Edit 01

Today, 2 dogs, and a chance to hit Tanjong Beach. Unfortunately, 2 humans got an attack of the lazies and inadvertently fell asleep in front of the TV just after lunch. Fortunately, while we slept, the afternoon rains came again, so our beach trip would have been a washout anyway if we had made it.

What we did accomplish was a cursory exploration of the Pet Resort in Seletar Farmway. We need to find a nice place to board Q-tip when we go to Bali in a couple of weeks' time, and we thought maybe a change from her usual would be nice.

Just off Jalan Kayu, the Pet Resort looks like a farm from the outside. Inside, there is quite a bit of space for the different animal enclosures. Here, there are goats, ponies, a flock of weird-looking birds with what looks like a spray of fireworks on their heads, a flock of huge geese, and 1 awesome stork so large it had an entire enclosure all to itself overlooking a pond. Nice digs. The place is like a petting zoo, except there is a warning not to get too close to Woodstock, the stork. Frankly, he doesn't need the warning sign. If I ever encounter a bird that size in the wild, I'd give it a wide berth. You won't have to tell me twice.

They have puppies and rabbits for sale too. We saw the cutest jack russel on the POS counter, his new owner coughing up well over a grand for him. "His mother's a champion," declared the new owner proudly, and I suddenly thought of the fact that people used to be bought and sold like that too at one time, and in some parts of the world, still are.

What did the dogs think of the place? Q-tip doesn't seem to think much at all. She's just happy to have an outing, doesn't care where. Mimi, however, didn't like it at all. From the time we stepped into the place, Mimi became a portable fuzzy jelly, trembling at 5.1 on the Richter scale. I can only guess that she sensed this place was where owners left their animals, and she was afraid we were thinking of abandoning her there too. Ignorance is bliss, yes, Q-tip?

In the end, June decided this wasn't the place for Q-tip. Most of the boarders are large dogs, the kind that stress Q-tip out just by sniffing her behind. Doubt she'll be very happy having to stay there with them for the better part of a week. So it's back to Dominic's for her after all.

Today's date, 27 May. I looked through my previous 2 entries on this date in '05 and '04 and I just realized that I never did mention the significance of this date before. This was the date of our wedding dinner, held at the Art Museum, way back in 2000.

It was a free-and-easy buffet dinner, a pretty much do-it-yourself affair. With good friends coordinating the deco and proceedings, the only thing we had to worry about was the imminent thunderstorm about to break over our heads, threatening to wash out our OUTDOOR celebration. It all came down to prayer, and lo and behold, (according to our guests) the storm had broken all over the island, except for a tiny patch of clear sky over the Art Museum that evening. Our little wedding miracle.

The 22nd Council whom I invited also experienced a miracle that evening. The Councillors discovered our stash of red wine and they got busy conducting their own, um, communion service. And they were happy.

Wonder why I never mentioned this before?

We're back at the mid-year break again! What can I say? A short break, some unstructured time to myself. Time to rest and recharge, and to figure out my next step now that the JC2s are only half a year away from their 'A's. PUS begins full swing next week and there are still some niggly administrative details to solve -- like where the spare PUS t-shirts are, and what to do about a little boy who "wants to go home" already, even before summer camp starts. Holiday remedials and marking to catch up on, and a new set of holiday assignments to keep me going. Oh, and then there's a trip to Bali to look forward to.

Rambling again. My brain's already packed and gone on vacation... la, la, la...

It's a conspiracy, I tell ya! All week I'd been looking forward to a free afternoon and I got one today, PUS kids deciding to postpone rehearsal in favour of SPA preparation. The plan was to drive out to the East coast and put in some 'blading time along the beach.

It was brilliantly hot and sunny in the morning and it looked like all systems were go! But just as I was about to get into M2 and drive off, the South China Sea picked up and dumped itself on our heads. Ironically, we happened to bring up Murphy's Law in today's KI tutorial. I couldn't have planned a better object lesson.

Free weekday afternoons go either one of two ways. Healthy, as in getting a sweaty cardio-vascular workout in the sun if the weather is good; or if the weather is inclement as it was today, unhealthy, as in sitting on my fat ass, clogging up my arteries with junk food. More often than not this year, it's been the latter option. Presenting today's choice menu:


You guessed it! This isn't the campus cafeteria.

"There is no spoon," but there are, however, a couple of sporks and the remains of my lunch. 

I never thought I'd enjoy PUS much. When I began this year heading up NY conneX and PUS, I thought the former would be a challenge, the latter a chore.

After all, based on what I've observed of PUS in previous years, staff involvement has been focused on doing everything necessary to ensure that the College's presentation doesn't embarrass the College in the midst of all the other Colleges and the VIP in attendance. That's a lot of pressure to be under, and that tends to bring out the control freak in the person-in-charge. No one enjoys working under Hitler, and unless you're an innate fascist, you won't enjoy being Hitler either.

I personally wasn't relishing my turn on the throne this year. Becoming a despot involves too much work for these lazy bones to appreciate. Fortunately, I didn't have to go there. This bunch of PUS kids is the most animated, spontaneous, anarchistic, narcissistic set of students I've ever lost control over, and if anyone asks, they're running the show, not me.

In many ways, 'rol is at the core of our presentation. It was his vision that developed into the video shoot everyone ad-libbed their way through. No script, just a rough briefing, a couple of walk-through rehearsals, 2-3 takes in our 5-shot sequence, and that's a wrap in a 3-hour weekend shoot. Joining him on the presentation team are Mich and Shin, and that's it -- our comedy trio.

While the video forms the frame, our presentation is 'live' on stage and it's the 3 of them that carry our assigned topic -- how to make traditional businesses viable and relevant in the new knowledge and research intensive economy -- to our audience. The 3 of them together are a riot to watch as they improv their way through their rehearsals.

'rol and Mich play a couple of KBE savvy bimbos advising a manic depressive, slightly suicidal kaya toast seller (Shin) how to update his business in a presentation we call, "My Business is Toast!" Even today, during the preview presentation at Assembly period for the JC1s, the 3 were still doing improv on stage!

The 3 of them are a Dictator's nightmare, but I'm truly grateful that they are a bunch of kids willing to constantly put themselves on the line, constantly trying out fresh ideas regardless of how many times Mel and I have to tell them, "cut back/stoppit/NOOooo!"

I'm also grateful that my co-staff, Mel and Gerald aren't control freaks either. We're just waching our version of PUS take shape almost all by itself. This year, PUS really belongs to our kids, and that's something for them to be proud of.

Momo, my cat, can think inductively.

Inductive reasoning refers to the ability to predict an event through the repeated observation that under certain conditions the same event has occurred before, and therefore under the same conditions the event will happen again.

Momo has this irritating habit of following me out of the house when I leave for work in the morning. She loves to run out into the corridor and sprawl on the cement floor, rubbing her body on it for a couple of seconds (so embarrasing), and then running off to another spot where she repeats this silly behaviour. Eventually, I'll catch up to her and carry her back into the house, and she's contented.

Lately, Kaiser has noticed her behaviour and he's looking like he wants to copy what "big sister" is doing. I cannot handle 2 cats running around in my corridor unsupervised, so I prevent them both from going out, much to Momo's disappointment. This has happened several times already.

These last couple of days, when Momo sees Kaiser walking towards the front door where she's sitting waiting for me to open it, Momo makes an annoyed noise and stalks off back towards the kitchen to finish her breakfast. She doesn't even wait for him to come near the door any more, she just gives up. Poor girl.

Guess I shouldn't be surprised at Momo's intellectual prowess. Pavlov proved that dogs think inductively too.

'blading again at Bish Park since... a long time ago, it seems. Only JY joining us today, but it was a pretty rushed 2 rounds before we had to part company. JY had her personal affairs to take care of, and June and a few of her colleagues wanted to drop in on another colleague of theirs who's feeling lousy this week.

June and I went to Toa Payoh in search of a stall that sells Japanese seaweed. It's supposed to be incredibly packed with vitamins and other health enhancing goodies, for a pretty good price too. We found the stall at the end of the Hub, near the POSB ATMs.

The vendor let us sample different recipes he concocted: 2 different varieties of seaweed in sesame oil, garlic, sliced chilli, can't remember what else. Despite my prejudices, it tasted quite good. Except I thought he had let his sample soak too long in the oil and it had got a bit soggy.

June. bought. a lot. of. seaweed. Fortunately, it wasn't all meant for us, but her colleagues as well.

We collected June's colleagues at the MRT station and I deposited them at their sickly colleagues' block. I declined to accompany them upstairs, taking the opportunity to sit in the quiet void deck and actually try to get some marking done. It felt a little anti-social doing that, but, y'know... marking.

Began Saturday bright and early at NUS for the PUS on-site presentation rehearsal. After a general briefing for all participants, the LT space was ours to have a quick run-through of our script and tech, but it was difficult getting started because of several briefings going on at the same time for various aspects of AV and furniture arrangements. Of course, nothing could get started until 1 particular college finished a completely irrelevant briefing of its participants right in the middle of the presentation floor, which I thought was quite inconsiderate, especially when everyone is already pressed for time.

Our presenters looked nervous and didn't quite know where to stand as there was this huge console counter occupying centre-stage instead of an empty space, like as we rehearsed in college. In fact, this dumb object took up so much space, a lot of the movements we devised have to be re-looked, re-thought, and re-designed. Basically, I was counting on getting a stage with wings. What I got was a narrow strip of floor space for my presenters to stand in...

I realize I'm starting to talk nonsense here. It's almost 24 hours since I wrote that last paragraph. What happened was that I saved this entry, then went into the living room where I found June asleep on the carpet. I was too tired myself to wake her so we both spent the night on the living room floor.

What else I meant to add to this entry was that we had College Day in the afternoon with P giving his first ever College Day speech, and how serious he sounded. Not quite his usual off-the-cuff humour as he was so conscious of being formal in front of his Board and his predecessor.

As soon as was humanly possible, a small party of us made a bee-line for Thai Express, J8, for a quick meal before our screening of "The DaVinci Code." It's worth a review, but not today. Still not feeling all that coherent. :P

Squaresoft recently released a DVD movie following up on the characters that featured in Final Fantasy VII. "Advent Children" was an impulse buy for me, though my expectations weren't really high for it. After all, a 101 minute CGI movie wasn't going to recapture the blood and sweat and magic of the epic game FF7 was.

My instinct about "Advent Children" wasn't wrong. It was mildly interesting to give some limelight to Reno and Rude of the Turks -- the Turks were quite amusing adversaries in the game -- but the movie doesn't really develop the story of Cloud and company much further though 2 years have passed since their adventures in Crater.

In this movie sequel, there is an epidemic sweeping through the city of Midgar. Cloud himself has become infected, though he doesn't want his friends to know about it. What's worse is the rise of 3 Cloud-clones who seek the resurrection of uber-bad guy, Sephiroth, whom they think will lead them in their quest for world domination or whatever.

It was disappointing that the main characters -- all 7 of whom had rich backstories in the game -- are relegated to simply playing muscle in this movie. The gang shows up for the final punch-up, but it's mainly Tifa that reaches out to Cloud on a personal level while the others just keep monsters off his back.

Without the interactivity of the game interface, without the time taken to flesh out the characters, without the ability to make wacky combinations of "materia" just to see their effects on enemies, the FF7 player just sits and drools watching the events of "Advent Children" unfold, rather than being involved in the process of making it happen. The movie experience thus pales in comparison to the game. Bleh.

Still, the video footage from the movie has become rich material for spawning parodies of itself. Check out YouTube for a bunch of FF7 silliness. You might start with this one, entitled, "The Real Story."

NY conneX is now updated every Thursday. Issue #14 is ready for public perusal: click here. We've got a diverse lot of articles this week, from our exploits at Makan Mania, to touch rugby, to a review on the goings-on at this year's E3 in Los Angeles.

Now that the publication can more or less take care of itself, I can now free myself up to focus more on increasing our readership. Where else but in the Education industry can a guy hold a Chief Publisher job for 6 months then immediately switch hats and become Publicity Head for the next 6? There's never a dull moment...

Looks like our creative Mr Sim is really going ahead with the plan to halt Apple's i-pod sales via litigation. How Singaporean is that? If we can't compete on a level playing field, we claim the other guy's cheating, take him to court, hope that we have more resources than he does to survive a long-drawn out and expensive process, eventually bankrupt the guy, and Game Over! We win!

This strategy has been decisively effective against our opponents before: certain individuals who are generally unloved by the public, and, in some cases, are even an embarassment to be associated with in public.

ST's editorial cartoonist depicted Creative's foray as an intrepid David facing off against a formidable Goliath. Right.

Goliath, as the Bible portrayed him, was a yutz who deserved what he got from the shrimp. What Creative is contending with is quite a different animal. Apple-heads have reason to love their Macs, and for better or worse,podders love their pods. Apple is more than just a company to be taken down; for many of us, it a culture and a way of life.

And, yes, though Creative is a Singaporean home-grown model of entrepreneurhood we bow down to and worship, lots of Singaporeans ourselves have spurned the Zen for the pod. Perhaps we are irrational to do so, but "cool" is something we'll pay for once we can afford it.

The court battle isn't about pod sales here, though. The suit seeks to halt pod sales in the US itself -- Apple home turf!

Inasmuch as Goliath was unwelcome on David's backyard, David himself would have been just as obnoxious if he walked through Goliath's front door, totting his home-made uzi and gunning for a head shot.

In short, I doubt Creative would please anyone in this rather un-creative adventure. But I take my hat off to Sim and his organization for their audacity.

Wonder if it's getting to the end of term or if the mid-year exams are fast approaching that's affecting our J2s.

Thought I'd put 'em in groups and toss 'em the daily 'paper and let each group select a few of their favourite stories. They would then work on a presentation of their selected stories in TV news format. By this, I mean they would have to script out the news cast, imagine and compose the accompanying video visuals and play out the human drama that lies behind every news story. Sounds exciting, at least on paper.

Of course, the enthusiasm the J2s have greeted this tutorial format has been breathtakingly underwhelming. Work-to-rule and doing-for-the-sake-of-doing have become the work ethic of the day and, frankly, it's tiresome. They aren't entertained, and neither am I by what they produce. Like radioactive green nasi lemak, I guess there is such a thing as being too innovative.

No more fooling around, then. It's back to good, old-fashioned drill-and-practice for them. For some strange reason, I seem to get more productive work output from them this way.

Oh, and on an unrelated note...

Today is a significant date for NY conneX. The faithful old guard have convened for their last major decision: which of the J1s will replace them when they step down next week. It took till about 1930 hrs to complete the interviews and to trash out the options available, but the decision has finally been made. As of this week's issue (available by Thursday), we can hang out a sign declaring, "Under New Management."

What are we staff doing on campus early on a Saturday morning this long weekend?

We're competitors in a Library-organized checkpoint-to-checkpoint race, a.k.a., "Makan Mania 06." Objective: to eat our way through different kinds of food at each checkpoint. The difficulty is that while we select the food items ourselves, the last letter making up the name of the previous food item must begin the name of the next food item. A further complication is that each food item has to conform to a specific restriction set at the checkpoint.

These rules already sound quite complex. There's more. Each checkpoint puts either an individual team member or the whole team in a challenge to complete for a cumulative total of points; and there's a scavenger hunt challenge for even more points.

Perhaps it's simpler to just track our progress (or just check out our pix for a summary):

Checkpoint 2: Serangoon Central
Food item: Char kway teoW
Challenge: Bean counting game (Amy)
Restriction: Halal

Checkpoint 3: Chinatown Complex
Roadblock: Charades of food item names (June)
Food item: Water chestnut drinK (from a Halal kopi stall)
Challenge: Drink 2 bowls of sesame seed paste (June -- despite it being a team challenge)
Restriction: Crispy

Checkpoint 4: Maxwell Road Market
Food item: Kaya toasT
Challenge: a makeshift bagatelle game (Team)
Restriction: liquid and sour

Checkpoint 5: Golden Shoe Complex
Food item: Tom yum noodleS
Challenge: throw darts for points (Xmac) (Failed)
Penalty: eat 5 chili padi (arrrrghhh!)
Restriction: at least 4 colours

Checkpoint 6: Beancurd shop on Short Street
Food item: SkittleS (TM)
Challenge: finish 4 bowls of beancurd (Team)
Restriction: bitter and sweet

Checkpoint 7: Tekka Market
Food item: Schweppes bitter lemoN (TM)
Challenge: sell 8 cups of teh tarik at 50 cents each (Team)
Restriction: nil, but must bridge food item with final food item: Kaya fondue

Final checkpoint: Makansutra, Esplanade
Bridging item: Nasi LemaK
Challenge: identify mystery food item (Amy, June)
Penalty: or eat it (Xmac, HP) (blech!)
Bang gong to end race!

Our team was the first team to arrive, apparently smashing all previous records by at least 2 hours. Congrats, to us! We make a great team!

It's the Vesak Day public holiday! This is probably the best view to have on a Friday afternoon. 

Sentosa's Palawan Beach is popular with dog owners. Mimi's quite at home here. 

We think Q-tip doesn't really like swimming. She just does it for the exercise. 

Q-tip gets the comfortable spot to nap on the beach.

All this, and in the evening June and I caught MI:3 too! It was loud, cinema making full use of the digital stereo equipment to maximize our money's worth. Likewise, the air-con: froze my butt off watching the movie, and as NBS will testify -- if I say it's cold, it IS cold.

Isn't Kaiser aptly named? He looks like a little fascist here. 

Must remember I owe the GFC drinks uncle $3.70. With less than an hour to spare for lunch, NBS and I made a dash for GFC, completely forgetting to bring money with us. We had to make do with the small change in our pockets to pay for my wonton noodles, but her fan choy and our drinks had to go on our tab.

Good thing we're regular customers.

Spent Wednesday afternoon at a general briefing for all PUS participants, and a rehearsal for our presentation team at our host's homeground. Our presentation is still pretty raw, and lots more need to be done in refining our script and movement so that it looks less static.

I've never had any PUS experience before, so I don't really know how our approach to the presentation is going to be received. Not that there isn't substance in what we're going to say, it's that our delivery is bimbotic, playing for laughs rather than serious-but-boring.

But what I'm most proud of our total PUS effort this year is that it's been mostly student-driven. They came up with their own ideas and research for the written report; it was their idea to shoot the presentation video (and develop the content therein). All we staff did -- well, Gerald did spend quite some time and effort guiding the research team along -- was in mainly making their vision happen, and the necessary admin which I sort of muddled through. Still muddling...

I've always thought the PUS was supposed to be done by students for students. Regardless of what other colleges may be doing, I intend to be true to the spirit of PUS.

Spent Tuesday afternoon in the company of fellow teaching staff from the various colleges. We had been gathered to give feedback to our employer (via an impartial third party observer from the private sector) about how things are on the frontlines, and what the Ministry can do to help make it better for us.

There were lots of vocally charged women seated around me. Apart from myself, there were only another 2 guys, and they both left the talking to me. Not sure what I can divulge from our discussions other than that we had quite a cathartic trashing-it-out session amongst ourselves.

But through our brutally honest exchanges I sort of got the feeling that most staff unhappiness seems to come from the individual institution's culture and protocols. There were only a couple of major issues that all of us experienced in common, but most other peeves seem endemic only within our own personal environments.

I'm cynical enough to know that whatever upstairs thinks will benefit us bottom-feeders, by the time it trickles down to us, the idea would have morphed into something quite different, and more often than not means more work for us. For example, when our Boss said teachers would get more time (para 20) for personal development, what we got was an hour scheduled into our timetables for a weekly "sharing session" by fellow staff on topics that needed to be approved for relevance to our teaching subjects.

The formality of these sharing sessiosn makes them limited in effectiveness. We would have got more problems surfacing, more ideas thrown about, more collaborative planning of activities, and a more conducive working environment if they had just given us a common slot on our timetable (which they have) just to hang out with fellow staff, drink coffee and yak agenda-less (which they haven't). Better still, if the timeslot was, say, just before lunchtime on a day we didn't have to return for classes so that we could spend the rest of the afternoon doing fun stuff with each other too.

But of course, people are just going to see this interpretation as 'wasting taxpayers' money' because none of this can be counted as 'work.' After all, we're not paid to have fun, are we?

I am about to take a sledgehammer to the clunky old Pentium II that I'm using to edit the PUS video clip. I've got about 20 minutes of raw footage that I want to extract just less than 5 minutes from. It should be an easy matter to do a simple copy-and-paste job, but nearly every step of the way the PC hangs and I have to start all over again and again and again...

Even when I save what few edits I've made, the save process is itself touch-and-go. I'm never certain if the save is going to be successful after several minutes of hard-drive grinding, or result in yet another occasion to hit ctrl-alt-del.

The sum total of practically a full day's tedium: I got my 200Mb 5 minute edited footage done. I'd stuff the whole lot onto my thumb-drive, but the terminal is running on Win 98(!) which doesn't recognize my new(?) hardware. The terminal doesn't even have networking! So I finally got it burned onto a CD-ROM. Playback from the disk is brilliant: I got sound, no picture. -__-

It's enough to tear the few strands of hair I still have out. I've fantasized flinging my headphones at the monitor to make it work faster, but there were kids present in the com lab, and that kind of behaviour isn't exactly good role modelling, is it?

A day for dark, violent thoughts.

PUS shoot this morning was just grand! I had a cooperative, enthu cast and crew taking scenes of a so-called 'traditional' business and its subsequent transformation into a corporate giant :P

Despite the obvious anachronisms, we're hoping the sepia tone will creat the illusion of the not-too distant past, and that the audience will be forgiving...


Ah Seng's roadside stall c.1960

The new Ah Seng International Kaya Toast flagship outlet

What's a shoot without an accompanying 'making-of' video? 

DoP at work, getting his shot the way he wants 

If there's one thing this General Election has proven, it's that Singaporeans do not like change. Sure, everything changes around us: prices go up, buildings come down, policies cycle, the economy steamrolls on... but as long as we have a choice, we choose not to rock the boat.

As it was when Parliament dissolved this year, our governing authority today is back to status quo. The Ruling Party has all but the same 2 parliamentary seats, the 2 split between the same entrenched Opposition politicians that sat there just 14 days ago.

The Ruling Party may be autocratic, automatic, arrogant, above-all (and that's just the 'A's) but as far as we Singaporeans know, it's a formula that works, and we're not about to change a winning formula, are we?

Yes, the popular vote has risen quite a bit for the Opposition this time, but this only goes to show how adamant we are that our incumbent Opposition remain where they are, as they have been for years, and not lose out in a closely called face-off. We're not taking that chance.

In a world that is madly changing around us, Singaporeans are only too happy to grab onto something that they can ensure won't change, and that is how we are governed, warts and all. Heh, Democracy.

So nice! A reunion of sorts for 3 generations of NYeDC during tonight's run of "Five Foot Way.":


Cast and crew, "The Odyssey," 2004

Cast of "Oz," 2005 

Cast and crew, "Five Foot Way," 2006. 

NYeDC's Drama Night 06 was a generally tight script. Mel primarily wrote "Five Foot Way" as our SYF piece this year, meaning it was actually meant for about a half hour run. Drama Night usually runs a full hour, though, so tonight's script was an extended version, so to speak.

Set along a row of shophouses sometime in the 1960s, it focused on the friendship between 2 boys, 1 Malay and 1 Chinese, during the time of ethnic violence in our history. Despite the focus, the play was still mainly ensemble driven with everyone making the street come alive: Mrs Ang's kopi tiam all hustle and bustle, Sanjeev's bookstore and Cik Zu's mee rebus stall calm and easygoing.

I like the script for its local flavour, colloquialisms and all. Despite the heavy handed censorship from the SYF organizers the dialogue was still essentially recognizable street talk.

The cast was engaging, each character portrayed quite strongly, though certain stereotypes were hard to avoid. Fran, who played the beng went a little ott, looking for laughs that dulled his menacing quality a touch. 'deep played Sanjeev too conservatively, as did Zu; there were times the mike couldn't pick up their voices audibly enough. 'tilda's Geok is the most lighthearted character so she might have concentrated more on her innocence and fun-loving nature and less on being 8 years old.

Dory played Mrs Ang with lots of spit and bile, and it was nice that there was some attempt to explain her bigotted attitude, though it was just a throwaway line that the audience might have easily missed.

Des and 'mir work well together, both balancing each other nicely. Des' morose straight-man and 'mir's happy-go-lucky wiseass have the potential to be a great comedy couple, if they want to explore the pairing further.

Still, being an extended script, there were occasions when the dialogue got flabby and uncertain. Too many last minute changes that don't get rehearsed adequately will do that. The fight sequences were still rushed and the ending scene was strange because 2 characters are talking about a third character as if she wasn't there, and yet she is obviously sitting there in their plain view.

With the stage set and costumes and lighting and more rehearsals, tonight's production was a great improvement from when I previewed it last week. Some tweaks are going to be necessary to get it ready for the SYF, but not too many.

This week has been running up to this morning's General Elections. The papers have been full of campaign goings-on and everyone seems excited about it. Even the students who are usually politically phobic have actually been animatedly talking about it during tutorials. Perhaps for once the democratic process appeared more real, more concrete than just lecture material.

June and I woke up early to cast our votes. Early morning means no crowds. Can't think of anything worse than spending an off day waiting in a long but orderly line guarded by policemen.

Despite all the precautions, there was at least 1 incident of human error at our polling station. After casting our votes, we exited into the parking lot only to be accosted by our elderly neighbour [he called me, "Ah Ti," which was quite gratifying; most people call me, "Uncle," these days] who was looking very puzzled and lost. Apparently, he had followed the wrong group of people and walked straight past the polling area and into the parking lot, still with his blank ballot in hand. June had to take him back inside the station and explain for him what had happened and get it all sorted out. One party or another very nearly lost an important vote there!

PUS presenters want to shoot a video as part of their presentation. We've been storyboarding over a number of afternoons this week, and I'm glad they were sensible enough to cut down the number of scenes we have to shoot.

It's a good opportunity to activate the PUS resource team as well, making this activity the first one to actually give them something concrete to do for a change. Hope everyone got the message, though. Communication somehow isn't our strong suit. We're shooting on Sunday.

Tonight is actually NYeDC's Drama Night 06. Their first production since I left the club. But June had to work late again, so I had to switch tonight's tix for Saturday's instead. Bleh. I wanted to watch the debut performance, but I guess a 24-hour wait won't hurt too badly.

Still adjusting to our new schedules. Both June and I are keeping very late days. Work has just been crazy for her in her new job, quite different from her previous one. I am truly convinced now that dinner for 'normal' people here is at 9pm and that we have been living a blinkered, idyllic and unrealistic existence in the years prior to this one.

Such a schedule means being hungry at unusual times of the day; feeling tired often, having less recovery time these days than before; and sleeping late (I mean LATE) at night trying to squeeze in everything we had been accustomed to doing when we once had the whole evening to ourselves. It's a vicious cycle.

How do other working folks cope? Especially those with kids?

Such fine weather this afternoon. Took most advantage of it by driving out to ECP as soon as humanly possible after classes to rent a bike and get some sweating done. Our staff have begun a Friday morning jog-walk thing for exercise, but I need more space and better scenery to motivate me.

Discovered that where I thought the biking trail ended on the east side, it actually continued via a short detour through the walking track. It led to a part of the beach I'd never been before, and how gorgeous it was! A green grove lining the smooth cycling track, sandy beach and blue sky. Ok, golf course on the landward side with the occasional 747 marking the sky with its jet-trail, but other than that it was quite heavenly. It's a great 'blading track and I can't wait to go back again.

Got back to campus in the late afternoon to give fresh eyes to this year's Drama Night production on Mel's request. I'd been putting it off for a while, actually, knowing that sticking a hand in too early will only confuse the performers who would have had to listen to far too many directors. Today, the most I could help out with was in working out the steps in a couple of fight sequences; though choreographing stage combat isn't really my thing.

Since I was on campus anyway, I brought over my portable DVD viewer and a stack of assorted DVDs to keep the Council staff entertained while they're stuck at their induction camp for the newly elected Councillors over the long weekend. Hope it was enough to keep their morale up.

I got off uncharacteristically early. It's the sense that the major stress points of the week no longer factor on my calendar, and the knowledge that a long weekend is coming up that after classes today I felt I could breathe a little easier. I had some admin to take care of for PUS at SR, then that was pretty much it. I'm on "standby" mode right now, enjoying it while I can. Maybe this weekend I'll take a look at the compre scripts I've accumulated and get round to actually marking them...

NY conneXions Dead-Tree Edition #2 is available from today! Limited stocks only! Get your more environmentally-friendly downloadable version here (.pdf, 1.6Mb)!

2 big headaches have passed as of today. The presentation to the cluster heads is over, and the print version of NY conneX (#2) is in my hands, ready for distribution tomorrow.

If you had ever gone to visit your school's P when you were a kid, it usually meant that you were in trouble. It meant that you had been sent down to The Office and into the deepest dungeon lair of the scariest monster residing There, and probably never be seen again. That was in the 70's when I went to school, anyway.

Today, our presentation team had the prospect of facing 30 or so of these mythical creatures, but thankfully throughout the weeks we'd been preparing for our song-and-dance, the numbers eventually dwindled to today's final count of 6. Coincidentally, that was exactly the number of presenters in the team too. Pupil-teacher ratio of 1:1, then. Couldn't be more perfect.

It's good to find out that Ps these days aren't anything like the stuff phobias and nightmares are made of any longer. We had been preparing to be torn to shreds by a no-nonsense squad who would be critical and suspicious of whatever we said, being that they are busy people and would take a very dim view of other people who waste their time. Instead, our 6 guests were warm and cordial, interested in what we had to say (even though at points we tended to ramble off topic a bit), offered relevant views and opinions during discussion opportunities, tried their best to apply what materials we were feeding them, and most of all, they were appreciative of us.

While it may be true that doctors make the worst patients, I just discovered that these Ps made the best students I've ever had the pleasure of teaching. They genuinely came with the intention to learn from us, raw as we are in our attempts to apply some kind of critical thinking structure to our curriculum. Yes, that was the content of our presentation, if you must know.

Personally, I'm quite gratified that despite their earlier prejudices against Wallace + Gromit, they saw many uses for Nick Park's creations in their own schools after they watched a segment from "The Wrong Trousers" I screened for them as part of my presentation.

So that's over, more or less. Think it went quite decently well. Heh.

Just finished reading Anthony McGowan's "Hellbent." It looks like a kid's book. I found it in the Young Adults' section of a Times Bookshop. It reads like a kid's book. It is full of juvenile, sophomoric toilet humour, and is overflowing with excruciatingly hideous idioms and similes only a 14-year-old boy could come up with, and only his scabby 14-year-old chums would chuckle at due to peer pressure.

The cover graphic is a simple looking label that reads, "WARNING: The most disgusting book you'll ever read." Now, that's really targeting a 14-year-old audience, and I had to go pick it up. And I couldn't put it down after that.

I don't know what the kiddies who persuaded their parents to buy this book think of it, but I think it's one of the most disturbing depictions of what hell is like without getting all religious and preachy about it.

In fact, McGowan looks at the concept of hell more from a philosophical point of view, examining arguments about the human condition, free will, existentialism, morality, justice, and the nature of hell itself: what it is, how it operates and how it devises specific torments particularly tailored to maximize the individual's misery with respect to the sins the individual is being punished for. McGowan is clear that in hell there is NO atonement, just unceasing eternal punishment.

The individual in question is a 16-year-old boy who is killed by an ice-cream truck(!) and goes to hell ostensibly for being a teenage prat. His personal hell is to spend eternity having nothing to do but read from a huge library of philosophy books and listen to nothing but classical music. He gets the idea that there must be someone else in hell who's suffering from the torments of having to play violent video games and listen to loud music for eternity. His quest then is to find this little corner of hell and trade places with its occupant so that even if they have to spend forever in hell, they would at least be doing things that they liked.

His journey through hell shows us hell's different facets, where every section and every district while being different in form from one another is the same, if not worse, in function -- causing pain, misery and suffering to the souls of the damned.

"Hellbent" doesn't seem like a cautionary tale. It doesn't really offer any tips about how to avoid going to hell, anyway. It doesn't say that hell is our inevitable end, either. What I think McGowan is getting at is that, mitigating circumstances notwithstanding, there are choices and there are consequences. Hell is only a consequence.

Which got me thinking along a similar thread to NBS some days ago: why is it that the decisions we make within our lifespan -- measured in mere decades -- should result in consequences that last throughout eternity? That doesn't seem all that fair, does it?

Parents, unless you want to spend lots of time answering difficult questions, or comforting your kiddies from their nightmares, I suggest you avoid buying this book as a bedtime story for junior. This might be a great text if you take KI though. Wanna borrow it, NBS?

Got an evening out with June, along with Amy, Dee, HP and Vince. At Amy's suggestion we got tix for Bush's Brain, a film documentary peek behind-the-scenes of the W Bush political campaign engine.

It was interesting to see the allegations made against Carl Rove, the person whom the documentary claims is the real "Brain" behind the President. For people who watch wrestling on TV, the Bush political team seems to behave like the teams that will do anything to grab championship belts and retain them at all cost. "The Four Horsemen" comes to mind, as does the now defunct "NWO." Tactics include misdirection, distraction, low blows, illegal tags, and in somehow spinning a drama for themselves or against the opposition not so much as to gain popular support but rather to cause the opposition to lose popular support.

Anyway, they play a dirty game in Washington. The documentary comes close to suggesting that W Bush becoming President is parallel to Mr Chee winning the elections and becoming PM instead of Mr Lee.

So here we have another Bush-bashing film, though not so sensational and spurious as Moore's Bowling for Columbine.

Went to the Dome at Bishan for an after movie snack. June's chili con carne was too salty and I thought the cream sauce for my mushroom pasta wasn't really cream but rather some cornstarch mixture. Blech. Maybe next time, we'll just order dessert here.

I never did mention when June came back from her Philippines tour of duty, did I? Well, she arrived home Friday night having survived a trip that wasn't as bad as she had previously imagined. I think the choice of hotel and airline made a lot of difference in making her feel safer and more at ease with her surroundings.

From the pix, I can tell she's happy to be home. And she's brought a bunch of hastily acquired souvenirs (mostly grocery items from a supermarket at prices she couldn't say, "no," to) back with her.

Wonder if this is going to be just the first of many overseas business trips for her? Apparently, there's plans for her to visit HK next, maybe in May.

My wife: a new member of the jet-set, accumulator of frequent-flyer mileage, bargain-basement shopper of souvenirs from strange and exotic locations. If I wasn't such a lazy-bum, gravid with couch-potato inertia, I'd actually be jealous.

As you can see from the missing entries, this has been one hell of a week. I don't think it's ever been this bad before, when the work has got the better of my time and attention. The long, late days; and even the slightly shorter days when I'm sitting in front of Watson wondering what else has been happening in my life apart from preparing for classes, NY conneX -- both on-line and print versions, the presentation we're giving the cluster bosses next week, oh, and the PUS as well.

It's not like all the work isn't fulfilling. I love everything I'm doing. It's that there's only so much lovin' this body can give within so short a time. If I could just focus on each task one at a time, I wouldn't be so stressed out. But having to deal with them all at once in the same week, it's like having an orgy with partners who are quite jealous of each other. Sorry, but there's only one of me and only so many orfices with which to keep everybody satisfied. Some are just going to feel slighted.

I shouldn't really complain so much. Gerald and the research kids have done a fab job on the PUS written report. The conneX 1st years have helped me lay out 50% of next week's print edition together -- a tremendous increase from the 0% of last ish. Deadlines are go for next Thursday's release, and I'm happy about that.

This evening I spent an hour as an invited guest at a 'top JC in Bishan.' It was the closing ceremony for this student-initiated-organized-run conference for youth, the idea of which was to bring all post-secondary institution kids together in an effort to understand and appreciate one another better.

I thought that was a brilliant idea, seeing as we keep stratifying and stereotyping people by their academic backgrounds. From the video clip of this overnight camp, the kids looked like they had great fun mixing with each other. My congrats to the organizer, who did what she set out to do. Determined girl, that young lady.

Hope the few KIds who went had fun too, and found some new friends from outside the college. Always good to keep expanding the horizon.

My Big Boss, the guest-of-honour, said as much in his address.

It was a closing ceremony full of technical problems: mikes that didn't amplify, equipment giving nasty feedback from some loose connection somewhere, the video clip soundtrack playing directly off the projector's pathetic little speakers, and even the stage draperies sagging. But that's the beauty of the event, isn't it? No 'professional' adult help to make things slick and smoothly run. A bit 'Kids Next Door' in improvisation, but there's the charm right there.

Hmmm... and Q-tip got groomed today. We found a fortuitous appointment slot for this afternoon, and of course, we took it. Trimmed her fur short. Now she no longer looks like the Abominable Snowball.

Never expected this year to be so busy that there are days on which I don't even have time to update my blog. Partially, it's because I've been obsessing over NY conneX, spending every available waking moment looking out for possible stories to assign journalists to, getting story requests from people and groups, chasing up pix from whomever has a digi-cam, taking my own pix to supplement the photo pool, editing stories and now laying out pages for the PRINT edition scheduled for next week's release.

In all this mania, I'm glad that pretty much for once, I don't feel alone in my belief that I'm working on a good thing. The journalists are very supportive and have been faithfully collaborating with me in meeting their story deadlines and turning in coherent, quality writing; and now I've got them to help with the most tedious laying out of next week's print edition. With enough of such hands-on experience, they should soon be skillful enough to run the 'paper independently with enough passion to desire its continuity year after year.

In case I hadn't mentioned it earlier, Issue #10 is on-line for your perusal. Feel free!

Oh, and June's gone to Manila on business for the next couple of days. She just messaged to say that she's staying at the Shang and due to full occupancy of the suite she booked, they've given her a room upgrade. So now she's in this luxuriously large room full of everything she could possibly want, well, with the exception of me. No wonder she's still grouchy about this trip.

In other personal news...
Sunday evening: pot-luck dinner with paternal kinsfolk, June preparing bubur chacha for dessert and me putting down cash for some excellent take-away satay from Chim's Satay House.
Monday evening: Nothing exciting for dinner, no time for a good one, anyway.
Tuesday evening: Sakura Jap-Int'nl buffet, Toa Payoh. Amy's treat to Vince, HP and me in honour of her recent promotion. It's not exactly refined dining, but the food's generally quite good. Sashimi was fresh and though we focused on the salmon, the maguro and the swordfish were very tasty too. Made sure I had my fill of raw fish before attempting the other dishes in the 'international' section which was ok too. Thanks, Amy!
Today: Dinner at Punggol Nasi Lemak with Vince, Anthony and Wendy. Always good for deep fried chix wings and luncheon meat slices on fragrant rice anytime.

Great. Shouldn't be talking about food. Now I'm hungry again...

Warming up with the rest of ODAC. Bike check, skill check, safety check... you get the picture.

These 2 blur queens rode all the way to Esplanade Park feeling very uncomfortable on their bikes. They thought someone had switched bikes with them when they weren't looking. Then they realised that they had somehow traded bikes with each other at the starting point. Duh.

We're ready to set off on our night-cycling expedition. Starting point: Fort Road parking lot, East Coast Park. 

Ice-cream break. An unexpected bonus at our 1st rest stop, Labrador Park. 

On the pier in Labrador Park 

We're finally here! West Coast Park McD's, and it's past 0100 hrs, Sunday morning.

Our reward for completing our objective: a Happy Meal (TM) and a weird anime thing-on-a-string.

We abandoned ODAC here. ODAC would continue cycling till morning, looping round NTU then heading back to ECP, our starting point. We're amazed to even have made it this far, and caught a cab back to Fort Road to collect M2. We dropped JY off, then made our sleepy way home. Zzzzz...

Quid Est Veritas is now 2 years old! Happy birthday, QEV!

Just came home from seeing Uncle Cham off at the crematorium.

We began the day early, collecting parents and SMA from their home to meet the rest of the clan at the Casket company. We had a short little service in our designated room, then went back down to street level where we trudged behind the hearse for a short distance as a sign of respect to the dearly departed. The sky above was full of gathering clouds and there was a light breeze behind us. Uncle Cham's favourite (Italian) opera music played softly from the hearse speakers and the whole scene felt like a John Woo movie sans any violent interruption.

There was another short service at the crematorium. 1st time I've visited the place. It's design is calming and tranquil, as it should be. Very clean environs, lots of running water and little goldfish (instead of huge, ungainly, koi) swimming in geometrically shaped pools. Immediately above the long escalator leading up from the basement parking lot is a skylight so if you raise you head a little while riding the escalator, it sort of gives the sensation of ascending into the heavens.

Our family has a light manner in dealing with funerals, but in this setting it was difficult not to be slightly moved. The service in the chapel room was... what's a word that suggests seriousness yet not quite sombre or solemn... reflective? But in the viewing gallery where we got to watch him take his last ride into the furnace, we played Puccini's 'Nessun Dorma*' on a portable stereo we brought and the music really brought out the drama and the finality of what we were witnessing, particularly as the furnace doors shut just at the crescendo, followed by silence for us to close our own psychological doors on another chapter in the history of our little clan.

After our last goodbyes, we made one more stop on the way out of the crematorium. A gathering/resting area where we refreshed ourselves and socialized once again. Made plans for dinner, reuniting us with our kin who flew in from Manchester (actually, Kit & family were already here on vacation when this unexpected turn of events occurred), London and Honolulu.

Life, as they say, goes on.

*BTW, this translates as "no one is to sleep." We played it because it was his favourite, not because there was any deep significance to the music. It just so happened to suit the occasion.

How much will it cost to maintain our current lifestyle till the age of 88? June's friend, Francis, looked at our financial state, did some number-crunching and came up with a figure close to $2mil -- and that's for after we retire in 20 years' time. The mind boggles.

Francis is a fund manager with the venerable American Insurance organization, so basically tonight's meeting at Swensen's, Yishun, was to formally agree to let him manage our money from now on. We're going for a medium risk portfolio that invests mostly in growth industries in the region, some in India and China, and a smattering in the emerging economies.

By his calculations, he's got 20 years to find us our $2mil. Brave guy.

Just came back from Uncle Cham's wake. We had a little informal service amongst us family members: some hymn singing alternating with prayers for his immediate family.

Myself, I haven't seen him for years. In my memory, he still looks like the guy in the photo the funeral home provided, but when I filed past to pay my last respects, he looked so much older, I couldn't recognise him at all. Guess that means that he lived to a ripe old age, and as most things go, that's about as good as it gets.

As it turns out, the family really does seem like it's moving on in years. We cousins who played so often with each other as kids back then... now we're in our 40s and 50s. Our parents are in their 70s and 80s and our oldest nephew is already in his mid-30s and has just broken the news of his impending wedding sometime this year.

We're visibly older and greying, and it's something I hadn't really noticed before until today. But we're also still smiling and the clan is still united.

Another very long day. It was worth it, though. Issue #9 of NY conneXions is up, so go read, ok?

We're trying to get used to a new lifestyle at home. I don't get home till about 2000 hrs on some days, and June doesn't get home till about 2100 hrs on most days. This new job of hers is quite different from her previous one. The way I see it, her new job's more "normal" for working folks here in Singapore -- the high stakes, the high stress, the sleepless nights and the listless days (daze?). Her previous job was a dream in comparison, and I guess it couldn't last given the realities of our current economic situation.

It doesn't feel all that good for us to arrange to eat our dinners separately, but it's a better arrangement than getting gastric waiting for each other. But it's especially bad for Q-tip as she doesn't get to go out as much any more. She used to accompany us downstairs to dinner almost every night, but it's getting harder to bring her with us now that we would most likely have already eaten before coming home.

Wonder how the other more "normal" families with 2 working adults manage keeping these sorts of hours amd still have anything like a family life? That'll be something we're going to have to learn on the job.

Not much of an improvement from yesterday. Stuck at home due to a lack of imagination as to how to better spend my day. Resorted to getting a haircut and doing homework just to distract myself from some of the ennui setting in.

The haircut was scary -- I didn't have to sit in the chair long, and I noticed that my sheet didn't have the mass of wool it usually accumulates. Wonder if my haircuts are really worth $8 any more? I should ask for a discount next time.

Well, at least we took a drive out in the evening. Discovered that poor M2 got egged while he was sitting in the parking lot. The stains weren't recent but the presence of eggshell shrapnel around him and lodged in some of his crevices evidently point to a deliberate attempt to vandalize private property. May the perpetrator remember the number of eggs s/he wasted damaging my paintwork if ever faced with a famine of biblical proportions.

After spending nearly an hour at the car wash, we drove Mimi back home (she stayed with us over the weekend) then went to Causeway Point for dinner. Recognized a familiar voice, Cynth's. She was there with her 2 boys (her 3rd boy was running around looking for some electronic component at Courts) and domestic, fresh from a family visit to the zoo, she said.

Can't believe the weekend's over already.

I don't know what to make of today. It was either perfectly wasted, or perfectly well-spent. Apart from a quick breakfast downstairs, we never made it out our front door again. Annie didn't have a grooming slot available for Q-tip, so our main reason for going out vanished.

Spent the rest of the day alternating between watching TV and dozing off. That's almost a prelude to retirement, eh? June, however, inspired by Anthony Bourdain in one of the programmes she caught, decided to busy herself in the kitchen making a pot of Thai rice noodles that we had for both lunch and dinner. So another reason to poke our heads out of doors today went up in smoke.

So now we're quite well rested (look at the time stamp for this post), but my urge to go out and do stuff remains unfulfilled...

Friday afternoon off is a luxury. And I fully exploited that luxury today. Drove out to ECP, strapped on my 'blades and felt the wind and the sun on my face. First time in a long while, it seems.

ECP is a more fun venue than Bish Park. It's like comparing the open road to a fish bowl. It's just a long stretch from end to end, and by the time you've covered that distance, you feel like it's quite some achievement already.

At ECP, I felt my quads cramping up quite early on my run. Sweat came earlier. My big toes started feeling numb after some time (and are still numb now) and I developed a 1cm wide blister on my right instep. All signs that my 'blades need adjustment for a better fit, or maybe I was pushing myself a bit harder than usual, being alone on the pathways today.

Being alone meant I could move faster, not worrying about anyone being left behind. I could take the slopes and not worry about my companion/s panicking and getting themselves or somebody else hurt halfway down.

But it's also fun to be with people you know, sharing the experience and maybe talking about it later. A shared memory between friends. At one point, I kinda' missed Anthony and his ability to pull people together at the drop of a hat. We've lost our party animal; and every organization needs one. Sigh.

But Amy and HP showed up later with their rented bikes. And about the same time, Vince called and asked if I wanted to go bowling. Hey, better late than never, eh? :)

We've seen the official scoresheet. Vince and I won outright, regardless of our handicap! The second placed team had exactly the same handicap as us, so we are the champs after all.

It might have been a different story if the bowling club members were allowed to partner each other, but as organizers they had to at least give non-bowlers a chance to win too. In that loophole, we had the advantage.

Vince and I are champs on the lanes this year! So happened we were the only 2 staff in competition, everyone else being somehow otherwise occupied, while we both cleared our schedules for this, our event of the year!

So Vince can finally say he has won a bowling tournament after 4? 5? years of on-campus competition.

What can I say? I bowled my usual competition score, averaging 142; Vince likewise, averaging 126, over 3 games each. I was quite amazed to score like I did, considering how many open frames I left per game, and how difficult it was getting strikes on my lanes. This game wasn't anything like our last practice, but I guess it was enough.

Of course, the non-bowling club members' most generous handicap helped our game a lot...

Oh, and we got interviewed by our campus-TV news rivals who wanted us to comment on staff participation in student-organized activities. Hope they caught my good side on camera!

I have made a complete fool of myself in public and my face has never been redder. I'm referring to my entry dated 2 April 2006 (below) confirming once and for all what a tightwad I am. And, oh, how gullible too.

I got myself all worked up over the 'neocharge' levied on loading Neopets pages, ya? Check the date again... yes, I must be the biggest April Fool to fall for a stunt Neopets makes a tradition of year after year. How violently I reacted too! You don't get that much emotion out of me easily, if you know me well enough.

Now to find a paper bag to put over my head...

Since I'm considering doing something potentially unethical with other people's blogs, in my own blog I'm seeking opinions on the matter before I make an irreversible decision.

The point of NY conneXions as conceived in its previous incarnation was to be the nexus of student dialogue and debate. It was, as I understand, meant to be a platform for students to comment on events, people, and items of interest to and about the college. That ideal hasn't changed, but since we linked the journal to the college server and insisted on improving the quality of our reporting (work-in-progress, trust me), and on being fair-but-positive in outlook, it's hard to get away from the idea that we've become the official mouthpiece for the admin rather than a discussion platform for our students.

To remind our students that they have a stake in this journal too, I decided to open up the writing of the Orientation 2 '06 experience to the general student body, asking them to submit the text of or links to their blog entries about it, but to date no one's sent anything for us to publish on the matter.

It's not that they haven't written anything on O2: just Google and a multitude of entries from a number of different bloggers pop up. So here's my problem...

There's such ample material out there, both positive and negative. I'm tempted to just 'kope' text from several J1 bloggers and stick them into the conneXions article just to 'force' contributions. I'll remove the links to the original blogs and we'll just do a little editing to keep the 'contributors' as anonymous as possible, though total anonymity will be impossible to maintain, of course.

I've already put together 4-5 pages worth of contributions and all I need do is upload them, and one way or another, all hell is probably going to break loose.

Do I really want to do that...? Advise, please...!

Call me a skinflint, miser or cheapo nenek, but I have developed a serious aversion towards the Neopets site ever since they started this system that charged users neopoints (NP) for loading pages from their site. Get *free* omelette, pay 10NP; get *free* tombola dip, pay 10NP; get *free* uncertain blessing at Coltzan's Shrine, pay 10NP; you get the idea. Even reloading a previously visited page costs NP. Ridiculous!

There's this complex argument that inflation has gone so high, items have become unaffordable for the casual user, so they need a system that will remove NP from the economy to reduce this runaway inflation. Well, I am a casual user and with this system in place I don't even earn enough interest in my fixed deposit to cover what I usually do on the site in the first place -- which is to get *free* stuff!

Neopets says this system will reduce bandwidth usage on their ever popular site. It certainly has. I don't want to darken their doors again, even if I never feed my Wocky again.

I know it's just virtual money that's being drained, but in order to keep visiting Neopets I have to play the games just to earn NP so I can afford to keep visiting the site. That's not virtual time being wasted, it's MY time.

Sorry, Neopets. It's been fun, but if this system remains in place, it's adios amigo!

Finally caught "V for Vendetta" with June. A very GP-ish movie asking the question, "Terrorist or freedom fighter?" Also, lots of questions dealing with justice, politics, religion, bio-ethics, the arts, and the media. Juicy!

June points out that this isn't essentially the action flick that the trailers promise, but I appreciate the slower pace that develops the plot layer by layer, revealing more and more of the mystery behind the dystopia the world has become for the characters in the movie.

The bomber, V, who models his appearance and ideals after Guy Fawkes is the lone voice daring enough to point out that the emperor has no clothes. Everyone else has been cowed and/or become disinterested by a monolithic, authoritarian, oppressive regime, where people "disappearing" after a late night visit by the police is almost routine.

In order to rile up the people out of their resignation, stupor and apathy, V first catches everyone's attention by blowing up the Old Bailey in London and then throws down a challenge. V names his next target, the Houses of Parliament; and the date, the next year's Guy Fawkes' night. To the authorities, it's "try-and-stop me;" to the people, it's a rallying cry for revolution against the incumbent government.

So begins a chain of events that V orchestrates. His vendetta is against those people in power who had literally made him the monster he has become. His call for revolution is in earnest, but his job, as he sees it, is to clear the way for the people to rouse themselves and reclaim for themselves the freedom taken from them by the High Chancellor's Nazi-like Norsefire Party, and not to do it for them.

V judges the people's will to act through Evey, whom he shelters when she inadvertently gets implicated in the Old Bailey attack. Through Evey, we catch glimpses of V's elaborate scheme to bring down the governemnt. Her response to V's activities mirrors the sentiments of the people who, though subdued, are far from the sheep the government takes them for.

Despite the effort the government puts on the political spin machine, the public sees right through the media and privately sneers at the whitewash. Emboldened by V, pockets of dissent rise in small acts by various individuals, each one building to encourage other acts that are increasingly daring. Even Gordon, a highly regarded late-night talk show host and a seeming member of the political elite reveals his own dissent in his final broadcast, a blatant parody of recent events featuring V making a complete laughingstock of the High Chancellor, and the viewing public makes no pretense to hide its laughter.

The plot places great importance on us getting to know the individual, mundane details of a number of characters' biographies. One of the characters only exists in flashback, but even her story is told if only as pencil scribblings on some toilet paper. The glaring ommission is V's own backstory. We never really know him apart from fragments of others' memories and inferences, though through an exquisite deception we will get to know him better than any of the other characters in the movie. As V proclaims, "Artists lie to expose the truth. Politicians lie to hide it."

In any case, V represents an idea, not a person. The people, though not sheep, feel alone in their dissent. It takes an immediately identifiable icon of utter audacity, to unite them in small, insignificant acts of rebellion. After all, compared to the complete and spectacular obliteration of a venerated public building, what is a little spray-can vandalism of a public poster by a kid wearing an identical mask to V's?

V, the bomber, sets things up so that he isn't the one to deliver the coup de grace on the Norsefire administration. That final act isn't for him. Change has to stem from the collective will of the people, not the will of a single idealist. The people themselves have to decide what they want, take action and wield People Power once again; and all V's efforts lead the people to this point.

Within a year, V lays down his challenge, instigates the people to play his game while making their way smooth and enacting his vengeance all at the same time. V fulfills all his promises by the end of the movie, but do the people do their part as well? Will they betray him in the end? No spoiler from me about that. Go watch this brilliant statement on ideas and people and politics to find out yourself.

"V for Vendetta" goes on my list of top movies for 2006.

Got to drive the Swift back to college after lunch. Being used to M2, I was extra careful in handling an unfamiliar car, and may have driven a little slower than the cars behind me would have liked. The Swift takes some getting used to, being that it seems to have been designed for someone more compact than me to drive comfortably. It's probably because I didn't bother to adjust the seat to suit my bulk (I didn't have time to customize the configuration properly), that's why the ride back felt like quite a tight fit.

Everything about the Swift has a lighter touch than M2; the steering, the cornering, even the hand-brake came up so smoothly with minimal application of strength. Nice touches, but I feel too oafish to handle such refinement for long with confidence. I know it's just illusory, but I was afraid bits of the Swift would come off in my hands as I grappled with them, the way I do with M2. Fortunately, I left it in one piece back at the campus parking lot for Amy to reclaim later, after her lunch with HP and Vince.

In the late afternoon-evening, I rediscovered bowling in Hougang with Vince. After a frantic week searching for a fellow Pegasii to partner me in next week's college bowling challenge, today I got the news that staff do not have to pair up by House any longer. Staff form the 'Open' category and compete directly against the students.

We needed to at least try out the lanes at our competition venue, so Starbowl Hougang it was. It's very easy to throw strikes here. The pins fall quite easily. The lanes seem to favour the straight-down-the-middle kind of balls, so I should have a slight advantage. But from an 8-game series, my score tended to fluctuate between the mid-120s right up to the 190s, but the frustrating thing was that I couldn't string 3 solid games together for a decent 3-game total score. That would be crucial to doing well next week.

Next, I need to go register us for the tournament... hope there're still some slots left.

Whole college staff attended a course on "Brain Based Learning." Do a Google search on this phrase, and a lot of material pops up on it.

From what I gather, it's a theory about understanding how the brain functions, then tailoring the learning experience for our students accordingly. In this way, we take advantage of the brain's own workings in order to maximize the amount of stuff our students can absorb in every lesson and retain over the long term.

It sounds like a useful idea, after all, if we could apply such techniques to creating learning strategies that our students can use for better results, then by all means, y'know. But a theory like this one -- which is apparently still in its experimental stages -- requires a full course-load to appreciate and understand. We compressed it down to about 4 hours yesterday afternoon, and it felt like something got lost in the translation.

It didn't help that the delivery by the instructor was supposed to be the model we were meant to follow in our own lessons.

The session involved lots of quick personal discussions about the little bite-sized chunks of info he presented. There was lots of movement -- he constantly moved around the room while expounding nibblet after nibblet of wisdom; and he constantly got us to move around as well, moving with our chairs from table to open space, while changing partners for our little discussions. These discussions were supposed to allow students to check each other's comprehension and recall of the lesson material so far, and correct as necessary. And they were frequent.

He taught us to give our usually complex instructions one-at-a-time so that there would be no confusion amongst the students as to what was expected of them, and would willingly comply because there was no ambiguity in each instruction whatsoever. He taught us to say, "thank you," to our discussion partner for sharing and to celebrate with enthusiastic applause anyone's contribution to the larger group.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Then why did I feel throughout the session likeI was being treated like a kid with attention deficit syndrome? And why did I feel that I was being exhorted to treat my students similarly, like complete idiots who can't even tie their own shoelaces? And why did the idea of dishing out step-by-step instructions make me feel like a psycho with control issues?

Maybe I'm just old-school after all. I'm used to learning from long, quiet stretches reading from dusty old books with minimal yakkity-yak from anyone else around me. I don't have the attention span of someone who was raised by Sesame Street as a toddler and prefers to surf the 'net rather than search for answers in real life.

Well, maybe that's how it's going to have to be for this generation's bunch of learners. The Americans seem to favour it, anyway. Wonder why?

Yesterday was my first meeting with the PUS kids as a full group. Between Gerald and me, we've to decide how to allocate specific tasks to them based on how they auditioned. Some kids naturally fit into their roles, but the others aren't so clear. We'll be scratching our heads over those kids for a while.

So tired last night, I fell asleep watching House on AXN. Even the nasty doctor's barbs couldn't keep me awake long enough to find out whether a young man's multiple system failure was caused by his fiancee's insatiable sexual appetite or not.

Today was likewise another long day. Met the J1 Journalism kids at the production meeting. They seem a bit wary of their surroundings for the moment; but once we really throw them in the deep end they'll start getting comfortable and learn to swim, I hope. One J1 proposed to write a regular column on PC/console game reviews -- a dream come true for me! Hope the others find a niche for themselves soon.

Couldn't stay to share pizza with them. Had to run off for in-line 'blading lessons which the College arranged for interested kids. Why do I need lessons? Because there are certain skills -- like the crossover -- that I require more basic training in before I can execute them. In a way, I learned to run before I learned to walk. Now I'm taking remedial classes.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Xmac and I have something to confess. I'm a teacher, and I blog.

The Sunday Times today asks, "Should teachers blog?" I take exception to being singled out for my profession and being questioned for my decision to post my scribblings on-line. The first concern ST puts forward is that it might be psychologically damaging for students to read what their teachers actually think about them. Second is that teachers can get into trouble with the Ministry if they grouse about their work, colleagues and school environment.

The latter arguments could be applied to anyone else in any other profession as well. People in other industries have been fired before, so we've learned to be a bit more circumspect airing our views in the public arena, just in case. Hence, the bland, politically correct points of view I've been putting forth here. Score one for perhaps over-cautious self-censorship, zero for being a sensational, attention-grabbing, audience-attracting sponsorship magnet that will allow me to give up my day job.

The first concern -- about fracturing students' delicate egos -- is a little tougher to address. It really depends on our motivation for blogging. If it's just a carthartic release from stresses at work, then a teacher sending mixed signals in person and on a blog means that neither message has the credibility to be taken seriously. Both messages stem from masks that the teacher wears: suppressed emotion in person, vented emotion on-line, and neither are reflections of honest, reflective thought.

Venomous words can and do sting, but the difference in blogging is that people go looking through search engines for things other people say about them, and when they find unpleasantness they get upset. Isn't that asking for trouble in the first place? Our students need to learn to take honest criticism, but they also have to learn to discern which critique to take with a pinch of salt too.

The other motivation for teachers' blogs is to communicate with their students directly on-line, where everybody 'lives' in the same community as equals. These blogs aren't just random rants about anything and anyone in particular, but they are about reaching out to students with reminders, nags, advice or concerns; establishing a platform for sharing common resource materials; or even showing students that their teachers are human too and that they do have a life after school.

To say that teachers should or should not blog is asking a nonsense question. You could substitute "teacher" with any other profession, and you'd get the same nonsense answer. Blogging isn't a matter of "should/not," it's more a choice of what we do with the technology available, for whichever audience we have chosen to address.

Words can build up or they can tear down. I hope I've been doing more of the former than the latter here for my visitors. That is my choice.

June's taken a fancy to visiting Hokkaido in the summer. Apparently, there are vast fields of lavender and sunflowers to admire, and the seafood couldn't get any fresher. So it was off to the NATAS fair for us to see what packages were on offer.

We started out looking at group tour packages. Groups are about 20-30 strong, and being sociable with so many fellow holiday-makers for the entire trip didn't appeal to us at all. It wasn't that our Korean tour of '03 was such a terrible experience; it was just inflexible and we couldn't be independent of the group at all. It was only when we extended our tour for another 2-3 days in Seoul that we felt like we'd escaped the herd and we were free to waste our time and money on whatever we ourselves wanted, rather than on stuff the tour organization decided we should.

From our initial research today, we got bolder and started asking around for free-and-easy tours instead. But the tour operators showed us how expensive such expeditions could be, simply because we couldn't get bulk discounts.

There was a section of the travel fair that caught our attention. 2 huge video walls screening sights from Hokkaido. The organization doing the screening ran a fly & drive tour, i.e., fly there, pick up a rental Toyota, drive yourself around Hokkaido aiming to arrive at the designated hotel for the day by nightfall.

There are recommended stops between hotels but because it's a self-drive tour, we can pick and choose which locations to dally at, which to skip or even run off on our own if we knew of some other place that would capture our interest more. Howzzat for flexibility? Well, apart from having to make it to the right hotel to sleep in at night, that is.

One of the rental cars on offer is the Toyota Prius, 1.5l hybrid, running at 35.5km/l, with on-board GPS nav system. Sweet! And accommodation is entirely 5-star including meals and most have a hot spa facility free for guest usage. Wow.

The cost at Twin rates: $2888 for EACH of us, which is steep. But if we went Dutch, though still a pinch, is barely affordable. Then we discussed the package some more with one of the guides for this tour who clarified that there are other expenses such as gas, parking, tolls, entrance fees, lunch, etc., that aren't covered in the packaged rate. A more realistic cost figure would be closer to $4-5K each. And we're like, "oh...!"

Pity. Maybe if we saved on going anywhere this year, we might consider this package again next year. Meantime, I know June's still searching for better options...

June and I met JY, Tonn and Thad at ECP. Bicycle rental for me and the 2 girls, the guys 'bladed. We covered pretty much the entire stretch of beach on either side of the McD's, about 2 hours of cardio-vascular activity for us.

Put all the calories lost back with interest at lunchtime. Went to Swenson's at Parkway Parade where I ordered the unhealthiest-looking thing on the menu: the Cheesy Beef Burger. But it was the first time I have gone into a Swensons and left without ordering ice-cream. Dessert we saved for New Zealand Natural: mocha almond fudge+walnut butterscotch for me, and chocolate ecstacy+vanilla classic for June. Mmm...

M-i-L signed Q-tip and Mimi up for a "Dog Parade contest" at this RC block party in Toa Payoh this evening. The programme involved some karaoke items, a balloon artist, and us, the canine celebrities of the day.

Each handler did a catwalk (how ironic) with our dogs who were mostly dressed to impress the audience. There were a couple of nudie entries like the retriever and the westie, but it was the smaller, dressier dogs that got the gasps and the applause. And the photo ops.

The contest results were exactly the same as the last time: Q-tip (Miss looking-fab-in-her-faux-Burberry's-trenchcoat) was 2nd runner-up; Mimi (Miss Personality/Photogenic) emerged the Champion. They won a doggie hamper (sponsored by Annie's Pets Corner) and a trophy each. So Neopets.

More pix here.

Began the day with news that my timetable will increase by 4-and-a-half more hours per week, which I kinda' expected it would. The difficulty is in getting myself acquainted with another bunch of J2's who are already used to one tutor and now have to get used to a new one: me. And I only have 6 months or so to get them up to standard for their 'A's, though as of right now, I'm told, they aren't doing very well. A challenge, then.

Also began preparations with Vince, Nirmy, Cynth and Boss Lady for a 2-hour long presentation on critical thinking for a bunch of Ps and Vice-Ps of our cluster. When we gave this presentation to our own staff sometime last year, we never expected the upper-echelons to take us so seriously and offer us to such scary levels. Hope we won't disappoint.

1 piece of good news I did receive was that my request to push back PUS submission deadlines was cheerfully granted, so we -- me, Mel, Gerald and the PUS kids -- can breathe a little easier next week.

Went to lunch with Amy and Dee. I haven't had a Han's black pepper steak in nearly 10 years, but it's still quite good value for money. Food-court style steak with emphasis on "pepper." It burns lips, tongue and stomach, but what a feeling! I extinguished the flames with an iced lemon tea, and unless I'm mistaken, it isn't the usual post-mix crap but the real stuff -- real tea, real lemon, real cold. The set also includes garlic bread (slightly over-toasted walnut bread) and a slice of mystery fruit (which I declined to touch). $7.50 for the lot. 10 years ago when I was dirt poor, this was a luxury meal. Today, it's comfortably affordable. Life is good.

Joined Vince almost immediately after lunch at Friends to keep him company while he marked exam scripts. I still had a bunch of scripts too, so it was quite a productive hour of marking and having tea. Discovered that Friends offers a home-made variety of vanilla ice-cream which is beautifully rich and flavourful. It even has traces of raw, ground-up vanilla beans speckling the white, creamy goodness. This is one place to remember for ice-cream.

Spent the rest of the evening photographing the O2 Finale dance party. Not sure why even, 'cos no one's been assigned to write the story. But if it's pix you be wantin', you can get 'em here.

Another satisfactory day of marking. Maybe it's because most of the essays I'm marking actually have some decent current affairs content and language usage. And most essays come in legible handwriting too.

A few of these scripts overshot the 800 word limit too, so I'm going to have to advise some students to be more concise. But there are a couple of other students who turned in scripts lazy as heck, who tried to pass off clever rhetoric as arguments, cliches in place of of evidence, theories instead of facts.

The general problem for this tutorial group is that they present topical knowledge (of which they do have some, thankfully) without likewise presenting a clear opinion on the topic. It's a start, at least.

I was a good boy today for having put a major dent in my marking load. Hope I can keep it up and not get distracted with other activities over the next few days, then I can start wearing all my other hats again with a clear conscience.

Rewarded myself by watching my "Mirrormask" DVD this evening. Weird. Most of the movie takes place in a dream. It's a blend of 'live' action with Henson puppetry with CGI, and often it's hard to tell which is which.

Gaiman's designs are as surreal as they are bizarre. Strange creatures like headless storks that make up a police contingent, dove-apes that prefer swinging to flying, a spider that doubles as the Black Queen's eye, petrifying tendrils of darkness that sweep relentlessly across the cityscape... the brain works overtime interpreting the visual stimulus and trying to make sense of it all.

The experience is like having a nearly 1-hour long hallucination without having to consume drugs. I kinda' liked it for the story, but the surreal elements got too much for me. I'm pretty sure my own dreams are less fanciful, more realistic -- and I found this dream hard to accept and believe in after a while. Thankfully, the movie is relatively short.

Think I would have enjoyed the story more reading it than watching it. But that's just me.

Marking season is upon us again, but Vince found time to make up for his rain check from June's dinner. NBS, who was likewise absent with apologies last Saturday, joined us at Shima Aji for the sashimi buffet.

The raw fish, as usual, was delightful. I tried the tempura shishamo -- done so crispy there was nothing left to waste. And with the delicate little fish eggs rolling around on the tongue, it was quite an experience. It had a strong fish oil taste, though, like a dose of cod liver oil with every bite; so I could only manage downing 2 fish before the law of diminishing returns kicked in.

Washed down with lots of wasabi and green tea, it really was a good dinner.

We took Mimi home to M-i-L's this afternoon. Mimi's had a long vacation with us -- about 3-4 weeks -- in which she went out with us quite a lot. She won't get many chances to take car rides when she's home, but we feel that at least she won't be so starved of human company there, compared to our place where for much of the day there's only Q-tip and the cats to entertain her.

Mimi may be a noisy little thing, and combined with Q-tip the mess they make can be quite a headache, sometimes, but we're going to miss her. Always following us around, snuggling up to us whenever she gets a chance, asking for tummy-rubs, going mad whenever we come home... Q-tip could learn a thing or two from her.

Hope the folks at home remember to keep brushing her teeth.