Last night's reunion dinner was slightly different from the traditional 10-course. The clan met at the Chinese seafood place on Casuarina Road (the staff wear red Ts with"SWIFT" printed in front) for our annual feast. Apart from the now-mandatory new year lo hei, the other dishes were house specialties.

One thing about reunions is that occasionally we discover that our family tree extends further than we think. I found myself sitting next to Vince's CT/GP kid from a couple of years back, name of Rudy. He called my cousin "auntie", which makes me his uncle, sort of, twice removed, by marriage, that sort of thing. His mom said that it was fortunate I didn't teach him, else I'd have lots of stories to tell about how naughty he was. I was thinking, vice versa.

In my usual fashion, I blessed our newfound family togetherness by showering him with crab shell and gravy from an ineptly applied nutcracker to a large, tasty pincer. From the corner of my eye, I could see his mom discreetly picking stuff out of his hair. Oops.

Oh well, happy year of the pig, people!

Had a bit of an identity crisis with NYconneX about the latest update this week. I had assigned a reporter to cover the story about the band and choir CCAs leading the college in the flag-raising ceremony on Wednesdays. The report that came back was that a few students were critical of the new ritual and wanted it cut back.

The article drove me ballistic because -- freedom of the press and anti-censorship sentiments aside -- firstly, that wasn't the story I had asked to be covered; and secondly, the story was unrepresentative, biased and lazy in the way that it laid out a critique without trying to understand the situation first.

NYconneX plays a delicate balance between showcasing our students and their CCAs, while simultaneously drawing feedback from the students about the goings-on on campus. Our job isn't to be partisan either way (sound familiar?) but to just report things as they are, to provide a behind-the-scenes view that is not usually obvious to the student body. That means we have to be fair to all parties and give everyone a hearing in our stories.

If anyone's going to be critical about anything we write, that's what we have Haloscan and our tagboard for. We don't provoke, but we do lay down a platform for students to discuss issues among themselves, using our stories as a stimulus. Or they can email us and suggest story ideas to cover.

So what did I do about the offending story? I took some time to interview the staff in charge of the band and the choir to get their perspective of the matter and used that info to balance out the story. By right, the reporter should have talked to the student leaders of the CCAs who are actually in a position to offer knowledgeable commentary from the students' perspective, rather than just some random student-in-the-parade-square with some uninformed off-the-cuff quip.

We don't want to be shut down by the powers-that-be, but neither do we want to lose our credibility as a student 'paper. It's a bind that ST is often criticized for, and I'm starting to appreciate that unenviable position.

Anyway, the Officially Ammended, Politically Sanitized article is now up for public consumption. Click here to see a conflicted press in action.

Valentine's Day is exchanging gifts with me getting caught forgetting to remove the el cheapo price tag from mine (how did I miss that?). We make plans over dinner to finish off the last of our spring cleaning before the CNY weekend, and to polish off the last of the chocolate-banana cake before it goes bad. Plans go seriously awry when the both of us spend the rest of the evening passed out on the living room floor in front of the TV.

If that isn't love, what is?

June's back from KL again. It's become routine now, like taking an overnight bus trip up north and then back the next night. Guess this will be her last trip up for this company, which probably explains why she lugged back 48 cans of premium cat food and 3 slices of chocolate-banana cake from Secret Recipe. The cats and I are grateful!

It's true that KI is a damned demanding subject, especially considering that it's a compulsory 4th H2 which adds on the workload. Most normal people take only 3 H2s, which makes for a saner timetable and an overall easier life.

ST interviewed a KI kid who's struggling with his readings and coming to grips with 'alien concepts', which makes me wonder if collectively we've run amok with the content of the subject and forgotten the spirit and purpose to which it was conceived in the first place?

In terms of content, we examine the history of ideas, how knowledge is built up block by block, how knowledge diverges according to the different branches people have taken to discover how things work and how we can use our knowledge to our best advantage. We discuss the rightness and wrongness of the acquisition and application of knowledge, and determine what methods are most reliable for ascertaining The Truth, giving recognition to such a thing as a Universal Truth but at the same time discerning that truth is also a shifting conglomeration of conclusions drawn from imperfect and subjective interpretations of observations and other stimuli.

All that is already quite a headache, though fortunately we've got a considerable number of eminent thinkers in our history who've already written about their thoughts about human thinking and so, voila, people to read up like Plato, Hegel, Heidegger, Newton, Freud and other scarily-named personages whose brains we make our business to pick.

But if that's all there was to KI -- learning who said what about which obscure aspect of some esoteric theory about human thought -- then we've missed the point... again. We can never get enough content -- our brains are voracious, bottomless pits of information storage -- but to overemphasize content without purpose makes smart kids dumb.

KI students need to know the history of their subject because in their turn they will also be adding on to that illustrious history by being thinkers after their academic predecessors. So just reading the manuals is really only for background information -- to see how they did it in the past. But like a gongfu practitioner only becomes skilled through practicing the Master's moves, likewise the KI student also needs to practice thinking, and sparring through debate and discussion with fellow students.

We don't need KI students who hide in the library all day, we need KI students who treat the library only as a pit-stop for food for thought then, having prepared themselves, come back out into the sunlight with a just and worthy cause to pursue.

In a sense, all we want is for our KIds, like Newton, to "[see] further... by standing on the shoulders of Giants." But if the KIds have to name every bush, tree and rock along the way, they'll never reach the summit in time for their exam. And they won't appreciate the view once they arrive either.

Ban pets from eating places

I AM concerned that some pet lovers take their pets along to eating places.

These people love their pets but are not concerned about their fellow diners.

Can the authorities comment on whether it is all right for people to carry their pets and occupy seats in eating places?

Recently, I saw a sign at a Toa Payoh hawker centre stating prominently: 'No smoking, no touting and no dogs'.

Why not extend this ban to all eating places?

I hope dogs lovers are aware that many people would be inconvenienced by their pets.

Ng Soon Hwee

Dog in a manger Human in a seat

Dear Mr Ng

You want to ban us from all eating places? As it is, already there are so few places that we are welcome at because most eating establishments value your almighty dollar more than they care for our happiness at keeping our owners company.

We don't see that you have any real grounds for requesting to ban us, other than somehow you are "inconvenienced" by our taking up a seat. Let's consider that claim for a moment: how likely are you to want to share a table with our owner, even if we were not in the picture? Given you appear slightly xenophobic by your request, you'd probably want a table all to yourself, so you'd leave the seat we'd be occupying vacant anyway.

If you are worried about our hygiene, please remember that we are house pets, kept clean and groomed by our owners. We travel in carriers among you humans, so we sit in our carriers without any direct contact with the chairs you seem to be indignantly protecting. Furthermore, we are at least as clean, and perhaps only as noisy as your children; though through proper training, often better behaved in public.

In any case, cutting off contact with beings other than yourselves has become extremely unhealthy for our planet. You have become selfish and insensitive to the flora and fauna of the earth in the way you toxify our environment and encroach on our habitats to expand your so-called "civilization", and now you won't even let us -- a tiny proportion of what has survived your onslaught -- have a seat at your eating place in this concrete nightmare that you've built around us?

So before you open your mouth, think and get a little perspective. Who has "inconvenienced" whom? It's fine if you all want to kill yourselves with all the environmental havoc you've caused, but it isn't our choice to do likewise. But for the sake of your own health, it's good to be reminded that you humans don't -- and can't -- exist alone on earth. Even if it's just a brief encounter with us at an eating place.

Q-tip and Mimi

The pix for last night's show are up on Flickr. They've been shot by NYconneX journo, Khadija and friend, who did quite a good job capturing the excitement of the evening. Notice what I mean about performers not finding the light. Click here.

Tonight was the big musical talent show on campus. We had some very game contestants and a hopelessly partisan audience, who showed their unreserved support for their favourites, no matter what.

While the audience will always remember the judges' comments as truthful but insensitive (and that's not really my story to tell), for me I was looking at the overall presentation of the show, and I think another week's preparation and rehearsal time was necessary if we were to give everyone a fighting chance to win.

A week's prep would give time for the contestants to get advice on their performance and to get some stage experience, instead of just being handed a mike and shoved onstage to sing in front of a highly animated crowd. As it is, the performer's energy has to top the audience's otherwise it can get quite intimidating there on stage.

1 week and those of us staff with some performing experience might have had the time to give the contestants a few pointers that would up their stage-presence and confidence a little.

So performing cold, they made rookie mistakes like not finding the light, being stiff and unsure of their gestures and traffic patterns, hiding their faces, turning their backs to and/or retreating from the audience, and so on. My usual bugbears. Though these aren't things that our audience would actually pay attention to, I admit, a show needs time to polish in order to showcase its talents as best as it can.

And as usual, the opening and closing of the curtains between each contestant drove me nuts, sitting there in dead-air time. Frequent blackouts suck the energy right out of the stage and the inertia they leave behind makes it difficult to build the excitement for what's supposed to be onstage. No one likes to sit in the dark for too long.

Unsurprisingly, the one with the most performing experience won, hat's off to him. But the others never really had the chance to close the gap even a little. The talent was there, but time wasn't on their side, at least for this competition.

ST's cover page honours S'pore women documentary film-makers. It tells of how courageous and adventurous our women are, shooting stories in uncertain, exotic locations around the world. Their work is of such high standards that if they aren't up for some award, some big-name distributor wants to screen their films, and their audience reach is continuing to grow.

One reason for their success is because they are "patient" with their stories, often looking at the softer side of how people deal with the practical concerns of their particular situation. They are able to gain the trust of their subjects, and tell their subjects' stories without running a personal agenda of their own.

I quote from ST, "This trait of giving voice to the unheard and marginalised, the forgotten and neglected, is something that recurs in the women's work." Something I have to impress on my own journos at NYconneX.

And then, on the same page, there's another story of another aspiring documentary film-maker shooting in another strange and unfamiliar location, using creative camera techniques to capture a difficult subject. For his passion, this medical professional gets fired from the hospital he works for.

A case of intolerant Management? Rampant sexism in the workplace? Well, if this guy is dumb enough to get caught using a hidden camera to shoot his female colleagues in the shower, what do you expect?

Men. It's a wonder our women still put up with us the way they do.

Put on one more new hat today. Because of the college's big upcoming shindig, someone had to mail out all 13,000 invitations to our guests. So we packed 29 crates of invites into Gerald's tiny van, and with me in the cargo compartment and Boss-lady riding shotgun, we drove off to the big post office in Paya Lebar to get our bulk posting done.

With the unsecured crates sliding unpredictably around my delicate person, it was a bit hair-raising as we bumped towards our destination.

The bulk mail section is so unlike the civilized regular mail side of the post office. It's a place of motorized raising platforms and pallet trolleys, and big, friendly deliverymen who informed us that the bay we parked in was for the BIG trucks and that was why we couldn't get the raising platform to work for our dinky toy van. Another stout fellow showed us how to assemble a large trolley that looked like a cage on wheels into which we loaded our mail, crate by crate.

Among all the machinery, muscles and men, I was feeling way out of my element. Bet there were eyes on me thinking, "white-collar trash". And then, humiliation of humiliations, the guy at the counter wouldn't process our mail because despite there being three of us, no one brought our college's rubber stamp to make our transaction official.

Stupid, can't-even-get-it-right, white-collar trash!

And so we mark the demise of the Demented Equine in S'pore. It was an experiment that never really had a chance to succeed and, after less than a year of prancing and high-kicking, it's gone. I can't say I'm surprised.

The sad thing was, someone had thought that bringing underdressed fillies from Paree into stuffy S'pore was a license to print money.

On the surface, it does look like a lucrative venture -- bringing into the market a rare and tempting treat means the entrepreneur should be able to charge the sky for the commodity, and there'll still be a crowd snaking around the block for it anyway. And in S'pore there's nothing rarer than the opportunity to throw off our restrictive taboos without the fear of serious repercussions as a consequence. Unfortunately, this show just wasn't of the sort to break the piggy bank for.

First, the show didn't know what it actually wanted to be. It purported indecency by S'pore standards, and yet sold itself as an aesthetic experience, which literally whitewashed over the taboos our potential audience might have wanted to ogle break in the first place. No taboo, no product. No product, no consumer. Simple.

Conversely, if there's no chance of getting into trouble, there's no point to breaking a taboo anyway. Strike two.

Admission was too prohibitively expensive for the audience who might actually have wanted to go see the show, aesthetics be damned. A ticket to a Chinatown movie house is way cheaper and promises more excitement anyway, so there's no incentive for the old guys with umbrellas to move their tastes up a notch because they're already quite satisfied where they are. And they're just the offline market, 'nuff said.

The show did not have the critical mass that it had in Paree. Here, it had 1) no competitors to constantly keep it sharp and fresh, and 2) neighbours that provided neither complementary nor relevant products or services; making it 3) stand out like a sore thumb awaiting a mercy amputation, which has finally occurred.

Ultimately, the show that promised thrills for the multitudes of deprived S'poreans (and equally depraved regional tourists) only turned out to be a freak show -- which might have worked if they actually did show freaks. Instead all that was on display were gorgeous, talented, coordinated, articulate(d) human beings who ruined the show, and the box office, for everyone.

A nugget of Hokkien business wisdom succinctly and graphically sums up the state of our market: ai chee, ai pee, ai tua liap nee, which loosely translated means, "stupid customer, you can't have everything!"

Call me a fair-weather fan. After all, so many of us are when it comes to S'pore soccer. I caught tonight's cup final match on the one hand to see how our boys would fare under international pressure, and on the other to see if the game would degenerate into an international incident 'live' on TV. Fortunately, the only excitement remained confined to the pitch, and no more.

Watching our team play still doesn't give me much confidence, even though they were resilient enough to struggle past Malaysia in a hard-fought semi. We were still scrappy, unable to hold possession of the ball, slow to move forward and lack an imaginative midfield layer. Not particularly impressive.

We won tonight's game simply because our opponents couldn't capitalize on their chances at goal, while we happened to knock one in right against the run of play. Taking nothing away from Amri, but his goal was more a flash of personal brilliance than it was a team effort. And while that's all that counted in this game, the team really has to gel better together if we really want to move up the international rankings [Ed. Ok, lighten up, We won!].

Spent the morning at the local U at a forum organized by the SD Club. I don't know much about the club -- other than that NBS once hung out with them -- but they sure know how to pick their guest speakers.

The forum was about freedom of speech in S'pore and the speakers brought in their expertise from politics, the press and blogging. The Opposition guy who opened the session was a bit hesitant. He didn't look like he'd prepared any material, preferring to speak off-the-cuff from his own experiences at the last elections. According to him, it's ok to be an Opposition politician; difficult, but not impossible, as long as you keep your nose really clean and not do or say anything stupid that might get you sued after the elections.

The press speakers included my old school chum, Cherry G., of whom I will always accuse of scarring me for life in one of the games I mentioned in my previous post, but I do have a great respect for him nonetheless because of his critical eye on local politics, and his gumption for telling it like he sees it.

He said that whatever danger we perceive in becoming an activist for a cause we feel strongly about is only an excuse for apathy if it prevents us from doing something about it. But we do have to choose our battles wisely, in terms of our timing and the manner in which we fight them. He, himself, has had several times run afoul of the authorities for his scathing commentaries in ST. Yet, he is still a respected ex-journo and academic, and hasn't had the pants sued off him yet. The difference, he says, is that his bosses didn't panic easily, whereas Mr B was unfortunate to have a boss who overreacted when the government exercised its right to rebuttal.

Blogging is still the freest avenue for discourse, according to the speakers on the Internet issue. Most blogs have insignificant circulations anyway (mine is only a daily average of 11, as a case in point) and are hardly worth anyone's attention. Blogs, as I mentioned before, are policed by the blogging community already, so there's no need for the 'outside world' to interfere with whatever we say in our blogs.

Though we've heard of bloggers getting sued or jailed, in the last speaker's experience as a practicing DPP, because the process that an investigation file goes through before it can even be taken up in court is a long and complicated one, that their cases were actually brought before the judge was more of a case of their extreme bad luck rather than the fact that anyone was really out to get them.

The impression then, from today's forum, is that there is more freedom of speech here than we think. Only, the greater the reach, and the more impactful the speech is, we do have to exercise more and more care in what we say and how we say it. And, as the last speaker pointed out, as long as we stay away from the legally protected issues of race, religion and purposely trying to slime our incumbent politicians, we can write anything we want on our blogs and not worry about "disappearing" in the middle of the night.

Still, that's politics and police business. I'd rather be more careful about what my employer thinks about my blog. It's easier to get fired than jailed.

It's been a bad week for my ego and my public image. One whole week being in-between contact lenses, with my old pair damaged and unwearable, and my new pair being shipped in from who knows where. One week of having to wear my goggly spectacles in public, and recalling the names the kids in school used to call me since I was six and needed corrective lenses.

Back then, optical technology was still primitive and for my prescription the thickness of my lenses was in the region of bulletproof. I remember struggling against the specky, non-physical stereotype all through school, and taking it out on my hapless opponents on the soccer field with displays of reckless aggression. Overcompensating, as usual.

It didn't matter if the ball was a regulation size 5, or a cheap plastic ball. At one point we played soccer with a bottle-cap for a ball, our 'field' being a narrow, almost 45-degree concrete slope flanked by a drain on one side and the school wall on the other -- not because we were too poor to buy a proper ball (actually we were) but because it was more dangerous this way.

With my reputation for always being the most mud-caked, grass-streaked, blood-encrusted player left standing, I remember ending my days in school being called the "Mad Professor". That was a step up.

Today, my specs are of the high-index kind. Though my prescription has increased significantly since my schooldays, my glasses are much thinner than they were back then. But they give me a headache when I wear them for too long. So I'm really happy my new CLs have arrived at last, and I can see properly again.

I never gave them much of a chance, but I rooted for them amongst all the other teams anyway. They were always focused on their tasks, always thought their way around their problems, and very seldom did they display any negativity when the odds were against them. They carried with them a childlike wonder at the new and strange experiences their journey had in store for them, and above all, they never did lose their sense of humour, nor their penchant for play.

Congrats to JJ and Zabs on their victory in ARA1! They proved that their personal values of friendship and partnership can overcome the competitive pressure they faced in their climb to the top, and still get there before everyone else did.

They've gone and done it this time! They called June's name so often they wore it out. I won't pretend to know what exactly goes on in the logistics game, but Corporate must have done something spectacularly vexing for June to throw up her arms in despair and tender her notice on the spot.

Whoever can't hold on to June really doesn't know what he's got till she's gone. Few are as willing to work as hard for the little she gets, but even she has her breaking point. Good luck to them trying to replace her. Meantime, it's back to the want ads for a new job and, hopefully, a better working environment.

So there'll be another austerity drive in this household while we are now a single-income family. Since I've already been economizing on meals this year, I guess it won't be difficult to economize on other aspects of our lifestyle, at least until we return to the DINKy demographic again.

It's a better option, anyway, than having my wife worked to death on a cause she derives neither happiness nor meaning from. It's brave of her to put her foot down and declare "enough is enough!" and it's a decision I fully understand and respect. Now, THAT's stickin' it to the man!

Windows Vista is being launched as we speak, and I'm already downloading. Er, wait, I'm not downloading Vista. Let's get other people testing out the new system for a few months under real-world situations first, and if by then they haven't killed their systems yet (or vice versa), then maybe it's time to start thinking about my upgrading options. I may be crazy but I'm not stupid.

Rather, I'm downloading the new "Sam & Max -- Culture Shock (Episode 1, Season 1)" PC game that Neubronner reviewed in today's Digital Life.

This game isn't available in the stores. It's a novel method to distribute game programs by Telltale Games. "Season 1" is a series "episodes" individually downloadable in 6 separate installments. Each episode comes in at a low price and acts as a cheap sampler for the game. Like it, then buy the next episode; don't like it, you haven't lost too much money trying it out.

Having played the first Sam & Max adventure game by LucasArts way back in 1993, and laughed myself silly at the ridiculousness the deadpan dog and suicidal-homicidal rabbit got themselves into, when this latest offering came up last Christmas it was already on my shopping list.

Of course, the question of WHEN I'll have time to play PC games this year will have to be left open-ended. Frankly, I really don't know, but I'm buying my game first. I. Don't. Care. I want. Now.

I'm running my NY conneX staff ragged with my demands for work to be delivered on a regular basis, and I wonder if they only just see it as 'work' or 'obligation', or if they can see past their quotas and understand that there is also a little magic in the stories they are writing?

That magic has to do with making themselves disappear, while simultaneously being the channel that gives their interviewee a voice, and a chance to speak their story to the world. I think that's the driving force behind why journos do what they do, the good ones, anyway.

Seen from this angle, the journo's job is a very human, very compassionate one. It's an aspect of the profession that I hope my staff will pick up on the job.

ST's interviewed a TV journo who seems to have got it right, and whose passion for the job has kept her going for 25 years already:

The television image cuts to the presenter holding the microphone. She is not glamorously dolled-up as some television personalities are wont to be.

Instead, she is wearing a bright orange polo T-shirt and a pair of nondescript cream-coloured pants, her long hair tucked beneath a baseball cap.

There is not much expression on her face, no exaggerated furrowing of the brows or watery eyes.

But the look of concentration as she listens to the woman's story tells you in a subtle yet unmistakable way that she shares - and understands - the pain and loss.

The images change again, showing the presenter going from one flood victim's house to the next, braving the midday sun in search of more heartwrenching tales.

It is all in a day's work for Channel 8 stalwart Chun Guek Lay.

Recounting her assignment in Johor Baru two weeks ago, she reveals she was seriously thinking of wearing a pair of shorts - just in case the floods hit again.

'My job requires me to look good, yes, but I'm a journalist first and foremost,' she says matter of factly.

Excerpt from Mak, Mun San. "Anchor Woman." The Straits Times. Jan 29, 2007.

I'm disturbed by the number of possible ways a guy can get in trouble because of the content he puts up on his blog or website. S'pore bloggers get jailed; Malaysian bloggers get sued, while their PM berates them for spreading lies and sedition; A US teacher gets fired for 'inappropriate content' on his MySpace page, even though he claims a hacker put up the material and he took it down immediately when he noticed it.

It's too easy for a random reader to take offense at a blog, or even a single post, and put in motion a course of action that is totally out of proportion to the situation. It's probably due to the clash between people who don't understand the 'net, and people who use it with ease -- so much so that they forget that the occasional, casual surfer tends to take information posted on the 'net way too seriously. It's probably the same people who are likely to fall for a Nigerian scam email that are also likely to confuse a 'net persona with the real person behind the website.

Taking action in the 'real world' for some offense taken from web content often goes beyond the pale. The web has its own rules about proper 'netiquette, and as such, deals with conduct breaches in its own way. The 'net, after all, is nothing more than a medium of communication, so if someone doesn't like something that's been posted, there is a direct line back to the author through which one can express one's displeasure. That's why bloggers have a 'comment' function at the end of their posts, and some display their email addresses too -- they want to know what people think about the ideas they share.

Commenting opens a door for dialogue and debate, not just between the author and the offended party but potentially amongst a community of interested parties as well who can just as easily voice their views, adding their collective wisdom to the discussion.

It is the community then that will ultimately decide how objectionable the material is, and not just the singular, subjective view of the offended party. And if the content is collectively deemed too objectionable, it can be removed quite easily, unlike, say, material in the print media which once distributed is virtually impossible to retrieve and destroy. In this way, the controversy that arose on the web gets settled on the web without having to spill over into real life.

Still, there's no point for bloggers to ask for trouble and needlessly incur the wrath of the 'real' world. People are more receptive of new (or different) ideas if they are presented politely, mindful of the sensitivities and taboos of 'real' society. We never know who might stumble on our blogs, so while we should feel free to share our thoughts, let's play it smart and try not to piss anybody off from the get go. After all, we blog because we want to communicate, don't we?

At last my campus-issued laptop purporting wireless compatibility shows signs of connectivity. I'm doing the road warrior thing right now, surfing with no strings attached at McD's, King Albert Park. I'm sitting here with the intention of getting a few essays marked (yeah, right), but I'm also pursuing a story for NY conneX. The things I gotta do to keep my promises...

I'm about to rendezvous with the staff accompanying the Outdoors club on their hike along a stretch of deserted railway around the Bukit Timah area. The staff will be stopping here to lunch on Big Macs, while the kids will stay out in the wilderness and eat leaves and berries and things (or so they tell me). It's educational.

Hopefully, I can get some quoteworthy impressions of today's programme from the staff, and some of the kids, if I can find them...

... My contact, SXL and hubby arrived early. Chatted with them while they lunched, then they brought me over to where the kids were -- along the KTM railway line, resting up before the next leg of their expedition. It was raining so we all got quite wet, me because I was unprepared for the weather, the kids because it was fun to splash around in mud and puddles. City kids.

Catch the full story in NY conneX next Thursday! *crosses fingers behind back

Someone June detests wheedled and begged for a benefit he didn't deserve and got it. When she found out about it, she was understandably furious. After all, her work ethic is so much stronger than the guy's and to June, a contract is a contract, so he shouldn't even have had the temerity to ask for more in the first place.

I don't think I helped her mood much when I responded to her story from a Sith-y frame of mind (yes, the Dark Side seems to be strong with this one lately).

I said that if he was dissatisfied and fought for more, despite his contractual binding, what he won was what he deserved, because he was willing to struggle for it. Whereas, in June's case, since she was content with her contract, she too deserved what she got -- and rightly so -- because she worked for it.

OK, so I wasn't sympathetic, but it's time to wake up and realize that the world isn't fair. Corporate management has no time to observe the steady, quiet worker. Management already has enough problems to deal with, so while they're grateful for the busy cogs running in the background, keeping the wheels of industry moving, they also tend to take them for granted. If they're already with the program, there's no need to give them special attention.

But it's the squeaky, wobbly cog that threatens the smooth running of the company's operations that needs to be dealt with. And with labour laws being the minefield they are, sometimes it's easier to just throw money at the problem than fire. So with a quick application of corporate lubricant, the cog is happily running again and management can quickly go back to taking care of business as usual.

Corporate is illogical, brutal and uncaring. Corporate will try squeeze more from you than you promised, and give you less than they promised you -- unless you can turn the tables somehow. So you are either contented with your exploitation, or you risk it all and stick it to the man!

Or you quit the whole thing and take up teaching instead.

The DSTA is offering a $1m prize for designing a robot urban warrior? That's kinda' pittance considering how much they'll make if they ever get such a thing mass marketable for the world's military markets...

Men, listen up! This one is your new platoon mate. He just posted in from the defense lab to assist in your FIBUA ops. His dossier say his name is 'Terminator', but you all can call him 'Ah Ter' for short, lah.

You all chow Hokkien peng now have some tough competition for Best Recruit. Ah Ter very smart -- his results is A*Star one -- and for physical fitness, he is the real Ironman, ok? So you all better give him the proper respect and don't let me catch you programming him to do your area cleaning for you, understand?

Anything you can do, he can do. You can topo in the jungle, he can topo around a building. You run the SOC, he also can overcome obstacles. But he can also do more than you! He is training to negotiate with terrorists, but so far he can only negotiate with the stairs. He can also take lifts -- not like you lazy buggers! If I catch any of you lazy buggers taking the lift, you will all knock it down twenty for me! How to pass your IPPT if you everytime take lift, huh?

And the best thing about our robot friend here is that unlike the remote-controlled bomb-disposal unit, Ah Ter is completely autonomous. A-U-T-O-N-O-M-O-U-S. That means Ah Ter got initiative, not like you useless people...

Eh, Recruit Ah Ter! Sit down! I never authorize canteen break yet! Ah Ter! Come back...!

Please advise women how to deal with MRT perverts
ST (online) Forum Letter

ON JAN 20 at about 7.55pm, my wife took a train from Bugis MRT station heading towards Jurong East MRT interchange.

A middle-aged man boarded the crowded train in one of the stations along the way and stood in front of her.

The zipper of the shorts he was wearing was down. He was moving his folded umbrella around his 'private parts' to attract the attention of passengers seated nearby.

He also stood in a way that enhanced the opening in his shorts.

My wife was embarrassed by the action of the man and did not know what to do. The train was also crowded and it was inconvenient for her to vacate her seat.

For the sake of women passengers, could the MRT authorities advise them on how to deal with such a situation?

Nelson Quah

Dear Nelson,

Your wife should commit to memory as many details about the pervert as she can: dress (or undress, as the case may be), accessories, facial features, identifying marks, etc.

She should alight at the next immediate MRT station and inform the MRT staff about her inconsiderate fellow passenger, give his description, and if possible, which car she last saw him in. MRT staff will board the train at the following station, apprehend whomever fits the description and confine him until your wife can make a proper identification.

If your wife positively identifies the suspect, the MRT staff will arrange for her to make a police report, following which the police will investigate the matter by interviewing both her and the suspect separately. Your wife may face more than 1 interview if the suspect claims trial.

At the trial a few weeks later, if your wife maintains an unwavering testimony and the judge finds the defendant's protestations lack credibility, the defendant may receive a fine, or get his butt thrown in jail, or both.

This is the end of the story as far as the Authorities are concerned. [True story, btw. The perv's MO looks exactly like that of the guy Mrs X threw in jail when she faced the exact same situation not too long ago. Maybe he hasn't yet learned his lesson?]

Or, your wife could just politely tell the guy that his fly is down, putting the onus back on him to zip up. Depends on how brave she is, and how much time she has to waste with the Authorities to assuage her embarrassment.

If for a moment I thought that I have been trying to gain attention with my antics on campus, I'm glad I've come nowhere near the nonsense these HK tutors are up to:

In a highly competitive HK tuition market, tuition agencies are now marketing themselves by showing off their most attractive staff in their advertising campaigns. We're talking 'attractive' as in long-legged catwalk-sizzling supermodel-types with the poise, coiffure and come-hither allure to match. Don't ask me what the men are marketed like, 'cos I've never met an attractive man before, and I don't particularly want to either [ed. careful, your biases are showing].

And this whole image thing isn't just for a one-off photo-shoot either. They maintain their appearance in class too, or I guess the fallout from a false-advertising claim would be quite devastating to the company. So they're all gorgeous and dressed to kill so that they can teach a bunch of horny 14 year-olds English.

While having a swarm of English-speaking Gisele Bundchen lookalikes in my staffroom would do wonders for my morale, I do wonder which demographic the ad campaigns are pitched at. Would the pre-adolescent student have enough decision-making ability in the family to insist on going to a school whose teachers have the most outstanding gazongas? Would a mother trust a teacher who looks better in person than she did in her wedding album? Or does dear, distracted, drooling Dad decide? I dunno enough about family dynamics in HK to say for sure, so marketing the sex-appeal of teachers doesn't make much sense to me.

But so far, all this looks like fun and games. Besides, it's great for the teacher's ego to admire his or her own glam poster put up at the MTR station, and the money's apparently great too -- the best tutors teach up to 4,000 kids, so they must be getting astronomical fees.

But what exactly are they teaching the kids? From the article, as far as I can tell, the one (and only) expert educational point they impart is in "predicting what questions will be asked in the exams." Now, that is absolute crap, teaching kids to memorize and regurgitate on cue. If that's all, I hope the kiddies will get their money's worth in jiggly eye-candy because they sure aren't getting an education.

Nothing like a bit of venting and ranting to sift the mind and the heart and see what it is that's been bothering me lately. Sorry for yesterday's self-indulgence, but I think I've got it figured out.

I remarked before that my current work culture has become a lot more intense than before. Even the newbies are already going flat out, punching in long hours with all manner of purpose-driven activity. And I've been trying to fit in, y'know, group solidarity, that kind of thing. Yes, I have been taking steps to grow up, as per NBS' admonishment.

But I might have overcompensated and seem to have taken greater strides than I have been ready for. I've been offering advice to people who don't need it, and perhaps even attempting to arm-twist others into supporting one or another of my new hare-brained causes of the year. So far, everyone's been polite and tolerant, but looking back I feel embarrassed about what I've been trying to do to make myself "useful around the house," as moms like to say.

To keep my sanity this year, I have to remember these few things:
1) Stop competing and comparing myself with others.
2) We each have our own pace and our own paths.
3) Be myself, and not try to be who I'm not.
4) 1 Cor 13:11 reads, "When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me," and not, "when I put childish ways behind me, I became a man."

Thanks, Taily, for the positive reinforcement.

Perhaps I have begun the year with more idealism than brains. I might have made more promises than I can realistically keep, and my most optimistic way out is if the people who haven't been taking me seriously last year continue to not take me seriously this year. That way I can narrow my focus to just those who do.

With me it's always the big dreams and the foolhardy desire to champion lost causes, but I don't have the ability to manage the organizational mechanisms necessary to make the difference. It's my fatal flaw.

So while I tend to make a spectacle of myself with my, "Hey, everybody, look what I can do," everyone else is like, "Very nice, dear, just don't fall down and break your neck, ok?" And then reality and life revert to status quo as soon as I run out of steam.

My main problem, I think, is that I've been alone for too much of my life. While everyone's charging off together in one direction, I've been off on my own path following the beat of my own drummer. It's an extreme defensive reaction against the herd instinct and it might have been an asset at some earlier time for me, but it certainly isn't helping now that cooperative endeavour is the name of my new game.

It's what happens when the lone wolf unexpectedly finds himself absorbed into a hunting pack. Alone, he's nimble enough to change direction at will, spin on a whim and halt on a dime. In a group, however, things move a lot more slowly and more carefully, with more consideration for others. But old survival tactics and coping strategies are hard to get rid of, while new concepts like social structure, hierarchy, protocol and team dynamics are not so easily learned, or even understood. So it's always going to be a struggle.

June's probably right. I should accept my limitations, just stay focussed on my core business and stop trying to be too clever. Why do I keep forgetting that 1) it doesn't always have to be about "me", and 2) more often than not, less is actually more?

Of late we've seen a movement calling for "S'poreans first" in our public institutions. Due to the perception that S'poreans are slowly being outnumbered by a 'foreign talent' pool that is growing so fast that it's doing our homegrown stock out of house and home, job and country; suddenly and unsurprisingly, S'poreans are pushing themselves to the front again with their "me first" mentality.

So far, the issue of healthcare subsidies has fallen to the will of the people, and in today's ST (online) there's a call for a similar policy for post-grad courses at our local unis.

This idea of "S'poreans first" is distasteful and somewhat meaningless. Though I stand to gain from it as a S'porean myself, I believe our desire to draw a boundary between "local" and "foreign" is going to bite us in the butt in the long-term.

It's hypocritical of us on the one hand to say that we S'poreans have the right to be first because we were here first, and on the other be so critical of Malaysia and it's Bumiputera privileges, which derives from the same basic reasoning. We slam Pauline Hanson's race politics, but we don't recognize that we're pushing for the same thing here on nationalistic grounds. And for the record, the Malays were here first. We non-Malays are practically 'foreign talent' ourselves, give or take a couple of generations.

Our desire to segregate will be our downfall because that will be the killer blow to the goose that lays our golden eggs. S'pore's success has little to do with our smarts, or our training, or our meticulous attention to detail, or in the long-sighted planning and forecasting by the pilots of RSS Singapura. All this activity can only diversify and even out our risk factors, nothing more.

Our success has everything to do with our diplomatic skills, our ability to make friends with pretty much everyone, or at least make friends with the right people on the global stage. We see where potential conflicts lie and we have so far been quite good at working out win-win scenarios for our working partners who have, as a result, been more than happy to pitch their lot in with us and help us grow (or else leave us alone, unmolested). Our open hand and firm handshake are ultimately our strongest assets, far above anything else we can offer.

Now that we're beginning to look at people with the view of distinguishing between "us" and "them", we're closing the valve of the main artery that keeps the heart of our country pumping. The free flow of people has been our lifeblood from our beginnings as a centre of entrepot trade. We grew because everyone from east to west met and mingled here. The currency of both money and ideas were easily exchanged without inhibition, and whether it flowed into or out of our country, we were enriched nonetheless by the exchanges themselves. No one else could top us then in creating a market for such free trade, and for the moment we still have few close rivals in this respect; but with this upsurge of "S'poreans first" our free market isn't looking so free anymore. We'll lose our only edge if we don't regain our senses quickly.

S'pore, being a migrant community (yes, it is, so stop pretending otherwise), is always going to be a competitive place to call home. So what do we have to do as individuals to survive? Like it or not, we play the game. And we always welcome our new teammates, even if they are just playing as subs. Fresh legs are good for our game, and they're on our side.

BTW, please go get your post-grad education in a different city from your undergrad. Tertiary education in a foreign country opens your eyes and broadens your mind to see a world much bigger than your fishbowl, won't you agree, Mr Leong?

CCAs are back to full swing again! Amongst the new crop of debaters who showed up for orientation today, there was an aspiring journo, a true-blue Honors English type, 2 versions of the Elmo TMX, a former (maybe still current, I'm so out of touch these days) television artiste, and the kid who lives down the corridor from my apartment O_o.

These guys are a laugh riot when put together. There's so much animated energy that they radiate, and some of them exhibit scant respect for their seniors. While this brash confidence is accepted as a prerequisite 'tude of a debater, I can see they're going to be a real handful when they start working together. The focus will be just everywhere. I forsee we'll make history this year by fielding a bunch of stand-up comedians instead of a debate team.

Sadly, no one showed up for NY conneX. That's a little worrying since I've got a lot riding on our little newspaper this year, and I need all the staff I can get. We'd better gain mucho cred this term so that by next CCA bazaar people will be clamoring to be wear our nifty press pass. *crosses fingers.

Anyway, we've just uploaded a fresh crop of articles, so do drop in and give us an eyeball, 'k? Thanx so much!

Often, the perception of good and evil depends on how much knowledge one has about an event or the person or persons involved in it. The more information one has, the fairer the judgement of who's right and who's wrong becomes.

In Frank L Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, all the information we get is from the perspective of a gormless farmgirl searching for a way home. Whoever can help her achieve her objective we think of as "good" while those who strew obstacles in her way have to be "bad". It's odd then that Dorothy's benefactor, the Wizard himself, would set the assasination of a rival as a precondition for his assistance, and we accept this morally reprehensible task without question. Means justifying the ends.

But the Oz in Gregory Maguire's revisionist novel, Wicked, is a far more politically complex world than the one Baum presents. The Wizard has usurped authority in the Emerald City from the ruling regent and has embarked on a campaign of eco-political expansion to take the whole of Oz under his control. There is little resistance at first as he seems to bring in wealth and prosperity to the people, but those he represses and exploits he keeps out of sight from the general population. He protects himself with a secret police called the Gale Force which enforces his interests with extreme prejudice on the periphery of polite society.

While there seems to be a growing resistance movement against the Wizard, the focus of Wicked falls on a lonely figure, an anomalous green-skinned girl whose cause is to end the oppression one way or another. But as one effort after another ends in failure, she retreats further and further away from society, and eventually becomes known as the Wicked Witch of the West more by reputation than by actual intent on her part.

When Dorothy arrives on the scene however, her bumbling around Oz destroys everything that Elphaba (aka WWW) holds dear, starting with Elphaba's sister who is crushed by Dorothy's far-flung farmhouse. Even so, Elphaba holds Dorothy no malice (well, perhaps only growing contempt, annoyance and frustration) but instead sees her as an opportunity to atone for past mistakes. But tragically, it is Dorothy's ignorant good intentions to help Elphaba that causes Elphaba's unglamorous death.

Wicked is a discussion on the nature of good and evil, examining the subject from the perspectives of religion, science, and magic. It looks at people's motivation for behaving the way they do, and questions the influence of choice, manipulation and ordination in people's actions.

Wicked puts an adult perspective on a simple children's tale. It fleshes out the relationships of the main players and pre-Dorothy histories in Baum's narrative. Given this additional knowledge, we realize that it can be all too easy to judge a book by its cover.

Been avoiding meeting my fund manager 'cos he gets long-winded and reminds me about things I don't really want to think about, i.e., my financial state now and in the years to come. Considering he's already taken most of what's left of my cash, I don't really have much of a "now". I can only hope that there will be a "to come" as promised.

His news today was mainly to update June and me about the performance of our investments to date, just a little more than 6 months since we let him handle our money. So far, a modest little profit; well, better than bank rate, anyway, so maybe we won't fire him just yet.

The one thing I got out of our discussions today is the realization that under normal circumstances, I realistically only have 13 more years of working life before I reach retirement age. 13 years to build up sufficient resources to see me comfortably into my dotage, assuming accident, disease, stupidity or the economy don't get me first.

Fund managers. They sure are well trained in scaring cash right out of a guy's pockets.

But as I said to TSL on Friday, I don't really have ideals about retirement. The idea of lolling around all day watching people go by doesn't appeal to me. No retirement for me, I told her, I doubt I'll be happy if I don't work till the end. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's being or becoming irrelevant. That's even scarier to me than having no money.

Took a chance on The Wicker Man, starring Nick Cage 'cos there wasn't anything else we wanted to watch at Sun Plaza this evening.

Cage plays Edward Maulis, a police officer who is given time off to recuperate from a traffic mishap, and goes off on a quest to find a missing child in a remote community far, far removed from urban development. Fully charged up with testosterone, the authority of a legal enforcer, and his own mission of righteousness, Maulis wastes no time making his presence felt amongst the rural folk of Summersisle.

The community has ancient roots, with animistic customs, traditions and rituals that are so alien to our modern sensibilities. Like the bee hives they keep to harvest honey, Summersisle is a matriarchal theocracy in which the knowledge jobs belong exclusively to the women, and the men just provide manual labour, or else sit around in the pub drooling into their mead. Though that description sounds like paradise on earth, it all looks like a society gone wrong, from Maulis' prejudiced perspective.

In his quest for the missing child, he charges around the village like a bull in a china shop. His methods become increasingly fascistic (typical male response when things don't go their way) as the villagers refuse to respect his authority and instead just watch him and his antics with amused detachment. They have little time for him anyway, as they are trying to recover from their worst harvest on record.

As Maulis slowly uncovers Summersisle's secrets, he also discovers the reasons for his summons to the community, and comes to realize that he is the best man for the job.

There's also a little cautionary tale there against pre-marital sex: you never know when the consequences of a long-ago tryst might one day come back to burn you.

The Wicker Man isn't a horror movie, but more like a Hitchcockian thriller. It is slow-paced, with very little action, but there's enough going on keep the audience guessing what the villagers are really up to.

Cool, but for my taste in movies, I'd rather watch this one on HBO.

Finally, a proponent of the use of video games as an educational tool! I've always wanted kids to play Civilization for background knowledge on history, geography and politics; and to practice resource management, among other useful little skills. I found KOTOR a stimulating exercise in moral and ethical decision-making. Wildly careening down the crowded streets of the various NFS incarnations has probably honed my driving sense -- that is, to recognize dangerous driving, curb my own reckless behaviour and avoid other mad drivers while in reality-mode (though I nearly got myself, NBS and HP killed the other day. It's not infallible). In real-life, there are no cheat codes.

While video games are no substitute for proper guidance, there is a lot of learning going on without the gamer being aware of it. Although I'm just thinking of knowledge learning, Prof Shaffer is advocating using video games to train students in juggling technology in a multi-tasking environment in preparation for working life in the 21st century.

Shaffer sees even the US education system as not having changed much since the curriculum was put together in the 19th century. Today's world belongs to the innovator, not the assembly-line worker, so he's urging education to move towards the ideas market instead of remaining entrenched in drill-and-practice, the tried-and-tested method of the distant past.

So, our l33t gaming prowess is going to advantage us when we frag our job-hunting mugger-toad competitors to bleedin' giblets in a couple of years' time. Serves 'em right too! Who'd have thunk it?

P.S. Even S'pore has already moved to introduce video games into our learning experience (could they be referring to the Neopets involvement in the NE programme 3 or 4 years ago, I wonder?). It says so in the article: here.

Josh introduced to us a new place to eat: Astons, serving Western food at mostly kopitiam prices. It's a little stall within the last kopitiam on the Maju Ave side of the row of shophouses along which the buses turn into in Gardens.

There's quite a wide selection of carnivore-pleasing items on the menu including steak, fish, ribs and burgers. The side dishes run out quickly, though, so go early.

I had the beefy jack, a tiny but thick burger topped with a square of melty cheese. The patty is made on-site with fresh ground beef and cooked to a juicy medium rare. The faint pink cross-section of the patty is a joy to behold. So few places get their burgers right like that.

I believe we got general approval of the food around the table, Amy and HP included. It looks like we've found a cheaper alternative to Friends and the Cartel in Gardens.

NY conneX Print edition #4 delivered today, coinciding with our recruitment drive for new journos. But before anyone says anything, let's do a self critique of this ish:

#4 is certainly flawed and definitely not our best work, considering what we've been capable of producing before. For an 8-page newsletter, only 2 articles can be legitimately classified as "news" (1 written and photographed by yours truly), the rest is mainly filler and quite possibly blatant propaganda as well.

The cover page is a mess, with the main pix looking static and murky, while the beautifully shot supplemental pix is tiny in comparison. And the main headline is obviously sensationalist but with no relevance whatsoever to the article it refers to. Quite misleading, even.

I think that strategically, we timed our release too early. Being fresh out of the hols, there really wasn't anything much happening on campus to report on. The reporters, themselves, were unprepared and just scrambled to meet their deadline with whatever because they had to submit something.

We should have trusted our past issues and our website to sell themselves and reserved our money sticking to our core business of reporting the news and maintaining the quality of our product, instead of trying to kill so many birds with our one tiny stone.

With all Amy's taught me, this is what I came up with. I feel I've let her down somewhat. Sigh.

Beginning the new year with lots of ideas and a new sense of idealism for the workload ahead. No longer under special dispensation for pioneering a new subject, I'm facing an expanded timetable, and adjusting to head 2 CCAs while being credited as heading only 1.

There's nothing unusual about this circumstance: it happens in the working world all the time. Multiple jobs being handled by several people can suddenly collapse into 1 person's portfolio, and while the 1 person can cuss and swear at his new job scope, he can also be thankful that he still has a job. For me, I can also appreciate the confidence the HR allocation seems to have in me, and I'll do what I must to make it work as I see fit.

The only thing that worries me is that there is a strong work-oriented culture around me at the moment. I sense the last vestiges of mindless, spontaneous fun has left with Vince, thus bringing to a close a cohort of colleagues that made life interesting on campus. But, no, they've not left campus because they've been too playful, but because they've taken up higher responsibilities and moved on. Yup, we all eventually grow up sometime.

As for my current colleagues, they're still a great bunch and I dearly enjoy their company very much. We still make it a point to meet for meals and bitch and jest daily. They're still my inspiration for getting up early in the morning. But perhaps what I'll miss is that spark of wild, unpredictable, crazy energy that once made work such fun.

Perhaps it's just as well. It's time for me to grow up too.

For many of us, there seems to be a serious disconnect between what we learn in school and how we live our lives once we leave school behind. We often tell ourselves that we'll never find a use for calculus or chemistry after our big exam so, subsequently, all our lessons are selectively shelved under the category of "Childhood Trauma" in the filing cabinet of our psyches, forever sealed shut with crime scene tape.

This grim, self-induced amnesia is hardly a surprising reaction, considering that the final exam is the furthest target we aim our learning towards. So we cram it all in as quickly as possible, spew it in the greatest possible quantity all over the exam paper, then mistake the emptiness we feel afterwards for freedom. No doubt our exam scores will be brilliant, but if we can't make the transition from learning to life, can we say we've learnt anything at all?

The Yanks have been thinking about this problem. The states of NH and RI are going to pioneer individualized assessments and adjust the weightage of graduation criteria so that students can demonstrate useable skills in their subject mastery, as opposed to just having memorized the right answers. Sound exciting? Details here.

Are kids and their parents paying attention to employment trends in S'pore these days? There are no "conventional" jobs any more. The reality of our situation is that regardless of our line of study, there is no reason to assume that our career will fall neatly in line with it.

According to this Star article, there is no lack of employment opportunities here, as long as job-seekers are flexible. Our education does not determine our career destiny. Whichever path our parents have set us on -- doctor, engineer, lawyer -- the world is too unpredictable to allow us to be as deterministic about our own futures.

So why study all the way up to the U then? Obviously, because the qualification is often nice to wave around. But if that's all you're after, you're a very sad person. If all you're gonna do is study, then that's all you're training to do. And the career prospects of grads specialized in sitting at a desk pretending to read difficult books are quite limited these days.

Whatever your faculty, studying at the U is a chance to mix around with the best and the brightest people on the planet, including one or two of your professors. You can discuss, argue and debate your theories and ideas with like-minded people and thereby shape an intelligent view of the world; and network with the people you are likely to be working with, or for, in the near future.

And it's not just in the classrooms or lecture halls, either. The pubs, the clubs and the socials present lots of opportunities to talk to people who will become decision-makers in time. So it's best to go make nice with them before they become unapproachable. You'll never know if the dweeb you picked up off the floor after the jocks have stampeded through might become the next Bill Gates, or if your scruffy buddy on the football pitch might become the next PotUS.

Just don't get locked into the "degree = good job" idea. The degree itself is only a piece of paper after all (at the most it'll grant you a job interview) but if that's all you're interested in, that's all you're gonna get. It's the experience and the process of how you obtained it that's more likely to determine what your next step is going to be. Enjoying a varied lifestyle on campus means more flexibility of career options for when Mom starts her "Get A Job" whine six months after your graduation.

First 3 days back at work and already as of right now I haven't slept in more than 24 hours. Partially that's my own fault, but running a newspaper means holding off deadlines until the most current and relevant articles are ready. I'm paying the price for that, I suppose, with last night's all-nighter. Hope it's not an indication of things yet to come.

Need sleep....

Funny that ST should be featuring a front-page article on various career people being unable to take leave because of work commitments. The article is clear that their companies are not forcing them to forfeit their leave, these busy executives just don't feel comfortable or secure enough to take their entitled time off.

It isn't just a local phenomenon, it occurs in other countries like Japan, UK and Oz as well, with staff who would rather trade their leave entitlement for cash or some other benefit, or in some cases are prepared to have it forfeited altogether.

I'm personally ambivalent about the whole thing. I'm just fresh out from my Christmas vacation and I've had a great time in HK, and it's wonderful to have time to just chill, no responsibilities and all. But there have also been empty times during which I thought wistfully about the hustle and excitement of campus life, and the good company I keep in the staffroom.

People who define themselves by the work they do are going to find those days of white leave space so much more dull and lonely than anything I've ever experienced. No wonder leave taking can be so daunting for them.

Also, I wonder if it could be due to a misplaced sense of self-importance. Many of the respondents cited reasons of being so needed at work that they can't take leave. Right. Given our last round of corporate retrenchments not so very long ago, we should have learned by now: no one is irreplaceable.

"Night at the Museum" reminds me that it's time to get off my fat, lazy ass, and get back to work. There'll be so much bedlam on the first day on the job, and just when you think it's all under control, all hell breaks loose again and makes you wonder if you really do have what it takes to make it through another year. But hey, courage, mon ami, we'll turn chaos back to order, we'll eradicate our differences by working towards our common good, and we'll do it all, together! Ya got that, Dumdum?

Apart from the movie, we did lunch at Azabu Sabo, Marina Bay. I would never have expected to enjoy a cold seafood ramen at all. Cold soba already turns my stomach, but here the served-straight-from-the-fridge cold ramen is creamy, fresh and slightly sweet: surprisingly edible. But it's also quite rich and there's plenty of it, so it's a dish to share. Don't be a hero.

And check out dessert! Macha ice cream, red bean paste and tangyuan (glutinous rice balls). It's fun to play with the different textures in your mouth, that is if you can bear to ruin the design it comes in. Refreshing.


Oh, and finally Momo deigns to pose nicely for a portrait. Thought I'd put this up here to mark the historic occasion!

The IKEA cafe's Swedish meatballs ran out on us while we were standing in line. Salmon and chix wings were next to go. We realized that today was an early-closing day, the kitchen being open only up till 1730, and we wound up with empty trays and rumbling tummies.

Next best thing was to run downstairs and grab 1kg of frozen meatballs for a nice, home-cooked New Year's eve dinner for 2. And yes, the meal is quite simple to put together. There are about 50 meatballs in a pack, and gravy powder to which you need to add some whipping cream to thicken. With boiled potatoes, a teaspoon of cranberry sauce and a glass of pineapple juice June bought in the Philippines, we're all set.

Spent the rest of the evening makin' nice with a vacuum cleaner hose, getting our floor spotless again before Old Man 2006 exits, stage left. But in less than an hour's time, it'll be a very "Happy New Year" to everyone!

Count down with me... 3... 2... 1...!

How did we human beings get to become the dominant species on this planet? It isn't because we have opposable thumbs, as some hacks might suggest. If it was, then we'd be facing competition against the other primates and a couple of squirrels in a triple-threat match to be "King of the Hill". But so far, we seem to be the only ones able to survive pretty much anywhere on Earth. For changing the environment to suit ourselves rather than adapting ourselves to suit our environment, no one else is in our league.

I think it's because we've made 6 good friends, and we've been leveraging on their strength ever since. They are: who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Our ability to ask questions means that we no longer have to accept status quo all the time. We can question our current situation, draw implications from conclusions to our queries, and plan ahead to implement our desired predictions, forecasts and outcomes. We dare ask, "how might our future be better than it is now?" No other animal does anything like this.

So asking questions has to be our #1 most important skill to learn. It has helped us crawl out of the mud, climb down off the trees and it will eventually take us to the stars -- if we so desire.

When I look at our approach to education, though, I have to wonder if we are teaching the right skills. School experience for the student is almost entirely just learning what the answers are. But if they didn't ask the question in the first place, why should they care about what the answer is, anyway?

Besides, the skill of answering questions is a nonsense skill. Answers are static, fixed. Answers reinforce the status quo. Answers force acceptance, giving the impression that nothing can or will change, um, because. Answers are always right, even though they may be wrong. What's the shape of the world? What's at the centre of the universe? Whatever the answer, people at one time believed it, though today, we believe in a totally different answer. And whatever we believe must be right. Right? Whatever.

When we teach students to answer GP questions, whether compre or essay, to me it seems like putting the cart before the horse. We ought to be teaching (or re-teaching) kids to ask questions first.

I believe that the right questions will answer themselves. So when they learn to ask the right questions, they'll learn something that's so much more practical and potentially more life-changing than just learning the right answers.

Will try this approach with my '07 kids. Hope they won't kill me for educational heresy.

The staff tour of farmland Kranji was a novel way to begin our 2-day end-of-year workshop. Between dodging raindrops and puddles, I got to handle a live bullfrog (slimy but oddly odourless) and rubbed up the fur of a farm dog and cat along the way. Like my noisy, chatty companions, the animals were equally sociable.

Apart from learning that bullfrogs are monogamous, and new vocabulary like "aeroponics" and "agri-tainment", I was quite taken by the approach of the Kranji stakeholders to deal with their individual and collective problems operating farms in S'pore.

For example, we have farms in S'pore??? Where do we have space to have 1 farm, let alone the 170+ farms that are supposed to operate in the area? Aren't farms far away, inaccessible, dirty, smelly places that are nice to visit but don't exactly offer top career choices for our children?

With public perception as such, they don't get much support from either the market or even our public institutions. Each farm struggles to survive, and people being what they are, S'poreans in particular, the temptation must be great to conflict and compete the hell out of each other, neighbours being at each others' throats for scraps of resources all the time. We all know what that kind of life is like.

But the Kranji collective impresses me with its ability to cooperate with each other, leveraging on each other's strengths rather than exploiting one another's weaknesses. They rightly identify their problems as obstacles to overcome rather than target each other as the source of their woes.

And even more impressively, they rely most on their ideas: always finding new ways to do things better. Our farmers ain't hicks. They're scientists, engineers, craftsmen, artisans and designers; market-savvy, well-travelled and well-connected. They're angry and frustrated 'cos it's a tough line of work, but they're also hungry and unwilling to just keel over and die without a fight.

And what I love is their attitude that ideas are meant to be shared open-source, instead of selfishly hoarded. I've always believed that an idea is only as good as it is shared. The further it spreads, the better it must be. Ideas propagate one another, and I guess farmers are best positioned to understand this simple truth.

Respect the farmer, urbanite!

Meet Swiss Cheese Man a.k.a. Holey Man, my stunt double in one of my earliest productions with MU. He's come home with me after all these years hanging around as a wall decoration at the MU studio in Cairnhill.

Yup, MU is leaving the premises and closing its doors for good. We had our farewell party tonight attended by many of our founding members as well as a number of our latest generation, and a few well-wishers and friends.

It's a little sad to see a chapter in my life close for good, particularly as I had been intending to reopen it at some point in the near future. But that's not going to be so easy now.

In fact, when I began with Education, one option I was toying with was to complete my contract so that I would have some credibility and some experience as a teacher, then return to MU to teach drama full-time. Guess I felt it was more necessary for me to remain in the system, as it turned out. Funny.

As various members took bits of props and equipment home with them as memorabilia, and as the reception table was little by little cleared away of snacks, cheese and wine, it was goodbye to old friends, some of whom are departing for other climes for who knows how long.

My holey shadow is a piece of my history. And he's come home.

Banjo by Weng

Housewarming at Anthony and Wendy's! We got to see the interior of their new pride and joy today after more than a year of anticipation. It's a cozy place, much of the design based on straight zen lines; right down to the entertainment electronics. I like the design concept for its urban functionality, though if June was present, she might find it a little cold if not for the touches of wood panelling here and there.

Potluck dinner for the third night in a row, and no, I did bring a Christmas fruitcake with me despite what I said in my previous entry. Scrooge I may be, but friends are friends after all. The usual crowd of Anthony's showed up for a pleasant evening.

Weng, in his usual fashion, got us to help assemble the presents he got for us. With empty cartons, bits of plank and cord, each represented household got at random an elastic powered wooden rifle or a 3-string banjo. He helped me tune my banjo and even strummed some discernable chords from it. Thanks, dude!

June wasn't able to join the festivities tonight. She had to pack for her flight to Manila tomorrow, returning on New Year's Eve. Safe journey, ok?

My inner Scrooge is acting up. I'm looking back on the last couple of days of stuffed-to-the-brim feasting, and I'm amazed at how much waste there is left after everyone's had their fill. Then there's the ritual of bagging the remains and distributing them as leftovers, knowing that in reality it's all going to the trash anyway. Just not all into the the trash bin of the host's premises.

I'm also looking at the amount of water I'm using to do the dishes and I'm perturbed that every drop that comes out of our taps is potable H2O, which is in such short supply in many parts of the world even in generally clean condition, and I'm using such a torrent of it to get my kitchen back up to passable health standards again. And no, I wasn't even the host.

I wonder if my personal policy on Potluck Socials is so wrong after all? All I do is show up at my appointment and contribute just my pleasant disposition and a healthy appetite. I'm sure to still "bring home" some leftovers since everyone's brought too much anyway.

Oh, and what if more people adopted my policy and there's not enough food for once? Simple. Pool cash, call pizza.

Let's spare a thought for the less fortunate next year.

Q-tip says, "Merry Christmas, everyone!"

Er... you too, Momo.

Arrive late at Christmas family reunion. Get relegated to the kids' table 'cos all other seats taken. Realize that the kids I'm sitting with and I remember as screaming, bawling, running-around in short pants minor annoyances are no longer kids. Some are already at the U, some just starting work. Funny, I don't feel any older but I should, shouldn't I?

For a theme park with limited thrill rides -- 2 mild 'coasters, a flume and a drop tower -- Ocean Park still pulls in the crowd even on a Monday. It's hard to imagine how one could spend a whole day there without getting bored at some point but, surprisingly, the experience was quite enjoyable.

For one thing, there's a lot of space to cover, whether on foot or by some other means of conveyance. The attractions are well laid out: the kiddy rides at the bottom of the hill, the thrills higher up with a glorious Pacific Ocean view, and the aquaria and show areas concentrated together near the peak. And sufficient toilet facilities -- very important. The park is easy to navigate and because it's all on a slope, walking from place to place can be quite a workout too.

Though there's little we haven't seen before in the centrepiece marine show, the presentation was lively and it's nice to see the animals so animated and motivated for their schtik. The carny games gave out enough prizes to tempt participation. It was amusing that a toddler won a large Santa plushie by accident, while Vince and I got zilch for our efforts.

Ocean Park is simple, without the flash and the thoroughness of concept of most American theme parks. Yet it still packs in the people. I hope our own IR on Sentosa can do as well.

Observation: in any given situation, a people can choose to be happy or unhappy. Good government recognizes the people's right to choose unhappiness.

Finally uploaded our HK holiday pix! There's quite a lot to wade through, so only if you're interested, ok? Click here.

HK turned out to be quite the holiday. Tiny freezing hotel room (but snug and warm under the blanket), no actual plan, just doing whatever our inclinations directed, weather permitting. More walking and shopping than I believed we would do. June says shopping in HK in December is 'nothing,' but if this was nothing, I'm all agog at what 'something' might be.

While people in S'pore were drowning in a 48-hour torrential rainstorm, we brought the sun and a nasty cold snap to HK. Although it rained on our first 2 days, we had gorgeous weather for the rest of our stay.

A couple of places of interest:

Ngong Ping 360:
A tourist trap featuring a fake old-style Chinese village, a couple of multi-media presentations, and a climb up to see the giant Buddha statue; but the Skyrail ride up the mountain is spectacular with amazing views of the countryside. Best to take the Skyrail one-way though, unless you just want to hang out with the tourists.

There's a side-deal at the bus terminus where they offer a 1-way Skyrail ride, then unlimited bus rides to anywhere on Lantau Island. We took the bus to Tai-O Village for the sights, sounds and smells of a local fishing port. Lots more photo-ops and interesting local delicacies that you don't find downtown here.

The Mid-Levels Escalator system:
We were looking for the longest escalator in the world (which is in Ocean Park actually), but our map pointed us to this exotic, innovative people mover instead. From Central, a series of connected escalators takes people up a hilly incline. It passes Hollywood Street (antiques and curios), SoHo (western-style bistros, but also where I finally got my hands on some Krispy Kreme sweetness), and up to where the rich people stay.

The escalators start the day going downhill so the rich people can go to work, but the rest of the day they all point uphill so people like us can explore and the rich people can go home at night.

Once at the top though, it's a long trek back downhill again. Considering that we spent the morning walking down from the Peak back to Central to save HK$11 on the Peak Tram, June and I had wobbly legs by the time we hoofed it back to Central -- again.

BTW, Central becomes Manila and Causeway Bay becomes Jakarta on Sunday.

Have a whole load of pix to be uploaded. Perhaps they'll tell the story better than I can. Watch for the link!

It's got Death, whimsy, tragedy and a cutsey kitty. And it's a short little 'toon. Watch "Death Kitty and the Fat Man" (no, NBS, it's not Anthony) here.

We're leaving for the airport in just over 12 hours and we're still not packed yet. At least Q-tip's been taken care of. She's boarding at the Pawfect Companion, which sent a guy over to collect her this morning.

While we're away, my in-laws will come over and cat-sit for us. In exchange, they get to watch free cable TV all day. The cats, though, may not be too thrilled with the prospect of having the TV on all day:

Behind the TV is Kaiser's favourite napping spot...

and Momo's too!

I went to Vivocity in the afternoon (instead of packing like a good boy) where 3 random thoughts came to mind:

1) It's counterproductive to make staff wear Santa hats if they're still gonna look grouchy at work. The effect is quite a turn-off, in fact. An off-season smile works better than a seasonal decoration for brightening a mall any day.

2) Superdog burgers are as fresh tasting as they claim to be. I don't know if it's my problem or theirs, but after polishing off a bacon cheeseburger, fries and coke, I was still hungry. The jury's still out on whether I'm a pig or if the burger's too small.

3) At PageOne bookshop I found myself again looking at books in the Science section though I was looking for books on media criticism. That's odd because I'm usually looking at fiction and other easy-reading material. I think my subject's changing me... and not necessarily for the better. Brrr...

Right. HK, here we come!

It's always exciting to man the reception desk. Look at all the chaos we have to deal with!

In case you haven't figured it out yet, Prom Nite photos are finally in from our official photogs! Check out some of their best pix here.

Only 1 more working meeting tomorrow, and then I think I'll just focus on being on vacation, at least until Christmas is over. Looking forward to departing for HK on Thursday. What's the plan? Eat, walk, shop, Ocean Park, y'know, mindless, fun stuff. Current weather forecasts say it's going to be wet, par for the course for us. Could get chilly, but not freezing.

Have to admit, I am tired. The break is welcome.