drain and was much deeper. The kitten was frantic, making such pathetic mewing noises hoping to attract a rescuer. With a resigned sigh I opened the grating over the drain, lowered myself in and fished it out. Good thing it wasn't afraid of me -- I wasn't going to chase it all through the drainage system in North Yishun just to save its life.

Fortunately the rescue was easy, but now I had a new kitten on my hands. Oh dear. Unable to take in another stray, June had a brainwave. Perhaps the Malay provision shop people might take it in, seeing that they are kind to the strays around their vicinity. Smart idea, though it wasn't the provision shop that took the kitten, it was the young Malay girl working at the pet (fish) store who did. Hope they'll be happy together. We'll keep tabs on them.

Everyone's  tense over the upcoming External Validation exercise the college is going through this week. Preparation for an important assessment is understandable, and everybody's thinking, "what if we screw this up? what if I screw up?" Indeed, what will happen? Ideally speaking, whatever the report says it simply means that certain college operations can be done better if we were to make certain changes in our current practices and procedures; or that under our current standards of assessment we are doing fine, so can we see if we can reach a higher standard by the next assessment? The whole exercise is no more than a learning experience but people, knowing people, are likely to take things more personally than objectively. Hence the preoccupation about not screwing up. Hence the added stress though it really is unnecessary.

Fear of recrimination, reprisal and blame, if anything, is a lousy motivator. After meeting parents even a couple of days after Parents' Day, it's clear that fear is at the heart of parent-child relationships and in many cases the cause of an unhealthy rift between the two. Parents obviously want the best for their kids, so by the same token, why can't we trust that our kids want the best for themselves? Unfortunately, by focusing on criticizing the negatives rather than encouraging the positives, both kids and their parents get the impression that they are striving for opposite goals rather than the same one, hence the perception that attempting to communicate with one another is a futile, even counterproductive exercise. And from there it's a downward spiral to heck.

Kiasuism is a trait Singaporeans are proud to identify with, but it's about time we started doing things because we see the worth of the activity rather than because we fear the consequences of not doing them (or screwing them up). I bet we could go a lot further, with less than half the stress.

Starting to obsess over getting new hardware for my computer. In fact I went temporarily insane and mulled over the idea of having a complete system overhaul and giving my brother all the parts I want to change so he can have his computer up and running again. Then reality kicked in. Bah!

Went to Sim Lim to drool over peripherals again and decided that for the price I had to pay for upgrades, the difference in performance was negligible and simply not worth the outlay. Besides, I just received my annual bill for one (yes, one) of my insurance policies, the amount due would buy me a beautiful new PC with all the bells and whistles I could want. Arrggh! Opportunity cost strikes again! So my brother isn't going to get hand-me-down parts from me any more. He's going shopping for a brand new system for himself this weekend and I'm just tagging along to advise him.

No, that's not true. There's still enough in my piggy bank for a graphics card and RAM upgrade. I still have a few days to think about getting a Radeon 9800 pro to beef up my system just a little. It's the only thing that will make any significant impact on performance anyway. Anyone interested in a slightly used Nvidia GeForce4 Ti4200? Using the latest driver it's still working a treat!

Day started early again, it being yet another last Sunday of the month. We were running a little late with our breakfast sandwiches and missed our bus. Not wanting to arrive any later, we caught a cab which was way faster than the bus-MRT ride could have ever been. We arrived 10 minutes early, and we were for once the earliest contributors at the Friendship Sunday breakfast. (Oh, wait, not counting the time we brought sandwiches and then discovered that there was no Friendship Sunday event that month! Doh...!)

We also found out that we had a reputation of being the last contributors to arrive every month. That is, everyone was complimenting us on the prompt sandwich delivery for a change. Usually it's more like saving the best for the last. Thank you.

Budak Pantai were our guest performers this month. The name of the group translates from Malay as "Beach Boys," so I guess the guys who gave us "Surfin' USA" and "California Girls" were the inspiration for this talented group of acapella musicians. As we had arrived early, we could watch them working over their pre-show preparations. It's nice to see performers who are professional enough to focus on setting up their tech properly rather than going over the motions of their performance in a last minute rehearsal. It shows confidence in the performers and an attention to details that are usually taken for granted -- the technicals: e.g., sound checking and balancing -- that if not prepared well and well before-hand could just as easily ruin a good show.

The members of Budak Pantai are all professional career people who only sing together in their spare time. One of the members happens to be the reigning "Singapore's Brainiest Lawyer." It must be great to be so multi-talented.

Their performance was light-hearted and good-natured, though very focused. Their voices harmonized well and their arrangements of familiar religious chorales are as surprising as they are refreshing. Their rendition of a Christmas carol that I've for the moment forgotten the title of was sung to a catchy Caribbean rhythm with faux accent to boot and was almost danceable to. If we had given them more time, they would have given us more of their cheery, improvised patter but we only gave them 4 songs and it all ended too quickly, I thought.

Nice to see Kit again who is making a whirlwind drop-in from Manchester to surprise her dad (my uncle) on his birthday. The whole family on my Dad's side had a local buffet lunch at the Peninsular Hotel. The food was only so-so, but the company was excellent. Discussions about the upcoming beach wedding party pretty much went nowhere as both groom and bride-to-be were simply allowing things to happen rather than making any actual plans for the event. Their laissez faire approach might upset a few people, but it's almost modus operandi in my family. Particularly amongst the males. Heh.