The marking's over for me, but now there's the marker's report to put up and the feedback session to plan. Amidst all this, the ill-timed J1 Security Seminar is also scheduled for next Wed, and I have yet to finalize the arrangements. The AV, the furniture, the students' briefing, the Civics Tutors' briefing. Well, I've sort of done it before, so I dare say I'll live through it again.

But at least I got the Security info books distributed to the J1 Civics Tutors today. I batched over 800 books by CT strength and I personally delivered them by hand to the respective CTs. I made use of one of the office chairs we had salvaged from the old building as makeshift trolley, wheeling the piles of books around the staff room and making a mega racket as the chair wasn't about to take the abuse quietly. Kim Seng stopped to ask if I had found a new way to amuse myself. I assured her that I was in no way amused even if everyone else was. Think I pulled a muscle in my right leg what with all the lifting and pulling, fetching and carrying that was going on. This old man better take care of himself too.

Lunch was at Casurina Road. Small Japanese place, reasonable set lunch, especially good on Friday because there's a selection of Japanese-style fish for the main course (cost: $7.50 per set). Vince and I had the salmon sashimi, Boon Sin the grilled salmon, Amy the unagi set and we ordered another grilled salmon for Cara who whirled in to join us late (stuck in traffic), gobbled everything down in record time and whirled out again even before we realized that there was dessert still pending. She was on an invig break which meant she only had less than an hour to drive out, eat and drive back before Pete, whom she was going to be relieving, would start making noise. Or explode. Or end the paper early out of sheer boredom. Or something drastic.

We had also ordered an "ika mayo," which turned out to be steamed squid nesting under a thick blanket of Japanese mayo. It made for a gorgeous little appetizer while we waited for the main course to arrive. Dessert was a generous scoop of macha or green-tea ice-cream which had a satsfyingly, erm... full flavour is the best I can describe it. Since I offered to pay for Cara's meal as she had already disappeared, I devoured her dessert in partial compensation. Yummy.

So much for KTV, everyone seems to be busy this evening. We've tentatively postponed it to next Wed, subject to further confirmation. Oh, yeah, better call Fran and set up a dinner date for tomorrow night. We're inheriting all his Amazing Race videos from Season 1 onwards since he won't be bringing them back with him when he returns to Winnipeg next month.

Edit 01:
Got this off free_spirit's blog:

eXpressive: 2/10
Practical: 7/10
Physical: 5/10
Giver: 1/10
You are a RPYT--Reserved Practical Physical Taker. This makes you a Stoic.

You are intelligent, rugged, disciplined and profound. Even if you're saddled with a desk job, you are starving for the outdoors. You are very slow to warm up to people, and people are slow to warm up to you, but once they know you they never forget you.
You do not get much attention from your target sex, and this means you can feel unloved or unwanted. This is not the case! You are just a hard nut to crack, and your social anxiety leaves you overlooked or outside the frame altogether. What is good for you is increments of low-interaction group activity, like sports or outdoor work. The person who can chop wood with you will melt your heart.
In a long term relationship, you are loving and devoted. You are calm in a conflict until your partner presses your buttons -- it's never the problem at hand that gets under your skin, but how your partner handles it. Don't take offense! Sometimes it's just the only way your partner knows how to express things.
You would never cheat, and your approach to sex is conventional and almost prudish. But sex for you is a release and a necessity of life, and you have a sense of entitlement about it that can be trouble. Make sure your partner is comfortable and satisfied -- by communicating both in and out of the bedroom -- and you will be more satisfied yourself.
You may take a lot of what your partner does for granted. Make a special effort to reward and validate him/her, and you will be repaid in spades.
You have nice legs. *ahem*

Of the 103202 people who have taken this quiz, 4.2 % are this type.

Not a bad description, I must say. If you want to take this personality test, here's the link.

P is taking great pains to spruce up the professional image of the college. She reminded us staff of all the rules and regs relating to our proper dress code during this afternoon's contact time. No flip-flops or sandals, fine; no bermudas, fine; no sleeveless and/or belly-button revealing tops, fine; no round-necked t-shirts, fine; we didn't really see the problem as no one wears this stuff on a working day anyway. She clarified: on dress-down Fridays too. Oh. On dress-down Friday, collared polo shirts only, not even house t-shirts or CCA t-shirts, or CT t-shirts. Oh... These rules and regs apply to staff returning to college during holiday time as well. Oh! During holiday time we are to dress in smart office wear, no casual days at all. Doh!

Interesting that this item is on the same agenda as the item about how our annual performance ranking is going to be calculated. Apparently there's a significant component from our perceived professionalism of conduct.

Fine. I'll do my part to enhance the professional image of the college. Since the concept of dress-down Friday is illusory at best, it's back to normal working dress as usual. Sorry, folks, you'll never see me in our CT t-shirt. I hear good things about the design, though. As for the hols, I'll stay away from campus unless absolutely necessary. No need for thanks, it's the least I could do.

And dinner was just fine, thank you. 1st Aunt's birthday, and we celebrated it at the Keppel Club's Kippo of the Tung Luk group of restaurants. Mom is gallivanting along the Silk Road (yeah, she took off straight after she returned from Alaska), so the empty space at the table meant June and I got a temporary promotion to the "uncles and aunties" table. Most of the food came my way as the elders don't eat much, 8-courses worth, I think.

I was most impressed with the cold starter; cold lobster fruit salad served in two halves of a gutted cantaloupe topped with a lattice of mayonnaise. Everything else that followed was as one would normally expect from a formal Chinese dinner, excpet that I didn't detect much MSG useage, and the dishes were quite light and tasty without being overstated. Let me see... pre-starter birthday buns (peach shaped), hot & sour soup, steamed garoupa, scallops in a deep-fried potato basket, a venison dish, noodles and red bean soup for dessert.

I was substantially full after dinner, but not uncomfortably stuffed, considering that I had seconds and thirds while everyone else practically pecked 'round the platters. The birthday cake was a white cake with mint cream between the layers. An unusual flavour, not unpleasent like it might have been, but also nothing I would crave any time soon.

And then I wonder why I've been gaining weight. Hope I can fit into my dress pants tomorrow.

It's over for the prelims (for mostly everyone I know) and for my prelim marking as well! I breathe again. It feels good to have done something before the deadline for once. Even when I received a "bonus" essay from Nirmala who discovered one of my questions mixed up in her pile, it was little effort for me to work on it as I was already in a pretty good mood.

Lunched at Gardens market to follow up from yesterday's lunch. The noodle stall guy who so looks like a surfer dude had closed his stall early today (or maybe we were late) but we were there for the satay. After Gerald's few sticks of beef satay yesterday that we shared, we were instantly hooked and just had to go for more. Waited for Mel to finish class at 1:40 then we were off, me, Amy, Mel, Bhagia. Cara joined us later.

The Hokkien mee stall auntie knows Mel pretty well -- yeah, they go waaay back -- and her Hokkien mee isn't bad either. Not clumpy or mushy but each individual strand integral to itself, and the gravy has a slight hint of seafood, which was nice. Unfortunately I couldn't finish my plate as our table got precision-bombed by a flock of mynahs arguing amongst themselves overhead. When the lime seeds I neatly piled up on the side of my plate suddenly scattered themselves around the table, I knew I'd been hit. Cara likewise had to abandon her mee pok due to the high possibility of fallout or at least splash damage. We'll be back though! No birdbrain is going to come between us and our lunch again!

There's a Karaoke contest organized by the CCS for the LEAP carnival and Jong Yann is madly signing staff up for it. I was game (JY can be quite pursuasive) but the catch is that it must be a Mandarin song. Right. Ah. I promised her a rendition of 'ke1 ren2 lai3' just to keep Team Pegasus' house points riding high (we're running 2nd overall, btw, despite our disastrous track & field showing). Regardless, JY is organizing us staff who badly need remedial lessons to have a karaoke session on Friday. Sounds like fun, so wth, unexplored territory we go! Life on the edge, yeah!

Taking a break from Simming. Must re-look my priorities for the Burbs and their soap-opera of a life. Instead, I vegged out this evening in front of the TV again. Channel 8 OTT drama serial and the season finale of The Amazing Race 5. Way ta go, Chip and Kim!

And at last, the final score:

> Today's tally = 7
> Cumulative total = 104 + 1

Oh, the blood. The carnage. And the survivors, who will pick up the pieces of their shattered egos, learn from their mistakes and move onward to the bigger battle ahead. Gentle[people], lock and load. Prepare to rock 'n roll!

I'll be done with the marking tomorrow, I just know it! That'll give me time to do the other stuff I've been neglecting -- arranging S3 Seminar next week (my next biggest headache), bunch of admin including testimonials and performance review updates, and whatever else I don't remember but i'm sure other staff will help remind me. Oh, and maybe get some teaching done on the side.

And of course, time to look after the exploits of my little Sim family, although I'm a bit apprehensive of current developments at this time. I've taken Jennifer to the top of her career as a business tycoon and she now goes to work in a helicopter. John is a medical specialist but he looks forward to retirement, which I think I will reward him with ASAP. It's Judy, the daughter that's the main crisis right now. Well, none of her family thinks it's a crisis but I'm personally getting a little freaked out.

Judy's aspiration is Romance and that means she wants to string along as many lovers as she possibly can as her main purpose in life. I've had to balance her social life with her career on the Slacker track (Hint: if you want quick cash early on this path, choose the bunnies). I managed to hitch her up with 6 other Sims though she wants to go for 10. I made the mistake of inviting most of her lovers to a house party and 2 of them caught her Flirting with yet another Sim. The 2 smacked Judy around for a while and now their relationships look irreparable. That's not the problem.

Next, in an effort to preserve the Burbs' DNA, I "encouraged" Judy to do a public WooHoo with two different lovers on separate occasions in the family hot tub and now she's an unwed mother whose child, Marco, is of indeterminate lineage. The mystery will be cleared up once I can access his family tree, but until then we're shrugging our shoulders. That's not the problem.

The problem is, now that there's a baby in the family I'm at a loss as to how to proceed! How do I make sure the baby is well taken care of? That there's someone around to look after him when his mom's out working or fulfilling her ambition to WooHoo as many times as she possibly can during her lifetime? Having John retire is the best thing, since looking after his grandbrat is now his current goal, but it's not going to be a permanent solution because he doesn't have much longer to live! It's not in Judy's aspirations to get married so once the 2 grandparents have met the Reaper, Judy's on her own. Juggling time between career, lovers, life partner(?), baby, now that's stress. Hmm... if anything, what this game has taught me is that I am a confirmed infantophobiac. Everything was peachy fine until the baby came and now it's ruined everything. It's all chaos now, then again, it was an important step to preserve the family line. Aaarrrggghhh!!!

And from real life, here's the penultimate scoreboard:

> Today's tally = 7
> Cumulative total = 98

*Sings* Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow...

Not much happening. Everyone's caught up in the last week of marking and getting the curriculum going again for the last couple of weeks before Farewell Assembly. While I stay at my desk to mark, everyone else has a favourite hiding spot for a little peace and quiet while they concentrate on clearing their piles of prelim papers. Even organizing lunch is difficult now as everyone scrapes together the time needed to complete their tasks.

Still, I went for lunch with Vince and Cara, who brought her Mom along. Close family bonds, what can I say? Apparently we were at her Mom's fave chicken rice place down along Braddell Road, so it was her turf.

Chicken's ok, I guess, considering it's frozen and flown in from Brazil or wherever, but this is the one place where I can't get liver to go with my chicken rice. I'm usually fine with gizzard to substitute for liver, but the first time accepting gizzard here was also my last. It had a suspicious pinkish tinge to it and it chewed like galvanized rubber, so never again. Someday, we're going to have to arrive early enough to get some real chicken liver. It must be good since it sells out so fast.... Yes, someday.

The scoreboard reads:

> Today's tally: 8
> Cumulative total: 91

So close now!

Must be the weekend syndrome. Can't seem to get much work done, it's just too painful. Mostly vegged out in front of the TV, catching the tail-end of CSI: Miami (AXN), A Cook's Tour (Discovery T&A), Superstructure (Discovery), and back to AXN for The Amazing Race 5.

Anthony Bourdain, in A Cook's Tour, showed off some of the good eats here in Singapore, though I sensed that he was holding back his enthusiasm a bit. Apparently there's a Chinese restaurant that prepares food for the customer only after a consultation with and diagnosis from the in-house Sinseh. Must be somewhere deep in Chinatown as the lady translator spoke a strange form of Singlish. Bourdain tried the Malay food in Geylang Serai Market and although he wasn't impressed with the food-court style set-up he declared the food, once served, to be delicious. He also sampled murtabak from Tekka Market ("awesome"), and the Makansutra guy brought him to Sin Huat Eating House in red-light district Geylang. The name of the restaurant is quite appropriate, don't you think? Here, Bourdain overcame his revulsion of frog legs and went to foodie nirvana over the signature dish, Sri Lankan crab bee hoon ("crab the size of your head"). Kinda makes me think, why don't we ever go to these places to eat; just what are we missing confining ourselves to all plastic, all hygenic, assembly line food that we usually eat?

TV addict did get a little marking done. Here's the score:

> Today's tally = 6
> Cumulative total = 83

Can anyone say, jia1 you3?

Edit 01:
Wow! A link to Chef Bourdain's own description of his dining experience at Sin Huat! Here.

Sampling the wonders of the 5-day week. I used to have a policy about it -- it was once sacred to me. When I was studying I mugged like mad (relatively speaking, of course) from Monday to Friday, and when Friday evening came along I totally fasted from work until Monday came again. It's time to revive old habits. Yes.

Today wasn't a complete fast though. I marked, but I also watched John and Jennifer Burb grow into an elderly couple and their daughter, Judy, become an adult. I've helped them all with their careers and their relationships, though Judy didn't get much attention initially. I think from now on, it'll be Judy's story and I'm now trying to find her a boyfriend or two or three, as she desires. Indulgent "parent," I am.

So very tired of the food served at the coffee-shops downstairs. Same thing all the time so we went to Northpoint's Pasta Cafe for their linguine primavera in tomato sauce. It was the sauce I've been craving all this week, for some reason. Dunno why. Wandered around Popular for travel books (watch this space) but couldn't find any. Pah!

Swenson's 'Ice House' for dessert. Fresh, clean tasting after-dinner treat; nothing more than vanilla ice-cream, some little butterscotch topping and a sprinkle of ground up roasted groundnuts for texture. Feels light going down because there's no chocolate anything to be found in the sundae.

Total stands as follows:

> Today's tally = 6
> Cumulative total = 77

Getting close to the end, though it's still a stretch to go yet.

Holy cow! 4 a.m. already! I been a baaaad boy! Spent too long in Pleasantview, neglecting all my other needs. At this point my personal stats look like this:

Hunger: medium
Comfort: low
Bladder: very low
Energy: depleting fast
Fun: way high
Social: medium
Hygiene: very low
Environment: low

You guessed it! The Sims 2 has finally hit the shelves and everyone's favourite human life-in-a-fishbowl desktop toy is back and better than ever! Spent pretty much the whole evening getting myself reacquainted with the controls and gameplay and trying to manage (manipulate?) the lives of a young suburban family that came prepackaged. The Burb family has 3 members, Dad, Mom and daughter and for the moment, I'm playing their lives almost like my own: slightly introspectively. This gameplan may not work well for the daughter who's Aspiration is Romance. She doesn't meet enough people, but I'm focusing on getting her grades up first (ain't that typical?).

This game is so open ended that watching your Sims fail is as fun as helping them succeed in life, sometimes even more so as they tend to become neurotic and fall prey to all sorts of unpredictable, irrational behaviour. However, as a gameplayer I do my best to fulfil the goals set for me in the game, so I generally have happy shiny, well-adjusted people living in this little house in Pleasantview. Perhaps when I'm more facile with the game, then I'll start 'helping' my Sims get what they fear most rather than what they aspire towards. That'll screw them up nicely, and then the fun and hilarity can begin.

Meantime, I'm neglecting my real life and my real marking which stands thus:

> Friday's tally: 5
> Cumulative total: 71

Must make up for it this uh... afternoon.
bhyclare.lgtmb//g... zzzzzzz...!

Between marking, invigilation and not much else, life has ground almost to a halt. Hate to think how this life might translate in the coming year when the 5-day week gets fully implemented in college. You'd think that we'd be celebrating a 2-day weekend, but that's just only one way to look at it. The days of work may have been reduced, but the hours we have to work remain the same, it's just that with the new scheme, we have fewer days in the week to do it all in.

This backlash doesn't afftect just us teaching staff but all our students as well. We have so many students and staff, but so few tutorial rooms to use that the time we're supposed to be saving is going to be spent queuing up for space to have lessons in. We can still expect to start our days before 7:30 a.m. but don't expect to knock off before 6 p.m. or thereabouts. We're all looking at 11-12 hour days 5 days a week just to have an extra day off on the weekend. And we haven't factored in our CCA committments yet. God help those of us who have 2 CCAs and have to supervise them both 2 of the 5 working days in the week since CCAs won't be held on Saturdays either. Then we have stuff to do in our so-called free-time: the marking, the lesson preparation, the research, the committee meetings, staff training... who would have guessed so much misery might come out of working 5 days a week?

Actually, the idea isn't bad. The execution, though, is always the problem. The rationale behind the directive is to reduce the workload from 5 1/2 days to 5 days, but the implementers will still demand 5 1/2 days work to be done in 5 days instead. Ah, well, it happened in Genesis too. The people complained so the Pharoah ordered that brick production be doubled, while straw be reduced by half. The civil service was just as efficient and pragmatic then as it is today.

Stuff we bitch about at breakfast. Wanna trash out problems honestly, avoid having committee meetings. The informal meal where no one takes things, each other or themselves too seriously is the ticket.

Sympathies to Jong Yann who is having a wisdom tooth problem today. Hope her dentist will be able to do something about it tomorrow.

I've been sort of good, despite having a chemistry invig duty in the afternoon:

> Today's tally = 12
> Cumulative total = 66

Rewarded myself dining in with June: Classic Greek (with feta, moza and edam cheese, yum!) + Meat Lovers' pizza from Canadian 2-for-1.

We wish Anthony good fortune as he leaves for Paris tonight with the Singapore national team to compete in the Championnat du Monde de Petanque 2004 -- that's the Petanque World Cup to translate from the French. The competition will be held in Grenoble where he will be travelling to once the team gets acclimatized in Paris.

Forewarned of his destination, some of our colleagues (I'm tempted to mention them by name 'cos it would be fun, but I won't) accosted him this morning to place their orders for LV merchandise which, apparently, is cheaper when purchased at the source. What better way to train one's stamina and competitive acumen than fighting tourists and bargain-hunters over luxury items at rock-bottom prices? So thus, and over breakfast, we bade him fare-well.

He should be boarding his plane right now so, Anthony, the hopes of all Singapore lie with you and your team to deliver what Ronald and Jia Wei couldn't at the Olympics -- a medal from a world competition! No pressure! We'll also be happy if you came back with an Eiffel Tower paperweight or an LV wallet or something. We're nice people.

As you might imagine, my morale for marking is pretty low today after all that excitement. Here's the score so far:

> Today's tally = 9
> Cumulative total = 54

Fatigue is setting in. Must take it easy...

I have to be honest. I love the prelim and mid-year exam periods. It is such a rare thing for me to have breakfast on Tuesday morning as lessons usually begin immediately after assembly. But today, students are taking their papers, and I can concentrate on clearing my pile of essays, and that's pretty much it, as I wasn't down for some exam duty or other. Breakfast itself isn't worth mentioning apart from the fact that it was a necessary rest-stop and energy recharge procedure before being able to face that rather daunting pile of marking again.

Lunch at GFC, same-old same-old, but in the afternoon, Amy developed a craving for ice-cream and she kindly surveyed whomever in the English Dept was still in the staff room to see if anyone else wanted a snack. She took our orders for different kinds of ice-cream and soon returned with a whole bunch. I got a very chocolatey Nestle Cornetto -- the topping comprised little chocolate spheres and chocolate sauce in alternating segments, and even the cone had been dipped in chocolate. It was slightly melty so it didn't last very long. Better in my stomach than on my desk, or worse, on someone's essay, eh? It went well with my afternoon coffee.

A small morale boost and here's my score for the day:

> Today's tally = 15
> Cumulative total = 45

Heh, so proud of myself!

Had lunch at The Dubliner's and I must say, it's nice to be back.

Back? Yup, this downtown Irish pub now occupies the site where once had stood the Orchard School of Arts and Commerce, where at the ripe old age of 23 I attended class hoping to pass my 'A' Level cert.

In most respects I was a model student, except where wearing the uniform was concerned. The Principal and her hubby were starting to introduce some idiotic uniform rules, and I, having been through 2 years ('O' Level holders did not qualify for 2.5 years' service) of wearing camo-green military uniform, plus the fact that I was legally an adult, was not about to comply. I tried to compromise by wearing a white button-down shirt with blue jeans, but I could tell it was only a matter of time before I'd get on some unpleasant list or other. Providence then opened the door for me to take my studies overseas, thus avoiding any unnecessary confrontation. I tended my resignation with glee.

Many years later, I'm back at the exact site of my last Singaporean Alama Mater and I'm lunching on shepherd's pie with my teaching colleagues who are here for not just the food and the um... malted beverages but also for a pleasant environment in which to continue their prelim marking (yes, call me obsessive).

Lunch at The Dubliner's is at a 30% discount off menu prices, though I don't know how long this promotion will last. Shepherd's pie, as I discovered, seems to be a mutton(?) stew covered over with a thick layer of fluffy potato mash for the pie crust. The meat is a very fine mince, stewed very tender and the dish generally goes down easily with small-talk and sips of liquid refreshment. I wonder if it really is mutton, though. The stew is so fine, I'm not absolutely sure, but won't shepherds lose the trust of their sheep if they went around smelling like mutton? Sheep are dumb.

Eating al fresco is quite a pleasant experience here. Partially shaded by tree foliage, we sit and dine as shadow patterns alternate with sunshine spots on the cobbled terrace. The gentle trickle of water from the landscaped waterfall add to the ambience of a lazy afternoon, but we were there for a reason. For me and Gerald, it was strictly lunch; for Vince and Anthony, after lunch was marking time. It was still early afternoon when I left them there to slowly ruminate over the imponderables that are students' answers to GP questions.

I caught the MRT home for some pet therapy... and to update the scoreboard which reads:

> Today's tally = 11
> Cumulative total = 30

Spent most of the day marking essays and am now wondering what we have failed to teach. Normal, rational arguments generally follow this pattern:
If A = B
and B = C,
then A = C. That's logical, right?

The essays I've been marking generally look like this:
A (therefore) = C.
And that's all!

The answer (A = C) may look the same BUT the process and the development of the answer simply doesn't make sense because the linkage (B) is almost all but ignored. Typically, this kind of argument works if you were the Dictator of a banana republic and because you repeat it often enough and loudly enough your people will start to believe you. However, try this kind of reasoning with a group of rational people and it's goodbye, Senor Presidente, as your shoulders bid a fond farewell to your head.

I've also been doing some math (oh horrors!). A balanced argument doesn't seem as important as it might appear. An essay with a strong, well-presented, cohesive argument may score a maximum of 18 out of 30 marks for content even if it is "not necessarily balanced" (quoted from the essay marking scheme). But an essay riddled with contradictions because balance is poorly argued (worse -- forced because it is "required") risks scoring a maximum of 12 out of 30 content marks for making a mess of the argument. That's the difference between a D and a C grade, and it could be all the difference in the world. Those of you consistently scoring D and below, please take heed.

If this rant isn't making sense to you, please go find a GP tutor to speak to BEFORE you take the exam for real. If there's a problem, let's fix it now!

After blowing off steam, heeeee...re's the scoreboard:

> Today's tally = 14
> Cumulative total = 19

And we're off and running!

And so the nightmare begins. Prelim marking is going to make me look back over the next two weeks and remark that I once had a life. A lovely stack of essays await their fate as I turn Freddy Kruger again and hack and slash until I am waist deep in mire and gore. I think we've been here before. Deja vous.

I think just to motivate myself, I'll run a daily scoresheet on the number of essays I've marked. It'll be inspiring to see this figure advance as my stack regresses. But in the meantime, I'll also be dealing with assorted distractions like sleep and meals. I guess this is the only way we tutors can keep you company as you struggle through this difficult period. We comiserate through mutual suffering. Fair?

Did the statue thing again today as I will be doing another three more times in the next two weeks. I modelled for "Stamford Raffles (standard)","lout and lampost", "slut at her dresser" and "Buddha's meditation on a writing surface." Too bad there weren't any AEP students around to immortalize me in an 'A' Level sculpture submission. Invigilation in 03-49 is not a pleasant thing. The room looks smaller than the others and when the students bring their belongings in and place them along the front and side walls, there's hardly any space left to walk. It becomes claustrophobic and it gets worse when the first few bars of "Heart of Gold," by Johnny Hates Jazz, starts repeating over and over in your mind for no apparent reason. I was thankful to Mei Lian who subbed me for 25 minutes each paper, and for some mindless administration that shut Johnny up for a while.

> Initializing 'Marked Essay Scoresheet'...
> ... Initialized
>
> Tally 'Marked Essay Scoresheet'...
> Number of Essays marked today = 0
> Cumulative Total = 0

>sigh< I'd better get started.

Edit 01:
8 hours later...

> Today's tally = 5
> Cumulative total = 5

Well, it's a start, I suppose.

The NE course was quite enjoyable, though I was the only one representing our college. Should have invited some others to join me as it felt a bit lonely and strange, and I think a few of our staff would have enjoyed themselves too. Anyone interested in storytelling would have benefited and those of us (like me) who love stories but can't tell one for beans got a real boost in our storytelling abilities as the presenters slowly built our confidence up step by baby step.

To be honest, most of the NE stuff was forgotten as we learned to craft tales from our personal experiences and from a chosen story that we had to prepare last night. At least, I was more interested in learning the skill to see how it might apply to GP and to lit. After all, storytelling is such a forgotten art form that only a select few know how to do it really well, and the rest of us don't seem to bother with it so much any more.

As our opening speaker, Gopi, said, today we let other people tell stories to us, usually large corporations under the behemoth known as "Hollywood." We now rely so much on 'realistic' visual stimulation from TV drama and cinema SFX that we have lost the need to listen to each other and create for ourselves individual interpretations of reality using our own imaginations. Instead of sharing a common vision, we are all plugged into the exact same one and we lose ourselves in the process. No wonder we are now having so much trouble with studying literature -- the subject forces us to utilize the brain 'muscles' that we have allowed to atrophy due to a severe lack of constant exercise, all thanks to the convenience and attractiveness of modern electronic media.

The seminar showed me a couple of things. First, storytelling is an acquired skill, and anyone can pick it up regardless of how incompetent one may feel initially. Second, the craft is really honed in the telling of stories in front of an audience, not so much in the rehearsing of the story beforehand (i.e., to be a good storyteller you must tell stories). Third, simple stories work best for both teller and audience -- don't get too clever or creative or whatever; a delivery that is natural to oneself always works best. Fourth, we all love telling stories, despite what I said earlier. That's why some of us blog, right? The rest of us just yak till the cows come home.

Since storytelling is such an important skill, perhaps my next batch of year ones will begin first term next year just learning to tell stories. GP as a subject can wait. What do you think, folks?

Other notes: Apollo Hotel fed us really well. Lunch was a luxuriously long 1-and-a-quarter hours at the all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. Must especially mention the salmon sashimi which was so fresh. Haven't tasted sashimi this good since that breakfast at Kansai Airport's Takashimaya last year. The spread was generally light and dainty, so you always felt that there was room for one-more-plateful... This includes the meat dishes, fish, chicken, satay and whatever else there was (I'm not big on buffet meats, myself) and the desserts as well. And, yes, we must always make room for dessert. The brownies (a bit sweet), American cheesecake (cut to look like tiny sailboards), chocolate cake (that looked like nougat on a chocolate base), and ice-cream bythetubandhelpyourselfthankyou. *waves to Jenny and Bina who kept me company at the lunch table. MINDEF officers, if you must know.

Oh, and one more point. Jack Neo didn't show up after all. He was scheduled for tomorrow's session but since the organizers combined both sessions into today, Chan Soo Sen (him with the big portfolio), today's keynote speaker, spoke instead.

OK. To all who are taking tomorrow's GP prelim, go sleep now. Come in with a fresh mind and a rested body. Good luck and enjoy your paper tomorrow!

Today I checked TRAISI, our online course planner. I knew I had sort of applied for an NE course scheduled for some time around now but I wasn't too sure when. I also didn't know if my application had been successful. TRAISI confirmed the approval of my application and informed me that the course is on, like, tomorrow. Gasp. Good thing I checked else there'd have to be explanations a-plenty justifying why I didn't attend a course that cost the college $250. I don't think a sheepish, "I forgot :-P" is going to be sufficient.

Now it looks like my free Friday has become a full-day event. 8:30-6:00. And I have homework to do to prepare. The course material is a whole bunch of folk tales and stories which we have to look through since we'll be discussing them to some length during the hands-on workshop sessions. Jack Neo is the invited guest speaker, so it could well be quite entertaining. Still, a whole day of activity... I don't know.

Health concern: lower back pain that's lasted almost 4 days now. Think I'm starting to walk like an old man. Scary thought. Must've screwed up my back sitting on my butt too long hunched over Watson's keyboard a couple'a days back. When will I be free to get my spine straightened out again? Hopefully, it's just another temporary ailment.

Also, for the record, after patient preparation, training and quite some persistent stalking I finally caught Latias. There. I've made full use of my bragging rights. 'nuff said.

Bored at home so I went walking around the Heeren in the late morning. Checked out the DVDs at HMV, but didn't see anything I wanted. Actually, I was more like pretending to shop around but really I was watching the episode of Friends that HMV was screening. It was the episode where Chandler and Monica were being interviewed as potential adoptive parents of a baby. Despite Monica's desperation in trying to capitalize on a mistaken identity, Chandler's honesty shone through for a happy ending.

Lazy afternoon, not getting anything important done. Dinner found us at Blk 419 again but this time we ordered the Thai fish head curry for a change. This dish is a specialty of the coffee-shop here and we've noticed that it's a favourite amongst many of the customers, but it always looked way too big for just the two of us to handle. It was good that the coffee-shop could handle a dinner-for-two order. We had half a fish head in a gorgeous tom yam gravy and a side of kangkong to go with our rice. The combination of spices is still making it's presence felt in my stomach, but there's no denying that dinner was delicious tonight.

Uneventful. *purrs with satisfaction* this is as a vacation should be.

My 'normal' entry of the day:
Spent a pleasant afternoon with good food and good company. A week ago, Jo invited Boon Sin to lunch. Boon Sin made some phone calls and Jo wound up with more folks at her door than she had initially expected. Apart from me and my potato salad (good guess, Gid); there were Vince and BS (who shared the ice-cream); Agnes (chicken wings); and Bhagia (chicken curry). Avian flu? What avian flu? Jo herself prepared the staple -- bee hoon with lots of crunchy fried shallots.

I think we were prepared for more people than for who eventually showed up, so there was food in abundance. Light, silly conversation around the table with BS bearing the brunt of the jokes. BS also took care of entertaining Jo's older daughter, leaving the rest of us adults free to yak and eat. Learned Agnes is giving up her car and Vince will be too once his stint as CPE is over in December. Hmm... I ought to feel guilty about that since I turned down the "opportunity" first, but I'm relieved, really. Not having a car multiplies the stress of CPEship by a lot.

Q-tip hasn't gone out for 2 days straight already. Strangely, we've been too busy to look after this detail. Maybe I'll go fetch her leash now...

This entry was inspired by Mei's blog. Last minute tips for handling the General Paper essay, just before the Prelims. If this issue is of no interest to you then don't bother reading on...

Gather materials that are current by having a daily read of the newspapers. News that tends to get repeated every day is worth paying attention to.

Use the news as relevant to your question -- drop names (people, places, organizations), refer to incidents, but don't waste time retelling the stories.

Choose questions that you have the most to say about. It doesn't matter if you don't have an opinion on the issue at the time you choose the question.

Give some thought to what the question is essentially about. Most of you answer to the topic but fail to pay attention to the question. LISTEN to the problem first before you go blindly solving something you don't really understand.

Completely answer the question in 1 paragraph within the first 20 minutes of the paper (if you answer the question in the sequence the question is presented in, it's hard to go wrong). By this step, you would have formed your opinion on the issue and not before. This paragraph becomes your introduction para.

Develop your essay according to the sequence of points you raised in the intro.

Do not bring up new points in the conclusion. Conclusion must agree with the intro. You may conclude with an insight into human nature, or about society, but only within the context of the points you have raised and discussed.

Balance: your job is to NEGOTIATE a fair position between 2 conflicting points of view. Your position must be realistic and fair (repetition for emphasis). Remember that both conflicting parties are idealistic children, but you are the rational adult arbiting between the both of them. Do not sink to their level.

Refer to the following web resource for more general instructions on essay writing and language use: OWL at Purdue.

Try hard to get a good grade in the prelims. It'll give you confidence in preparing for your 'A's.

English Lit advice:
My best advice is, unless you are dealing with early 20th century poetry, do not first approach your texts with your brain. Instead, pay attention to what your senses are telling you, i.e., your sense of sight (imagery, metaphor, simile), sound (rhythm, rhyme, metre, alliteration, other sound effects), touch (texture), not so important are smell and taste. When you can discuss what your senses are telling you, then only can your brain start processing how the author/poet is attempting to manipulate the reader into fully participating in the story, to see things in the first person instead of in the third.

Being intelligent (brain smart) doesn't help in lit. Being able to utilize our 5 human senses helps us appreciate lit a whole lot more. Remember: no author sits down to write "literature." People write to people and they make contact using the tools that are common to everyone, our 5 senses. Everyone connects, but lit students see how the connections are made, and appreciate the author's craft in doing so.

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Today's the kind of day you smash your hand down on the snooze button of your alarm clock and continue sleeping. You wake up disoriented, suddenly remembering it's Monday morning and your wife has left for work before you. Then you remember that it's the first day of the term break and snuggle back into bed enveloped in the best feeling in the world.

Not for long, though. I still had to get on campus by 11 for a Drama Club meeting. Just before I left, I had the urge to smoothen out the living room carpet which had somehow got scrunched up in one corner. I was about to beat it back into place when the messy corner miaowed. Momo had found a new hiding spot to nap in. Stupid cat.

Drama Club looked like it had everything in order, but during the discussion, Mel and I took a sudden interest in Chinese mythology. I went off to Popular at Northpoint and picked up some research material for further study. Perhaps it's the fault of the authors, but the myths I scanned through were dry, boring and episodic. Formula looks quite simple: something happens (usually on a fairly regular basis); someone does something about it; there is some kind of result; and that is why some custom or other is celebrated to this day. Fine, most myths follow the same pattern, but there is usually more drama to the telling of the story than what I've been reading. Hope the other books I bought aren't going to be as bland.

Met June for dinner at the Crystal Jade la mian place at Northpoint. The noodles and soups taste fresh and healthy, though a bit expensive. Still, the noodles, are hand-pulled on site so I guess we are paying for the extra effort, though I can't afford this luxury every mealtime.

Also did a bit of grocery shopping for tomorrow's pot luck lunch at Joanna's house. Bought russet potatoes, celery, spring onions and Kraft mayo; so guess what my contribution is going to be?

Watched a documentary on Hong Kong's dim sum on Discovery Channel last night which made me hungry. So this morning's breakfast we settled for an el cheapo coffee shop version downstairs of our flat. I must have a peasant's taste for dim sum as I find the expensive, restaurant version too rich (read "oily") and fanciful for my blood. According to the documentary, our breakfast menu comprised a "large chicken bun," "prawn dumplings," "steam-and-sell (a rough translation of siew-mai)," and some other standard things that didn't feature in the programme. We were too full to face lunch after that.

Yan had gone home so I decided not to bother her after all. That left 2 things to do today: go watch the petanque international at Toa Payoh's petanque courts and the SAF Open House at SAFTI.

Anthony and Weng had gone through a lot of trouble organizing the tournament, so I thought I'd go lend them my support. Weng and one of the team's youngest instructors -- a Sec 1 kid with a seriously aggressive playing style -- taught me the basics of the game while Anthony warmed up for his match against Australia.

Concept is simple enough: each player has 3 metal boules (balls) and the idea is to throw the balls to land as close to the target ball (the jack) as possible. When all the players have exhausted all their throws the player who has the nearest ball to the jack gains the point and a new round begins.

Players have to decide how to make the best use of their throws to ensure that their boule is closer to the jack than their opponents' at the end of the round. Players can simply throw their boule to land as close as possible to the jack (pointing) or they can knock their opponents' boules away from the jack with their throw (shooting). That's about the sum of what I learned today. Maybe I'll attend a couple of training sessions next week to see if I can be any good at this game.

We left before Anthony finished his game against the Aussies. We sat and watched for what felt like an hour and the score was 5-2 in favour of Oz at the time. They were going to keep playing to 13 points, and we decided we couldn't wait that long. Wonder who won? I believe the match was for 3rd placing in the secondary tourney.

The weather turned nasty on us so SAFTI will have to wait until next year for our visit.

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.