After a break since September, NY conneXions is back with fresh updates and a new look!

We've had slight problems with our latest server migration (I've already fixed the link in my Blogrolling sidebar) and we've lost a few pages and pix in the process. And granted, the new design is still a work-in-progress, but it's great to be publishing once again.

Since it's the hols, we're presenting less campus oriented articles and more articles from outside sources instead.

Loga and co., thanks for keeping us alive even though you're all supposed to be on vacation! :D

Check out our new quilt cover from Aussino's kids' collection. A lovely pastoral scene that Kaiser can't resist being a part of. Always fancied himself living on a farm, that boy!

Finished my last invigilation duty today. Now I can sit down and plan for next year's programme. Went back on campus to have a think about the future of NY conneX, and a few fresh ideas came up. Would like to chat about them with my current staff first though, and see what they think.

Amy happened to be on campus, and HP was nearby so we lunched at Friends like we haven't done in what seems like a long time. I'm not so impressed with this month's set menu with a choice of fish 'n chips, teriyaki chicken or spaghetti for the main course. The quality is still there, but the options are a little bland this time.

Had a pot luck dinner at Aggie's place. A sort of small farewell for Vince attended by Lucy, NBS, Josh, ZC (special guest appearance!), me and June. We brought the dessert, partly financed by NBS, that June spent much of the weekend making. June makes a good almond jelly served with longans, and a konnyaku-style pandan/coconut layered agar.

Nice to be back amongst friends again!

Shopping at Taka with June who was looking to buy her sister some l'Occitane products as a Christmas gift. Spending over $150 including 1 item from the Christmas shelf gets an FOC handbag hand-stiched in France (so no 2 designs are exactly alike) and a small sampler pack. Sis-in-law should be happy with her eye gels.

Lunched at Ambush in the Taka basement. Strange name for an Italian pasta joint, but since it took us by surprise as we were stepping off the escalator, what the heck, right? Although we were miles from Ikea, we both were craving Swedish meatballs, so we were thrilled to see a Swedish meatball pasta on offer.

It was nice that the cashier informed us that the meatballs were made of beef and pork before we confirmed our order. I was tempted to say, "Thanks for the warning, I'm vegetarian!" but I kept my mouth shut.

The pasta and the meatballs were heavy, in a rich tomato sauce, served in a large bowl. We were already full about halfway through our bowls. That's a what a good pasta does. The remainder we slowly consume as we relax and enjoy each other's company while the meal lasts.

Quite affordable, too. Most pasta dishes are below $10 each, with an additional $3.80 to make a set. We took the garlic bread and soup, the other option being dessert and a drink. The complementary cold water from a dispenser was a thoughtful touch.

Gotta love the Amazing brothers Cho. The epitome of kindness and courtesy on the Amazing Race 10. They're the guys who played the game 'differently', forming an alliance with the weaker teams, sacrificing their own advantages to boost their friends' chances of survival.

They usually finished their tasks first but would wait for the other teams, gather everyone together, share their info and plan some kind of group strategy before moving on. They even gave up a lead they had to a team which without their help would have been eliminated for sure.

This gameplan of the Chos makes good sense in that if the Alliance could eliminate the stronger teams in the Race, then the brothers would face a much reduced competition towards the finish line.

The problem was, they didn't know when to draw the line between social grace and survival. They simply didn't do their math properly in this week's installment. Last place was between them and their final surviving ally. Yet instead of taking the early lead, they chose to wait for the mothers, intending to -- what? Cross the finish line together???

It is no surprise that the mothers ditched them and found their own way to the Pitstop, arriving 2nd last. The mothers know how to play the survival game. The Chos are out. And I'm not at all sympathetic.

Oddly enough, in todays Life! interview, the Chos have the impression that S'poreans are just as nice and polite as they are, if not more so. They haven't been reading our 'papers, lately so full of gripes about how spoilt we are about public transport, how blase we are about littering, how we need another Courtesy Campaign 'cos we don't say 'please' and 'thank you'.

Looks like S'poreans have it backwards. We think it's all about survival while forming cooperative alliances doesn't make sense to us. Social graces take a backseat as we charge ahead with our 'winner take all' neurosis.

Life isn't the Amazing Race. Our species thrives on cooperative endeavour. So yes, we do have a lot to learn from the Chos' game. But there are also times when survival does become a factor. We need to know how to recognize that point, cut our losses and let our self-preserving instincts take over. We're no good to anybody if we're dead.

It's about time to renew my passport. I tried out the Application for PassPort on-Line Electronic System (dear God, APPLES!) and it looks like a pretty straightforward process. Just a few fields to fill in with personal identification details, and the submission of a personal mugshot on .jpg file.

Ah, the mugshot. Here's where it gets difficult. The rules are stringent about getting the shot composed correctly. The second-hardest thing to accomplish is getting the background perfectly white. Try as I might, the best I could get was a grey wash. The lighting in my room simply isn't powerful enough to make my white wall look white. The camera flash doesn't help either.

The most difficult thing to accomplish is getting a nice shot of myself that actually makes me look good. So many imperfections -- the rules are clear against Photoshopping -- so I had to pick the one that made me look least like crap. Noone is EVER gonna look at my passport, got it?

Hope Immigration will accept the photo I submitted in the end. It took a lot more work than APPLES promised.

We should put up a quarantine sign on our front door. June's next to get the bug. What with Q-tip still coughing on and off, June sneezing and me doing a bit of both, our house has become a concert hall for the Influenza Symphonia in D minor.

This morning we both went to see our local Silver Cross medical facility. It wasn't as crowded as I had imagined and we got our consultations without much of a wait. The queue number was 21-22 when we arrived and we got 26-27. And there were 2 doctors available to share the load.

I love the labelling on the medicine packages they dispense. Clear print-outs with the name of the drug, its purpose and dosage. Gone are the days when we had to squint at poorly handwritten labels and guess what the heck we're ingesting. So for the record, I'm on a couple of decongestants, a codine mixture (drowsy warning), and an antibiotic. I don't usually take antibiotics, but this run of cold symptoms tells me some drastic measures are necessary.

According to the manual, there is an occasion in which the car will vibrate, make a strange noise, and will have some difficulty steering. Just as the manual said, it happened to M2. So I pulled over to the nearest parking lot to have a look. And there it was, a flat tyre.

Great! A chance for me to pull out my Mazda-issue toolkit and get some hands-on working on a routine maintenance procedure. One thing about Mazda's toolkit: it's cute, handy, packs away easily, and is almost completely non-functional. Specifically, the tyre iron is far too short and too fragile to unbolt the tyre from the axle. So try as I might, I couldn't get enough leverage to budge the nuts even a little.

So despite having figured out the jack and having my emergency wheel on hand, I still had to seek assistance. Thanks to Amy, I got hold of our local AA, though it was rather strongly impressed upon me by the Association that I should pay for my own membership rather than sponge off someone else's.

It was a case of tyre iron envy when I saw the equipment the AA guy was lugging around. But even then he had to use a makeshift lever extension to get my nuts loose [ok, now this is starting to sound rather rude -- whatever you're thinking, stoppit].

The emergency wheel is certainly no replacement for a proper road wheel. It's a dinky little wheel off a toy car, designed to get M2 to the nearest tyre shop for a new tyre asap. The nearest one was at the Caltex station opposite Nee Soon camp. Quite good service by Mr Shiok (yes, that's his name). He quickly replaced both front tyres and took the trouble to clean up the emergency wheel before stowing it back into it's compartment for me.

What caused the flat? Normal wear and tear, apparently. I'm just relieved it wasn't because I ran over a cat or some other clawed animal. So now I'm running 2 new Falken tyres in front (tyres get replaced in pairs). That, plus AA membership = $300+. It's enough to make me reconsider public transport...

... Naaaahhh!

Whoa. Too much video game addiction, real life got shelved temporarily while my superhero team has been busy kickin' ass in Atlantis, the Valley of the Spirits, Mephisto's Realm, Asgard, the Shi'ar flagship, the Skrull homeworld, and Castle Doom.

The quests are easy to complete on 'normal' mode, especially since you can beef up 1 or 2 of your favourite characters to near invulnerable levels. I did that for Wolvie and he's usually the one to save the day, being the last mutant standing. Invulnerable doesn't mean he's immune to falling off ledges though, it's one of the drawbacks of not being able to fly.

With quite a bit of the environment being destructable, fights are awesomely violent. Bits of scenery get smashed with all the pummelling going on, though sometimes there's too much happening on screen, you lose sight of your character only to find him (or her) again aimlessly bustin' up a harmless statue or some ugly furniture.

Not that I've been anti-social or what, but I'm still nursing this cold that I haven't been able to get rid of for more than a week now. It's been the most persistent to date and as far as possible, I'm trying to avoid passing it on to people. It's also making me irritable, so taking it out on game sprites can be quite therapeutic.

Picked up "Marvel Ultimate Alliance", an RPG-lite. Actually, it's more like a team beat-'em-up. There are 4 Marvel superheroes in a team. Including unlockable characters, there're up to 20 Marvel favourites to mix and match. The default team is already pretty strong: Cap Am, Spidey, Thor and Wolvie.

Each character has his or her special moves, and there are several ways to customize their attributes, powers and costumes. Levelling up is automatic, but there is also the option to spend points accumulated through missions as well as unique item upgrades to collect. The opportunity to create so many different permutations of heroes and experiment with which powers complement others the best is a fanboy's dream.

Not a lot of brainwork needed. Just mash buttons until all enemy characters have had the stuffing kicked out of them. Problem is, there're so many buttons to try out that a qwerty keyboard is not ideally suited to put all controls within easy reach of wildly flailing fingers. Customizing keyboard controls to your preference is definitely a priority before the action gets hot and heavy.

Storyline's basic. A mass consortium of evil-doers band together for some nefarious scheme necessitating an equivalent alliance of do-gooders to stop them. There is an element of distrust thrown into the hero camp as SHIELD, the sponsor of the alliance, seems to have a hidden agenda in the midst of all this chaos.

Lots of background info on the heroes, villains and locations to gather as well through interacting with numerous NPCs, and, boy, do they have a lot to yak about. The game's almost like a playable encyclopaedia of Marvel trivia, so even players who have no knowledge of the Marvel Universe won't feel left out in the cold -- if they have the patience to sit through every conversation.

Gameplay-wise, I would have prefered it to be more turn-based, like KOTOR, so there's a bit more strategizing involved in battles. But it's a lot more visceral this way, mindlessly bashing at enemies until they pop in a shower of points and power-ups.

It's going to be a long campaign...

There's a certain young person by the name of Lee, a permanent resident happy to go home to America, never to set foot on S'pore soil again. He's so proud to be American, so different from the rest of us, and yet, the nature of his complaints are so Singaporean, I think we brainwashed him better than he thought. It's pitiful.

His first anecdote about life in S'pore is about his trauma at being forced to sing our National Anthem. Like the rest of our students don't go through this experience? Getting them to sing early in the morning is like pulling teeth but we go through the ritual anyway. So what does he do to cope? He opens his mouth but doesn't say the words.

His response tells us a lot about his discomfort living here. He sings the anthem, but not really. He doesn't believe in it, he doesn't engage in it, he doesn't live it, and guess what? The consequence is, he feels left out, apart, alone. No wonder he's not happy. It's like what he's doing in his blog entry: mouthing off, but the words aren't actually coming out.

So he's pissed off at having to serve NS. What? Just because he's American born means he's exempt from serving community time for the community he's living in? After all, he admits he has a S'porean IC, so regardless of whatever has been written as his "Place of Birth", what matters more is, what's his current address?

The rest of his complaints are so familiar to us. We hear them in taxis, kopitiams and mahjong tables until they've become almost a part of our (apparently) non-existant culture. He complains about our govt, the poor standard of the Opposition in politics, the poor standard of spoken Mandarin... he's so at home with us whether he wants to admit it or not.

Ironically, he signs off as being from the "land of the free and the home of the brave." That's a bit of an insult to the US Marines actually facing life and death situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and elsewhere around the world. It smacks George Washington in the face, whose citizen militia won American freedom. How brave can he be if he can't even take our NS training?

And he knows nothing about what being free means. According to John F Kennedy, "The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission." With his eyes always on the escape hatch -- going home to America -- our friend, Lee, looks like he can't wait to wave the white flag and retreat to what he thinks his home is.

Honestly, I'm no big patriot. I just think that with his attitude, Lee will never be able to call any place "home", whether here, or the US of A.

Oh, btw, his blog: http://leeeeeeeee.blogspot.com/2006/11/growing-up-in-singapore.html

In today's Life! section, Suzanne Sng muses, "I do not understand why men who show the slightest affinity to children are instantly desirable. When a guy professes to liking children, most women look at them through different eyes. They somehow suddenly appear more endearing, more evolved, more nurturing, more stable, more marriageable... "

Perhaps there is a bio-chemical reason for this phenomenon. Jennifer Barone reports in my December copy of Discover that:
"after comparing the brains of [marmoset] males with offspring with brains of childless males in mating pairs, [Princeton neuroscientists] Kozorovitskiy and Gould found that fathers not only had more connections between neurons in their prefrontal cortex, a region involved in anticipating consequences and attaining goals, but they also had more receptors for vassopressin, a neurohormone linked to social interaction and bonding."

Although they haven't tested to see if male human brains develop in the same way after fatherhood, Sng's casual observation suggests that the premise is probably true. That sort of means that childless human males in a couple relationship are basically slackers and have poorer social skills.

Heyyyy...! Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?

Still feeling lousy. Best to remain in isolation for today. No point risking infecting anyone else unnecessarily. Hope 1 more day's rest will do the job 'cos the rest of the week I have places to see, things to go and people to do. Um... something like that.

The past week's been terrible. With Q-tip down, and now me, we've kept the air-conditioning off and because it's so hot at night, we haven't been able to sleep properly since the whole thing started. The past couple of nights we've taken to sleeping in the living room where the ceiling fan is, but that is also a trade-off.

"Wonder how much we'll save on our power bill this month?" he speculates, all panda-eyed.

Experimenting with the new Blogger Beta version. Everything looks more or less the same, but I'm having trouble integrating Haloscan comments. Bother!

Edit 01:
There, Haloscan works again! Thanks to LP!

The good news is that Q-tip's getting better. She's been quiet for much of the day and that's a relief for us. The bad news is, it's my turn to succumb to cold symptoms.

I didn't even finish my review of Little Shop last night because I couldn't think straight any longer. Suffice to say I enjoyed the production even though I sat through it with a swimming head and a stuffed nose.

Feeling worse today, trying to sleep it off...

It's been about a week now but Q-tip is still coughing. It was particularly bad last night: June and I were both awakened at the unearthly hour of 0635 this morning by an intermittent hacking from under the bed, and this is becoming a relatively common occurrence these days.

Time to bring out the big guns. I took Q-tip to Namly where she got an x-ray taken, which thankfully showed that internally at least there are no signs of injury or disease. So we're treating her condition as a viral infection and have added a steroid to her current prescription. Poor little dog.

In the evening, while Q-tip recuperated at home, June and I went to watch "Little Shop of Horrors". See? It pays to keep close tabs on the Drama Club, 'cos when there are stray tix we usually get first dibs.

Little Shop was a slick production, highly amusing and light and fluffy in its presentation. It's a musical based on the genre of the B-grade movie, so it's easy on the brain while the basic rock tunes and dance movement carry us through this tale of zero-turned-hero, but at what cost?

ST reports that Parliament has repealed our archaic laws on "unnatural sex". Guess that means that Zoe can "swallow" without guilt now, as long as she does it outside of the public eye. But seriously, I'm surprised that there was such a law in the first place. Who are we to demarcate what is "natural" and "unnatural"? Nature itself has set some remarkable precedents in the animal kingdom for reproductive practices that might seem utterly perverted by our reckoning!

By nature, most animals are promiscuous, apart from the wolf (ironically) and perhaps certain species of whales. As long as a mate offers the potential to sire a generation with strong survival genes, there's little loyalty between mating couples.

Mammals have no qualms about incest, and we human beings have taken advantage of this casualness by creating bloodlines of champion purebreds best suited for their utility in helping us get our myriad businesses done.

Some invertebrate species change gender on the fly, depending on the preference of their mate, or by some other biological trigger. Some insectoids literally eat their mates in their afterglow, a post-coital ritual that we find extremely difficult to stomach.

Nature is as wondrous as she is perverse in terms of reproductive techniques. So what exactly do we mean by "unnatural"?

I think one of the reasons why we put such emphasis on regulating our sexual practices is due to the perceived guilt associated with the guilt experienced by Adam and Eve when they discovered their "nakedness" after their "eyes were opened" (our laws derive from British Law, remember?). To us, we tend to link nudity to sexual perversion though, as evidenced by nature's innovations, that interpretation just seems tenuous at best.

So what was the "original sin" in our first couple seeing each other starkers for the first time? I propose that "nakedness" might refer more to the realization that they didn't posess anything they could call exclusively their own. Clothes, after all, distinguish one person from another. Clothes (apart from uniforms) establish our individual identities; and distinguish me from you, us from them. Clothes determine who's in and who's out, who has more and who has less, who should do this and who should do... eeew, that! And they separate the discrepancies with a barrier that is nearly impossible to cross.

So part of our original sin was to desire an identity separate from one another, and in Christian circles, apart from God himself.

Another part of our original sin was to realise that things from nature can be transformed from their naturally intended purpose and turned into other things that suit our selfish purposes instead. The natural function of a fig leaf is to transform solar energy into bio-energy to sustain the life of the fig plant. But to Eve, it became a fashion accessory that served the Very Important Function of decorating her nether regions with. I'm sure the fig could have done without a single leaf but to be fair, the fig needed it more. Adam probably found other uses for sticks and rocks that set in motion a dangerous chain of events leading to the state of our world today.

I think we've got a lot more to worry about than how people want to relate with one another. But then again, I'm no theological scholar. What do I know about this sort of thing?

I'm getting a lot of mileage out of my October ish of Discover. There's a book review of "AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War". This book details the horrific things Edison (yes, the electricity dude) did, not in the name of science even, but in a desperate publicity campaign for his company.

I was thoroughly outraged because we usually uphold this man as a model of personal perseverance and meticulous scientific practice, but this pushes the envelope way too far. In my print edition, I have photos. Be thankful the online version doesn't. Refer to the review entitled, "Power Failure", from the link here.

Unrelated...

Declarative statement: Bowling is such a Zen activity.
Declarative supplemental statement: The calmer you are, the better you bowl.
Supplemental correlative: The better you bowl, the calmer you become.
Unnecerssary addendum: Just let all that karma flow through you, baby!

Bowling brings the bowler to centre; both physionomically and psychologically. Physically, we line ourselves up with our target. Our muscles click into place and lock-on. Our breathing slows to a halt. The heart slows in sync with our breath. Our thoughts focus until nothing remains other than our target and the line that connects us to it, seen only in the mind's eye.

If the throw is successful, we find perfect peace as we bring ourselves another step closer to perfect control and we prepare for our next throw. If we mess our throw up, most of the time we lose it. We cuss and swear and start blaming everything from our luck to the lane to our lack of skill, and that's the end of the game for us!

How did I do today? 155 for a 3-game average. Not too bad, considering I haven't touched that ball in months. Yeah, bowling lunches can be fun!

Q-tip is still hacking and has started to sneeze a little too. But otherwise she's still behaving quite normally, so I guess we'll have to let her cold run its course. I'm getting better at srynging her meds into her mouth, a much less painful process than making her swallow pills.

Lucy was nice and bought a packet lunch for the 2 of us, which we shared with Amy. And Mel joined us at the table as well. Considering how diverse our schedules are these days, particularly for those of us whose duties are off campus, it's such a morale booster when we do manage to meet and eat. :D

Poor Q-tip is sick. She's developed a bad cough and is bringing up phlegm. We took her to the vet, who isn't jumping to conclusions yet. We're just treating it like a normal sore throat with some antibiotics, antihistamines and cough syrup. But apart from the coughing, she's behaving quite as usual so I guess there's nothing to be too concerned about for now.

After taking Q-tip home, we went to explore Vivo. Can't say it stands out all that much considering wht the hype has been. Yes, it's got an organic design, it's got what might pass for a little busking activity, it's got a cool wading pool on the rooftop garden with a spectacular view of the... Sentosa Gateway. But most of the tenants are the same as any other shopping mall around here. But what was I really expecting, anyway?

1 more mall to do our Christmas shopping in.

Another irate letter to ST Forum:

Nov 4, 2006
Singapore drivers just refuse to give way

OKAY, I give up, I just don't understand, so perhaps a Singaporean driver can answer my question.

I have been driving for 30 years, in about 20 different countries and currently hold six driving licences. In an average year, I have to drive in four to seven different countries, always checking local road laws before doing so. I have now lived in Singapore for six years and have to drive all over the island on business.

So please explain why, when I indicate to move to another lane, even when it is to exit, nine times out of 10, the car in that lane will deliberately accelerate to prevent me from doing so, often causing me to miss my exit.

There has even been a government campaign to promote courteous driving, but it is obvious it has been ignored by the majority.

The other annoyance is that as new driver, I was taught to give way and raise a hand in thanks when given way to. But when I give way here, or let someone in front of me, there is normally a look of total disbelief, and rarely an indication of thanks.

Now driving is becoming more accessible to the next generation of drivers as cars become more affordable, there needs to be a real effort to change this 'I must be first' attitude. It's dangerous, it's immature, it's unnecessary.

Wendy Gorman (Mrs)

Actually, a lot of fluff. Mrs Gorman's beef is that she misses her exit because S'pore drivers don't "give way" to her. Everything else is just distraction.

Is it true that S'pore drivers are as ungracious as all that? As a local bus operator will explain: It's not that Mrs Gorman misses her exit because of inconsiderate drivers. It's because she doesn't change lane early enough that's why. Last minute want to change, wat you wan' the other drivers to do, ah?

Sorry, lah!

Hmm... considering how much driving experience she's chalked up, and she still can't adapt to local driving conditions, it doesn't say much for her learning abilities. OK, I'm being mean now.

I'm usually known to be cool under pressure. Unemotional, even. But there's a good reason for my tight control over myself. I make the absolute worst decisions when I lose it, and things get silly after that.

I haven't lost it for a long while now, but today I discovered that I have major trust issues and when I sense a lack of support, my entire facade crumbles. I say major trust issues because when I take charge of my own initiatives, I always picture myself leading the charge while my whole army is wandering off the battlefield somewhere behind me. A Quixotic image, I suppose.

So when I designated tonight as movie nite for the Dept, perhaps I had already deemed it to be a lost cause even before I announced it. Originally, only a small handful expressed interest, but by today, even those looking forward to it informed me to go "enjoy myself," and by this afternoon I lost my famous control and peevishly cancelled the whole thing, vowing to never ever set myself up for such disappointment again.

But it turned out that I had misread Mel's RSVP: that she and Wayne were still keen though Linc was unavailable. It was a very badly worded SMS, considering my mood when I received it. I thought all 3 were cancelling on me, leaving um... just me and Anne to enjoy a Dept movie nite. Not quite the critical mass I was hoping for.

When I got back on campus in the evening, Mel and Anne were still there and Wayne was on his way back from wherever he had gone. And like the army of "Deadites" facing off against Bruce Campbell, movie nite refused to die too.

So there were 4 of us, plus Vince who dropped in for a while. Pretty decent of Mel, Wayne and Vince who've watched the movie before to spend the evening with me anyway. And Anne, I think, had a blast as the only first-timer watching "Army of Darkness".

And now, stuffed with Mel's hi-class biccies, Orville Redenbacher's microwave popcorn and Coke, we're thinking maybe we'll have another screening of another movie, hopefully sometime soon. We'll see...

Whoever sat for today's paper has made history. This was the last General Paper being offered at 'AO' level, so congratulations to y'all. Funny that the group I invigilated didn't seem too impressed when I announced this fact at the end of the paper. Go figure.

There. Didn't I always say that GP application questions aren't always gonna be "which passage is more relevant/reflective/representative of your society"? Just because we had one (or two?) exemplar questions from the Syndicate doesn't mean that they are all going to be like that forever.

After all, the AQ is meant to be a thinking, and sometimes critical thinking, question. No model answer to emulate, no template to follow, just you and your wits appreciating the problem set before you and dealing with it logically and reasonably as best you can.

This morning's paper was an open ended one on an issue that any normal teenager would angst about. It's an issue that lurks in their hearts and occasionally causes teenage outrage particularly when an authority gets involved. A gift question, so to speak. But because it didn't appear to follow the standard pattern of questioning that they've trained for, not a few students fed back that they "didn't know what the question wanted".

I hope those weren't my students...!

Big meeting at HQ for all KI tutors. The Ministry people arranged for a formal presentation to us from 3 uni profs speaking about concepts of knowledge as viewed primarily through eastern and western perspectives. Our speakers were profs in math, soci-sci and philo. High octane brains there!

I realized how western-centric we are in the way we think and view the world. Math, for example, as we understand it, seems to have come from a Euclidean tradition (Greek mathematician, Euclid, wrote the book on it, describing the work of mathematicians before him) in all its abstract purity. It's all clinical in its conceptulizations of points and vectors and angles and other numerical relationships, all logically presented in ascending order of complexity. It's just like the way we teach it!

Whereas Eastern mathematics has more to do with practical and pragmatic problem-solving (refer to the jiuzhang suanshu) in which the problems have more to do with human relationships and transactions rather than just pure numbers alone. This seems like a very strange way to go about trying to count things, particularly (as Prof Pang explained) since the solutions to the problems were simply provided in the book without a working.

And yet, while the Eastern tradition appears so alien in nature, the way we calculate today has more to do with Eastern counting frames (later bastardized into the venerable abacus), than the way the Greeks did it using algorithmic tables (like our modern log tables) to count 1+1=2. Whoa. There's a revelation!

Also fascinating was the presentation of an ancient Indian philosopher, Sankara whose ideas of reality as a tripartite notion (mind-body-atman) seems to me to parallel Plato's cave analogy and even the Judaeo-Christian belief in a triune God, though the parallel is more convenient than it is accurate.

The mind boggles.

Well, JC2s taking the GP exam tomorrow, this is what you've worked on for nearly 2 years now. 05S7D, 05A6, 05S6A, I've only taught each of your groups for 1 year, perhaps less, but I hope it's enough.

And if you're reading this entry at this late hour, maybe it's time to switch off your comp and get some sleep. Don't forget to wake up with a fresh mind tomorrow! For what it's worth, have a good paper, y'all!

The visual image of yours truly in Speedos is a pathetic attempt at sensationalism and really is scraping the bottom of the barrel for something creative to say. It's been like that all week and, as is obvious, there've been several days on which I've given up trying to say anything at all.

Re-reading my past entries, it's like I'm having some kind of identity crisis. Am I writing a diary? review column? news commentary? edu-torial? I don't know any more. It's something I have to sort out and soon. Whatever.

Anyway, we had a big staff meeting today. It was a mass reflection exercise of the various aspects of college life from management, staff and student perspectives. We carried it out in a "speed-dating" format: 5-6 of us staff gathered around one of several small tables, all pouring our hearts out on a topic specific to our table. A half-hour of for-the-record soul-searching, garment-rending, sitting-in-ashes discussion later, and we're off to another table, trading partners and a new topic to verbally dissect.

Don't know how the other table discussions went, but I ended up discussing student leadership at a couple of my tables.

The general consensus seems to be that students don't move, or do anything else for that matter, unless and until a Teacher has to not only tell them to do it, but also HOW to do it. It seems like we're raising up people who are good at carrying out orders (and those orders have to be very specific) and little else. Sure, there is a tiny handful who try to go beyond their programming to do something on their own accord, but for the vast majority it's more like input-output, stimulus-response, which can be quite draining and fruitless for everyone.

I think part of the reason is that our culture still does not encourage enough risk-taking, and the other part is that we don't appreciate students' efforts enough.

For reason #1, we staff have an idea of what is the "right" way to do things and how to go about meeting our desired objectives. We apply our standards to what the students are proposing and then we take over, running roughshod over their proposals, critiquing every minute detail and then take over both responsibility and execution of the project from the students (like we don't already have enough to do). No wonder we are stressed out and overworked, while the students have no confidence in themselves.

Reason #2 ties into reason #1. As staff, we haven't learned to say, "thank you," nicely to our students. Instead, during post-mortems for events we launch into salvos of "why didn't ___ work?" "what went wrong with ___?" "why didn't you do __?" focusing on the negatives and worrying that praise will swell their heads and they'll get complacent next time.

I'm not saying that we should celebrate mediocrity, though. What I am saying is that our attitude should be more appreciative of the work that has been done, while the students themselves look for how things can improve through their own observations of their own performance so that "doing better next time" is is a natural part of the process rather than an imposition from on-high. And, senior students should teach their juniors so that lessons learnt in one generation are not lost to the next.

Sometimes, we staff are so pressed for time -- particularly as the JC curriculum has a mayfly life-cycle of effectively only 18 months -- that we expect instant perfection. Of a developing student leader, that's asking a bit much.

Nice day, today. JY joined us for bicycling at ECP. At least we're making an effort to start our "healthy lifestyle" routine again. That's been dead for quite a while already, now I think about it. Well, good. I seriously need to get back in shape. Then maybe during the December break I can wear my thong Speedos with pride once again!

Hmm... now, where are we going for our vacation this year...?

Looks like one way or another, I'm pitching in whatever I can spare into next year's drama effort. Even if drama doesn't come under my portfolio. I love being a drama queen too much, I guess. And thanks, Drama Club for the unexpected card. It is nice to be appreciated!

Met with Mel and Tina this afternoon to finalize the small sticking points of our collaboration. Not much to iron out, actually, other than a couple of admin details. The rest of the afternoon we just yakked about inconsequentials over tea and some gu niang pastries in the lobby cafe of the Intercontinental. The pastries, I left to the 2 gu niang, though they were nice enough to let me have the things that didn't appeal to them.

All I ordered was a pot of Earl Grey to keep me company and happily scoffed the cast-offs. And there were still some left-overs by the time we finished.

Celebrated Jen's belated at 1827. Each of us ordered a set dinner and though the original idea was to mix and match dishes, we ended up just focusing on what we ordered for ourselves instead. 2 reasons: 1) the food was excellent, and 2) the portions were too small to share equitably.

We also met tonight because our friend, Lawrence, was back in town visiting, and he brought his friend, Aaron, with him. It's Aaron's first trip to Singapore, so we tried to advise him on the must-do things while he's here. Too bad he's on such a short trip. He's on business for this organization called Compassion, exploring the ground here for church organizations who are keen on helping them raise funds for needy children.

I'm not sure we gave Aaron a proper Singapore experience, though. 1827 serves Thai-fusion cuisine, and the dessert Adrian brought was from an Italian pastry shop. A bit atas, rather than heartland, which I think he would actually prefer. Anyway, there was talk of taking him to red-light district Geylang for durians, but our dinner ended pretty late and the riverside stroll around Boat Quay left us too tired to indulge ourselves in this horrific 'Welcome to Singapore' initiation ceremony.

Well, guys, have a fruitful meeting tomorrow, and maybe we'll see you again in December!

Just been unexpectedly reunited with a long lost pal. Dan, the Man, whom I thought was supposed to return to TO after his wedding in '01 (or was it '02?) stayed on here after all, had a kid, and DIDN'T tell me! For the last 5 years or so, I thought there was this gulf of Pacific Ocean between us, when in fact, he hadn't gone anywhere.

I've known him since he was in his pimply teens -- a lanky, affable chap -- in his 20's he started hitting the gym and bulking up, and today he's responsibly married, employed and paternal. In fact, it was this afternoon's invigilators' meeting at CJ that I bumped into him, as a fellow invigilator, and currently teaching math at a top-ranked college in Bishan.

Wow. Hopefully, we're now both a lot more mature these days. Let's not have another incident in which we nearly get run over by a train again, ok?

Mimi and Q-tip anticipate a treat! 

Brekkie is served, courtesy of Rocky Master's at the Expo. PIE!

Steaming pie insides. There really is a moist, hot beef stew in here! 

Took the dogs, Q-tip and Mimi, to Tanjong Beach for a swim. Keeping our fingers crossed worked. The haze was below 50, and all things considered, it was quite a nice day. We went early, so the beach wasn't crowded, though not too far from where we had spread our mat, some kids were playing some kind of game with a frisbee. They weren't very good at either throwing or catching, but they were making happy teenager noises, livening up the place a little. And, no, in case you were wondering, they didn't bother us with their noise. We could still nap through their game.

Lunchtime found us at the Colbar. Dog-friendly place, not too far a detour from Sentosa and quite reasonably priced. Uncle looked exceptionally cheerful today, and took my order with a smile. Service culture seems to be spreading. The Colbar makes good sausages, I found out. Short, fat pork sausages, crackling, crispy skin holding together a juicy, fragrant mince of pig meat. Gorgeous.

Had to spoil my day of brainless activity by catching "The Prestige" after dinner. This head-scratcher of a movie made me work to figure out what was going on. 2 rival magicians each holding a massive grudge against the other obsessively try to outdo each other's tricks, sabotage each other's performances and steal each other's ideas. Hard to decide who to root for because both are equally driven and vicious in their game of escalating revenge.

But the plot is just a distraction from what we are led to really want to see: how a magic trick called "The Transported Man" works. And as any good feat of magic, the answer is right there in plain sight, though the audience will always overlook it.

But as we begin to unravel the 2 magicians' secrets, we have to ask ourselves if learning how their tricks work was worth it, or if we were better off not knowing. At the lengths that magicians go to create their illusions, the audience would rather marvel at the deception rather than believe the painful, obvious truth.

Curiosity compels us to ask, "how did he do it?" But in this movie, curiosity really does kill the cat. There is such a thing as too much info.

And now a report on education in the UK!

This week has been a gold mine for the release of annual studies on Education as it is implemented around the world! And yet, all these reports do is to just add statistical credibility to what we already know about education systems in general via casual observation, experience and common sense.

Britain's annual Nuffield Review now tells us that kids don't appreciate what they're studying because neither curricula learning objectives nor the manner in which they are being taught match their aspirations. Moreover, there is so much emphasis on tests and exams that kids are just studying to pass exams instead of finding real value in applying their lessons to real-life.

Further compounding the kids' misery is the number of new policy initiatives stemming from their government's continuous tweaking of their education system. So schools are just struggling along, trying to follow all the different policies as best they can, though the results show no value-addedness in any real sense.

And the school environment is still too competitive between the various institutions -- and therefore by inference, between students -- to be able to create for them a more holistic, cooperative learning experience that they can benefit more from.

Wow. Poor Brit kids.

As usual, you can download the ST summary here.
The full Nuffield Review 05-06 doesn't look like it's been uploaded yet, but it should be soon. Give it a day or two. You should be able to find it on their homepage, along with several other articles on UK education.

Such has been my life this week. Nothing more exciting than reading the papers, print periodicals, online journals... If I'm not careful, I might actually become a teacher one day! Grumblegrumble...

Happy students don't necessarily do well in math, according to a study by the Brookings Institution's Brown Centre on Education Policy.

"Real student engagement is not about keeping students happy, boosting their self-esteem, or convincing them that what they are learning is relevant; it's about acquiring new knowledge and skills and pursuing the activities that contribute to that attainment," the report said.

Instead, the Center's Director (the aptly-named Mr Loveless) suggests in the report that an over-emphasis on trying to make students happy in class could actually distract the students from their core learning objectives.

The report bases its conclusions on math test scores taken from around the world and a correlating questionnaire relating to students' confidence in, enjoyment of, etc. the subject. American children claim to be very confident in math and enjoy math a lot, but still score below the International Average in their tests.

The results shouldn't be surprising, though. You can give a kid the best, most comfortable, most entertaining environment to learn in hoping to enhance the kid's motivation in a subject, but if the kid enjoys the environment too much and doesn't study, the result is still a foregone conclusion.

So, regardless of how entertained or how bored you are in class, there is only 1 secret to academic success: study hard. No two ways about it. Sorry.

Read a summary of the report ("koped" from ST) here.

The full report (a large 1mb .pdf file) here. Check out page 12 onwards for its findings on the happiness factor, and page 18-20 for a direct comparison between American and Singaporean student responses.

Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, is proposing some radical changes in Education in the US:

I've advocated, for example, paying kids in the 7th through 12th grade the equivalent of what they would make working at McDonald's if they take math and science and get a B or better. Overnight you would change the culture of poor neighborhoods in America. We ought to be honest and say math and science are harder. They're extraordinarily valuable to the country as national security and economic matters. Cultures get what they pay for. We currently pay for rock stars, movie stars, and football and basketball players. Shouldn't being a child prodigy in math be at least as important as being a child prodigy in basketball? Also, I'd allow anyone with substantive knowledge to participate. If you're a retired Ph.D. in physics and you'd like to come in one hour a day to teach physics, I'd let you. No union dues. No credentialing. And I'd argue that if you let everyone in the country who knows physics teach physics, with no credentialing, you'd have a better outcome. Finally, there's no reason to believe that an 1820 school model has any relevance to the 21st century. It's terrific only if you think kids today are going to work in a textile mill. School should mimic reality, not defy it. Almost everyone you know who wants to learn either learns part-time or by immersing themselves for three to five days. They don't go and sit for one hour a day ad nauseam.

Discover, October 2006.

These few days and over the next couple of weeks, we staff are all stressed out worrying about our kids' performance in the end-of-year exams. We worry if they are motivated enough to study their materials, and if they really do value their learning enough to do their best in their tests. This annual hand-wringing ritual is a time-honoured tradition, but that's probably what Gingrich is suggesting putting an end to.

The school Gingrich envisions turns secondary school students into state employees, being paid to study. Their main subjects are math and science and they don't sit in school all day for a year. Instead, they have a much reduced time table, are paid for their time on condition of their maintaining good results, and by "part-time" I guess he means that for the rest of the day the kids are actually off-campus applying themselves in the real-world on some corporate attachment or apprenticeship programme.

This idea pretty much opens up Education to market forces. It's practical and pragmatic. It's so crazy out-of-the-box it just might work to raise the level of competency in not only math and science but also in entrepreneurial and corporate survival skills.

It also means the end of a centrally controlled education system, but let's be realistic: it's the free market, not the bureaucracy that rules the 21st century.

So far, the ideas look good on paper. Wonder what it would be like to actually live under this new system though?

All the movies are about sex and violence. Time for censors to act

I turned to the cinema pages of the Life! Section in the Straits Times last Saturday and noted the sort of movies being shown in town. (Why? Did you actually intend to go watch a movie? Or do you have fun conducting meaningless surveys)?

The main themes focussed on violence, crime, death and sex. Here are some of the movies:

. The Black Dahlia - about Hollywood's most infamous sex murders; (it's got Scarlett Johansson in it!)

. Dead man's shoes - about revenge; (dunno, not on my must-watch list)

. Silk - about spirits; (the critics ravaged this one)

. Death Note - about death; (duh)

. The Departed - a crime drama; (based on the critically-acclaimed HK movie, "Infernal Affairs")

. Wet hot sake - about sex, sleaze and sensuality; (if you insist on watching this movie in THAT cinema, please remember to keep your umbrella handy)

. My Summer of Love - more sex and sleaze. (do some research before passing such judgement, please)

The other movies are about inconsequential events. These are time-wasters and sad to watch:

. Talladega Nights - about brainless and crazy people with fast cars; (talk about Cinéma Vérité)!

. World Trade Centre - a disaster; (well, it was a bit long and draggy)

. Rob -B-Hood - no theme. (gambling gangsters having to care for a baby and being reformed by the experience. Gross.)

These movies do not provide any wholesome and meaningful lessons in life. (Since when did we ever rely on Hollywood to teach us the ways of enlightenment)? The more a person watches them, the more he would be made to feel that life is hopeless and meaningless. (The more we read your article the more we are made to feel that you judge books by their covers).

Movie directors are happily ripping off the public by giving (Giving? Where do you get your free tickets from?) us worthless movies that harm us. It is useless to bar only children and those below 18 from watching these movies as the tasteless pictures in the media continue to defile good sense and morals. (We do too bar adults who are succeptible to being morally corrupted by watching movies! It's called, "being selective because cinema tix for ordinary folks are so bloody expensive!").

Where are our educators? (I'm off-duty). Why are they silent on this sad state of affairs? (You haven't been reading my blog). What does our conscience tell us about such movies being screened in public? (That we can exercise personal judgement and discretion in the choices we make for ourselves)? Do we have a conscience at all? (Flawed logic: appealing to authority).

One may argue that we have a choice not to watch these shows. (Exactament!) But if it [is] Hobson's choice everyday with such low quality movies, where is the freedom for one to choose a wholesome and good movie when none is available? (Um, you tend to set your bar a teensy bit high).

What about the public's right to see good movies? (Bad movies are more fun to review). And why do we create for ourselves a famine of morally enriching shows? (We create? What was the last morally uplifting movie you produced)?

A movie that is worthwhile watching would give hope to the viewer about the meaning of life and its purpose. (There's a Monty Python movie with that title).

A good movie should result in stirring a person's mind and heart to do good for society. (People programmed to do good by watching movies. I dunno, that seems a tad worrisome. "A Clockwork Orange" anyone?) It should focus on wholesome family values of love and care, and respect for the elders and the government. (Wow! There's a concept for a new Peter Jackson fantasy movie)!

How should we rate a movie for its value? We should not give ratings to reflect its popularity based on violence, crime and sex, but instead focus on good values such as kindness, gentleness, love, peace, goodness, faithfulness, self-control and joy. (We don't appreciate good values unless we see them against a suitable counterfoil. Good stories are about conflict. Or you could just watch Sesame Street every day instead).

Unfortunately, none of these good values can be found in the movies mentioned above. (One only finds what one looks for, Grasshopper).

Movies that espouse the desirable values are rare. These are 'Chariots of Fire' (It's now become the standard musical sountrack for every slo-mo running sequence) and 'Akeelah and the Bee' (and how we do value kids who can spel difikult wudz). I particularly enjoy watching Jack Neo's portrayal of our primary school system in 'I not stupid'. (Guess you could identify with the characters of the pushy parents).

Yet if it remains only a portrayal of our country's meritocratic education system, it alone would not be able to help us make further progress. (Boy, you don't ask for much, do you)?

It is not enough just to point out society's ills. The movie's director should have concluded the show with lessons on corrective measures for the public. (I've got your "corrective measures" for irrelevance right here! Now, bend over!)

I would like the Board of Film Censors to critically review and evaluate the quality of the movies currently being screened in public. (You would like to be appointed Head Censor).

The guiding principle of the authority should always be driven by good and responsible values that promote hope, compassion and love. (If you look closely enough, you'll find that such values are key factors in conflict resolution in most narratives, regardless of genre and subject material).

And it should not be influenced by the public's lust for sex (but we're not having enough babies as it is), violence (movies don't make us violent; other people who are jerks make us violent) and death ("lust for death" sounds a bit oxymoronic) that leads to a sense of hopelessness for the viewer. (You're right. You'd better stay at home, a safe distance from any cinema).

George Lim Heng Chye

Online Forum letter in the ST, 17/10/06.

For once, a relief staff got a send-off in style. We bought CQ high-tea at the Goodwood Park Coffee Lounge and bade him farewell as he takes up a new job in the banking sector. Guess the boy was destined for greater things. Heh.

High-tea here comprises a spread of local hawker foods of which I enjoyed the laksa best (no hum, unfortunately). A surprise find was the apom with caramelized banana gravy -- I haven't seen this dessert for a while. And though June's assessment was that the actual cost of the spread was quite cheap -- she knows the f&b market pretty well -- at least they provided us with ice-cream from Mövenpick. Undisputed quality there, according to Baggy.

But amidst the face stuffing, the shop-talk and the vacation-planning, we also had to remember that the guy who hung out with us for several lunches, a couple of dinners and a 4-day road-trip is on his way out and up, and hope that we have left him some good memories to take with him.

See you around, CQ, and good luck!

I'm tired of Lady Croft's company. Yeah, I am playing "TR:Legend" 'cos it came bundled with one or the other of my recent hardware purchases. But cool, smart and jiggly as Lara is, I need a dose of the real world once in a while.

As it happens, I'm running around unsupervised today (June had to go work) and in times like this, I usually end up spending money. I decided to spoil myself lunching at Corduroy & Finch along Bt Timah Road, just before Sixth Ave. Always wanted to go there since the treasure hunt of last year (we thought it was a checkpoint for one of the clues) but never got around to it.

The place reminds me of a New York deli, except it's spotlessly clean and the staff are polite, service with a smile, y'know, and look like they're happy to work there.

French onion soup topped with emmenthal was nice, but even better when on request they provided a generous portion of shaved parmesan which I happily dumped into the tureen. Parmesan thickens the soup and gives it a kick, which otherwise tends to be quite bland.

The chix sandwich was more like a chix salad served between 2 thick slices of bread. It came with sliced hard-boiled egg and a thin sheet of emmenthal. Mmmm... beautiful. I made the mistake of asking for the sandwich to be toasted though. I never learn. Toasted bread -- particularly around the crust -- causes mouth lacerations. My upper palate and tongue have been nicely scraped raw and have gone temporarily numb. Hopefully, I'll get my tastebuds back by dinnertime.

Washed it all down with ginger beer, Bunderberg, I think. It was cool and soothing, just the thing for when you feel like you've been Frenching a cactus.

Grand total: $31 for a lunch for 1. Consider myself well and truly spoiled!

Jus' love 'em Teen Titans.

Here's a plot idea that will never be aired since the networks have cancelled the series, but anyway...

It's been nearly a year since Beast Boy has left Titan Tower to join Titans East. The undercurrents between Robin and Starfire have now resulted in them becoming officially an item.

The usually astute Raven appears to be thoroughly surprised by this development, while Cyborg's internal sensors and scanners had been picking up the signs of the budding relationship for quite a while.

But leadership is lacking at Titans East, and Robin is pursuaded to join Beast Boy to whip the East team into shape.

So Robin leaves Star behind at the Tower with Cyborg and Raven.

Titan Tower is feeling quite empty now, with just the 3 original Titans holding the fort...

Fighting super-villains and psycho aliens are business as usual for the team, but how can they fight what Starfire calls "Rekmas"? That's gonna be next season's biggest challenge. Stay tuned!

Another 2-year cycle has come to an end as we bade our JC2s farewell today. Officially, they're kicked out of the nest and by right should be soaring on their own as of now. Congrats, you guys, you've made it this far, so now it's time to really exercise those academic muscles we've been working you on and grab some serious air!

We, your flight instructors, will still be accompanying you along your way over the next couple of weeks, so feel free to continue dropping in on us for advice and more practice as you prep for the trials ahead.

And even as we were waving away our seniors in the morning, we opened our doors in the afternoon to the secondary schools, whose kids were anxious to get a glimpse of what a college campus looks like.

My duty (and thanks to NBS for performing above and beyond by sharing my load with me) was to answer general enquiries about the college, the subjects and the campus environment. Oddly enough, most enquirers only wanted to know if they were good enough to be accepted as students next year. Guess they have more practical and immediate concerns right now to be asking about anything else.

And so the Circle of Life is about to swing around again...

Mel's been pursuasive. She got me to help the Drama Club put together a short presentation for our college open house tomorrow. Can't say that we had a lot of time to rehearse it; it's still pretty rough right now. Really, it's a skeleton plot and the details simply haven't had sufficient time to develop.

Disclaimers aside, working with the new bunch of Dramatists has made me miss the Drama Club and all our madcap activities.

It's so much fun to see a story develop from the various improvisational fooling about that happens when people are fully immersed in the serious business of play. Taking inspiration (ok, stealing ideas) from Tina, we got the kids playing with buckets, brooms and mops, and seeing the different kinds of things these household items can be used for other than what they were designed to do.

Among the things that came up, someone suggested "knights". We played around with stock characters from the old tales of chivalry and derring-do, and some stereotypical plot devices, and thus our "Arthurian legend" came into being. The best thing about it is that the ideas were almost entirely from the kids themselves. All I needed to do was to stitch together the loose ends, and voila!

We go on at 1630 tomorrow, so if y'all have about 10 minutes to spare around then, we could use your support! Anyway, hope our little visitors will like it.

Lunch at Sloan Court Hotel with June. Amazing that we ended up there since we began the day intending to meet JY at ECP for cycling.

JY informs us she'll be late, Mom calls me at breakfast about some emergency (turns out Aunt needs to be rushed to the airport for her flight home), JY says she's not done yet, we drive Mom to church, JY says she's not done yet... and it's lunchtime already. :P

Sloan Court's great for a leisurely lunch. The restaurant is decorated like a Tudor-style hunting lodge, complete with replica weapons (though not necessarily hunting weapons) adorning the walls. I thought I saw a moose head mounted up there somewhere too.

There is a certain austerity to the place, like all the furniture and fittings have been there for a very long time. Folded-up coasters balance uneven table legs; underneath the table settings, the tablecloths are threadbare and worn; and the cutlery is all mismatched. But rather than make the place look unpleasant, it feels so comfortable, like home. No fuss, no pretense, no nonsense.

Food-wise, just go for the set-meal. We ordered the more expensive option: roast-beef which came medium (sigh, no blood). Every day is a different item on the menu. Lunch is between $10+ to $18+ depending on your choice of meat.

A bit nostalgic for me to revisit the place as well. This was the site of the first time ever that I got stinkin' pissed drunk. Hee hee. Hic. Ah, the momories...

Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" calls to mind Taily's question: "What is the worth of a blade of grass?" In the awful carnage that occured on the day that changed the world, Stone focuses his attention on just 2 police officers trapped in the rubble.

McLaughlin and Jimeno, 2 of 5 volunteers who swallow their fear and venture forward to assist in the evacuation of the towers. But here's the thing: before they even have had a chance to help anyone, the sky has already fallen on their heads and they lie buried 20 feet below visible light.

Stone ignores the major tragedy and loss of life and keeps our attention on the efforts of the two men who though separated and out of sight of each other keep each other alive by exchanging stories about their loved ones.

When word gets out that the two are still alive, the news mobilizes whole battalions of emergency and rescue personnel. Though only a few men can actually work on extricating them, due to the tight confines they are trapped in, when they each finally break the surface, the welcome they get from the hundreds of PD and FD volunteers is overwhelmingly tremendous. Everyone is just so happy to see them alive, and anxious for them to return home to their families.

Only 20 people got pulled out alive from the wreckage in which nearly 3,000 perished. Jimeno and MacLaughlin were numbers 18 and 19. But as in the story of the lost sheep, there is great rejoicing when the single lost sheep has been found.

What's the value of a blade of grass? Taken out of context, it means nothing. But when we connect its roots to the field it belongs in, it's true value is actually quite astonishing.

Horrid haze hangs heavy.
Hostile heat harms historical habitats.
Hacking, heaving; holding hanky handy.
Hope heaven hastily halts haughty human hubris.
Health, hurry! Hie hither home!

It's the mooncake festival tonight, and I've taken my 2 nephews down to the playground to bask in the light of the full moon. So many other kids down here with us, swinging their lanterns and sparklers. Some are busy trying to set the playground on fire with such arrangements of candles as are usually seen on a psycho's shrine to the object of his obsession.

Apparently, amongst all this lunacy, traditional Chinese scholars are meant to drink tea and compose poetry. That explains the few lines above that begin today's entry. Yes, it's supposed to be poetry. And it's about current affairs too.

So there.

What is, "family"? Family is a beat-up old VW bus. The horn is broken and sounds intermittently, attracting all kinds of embarassing attention. The clutch is broken so it needs to be push-started, everyone putting their weight behind the machine until the starter can kick in and 3rd gear can be forced into engaging. Since the bus is now on the move, it has to be boarded one at a time on the run.

The first few times this process occurs, it's a mess of coordination, and getting moving seems pretty touch and go. But on further repetition, a system slowly emerges and eventually it becomes smoother and smoother, almost effortless.

A family may be completely dysfunctional, comprising every manner of misfit who can't even get along with their own closest kin. But the nature of the family is to bind people together as one, whatever friction is generated between its members. And when 1 family member is threatened, all differences get set aside and the family faces the threat together.

Whatever am I talking about? I must say no more or I might just spoil the fun when you go watch Little Miss Sunshine. This movie would've passed under my radar if Shah didn't highly recommend it. She wasn't wrong, and now I'm highly recommending it too! Whaddaya waiting for? Go!

With regard to yesterday's entry, on 2nd reading it does rather seem pessimistic, as Mei has pointed out. I actually meant it to be read in a positive light, and I'm glad that Mei did fill in the blanks for me in her comments.

Let me expand on what she said. Y'see, by the time we've completed our undergrad studies, we've actually just had a glimpse into the known areas of work done in our disciplines. Our undergrad degree acknowledges that we have the necessary grounding to then start work on the unknown areas outside the borders of our current knowledge. That piece of paper we work so hard for is our licence qualifying us to explore beyond; to apprehend the unknowable; to distill new understanding; and to communicate our newfound knowledge to others; and thereby make our own meagre contribution to the sum total of human knowledge, taking us one more step closer towards a more unifying Wisdom [KIds, pay attention here].

Most people these days are content to take their undergrad qualifications as proof of their ability to slave away for some corporate entity for the rest of their days. They undermine all the work they've put into their studies by taking this attitude, but that's the nature of our employment market. Forget your airy-fairy dreams, people gotta eat!

But those who know the true meaning of their qualification and accept the responsibility therein are ready to take their toe out of the ocean and immerse their whole selves into it instead. The unknown is obviously scary, but it is also a source of great freedom and exhileration as well. Too bad that the ocean is so vast, but there are so few explorers to help chart it.

Why am I working with Education? Because I'm in the business of training explorers of the unknown. It's difficult because many of my students see a more pragmatic end to their studies. Often, we seem to be working at cross-purposes. Still, for every batch I get a Mei, a Faith and a Taily. That's what keeps me going.

As we move closer to the 'A' Levels, our J2s are very much aware that they are approaching a big hurdle they have to clear before they can move on to the next stage in their education process. But while their eyes focus on the obstacle itself and how insurmountable it seems, how many of them have thought about what awaits them on the other side?

It takes 12 years of schooling on average to qualify as an undergrad. Within that time, how much knowledge in our basic disciplines -- language, math, the sciences, aesthetics -- have we already crammed into our minds in order to just sit for our entrance exams? Well, from our J2s' perspective, a lot. The endless late nights beating their heads on page after page of textbook material and lecture note scraps, and bits of tutorials they're still trying to make some sense of; while the X-box is mouldering away in the living-room (though Dad the dinosaur still dusts it off occasionally to play Tetris on).

All this sacrifice, we hope, gets us into our first tutorial room as a freshman at the uni. If we've made it this far, we've got to remember how smart we have had to be to get here. A moment of pride is justified.

However, within the 3-4 years of study till the time we receive our undergrad degree, we will learn only 1 lesson, and it will be the most important one we will ever learn in our lives. That lesson we will remember, as we step up to shake the Dean's hand, is that everything we've learned in our now 15-16 years of study add up to a staggering sum total of absolutely nothing.

The receipt of our degree is a humbling occasion rather than a proud moment. It's the time we actually see the vast ocean of knowledge for what it is, and we are finally convinced that what we know amounts to less than a drop in that ocean.

If we have learned this lesson, we are firmly placed on the path of wisdom, and our Education has actually meant something. But if we we think that receiving that piece of paper shows the world how smart we are, then I'm sorry to say that we've wasted our time.

I feel very challenged right now. Tomorrow first thing in the morning I'll have a lecture hall almost all to myself, and I'm to talk about 3 of the essay questions that we used in the prelims. Talking about 3 essays isn't the problem per se. But talking about 3 questions within the time limit that I've been given is going to be quite a feat.

At my usual rate, I'm like 1 hour per essay question (for someone as shy, quiet and retiring as me, I hog more mike time than I am usually aware of). Tomorrow I'll have to keep it down to about 20 minutes max per question. Maybe I should get someone to ding a bell or something for me?

I'm starting to realise that I get too anal about content and then I'm yammering on and on, layering more material than the kids can deal with. I mean, it's impressive and all, but all the kids need is just the bare-bones argument structure. Then they can fill in their own content as is relevant to the question.

Ultimately, it isn't about the content. It's about being able to have an opinion about the issue/s the question raises and being able to defend that opinion rationally and reasonably. That's it.

OK, something to bear in mind while I continue to prepare my lecture...

So Faith asks the $64,000 question: Why did I come back? If only we could discern the secret to bringing home our diaspora, our government wouldn't have to be so worried.

Unfortunately, there's nothing to be learnt from my experience. Well, nothing relevant to the government's problem, anyway. The truth is, I have a very bad habit. When I get to the top of my game, I become very reluctant to move on. I don't want to change level, and I don't want to change the game either. Physicists call this tendency, "inertia." It's a great asset that keeps a body in motion, but it's a terrible liability when the body comes to rest.

After achieving an academic qualification I had never thought I was capable of, my reason for being away from home ceased to exist. In my remaining days out there, I was supposed to find employment to qualify for a work permit. But I wasn't ready to make the transition to employment so soon after my recent brush with success. Getting a job meant I'd have to get back on the ground floor and work my way up again. How painful is that?

Thing is, by not making that choice to go to work, the days slowly bled away on my student visa, and eventually I got kicked out of the paradise I had come to love. Stupid. Stupid Stupid. Lazy. Stupid.

Still, if you asked me today whether I have ever wanted to go back, I'd have to honestly say, "no." Location isn't the major factor as to where we choose to settle. Location is important, but human beings don't always choose based on logic alone. The friendships and the relationships I've formed here since I returned are stronger than glue. It's because of the people around me that's how I know I am where I am supposed to be. I am home.

Feel free to barf now.

When I left home at the age of 22 to study overseas, I left feeling I HAD to leave because I was neither wanted nor valued here. My academic achievments were worth less than nothing. At the age when my schoolmates were going to work with high expectations (it was the boom period of the late '80s), I was still the proud holder of only a rudimentary 'O' level cert, with the job prospects of a [insert whatever your mother lamented your fate would be when you got 97/100 marks here].

From the airport, I was determined to make a better life for myself out there. I had my ticket to ride and there was the possibility that, hey, maybe I would never have to come back again! Promises, promises.

I spent nearly 5 years living in a time zone exactly 12 hours apart from my point of origin, literally on the other side of the earth. And I'd be lying if I said I missed home. What was there to miss? Family? But I was independent, free, to go where I wanted, do what I liked, whenever I liked, buy whatever I wanted, with no one to answer to but myself. Food? I was surrounded by such a variety of food from all over the world, with way cooler places to eat it in too.

The grass in the park didn't induce itching, the weather didn't encourage sticky sweatiness (except in late summer), the people were friendlier and more used to seeing strangers than they are here. There were sports teams we could really root for and scream our lungs out for (go, Jays!!!), and when the Jays won 2 back-to-back championships in 92-93, I learned what pride really felt like. You get the idea. I never wanted it to end.

Today, I've been living back home for nearly 3 times the length of my stint overseas. Ironically, I've spent about half that time working with the social institution that caused me to leave in the first place: Education. Funny how life turns out.

Reflection prompted by today's ST article on the 'Singapore diaspora'.

Lost Olly today. Just like that, upped and left for the poly. Sigh. Well, good luck, m'boy and may you find better success where you're going!

Got an unexpected call from Will, saying he has finally compiled the footage of my last major performance with MU. That performance was 4 years ago already. How time flies.

This evening we dropped in on MU ostensibly to collect the DVD from Will, but also to sit in on our last rehearsal together, for the last show we'll be performing together. Though I say, "we," June and I will be in the audience this Saturday instead of being in the show itself.

It's the last show because we're closing shop end of this year. Our key members are committed to their work here locally (like me for example), while a couple of us are headed overseas to LA and Paris, and there's not enough critical mass left to keep the group together.

Still, as Tina sort of suggested, the company has fulfilled it's purpose, providing us with training and exposure and now, we're free to go independent and explore the world on our own. It's a GOOD parting.

Genting is bidding to install THIS as part of their plans for the IR on Sentosa?

It's about bloody time! Trash rationality and whatever bleeding-heart arguments about conserving the natural environment, moralistic pontification about the ills of casino gambling, yadda, yadda, yadda...! For my own personal pleasure and selfish desires -- barring any other offer for an even bigger, better, faster 'coaster park -- they've got my vote!

Who's with me on this one? Say, "Hulk, yeah!!!"

We in the staff room have always been indignant of the staff appraisals we have to sit through every so often. We think of them as a "corporate American" idea that puts undue pressure on us and pits us in unhealthy competition against each other to attain the best personal ranking at the end of the year.

This potentially divisive but mandatory exercise in worst case scenarios could lead to backstabbing, theft of ideas and innovations from others, a disruption of trust amongst people who need to work together as a team, leading to a survival-of-the-fittest scramble for the top. Doesn't seem like a healthy environment to bring kids up in, does it?

But Stossel, in "Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity," is forcing me to have another look at competition and what it does for the consumer. John Stossel is a free-market advocate, and speaks out against government control policies in the US economy. Indeed, the amount of meddling that goes on there that he exposes makes them look like hypocrites when they criticize us for our state-planned economy.

OK, granted that if such a book were written here about our government, there'd be a general consensus to treat it with suspicion, disdain and contempt as we do with Mr Chee and his publications. But Stossel's critique of the US government has nothing to do with us, right?

Anyway, back to our topic of competition. Market forces, Stossel believes, are the answer to pretty much everything that's going wrong in his country. If the market is free to apply Adam Smith's "invisible hand" the US would get the best solutions to poverty, hunger, gender equality, human rights, healthcare, and, yes, education as well. But instead, government controls and regulation kill competition and makes these problems worse than ever.

Competition is good because it forces people to improve and innovate, in order to provide goods and services to consumers at either better prices or some other value-added incentive. The consumer will always benefit because of the choices there are available on the market. Those who aren't chosen go out of business (tough) but the consumer benefits from getting the best value for money every time. In this economic model, if we put the consumer first, then everything supposedly will fall into place.

What if we applied this theory to our own education system as well? How much better would I perform, knowing that if I failed to deliver the goods I'd be immediately replaced by a young tyke eager to earn his stripes? How much more would I be motivated to innovate, to prepare my lessons better, to be more well-read and knowledgeable, to make my lessons more fun and engaging, if I knew the students could choose between boring ol' me or some other less socially inept teacher instead?

Frankly, I'm afraid to know the answer. But it does put the appraisal into another perspective.

Wonder if this idea would apply if we made things more competitive for the students too? Would they be falling over themselves to be more diligent and turn in better work on time? Ok, let's not get carried away.

For goodness sake, people, stop abandoning your pets! Driving towards Yishun dam we saw a small shape crawling across the road. It was a tortise and it looked lost and disorientated. Cars and huge trucks occasionally whizz by along that stretch and it was a prime candidate for road-kill if we didn't do something.

Fortunately, it wasn't a busy road (which is why people tend to speed here), so I pulled over to the road shoulder. June performed the rescue, plucking the tortise off the asphalt. She said that it was trapped between the kerbs on both sides of the road and could never have climbed to safety without assistance.

But what to do with it? To release it back on either side of Yishun dam would be counter-productive. Too full of people, too many cars and trucks, and water so deep it could drown. So we drove him deeper towards Seletar Camp where there is a little water feature that extends out of the golf course there. There's tall grass, shallow water, water-lillies and tiny fish swimming around, and there we left it.

Hopefully, no one will disturb it there.

Actually, what we did wasn't much better than what its original owners did. It's still very cruel to abandon a pet into the wild. There are too many unknown factors to know what the impact of a new organism will be on an existing ecosystem. The risk of damage or destruction to either one is very high. We tried to salvage what was a certain fatality, and under the circumstances that was the best solution we could think of.

Don't make us have to make decisions like that again. If you're thinking of abandoning your pet for whatever reason, stop it! Bad human! Go to your corner! Don't make me go over there...!

The Singapore Dream is still pretty much like the American Dream of the '50s. If you work hard enough now, one day you'll have accumulated enough wealth so that you won't ever have to work again. Then you can retire, live out the rest of your days in a big house, drive a big car, ad nauseum.

We've all heard this tale before. This myth is our defining characteristic as Singaporeans, our national identity. We can't tell stories of ourselves without using it as the overarching theme, or the central tenet. "Singapore Dreaming" is no exception.

Like many of its predecessors, Mr and Mrs Goh's tale reminds us that beneath the successful, sparkly-clean, luxuriant veneer that we like to show off to our foreign guests and visitors, there are still people for whom the dream hasn't yet become reality.

But the daily grind is our reality, with its physical and psychological pressures at work and emotional stresses at home, particularly for those of us who face an ever-widening gap between our experience our expectations.

Every character in the movie has a failed dream, a dashed hope. Whether it's wedded bliss, parental approval, or material comfort (even if not wealth), these aspirations remain elusive to them.

Only Pa (Richard Low) makes it in the end, sent off in style at a lavish funeral. In effigy, Pa is swimming in hell money, surrounded by paper models of opulence, all consigned to the flames for him to enjoy in the afterlife. As we watch the paper mansion burn and collapse into a heap of ashes, we have to ask ourselves if that's all there is to look forward to in life. Well, at least Pa died with his Dreams fulfilled. The rest of his family still have the rest of their lives to fulfil theirs.

Though Seng got what he deserved in the end, even he has my sympathy. It isn't easy being the One everyone pins their hopes on to raise the family name a notch up the social ladder. It's the life of the fatted calf -- given the best of everything while the rest of the family skimps and saves on themselves, knowing that at some point he will have to pay everything back twofold or more. Seng isn't seen so much as a person, but rather as a family asset with an unrealistically high return on investment (ROI). Even at the funeral, Seng still has to follow his father's path, unable to break away and chase after his girlfriend, Irene, whom he loves(?) and owes so much to, who is leaving him.

So even here in luxuriant, opulent Singapore, life sucks. But the PRC beer girl (NBS, the role was made for you!) makes an interesting counterpoint. Singaporeans passively wallow in their suffering only seeing the hopelessness of life. We give up our dreams so that we can make money. She, on the other hand is willing to suffer to make money so that she can realise her Dream someday. With that kind of attitude, no wonder China is on the rise while we appear more hopeless and helpless every day.

Although Mr Goh has a regular funny column in the Sunday papers, and a funny web identity talking his cock on Singaporean issues, the movie isn't a comedy. The plot is tight and tense, events winding the characters up towards their breaking points. So, will the family remain intact through it all? Telling would be spoiling. Haha.

My current booklist.

Picked up the Clarkson and the Stossel this evening at Kino. The others, I've only read a chapter or two from each over the past few months. Nothing to be proud of.

Oh well, at least I have something to look forward to doing when the December break rolls around.

Is it just me, or has GM food gone a little too far? 

Confirmation that for me, crime doesn't pay. Took a chance at not using a parking coupon at dinner thinking we wouldn't be parking for long. Right on cue, just as we we were about to cross the street back to M2 to drive off, the Auntie in the big hat popped up and slipped a ticket under the windscreen wiper.

Dinner: $6. Parking fine: $30. Learning that I'll never be able to get away with it, ever: Priceless. Dammit.

All the more ironic because earlier in the afternoon, Amy had said how fed up she was with people parking illegally in the parking lot where she lives. Guess I should'a taken the hint.

Am beginning to suspect that only 1 law applies to my existence: Murphy's.

Just finished marking this essay question: "Man is at his best in times of crisis. Discuss." If you understood how basic grammar works, you'd know that the focus of the essay is not "crisis," like several candidates had erroneously supposed.

The focus of the essay runs parallel to the SUBJECT of the given statement, and not the PREDICATE. What's the subject? The NOUN, "man," is a big hint. It's about man (in the non-gender neutral form that Cambridge apparently prefers), but what about him? The VERB, "is (at his best)," is the other hint. We're discussing Man being at his best, or, the Best of Man.

But this discussion will fill up volumes of encyclopaedia unless we set a context. In this case, the parameters fall within the scope of the PHRASE, "in times of crisis," which forms the PREDICATE of the given statement.

What follows, therefore, should be a discussion of the kinds of qualities that crisis brings out of us; an evaluation as to whether these qualities do indeed constitute our "best" attributes (best of what, exactly?); and perhaps some thought as to why and how these qualities become most obvious under stress, duress and imminent danger.

We could observe that people respond very differently from each other when facing crisis, and our best qualities don't always come to the fore. Depending on how people respond to crisis, they will be either victims, villains, or heroes. We villify self-serving, personal advantage-taking responses; we glorify and encourage selfless, generous, uniting kinds of responses; and... we light candles for the victims. It is in our memory, in hindsight and in the retelling of these crises as stories that we choose to highlight the best behaviour observed as an example for others to emulate in the face of other crises to come. And also, perhaps to delude ourselves on how noble we are as a species.

To focus the essay on listing the different kinds of responses we might observe from a range of different kinds of crises and suggest that we tend to "do our best" to overcome them just doesn't quite measure up to the full requirements of the question. Can pass, lah; but so-so only.

A tip for those of you taking your GP 'AO' this year: pay attention to your GRAMMAR so you can be certain of your focus of your essay. It'll make a difference to your grades. Trust me.

Spent last evening at a bbq with June's colleagues for a change. I'm now convinced that despite English being touted as our language of business, the real lingua franca for the Singaporean office is Mandarin.

All the more I appreciate June for being able to relate so well with my colleagues. Between the 2 of us, I tend to be the less adaptable -- not meaning just language-wise but also simply in meeting new people in a social context.

It wasn't a disaster, though. I didn't embarass either her or myself for one thing; and for another, I did rather enjoy chomping down June's curry chicken, toasting marshmallows on the embers and horrifying people by eating raw champignons-on-a-stick. Great. I sound like the little kid in the corner who has a "problem".