My previous post was a load of trash, and I know it. Goes to show how tired I was, writing nonsense like that. So the fact that I'm making another entry right now is totally illogical, especially when my alarm clock is set to ring at 0530hrs this coming morning. The reason why is for my next entry.

Today was another crazy run-around session, mostly work though the evening was quite fun. Morning I was at Tina's studio with the Drama Club. It was fun watching Shah choreograph the kids and watching their jaws drop in amazement at what he wanted them to do. Then it was gratifying to see them practice over and over again and get better every time. We have a really good show this year. Great director, great choreography, great accompaniment, great music, visionary set BUT too little time to pull it all off. Another couple of weeks would have made a lot of difference for us, but too bad we can't have 'em. So we'll make do and hope it'll be good enough.

Having a 'courtesy car' while your own car's in the 'shop can be a real pain when it comes to parking. Without the benefit of season parking, the tearing of chad off individual parking coupons is such a tedious chore. And knowing that each coupon is a dollar's worth for every hour of parking adds insult to injury especially when your season parking's already paid up for the month. I want my M2 back...!

In the afternoon I was busy preparing for Monday's lecture. A solid 3 to 4 hours of looking through material and condensing it all into PowerPoint slides, and I'm still not happy with the presentation. It's boring! I'll lose my audience in 5 minutes unless inspiration strikes tomorrow. Then again, it's been a week already and I have yet to be inspired. 1 more day left to think. *Fingers crossed.

Rewarded myself by joining Anthony, Weng, Celine and their dates at this wonderful eating place at the KTM railway station in Tanjong Pagar. The station is technically Malaysian territory so there's a major Malay food court operating BEHIND the main building, hidden away from the main road. We ordered an assortment of foods: Ramlee burgers, mee goreng, kambing (mutton) soup, murtabak, kebab in pita bread, satay and later in the evening, Weng ordered a seesha (secret ingredient was to put ice cubes in the water chamber to make the smoke smoother and more flavourful), forming the centrepiece of our table.

Beware the satay, though. They tell you the waiting list is half an hour long. It's actually 3 times the estimate. By the time our order came, we were too full to eat, having ordered other things while waiting. We acted 'blur' and when the server went back to check the order, we decided it was late and left to go home. Do we feel bad about abandoning our order? Not really. Other people would have snapped up our satay and have been grateful for it.

Early day (even earlier than regular schooldays) tomorrow. Must grab whatever sleep I can. 'Night!

Updatine this blog may become sporradic over the next couple of weeks. Rehearsals for Drama Night are about to go into nightly mode and I'll be coming home later and later as we approach production. Too late to write or even think about writing as the brain breaks down into incoherence.

Oops, fell asleep typing this entry. It's now a couple of hours since I started writing. Must... finish... entry... There. Good night...!

The saga of my poor M2 continues. Must thank Vince, Anthony, Weng and Amy for their advice and assistance yesterday in getting me on the next step after a bang-up.

From Vince, I learned about the Independent Damage Assessment Centre (IDAC) at which the inspection of the damage to the accident vehicle seems quite thorough. The closest centre to the College was at Braddell so I drove over with Weng accompanying me.

There, the inspector wrote up a long list of problems that had to be repaired. Looks like the back gate and the bumper have to be replaced, amongst other things, so the damage was worse than I thought. It was bad enough to make my back door unopenable.

On the admin side I had to make a report on how the accident occurred and I was judged to be not at fault. My insurance is with NTUC, as was the errant truck driver's. NTUC's position in such a case is that since I was not at fault, I could claim for the damage under my own policy without affecting my premiums in subsequent years.

IDAC appointed a mechanic early today so I drove back to IDAC Braddell and left the M2 there. Poor thing, being hospitalized already. This time, Anthony drove with me so he could give me a lift to Tampines Mall where I received my courtesy car (it was either this or a transport claim worth up to $50 per day) from NTUC Income.

So I still have wheels while the M2 stays in the workshop. It's an old auto-drive Toyota Soluna, a saloon model so I have to get used to the length when parking. It may be old, but it's quite well-maintained by an attendant who seems to take great pride in keeping his rental cars spotlessly clean.

The Soluna drives quite well, considering its age. The brakes and the accelerator feel a bit stiff and the engine is noisy -- something else I need to get used to -- but I think it still has some power to spare though I haven't exactly been testing its performance today. It feels retro-mechanical compared to the M2 but it should be ok for my needs until my baby comes home.

This week is getting dramatic. I just had my first traffic accident way early in the morning. At the T-junction of Yishun Avenue 1 and Avenue 4 my instinct was to follow the rules of traffic signals instead of common sense. On 'amber' I stepped on the brakes (a bit hard, mind you), but the truck driver behind me thought I was going to clear the 'amber' and continued his forward trajectory hoping to clear it with me. The inevitable happened and now the M2 has a big, beautiful dent on his backside. Fortunately, that's all that happened.

Now I get to investigate accident reporting procedures, as well as the process of going through insurance claims and the machinations of the car workshop. First person to call (I hope he'll be awake) will be Chew to get his advice on what to do next. I'm sure I'll be getting lots of advice from Anthony & Co too.

I'm not sure what to make of this event. On 'amber' do I stop or go? I guess that if there's still speed to bleed off by the time you reach the lights, it's better to continue because it isn't 'red' yet. Also, it's good to check the rear-view mirror and not assume the guy behind you is just as law-abiding. >___<

doh.

Flirt has been laid to rest under a tree in the open field in front of our block. Cat Auntie and the Malay cleaner saw to it that she had a proper burial. This is one instance of inefficiency by the environment ministry that we can be thankful for. At least for Flirt, we have closure.

What's more worrying is that this evening another kitten died. This little black stray had moved into the Square a month or so ago and sort of insinuated itself with Flirt's brood. It developed symptoms of diarrhea and lately refused to eat regardless of what we tried to feed it. As it looked particularly weak today, June decided to bring it to see Dr Casey. Sad to say, the kitten died enroute in the taxi.

Dr Casey said that it could be an epidemic that's spreading amongst our younger strays. These symptoms are similar to those observed in Flirt herself, as well as one of her other kittens (who has since dropped out of sight, worryingly enough). June could only pay for the black kitten's cremation.

As far as I can tell, there are now no more kittens in the Square. Hopefully this will be the firebreak that will stop the spread of the disease (or whatever it is) to the other kittens in the neighbourhood. Wish there was a 'quarantine' sign we could put up that cats can understand.

Flirt
2004-2005

Very sad day. Flirt had been missing for a few days and Cat Auntie, Lau Ban Niang and June have been worried about her disappearance. This was after we had returned her to her family in the Square after her spaying. Spaying, for some reason, makes cats who have given birth before not want to live where they raised their young. As her mother before her, Flirt moved out of the Square but, unlike her mother, she moved across the street and made the drain her home. The drain isn't the best home for a cat.

Today, we went back to the drain where we had last seen her a few days ago, and there she was under the grille though it was just her body. Her spirit had moved on. June was in tears and I was numbed. The cause of her untimely demise is unknown, though I suspect she must have been caught in the drain sometime during the last couple of days that we'd been experiencing torrential rains.

Though she was a stray, she was a part of our extended "family." Good bye, Flirt. We miss you.

I am now thoroughly disappointed with KOTOR2. Though I said I didn't have time to play anymore, I couldn't stand not having a working game on my hard drive. So I tried various graphics settings and reloaded my older video drivers to no avail. Now places that didn't give me problems before are giving problems now. This sucks! Good thing I have already finished the game once through. Now, where can I go to get my money back?

Drama Night's looking better now that we've got the music in, Yee's new set design and the Roland keyboard finally works at last. The music has been recorded on a practice CD, but will be performed 'live' on the day itself.

Our choreographer came down for the first time to meet us today. He does wonders with non-dancers. Our performers may have some experience dancing to rap and hip-hop but for this production, they're learning jazz movements instead. Classy!

Until production in a little more than a month's time, we're going to be ending rehearsals late on many occasions, but we all have to make sacrifices for the production. Our Stage Manager (SM) said so as much as he shelled the cast for their tardy, laid-back attitude. Glad the SM is taking his role as Production Sergeant Major seriously and that he's bringing the whole production team, back-stage and on, under his iron fist. In a production like this under such a tight deadline there has to be a great deal of fasicism underlying the running of the show. We have indeed the right man for the job.

Despite my earlier misgivings, Drama Night is starting to look (and sound) good... stay tuned...!

The Ministry's bowling league standings are on-line and, as I promised, you can click the link here for an eyeball. Thankfully, we aren't at the bottom of the table so we haven't embarrassed ourselves too badly the first time out. We can still hope to do better with practice. This league is far from over!

Today I met my new CT for the first time. Though I agreed to take 4 GP tutorials, 1 PW and have a complete break from CTship, this year's batch of little dragons is so immense that this arrangement can not be met by our current human resource allocation. And here I thought we were worrying over the dearth of children in our country. Guess the parents of this year's batch just aren't with the programme.

So the arrangement now is for me to take a CT (and considering what Civics Tutors have to do this year, it's not funny), 3 GP and 2 PW tutorials. My workload has skyrocketed, but we'll adapt, won't we? After all, I just got promoted with effect from April, so I'd better work harder to deserve it.

Right now, my immediate goal is to refocus my mind on the many things I have left outstanding, and, boy, are there a lot of things. April is going to be a mad period with 2 major guest speakers coming down to campus for level-wide seminars, and 1 week out of that whole month I'll be off-campus on-course. All this to be followed up by the equally daunting prospect of putting together Drama Night on the 1st week of May. And this is all before I can even think about how I'm going to be conducting my tutorials and lectures and executing my duties as Civics Tutor at the same time. Even before the real work begins I need a vacation already. Too many unproductive late nights will do that to you.

Have to resolve to sleep earlier. That will take care of problem #1. The rest? well, we'll just deal with 1 crisis at a time.

Part II
Today's mood was quite different from the day before. There was a lot of long pauses in between bouts of mindless fatigue duties. Lots of cleaning to be done, lots of inspections, lots of stores to be drawn and returned. The usual army stuff. Hurry up and wait.

Our leadership kept reminding us that this was to be our penultimate in-camp before we officially disband the 416th early next year. Indeed, it has already been 12 years and we old-timers are so ready to retire from National Service.

It's amazing to watch each other get older every year. We get wrinklier, paunchier, balding(er), and, sad to say, I myself am amongst the top 10 oldest guys in the unit. I've seen the kids in the earlier years return married, or return with more and more kids, or their kids are going to school. We men are talking more and more about family, kids and work when once we talked about how we wanna get wild and crazy and paint the town red with our nights-off.

Our CO and the Commander himself thanked us for our support and our attitude that we've shown over the years at the end of today's tasks. They spoke of the dedication and the sacrifice we've made in making the 416th rank amongst the best of the NS units in terms of training, seriousness and 'brotherhood.' That's one way of looking at it, I guess.

For me, a couple of weeks a year to spend time in-camp is a real pain-in-the-butt, but I see it as something that has to be done. So it's done. I don't have a business that might lose lots of money if I'm not there, I don't have kids who wonder where Papa has gone for so many days and nights; no, my students have a vacation when I'm not around. But there are men who do, and they want to go home as badly as I do. So it's done.

If there's a driving force behind why the 416th is so successful, it's because we know that what we do is absolutely necessary to maintain the lifestyle we are used to (though we may bitch about how 'meaningless' it all seems amongst each other). Hence, we want to do things right the first time, properly, promptly and most importantly, safely, so that as soon as ever possible, we can go home and leave all the army stuff behind us.

We are the army because we have a home we want to go back to. There is no other, no better reason to take up arms.

These last couple of days I've been wearing yet another hat. Helmet, to be precise. Kevlar construction, enmeshed in a camouflage net. Duty called and I answered. Late, because I wasn't familiar with the drive to camp and entered the expressway towards the wrong direction. By the time I figured out an appropriate course correction, I arrived 45 minutes past my ETA. They'll probably dock some of my make-up pay to make some kind of disciplinary point, but duh.

Objective of this in-camp was to familiarize the 416th with the new SAR21 personal weapon. We old-timers who are so used to the venerable old M16 now have to come to grips with this new-fangled rifle with its unusual shape, but oh-so-sweet refinements that make killing such a bigger joy. It's a heavier arm than the M16, but the trade-off is a built-in 1.5x magnifying scope, a snazzy laser aiming device, and the recoil is easier to handle making for more accurate shooting.

Now I can say from experience what had previously been hearsay: our new personal arm makes better shots of us all. I personally scored 17 shots out of 20 (12 day and 8 night shots). I'm not that great a shot to begin with but with the new weapon it really is almost point-and-shoot. I was dead accurate with the laser (4 for 4 night shots) though I could barely see the target in the dark.

Fine for non-moving plastic targets, but if it comes to hitting live, frantically scurrying -- or worse, charging-straight-at-you -- targets, we're going to need much more training, but at least for now I'm comfortable and confident in handling my new, improved and more deadly partner-in-war.

In case you think that I'm now a bloodthirsty psycho with a 5.56 calibre assault rifle fetish, there is the other part of the training that teaches one to truly hate, detest, abhor and have as little contact as possible with our weapons as well. The constant safety lectures, safety drills, checks and inspections at multiple levels on the cleanliness and general maintenance of the weapon, and the reminders (verbal and visually on posters) about using and treating it responsibly make picking up that weapon such a chore. It's best left in the armoury under lock-and-key, the less you see of it, the better.

Slept overnight in camp at midnight -- my earliest this week.

Thanks to yesterday's downpour, the M2 was looking all sparkly-gleamy last night. But under the light of day he was a total mess of irregular water spots -- the residue the rainwater leaves behind after evaporation. Water spots show up best on black cars and the M2 is as black as they come. No problem. Today is wash car day anyway. So we drove over to our nearest multi-storey parking lot, and parked close to the coin-operated tap. For 20 cents you get 30 seconds free flow of water; about 1-and-a-half buckets' worth.

One hour of splashing, scrubbing, drying and buffing later the M2 was truly a sight to behold. It cost us 60 cents in total for the water and a lot of elbow grease. Finished dusting off the mats, then drove our buckets and sponges back home before heading straight out to the Airport to collect June's brother and family after their week's vacation in Hong Kong.

Early in the morning, it was a bright and sunny day. As we drove to the Airport on the TPE, the sky suddenly darkened and poured down in buckets on us, yes the M2 got rained on again -- barely an hour after his bath! Now he's going to have to live with his water spots for the rest of the week. I haven't the time to give him another bath. Bah!

Apart from the Wong family, we also had Popeye's chicken in mind and lunched at the newly refurbished stall in Terminal 1. Ulterior motive, heh, heh. Popeye's is back to its high standards from the last time we ate there. Only, today there wasn't any coleslaw so we had mashed potato and french fries on the side. 2 kinds of potato, mmm... not. Hope they bring back the coleslaw soon.

Yes, collected the Wongs and safely deposited them back home, so don't worry on their account.

My brother messaged me that he had found my long-lost Rollerblades. A good thing too, 'cos I was contemplating on buying myself a new pair, for health's sake, you know. Collected them tonight. When I got them out of the box I noticed they had been coated with some kind of sticky, oily substance. So I took them into the bathroom to wash with MaMa Lemon. I very soon discovered what the sticky stuff was -- it was the plastic ankle cuff degrading back into the petrochemical it once came from. In water the plastic became brittle and crumbled into little bits and pieces. A handful of green plastic shards. I know what you're thinking, but I didn't do it on purpose. Honest. Um... June, can I buy a new pair of 'blades now?

Public holidays are good for the dog. Yesterday we took Q-tip out for a run at Bishan Park. This place has memories for her because she went to school here. Yep, Q-tip has a certificate in Basic Obedience Training, the dog equivalent of a pre-school education. The Bishan Dog Run is operated by the Singapore Kennel Club who hold classes for owners and their dogs. It was awesome to see what the more advanced dogs could do through the obstacle course, and then we have our own dog. Hrmph.

Today, Q-tip is in danger of having her certification revoked. What do you expect? She only passed because she was so small the examiner was distracted by the misbehaviour of other bigger dogs and passed her by default. She seems to understand voice commands only in certain contexts, and obeys certain commands given only by certain people. For example, she knows the "down-stay-up" routine just before dinnertime and only when I give the command, and she will only "shake hands" with June.

Anyway, Q-tip was off her leash for most of her run. Nice to get out into the sun once in a while. We lunched at the Acacia, the park's cafe. Dogs and owners sit outside on the patio under the trees. Dogs even get served a bowl of water, though Q-tip was too excited to even notice it. I had a very mushroomy meal 'cos I wasn't thinking straight. I ordered a very creamy wild mushroom soup and followed it up with a gratined penne in mushroom and cream cheese sauce. I didn't regret my order, though. It was delish, though I thought I could have used a bit more meat and veggies to round off my meal. June obliged me by not finishing her beef stew and letting me share the remains with Q-tip. Chunky, not-overcooked, tender beef with mashed potatoes. Mmmm... Veggies... does the sprig of parsely count? The meal was just a little bit salty so next time we'll remember to request for less salt.

Drove to Chinatown to pick up a few bottles of xuan mei shui (sour plum juice) which June has grown addicted to. It's a great thirst quencher, especially when it goes down very chilled though I hesitate to say that I like it because the aftertaste seems to me to be a bit... feminine(?). Not so good for my primitive macho image. I got myself a water chestnut drink instead. If you're looking for local cold juices and teas to-go, the stall is on the ground floor of the Yangtze Building.

Took June's folks out to Changi Village for dinner. The stall selling the famous nasi lemak wasn't open when we arrived at 6pm (it opens at 6:30 and the queue is unbelievable) so I settled for a less famous stall immediately opposite it. Wow! Mdm Rozzie's nasi was already so good. Crispy chicken wing, ikan bilis, fish fillet (extra $1) quite standard, but the rice was so fluffy and so lemak I was almost halfway through scoffing the lot before June returned with her bowl of prawn noodles. She insisted on trading on the spot so I took over her full bowl and she polished off the remnants of my nasi. Then she went to get another bowl of prawn noodles for herself. We were so stuffed after that. The walk along the beach helped a bit.

Came back early and still had time to watch "Robots," which was a pretty good story, though I felt it was more "Shark Tale" than "The Incredibles" in terms of excitement. Oops, my biases are showing.

Crawled in after midnight again last night. Chew, my Mazda Sales Exec, was right. Life changes when you have a car. Options open up to the once unthinkable, i.e., going home late, when there is no need to worry about transportation and midnight taxi surcharges.

Last night was the first game of the Ministry's bowling league. Result: the Gutter Boys got their asses royally kicked in competition. Things happened too fast to make an actual count of the team's score but we're running at least 200 pinfalls behind most other teams and it's a good bet that we've started the competition at the bottom of the table. (Will post a link to the official results when it comes on-line).

It's nothing to get upset about, disappointed with our performance maybe, but we have to remember that we already knew we had to raise our game to play at this level. Here is where the P's advice about 'being a big fish in a small pond' falls flat on its face. We're not competing within our own in-house league anymore. The champs of a small-time league now have a sea to swim in and the sharks, there are a-plenty. Everyone someday will have to move up to a bigger pond, to be the small fish again, or if not will forever remain the 'frog in the well.'

Most improved bowler in the team is Vince who has indeed taken his game to a new level. Very proud of him last night for raising his average to the 120s when he is usually happy just to reach 100. My own average maintained at 140, which for me is a good start, though I still have to improve to be worthy of the competition.

It's Anthony and Yee who, I think, have let the competition get to them. Of course, we've never had to share lanes with a team that bowls strikes and spares all the time (and our neighbours aren't even the best team) but this pressure just might be pushing Anthony and Yee into overachiever mode, which distracts them from their usual game. Instead of competing with their normal jovial, relaxed, poking fun at Vince and Amy style, they have become over-critical of themselves, which is a lot less fun than if they continued to just be critical of other people. That sounds contradictory but it's true.

5 more games left and our ass kicking last night makes us hungry to train with more determination. We may have had a poor start but we're going to end with with a hugely improved personal game and the right to swim with the sharks in a bigger pond. Da dum, da dum...

Amy and Vince's fellow Council advisors got together with us after the game and we drowned our sorrows in beverages and KTV. We had a mix of Chinese and English tunes, all from the mid-eighties and further back in history. Don't these people update their catalogues? Anthony and I lost our voices screaming projecting "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "When Love and Hate Collide" amongst other of the loudest music available for selection, well, not that there were many to choose from. There were a number of mellow ones as well, but you know our preference.

Other details, let's see... the Gent's was covered in puke and when we left at about 1am there were 2 couples left in the main lounge dancing to some Chinese techno song. One couple was an ah pek swinging his hips with his young lady friend whose hips were equally fluid. I hesitate to speculate.

Production has ground to a standstill because of block test week. Drama Night opens in a month and a week's time and we can't work on it until the tests are over. So far we've roughly blocked out about 3 acts of 8 with one act and a conclusion yet to be written. Music is beautiful but coming in in dribs and drabs, so far nothing produced that our choreographer can work with as far as major dance numbers go. The set materials have already been delivered but they still have to be worked with to see how they actually fit into the overall design of the show. Costume shopping scheduled for tomorrow and early next week.

So some things are moving but only 5 weeks left to get our act together and make a show for the college. At this time I still really miss working with Cara. Emotionally, it was good to know that someone else was equally obsessed with the production making it priority number one regardless of other um... obligations. I know my production staff and crew are doing their best, and I appreciate the contributions they've been making and will continue to be making in the coming weeks, but I still feel alone, like I'm the only one looking at the show as a major highlight of the year, and it seems to me that the others see it as just another thing on their plate (which is actually true, but still...).

In 5 weeks the show isn't likely to be 'ready.' It'll be rough and in need of serious polishing but though I've asked there isn't going to be an extension. The show will go on as is, a work-in-progress at best. And somewhere in all this, I have to wonder whether someone else playing Producer instead of me would have done a better job controlling the production in terms of planning the schedule, setting and enforcing deadlines, scolding people when they needed to be scolded, encouraging people when they're down, and a whole bunch of other things that go on behind the scenes. Probably. I'm not blind to my own strengths and weaknesses.

The next 5 weeks are going to be hell not just for me but for everyone involved in the production. But then a good show is worth killing ourselves over in making it happen. I hope the Club, staff, students will agree with me on this and pull off a knockout production like we promised ourselves at the beginning of this season. The audience deserves our best and I truly hope we can deliver.

Checked out the competition for the Ministry's bowling league based on last year's results. The opposition is TOUGH. Our team, as far as current practice goes, places us about mid-table -- IF we're bowling consistently well. Comparing individual scores, most opposing team members average 170 per game. Then there are outstanding individuals, both men and women who are scoring in the 200 range. Ouch. This contest is going to be no pushover. Hopefully our weekly training sessions will improve our game until we're scoring with the best by the end of the tourney, sometime in September. Wish us luck!

Edit 01:
There! Fixed my graphics problem with KOTOR 2. Just switch off the "Grass" option in the game setup. It may not be as pretty as watching the grass part as your party runs through it, but the graphics won't screw up now and the game is now playable in the open spaces on Dantooine, Dxun and Korriban. Hope nothing else will go wrong now.

Edit 02:
I was wrong about Dantooine. Sigh.

Official last day for the J1 CTs before the permanent posting results are released tomorrow. It's kinda' sad, kinda' nostalgic as the kids sat together in the hall not knowing if they'll see each other again when orientation begins on Wednesday. Group shots and other photo opportunities all round and so the morning passed all too quickly for them.

Meantime, a couple of graduating students asked me for letters of recommendation and to fill up forms of personal appraisal to stand them a better chance of getting the course they are applying for at the U. This sort of request is usually by students who are applying for overseas Unis, but recently the local institutes of tertiary education are adopting a similar application procedure to assess candidates from an all-round perspective rather than just by grades alone. Another indication that things here are becoming more comparable to the realities of the rest of the world. Our kids have been too protected for too long. It's good to see that we are in a way beginning to let go.

Monday evening bowling practice for the Gutter Boys. Me with my new ball, leaving Vince who didn't have a personal ball, a situation he quickly rectified at the pro bowl shop. Shoes, ball, bag in a package and now our whole team is fully kitted up, no need to rely any further on the availability of house equipment. You could say we're taking this game quite seriously now.

But can we bowl? A slight improvement on my average (140 over 6 games); Yee needs to find his form again but he's slowly getting there; Anthony's doing ok (156 average over 3 games); and Vince improving his game too -- good first throws because with his new ball he has to deal with the increased weight and custom grip and so he's throwing with more caution and accuracy now; but we could all still bowl with a lot more consistency. Scattering strikes and spares isn't going to put us up there with the best this tourney has to offer. Will we be good enough? We'll find out this Thursday when we play our first match of 6.

Dinner at the bak kut teh place on Balestier Road. Anthony will kill me for publicizing this secret but there is a public parking lot hidden behind the eating places on Prome Road so there is no need to fight for scarce parking along the main road or park illegally in the area. It's free parking in the evening too!

The bak kut teh is in a clear soup, lots of garlic cloves and meaty, chunky bones to gnaw on. It still doesn't compare to the one that used to be at the defunct Hill Street Food Centre (now an overgrown vacant lot), but it's still quite good.

Turned down Anthony's suggestion to have another practice game after dinner. No point overtraining. Priority set for rest and sleep tonight. So what am I doing blogging? Um...

Ah, my poor neglected blog.

KOTOR 2 is one absorbing game that pushes its story chapter by chapter so strongly that hours of gameplay go by so quickly that the sun is up and birds are tweeting in the trees before you decide that perhaps it's time for bed.

Not that the game is a perfect one. Gamers using ATI cards (Radeon, etc.) may suffer serious graphics glitches, at times making the game almost unplayable. Lots of complaints about this if you look up the forum pages. There is a workaround: add the line, "Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1" under the "Graphics Options" heading in the swkotor2.ini file in whatever directory you installed the game in (remember to back up first!). However, this solution still fails to prevent the screen from turning into a pixel pizza. It only allows your party to move to where you want them to go without getting stuck in a wall or mysteriously teleporting to some other part of the map where you didn't want them to go. I guess only the didicated would want to continue playing after this horror story, so Lucasarts or ATI, get it fixed! NOW!

Having finished the game (yay! no more going to bed at 6am!). I would say that the story in KOTOR 2 seems darker than the original. A lot more guilt, death, despair in the backstory, yet our avatar's redemption seems to require little more than a clearing up of a misunderstanding. Or perhaps I was just playing light-side?

The big boss characters in the sequel seem easier to kill too. Or perhaps I know what to do now, having had the benefit of experience from the original? Simple procedure: power up with all Force bonuses (speed, resistance/s, battle meditation if you must) before you open any door you might expect a hornets' nest of baddies. If the battle is going badly for you, power up with speed and run like mad away from battle. Then heal up and return. If you're lucky, the hoard would have scattered a bit pursuing you and back at full health you can pick them off one-by-one. Not very noble, I admit, but it gets the job done.

The ending came a bit abruptly, with a few loose ends unresolved, even unaddressed. That's probably because I had a few sub-plots left to complete before the final battle launched itself on me. If you want the whole story, absolutely DO NOT go into the Shyrack cave on Korriban (I think this was the point of no-return) too early. Make sure you complete all your quests before that, then proceed.

Also, DO build up the "Repair" skill so you can upgrade T3-M4 and find out its story. I didn't do this so I haven't a clue as to what happened to it, the Ebon Hawk, or Revan(?) just before the beginning of KOTOR 2. You can trade off some "Stealth" for "Repair" 'cos there's only so much Stealth you need. Later in the game, you're going in swinging your lightsabres (2 'sabres are better than 1 double-bladed one) so there's not much use for subtlety anyway.

Guess it'll be worth playing again to complete the whole picture, but maybe not until they fix the graphics glitch. Very annoyed about that. >grumble< >grumble<...

At about 1am, there was a feline commotion in the square below my block. June and I went down to investigate and try our luck if the source was the One we were looking for. We couldn't believe our eyes when we found him -- he was indeed the Big One, the Ginger Tom, himself. Jackpot!

Of all the toms June wanted fixed, he was right at the top of the list. Overconfident, he didn't bother running from us so was he ever surprised when June picked him up and quickly stuffed him in the carry basket. Then he got upset. All the way home we had to physically hold the top of the basket down to prevent him from breaking free.

Once home we had a problem. We had to weigh the basket top down with something too heavy for him to push off. The container of rocks that June uses for rock painting wasn't heavy enough. We settled for the whole container of June's art materials and books and prayed real hard that the weight would hold him down and yet not be so heavy that it would eventually crush the basket, and him along with it.

So finally we had our 2 cats: Flirt in the bedroom toilet and Ginger Tom in the basket in the guest room. By 2am I was out like a light, but June had a sleepless night making sure that Flirt, who figured out how to open the bathroom door from the inside, didn't escape.

In the morning, after brekkie, we went to the hardware shop to get a packet of cable ties. We attached a tie to each corner of the basket and one on each side as well. Just as we had finished attaching the last tie we heard a "brrraaaakkk" from inside the basket. In his terror, the tom emptied his guts (from the smellier end, mind you), but thankfully somehow managed to avoid stepping all over the mess. There was a frenzied cutting of the ties we had just finished securing, a quick transfer to the stand-by basket, a re-securing with fresh ties, and a quick wash up of the 1st basket. Oh, man!

Drove to Dr Ling's clinic without incident. About time things went in our favour. We left them in Dr Chan's care then drove off to Causeway Point to restock up on cat litter. We dropped off our purchase at home then went to SAFRA's bowling pro shop to buy me a ball. An 11-pound blue-green orb with cosmic sparkles personally hand-picked off the cheapest shelf in the shop. That, plus carry bag for both ball and shoes set me back $145. No wonder people go pro.

No time to test my new ball. The lanes were all full and the cats were ready to be collected from the clinic. The clinic didn't fasten the tom's basket as tightly as we did, so the drive home was scary as he kept struggling in his little prison of at least half a day and I wondered what would happen if he had got loose while I was still driving. Fortunately, we got home in one piece and we released him back to his natural habitat where, Cat Auntie reported, she saw him asleep this evening. Trying to get over his trauma, no doubt.

To cowpat:
Thanks for inviting us to Blue Moo (what an interesting concept!), but after all the excitement of the day we decided to pass. Hope you had a good time, and let us know when BP's next show is on, ok?

Dinner at Marrybrown, a Malaysian chain of Southern-style fried chicken restaurants to rival KFC. Ok, lah. Quite sedap.

Boy, the M2's been running around quite a bit today.

Just a quick note 'cos it's late. Again.

Q-tip went for grooming and now she's a much smaller, lighter, more dog-shaped dog instead of a walking fluff-ball.

Flirt's kitten has found a new home! The bakery lao ban niang agreed to keep him as the 4th cat in her house. It's sad to see him go, but really the practicality of keeping him as our 4th pet was a bit much for us. Hope he can settle down quickly and have more fun with his new roomies who, hopefully, will treat him with more welcome than Belle and Momo did.

Much later in the evening, we went hunting and caught Flirt herself yet again. June is taking the day off so we can take her for spaying, and no excuses this time. We also intended to catch one of the neighbourhood toms to accompany Flirt and her "procedure," but they have so far been too smart for us. It seems they have all gone hiding as we scoured our immediate neighbourhood, but there was no trace of Bubbles, or Ginger Tom, or even Skull. Wonder who's been tipping them off?

Will try again early tomorrow morning then send off whomever we can to Dr Ling. Someone's gonna get fixed...

Whoa! Lost a day. Where have I been? Telos, Dxun, Onderon, all exotically named, but none of the drinks with the little umbrella that you keep hearing about. Over the last few days, I've been reacquainted with the word "overindulgence" resulting in VERY sleepless nights as I progress through KOTOR 2. Much improved gameplay from the original, a lot more options for customizing characters and barang-barang.

One major complaint I have, though: I've got serious graphics problems with polygons bleeding all over the place especially in areas that are wide open or if there's too much movement going on onscreen. It gets so bad, I can't see any bloody thing. The only way out is to quicksave then quickload again to restabilize the graphics and repeat ad infinitum until I reach an area that isn't so graphics intensive. Sucks there. I don't know if it's a problem with the game or my graphics card, but the forum pages aren't very helpful. Hope Lucasarts or ATI will release a patch soon, else I'll go postal.

Took a break this evening to take my nephew to the Disney on Ice "Princesses" special. I imagine that if NBS was there she'd be calling out all the moves the skaters executed, just as I would if I watched a 'live' wrestling match. Thankfully, my viewing partners were just June and nephew, bored little boy that he was. Too much romance, not enough villany to keep his attention for long. Still he managed to keep awake throughout without making too much a pest of himself. Observation of Singaporean audience: not generous with applause, very little encouragement for the performers. We still don't have a culture of audience participation, only vouyerism, which is sad.

Obviously, it's late at night and I'm still up. I'm on vacation! ...but a working one at that. I can wake up late tomorrow 'cos work for me starts in the afternoon. So what have I been up to today?

Faxed over the Ministry's bowling tournament registration form for our foursome, me, Yee, Vince and Anthony. Stuck for a name to call our team I just improvised and called us "Gutter Boys", but with my kind of luck the organizers will misread and call us the "Glitter Boys" instead (handwritten, my "u" looks like "li"), giving quite the wrong impression of us to the other participants.

I made copies of the latest version of our Drama Night script for everyone. It cost me $10.80 at the college copy shop. A guy could go bankrupt like that. Then alternated between helping one of my ex-students with her application for a PSC scholarship -- she needed an essay written about her life outside official documentation -- and sitting through Drama Night rehearsal.

We're making progress though time is getting worryingly short. As the script is now being written on the fly, there's still the music to be composed and spliced in and choreography to be done as well. Less than 2 months, less than ideal conditions to create a musical extravaganza, but everyone's working hard, and can expect to work harder still in the coming weeks.

Had a practice bowl down at the Civil Service Club where the tournament games will be held. I can't find an 11 pounder to fit my fingers, they're all too loose. Think I'll have to go get a custom ball else I'll be competing with a perturbed mental state which won't help the team at all. Yee joined us for the first time today. He's easily our top scorer though on a good day, Anthony could challenge him. Today was Yee's bad day though. Hopefully, we'll all bowl better than today during our first game next Thursday. 'nuff said.

Took Q-tip to ECP for the pet fair organized by Straits Times classifieds. A festive gathering of pets and their owners, though we didn't meet anyone we knew. Q-tip was attracting attention wearing her red gi with Japanese text on it. Kids, adults, other friendly dogs came over to make her acquaintance. Q-tip, star that she is, just wanted to be left alone.

The fair was right next to the Lagoon food court so disregarding the "No Pets" signs we made our way inside to look for brunch. I found what I was looking for: Roxy Laksa, the authentic laksa from the now defunct Roxy Cinema. It's basically Katong Laksa but in a very lemak gravy; very mild chilli; and no ham (clams). OK, by definition this doesn't sound like much of a laksa but I think it's great. No OTT chilli to distract from the taste and no undercooked clams which are a health hazard. Cooled down with fresh sugar cane juice. Yums.

More food this evening. Celebrated Dad's birthday at the Grand Copthorne's Cafe Brio's. They're having an Irish themed buffet, the centrepiece of which is the roast beef cooked in Guinesss. The spread is full of things that I like: a range of fresh sashimi salmon, tuna; fresh salads; a range of cheeses and a variety of breads; 1/2-shell oysters...; fine, I have a limited focus on the virtual smaorgasbord of food, but at least I know what I want.

Ate too much and even as I type I feel the discomfort in my stomach, though I am feeling much better than I did just after dinner and during the family river walk. From where we were sitting the the Cafe Brio's we could observe the river and the occasional river taxi ploughing its way towards the pick-up platform on our side of the river. It's a very peaceful view, great for lazy afternoons to sit under the trees, soak up the afternoon tranquility and compose poetry if you so desire. Must remember this place and do that sometime.

We changed the kind of litter in the cats' litter box. Originally we used sand which was annoying because our whole flat became sandy as the sand grains stuck to paws and tracked all over the house. We changed the litter to one that was wood based instead. It supposedly smelled better, was more absorbent, and didn't track as much. Bad idea.

There was a cat revolt and they did their revolting things in the worst of places. We found pee on the comforter which we had washed the night before because "someone" had taken a crap on it, and we found crap on the beanbag and on the morning 'paper as well!!! Hope there aren't any hidden caches that we have yet to find... Ok, most normal people didn't need to know this but these are the hazards of living with animals.

We took their point and immediately changed their litter box back to the sand they're used to. Meantime, the washing machine's been working overtime today as we have to get everything washed and dried before we can sleep tonight. We only have that one comforter after all.

In the evening we wanted to drive out to Changi Village with our folks but were turned down on both sides. Our parents may be retired but they're still busy people. On our own, we drove to Chinatown instead for clay-pot rice, made the way it should be. As the rice actually cooks in the pot over a real charcoal fire, the wait can be very long. We waited for our order for about 25 minutes but it tasted wonderful. This stall in the Chinatown food court has been around since June was a kid so it's nice to see some heritage things have been preserved and are still thriving in Chinatown today.

Too crowded in town and too early to go home so we headed back north for dessert at Swensens, Northpoint (right, what were you expecting?). Also took the opportunity to browse Harvey Normans to see if they have KOTOR2 in stock. Apparently it's been out for weeks but I haven't been able to get my hands on a copy. But there it was, hiding like a bashful virgin behind a stack of other lesser games. Duds, I now have KOTOR2, and I'm not afraid to play it before you! As soon as I can find the time, that is...

We intended to release Flirt's kitten back to his natural habitat so he could reunite with his mother and so that more people might see him and he'll have a better chance of being adopted by one of them. But he freaked out when he saw his old hangout and gang again, hissed at his brother and ran off to hide and generally be antisocial with everyone. So we caught him, put him back into his basket and brought him back home. Think we're going to have to get used to living with 3 cats. No more, please. Really.

Ended the day watching the SpongeBob Squarepants movie. SpongeBob is ok to watch in his half-hour cartoon show, but a feature-length movie? Guess that's asking a bit much. It is amusing in bits but the movie goes on too long to sustain the humour.

It's late, I know but it's been a long day.

First thing in the morning I'm paying my parking fine at the nearby AXS machine. So damn easy to use, I'm afraid I might get so addicted I just might purposely irritate more URA aunties so they'll fine me some more. $12, gone just like that and I think it's fun. What's wrong with me?

Today was our scheduled half-day off in celebration of our outstanding 'A' level results. Official time to end classes was 1310 hrs but the Drama Club stayed on from 1400 to 1700 for our Friday rehearsal.

I hadn't mentioned it before but I'm really happy with the music MJ is composing for our musical, though there was a slight misunderstanding with Pete who played his initiative card and wrote some of the music by himself. Suddenly, from no music I had more options of original compositions than I knew what to do with.

I decided on the best compromise and that was to get both composers working on the same pieces of music cooperatively rather than separate pieces of music in competition with one another. Pete assured me that there was no intention on his part to compete, but perhaps if he and MJ had communicated better with each other earlier it might have saved us a few ruffled feathers.

Rehearsals are going well (considering how little time we have left to curtain) and we are working with the novel experience of having the script written out as we are blocking the scenes. What's happening is that we are projecting our script onto a screen in our rehearsal room, working out the stage directions and dialogue, choreographing movement on the fly and instantly feeding back to our scriptwriter at the console what he needs to fix in the script. Presto! Changes are made and the script continues to evolve as we go.

A very scary way to work, but I have confidence in Tina. She's not up for this year's Life! award for best director for nothing! Incidentally, all the best director nominees this year are all linked together through Tina who has had a hand in training them all while they spent some of their earlier years playing with us at MU. Sam (3 nominations!) and Nat have made great progress since those early days and we're proud of them.

By the time I left campus after rehearsal, there was only my car, Amy's and Vince's left in the parking lot. Have to be grateful it was a half-day, else rehearsals would have started to 1600 and ended at 2000. That wouldn't have been funny.

Popped Shall We Dance (Gere and Lopez) into the DVD. It's a Hollywood remake of a Japanese movie I watched some years back. It was an amusing and whimsical look at how John Clark (Gere) deals constructively with male mid-life crisis by taking up ballroom dance lessons and in so doing he rediscovers the romance in his overcomfortable, overfamiliar marriage. I'm no fan of ballroom dance myself, but the choreography is quite something to watch; graceful, dramatic and passionate. Whoo! And a cast of quirky characters thrown in moves the story along quite painlessly as well.

Right. To bed...

I really have to apologize for being a rotten GP tutor and Civics tutor to my current yet soon-to-be-disbanded CT. Ever since the Chinese New Year public holiday there has been a weekly disruption to our timetable: experiential learning, KI course for me, release of results, and PW course again for me, so in reality my CT has yet to truly experience what GP and Civics tutorials are like. So much for their 1st term preview of JC life. My other 2 tutorial groups seem to be enjoying themselves for the most part, but my CT... sigh. I just haven't been there for them, I feel.

Today I abandoned them again to attend a briefing by a Cambridge marker on the new look PW will have this year. Less rigid in structure, more open in interpretation of the question, less quantity of research material required (no more overstuffed GPFs), but higher level and quality of in-depth analysis required by each member of the PW team. Assessment criteria has now been condensed even further and a few redundancies have also been eliminated.

There is of course the group assessment, but individual accountability seems to be this year's emphasis. Another small step in the right direction as far as intention goes, but a human resource nightmare since instead of keeping an eye on 5 project groups we PW supervisors are now chasing up 25 individual students multiplied by the number of PW classes we're assigned (2 for most of us). It's going to be an interesting year.

After the briefing, we adjourned to lunch at the Annalakshmi. This restaurant concept is very special. The menu is an all-you-can-eat Indian vegetarian buffet with quite a variety of rice dishes, veggie curries and gravies to savour, fruit and pastry desserts, juices and hot beverages, and all for the price of... well, you decide. All proceeds from whatever patrons decide to give go directly to charity. This business model sounds like a recipe for financial disaster, doesn't it? But the establishment is already in its 19th year and looks to be still going strong. I love the concept: eat as much as you like, pay as much as you like. If you want to try it out, it's on the 2nd floor of the Excelsior Hotel. Use the mall entrance, not the hotel entrance. Really, here you have nothing to lose (the food and ambiance have quality), and a good cause to support with your contribution.

And I got my first parking fine today too. I parked at the National Library parking lot, which is just a short walk to the Excelsior, but I didn't read the parking rates carefully enough. Here, parking is $1 per half hour, not per hour as I have gotten used to. For parking 1 hour more than what I paid for, I now have to pay $12 in fines for my misdemeanor. I am a criminal!!! What will my mother say?

Amazing. I hypothesized a scenario with my students just a couple of days ago: what if PEARLS was scrapped? On freeing up this time committment from students, what kind of activities would they pursue out of interest rather than for incentive? Sorry to say most of my students couldn't conceptualize this possibility.

Today, this sacred cow lies dead in a mercy killing. No more PEARLS for this current batch of J1s onwards. What was unthinkable just a day or so ago has become reality today. The kids are free! There will probably be a lot of unhappy, aimless souls casting around for some sense of structure in which once they felt comfortably constrained in, at least initially, but it's time people realised that forcing kids to participate in activities is not the responsibility, nor even the calling, of schools and colleges.

As with any other transition, there will be an awkward stage as we find new stability but I think we've taken another step towards becoming a more mature people. It all depends now on whether kids and their parents and teachers(!) can cope with the insecurity of driving without a safety belt, with the kids themselves in the driver's seat.

Edit 01:
It was Q-tip's 1st outing to the Colbar. She made the acquaintance of Wendy and Anthony and may have planted a seed of a thought in them about accessorizing their new apartment with a canine of similar size and temprament. She sat quietly while we took turns to put her on our laps as we chatted.

Weng joined us later and purchased a small bag of pork crisps from the bar. He passed the bag around and June took a piece, like we all did. Wendy's piece was quite large and by it's appearance I recognized it for what it was -- deep fried pork lard, the stuff they use in tiny bits to flavour some local fried noodle dishes. June hates to see them in her fried noodles and will hunt down every last one of them, putting them in a neat little pile at the side of her dish. Tonight, however, she was quite happily munching away on her piece of pork lard, not knowing what it was. I couldn't stop myself from announcing my discovery out loud, "chee yao cha!" June's face changed. She choked and spluttered then disappeared indoors to parts unknown and we didn't see her again for a couple of minutes while she rinsed out her mouth with Dettol. Moral of story: Ignorance is bliss, or a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I'm a cute widdle kitty up for adoption...


I don't even have a name yet. Will you take me home?

Yep, Flirt's injured kitten is much better now. He's playing rough with the other two cats, dashing around at top speed all over the place, and his limp certainly isn't obvious anymore. He's also starting to grow and as much as we like him, we've still gone beyond our limit of 2 cats max, and we're now searching for a good home that'll take him and treat him well. June's put a good word in with the bakery lao ban niang who was a faithful provider for Flirt and her family, including this unnamed kitten. All of Flirt's other kittens seem to already have been adopted by families in our neighbourhood and this one will remain in our care until he finds a new home; soon I hope, before the occasional catfights (for the position of Top Cat) in our house get serious. June says we'll toss in some cat accessories as well to save his adoptive family of these necessary expenses. Right. Think about it, ok?

Not much happening today. The limp on Flirt's still nameless kitten is hardly noticeable now, though his paw is still looking awkward. He may be small, but he's starting to demand his way from the other members of this household. He no longer recognises the priority Belle has to be served first at mealtimes. He trades punches with Momo just to be naughty. They all give way to him because he's just a little kitten, but I hope he doesn't turn into a Little Emperor due to their indulgence.

Training proceeds for our bowling team at SAFRA Yishun. I managed a 3-game average of 138 despite some horrible out-of-control frames. Vince has improved quite nicely. If he's willing to commit to our cause, we'll take him. Amy is also improving, today breaking the 100 mark though she seemed tired in the last game and dropped slightly below her usual score. Anthony is off his game, distracted by the new toy he bought for his car: a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) that makes his car stereo sound really sweet. Yee, our 3rd member couldn't make practice today even though he suggested that the loser of tonight's game will buy breakfast tomorrow. Guess brekkie will be on him, by default!

Learned a new word, "daizyoubu," which means "no problem; I can do it!" Am considering this word as a possible name for the M2, or Flirt's kitten, I can't decide which. It was a visiting Japanese preacher, Pst. Nobu, who used this word in his sermon about faith.

This morning we woke up late, having slept late after an evening of carousing. It was raining heavily so we decided to avoid town area and instead take a short walk down the street to Evangel for 11am service. It's not like it was our first time there, but when we go we know to expect an all-out assault on our auditory senses. The worship is loud and enjoyably so; and everyone who preaches there, or indeed grabs hold of an unattended mike, shouts at the congregation with unbridled passion and fury. Wonderful orators, all of them, but we leave with our ears ringing and slightly groggy.

Pst. Nobu is here on a short vacation with a small crew from his church in Japan. He was introduced as a man who firmly believes that it would be a Japanese who would successfully reach out to the Japanese people. Likewise, it will be the representatives of the "unreached" peoples themselves that would make the best outreachers for their own peoples, because they understand their own people best and because they know their own culture and sensitivities best. This point was inadvertently proven correct in a real, practical manner by a member of the church leadership closer to the end of the service. But first, a story that Pst. Nobu used to illustrate what faith is.

A crowd has gathered below a length of cable stretched over the tops of 2 buildings. They watch hushed as a tightrope walker gingerly makes his way across the wire and when he safely reaches the other side, the crowd cheers wildly at his accomplishment. They call him "great," "magnificent," and "awesome!" Then they fall silent again when they hear his voice calling from his perch. "You call me these wonderful things, but is there any of you who would dare ride on my shoulders as I cross back along this tightrope?" No one responds. "Crazy," "seow!" they tell each other. Then one little boy stands up and says, "I would!" The crowd holds him back, reminding him of the danger and his social irresponsibility should he fall and make a mess on the sidewalk. But the boy brushes past every well-meaning adult and climbs up to meet the tightrope walker on the roof of the building. The tightrope walker carries the boy on his shoulders and slowly, carefully walks the wire once again. There is another hushed silence, then another round of wild cheering when they both make it safely to the other side. When the boy returns to the crowd they ask him where he got his courage to try such a dangerous thing from. He says, "Simple. The tightrope walker? He's my dad!"

Faith is knowing, really knowing who our father is, and what he can do. It's one thing to stand on the sidelines and cheer and clap and shout praises, but it's quite another when he tells us to trust him in crazy, dangerous times. Can we endure by simply trusting in him or do we balk, lose confidence, berate our situation and just sit there and say, "we're all going to die!!!"? Faith. Daizyoubu. Don't leave home without it.

It was a great sermon I thought. Then it took a Singaporean to spoil the service for me through some thoughtless, careless remark. The lady pastor who took over the mike got a bit emotional sharing (talking about, not opening up her purse and throwing money at the congregation) the church's financial blessings. She let her tears flow, sobbing occasionally, then said one really insensitive thing to our Japanese guests. "You Japanese aren't used to this... I'm crying up here, but you can't show your emotions, can you? [Imitation of Japanese stoicism] I'm Singaporean and I can express myself any way I want..." Oh, the assumptions and cultural stereotyping going on in that head of hers, letting that one utterance fly like that. That was embarrassing, but mercifully brief. I'm pretty sure it was forgotten amongst the other things she was shouting at us.

If we really want to reach out to the unreached peoples, given how culturally superior we think we are, I am convinced now that they're better off reaching out to themselves.

A long day out and about. One of the few Saturdays where I actually have the morning free with no other agenda other than my own. Q-tip got her first long ride in the M2. After breakfast we drove out to look for Weng's birthday pressie and thought we would look through the flea market at Liang Court for an antique object that he might like. No luck for us there as the place looked like it was undergoing some renovation works and it looked deserted too. So we sort of gave up the search and drove back to Sembawang Park to let Q-tip stretch her legs a bit.

Sembawang Park is quite large, as parks go around here. There were a few families strolling, picnicking and fishing, but not too many. Lots of shady spots under the trees and the sea breeze makes the park a great spot to cool off in. This place might also be a great venue for rollerblading as it is open, not crowded and the slopes are gentle enough to be challenging without being too dangerous. A possible routine activity contributing to my new healthy lifestyle, perhaps?

Having failed at the task of finding a pressie for Weng, we assigned Anthony to go forth and seek his fortune. He returned with an ethnic blowpipe with 6 darts in a matching quill. Nice job! But because it was a bit cheap considering how many people had a stake in the same pressie, June & I decided to throw in the bottle of Canadian ice wine that was sitting almost forgotten in our storeroom.

The party at Weng's house was fun, though not the overboard asylum he had made it out to be. The theme was "Juvenile" and some of us came in their old college t-shirts, or threw together a makeshift school uniform (Wendy seems to have made a good effort with her white blouse-checked skirt-school tie-floppy school bag ensemble), while I and June made do with a t-shirt-3/4 berms combo, what we usually wear every day, basically.

Dinner was barbecued junk food: french fries, chicken nuggets, meat patties, hot dog sausages followed later by the slower-to-cook shepherd's pie and the piece de resistance, 2 ikan tenggiri in foil. Lots of Coke and since most of us drove, few of us could touch much alcohol though it seems everyone had brought some.

For dessert Weng passed around slices of a watermelon he had injected with vodka. An interesting idea, though the distribution of liquor was uneven. Some of us got a concentration of vodka, some got none at all. I drove home safely, so I guess I was one of the latter.

We had a mini-rock concert on his lawn, enjoying the sounds from an amalgamation of members from Weng's 2 different bands. We passed the night to the beat of the band, trying to bowl over tiny skittles we set up on the lawn with a handful of marbles. Party on!!!

Left just before midnight while the party was still at full swing. Old bones need their rest. Tomorrow's going to be another long day.

Emotionally and physically drained. Today's distribution of the 2004 'A' results is my final farewell to 3A2 whom I have grown much attached to. The next stage beckons and it's good to know that most of my former civics tutorial can move on in higher education having cleared this last hurdle. Kudos to 'rah, Farisa and Lynn for producing the best results for our CT, and to the rest who worked hard and did well as a result.

From my other tutorials of last year, it was quite astounding for me that some of the students who were having major problems with GP finally cleared the mark AND achieved multiple distinctions in their other subjects as well. I had no idea they were such swots, but there you go. To the others who ambushed me, hounded me and besieged me during the run-up to the exam, it was very gratifying to see how much they progressed and learned in just the short, concentrated private sessions we had together. From D grades to B grades, their effort and determination really paid off for them. Good show, people!

Back in the staff room we're all pleased with our over 90% GP passes. As soon as we found out, there was a flurry to contact our friends in the other colleges to see how well they fared. Somehow, rankings still matter to us, even though the Ministry doesn't publish these stats any more. We just have the need to find out where we stand in relation to things. Guess we didn't do too badly then. Yes.

From distributing results I immediately proceeded to drama club where we held our final casting exercise. We have a cast now and can move on to the publicity photoshoot next week. MJ let us hear 2 songs which she composed for our musical. She also introduced us to her friend who is keen to be our 'live' improv keyboardist for the musical. Both songs are deliciously bluesy so perhaps the rest of our music should follow a similar sound. We had some guests drop in from last year's crew: I saw Adam, Gid, 'sif, Sam, Reina, Liu Yin and Shariffa. Great to see y'all again!

The evening still found me on campus attending the annual Chinese Drama presentation. It's clear that the Chinese Drama team has put in much effort into the 3 short plays. The storylines were quite interesting, focusing on the most mentally unsound characters therein. Chinese Drama still has a problem with being overly-dependent on blackout for scene changes or identifying passage of time. The stories could have been told smoother, snappier and more efficiently; and that would have raised the interest level significantly. Hmm... now we English Drama have a mark to surpass. 'Can we do it? Yes, we can!'

Tired and incoherent now. Just look at the time...

The hardest thing about being endowed with super-strength is trying to live a normal life amongst normal folk. Agnes remarked last Wednesday that I reminded her of Mr Incredible, dressed as I was in regulation Wednesday attire -- long sleeves and tie --and trying to squeeze into the tiniest of spaces at the overcrowded breakfast table. Oh, it was all haha fun and games then, but tonight Mr Incredible did something incredibly stupid.

The one thing he is most incompetent at is housework. June reminds me of the time I made the vacuum cleaner topple over just dragging it across the floor. It's a water-based thing so dirty water slopped over the nicely cleaned floor which had to be cleaned again. The water may also have got into part of the electronics because from then on activating it became a trial and error affair. There was the time I cleaned the marble flooring of the bedroom but I didn't check the detergent I was using. It foamed beautifully on the floor but not because it was a soapy sudsy reaction but because the floor was being dissolved by the acid in the detergent. That patch of bedroom floor no longer shines as brightly as the rest of it.

This evening, I took on my old nemesis the vacuum cleaner once again. This was the one with the punctured hose I recently bought a replacement for. The same one that had fallen over, c.f. the above. I vacuumed the guest room, the bedroom and the study, no problem. Then came the living room. As I was vacuuming I felt that the power cable needed some more slack so I gave it a couple of pulls. I wasn't using strength (honest!) but there came a spark from the machine and my apartment suddenly went dark and silent. A faint smell of burnt electric coil hung in the air. The power cable refused to retract back into its housing and I knew the old thing had reached the end of its tether.

My first reaction: go unplug the faulty appliance then go to the fusebox and reconnect the tripped fuse to restore power. I did just that -- and nothing happened. My second reaction: panic!!! I called my dad, June called hers. They offered some advice that didn't work. We decided to come out of our shells and asked our bus-driver neighbour for help. His son came over but couldn't help. The bus-driver's wife suggested we ask our taxi-driver neighbour for help because he used to be an electrician before. Taxi-driver's wife said that he would be home soon, but in the meantime she'd come over to see what the problem was. As we were looking at our main fusebox in the common corridor we attracted the attention of our immediate neighbours, a retired couple and family.

Soon our corner of the 6th floor was a buzzing hive of activity, with fragments of questions, answers and more advice being thrown all over the place. Dad called and said he had managed to track down a qualified electrician who would arrive at our doorstep shortly. Meantime, our taxi-driver/electrician neighbour returned home and took a personal look at our fusebox. A quick fiddle and -- everything's back to normal! Power's restored and life as we know it can go on!

And then dad's qualified electrician arrived to find there's nothing left for him to do apart from reexamine the fusebox, declare one trip-switch faulty, make a correction with his test-pen, explain to me in Mandarin what to do next time a trip occurs (though he spoke to dad on the phone in perfect English) and collect $50 for his trouble.

After he left we drove to MIL's in Sembawang to collect her spare vacuum cleaner. There's still the rest of the house to be sucked and mopped. Sigh.

Mr Incredible declares housework an abhorrence.

Having a car means having freedom of mobility, going places where one would never have thought of before when one relied on public transport to get around. It also means taking time away from one's previous preoccupations, e.g., the PC and the 'net, that once kept one occupied and homebound. June is happy beause now she's moved up my list of priorities whereas Watson has moved down a notch. After all, what's the big deal about owning a car if one doesn't have a date to drive around in it? So the both of us are out and about at night, Watson sits on his table neglected and, the pets basically take care of themselves. So it was last night.

Flirt's injured son is still living with us and we had intended to take him to Dr Ling's for a 2nd opinion. But his limp seems to be getting better and it doesn't seem to hurt when we test press his paw. He is such a complainer that he would yowl if it caused even a minor discomfort but there's a just a contented purring from him and that's it. We decided to cancel his appointment and observe him some more before we hit the panic button. Instead, we took the time to revisit the Colbar on Portsdown Road for a bite and a drink. And to see if it is still as dog-friendly as it was in it's previous location.

It's unusual for us to have dinner with company but last night we joined Anthony, Wendy and Amy. The menu has a selection of English pub food and local food, the specialities of a Colonial Hainanese kitchen. I ordered a sirloin with chips and 'shrooms; and June had the fish & chips. The dishes are rough and ready, reasonably sized and priced. There is quite a mix of exotic imported beers and other liquor products so oddly-shaped bottles appeared on our table for a few of us. Weng, Lu and a certain artistically-inclined judoka who is anxious about her 'A' results on Friday joined us later for drinks and lots of yak, friendly jibing and round-the-table gossip till past midnight.

Good company, good ambiance, palatable food and patrons' dogs happily sitting at the tables. Definitely a place to bring Q-tip to next time we come.

Alternative methods of assessing GP. What does GP test? The ability to read a range of texts for information that is processed through the reader's own set of flexible meaning filters and less flexible value filters (Paper 2 - comprehension) then synthesized and re-expressed as a cogent unified thought in written form preferably in fluent language (Paper 1 - Essay). So Essay and Compre are both part of a whole sequence of mental activity operating within a particular social context, and not separate skills in themselves.

Adding in the Application Question into the syllabus was therefore a step in the right direction, though the other types of compre questions are problematic in that marking them can be quite arbitrary and highly dependent on individual interpretation. A pass or fail depends on how the marker interprets the answer scheme, not necessarily on the written answers to the questions themselves. Interpretation and application of the marking scheme is easier and fairer when the answers are written in a language form that is easy for the marker to understand, but is very difficult to apply when the marker has to simultaneously interpret the written answer as well. Thus students who are facile with English (the agreed upon language medium of the paper) have a massive advantage over students who are not. So marking the General Paper can be a problem if students don't take proper language usage seriously.

The purpose of the General Paper? To equip students with the methodology, skills and ethics of research and essay writing so that the student learns how to speak sensibly with the authority of a learned person. These skills are essential at University level, but are not taught at Secondary level, hence GP is meant to bridge the gulf separating basic education from tertiary.

Does the current assessment of GP match up to it's purpose?
Paper 2: Awarding marks for paraphrasing text teaches the student to avoid plagiarism but coming up with a marking scheme that covers all possibilities can be quite anal. Vocab can be quite juvenile as meanings are forced from and within unnecessarily tight contexts and does not encourage interpreting the text from the wider perspective.

Paper 1: What are we really testing? The students see this exercise as a test of how well they've memorised the material they received from their tutors, but this isn't the point of the test, is it? We want to see if they can use information from whatever source they deem relevant to the question and how well they are able to synthesize the information into a convincing argument that is both fair and sensible.

The problem here is that different tutors not just across the different colleges but also even within the campus of the same college give different students different materials to study. When the students take the test, they bring with them warped memories of what they had studied (or left to rot) and base their essays on a synthesis of what they remember, not on actual texts themselves.

Since most courses at University level are more heavily weighted on the research paper rather than the written exam, shouldn't we be testing the students on how well they use info rather than how well they've memorised info? Yes, there's PW; but why add a new subject if we can fix GP to begin with? No need to duplicate jobs then (sorry, Avril!).

Hypothetical 'new' GP exam I would like to propose: 5-6 similarly themed texts of general interest given out as passages. One essay question from a choice of a few questions to answer based on the theme of the passages. The one essay assesses the student's ability to use and interpret texts (covering vocab, context questions) from all sources (balance), construct an intelligent argument (essay structure), AND ability to handle quotations and references in standard university-accepted format (MLA, APA, etc.).

I can see the storm of controversy now!

Today the J1s collect their 'O' results. May y'all get the results you're hoping for and choose your next path wisely! Last year's J2s, soon, soon...

Not many people here can say that they had a bulgogi burger fresh from Korea for dinner. June's sister brought back a couple on her flight back from Seoul and microwaved them before June collected them in the early evening. I've never had a food delivery from such a distance before. I'm not absolutely certain the burger contained 'bulgogi' which I thought meant grilled beef. It tasted more like a chicken burger topped with lettuce and mayo, but hey, the experience of biting into such exotic food was enough of a thrill.

Earlier this morning, I found a notice from the Ministry calling for participants in the bowling league this year. Anthony's keen as is Yee, but that leaves 1 vacant spot to make up our foursome. We practiced at SAFRA in the evening, and we jokingly said we were 'trying out' Vince and Amy to see who would fit into the remaining slot. Ladies have a 12-pinfall handicap so Amy had the advantage. I wouldn't mind either of them becoming our last member; I'd rather bowl with friends than some other assigned bowler from the Ministry. Anthony competed against noone for the Captain's role. His 3-game average was in the 170s and mine was an average average 135, or thereabouts. I think we'll do ok in the league. Wish us luck!

June brought work home with her last night so after bowling I helped her to get some printing done on my quirky little printer, and created a mail merge document for the name tags she was trying to print. Mail merge is annoying in the initial stages as formatting the document can be a real pain, especially having to adjusting the size of the individual tags to fit their small plastic folders; and having to type in individual entries into the database is tedious and boring. But once the donkey work is done, the printing can be done en masse and all to the same measurements too. It's pretty brainless after that.

Drove sandwiches to church breakfast early this morning. It was so early that traffic was easy on the CTE and though we left a little later than we intended we still made it in good time. After service we met June's brother from whom we 'inherited' a quantity of car products -- shampoo, wax, washing sponges and cloths. It's car wash day!

First, we collected my parents from their service for lunch, then drove them back to their place where, after an annoying brief spell of rain (always rains when you want to wash your car) June and I got the M2 bright and shiny again. Not car groomer Eddie's standard mind you, just a quick and dirty rinse-shampoo-rinse-dry cycle. Eddie would'a just died.

Drove home for a short nap on the living room floor. In the early evening we decided to try out the pet cafe that was featured in the Sunday Times, Munchies Cafe at Sin Ming Plaza which is not too far from our place. We were a little embarrassed there when we discovered what was on the menu was meant for doggies only and not their owners. Since Q-tip had already eaten dinner we took her with us to explore what other places we humans could eat at.

Lots of options along Thomson Road ranging from simple noodles to dim sum to prata to McD's. We settled for noodles 'cos the establishment allowed us to violate the "no pets" sign as long as we sat outside, far away from everyone else. They serve a not-bad bak chor bee hoon soup and their home-made lime juice is quite a thirst quencher.

Wonder what my duty will be for JAE tomorrow?

Attended a course on "Mental Skills Training (MST) for performance excellence" on campus today. Compulsory for all staff to attend. To appease us for calling us back on a Saturday morning, we got a pretty decent catered breakfast to start the day.

The trainer was one of a small handful of local sports psychologists working locally. He tried to tie his ability to overcome his horrible ('horrible' is relative) academic history with his current role as a trainer of our national athletes' minds, getting them to focus their mental energy on overcoming their performance obstacles.

His methods involve keeping logs and records for training performance, evaluating and correlating personal emotions and thought processes with personal targets hit or missed. We went through some simple exercises for relaxation, concentration and positive imagery, and listened through lots of personal anecdotes of his experience as a college athlete and as a mental skills coach employed by various local schools.

There seems to be a snag when we think about whether we perform to win (as in athletics) or to enjoy the experience (as in drama). To want to win means having a goal, a point of focus to drive and strive towards, which is fine for competitive sports; but for aesthetic experience it's harder to set a concrete goal to aim for. Is our goal to make as much profit as we can on our performance? Is it to get a good review from our critics (a major can of worms for any aesthetic activity)? Is it to get our students to build personal skills in the field and to enjoy the experience so much that they continue to develop those skills in later life?

For competitive sports it's simple: win/lose; gold/silver/bronze; Xth position in the rankings. How does one set such clear-cut goals for an aesthetic group? And yet we must at least set some standard, some mark to stretch ourselves to reach, else the performance is pointless. I suppose we ultimately have 2 very clear responsibilities: 1) to the audience who must enjoy the performance and 2) to ourselves for whom the show must go on.

To summarize things in my own words, performance excellence is about Passion and Professionalism. Passion is the fuel that drives one to perform at one's best because there is some intrinsic motivation for the performance, PEARLS be damned. Professionalism is both glue that binds a performance community together, and a lubricant allowing individual performers to relate well with each other within the community as well as to set and raise the performance bar for each stratum within the community.

Passion and Professionalism then. Perhaps we can set Drama Club goals around these 2 driving principles?

Dammit! Lost a post due to me pressing a wrong button on my keyboard. It closed my browser window before I could publish. Gaaaah! The scary thing is, I don't know which button I pressed! Will piece it together again tomorrow. Waaaaah!

Escaped from campus today to attend a course on the New Subject which will be introduced into the curriculum next year. It's a fascinating examination of how it is we know what we know, and how it is that we trust what we know to be the truth. Well, that's just a simplified version of what we expect our kids to grapple with, even as I am grappling with it in this blog. The subject really should be called, "quid est veritas?" because this little Latin phrase summarises its objectives quite succinctly.

No question, it is a difficult subject and certainly not for the fainthearted. It is for those with an undefeatable sense of adventure, a drive for discovery, and a passion to challenge the known for the sake of gaining greater understanding of the unknowable. This, of course, leads to a small problem: how to teach this subject in such a way that the students will develop their innate curiousity and turn it into a sharp, practical tool of inquiry as they strive to seek answers throughout the rest of their lives? This, no one can teach us pioneer teachers facilitators of this new subject. We will have to learn on-the-job even as the kids struggle to make headway exploring the human mindscape. Wonder how many intrepid explorers we have out there amongst the next year's batch of 16 year-olds? How many of my previous batch might have taken up this challenge if it was offered to them?

Being in town for this course meant being just a short distance from the original Killeny Road Kopi Tiam, the one that was closed for CNY a couple of weeks ago. Today, NBS and I got to try their nasi lemak which was generously spread over with sambal chilli. Very basic, no-frills and no add-on options either. The kaya toast is different from Ya Kun's in that Killeny Road uses thicker slices of bread, lightly toasted, with warmer, meltier butter and a subtler kaya spread. I don't know which kaya toast I like better. Given a choice, I'd prefer to let someone else make the decision and I'll just go with it.

It is now evident that my parallel parking is better than my reverse bay parking. No problems parking at Lloyd Road, though I forgot to display my parking coupons and had to run back before the URA auntie came along. Good thing I hadn't gone far before I realised my mistake. Also, coming into town into the ERP zones is very expensive. The $10 I had in my cashcard diminished suddenly to slightly more than a dollar just from entering the zone! How do people drive in on a daily basis? It must cost a fortune!

The quality of this blog seems to be deterorating. It's almost perfunctory, just another day-in-the-life kind of thing. Oh well, part of the writing discipline I suppose, to keep on pressing on while waiting for new inspiration to strike. Let's see...

I really like my current Arts tutorial group. Only 13 in the class and it doesn't take much to spark off a raucous discussion with them. They are so ready to jump into a topic and argue it amongst themselves. They have strong opinions (although individually they could be better informed) and I truly have kopi tiam sessions rather than "lessons" with them. Discussions quickly become shouting matches as they tumble over each other trying to make themselves heard. It's fun for me to just conduct/moderate/facilitate them, occasionally tossing new material in the form of a question or comment for them to tear into like a pack of ravenous wolves. A couple of the initially quieter ones are now starting to vocalize their thoughts as well, though 1 vocal chap has suddenly become disengaged and is becoming a bit of a diva in an attempt to seek some kind of attention. Perhaps I should find out a bit more about him and see if he needs special assistance or something. For a bunch of "Higher Chinese" kids, they seem to enjoy GP in a way that runs counter to what we usually observe. As one of them remarked this morning, a 90 minute session just flew by. Guess we must have been having fun.

For lunch we went to have Katong Laksa, and for a change I decided I didn't want to drive. Amy drove instead and she managed to squeeze into a rather tight though conveniently located parallel parking spot just in front of our eating place. Vince arrived as we were finishing our meal. Behind him came a large garbage truck that stopped parallel to Amy's Echo, and hence in front of us. Ugh. The garbage truck revved its engine loudly then a cloud of flatulence exploded from its exhaust port, showering the Echo with soot and ash. Part of the noxious cloud enveloped us too, and it was a good thing we had finished our meal by then, though Bhags wisely decided not to continue polishing off the dregs in her bowl after that. Bleargh!

Drama Club is moving forward with our Drama Night preparations. We have an updated script to work with, though a rough final script should be ready be Saturday. We should also have our casting done by then as well. Tina worked on a bit of choreography using office swivel chairs, and she was quite impressed with the set concept that Yee came up with. Backstage is hard at work on costume designing and the publicity machine is just starting up. It's going to be a breathless run up to opening curtain but we've left the start gate and we're off! From next week, 2 rehearsals a week. Then 3, then 4. Oh, my...

Proud of the Drama Club's J1s today. They had a performance during common lunch break, venue the Drum. It was the physical manfestation of a chatroom dialogue. Though there didn't seem to be much use of movement in the short play, the stillness seemed appropriate to the situation they were playing out. The performers included the 2 scriptwriters for this play. The text was based on an existing play, but 2 of our J1s rewrote the script in order to discuss issues that are more of concern to teenagers today: homosexuality, loneliness, eating disorders, self-mutilation... and worse.

It was fun to see the J1s in action, especially since I have been too busy to help them. They were on their own throughout the run of this production and I must say, they pulled it off quite splendidly regardless. The title of the play was "No Easy Answers," and like the title goes, many of the issues were left open-ended at the end of the play. Looks like we've got a good set of J1 who are committed, independent, interested players. Hope they stay after first term.

Went with bro-in-law's recommendation and went with a full bi-monthly car grooming service. Eddie's set up is a tentage within the Orchid Country Club's driving range parking lot. He's a friendly enough chap who knows his cars and takes great pride in making the cars that come under his care gleam like new. All the cleaning is by hand, not machine. For taking up the package deal, my first polish included a sealant treatment to protect the M2's body from minor scratches and other damage from tiny flying objects, like the gravel in the campus parking lot for e.g. Service was quite rapid. I drove in at 1600 and the M2 was ready to drive out at 1900. He takes cash ONLY so credit-card dependents please take note.

If this seems like incoherent rubbish, it's because I'm half-asleep writing this.

Driving is fun, but it creates its own set of stresses. Constantly moderating speed, judging distances, obtaining situational awareness, making decisions based thereupon raises the heart-rate quite palpably, yet it's the kind of adrenaline rush that gives a thrill rather than reduces one to a trembling wreck of nerves. It's a new state of mind I am learning to ease into and I hope to "become one with" without incident.

I'm now practicing as much as I can on the road. Drove out to SAFRA after classes with Anthony, Amy and Vince for a round of bowling. I had an excellent first game with a number of spares and a turkey (my first in who knows how long) then about the 9th frame I broke a nail [bimbo!] on my middle finger and I blew my last frame for a score of 168. Our second game was total crap. Vince left, and Anthony and I struggled to reach 100. Bad 2nd game! Only Amy was happy because she surpassed her own expectations by scoring 84.

Drove out to dinner for once! I picked up my parents and took them to Chomp Chomp for stingray. On a weekday the crowds aren't too severe. We found a table pretty easily, right in front of Lucy's, and the food arrived quite promptly. Prices of the dishes were ok, except for the sugar-cane juice. At the market, the same size mug costs only $1. Here, for 3 mugs I gave the guy $5, expecting change. He said I still owed him $1! Ouch.

Parents are happy. They haven't had a car for years and it's not so fun and not so personal to call a cab everytime they want to go out. Now at least they have a new option, as long as I can spare the time.

Does anyone know where there are dog-friendly eating places? We've promised Q-tip rides but for the moment we're still scouting around for places where she will be welcome.

There was an Alien/Aliens double bill on Star Movies last night which ended past 1am. Hence this late post.

Finally collected my M2 from the showroom! And for the first time, I'm a driver not a passenger! Long may it be so.

We went through a once-over look at the body to ensure it was free of scratches or dents. Chew showed me the operations of the electronics and how to open the trunk and hood. He showed me the different components that sat so neatly in the engine compartment, handed me the rest of my documentation including the Certificate of Insurance and the car's manual and servicing record, and we drove off to the nearest Esso station where I applied for a Smiles privilege card. Chew was nice enough to buy me my first full tank of petrol even. We dropped him off at the showroom and we set off on the car's maiden road-trip.

From Macpherson we headed east looking for Changi Village which we found with ease thanks to a general working sense of direction and then by following the roadsigns pointing us in the right direction. Ipoh Hor Fun for lunch, one of the specialties at the hawker centre there (it comes highly recommended by both Channels U and I) and it didn't disappoint. Lots of ingredients went into the dish: chicken shreds, mushrooms, green vegetables, a deep-fried wonton, all swimming in dark gravy. Here we aslo found a drink stall that sold pineapple juice with bits of pineapple in each glass. We thought this drink had gone extinct years ago! It tasted like it had too much ice in the glass, which was probably true, but it had a delightful pineapple aftertaste. The pineapple bits were sweet and fun to chew. Nice.

Drove home to rest then drove out again to mom's for dinner. They were surprised (pleasantly, I hope) at my new purchase. There were lots of questions, of course, and when my sister arrived, there were more. Brother-in-law, Irwin, gave me a contact for a car polishing service at the Orchid Country Club that he and his colleagues like to go to. I'll check it out tomorrow to give my car it's protective first layer of polish.

My driving report so far:
Parking -- sucks. More (much more) practice needed, both parallel and reverse.
Street driving -- not bad. Keep it easy and everything will be fine.
Highway driving -- generally ok, could be more confident in time.
Changing lanes -- be bloody well more careful!!! A couple of close calls with larger vehicles in 2 separate incidents. Accelerate when merging into faster lanes, clear rear vehicle completely before switching lanes. Practice!!!

Looking forward to driving to college tomorrow. As I told my sister, I can no longer afford cabbing it any longer. ;)