There are days in which there's nothing to blog home about, then there are days like today when so much happens, it's hard to remember everything at once.

It's the official last day of term, and everyone's gearing up for a long vacation, right? Well, not till PW's over, not till 'A's are over and certainly not till Halloween's over which takes place tomorrow evening. Ticket proceeds are for a good cause, so it's an invitation to our Year 2 students who need a short break from mugging your brains out to join us for an evening of revelry. Party ends at 9pm, so you can go home with a clear conscience! If you haven't been studying, well then it's your own judgement call. It's good to know that the Halloween team has been putting in another day's hard work, but without working hard there'll be no fun at the end of it all. Thanks for the effort, people!

My meeting at HQ was a re-examination of the programmes that fall under the category of NE in college. Some sacred cows, like many others in our society, are being considered for slaughter and the bigwigs are feeling out what sentiments might be like from us groundlings. Some good ideas came up for the running of the LJ and CIP that might steer these programmes towards a more realistic approach, more relevant to the interests of our students and more than just lip-service to their educational objectives. Might they not be run as one event fulfilling both objectives? Our NE pogramme could then function as one-stop station to facilitate student-initiated projects that are more relevant to their interests (i.e., CCA-based interests) and at the same time to the subjects they are studying (i.e., ST-based interests).

One major problem we have had before is that there is so much duplication of events attempting to fulfil more or less overlapping objectives that all our well-intentioned programmes become nothing more than an additional work burden to our students. Visits, etc., are carried out simply because they must. How mind-numbingly boring. Students do the work, we tutors get the credit for organizing the events, at least if we take a cynical view of the situation.

Perhaps we need to learn to decentralize, do away with a one-size-fits all solution and instead customize field trips according to the needs, interests and talents of the individual students who as a group request to visit a place they want to go to together, to do something they want to do as a team together, to learn something specific that they want to learn together. If we can suit the trips to Project Groups who are looking for primary resources of information for their research, that might be one more bird killed with a single stone.

Perhaps in the 2 years that a student spends in college, each student should only get 1 chance to propose and participate in 1 such field trip, and that's all. Each individual student will then have to choose his or her 1 trip very carefully, or lose the opportunity altogether. It sounds like hell to manage, but if the students find such a programme more meaningful, then we will find a way to manage. A lot of what-ifs and why-nots. I think that makes our discussion quite fruitful and I'm glad I went.

June and I joined Vince and Amy at Wild Rice's "The Visit of the Tai Tai," a delightfully bizarre, dark comedy with old friends (Tina and Ben) and familiar faces in the cast. The Tai Tai and her retinue represent promise, progress, science, opulence, everything the impoverished backwater town of Saitang aspires towards, but dealing with her is also making a pact with the devil, or at least a mockery of what was once human.

The premise is a complicated moral dilemma: for a large sum of money that will lift a starving community out of abject poverty, will that community correct an old injustice by committing a new one? Will common human decency prevail or will the temptation of economic salvation push a proud, upright citizenry to do unspeakable things to one of their own?

These questions resonate with us because we live in such times. Foreign investment is our only salvation; this is our reality. What are we prepared to lose of ourselves, our identity, our values, in order to make ourselves attractive to such investment? Is it worth it? And the answer isn't as automatic as we might think. The human will to survive at all cost is a pursuasive force, though it is easy to underestimate.

Right. Ivan requested us to sell the show if it meant something to us. "Tai Tai" runs till this Sunday, 1 November at the Victoria Theatre, so if you can spare the time and the cash, go. It's a great show!

Ever since Halloween came to college, I've become a nervous wreck this time of year. I worry if the event is ever getting off the ground; if the event will be publicized enough so that our student body will take some time off to come and have fun; yet not so well publicized that unwelcome guests crash the party and in so doing damage our assets or find trouble with our students, etc.

The first two years, I was in the centre of the event getting everything organized and I was just too busy to enjoy myself. Last year, it became more student-oriented and it was great as I started to take a back-seat and let the event run on its own, more or less. Last Halloween was a flamboyant affair, with emphasis on great-looking costumes and a very simple programme -- a haunted house tour, Bhangra till closing time with a best-costume judging thrown in.

This year, things seem to be falling into place at a slower, more methodical pace with the Drama Club leading the way. A more ambitious, varied programme involving more locations in our new building, but with the same general focus as last year, rockin' the house with music and dance. It was nice to see the club members hard at work today preparing material for this year's haunted house. I previewed the band and though they aren't exactly larger-than-life, they have a pretty good sound that should add to the festivities in a big way. Hope their equipment hold up, AV crew, please be on top of things.

One more announcement at assembly tomorrow and we're committed. Saturday evening I'll be a nervous wreck again hoping everything will turn out fine, everyone would have had a great time, nothing gets damaged in the process, and everyone gets home safe from a crazy, memorable experience. If we can do that, it'll be one more notch marking an event that will in time become integrated into our college culture. Jus' doin' my bit for my college.

I also received my SAF100 in the mail today. Normally, I'd be steeling myself up for 2 weeks of military discipline which I don't look forward to, but this time I'm being 'invited' to a 2-day course on using the new personal weapon, the SAR21! I've been looking forward to handling this new piece of equipment and I had thought they'd never give it to my unit this close to the end of our 13-year cycle. Time to trade in the old M16! Upgrade mania strikes again!

Rach must be one of Phoon Huat's best customers. That was a gorgeous chocolate cake to celebrate Mei's 18th with. Happy bdae to both Mei and Farisa! I don't actually pay attention to birthdays, but when I do get to hear about 'em, they deserve a mention.

Today I attended the wake of my Grand-Uncle, the oldest representative of Mom's side of the family. He lived to a ripe old age of 92, so he's lived his adult life through most of the tumultous times we only hear about in history and NE sessions. I vaguely remember that after his retirement he still volunteered to take school kids to various historical locations in Singapore and tell them about historical events from his experience, making him a walking, human narrator of our unbelievable past. Unbelievable, because the past that we keep hearing about seems so far removed from our present, though the time scale really is only 1 lifetime, no more.

He will also be remembered for his great faith as an Elder in his church, and he will be missed for his knowledge of Christian scripture and his service to the church that he spent most of his life with, even as a boy.

Oh, I just wrote a eulogy, didn't I?

Also met my ex-boss at the wake since he goes to the Grand-Unc's church. He essentially baby-sat me in my working life for four or five years while I tried to figure out how I really wanted to be gainfully employed. Basically, I was his personal assistant, accompanying him as he took on short-term jobs with one company after another. I helped him with his administrative tasks while he, erm, envisioned possibilities for new business ventures for whomever his employer was at the time. It was like being a squire to a ronin (masterless samurai) in the business world. He got all the excitement while I polished his katana. I didn't do much, I didn't get paid much, I didn't expect much, and I was contented, though not necessarily happy.

And Blogger's being a pain again. Guess this entry's going to be a day late.

There. Presentation made and one more pressure item is now off my list. 'sif and Kareen had suggested I talk about the video-making project, but I found I had less to say about that than about the download-neighbourhood-map-and-explore-area-on-foot exercise of this year. The presentation was about sharing thoughts and ideas about the "teach less, learn more" concept and I thought perhaps a negative example, i.e., how NOT to do it, would be a better learning point for all the teachers attending the sharing session.

It turned out to be a much smaller event than anyone expected, even to the organizer's surprise. Bad time of the year to organize an inter-school do. Everyone's busy with exams and other things. Yesterday, I was told to prepare for an audience of 30, which seemed ok as that will be about the size of most tutorial groups next year. Today, Thad and I arrived at the appointed time (though I had the honour of being designated last speaker) and no one else apart from the organizer was there. Eventually, 12 to 15 people arrived to hear the 5 presentations from 2 primary schools, 1 secondary school, and yours truly.

The first primary school presented twice, including one Prize Winning initiative for teaching language using DVD movies. The other primary school presented their idea of using games (Boggle, Scrabble, Pictionary...) in the teaching of English.

When it was my turn to present, my audience amounted to a grand total of 10; one group had to leave due to prior commitments. Guess I'm still not ready for prime time national reach yet. Still, what was left was a comfortable tutorial size.

The next challenge was how to eat all the food that had been catered for 30+? Ramadan didn't help the situation much. We ate what we could, said our thanks and goodbyes and waddled off for home, decision being that the remaining tea would be distributed amongst the school's students who will return in the evening for self study as they prepare for their 'O's.

June bought a brain teaser from the pasar malam downstairs. Messing around with shapes and patterns should keep her occupied all night. The sales guy kept pushing the idea that solving the puzzles doesn't require much effort; only observation, analysis, working with possibilities and "understanding the question." This guy should come and teach GP with me.

Just received 2 consecutive phone calls:
Cat Auntie's out of a job again so we assured her we'll be going downstairs soon to supplement the strays' dinner. Mom called with info that my Grand-Uncle has passed away, wake to be held tomorrow evening, Friday evening and funeral Saturday morning. Grand-Uncle takes a wealth of Singapore's oral history with him. Hope his work with the National Heritage Board would have preserved some of his personal memories for us.

Off to feed cats now!

I can feel an MC coming on this week. It's only a question of what day will I be really too sick to function? The nose is drippy, the head just a little spinny and I'm falling asleep in the middle of consultations. Not a good sign.

Should have prepared my presentation for tomorrow afternoon over the weekend. Now that I should be resting I'm still getting my points together and I still have a bunch of slides to make too. Good thing I'm the first presenter. Hopefully I can sneak away after my spiel then go home for more shut-eye.

Thad is going to be my co-presenter, though I'm not quite sure I know what to do with him. I told him that he's just going to change my slides for me, but he really should be fielding questions during the Q&A with me. I know he's got some good ideas to share with the Cluster too. Hope I can convince him, or perhaps I shouldn't give him a choice? Heh, heh.

Edit 01:
Oh no! I just saw my updated presentation schedule. I've been bumped down right to the bottom. Last speaker. Boo!

Too many indulgences today. Too much junk food, too much staring at CRT and LCD screens all day, too much indolence and not actually getting anything constructive done. Wanted to prepare for my presentation on Tuesday, but couldn't get in the mood. No wonder I'm feeling sick right now. Think maybe I'll try sleep it off... at the next available opportunity.

The state of high drama in my household is over. Good thing neither I nor June are OTT performers, but as a result no one's going to make a movie of our lives. I guess we're not very entertaining to an audience.

Spent the morning at Border's with the current Drama Club advisors to plan possible storylines for our next production. Mel was early so we had time for a muffin and coffee before Yee and Cara finally arrived. Note to self: Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf's Cafe Vanilla is awfully sweet. Must ask for less sugar next time.

Yee was hungry so we adjourned to the Dome Cafe where we brunched and yakked over potential story elements. We've sort of got a rough set of ideas of the things we want to see in the story, but there's a lot of fleshing out to do. Another old classic (well, perhaps not as ancient as the "Odyssey") is about to get redone by the NYeDC, so after Halloween let's get cracking!

As I already had breakfast with June before meeting Mel for "second breakfast," I only ordered a Warm Portobello Salad at the Dome. I've always been curious about what the huge, flat, curcular fungus tasted like. I discovered that after cooking they aren't that huge after all. But they pack a substantial bite and are nice and juicy too. I didn't care much for the pine nuts and the beetroot that was in the salad so Cara took them over for me. The flavour of pine reminds me too much of my aunt's toilet cleaner.

Turned down Weng's offer of an outdoor movie at Fort Canning: a double bill of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "The Howling" in celebration of Halloween. Am having a quiet evening instead with wife, TV and pets.

June's back. It isn't quite the homecoming we both expected, though. I honestly thought that before she left we had ascertained that she wasn't expecting me to pick her up from the Airport on her return. So I didn't. Big mistake. Lost an opportunity to play the hero and go against expectations, and now I am a villain of Hussein proportions.

When this happens, the aggrieved party will do everything it can to remind the transgressor of the Great Sin at every opportunity. Conversations invariably find their way back to square one regardless of topic. When conversation inevitably dries up, there's always The Look, and strategy #46: talk aloud to the pets.

Why didn't I listen to Lynette who, being a woman, is qualified to understand female psychology and had advised me to go to the airport regardless? I complied instead with a "prearranged agreement," which apparently was nothing more than a figment of my imagination. Providence had provided me with one last chance to avoid the doghouse, but I still blew it anyway.

I have had almost a day to think over what had transpired between us and to ascertain my degree of wrongness. Legally speaking, as I did what was within the bounds of a verbal agreement (even if I was the only one who remembers it) I should not be held liable. However, if you asked me what I should have done out of love, then I have to admit that the loving thing to do was to have shown her that I couldn't wait for her to return and to have been there to greet her as soon as she strolled through customs with her luggage. A little self-sacrifice and inconvenience always goes a long way in making relationships work.

This is Fido, reporting 'live' from the doghouse. Woof...!

Stupid funny sized fonts in my previous entry. How do I fix 'em?

Anyway, got this Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire off Zhenlin's blog (Hi, Z, Halloween's coming!). Useful if you want to know what kind of learner you are and how to strategise your learning habits to match.

Stayed behind with the rest of the tutors taking year 1 classes next year for a sharing workshop on critical thinking and reasoning, an approach all subjects are supposed to be using to teach the college's 2005 batch. Doesn't sound like there's anything new to this idea, but perhaps today's course just showed that it can be formalized and structured such that it doesn't have to be an ad hoc, haphazard application but an actual discipline and technique for teaching.

Can't find an accurate link but here's a gist of what today's session hoped to convince us:

• "All subjects have a logic to them. Each is a system of meanings that enables us to reason effectively. Yet, most students try to learn not by reason, but by rote memorization. They blindly memorize someone else’s answers. Even when they do well on tests, it isn’t because they truly understand. True understanding requires disciplined reasoning.... Dr. Richard Paul focuses on how to break out of the didactic mode, [moving] into a new paradigm for instruction that explicitly fosters reasoned learning; learning that accesses the inner logic of all substantive inquiry. [Paul] offers a penetrating, in-depth look at ways to cultivate intellectually powerful minds... to help you put reason, accountability, and power back into teaching and learning."

(quoted from the blurb on Paul's How to Teach video series)

Actually, there's really nothing new in the content. We covered material that was basic common-sense thinking strategies that we use instinctively, although we, in our own time never actually sat through a course specific to such training. We sort of picked the skill up as we went as part of our maturing(?) process. Kids these days, I guess, are expected to grow up much faster. Still, such an approach could mean more interesting tutorials for both students and tutor, assuming both agree to play the same game. That, I think, is the hardest part.

The workshop went from 2-5pm. By then we were so bombed out we proceeded to Rosyth Road for prata, beef steak goreng (for me), and kopiccino ice, and some totally non-intellectual discussion. Next year's problems can take care of themselves next year.

Just a quick note to record for posterity that I made history today at the Grassroots Club. Bowled my personal worst pinfall: 76! Managed to salvage some pride in my 3rd and final game with 131. Vince, however, bowled his personal best: 188! *stands stunned, jaw hanging open, making little inarticulate noises, bbbbbb...

Check out what we were wearing today. Me in Phoenix red, Vince in Pegasus blue. Must be wearing the wrong colours, that's why the scores look inverted. *desperately clutches at last straws before drowning in quicksand.

My vacation is almost over. June comes home from BKK tomorrow. Guess that means no more late nights. Thank God. I could use the sleep.

Ironic that Creative and I-pod machines are increasing their storage capacities and a headline like this one "Home users face fines or jail for illegal downloads" pops up in the local papers today. Have to wonder, what is all that storage space going to be used for now? Why should people pay for something so expensive when they are going to be criminalized for the content they carry around in it?

Let's do some math. Creative's new Zen Micro at a modest 5Gb holds 2,500 songs at CD quality. If 1 CD contains about 12-14 songs, it should be able to hold about 208 CDs worth of music. At about $18 per CD, a Zen will cost about $3,750 to load up fully with legally purchased music. If we downloaded legally off Soundbuzz at $1.99 a song, that's even worse for our budget, an amount worth $4,975! Looking at the figures, most people (especially young people, "Mom, can I have $3,750 to buy music with, please?") will be priced out of the market.

Once, we used our music to "stick it to The Man," now The Man has gotten smart is looking for ways to stick it to us with His music instead. Folks, we gotta find a more equitable alternative -- forget technology; buy cheap, buy unlimited capacity: buy an FM radio. >sigh< Economics has set our society back by 20 years.

I'm looking at my DVD collection and just realised how much horror and violence I've acquired in their full digital majesty. Within arm's reach I could grab "Kill Bill" (both vols), "Van Helsing," "Blade II" and slightly further away a bunch of other schlocky horror flicks too. Such graphic detail. Screams, shots, singing steel, so lovingly detailed in a 3-D surround soundscape. Why else would we buy DVDs if not to experience all the special effects that go into an action-packed adventure? And then I wonder why I get nervous washing my hair in the shower. Go figure!

This collection must have grown out of the need to find an appealing and appropriate movie to screen on Halloween, and I have always insisted on DVD quality. Hmm... speaking of which, I wonder what we're doing to mark the season this year? I haven't heard that anyone has had any inspiration yet. Now, THAT's scary.

Oh, June bought me "School of Rock" too, and I haven't opened it yet! A musical comedy for a change. I guess that takes care of this evening!

And sidebar calendar's been updated, if that's of any use to you!

With all the excitement since Thursday, I haven't had the chance to note that I've been alone in the house over the past 3 nights. Well, there's Q-tip, Belle and Momo, but June's on vacation in Bangkok and I'm left here to hold the fort. She left me a small library of DVDs to keep me entertained while she's away, and I've been able to find company for the last few evenings. Tonight was quiet, though. Reloaded NFS:U and am now racing the night away until I'm too tired to continue.

There's nothing like being left to your own devices for a while, but it will get boring fast. Come home soon, June!

Settler's Cafe, where I spent Friday evening with the usual crowd (with the inclusion of Ed and Cheryl and Cara's 3 friends), is quite a cool concept. It's more like a games library where patrons may select a (non-gambling) card or board game to play at their tables while they eat.

These games are not necessarily the Parker Bros variety but other games that do not get that kind of marketing push. There are games with names like "Munchkin" and "Guillotine" which I've not heard of. We started with "Dragon Delta," a game of building bridges across a span of water in order for your token to get across to the other side. It has rules similar to the familiar team-building game of using "planks" to cross a river, but with more strategy as the player's objective is to be the first to complete the crossing. On request, a cafe staff member will sit at your table to explain the rules of an unfamiliar game.

Can't comment on the food as I didn't eat, but if you are ordering a float, you have to remind them you just want the ice-cream with your coke; and NO ice. Cara left early so I took her ice-cream which came with the set she ordered (there seems to be a pattern developing here). After eating we proceeded on to the EL Dept's favourite games, "Taboo" and "Pictionary," 'cos we were already too exhausted from the morning's Open House to learn any more new games with new rules.

Tonight I went to MJ's for dinner. MJ's a great host and she cooked up a storm of pasta for us: Gid, 'sif, Adam, Jas, Yee and me. It was a starter followed by 2 courses of pasta-mania. The starter was a lightly steamed spinach dish topped with an cream sauce made with thinly sliced champignons and scallops. This unusual combination worked because of the similarity in texture of the two ingredients. First course was a baked herb-based shrimp linguini, which had a nicely balanced flavour between the herbs and the shrimp. Second was an enormous platter of tomato-based seafood linguini heaped with mussels and what was probably shelled shrimp. Excellent meal, though MJ may have overestimated our capacity to eat. We were well stuffed already by the time dessert came round. Sliced mango, pomelo segments and Häagen-Dazs lychee ice-cream. Mmm... (though ice-cream was a bit sweet).

Nice meeting MJ's mom and sis too. Quite a well-behaved dinner, and quite a change from our usual style. Thanks, gal!

My worst fears were realized at the KTV contest this afternoon. I don't know where to put my face now. I tried my best to practice and rehearse my song over the last week or so, and I thought I had it down pat. I was fine yesterday, though Amy said I needed a more exciting delivery. Then this morning, as I ran it through my head again, I lost the tune! It kept coming out flat, and I knew it. Nerves, anxiety, whatever, and everyone else was turning in pretty good performances too. They sang in tune, inflected, presented with confidence and even when the KTV machine broke down from time to time, contestants could still sing acapella to quite an awesome degree.

I was the last contestant, and considering the acts I had to follow, I think I lost it on stage. My opening 2 lines came out flat, as I had been rehearsing all morning, wrongly of course, and even between verses, I kept pitching inconsistently sometimes high, sometimes low. I knew I had to do something drastic or the contest will end on a truly sour note. I couldn't do that to Jong Yann, could I? So I did what I said I wouldn't do. I played it for laughs. And, boy, did they laugh. I hope the J1s will remember me as the guy who made them laugh instead of the guy KTV'd worse than Bill Hung.

A memory I must exorcise. *resolves to do much better next time -- it won't be difficult.

Oh, you want results?
3rd place: Amy
2nd place: Chong Meng (math dept)
1st place: Cara!!!
(OK lah, Cara's voice is mellow and under control, the kind of voice people like to listen to while nursing a good cognac. Now she's got a trophy to display on her desk too).

Invited to Settler's Cafe tonight for coffee and boardgames. Stand by for review...

Edit 01:
There seems to be a slight discrepancy in audience size at the KTV contest. The day before, I failed to comprehend that the tutors will sing after all the student contestants have had their turn and not after the student audience had left. The whole of the JC1 cohort (or what was left of it) was present to witness my >ahem< performance.

We might be taking this KTV contest a bit too seriously now. This is the first time I've seen a contestant list for a Mandarin KTV contest, half of which is populated by the English Dept, including yours truly. Jong Yann's done a great job of recruiting a rather unusual mix of staff across departments, but as the big day is coming closer -- tomorrow, actually -- she's looking increasingly stressed out. What's Mandarin for, "Relax, girl!"?

We went in for a quick rehearsal this afternoon, then the bombshell dropped. We'll only be performing after the students have been dismissed. Hey, here we are about to embarrass ourselves in public with our nan2 ting1 accents, but noone's going to watch us do it? I can identify with the Player in Ros & Guil when the two disappeared in the middle of the Tragedians' performance. The regular person is going to be relieved, no doubt, that the pressure of performing in front of a 'live' audience is off, but the performer feels a bit let down.

Nvm. When it was my turn at the mike, I discovered to my horror that I had brought my Jewel case but left my disk at home. Mr Blur strikes again. So I mumbled off 4 lines of chorus acapella and that was about enough for me. Not satisfied with our rehearsal, Vince, Cara and I converged on Amy's to use her (parents') KTV machine. Amy kindly drove me home to grab my disk first, then we had a late lunch with Q-tip at the coffee-shop downstairs before heading back to her place.

Evening found me and June at Sky Captain ATWOT, a boy's comic book fantasy with giant robots, transformable technology, ray guns and sky and sea battles, all set in the period when comic books started to appear in the US. Everything, including the storyline, is campy and retro so expect improbabilties at every turn. The movie is designed with the same comic book style, well, maybe more like a graphic novel. Flat lighting makes the actors look 2 dimensional to match the CGI they perform in front of. The CGI looks like water-coloured backgrounds with slightly washed out colours and blurry edges. Beautiful visuals in spite of, or perhaps because of, the fact that most screen elements aren't 'real' to begin with.

The relationship between Captain and Polly is a complicated one. They are constantly bickering with and bitchin' at each other and they remind me of a non-couple I know who share a somewhat similar relationship. Heh.

We offically bade farewell to the Class of '04, whom I will remember with much fondness though I didn't exactly show this when we finally dismissed them this morning. I realise I may have made a mistake in not having a private venue for "famous last words" with them and what I wanted to say was instead lost in the perfunctory distribution of personal records and parting momentoes. Strange. Even my farewell address on behalf of the Arts faculty was a "safe," vague, over-general piece of waffle that masked the issues that I really wanted to address.

I know you read my entries online, but that's no excuse for not properly saying a personal "goodbye" to you exclusively as a CT. It's the coward's way out as there's nothing like hearing the spoken word in person to judge the veracity of that which is spoken. When I needed to, I failed to gather my thoughts and speak, too distracted with too many things going on, too overwhelmed with the end of things, too overawed by the new beginning of things, and numbed by it all. But even I have to get used to the fact that the Eagle's Nest is now suddenly empty, and a new breed of chicks are arriving in the spring.

The JC experience is just a stepping stone to bigger and better things. 2 years is the shortest length of time a student spends in any academic institution around here and as such JC really is a transient affair; only a preview of things yet to come. Yet because of the age at which you come under our charge, whatever you learn and whatever skills you acquire are going to have a major impact on whatever else you do with the rest of your lives. Like it or not, you were the elite of your 'O' level cohort and we hope you've survived your elite training even though you may not feel your eliteness right now, considering your final test is still just ahead.

In reality, we don't teach subjects -- we simply give you options. And we train you to see and make options for yourself. Thus, you should never be in a position in which you chose a course of action because you had "no choice." It's the most miserable of existences to live with "no choice" as an excuse for something stupid you might have done, and it's the biggest mistake anyone can make. Whatever happens in your lives from now, let it happen as a result of an option you exercised rather than be led around by the nose all the time. Make things happen, people.

Most importantly, maintain your friendships at all cost. They, above all, are what kept you sane through this surreal period of your lives, and they will see you through even more surreal periods of adult life ahead. We human beings are social creatures that thrive on cooperation in order to stay competitive in this big scary old world. I was telling the truth about being jealous that you share a special friendship with each other that I will never be a part of. Eighties, your social dynamic has always facinated me. There's a movie waiting to be made of your exploits in time to come, I'm pretty sure of it.

What do your teachers want of you? We know that at your level of academic training, it is entirely likely that in not too many years from now, we just might be addressing you as, "Sir," "M'am," "Your Honour," or perhaps even, "Your Excellency." It will be our proudest moment when we do, yet at the same time we hope that when you become a decision-maker at such a level, you'll make the right decisions for everyone (particularly us!). And even if you don't reach such a calibre, we want to be assured that you are at least able to make the right decisions for yourself as a socially mature, responsible adult.

Not too much to as for, is it?

The past 3 days' postings don't count. I feel like I've been on a long vacation and I'm a bit disoriented now that I'm back.

Indulged in spending more money on Watson over the weekend and reloading him with all the programs I am used to having at a finger's touch. Hopefully, his new hard drive will hold out longer than the old one, and with twice the capacity (80 gigs) I won't have to worry about having space for my games for a while.

Games. The Burb family is totally wiped out and I'll restart their soap opera again soon. NFS:U, gone and I'll have to rebuild my 'pearlescent' yellow Bengmobile again from scratch. Doom 3, what can I say? I'm feeling the effects of my age quite acutely. Doom 3 is gorgeous, but I confess I can't play for long owing to the motion sickness I quickly develop as I trudge through the framerates of Mars Base. If I ever want to get an MC, I'll just play for a couple of hours and I'm good to go. And it'll be a genuine illness too. Then while I'm chillin' out at home I can play more Doom 3 to pass the time and there we have a truly viscious cycle that'll go on ad nauseam, literally.

I'm avoiding my immediate task at hand -- preparing tomorrow's farewell address to our Seniors on behalf of the Arts Faculty. I'm supposed to work with Mark (sci-fac staff rep) so we don't talk at cross-purposes, but neither of us have had the time to meet even though we knew this was coming from a long way off already. We might have called our joint address the "Mark and Min(dy) Show" but I guess it wasn't to be.

When you feel you're performing to other people's expectations, that's when anxiety sets in and you're paralyzed. Too many people have told me how much they're looking forward to what I have to say, or that they expect me to liven up the proceedings, etc., etc., so now I'm at a complete loss as to what I really should say. For a 5 minute address. People want me to be funny, but I don't feel funny. It's a farewell: I'll be lucky just to hold it together and say something without dissolving into tears and embarassing myself in front of everyone. The truth is, I will miss the Class of '04, and that isn't helping my sense of humour one bit.

Sigh. Enough delay. Let's get back to work.

Up and running with a new hard drive, but Watson still seems unstable for some reason. Some programs run slowly and others, like Nero, won't run at all. But at least I can still make quick blog entries.

Bowling practice was hopeless today. There was only Anthony and me as everyone else was busy. Just as well, because we were only allowed a lane for an hour. The place was booked for the rest of the night. I hate time limits as they make me rush each delivery. The bowlers in the right lane next to ours had little sense of etiquette. They kept distracting us by taking their turns to bowl whenever they felt like it even though we might have had already lined up our shots and were ready to deliver. Simple rule: don't bowl when the bowler in either adjacent lane is aiming.

No inspiration + time pressure + rush + distractions = Lousy score (114, 139, 129). Bleeah!

Back online again, though I don't know for how long. I have a hunch it's my hard drive being driven too hard that's causing all this instability.

Seeing as there was an article in yesterday's papers about actress/model Eileen, I was going to write my own expose on when I met her in person, before she became famous, but it became impossible due to Watson's inexplicable behaviour. I still might if anyone's interested.

Hope to be blogging properly again real soon. Stand by...!

This is absolute crap!

Watson's gone all screwy again. Had to format C: and reinstall Win XP AGAIN! Something is causing this instability and now I think it's hardware. Now, how am I going to trace what the problem is?

Too angry to make a proper entry. For the record, I'm pissed!

Happy bdae to Jen (centre)! Jen's flanked by us on the right and her dad and someone we don't know on the left.

Celebrated Jen's birthday at Poison Ivy, the little restaurant outlet of Bollywood Veggies, an organic vegetable farm on Neo Tiew Road (where's that?). The restaurant is named after (who else?) Ivy, who together with her hubby own the farm. Ivy herself is quite famous personality in women's sport in Singapore.

As the farm produces organic vegetables, our dinner almost literally came from the back garden. The chili padi, bananas, brinjal (eggplant), ladies' fingers, to name a few greens were of course fresh, but my plebian palate couldn't distinguish between organic and inorganic(?) vegetables. Regardless, the buffet-style dishes were delicious especially the banana curry (bananas+grated coconut+cinnamon sticks), the eggplant curry and the tender lamb. Yes, LAMB, and no, it wasn't a vegetarian dinner. June pigged out on the wadai.

I don't usually like local desserts but the consistency and flavour of the tapioca cake, the kueh ko swee, and the banana cake impressed me. The kueh ko swee particularly, since grandma died and took her recipe with her.

If eating vegetables constitutes a healthy diet, then this place can be considered pretty healthy. That, the red wine and the quiet, rustic, away-from-it-all ambience, and air-conditioned comfort make this place a great afternoon hangout. Indeed, it's only open for lunch and tea from Thursday to Sunday only. Dinner tonight was possible due to special arrangement -- Jen booked the entire restaurant for her guests!

One problem is that the restaurant is so out of the way, it took 2 calls to 2 cab operators before we could book a taxi to take us home. If we are ever going up there again, we'll have to go with someone who's driving.

There are worse ways to spend an afternoon than at The Dubliner's. Fortunately, there we were for lunch, Anthony, Vince, Amy, me, and Cara joined us later, as usual. We were saying hello to an old friend, now retired from the education service. Ken used to teach GP with us and ran the Drama Club (then ELDDS). Just before the '03 batch came in, he decided it was time to move on and took his pension back home in Oz.

Today he's en route to Thailand mixing business with pleasure, no doubt, and he's stopped over for a couple of days to catch up with his mates here in Singapore. He's going to KTV the night away with them, then be on his way tomorrow. Ah... yes, the life of globetrotting luxury. Well, he's paid his dues and he's entitled. More power to you, Ken!

It was such an enjoyable afternoon under the trees, slowly demolishing a beer-battered fish and chips, and discussing Ozzie politics and journalism (inspired by Amy) with a pundit. It was so enjoyable, I decided to dump my afternoon tasks and get them done some other time (priorities, you understand). Now I'll have to work on Saturday, so much for prevailing personal policy, but the tasks are important and need to be done before next week.

Dubliner's is as generous with its portions as ever. Usually, fish 'n chips comes with a wedge of lemon, but we got half a lemon each. Plenty of hot, crispy-outside-fluffy-inside fries and 2 large strips of beautiful, smooth, white cod in batter. But when Vince's shoulder of pork arrived, my jaw dropped and my fish dish suddenly paled in comparison. To think Amy and I agreed that we were feeling carnivorous today but in a moment of folly ordered fish instead. Vince's 'pork shoulder' was 2 awe-inspiring chunks of pig meat, and oh, the thickness of dripping pig fat, and the crispy, crackling pig skin topping it off. Instant jealousy, I tell you. Also possibly instant cardiac arrest if I tried to swallow that lot down, so perhaps it was for the best that it stayed out of my reach.

Instant noodles for dinner. What a show-stopper.

I want to kill the sidebar calendar for one reason. It's ugly. But for now it's serving a purpose, so I'll spare it. I thought that around this time things would be winding down towards the year-end hols, but what we are now reducing in curriculum time, we are making up for it by having "sharing sessions" and "seminars" at cluster level and beyond. This morning I received news that I was selected to give a short presentation at the Cluster "Blue Sky" Carnival in which various schools in our cluster will share things that they have done that could illustrate what "teach less, learn more" (the Ministry's new buzzword) means.

To be selected is an honour, I suppose, and the presentation is only for a quarter hour slot, so not much of a demand for my blood, sweat and tears. But I wonder what you guys think about my sharing the "I&E" assignment you worked on in the 2 I&E days early this year? Considering I had so much to learn from the number of problems that surfaced during the actual execution of the assignment, would I dare present it and claim it was a success? At best, I can honestly say it was a well-intentioned exercise that had a lot of bugs in it. If there was any learning to be gained from it, I guess I got the lion's share. Hee hee.

So that's one more thing added on my to-do list. There's also the annual NE-coordinators' meeting and there are some interesting things on the agenda... but I won't mention anything more until I've heard more.

Turned down an invitation to bowl at the Grassroots Club. Legs are still aching from Monday's practice, so not wise to aggravate them further. Spirit willing, flesh weak. What can I say?

Unofficial tutorial sessions are the most enjoyable for me. Small group, everyone paying attention, me being asked questions and responding to each individual's specific concerns and tailoring material on the fly to cater to different students' particular needs. Helps also that they are really scared, and I do sympathize with them. Potential 'A' grades in pretty much every subject, but royally screwing up in GP. That's frustrating, but easily explained. Any idiot can study and score 'A's (er... once again, no offense meant), but with GP you can't study something and expect to pass because of the effort spent therein.

Instead, the students' task is to use the content they have already and shape it into the answers they have been asked for. It's like being given plasticine in kindergarten. Kids love plasticine. They squish it, roll it, mould it, sculpt it, and make a complete mess out of it. They love the way it feels in their fingers and how it smears on their faces. They love the control they have over the malleable mass. And when they're done, they have something of their own which they have created and the original lump or slab is no longer recognizable. Sometimes even the original colour has been mixed up with some other hue and the whole thing looks like sh*t. But it doesn't matter. Regardless of what it looks like, the teacher will say things like, "nice dinosaur, Kevin," or, "that's a handy club, Ah Seng, now please stop hitting Amy with it."

No kid is going to preserve his or her share of the plasticine in its shrink wrap and not take it out to play with it. No kid is going to protect its pristine condition and return it to the teacher when it's milk and cookies time because the teacher is most likely to diagnose the kid with some kind of developmental problem. Yet, when they go to JC, the same kids who used to have such fun now work like mad to preserve their content and to return the exact same content to their tutors; then they wonder why they are doing so badly. That's the kind of toil they engage in (or think they are supposed to engage in) and they wonder why they're not having any fun with GP at 18 years old. Where do our youth get their strange ideas from?

Was busy handing out plasticine to various kids today. Will continue to do so over the next couple of weeks. There's plenty to go around.

Tutorials may be over but the pressure's still on. Students are booking free-for-all consultations with their respective tutors around their scheduled lecture slots; so just to make things easy, I'll put this blog's calendar (see sidebar) to good use once again to indicate times that have already been booked with me. I'll take bookings on a 1st come 1st served basis. For the moment, I'm relatively free so I can be flexible and the best time slots are still open to negotiation.

Started working with Cara on our testimonial comments for the Drama Club seniors. Hope to finish by tomorrow so their respective Civics Tutors will have something to say about their CCA involvement. Have yet to work with Mark on our farewell tribute to the Class of '04 in next week's Graduation Ceremony and there's my own CTs testimonials to compose. Devise a simple mime demo for Connie and her sharing session in Nov. Erm.. couple of other things as well before next week too. Guess I'm just reminding myself while everything's still fresh in my memory or I will forget one thing or another and lots of people will want to kill me over it.

Had to destress, so we went back to bowl at SAFRA this evening. Amy showed up and did fairly well for a beginner, but Anthony was way off his game. A few months off-practice and rust sets in bad. Good thing we're starting our training early for next year, eh? My game was quite satisfactory: 151, 116 (there's always 1 off game), and 147. Let's just keep that up, shall we?

Edit 01:
Has anyone noticed that Blogger is really slow in updating our Profiles? Or did I do something wrong?

Popped Quill into the VCD and I have to say that this narrative is the most devoid of conflict I have ever come across. Quill is the most ordinary dog ever and his biography is so bland, it's beautiful.

Quill's name comes from a dictionary entry as his first trainers name their dogs in alphabetical order as they arrive for training. In advanced training, his instructors notice that he has no particular talents and from time to time they comment on his ordinariness which eventually becomes his most outstanding feature. There is nothing in the story that indicates his rising above this label. His most significant contribution is that he worked as a seeing-eye dog for a feisty chairman of a society for the disabled and a champion for disabled people's rights . Quill's job doesn't even last very long, though it's no one's fault except, perhaps, circumstance. He leads a long and relatively useful and happy life until he returns to his first trainers' house to live out his final year.

There. He was born, he was educated, he worked, he made some friends, he made some people happy, he lived to a ripe old age and then he died. This plotline breaks every convention of how a story should be constructed. The cardinal sin -- no conflict. Yet in so many scenes, my eyes just could not stay dry. It is in how much he was loved, how much people depended on him and how committed he was in doing what was needed of him that is the heart of the story. Though the camera's focus is on Quill, the perspective is from the many people who have to say, "goodbye," to him as he moves from one development phase to another. That is the really sad part, the part where the tears freely flow; it's in the letting go, no, make that the letting grow.

Quill's life is the sort of life we all desire; without all the distracting frills that we want added on to complicate things for us. Quill's life is A Very Good Life. We should be so lucky.

For the first time in almost a year, we walked to Yishun Central for breakfast, taking Q-tip with us. Since some idiot wrote in to Streats to complain about people bringing their pets to eating establishments and the Health authorities confirming that such a practice was frowned upon, we were quite put off our weekly routine, until today when we just couldn't be bothered about it any more. It's time to conveniently forget what was said before and let old habits surface again.

On the way, we stopped to feed Dasher's Auntie and All-eyes in the void deck across our block. Then we took care of ourselves with (not very good) kaya bread and boiled eggs from Central's S-11. Yes, boiled EGGS, which we have been deprived of for a month thanks to the Malaysian poultry and egg ban.

Home-grilled chicken legs for dinner to celebrate the partial lifting of the ban too. At least prices have almost come back to "Reasonable" again. Chicken and eggs, how we used to take them for granted. Well it has been a tough month.

Spent most of the day in a nearly vegetative state. We glued ourselves to the TV watching the ending of the Amazing Race:4 and the entire season of AR:3. Quite zoned out now.

Happy birthday, Yan! You're lucky to have such good friends who are fun and creative and confectionarily gifted! Hope you had a great day!

>>Fast Forward to this evening. We were at the Sun Plaza Kopitiam for dinner. June had the personal steam boat which I thought looked rather large for a single consumer. She recalled that the last time she ordered it, the person behind her ordered it too, but to share amongst a family of 4. They didn't look all that well off and they didn't order anything else. June felt bad that the amount she was wolfing down was enough to feed a small family. It didn't help matters when the children stole envious glances at her every now and then. An unpleasant memory.

After dinner, we were still early for our movie so we picked up a couple of travel guides from the library and June found Quill (Jap movie about a puppy who becomes a seeing-eye dog) on VCD in Sembawang Music Centre which she instantly purchased (the VCD, not the Centre), sucker she is for cute puppy movies. Me too, actually. We also saw Van Helsing on VCD, but she held back 'cos she wanted the DVD format instead. Funny it isn't out at the same time. Maybe the DVD hasn't cleared our censors or something.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse ROCKS! The sequel is so much more enjoyable than the original. RE kept the action confined in an underground science research facility, so the game was basically well-armed professional soldiers vs. zombie nerds, geeks and assorted eggheads, and a malevolent AI. Nevertheless, only Alice (Milla Jojovich) and Matt, her husband(?), survive the original RE, overwhelming force of numbers being on the side of the zombiefied socially inept.

RE:A releases the zombies into Raccoon City itself and now the mix of characters and their respective skills and talents is much more dynamic. The main crew comprises a superhuman Alice; Valentine, a disgraced female cop; Olivera, and abandoned Umbrella Corp security guy; Teri, a TV news reporter; and a well-armed gangsta with considerable street smarts; pulled together by a wheelchair bound scientist, Dr Ashford, who sends them on a mission to rescue his daughter in exchange for passage out of the city before it becomes 'sanitized.'

As with most zombie movies the zombies are mostly incidental. It's clear that the 'Evil' comes from a source other than the shambling, moaning, ravenous, ugly people themselves. The heart of RE:A is of course the frequent use of a wide array of weapons and explosives with digital sound turned up. The fight sequences are so fast they are barely coherent, yet each punch and kick makes almost palpable impact, breathtaking to watch. Occasional popcorn-spilling shocks, flying fists and feet, stylish gunplay, spectacular explosions, and a practically indestructable Milla Jojovich, what's not to like? Big grin for RE:A! When's the DVD coming out?

Nice to see scenes of TO, which doubled in the movie as "Raccoon City." Seeing the CN Tower and the beautiful, UFO-shaped City Hall again... ah, the nostalgia.

'tis the season for writing testimonials for 03A2. It's time for me to exercise my memory and recall all the things we've been through in the 7 terms that we've been together. I need to reflect on how much each individual has grown and matured, how much they have really learned about life and their place in society; an evaluation that could perhaps be more valid than any academic results from a single exam will ever show because it is based on personal contact and experience. It's also my last duty as a Civics Tutor.

I hold my CT with a loose (lax?) hand, letting things take their own course rather than shaping the group within specific and expected parameters. My people need to forge their own identity, and I'm only there to tweak, not to engineer. And today, I feel that my work is almost done. My people are almost independent of me and I can sense my obsolescence setting in, as it should. CT period was interesting in that about half the group was fully engaged in a brainstorm- planning process for an event that the group members felt truly motivated to organize. The plan was as concrete as it was complex, and everyone had something to contribute to the discussion. There was no need for any "supervision" and like it or not the event will take place for certain. After all, the event is an important one!

True, in the grand scheme of things, a project like this has no earth-shaking consequences, but to see the passion and the ideas being slung around and the sequencing and allocation of tasks to different people, what we couldn't "teach" in PW was happening right there without any prompting from any Ministry directive, and I was very happy to let it continue. A small project like this one develops skills and confidence that translate into more ambitious projects later, as long as the planners approach them with the same energy and the same sense of worth.

Unfortunately, not everyone was included in the project and it was a bit awkward for the rest of us. I could only distract those of us who were not involved with some administrative procedures, but eventually they found other ways to keep themselves occupied. Every social group has some clear divisions between the members and in order to maintain group cohesion these lines must be respected as they were today.

Hmm... this entry's a bit cryptic. Perhaps I'll clear things up tomorrow, if I feel like it. Meantime, people, may your project prosper!

Every performance run without an adequate or proper rehearsal is always a nightmare for me. I've learned that I tend to work on my own, not utilizing the human resources available that would actually help me reduce my load and my stress if only I had mobilized it earlier. And I guess that's a major part of the problem, getting things done earlier, which I find impossible to do because I'm not organized like that. I'm not someone who calls people together for meetings, or to plan stuff, I'd rather handle things on a need-to basis. But up to a point, I realize I can only be in one place at a time, doing one thing at a time. A team would expand my coverage, and my control over the situation and I wouldn't have to live through the process worrying about what's going to be happening next.

The Security Seminar (previously called the S-cube Seminar) for our First Years was not the disaster it might have been, but I felt things were out of my control even though I was the college rep in-charge of it. I believe what Agnes said (perhaps in jest) to me, that today I was the least popular guy on campus because I kept everyone back when they could have gone home to study or otherwise prepare for their promos next week. I felt really bad about that, and I felt even worse when Cikgu handed me a loudhailer and sent me into the canteen to chase stragglers into the LT with it. Trust me, I used it sparingly. I felt it was just wrong.

I have nothing against the Seminar, but I wish it didn't have to feel like such an imposition on my part to make the students attend it. I tried to paint it in a positive light, but it is thoroughly disheartening to hear not interest generated from a new learning opportunity but rather requests to "be excused" from it for one reason or another. I never mentioned "attendance is compulsory," because it really shouldn't be. The information promised should have been interesting enough, and of concern enough for everyone to attend on their own accord, but the dismayed groan I elicited when I said that attendance would be taken felt like another nail in my coffin.

The students did attend the Seminar, close to full capacity the LT was. The Seminar turned out ok with the efforts of the MDC's OTT performance which was appreciated by the audience. But I felt, by the quality of the majority of the questions asked during the forum, the students got exactly what they expected/wanted from the experience -- nothing. How do we convince our students that we organize things like these for their benefit, and not that they attend these things for ours? One thing's for sure: my rep must be so bad now, I couldn't stay on as a Year 2 tutor next year, but I'll have to start fresh with the new batch instead. Hello, PW!

Well, I bumbled my way through again, then drowned my sorrows with KTV, a pasta dinner and good company. The song I chose didn't have pinyin lyrics, but everyone sang along prompting me with the words and I seem to have passed my audition for the KTV contest. Now to practice, practice, practice until I have a credible performance. I will NOT show up as comic relief. Shah, Anthony and I were a bit helpless while the rest of the group sang in Mandarin; Jong Yann easily outclassed all of us; Amy, Lynnette and Vince were OK; Mel preferred the English stuff though she could hold her own in Mandarin, but it was Thad who stole the show, displaying a proficiency of Chinese literacy that surprised us all. Let's also just say Thad didn't need the mike, such gusto that boy.

Sorry for the long rant. Pasta dinner at the Bishan Olio Dome. Penne in garlic mushroom cream sauce. Yum. How could I be unhappy after that?

I think I have everything set up for tomorrow's S-cube Seminar. Everyone needing to be briefed has been briefed. AV (including simultaneous video feed into LT3)... check. Furniture set... check. Air-conditioning for the 2 venues... check. Ooh, heck! I forgot the gifts for the guests! Oh, well, something to put on my to-do list for tomorrow, then. I think the logistics are mostly ready. Hope the audience is too. *crosses fingers

It's the Mid-Autumn Festival and families have hit the parks and open areas to frolic on this brilliant moonlit night. Traditionally, the learned would sit outdoors to drink tea, admire the radiance of the fullest moon of the year, and be inspired to compose poetry. Nowadays, the outdoors is full of youthful pyromaniacs laying clusters of lighted candles in void decks and on concrete walkways while waving sparklers in their sweaty little paws. The younger ones carry lighted paper lanterns or the less traditonal inflated plastic lanterns powered by AA cells accompanied by a badly synthesized looping clip of music. It's a great excuse for a family outing, to have an after-dinner picnic under the stars, and share moon-cakes filled with sweet lotus-bean paste and sometimes one or more salted duck egg yolks for luck.

Wish I had brought my digi cam with me when I went to Mom-in-law's for dinner tonight. Her living-room window overlooks a small playground and a fitness park. Tonight, the scene was almost magical, with the flickering clusters of yellow-orange flames identifying different family groups, the smoke and the activity; and the best thing about it was that no one had organized any of it. Real families, having real fun on their own accord. Who says tradition is dead in Singapore?

Dinner at Fran & Margaret's

Finally caught up with Fran Conan and his wife, Margaret. If you think Fran, the ang-mo looking fellow on the right, looks familiar you've probably seen him in various local TV productions playing token ang-mo roles. His biggest role was the terrorist in MediaWorks' Frontline (like it says on his T-shirt). Anyway, he's a great guy and a real professional to work with, whether onstage or behind-the-scenes. This could be our last opportunity to meet up with him and Margaret as they are returning to Winnipeg soon. Since he can't take back his rather extensive videotape collection (video format from here isn't compatible with Canada's) he gave us his entire set of Amazing Race tapes up to Season 4. June is so thrilled.

We had a simple dinner at the Conan's. A vegetable-shrimp stir-fry and Fran's specialty crock-pot pork rib stew, made from pretty much anything he could get his hands on in the kitchen and thrown into the pot to slow cook until dinnertime. He said he threw in some Grand Marnier, hollandaise sauce, barbeque sauce, a selection of assorted herbs and spices from his spice rack including some clumpy tumeric, honey, worcestershire sauce and dark soy sauce along with potatoes and celery. Margaret surprised him by throwing in some black mushrooms and fungus when he wasn't looking. The stew was delicious and the 4 of us cleaned up, leaving little room for dessert, Wall's fruit cocktail, which I like.

Nevertheless, we just had to make room for a glass of his brother's homemade Canadian ice wine, which was very sweet. Ordinarily, ice wine would be quite expensive on the market so we couldn't pass up the opportunity to sample something so hard to come by.

As they are leaving soon, they need to rent out their flat until they can legally sell it on the open market, but they're having difficulty finding a tenant, times being as they are. Anyone whom you know might want to rent a 5-room HDB in Punggol?

We're going to miss Fran and Margaret. Take care, guys!

Our guest artist at service this morning was Señor Alvaro Sanchez, guitarist extraordinaire. He treated us to a medley of traditional and contemporary worship songs on his Spanish guitar. He also used a very modern-looking electric guitar and a full sized harp, just him making beautiful music on stage. His fingers were so deft, simply flying over his strings, even providing his own drum effects while playing the melody of The Little Drummer Boy on his electric. Sr Sanchez doesn't need a band, he and his guitar are one.

I mention him because he is giving a seminar/workshop on guitar technique and talking about Music as Worship on 29 Sept evening at St Andrew's Cathedral. Perhaps there might be some who might be musically and/or worshippally inclined, who might want to take this opportunity to learn from a master musician himself. All welcome, no religious experience necessary. I wish I brought back the flyer so I can give more details, but I guess I could find out more if anyone's interested. Oh wait, I found a link to the online plug here.

That's great music, then this afternoon while randomly surfin' I found this. I guess if you like Asian music and "half-naked Korean boys..." this site's for you. Look for the chin2.mpg link and if the video doesn't play, make sure you get the latest DivX codecs first.

Yep, not a very eventful day.

Edit 01:
Whoa! Talk about coincidences. I was just reading this Yahoo news article on US soldiers writing blogs about their experiences in Iraq and how some of their commanders are reacting to this new development, when this guy wanders onto my site as I'm reading. Wonder what he thinks of my stuff, considering how trivial my experiences are (no offence to you guys) compared to his. To CBFTW and all your "Allies," stay safe and keep on bloggin', 'k?

We mark the passing of John Burb, who was paid a visit by the Reaper only hours after his retirement. The family was in a shambles, his wife, Jennifer, had to be consoled by the psychaiatrist, then spent the rest of the evening practicing on the piano. Daughter, Judy, simply couldn't get the hang of raising her son, Marco, properly. Everytime she wanted to bond with him, he wanted to sleep. When he wanted her attention, she was too tired. Marco spent much of his time playing with the water in the toilet and making puddle after puddle on the bathroom floor.

On Marco's birthday, Judy invited a number of guests over to celebrate, but only 3 of her friends showed up. Sad. But just as the party was getting good, the Party Mood Indicator suddenly declared the party a "Disaster" for no explicable reason. Then it became clear. In full sight of everyone, the Reaper visited again and took Jennifer with him. Everyone burst into tears and Marco was traumatized. Poor kid.

Anyway, the good news is, Judy tracked down Marco's father and it was a good thing they were still crazy about each other. So Brandon has moved in to take up the slack left by the now absent grandparents.

Potential problems for the family: Judy and Brandon are both Slackers and both Romantics, which means that they are not likely to remain faithful to each other. Judy is also a couple of days away from becoming Elderly, while Brandon is still young and virile. And Jennifer's ghost haunts the house every now and then...

Stay tuned to the next installment of The Sims 2: The Burbs in Pleasantville, QEV version.

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!