Spent another day on sick leave. Woke up to a schnozz clogged up with liquid snot, causing lots of heavy breathing, not of the good sort. Meds ran out over the weekend and the nasal passages were letting me know that fact, no mistake.

Doc seems to think if I've had no history of asthma, I shouldn't be getting it now. I didn't know it was a strictly childhood condition. He sent me for an x-ray, just to be safe. Thankfully, the results only confirmed that I have bigger lungs than than the radiologist had set the machine for. Needed a second shoot to get all my lungs in the frame. Heh. People tend to underestimate my size, me too sometimes. I'm not a big guy, but I'm bigger than I look. Larger-than-life.

Had time to look at the papers today. Looks like Dubai's moving in a big way towards a knowledge-based economy with a humongous $15b private donation to education, while China's drawing in Ivy-league eggheads to develop its creative innovation sector. I must be taking on the right subject, then. KI seems to be where the future is headed -- if only people would stop treating it like it was still an old-school study-memorize-regurgitate type deal. The old, traditional ways still command too much respect. New wine, old wineskin. What to do?

The trees are having a field day assasinating our fellow countrymen and women. They've finally had enough of us cutting them down to make way for new infrastructure and they're hitting back with suicide attacks. The victims suffer through no fault of their own, though. Wrong place, wrong time. Beware, folks, the trees are on the rampage!

Funny that Malaysian politicians are debating our involvement in the IDR. I would think their position on the situation would be quite clear to them: our adik will put their money into our project, we say "terimah kasih," they balik kampong to their little red dot, everybody happy. What's so difficult about that?

Outward Bound Singapore is 40 years old. I remember being drafted by my venerable old institution to go on a 5-day 'adventure' course with them. Was it fun? Yes, I learned to sail a dinghy, fly on the flying fox, and abseil down a rocky cliff. All the time I wanted to go, "again! again!" But there were so many other of my fellow adventurers with me there was only time for 1 ride each. The hardest part of the camp: waiting in line to go once on a ride. Pretty much like staying in a coaster theme park for 5 days in summer. Every queue starts at the "45 minutes from this point" marker.

Man, I sound old and cranky. Must be the meds talkin'.

Our GOH for today's college day event was amazingly down-to-earth and clear of thought. She not only noticed how creative and expressive our art students are from the paintings we display all over campus, but also how angry, repressed and suppressed their subject matter was.

While she was sympathetic, her advice was practical and sound. Sure, students understandably feel constrained by the rules they live under, by the expectations people have of them, by having to do whatever they're told or face some arbitrary consequence, particularly if they are still in a school system. In contrast, the world promises freedom, everyone being able to do, dress, say what they like; and the difference just makes it harder to live in the suffocating environment of teenage student life.

But the school is pretty much the only place in which our young can learn that there have to be rules, lines drawn that set their standards and values for life. Without having to live under rules, being thrown into a world with no rules is more frightening than it sounds. As she put it, rules provide "points of reference" from which we can deal with the strange and the unknown.

Students feel they can't be creative or learn creativity under the pressure of their restraints. But it's in having to manouvre within our constraints that's where creativity can bloom. There's nothing creative about running off to live a hermit's life -- there's no audience for what a hermit does -- but it's in learning to live with others and to relate to them that's when we need to be creative, and that's also when other people can appreciate our creativity as well.

Our GOH is wheelchair-bound. She may be disabled, but she's so genuinely positive. I give her credit because she doesn't speak in platitudes, just from good sense. Hence, unlike other happy disabled people (or even happy abled people), she doesn't give me the creeps. Perhaps her disability gives her an added dimension of being able to enjoy life to the fullest, while the rest of us simply take life for granted. It's a timely wake-up call.

2 days' of sick leave and I feel so behind on my schedules. I wonder if codine really works for coughs or if it's real purpose is to knock people out so they won't have to endure cold symptoms until the cold decides to go away by itself?

Anyway, been back at work for 2 days already since my MC ran out, and these have been days of many long hours, trying to catch up on the 2 days I lost. Maybe that's why people don't go on MC when they need to. Just because we're sick doesn't mean the work will go away.

Currently in a semi-happy, drug-induced torpor. Got tired of having asthma-like symptoms at night for the past few nights, so I sought medical attention this morning. Got 2 days' medical leave and some pretty powerful medicine that makes my knees all wobbly, jelly-like. Seems to be working as I've been breathing quite normally this evening. Doc says it's probably some viral infection and that the antibiotics should take care of it.

June's just gone off to Japan, blissfully unaware of my state. Didn't tell her 'cos I don't want her to worry unnecessarily. She's a bit miffed 'cos her team came in second in the big staff race her company organizes annually. This year the company's racing dragonboats, and since I've had some experience in the area, June got me to give her team some 'secret' instruction with a paddle I borrowed from college last night.

With her strategizing and me instructing, she felt she was doing everything she could to get the advantage in the race. But today, her Boss's boat outpowered her boat to win the race. I dunno, I say if the Boss is happy, that isn't bad news.

I always have a good time working with Drama. The kids work with so much purpose and when they take on roles of responsibility, they carry them out so competently and with such confidence that these learning experiences are what they really remember from their college experience.

There's so much learning and growing that's taken place in the last few weeks as the Drama Club has been putting Othello together. So much innovation, so much creativity in the publicity machine (lovely posters and T-shirts!), in the props and set design, in the interpretation of characters; and so much hard work and dedication, just for 3 shows that are over almost before we know it. It was a wonderful journey getting there!

But I am quite upset when I hear that their subject tutors won't give them a break, but instead show displeasure or even punish the kids for the odd missed assignment or a tutorial. A person's energy is a finite resource, and when that person is giving his or her all for a cause, it's difficult to be 100% everytime.

We tutors tend to overstate the importance of our subjects without looking at the holistic development of the student. Just because they aren't scratching out answers on worksheets or scribbling essays doesn't mean they aren't learning anything. For example, there's so much historical knowledge to gain from immersing the students in Venice at the time of the Ottoman empire. And such background info will also help prepare them to play out their roles with better understanding as well.

It's the context that learning takes place in, and if we can make the kids feel that it's learning they can use, they learn faster and more willingly. Because it makes sense to them.

I'm sorry that our system makes learning so compartmentalized, so rigidly inflexible. I'm sorry our personalities and egos interpret students' lapses as signs of disrespect or negligience or laziness. I'm sorry we feel compelled to "regain control" of the situation by compelling attention from our students one way or another.

Sometimes, I wonder if we could arrange the subjects that the students take by CCA instead of an arbitrary subject combination by 'tikam' method. Classes will support the CCA by teaching background theory that the kids need to have, the CCA will put their learning into application and practice. That way curriculum and co-curriculum would be more symbiotic, as will the subject combination, and the kids won't have to feel so torn and divided dealing with everything.

Ok, enough rant. Wanna see a couple of pix from Othello?

Chief bigwigs of Venice, the Duke and 2 Senators.

The cast and crew of Othello 2007

We're in the middle of the matinee show of Othello. My scene's over so I'm just hangin' around waiting for the interval so I can buy drinks and ice-cream.

Shakespeare's stuff is a challenge for a school to perform. The language is different from what we're used to, and it's worse for the audience if the actors don't pronounce their words properly. There's no doubt that our actors know their lines and their motivations, but the delivery of those lines requires a speech therapist to perfect. Or, perhaps more time to practice, which we don't have. I hear the audience would like subtitles, but perhaps it's also an opportunity to practice their listening skills too, eh?

It was fun performing to friends in the audience last night, but this afternoon and evening it'll be a more scrutinized show. Our audience will be mainly students who are taking Othello as exam text, and I hear a couple of actors who are involved in their own Shakespearean productions will be in the crowd tonight as well.

1 more show to go!

Last night we ran Othello straight through in full-dress rehearsal mode. The set designers did a great job with our tiny LT2 space, draping militant-looking banners strategically around the venue. With the atmosphere realized and everyone in costume, all cast and crew could see the whole thing in a complete package, and Madames Directeur, Tina et Mel, liked what they saw, despite their anxiety from a week ago.

It helped that we were performing to a 'live' audience as well, comprising fellow students from the JC1 lit bunch. There's something about performing to a crowd that raises the energy of our output. I think we're peaking at just about the right time.

While I say we had a great run, please don't come in with expectation that we are the RSC or something. It's that we've reached our level of expectation for our standard, with the potential of exceeding it somewhat in the next couple of days. That's quite something already, seeing how much work and commitment the kids have put in to get us this far.

Looking forward to opening night...

Inter-house lunchtime debates took place at the library. We decided on some copyright issue to let the Drags and Griffs argue over. There was a lot of passion on the Griff side as they argued their case, while the Drags were quicker with raising and responding to POIs.

We had the library transformed into a small arena. I thought at first that setting up so many seats would mean lots of empty seats, but we did manage to get most of the seats filled in after all.

Thanks to Linc and Wayne for being co-adjucators.

Debaters still have a long way to go in terms of clashing on the issues, they're right now just at the stage of coming up with enough material to cover 8 minutes' worth of speech. Still, I must applaud their courage to continue their training. They will get good, given time and exposure.

It must be great to be as sociable as Amy is. She knows of excellent eating spots where she has friends working at, and because they're friends we know our service is in good hands. Amy introduced us to Ragazzi: Italian food, kopitiam prices. The ingredients come in fresh daily from Tekka Market, hand-picked by the chef himself.

My penne pascatore (mussels and prawns in tomato sauce) went down easily with teh peng (iced-tea), in just the right quantity -- not enough to bloat but enough to satisfy. The tomato soup was thick and creamy, almost the consistency of paste, and freshened up with chopped basil leaf. The mushroom soup looked really tempting too, but I resisted 'cos I wanted to keep something to look forward to next time I'm in the neighbourhood.

NBS shared a rather large tiramisu with HP and me. It was rich, though unusually watery where the cake pastry should be. Dunno if it was meant to be like that but it tasted just fine.

10 of us in 3 cars went for lunch, and then on to our seminar at which we heard from a couple of local bigwigs from ASEAN, yes our regional political, security and trading bloc. I notice that S'poreans tend to be, the bigger the title, the stronger the self-deprecating humour. Our 2 speakers were very candid as they expounded on the 40 years of the bloc's history, the necessity of the organization, and the realities of it's members' associations with each other.

In the evening, I rejoined the Drama Club to rehearse a full run before showtime this Friday/Saturday. Busy, busy...

So much controversy in today's ST forum pages, both print and online, about kids and education. There are concerns that kids don't speak good enough Mandarin, kids don't speak good enough English, and kids don't get to speak enough, period. The examinations are biased towards those who write well, so smart kids who can't write suffer because they are penalized for the one ability they haven't mastered. Kids are unhealthy because they spend too much time cooped up indoors doing an assembly line of homework, thus sacrificing the playtime in the sunshine that they need for a balanced, wholesome upbringing.

Who'd wanna be a kid in these times when everything has gone so wrong for everyone at schooling age? It's crazy! Sure, it seems like everyone blames the 'system' but kids are only hearing that in the end, it's them that's not good enough. They have nothing to say and no language ability to express themselves fully anyway. They are pale and pudgy, and though they are running non-stop like little cogs in a relentless machine they're still gonna lose out to the Chinese eventually. And conversely, in the words of good Brabantio, "Who'd be a father?"

Adults, I tell you what, if there's anything that's killing our kids, it's your endless worry and your inability to let go and let your kids grow up. All this hand-holding that you're doing, you may think it's for your kids' good, but you can't hand-hold them forever. The biggest liability your kids will have as they walk into the future is having to drag your corpse along with them by the hand. :(

Maybe if we can all stop our incessant teaching and preaching for a while, our kids might just find the space to poke their heads from under their shells and start learning for a change. So parents, teachers, adults, find the value in taking the advice you so love to repeat to your kids: shut up, please. And stop masterminding the future for them -- it's theirs to shape, not yours.

What's a well-dressed Duke wearing these days? Mel said my working black trousers were too casual, and that I would have to get a pair of "dress blacks" instead. Since my wedding suit was cut for a much smaller man, I had to go shopping. Picked up a pair from Centrepoint. Dress pants are much lighter and made of a thinner material than I am accustomed to. They flow a little better, and they do look more formal. Wonder what other occasion I can wear them on?

Then I had to get a pair of Doc Marten's to replace the formal shoes I keep under my office desk for special occasions. Like for example, last Friday's formal ceremony, immediately after which the right sole ripped off, hence requiring replacement.

So with pants and shoes, I can't wait to see what Mel picked up from the costume shop for the Duke's top. Actually, since my scene is supposed to be taking place late at night, perhaps the Duke should be wearing a nightgown and bedroom slippers, clutching a teddy-bear while discussing state affairs with his senators. That would make sense to me 'cos the Duke would need his beauty sleep ASAP. After all, the war begins tomorrow!

First time in a long while that I'm wearing my CLs again. Hope my infection has finally cleared up. What happened earlier was that before I had realized that I had an eye infection, I thought that the discomfort I was feeling would be solved by replacing my old lenses with a new pair. When I started wearing my new pair, my left eye was still infected , and it damaged my new left lens so badly it went blurry on me. No choice in the matter, I had to buy yet another lens to replace the new damaged lens. Fortunately, Leow charged me only half-price for the replacement.

It's great to be rid of my clunky old glasses again, but I'm gonna have to be more careful with my lenses. Clean and disinfect them as directed, and not wear them any longer than is healthy. Guess that's the moral of the day.

The day of our planned for long, leisurely lunch began with a little anxiety about where to eat. The weekday high tea is almost non-existent already, and because we could only leave at 1400, many set lunch type places would be closing their kitchens within the next half-hour.

It was Josh that brilliantly suggested the little tea shop within Eclectic Attic in PS. Eclectic Attic stocks an array of antique furniture and knick knacks in such variety that made Josh's head spin. As it was, at our table, Amy, HP and Belinda shared an ornate bench carved with an ivy motif that cost nearly $4k; while Josh and I shared another $1k bench cushioned and covered over with black & white Holstein cow hide. Bizarre.

The set up is like an English tea house -- dainty yet not stuffy. The service is attentive and good humoured, they have to be to put up with us. They respond to the little porcelain hand bell placed at our table, and they come round often with hot water to top up our tea.

The a la carte lunch menu looks appetizing, though they feature foi gras which I try to avoid, but Josh gamely tried it as a side to his hamburger steak. My own steak, though juicy and tasty, was unfortunately quite stringy, held together by muscle fibre that took quite some work chewing. But then I think the place is better known for their tea menu.

I was quite impressed with the scones Amy ordered. They came hot and very fragrant served with butter and Devonshire cream and a choice of honey or jam. There are other cake pastries for the sweeter of tooth, as well as gelati. Their earl grey tea is quite remarkable in that it maintained it's pleasant flavour over a couple of top-ups and because the tea never grew too strong with prolonged soaking, there was no need to remove the tea bag at all. Dunno what brand of tea that was, but I'd like to find out.

In the evening, I had another steak. Met up with June and introduced NBS and Vince to Pepper Lunch. June chalked up enough stamps on her incentive card to get a free soft ice-cream. Macha flavoured, sprinkled over with a layer of green tea powder which I though was quite ok for $1.70, though June thought it was quite ordinary.

Another memorable Thursday spent in good company.

Never seen Sun Plaza so crowded before. Must be because today is the opening day for Spider-Man 3, and it's the Labour Day holiday to boot! A blockbuster tends to bring in good business for the mall too.

How was Spidey 3? Well, it was slick with a bunch of amazing CGI effects. Venom came off quite believably, though he didn't have as much screen time as I'd hoped. The Sandman, well, we've seen before, not all that much different visually from the sandstorm in The Mummy Returns, and I think they tested some of that sand-cloud effect in Ghost Rider from a couple of months earlier.

Compared to the previous 2 movies, #3 had a rather patchy storyline. Too many story threads being woven into too short a time frame to tell it all in. There was also a lack of a strong villain character holding the plot together, the way the Goblin in #1 and Doc Ock in #2 brought focus to the earlier 2. The Sandman, I suppose, came closest, but while he had pathos, his psychosis was not really from within himself, but rather as a result of being in wrong place at the wrong time. With Venom and the New Goblin, there are too many villain types sharing the spotlight. That may be a great opportunity for lots of action sequences, but dilutes the characterizations of each.

Speaking of character dilution, poor Gwen Stacey got the short end of the stick. She got an exciting sequence in the movie, but what Peter did to her was unforgivable, black costume notwithstanding. I know allowances have to be made for the film genre, but Gwen was Peter's first love and her character should never have been treated so shabbily. I'll always consider Loeb and Sale's 'Blue' as THE definitive Gwen Stacey story. So there.

Nevertheless, Spidey 3 still manages to play with our emotions (though not up to the intensity of 2). Not often a blockbuster movie ends with grown men shedding tears for each other, and perhaps some of the audience along with them. And JJJ and the Maitre 'd played by Bruce Campbell prove that the funniest scenes belong to those characters that take themselves the most seriously.

The Spidey franchise still thrills visually and charms emotionally, but it is getting a little tired and needs a nice long rest after this episode. In showbiz you always have to leave the audience begging for more.

Campus got transformed into something of a mini-carny today. Apart from these air puppets which never fail to make me feel inexplicably euphoric, there were other inflatable devices to bounce on too. The occasion, of course, was to celebrate the College's 30th birthday.

'deep took me on at the jousting station -- Othello vs the Duke. Whoever stays on his pedestal is the winner, though in our game I think the results were rather inconclusive. One thing I discovered was that our pedestals were intentionally unstable, so while we're trying to push each other off with our padded quarter-staffs, our legs and knees were wobbling all over the place at the same time. It didn't take long for a grown man to fall.

The celebrations were both formal and informal. The task of making loud music to keep the carny side awake fell to me and my trusty little crew of DJs. Actually, "DJ" doesn't accurately describe them, they were running their playlists off my laptop, so I guess that makes them mp3Js.

These are them who've been keeping me busy for most of the past couple of weeks working out a balance of scripted and unscripted on-air chatter to go with the noisy music they selected to play. On the one hand, they were supposed to keep the carny lively and happenin' while making various announcements as required every quarter hour or so, but on the other, they also had to announce for the formal part of the programme too: basically informing the people stuck on the carny side what the movements of the GOH were, and where various sets of people should be at what time. AND deal with a wildly successful (free) song dedication service as well. Most of them are either debaters or journos, which is how they volunteered (no quotation marks) to take on this duty. Great kids, these, and I'm so grateful to them for the job they did today.

And a couple of old friends dropped by to say "hi!" B'lina and Cara met us for a caffeine fix in Gardens after the celebrations were finally over. That was, after NBS (on my behalf) confiscated the laptop powering our little makeshift radio station, and that was all there was to the evening's entertainment. Everybody just had to go home then.

Nice to catch up with Cara before she leaves for post-grad and possibly work in Holland. Yeah. Who knows when she'll swing by around here again? Anyway, happy birthday to the college, and happy trails, Cara!

Today marks another step for me up the hierarchy of the industry. The letter and the handshake confirm it. That must mean I'm getting more and more settled into this job. Odd because I never really meant to make a career out of it.

It's assuring to know that while I'm happy doing what I'm doing, Management is also happy to let me continue doing it. It's also ironic to be thus rewarded, because in the length of time I've been in the service, the one who's benefited most from what I've been doing is myself. While my job is to teach, I feel that I've learned much more than I've taught.

That, I think, is only possible with a great working environment; good friends among colleagues; and a sharing, open culture in which everyone is glad to lend a hand to shoulder each other's loads. When we can share our different strengths, talents and expertise within the staffroom it shows that the learning culture doesn't just stop in the classroom.

If I've stayed in the service longer than I originally intended, it's because of y'all who've made campus life so bearable. Thanks!

Suffice to say I've been unusually busy. Don't wanna say too much about that 'cos I don't wish to sound like I'm complaining, and indeed, I'm not. But it has been tiring and most nights I'm just too brain dead to do much more than zzzz...

Anyway, 1 task complete is the 5th print ish of NYconnex, college 30th anniversary edition. Must thank Jane and the publicity people for helping me finance the printing of this and subsequent issues. Download here.

Bought S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. Boy, do I ever hate it. A major waste of money for me. But not because it's a lousy game or anything. It's more a reflection of my age and of my being unable to keep up with the sensory overload that the game prides itself in providing.

The graphics attempt to get as realistic as possible and I keep getting distracted with every dancing leaf, every swaying blade of grass. It gets so that I can't tell what's scenery and what's an enemy until it's 'Game Over'. I haven't even properly begun the game yet, but I'm lying face-down in a puddle of mud already. Killed by an enemy I didn't or couldn't see. Blech.

As so often is the case now, the movement makes me sick. No more FPS for this tired old man. I'll waste my time on C&C3 from now on. I blew a wad of cash on the limited edition DVD edition of STALKER but I willing to part with it already. Bidding opens at $30 (<50% of purchase price). Just drop me a comment, best bid by Friday 27 April wins.

Meantime, I'm gonna enjoy the free 29" Samsung HDTV Starhub delivered this evening. Yes.

Unbelievably busy this week, and zonked as a consequence. Some of it is my own fault, for accepting jobs I could have said 'no' to, but it seemed like fun at the time. They still are, though I wish they didn't all have to worked on and completed simultaneously.

Take yesterday... fresh out of having pulled off a near all-nighter on laying out the latest print NYconneX, it was debate training in the morning, 'Othello' in the mid-afternoon, college 30th anniversary rehearsal in the late afternoon ('nuff said), and June & I joined JY for part of the night-cycling activity with the Outdoors club. It was close to midnight when our group set off.

Each item on the list is a pleasure in itself, but all jam-packed in a 24-hour block, it gets quite draining.

Still, I did have time for a good dinner with June. We went to Pepper Lunch at Novena Square. It's like a do-it-yourself teppan-yaki . A thin slice of meat cut into bite-size pieces, served sizzling on a hot plate. One side is already being seared while the other is still raw. The diner must quickly turn the bits of meat over to get an evenly cooked meal. Each dish comes with a heap of bean-sprouts, and a couple of French beans and carrot slices. And a bowl of rice.

It's a dining concept so simple, there's no need for a chef. Just someone who can heat up hot plates all day long. And, of course, order-taking staff -- it is a fast food joint after all.

This year's night-cycling began with us already fatigued from the morning's exertions. No surprise that we didn't travel as far as we did the last time. What wiped June out was the uphill slope up Henderson, even before we got to ascend the long steep incline leading up to Telok Blangah Park, the 1st rest-stop. Nevertheless, that was a considerable distance from our starting point at Fort Road (ECP) while cycling almost continuously for about 2 hours straight. So no guilt giving up at that point.

The coming week isn't going to be any less packed. I say, bring it on!

Some days, I feel like I'm a hundred monkeys banging away at the keys of a hundred typewriters. The odds are that at random occasions, something coherent might actually come out of it.

Why do we love video games so much? Maybe it's because they provide a form of activity in which we can drop all our inhibitions, and simply revel in immersing ourselves in our raw emotions without the self-censorship of our social filters.

Living in society means living with people, and we all know that isn't easy. Getting along with others means having to compromise, giving up many of personal desires for some perceived "greater good". Often, we judge our desires as "selfish", or "perverted", or even "deviant", and so we justify to ourselves why we can't have them. It's all in the name of maintaining good relations with the people around us.

But with video games, There's no need for politeness or social grace, no need for masks or suppression of desire. There are only obstacles to overcome and rewards to reap. These desires are legitimized in the video game as goals, but they are so much more simple than in real life. Find. Kill. Heal. Upgrade. Win.

And since we aren't dealing with real people in a real context, we can truly be ourselves. But, you know what, human beings must really be social animals because when we do indulge in being ourselves, it isn't a pretty picture. Observe:

This mug is one in a series of photos of people at play on an Xbox. You can view the rest of the series here.

Time for another 'model answer'. Worked this one out while the GP kids were working on their own essay assignment on Friday. My question was from the previous Block Test:

We are constantly 'wired'. Consider the impact of this phenomenon in today's world.

I actually intended to write an outline but, as usual, went overboard 'cos the question is quite a complex one. Not satisfied with this answer 'cos there're so many more facets to examine in more detail, but as it is, I've already exceeded my 800 word limit. 'Wired' essay here.

Hmm... now maybe I can use this 'outline' to write a research essay for KI. Taily and Co can help me. Heh, heh.

I've let Mel and Tina persuade me into taking up a walk-on role in NYeDC's production of Othello. This, among everything else I'm working on. Tina's cut some of my lines, but that's a relief 'cos I don't have all that much time to rehearse long scenes with long orations. I get to play the Duke of Venice, quite a straight-laced, uptight kinda' guy, which isn't surprising since he's busy planning a war campaign.

A bit rusty with the stage-presence thing with the script looking rather static for now. But it's best to take Shakespeare slowly and pick up on his nuances first, before getting creative with it. Here's a first, anyway -- I've never done Shakespeare before, so I am a little envious of Johnny (Brabantio) and Ben (Iago): they get to be screwballs on stage while I just maintain order like some stuffy old patriarch, which I am supposed to be, of course. Still, no time to learn their parts, so break a leg, fellas!

By our 2nd debate training session held today, the bleeding seems to have been cauterized and my membership is holding at 6 JC1s. The rest appear to have no stomach for this sort of contest and have fled the field already. Huh. Young people!

Met the Robinsons. They're an oddball family who exist sometime in the future. Each family member has his or her own eccentricities, but they accept each other with mutual love and respect regardless. Such eccentricities include minor dementia, schizophrenia, belief in the anthropomorphism of amphibians, delusions of grandeur, extreme sibling rivalry, and psychomotor disability. Exhibiting any one of there traits could land an individual in an institution, but collectively united by blood and heart they pull together as the Ideal Family.

In fact, the only trait that poses any danger to anyone is typical teenage irresponsibility, and even then, Wilbur Robinson does his best to rectify the grave error he has committed.

The Robinsons are quirky enough to extend an invitation to orphan boy, Lewis, to join the family despite having their house nearly wrecked by a rampaging tyrannasaur as a result of his arrival (take it as it is, it's too complicated to explain). But when they discover that Lewis is from the past, they freak out and withdraw their invitation, insisting that he return to his own time.

The movie deals with the themes of failure and rejection. The Robinsons themselves celebrate failure -- the more spectacular, the greater the rejoicing. Or rather, they celebrate the learning that failure brings, while downplaying success which doesn't teach a whole lot. Hence the Robinson motto: Keep moving forward.

Lewis is himself a bright young man who has many great ideas, but his inventions often fail in their execution. He also has to face rejection several times over as his imagination and his devotion to science fail to endear him to the prospective foster parents who come to the orphanage to interview him. Apart from Mildred who looks after him in the orphanage, the Robinsons actually offer Lewis a home and a family, so it's especially heartwrenching when they eventually reject him too. But they have a good reason to send him back to their past.

The future is both predestined, yet it isn't set in stone. The choices we make in the present set a chain of events in motion that lead to the future. Conversely, the future depends on the choices we make in the present. The critical choice in this movie is Lewis's. One thoughtless incident is all it takes to change the idyllic utopian future into a horrific nightmarish one. He has to learn what that moment is, and make the right choice or end up irrevocably destroying the Robinson family of the future.

The plot sounds quite serious, but the comic relief comes in the form of the Bowler Hat Guy, arguably one of the worst evil villains to ever take up a career as an evil villain. He is the result of living a life of failure, yet never learning anything from his experience. His evil plans fail because he seriously lacks vision, knowledge and follow through. He is pure impulse who has unspecific goals, and no idea how to achieve them. It's hilarious when his plans fail. He deserves to fail because he doesn't think ahead or learn from his past mistakes. Resilient and persistent but neither resourceful or innovative, BHG is just pathetic.

Lewis, on the other hand, is driven by his desire to find his birth-mother. He studies through the night, attends university lectures uninvited -- and still dares to question the lecturer for more information -- and applies his learning to create a device that will help him achieve his goal. All he needs is encouragement and a realization that his many failures are necessary stepping stones towards the success that has so far eluded him. The bigger the goal, the more steps it takes. Lewis we root for, and hope that he will eventually find the belonging he so desires.

Perhaps it's because I don't earn a million bucks a year that's why I'm thinking: if I'm already earning a million bucks a year, how could the prospect of earning another half-million or so possibly motivate me any further to work harder, or be any less corrupt than I already am?

Sure, I'm grateful for my own pay rises and annual increments, but then I have room to upgrade and improve my lifestyle. But once we reach a certain tax bracket, how much further up can we possibly go? By then, we should have been able to afford all the creature comforts we could want, and then where does all the extra cash go? What good could so much money do, once we already have everything?

It's all a matter of perspective, though. We constantly tell ourselves that if we earned $x more, we would be happy, satisfied and have no worries about our future any longer. So when it comes to considering pay rises for our Ministers, we're all agape at how much more they'll be getting. While already comparing with their original pay, our salaries are a pittance. We think that already at their original salary, they should be contented because we are convinced that WE would be if we earned that much.

But perhaps asking the Ministers themselves if they are happy with their good fortune, or if the people are happy for them are the wrong questions to ask. The real question should be: now that we know how much our Ministers are earning, has 'politician' now become a viable job opportunity? Not too long ago, nobody wanted to get into politics. We'd rather abdicate ourselves and let the 'gahmen' make the decisions and solve our problems for us. But then, no one wanted to be the 'gahmen'. "No money in it," they'd say. But now that there's going to be plenty of money in it, I wonder if we're still going to be squeamish about getting into politics? If people still hesitate, then the pay rise would have been for nothing.

Big Boss calls our vocational institutes the 'jewel' of our education system. I wonder if the rest of our population would agree, and finally put to rest the stereotype that vocational study is where the Epsilon semi-morons of our society end up to train to do the necessary but menial jobs that no one else would want to do.

In my 2 years of vocational training, even as far back as '83-'85, the VI was certainly no dumping ground for cannot-make-it kids. Believe it or not, I was there to study Accountancy. The textbooks were thick and detailed, the tutorials no less gruelling than the ones we conduct in JC, and the fact that we all felt like bottom-of-the-barrel kids motivated us to study harder to prove that we weren't.

CCAs were free and easy, but they attracted quite a few talented students. I, unsurprisingly, got myself involved in Drama, and Debate, and was ed-in-chief of the institute's newsletter (omg, I just realized that in over 20 years, nothing's changed!).

These days, the institutes are pretty much equivalent to N American Community Colleges that offer diplomas and degrees in vocational skills. Both are run in Uni-like campuses, though I think only we have an image problem. Giving our institutes more recognition is a good move, and a timely one too.

Some other bits of personal trivia:
In the 2 years I spent in the institute, I was determined not to get involved with anyone so I could concentrate on studying and getting my Accounting qualification. Irony #1: I flunked the course and didn't get my cert after all. In 2 years, I simply couldn't learn to count, a fatal disability for a career in Accounting. Irony #2: a couple of years after I left, June arrived at the institute to study Secretarial duties. Despite my intention not to get involved with my classmates then, I married a fellow alumnus of the institute anyway.

Funny, the curveballs life throws at us.

Nice to see that old things can still be useful, even in a reduced capacity. Watson, my old desktop PC, once dead but now revived, had been lying around dormant for months already. Ever since Mr L33t replaced him, there wasn't much I needed Watson to do besides collect dust in the corner.

Today, Watson has a new lease of life. I donated him to the All or Nothing Cafe, my bro's workplace. So Watson can't play murderous, violent, bloodthirsty games anymore, but he can live out the rest of his retirement as a cash register for a Christian outreach centre.

Each one of us carries with us a gene that, while unique to ourselves, is also the result of several hundred-thousand years' worth of mixing different DNA strings in such a particular combination that it now defines us as the persons we are. Any tiny difference in the way your genes had been put together in all that time, and you wouldn't be you any more, in other words.

So the gene that we carry has survived up to this point in time, and our genetic imperative is to ensure this gene we carry will continue to survive by combining it with someone else's gene, thus passing it on to the next generation. And speaking in evolutionary terms, we hope that the new combination will improve the new genetic host, making it stronger and fitter to survive into the following generation after that, and so on.

Natural selection tells us that often, gene-lines come to an end because the genetic mix was flawed and was thus unfit to be passed on. These genetic hosts are therefore literally dead-ends, and deserve to be removed from the gene-pool because they were defective. These genes will not contribute to develop the species any further as the stronger, fitter genes that do get passed on to the next generation pass them by.

But although the biological drive to have offspring is strong -- after all, the more offspring there are, the more likely it is for the parents' combined genes to continue to survive another generation -- these days, the human species is making evolutionary history by making a conscious decision not to procreate any further.

Considering the falling birthrates that today's ST is pointing out in Taiwan (politics too unstable, therefore we'll not have kids), and throughout the developed nations of Asia, people are declaring themselves as evolutionary dead-ends, thereby voluntarily removing themselves from the gene-pool. Thus, they summarily end several hundred-thousand years' worth of their own gene's evolution, not because the genes are themselves defective, but because the current hosts are "exercising a choice" not to pass them on any further.

It's almost like saying that we are the epitome of our gene-line's evolution, and this is as far as it goes... because we said so.

We human beings think too much. We intellectualize our environment by assessing and analyzing risk factors and cost-benefit ratios. We imagine worst-case scenarios and visualize perfection, and are even prepared to hold out for it even though the ideal is only ideal because it is unattainable. We have developed over-complicated mating relationships, and possibly childcare duties as well.

Our big brains that we're so proud of, the one that has led us to evolve into the dominant species on the planet, could perhaps also be our greatest impediment to evolutionary progress. Evolving smarts has helped us immensely, but evolving too smart could in itself be a genetic defect. I can already imagine the gene-pool lifeguards yelling, "OK, everybody, out of the pool!"

Those of us who do have children, we sometimes think of in animalistic terms. We say that they "breed like rabbits," and we are aghast at men who have voracious sexual appetites, calling them "beasts," "wolves" and "buaya," but chances are, in the long-run, their genes have a better chance of advancing our species than those of the more conservative persuasion. If our wholesome couples persist in choosing not to have kids, we can be assured that the future will only belong to the horny bastard.

Now, there's a future to contemplate!

Dusted off my old street performance outfit this morning. 900 SAC recalled I performed an item for them a few years back, and commissioned an encore in honour of Easter Sunday today.

The piece is a short solo set to "Watch the Lamb" by Ray Boltz, a strongly narrative song. The performance was originally choreographed by Todd Farley, but I 'koped' it and modified quite a bit of the movement because the original was too slavishly literal, acting out the song line-by-line. Boring.

I got the music and burned it onto a CD as the only track so there could be no screw-ups in selecting the right song. I arrived early before service to do a sound-check, no problems. We were all set.

Just before the sermon, they introduced my item. I entered to appreciative applause, centered myself at zero-position, cued the sound-booth, and... nothing. No music over the loudspeakers. Now, that is quite an experience -- to have hundreds of pairs of eyes staring at you, expecting you to do something, and there you are frozen like a rock because only you know that technology had somehow managed to mess things up again.

It was a contrast of panic states: me petrified onstage, while in the sound-booth the techs are freaking out, pressing buttons, sliding sliders, double-checking connections, the works. That was it, I broke with performance discipline and went for a mike to buy a little more time for the tech crew to resolve the problem.

As I ran out of patter, they did get the problem fixed, sort of. The guys jury-rigged a laptop to play my CD over the speakers, but the sound quality was crap, barely audible and not quite doing the music much justice. Still, the show had to go on, and that was my show for the day. I won't be expecting rave reviews for this one.

Post-mortem report: during service, someone came into the sound-booth and made off with the cable connecting the CD player to the amplifier. A-mazing. I can be as careful as I ever could be, and yet someone else's human error can ruin the whole show.

Guess that's a clear sign from on-high: Thou shalt not quit thy day job.

Clan celebrated Uncle W's golden wedding anniversary last night at Ah Yat. The whole banquet room was full with our family, his in-laws and friends. Uncle W sure knows how to throw a party!

The food was standard 10-course Chinese fare, not quite spectacular, but then it wasn't the highlight of the evening. Most of the evening we were entertained by the 'live' musicians whose oldies repertoire took us past retro right into nostalgia. Each table had an ample supply of songsheets so we could sing along while we ate. Apart from the MC and the regular musicians, a few other 'guest performers' took turns with the mike, including a cannot-make-it blues singer who seemed to be making up the words as he played. Perhaps that's the nature of the blues?

I think June would have enjoyed the evening if she didn't have to go to Bangkok. They were playing songs from her favourite era.

But to think of a marriage that has lasted 50 years and is still going strong is such an inspiration. Uncle and Aunt have always been a loving couple, inseparable though all these years. In his address to his guests, he hinted at an incident many of us have by now taken for granted, and we got to see it from Aunt's perspective. She had to say 'goodbye' to him once when duty called, and she had no assurance that Uncle would return home alive again, or even if he would return home at all. But her unquestioning trust gave him the courage and assurance that what he was doing was the right thing to do. That operation is now a small, mostly forgotten, chapter in our local history books.

True love breeds true courage. 50 years on and looking ahead... for me and June, we've barely scratched the surface of what it means to be married to each other. As we sang along to those old songs, as we watched Uncle and Aunt dance... I really missed June last night.

I picked up C&C3, and after only 2 moderately successful campaigns on the GDI side I'm already getting my sorry butt severely booted by the Brotherhood, and I'm playing on 'easy' mode. So I like playing games, but obviously that doesn't make me any good at them.

No messing about with the venerable RTS formula for C&C3. Establish (or rescue) a base of operations, fortify base defences while simultaneously building up a massive army comprising a variety of capabilities. When ready, send the troops over the hill to wipe the enemy off the map.

The game is graphically a treat with destructible terrain and firefights that are awesome to behold. When units gain access to beam weapons and railguns they light the map up in a breathtaking firestorm whenever they encounter their opponents. Such eye candy makes even losing a few units bearable while learning not to do "that" again.

Setting the battles in context are live-action cutscenes with a number of characters played by actors on the sci-fi circuit. Michael Ironside and Billy Dee Williams head up the GDI, while Joseph Kucan and BSG's Tricia Helfer lead the Brotherhood. Helfer's BSG compadre, Grace Park (whoohoo!), lends a supporting role -- now, there's a reason to get through a battle and open the next cutscene quickly!

This is a game more suited for multi-taskers. There are resources to balance and allocate, favourite units to keep an eye on, and battles to wage on a number of fronts. People like me who can only focus on one problem at a time frequently have their asses handed back to them on a plate. Never mind. If I can't multi-task, I can still exercise my persistence and resilience, and the payback they get when I finally succeed will be sweet.

Well, he's a different Jim Carrey, anyway. Still playing crazy but in The Number 23, he isn't playing for laughs. His character, Walter, is gradually losing his mind thanks to an anonymously written novel his wife buys for him as a birthday gift.

As Walter reads his gift, he moves from indifference to mild interest, then to obsession and paranoia bordering on suicidal-homicidal tendencies. It's tense wondering what might send him over the edge. Walter's a bit like Carrey's other character, the Cable Guy, but with a deeper exploration into his psychosis and motivations.

The novel he reads seems to parallel his life and he comes to "realize" that the number 23 rules his life like a family curse. Applying numerology on the minutiae of his life -- e.g., name, birthday, address, memorable events -- somehow they all add up to 23, just like it does for the novel's protagonist.

As the gristly details of various characters' deaths in the novel come to light, Walter becomes convinced that they refer to real events, and that he is about to become the anonymous novellist's next victim.

For some people, literacy and mathematics are not a good thing.

Anyway, this whole numerology nonsense is all about finding things just because people start looking for them. We creep ourselves out observing the staggering coincidences between the assasinations of presidents Lincoln and Kennedy, for example. But if you think about it, the probability of the digits 2 and 3 appearing together at any time is as high as any other pair of numbers appearing together: only 1 in 89, if I calculate correctly. And when we accept multiples of the 2 digits, plus the reverse order of the digits, the odds shrink significantly lower still. 23 could rule your life as well! Coincidence? I think not!

I take Strip's Innuendo of the Week Award back. I will re-award it to my very own Department for the outcry we made about our staff welfare fruit entitlement:

Today's fruit was banana, and this batch was slightly underripe, had been left in the sun in transit and was personally delivered to us by HP.

Mel: This banana is hot and hard!!!
Me: HP, how did you handle my banana? Why's it all sticky???
Amy: It came like that.

Oooo...k. 'nuff said.

Xmac's Innuendo of the Week Award goes to the print ad in today's ST, page 3:

"Special clearance for virgin forests
Why beat around the bush any further?
Make STRIP your first time and we will shave half the price off"

The ad is for Brazilian waxing!

Brilliant!

So foreign students are kicking the butts of our local students in contests and in academic grades. Why's everyone so broken up about that? Speaking as a previous "foreign student," I don't find it surprising at all.

It's not the education system. How we educate our kids doesn't differ much from place to place. Sure, the packaging may look more attractive here and there, but the simple formula remains: kids either make the effort to learn, or they muck about and waste their time -- and everyone else's.

It's the fact that they're consciously identified as "foreign" that makes the difference. Like it or not, it takes a lot more for them to be assimilated into their host country, so they tend to work harder at it. Since they're going to stand out anyway, it might as well be for the right reasons than for the wrong ones.

They also have more at stake. The costs are higher to be based overseas, and there's the constant reminder that there's a significantly higher investment their parents have put into them than their locally-schooled compatriots. So if they like where they're staying, they'd better give their parents the expected (or better) ROI, or risk getting yanked back home again.

Besides, the personal investment is also pretty steep. Having to move away from friends and loved ones for a few years to study means making the personal commitment to make the separation count for something to make the pain worthwhile.

Having the best of two or more worlds gives them a huge advantage in appreciating and understanding learning points better than mere locals.Foreign students have a much larger worldview than locally bred students, being that they have the experience of another world, another lifestyle that they either wish to improve or live up to. After all, they're already living in a situation in which they have to ask questions and learn things quickly or they won't survive long in their strange new world.

Of course there are colossal failures as well, but we don't notice them much. They arrive with a big superiority complex and when things don't match up to their expectations they get homesick and flunk out. Good riddance.

But the fact is, the foreign kids who are doing well here are thriving because they really do like it here. That's something we should be proud of as their hosts. We must be doing something right to attract so many of them, and having them beat the pants off us means we have a new standard to reach for. The alternative is to forever remain stagnant, boring as ditchwater. And let the world pass us by.

As a foreign student, I surprised myself topping classes that I seemed out of place in: the only Oriental kid in English Lit. back then. Except for the class in feminist theory that was mostly populated by angry single-mothers, that is -- that one I hid under the table most of the time. As far as I knew, no one begrudged me my success. Perhaps that's because Canada recognizes itself as predominantly immigrant populated anyway, and it's a fact that we Singaporeans need to wake ourselves up to. We'll gain so much more if we learn to include rather than perfunctorily exclude.

Began the morning picking up the ladies for brekkie. I arranged to meet Aggie, Belinda and NBS (Dee absent with a bad back) at AMK station, then drove to the Siglap Killiney Kopi Tiam before reporting at today's Sports Carnival.

Smuggling in Q-tip in her pet carrier, we occupied the table right in front of the serving counter, and chowed down on the kaya toast standard breakfast set, Hokkien char kuay teow and mee rebus. Killiney's menu variety simply beats Ya Kun's hands down, and the food is up to expectations as well.

I had to carb binge in preparation for the staff Dragonboat event. Sports Carnival was at Bedok Reservoir Park this year, and it was inevitable that some of us just had to get wet. Peggy boss, JY, got us rowers together before the event to work on our technique and timing, and even attempted some kind of Mental Skills Training on us which we thoroughly dissed her for. But Team Peggy was ready.

No memorable victory would be complete without some controversy. Team FiFi insisted Peggy's boat cut their lane, we were sure they cut ours. Independent witness, NBS, said it was hard to tell who cut whose lane because all 4 boats (including Griff's and Drag-on's) seemed to be weaving all over the place, so I guess we'll just have to chalk it up as a hazard of the course. But we got the advantage and powered through to a strong finish. Yay! One more shiny new trophy $10 Sportslink gift voucher to display on my desk. Hmm... maybe I'll use the $10 to buy my own trophy?

Q-tip had a memorable day too. My willing dogsitters, Belinda and NBS took her around the park to meet people, lots of people, too many people. Had to put on her PR face at 110% while her stupid owner went Dragonboating. How exhausting.

Lunched with Aggie and NBS at New York, New York, AMK Hub. They have a gorgeous, meaty mushroom Swiss, drippingly juicy, and a decently sized portion too. It's great for cramming into the mouth and taking hefty bites out of, knowing there's plenty more where that came from. The ladies were tempted but declined dessert, as did I. That experience will be for another day.

Resting back at home now. Gotta go collect the Wongs from the airport tonight.

Dispensing with black-belted kids in rubber suits, this latest TMNT movie opts for straight animation. Makes sense, as the action is a lot less clumsy and the movie doesn't get hamstrung by bad acting. Still, the plot is horrendously full of gaping loopholes, the kind you usually end up with when you mix a 3000 year-old plot to take over the world with sci-fi mumbo jumbo. Apparently, when a bunch of stars align 3K years back, some megalomaniac gains immortality, but his kin turn to stone and 13 monsters get unleashed to wreak havoc on the world.

Cut to present day where aforementioned megalomaniac has become a corporate magnate and finds a way to reanimate his long-petrified brethren, who unfortunately, still have rocks for brains. Meanwhile, the Turtles have had a major falling out with each other and are struggling to find the groove that once made them the total kick-ass crew we know and love. And the 13 monsters must have taken a 3 millennia vacation 'cos until they show up in NYC a day before the stars realign, no one's ever seen them before. Odd, since judging by their size and violent tendencies, they're kind'a hard to miss.

Anyway, we don't care if the plot doesn't make sense. There's plenty of fighting set to a pulse-pounding heavy rock, occasionally hip-hop beat. The Turtles are edgy and emo, with a thrilling fight sequence between Leo and Raph; Casey and April (who's since learned to fight too) lend a hand; and the Foot make their presence felt with their new female leader. TMNT is a pure adrenaline rush -- just leave your brain at the door first. Oh, did I mention that there's plenty of fighting? :D

I'd say ties between the Arts and the English Depts have never been closer. The breakfast table these days is not as well defined as before. Likewise the dinner table tonight, where we gathered in one of the air-conditioned upper rooms of the Cafe de Caire in honour of Wayne's birthday.

From the Arabic menu, we ordered a selection of dishes: humus, kebabs, 'shrooms, mixed grill, and an assortment of dipping gravies for our flat bread and rice. The portions were on the smallish side, and didn't look like they would satisfy our table for 9. But the dishes kept coming in and after just a couple of rounds we were already full.

For the first time, I actually enjoyed a mint tea. The taste was cleanly tea-and-mint which is much more pleasant than the tea-bag type that tastes like hot diluted toothpaste.

The cake was from 3 Monkeys, chocolate which is always a good choice. This one came in an almost solid chocolate shell with a couple of fresh strawberries on top. Nice touch, though I noticed no-one ate them. Think we were at about max capacity by then.

Attendance list: Mel, Bong, Josh, Audrey, birthday boy, Linc, Amy, HP, me, in that order around the table. Absent with apology: Sha; absent through no fault of her own: Belinda.

My unstable wireless set-up at home finally collapsed and I went offline last night. I was seriously considering taking all my hardware back to Harvey Norman's and kicking up a big fuss about it, but it was already quite late and I was lazy. So for one last time I carted my desktop back out into the living room to reconfigure my router, calling customer support for any advice they could offer. Helpfully, they suggested switching the power off the cable modem and router before reconnecting both back to my desktop. Nothing I hadn't already done several times before. Duh.

Oddly enough, for once the router configured itself perfectly on my last attempt, the whole process finishing without interruption. Now everything's up and running again, as stable as it ought to be. As usual, no idea what I did right.

If anyone thinks I'm a tech whiz, I tell them the truth: it's just serendipity.

Edit 01:
Just realized I didn't have to move my entire desktop outside to configure my router. I have a laptop, don't I? Doh!

I feel like I've just been blogging for the sake of blogging the last week or so. Short, pithy entries, few details, awfully self-indulgent, and I'm not even sure if it's all been all that coherent either. Thing is, I've been getting very tired at night lately, and it's hard even to think straight.

I've been falling asleep earlier -- though not necessarily going to bed earlier. Whether I'm in my study marking or surfing, or whether I'm watching TV in the living room, my brain disengages at some time, and it's off to la-la land for the next couple of hours. When I wake up, it's already past midnight and then I have to drag myself off to bed for another couple of hours of sleep.

My sleep cycle is obviously severely disrupted and seriously needs to be reset. Starting tonight.

Back to wearing glasses again, probably for the rest of the week. I suppose that's better than having my eyelid grab my contact lens and dragging it up into the upper part of my eyeball every so often. Leow confirmed it's because I have a minor eye infection and confiscated my lenses. Said he'll have to keep them for cleaning and I should be able to collect them on the weekend. Meantime, I'm on anti-bacterial eye-drops 3X a day.

June left on her annual family vacation early this morning. They drove here in a cab to collect her at 0445 enroute to HK. Again. Have a good trip!

Today's service incorporated the first Enrollment Service of the 106th Junior Brigade of which SAC has become a sponsor. Their chaplain was our guest speaker, and part of his message was that though adults are frequently tempted by the little monsters to commit infanticide, ultimately children will turn out to be our most important investment in time to come. I think he must have been trying to recruit more volunteer officers to help run the company.

Let me think about that for a moment... nah.

The air-con unit in my bedroom had a surprise for us when we woke up this morning. When I turned it off, there was a small waterfall coming out of the vents, drenching my headboard. Then it made some odd cracking noises that went on for more than a minute, which prompted an investigation. As I lifted off the faceplate, a glorious sight greeted me. Completely covering the vents and sealing the filters in place was a layer of pristine white frost, smooth and perfect like the first snowfall. My air-con literally froze up overnight, and I'm at a loss as to how it happened, and whether it could happen again.

Should I call the maintenance guy again?

M2 went into Mazda for his 40,000 km servicing. Replacing engine oil, brake fluid, coolant, spark plugs and battery, plus doing all the other routine maintenance jobs cost nearly $400. Just thought all you non-car owners out there would like to know.

This week has been good for food and company. Tonight a section of our dept and Wayne went to the newly opened Punggol Choon Seng for a seafood dinner. This outlet is supposed to have survived from one of the original seafood joints at Punggol Point (well, that's the impression I got, anyway).

They serve an outstanding mee goreng, which I think is cooked with some chili crab gravy. It's moist and has a hint of crab flavour that whets the appetite for their house speciality, um, chili crab. For our table of 8, we ordered 3 medium crabs and 2 plates of mantou (June described them as 'cute', Josh just said they were 'small'). Juicy, fresh, fleshy crabs swimming in a generous dollop of chili gravy.

As Mel said, it's so seldom that we get to enjoy a 3-hour meal together. Tonight's non-celebration was special. Rounding out the table: Amy, HP, Belinda.

Met Jen for dinner at Le Point de Vie, a little French restaurant on Waterloo Street. June brought Pam, her friend from work, and Adrian made up a table for 5.

It's good to be among these guys 'cos they remind me what working outside of academia is like. Their responsibilities are immense, and their job-scope seems to be ever-expanding all the time. Keeps what I do in perspective, and I'm grateful.

For us, uninitiated in French cuisine as we are, we ordered a variety of starters to share: the brie salad (my fave cheese), the king-prawn salad (nothing new here), and escargot (flavourful with garlic goodness). We each ordered our own main course. As I was feeling adventurous, mine was the pork belly served with a large oyster mushroom. It didn't take much to fill me -- the pork belly had a layer of fat that made feel real full real fast. Dessert was another decentralized affair. We shared a hazelnut torte, a souffle in Bailey's sauce, a molten chocolate cake and what looked like a cocktail of nata de coco mixed with some high-class lychee jello.

Bill came up to $80 per person (excluding June whom we insisted shouldn't pay for her own birthday dinner).

Tonight's production of the Madhatters was quite a treat, considering we haven't been to the theatre in such a long time. The Madhatters are an improv comedy club that play their shows through a series of "games" somewhat similar to TV's Who's Line is it, Anyway?

We went to support Tina who sort of leads the group, but also because the show is a guaranteed good time. Based on suggestions from the audience -- and they sometimes can get quite outrageous -- and within a given set of rules per game, the company spins a story completely unrehearsed. Because it's all imagination and play (as in fun-and-games play) the humour is always unexpected as the performers switch scenarios and play different characters on the fly.

Tonight, in the game of "old job, new job", from suggestions from the audience, we had a scene in which a sex-worker turned dentist performs an unforgettable tooth extraction on an "unsuspecting" dental patient.

The improv musical numbers put the performers to the test as they have to sing about various audience members, given only their names and other small bits of personal information, and rhyming the couplets as they go. One song was about a Roberto from Milan who was an engineer but wanted to be a mountaineer instead. This song was particularly difficult as the performers could only take turns to sing one word at a time.

And as an unexpected tribute, thanks to Tina, June and I got our lives as a couple turned into an opera as the grand finale to tonight's show. Of course, the story was made up, but there were occasional flashes of "yeah, that is so us!" amidst all the hilarity. Bet Tina had always wanted to roast us ever since our wedding. But she behaved herself then, and tonight, she let her creative licence reigned unfettered.

Glad Mel pushed for us to go tonight, and Wayne too. A fitting reward for being good and marking my quota of scripts over the last couple of days.

Actually quite proud of myself having pia-ed through my vacation marking and completed it all in the last weekend. And, no, I didn't scrimp on my comments on the kids' essays either. Everyone got their fair share of unintelligible red gel-ink scribblings in the margins and wherever there was space.

Had to be done. Got another load of essays today from the block test, and another tight deadline to meet. Brain a bit fried now trying to read essays about the "relevance of moderation in today's society"... who came up with that question, anyway?

Kids keep saying that there are certain behaviours that need to be moderated or else terrible things will happen to the individual or to society. Therefore moderation is relevant today. Sure. Fine.

But this answer quite misses a major facet of the question. Why does the question put the focus on today's world? Obviously, there has to be some comparison between then and now. Has the world since changed in such a way that moderation seems no longer valid? or useful? or even advisable? What have these changes been and how have they altered our view on the concept of 'moderation'? Implications of and effects these changes have had on our lives? Well, something like that, anyway. Ok, really too fried to think coherently any more...

150 grams of pure beef in a hand-packed patty. Covered over with a layer of melty mozza cheese. Topped with sauteed shitake 'shrooms. Served on a bun with onion rings, tomatoes and lettuce; a mountain of fries on the side. Welcome to the Botak Burger, set meal edition.

Made the mistake of ordering 2 sets and dessert. There was more food there than June and I could finish. Or we're just getting to the age at which our appetite outstrips our capacity to consume. If we had ordered just 1 set and 1 additional burger, that would have been perfect.

Anyway, that was the first phase of June's birthday dinner. Jen's trying to put together phase 2, maybe Wednesday.

300 is the ultimate NE movie for adults. In an age that's fashionable to portray teenage nancy-boy GIs whining for mommy while they're leaking blood and guts all over the countryside, Frank Miller reminds us once again what "dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori" means.

It's been a long while since there has been a movie featuring a bunch of soldierly-type fellows so eager to die for king and country. The volunteer civilian army packs up and leaves first sign of trouble, but to the Spartans, "no retreat, no surrender" is the code they grimly lay their lives down for.

And for what? After all, Xerxes did promise to leave Leonidas warlord of all Greece if only Leo would acknowledge Xex as Grand Poobah Overlord of Everything. Bit of an expedition Xex has mounted just to make the Greeks call him "uncle," I'd say.

But Leo would rather die a free man than a puppet king of a larger empire than he knows what to do with. And that's the price of freedom, fought over and paid for in blood. What? And you thought your freedom was a basic human right?

Our move towards developing clean energy and the attempt by investors to buy over and redevelop the Goodwood Park grounds. These two stories on the ST cover today tell me one thing: no one gets rich using their own money. The clean energy article says that applicants will get funding for their research amounting to millions of dollars. The Goodwood Park article says a little-known investment company will "work with property giants -- from Singapore and HK -- to fund [the project]."

To get rich, we have to convince other people that we know how to spend their money better than they can. So to those of you asking how to scrape up enough capital from your meagre savings to start your own company, the answer is, you don't. Leave your own money alone, go borrow from other people get others to invest in you instead.

Or you could just be satisfied with your "steady" income. That's what kids train for in school, isn't it? Do your job, get a grade. Do a lousy job, get a lousy grade and probably a scolding as well. Ahh... the life of a salaried worker.

The word "wireless" is a bit misleading. What it means is that the mass of intestines connecting devices to each other is hidden away, sometimes not very skillfully either. Anyway, I have successfully made my house into a wi-fi hot spot, and hopefully that will make my wi-fe think I'm a hot spot too.

As usual, my problems boiled down to something inconsequential that I either did or didn't do. In this case, it was because I was using the wrong passcode to log into my own system. Having to remember so many passwords will eventually addle the brain. Duh.

Glad I still had time to go cycling at ECP with Amy, Belinda, JY and HP. 1 hour of physical exercise clocked in for the week. Wayne joined us for dinner, a carnivore's delight, at the ECP food centre. As JY said, it was good to get out and be silly with people after so many days of being cooped up, considering this was a holiday week.

Don't be surprised if I go offline temporarily. I'm attempting to set up a wireless network at home, but so far the process has been driving me nuts! I'm following the manuals step by step, and so far I've been very successful at setting up the cable modem and apparently, the wireless router. The fact that I can use my laptop to make this entry shows how amazingly successful I've been so far.

Now, why won't my desktop work??? Gaaaaaa!!! (and before you ask, yes, I did get a wireless adapter for Mr L33t).

A new study shows that exercise and smarts, particularly memory, are closely linked. The Greeks and Romans already knew that: "mens sana in corpore sano," a healthy mind in a healthy body. This means mandatory PE lessons for KI students! Let me go talk to Head PE to make the arrangements... heh heh...

Amy's suggestion to catch a movie a day is wonderfully optimistic and deserves a big grin. It's great to aim high, though the reality of our situation is that we really are swamped with work that demands our attention this week -- either deadlines that must be met, or face the prospect of an insurmountable backlog when term begins again next week.

Nevertheless, today we put her audacious plan in action. HP had a coupon for a 1-for-1 deal on the mixed grill at Billy Bombers, Cathay. The meal plus a side of coleslaw fed 4 of us, Amy, HP, Josh and me, quite adequately. Cost effectively, too.

After lunch, we watched "The History Boys". It was somewhat lighthearted, though not quite the comedy that the promos promised. 3 teachers tutor 8 promising young lads in the Oxford/Cambridge entrance exam History paper. Each teacher provides a different perspective of History and the boys struggle to make sense of it all. Much of the time, the boys don't see the point of some of the learning activities -- including improvised role-playing in the French language (even though they don't require French on the exam), singing silly songs, memorizing copious amounts of recitation, and opening up in free-for-all debates with no resolution. But they engage in the activities anyway, motivated as they are because they really are bright kids.

The boys also hit the library often, borrowing armsful of dusty old books to write essay after essay which get critiqued not for their knowledge content, but rather for the banality of their presentation. After all, the kids know their stuff, but they need to use their knowledge to intrigue the top brains in the top colleges in the UK if they are to stand a chance of getting in.

It turns out that through all the work the boys put in, they do become smarter than their teachers, and accomplish that which their teachers could not do -- read History at Oxford/Cambridge.

Of course, there's a little more excitement in the plot, but all I could focus on was how much I want KI to run like this History class. Activities function to practice and apply the knowledge the kids bring into class with them, and not merely teach for content sake alone. The onus is on the kids to do their research and their readings, to come up with questions to ask and debate over, and to decide what the agenda for the class will be for the day.

The movie wasn't so inspirational as it was a glimpse into what things could be like. The boys aren't perfect, and neither are the teachers, but they believe in the big picture and find a way to work together for the same goal.

Not sure what the rest of the week is gonna be like, but today's programme was a much needed morale-boost in its novelty. Much appreciated!

How did a little old lady end up at the AMK-CTE turnoff knocking on car doors and asking for help to get home? It was quite surreal watching her and her umbrella practically wandering along the turning lane in the twilight, knowing that eventually it'll soon be my turn to be thus supplicated.

And so it was that I opened my driver's side window and asked her what was up. She had overshot her bus stop and had no idea where she was. Fortunately, she didn't live too far away. With my sis-in-law at a loss to interpret her strange dialect, the old biddy handed over her i/c to show us her address. Cross-referencing it with the street directory, we figured out she lived at AMK Ave 10, just a U-turn away from the big intersection where we were.

Thankfully, she recognized her block when we pulled up to it. It was quite a relief seeing her totter home. Better a short detour than to be left forever wondering whatever happened to the crazy old lady we left stranded on the side of the road, and feeling guilty if something untoward had happened to her.

In the local news, the practice of "dropping subjects" in schools these days has generated quite a bit of excitement. People are indignant that teachers have become so concerned about school rankings, or their rankings, that they are advising students to drop their weaker subjects and concentrate on their stronger subjects so that there will be fewer failures and more 'A' grades produced at the end-of-year exams.

While scoring 'A's seems to be a positive thing for a child's academic records, people are upset that dropping subjects at secondary level effectively closes off options in fields of study at tertiary level. A dropped subject means a prerequisite lost for certain uni courses. Because Little Ah Huat dropped A. Math, he'll never become an engineer, and Little Suzie will never become a doctor because she dropped Bio. So despite the fact that they scored multiple 'A's in their other subjects, it's all meaningless because they can never be the doctor, lawyer or engineer their parents always dreamed they would become one day.

Which has got me thinking about our KI selection process and wondering if we've been over-selective with our kids. Granted, at this point, there's little advantage taking KI other than for its prestige. KI certainly isn't a prerequisite course for anything at the uni, at least not for the moment. It really is a lot of pain -- not the subject itself, but the burden of requiring extra time on the timetable to accommodate the extra subject, the time spent on additional assignments, and all for the dubious distinction of being able to say, "I took KI instead of GP at JC." Wouldn't the kids find it more profitable to go out and play instead, like any other regular kid?

I have a lot of respect for those who are tenacious enough to still want to take KI though, and I welcome them with open arms. KI was not meant to be an elite subject. In fact, I'd like to believe that we're pioneering a subject that will eventually be open to all comers. It's no use to us having just a tiny core group of thinking Singaporeans when all Singaporeans need to learn how to think, and not just replicate.

Still, last year's experience scared us a little, when a third of our first KI group dropped out of college because they couldn't handle the stress. This year, we wanted to protect the kids, and perhaps ourselves as well, hence the stringent selectivity the applicants went through. But really, if they really, really want to take KI anyway, who are we to stop them before we've had a proper trial period -- within what our limited resources can provide, that is.

But after the trial, we do need the right to determine if the student is suitable or not to continue. No one questions the probation period as an HR policy, so I don't see why anyone should question this whole "dropping subject" thing. Like everyone else, kids need to prove themselves capable of taking and keeping a subject. Showing a lack of interest, not submitting work, not being prepared for discussions, little evidence of wanting to improve, all these symptoms show a lack of aptitude in a subject. It's a sad fact of life everywhere: Sorry, kid, you're the weakest link. Goodbye.

Once again we've reached another term break. One week in which to catch up on neglected administration, clear the marking backlog and plan for the next assault on our next educational objectives. Somewhere in there, there are plans for a little R&R time with the department folk and friends as well.

It certainly has been a busy first term, in the sense of working hours and output -- and it's just the beginning of the year. Much of the work has been quite fulfilling. Things needed to be done, and there's a great feeling of accomplishment on completion, and despite working longer hours this year, I feel the time hasn't gone to waste.

Still, I detect a darker tone underlying my entries since the year began. I seem to be writing less about my friends, and more about my peeves and things that stupid people say that tick me off. Or about work. There's little time these days to go explore new places or try out new experiences to write about. Our movie watching record has been pathetic so far. Or we're too tired and simply wanna go home 'cos we too frazzled to do anything else. This applies to June as well as myself (oh, btw, June worked things out with her management so she's still got her job after all).

This really does look like the year of hard labour. I need a vacation.

Finished finalizing the new batch of J1 KIds. We set the bar high this time (no offense, Taily & co.) and selected 6, about 50% of our applicant list. It's tough making such a painful decision, but we think in many cases we're being cruel to be kind. The demands of taking 4 H2 subjects are not to be underestimated, so having learned from last year's experience, we're choosing to be more conservative this year.

I admit the selection process isn't 100% infallible. But we had to make the best decision we could under the circumstances. We turned away kids who took KI in other colleges and I'm sure they're gonna be sore about that for a while to come. They need to understand that we lined everyone up at the same starting line again. We tried not to let any preconceived notions bias our decision, even if they had prior experience in the subject (and had a recommendation letter from their previous instructor).

There are no guarantees in a situation like this, but we'll have to live with our decision and make the best of it now that the die is cast.

Today's taping session turned out not to be a straight interview as I expected. I walked onto a makeshift set of a talkshow. Me, Mel and Linc on one side representing the Arts; KW, Pio and Mich on the other representing the Sciences. I certainly wasn't prepared to debate the merits of one over the other, considering my position on the value of both. Thankfully, although our hosts began the show by trying to drive a wedge between our faculties, cooler heads prevailed and both sides steered the argument towards affirming that both the arts and sciences need each other.

Glad we could use the opportunity to clear up some misconceptions people have about our respective faculties. We ended up advising our mostly year 2 audience not to get locked into their labels, to follow their hearts and their passions, and not rely on textbooks as the only guide to life. Pio offered a nice analogy: textbooks are like travel guides, useful for acquiring a rough idea of the place you are about to visit; but having read the guide alone, you can't say you've been there if you never actually went.

Does it matter if a person is educated in either the arts or science faculties? Campus TV news wants to interview me on this topic... not that I'm any authority on the matter. I just agreed to it out of professional courtesy to a fellow campus news organization. Indulge me while I think aloud in preparation for tomorrow's taping.

As a general overview, both disciplines are essential to a person's educational development. The sciences help us understand our environment thereby allowing us to harness natural phenomena and employ them for our benefit. The arts help us to understand ourselves as human beings, and give us the ability to express ourselves and organize our relationships with each other and the world around us. So in a sense, the sciences look at us from the outside in, while the arts look at us from the inside out.

Both disciplines are important because they function best in partnership with each other. The arts power the imagination from which science draws the inspiration to seek new knowledge. But the arts also remind us of our humanity, which puts a brake on science, preventing us from going too far too quickly for our own good.

It's unfortunate that Education has split the arts and the sciences into diverging learning paths. The impression on us is that the two are pretty much mutually exclusive. The arts appear to us as idealistic and impractical, while the sciences seem rigidly pragmatic and insanely boring. Who in their right minds would want to be educated if these were the only two possible choices?

Usually, the deciding factor for students (or their parents) is in determining which course of study will lead to the more lucrative outcome. So rather than acquiring knowledge for its own sake, these poor kids chase an elusive price tag that exists only as a promise somewhere in the distant future.

For some reason, there's the impression that there's more money to be made in the practical sciences than in the airy-fairy arts. Hence the gross imbalance in the numbers of science vs arts students. And this imbalance fuels its own myth: more people are lining up for science than arts, therefore science must be better. It's the bandwagon fallacy operating on a societal scale.

Going solely on the which-makes-more-money premise, I would say that the most successful (I mean wealthiest) self-made capitalist pig-dogs (self-made to eliminate inherited money) are usually those who have integrated their appreciation for both the arts and sciences. They are 'artsy' in that they know how to work relationships with other people and sell them on story-like promises, but they are also 'scientific' in that they've been able to develop products to sell. It helps when their products work well too.

Gates. Jobs. Spielberg. Beckham. Branson. Trump. Or look at any world-famous brand-name. Arts or science? Smart money will say arts AND science.

Sadly, at JC level, students are already segregated according to their faculty of study. But that doesn't mean that they're set for life as "arts" or "science" people. As long as they don't rely on their textbooks to tell them how to live life, but rather learn to live life by living, I think they'll do just fine.

Just as I was saying NYconneX needs a bit more recognition, campus comms has decided to explore the possibility of helping increase our print run to double what we were producing last year. It's reassuring that people are starting to take notice and see the potential in us. In that, my journos have been instrumental. Without them, I really wouldn't have the confidence to believe in what we're doing, and continue finding new ways for us to grow. 'nuff said about that for now.

Last night's clan outing took us to a $15 per head buffet at the All or Nothing Cafe in Geylang. I think it was more for curiosity that we chose the location. We wanted to see where my bro was working at, and what he actually did there. So 3 generations of family descended upon him, at his invitation, of course.

The cafe is mostly a front for an outreach programme catering to the lost and wayward in Geylang. It aims to befriend the people on the street and offer a beacon of hope in one of the darker areas in our city. The locals have already checked the place out, and have deemed it harmless. Some have even offered business advice and friendly intel about the neighbourhood.

The organization employs ex-cons, a la the Yellow Ribbon project. The cooking staff are also walk-ins, and before last night's dinner the night chef walked out, leaving a crisis in the kitchen that had to be resolved one way or another.

There's so much potential for clash and conflict in this real-life scenario that if they had a good scriptwriter observing their operations for a week, a new local sit-com will be making its way to prime-time TV very soon.

Not an ex-con himself, my bro takes his job there as a full-time CIP. His job-scope is to do whatever's necessary. Waiter, receptionist, dishwasher, cashier, stage-actor, whatever. He was also prepared to take over the kitchen in place of the departed night chef, but thankfully the day chef was persuaded to take the night duty as well.

Dinner isn't usually buffet style. The cafe is more used to a la carte zi-cha, but last night was a celebration in honour of Purim. During dinner, the staff dramatized the biblical story of Esther to explain how this Jewish festival came about. Let's just say they have very little experience with theatre, and leave it at that.

It's nice that the family could get together again so quickly after the chili crab incident. Gatherings of the paternal clan are always fun.

How significant is a teacher's contribution to a student's success? The following represents the equation I referred to in the last entry:

Let x be the effort of the student.
Let y be the effort of the teacher.
x(y) = Z, where Z = the result of the course of study.

So for increasing values of x and y > 0, Z increases exponentially.

No tricks, no secret techniques, no shortcuts. Teachers can only value-add to the effort students put into their studies. No value multiplied by 0 can increase the value of 0. Both have to work together to achieve a desirable Z.

I daresay success breeds success. The shock and awe of the 2006 results showed us that great results can be achievable. That should give 2007 the confidence that working our collective arses off will indeed bring considerable returns in the end.

College is celebrating 'cos our 2006 batch has done amazingly well in the As, pulling in one of the best results in our history. While we are all pleasantly surprised and are speculating about what we actually did right last year, I would say that the biggest contributor to our success was that the kids got serious and studied. It's such a simple equation, there's no other way to explain it.

Guess I should be happy with my students' results, though for them I really do subscribe to the idea that they worked hard for their own acheivements. Congrats to you all!

Of course, despite the success, there will always be casualties and I can't help thinking about and empathizing with them. The Career Guidance team organized a briefing session immediately after the release of the results for these students, but perhaps 'immediate' was a bit premature. Only a handful of students showed up, while the others couldn't bring themselves to attend it.

Usually, a period of self-reflection would be what the students need the most first, and once the initital emotional baggage has been dealt with, then they can start thinking about what their next step could possibly be. With a clear head, new options become easier to see.

A level results out tomorrow. As always, it's tense even for us teaching staff 'cos we hope and pray for the best results for our students too. Regardless of whether they were monkeys or angels last year, we do want them to be happy and move on in life. So, A6 and S6A, I'm holding my breath in anticipation for y'all!

To keep our spirits up today, Staff Welfare arranged for a mass lo-hei lunch. No raw fish (to avoid mass food poisoning), but the salad and condiments were piled high ready for tossing. Cynth catered a rather non-traditional variety of buffet food items including pizza, quiche, hotdog wieners and Swedish meatballs, but I doubt anyone will complain 'cos it was quite delish. The mini-eclairs were heavenly, if limited in supply.

But I must hand it to Management which really knows how to make staff happy. Many of us have been labouring with laptops that were getting slower and slower with each new upgrade to the campus network. Our laptops had actually passed their use-by dates in January this year, and, lo, the Israelites lamented and wailed, decrying the horrendous lag that was the curse of system obsolescence. But today, only after a mere month of expectant resignation, we who had the oldest laptops got issued spanking new ones that promise all sorts of droolsome bells and whistles begging to be played with and explored. There's no unhappiness that can't be solved with the right technology. Yes.

My new lappy.

I've taken charge of the Debate squad over and above the journos this year, in case people don't know it yet. These 2 aspects of my now consolidated CCA are a world of difference from each other. Even I, Master of Compromise, am somewhat at a loss as to how the 2 could possibly work together without me suffering some kind of schizophrenic damage to my psyche.

For the moment, I've got more journos than debaters, though the CCA is generally referred to as 'Debate'. The journos have been putting out more visible, tangible impact on campus due to our weekly updates of campus news in NYconneX, though I don't really know how wide the reach actually is among our student body. NYconneX isn't likely to win any awards 'cos there aren't any awards out there to be won for our product (are there?). God knows, we need some recognition.

On the other hand, Debate takes the lion's share of my annual budget because debate coaches don't come cheap. The coach we've taken on can't come on Wednesday, so a concurrent CCA day is not possible for both segments. We've taken on the coach by faith as currently we don't actually have a debate team yet, while the existing JC1s are in 1st term transition. I don't know what the appeal of Debate is for the new batch, so I have no guarantee that I will recruit a team once term 2 begins.

So, yeah, huge worries for my consolidated yet fractured CCA that I sometimes wonder if anyone else besides myself cares about.

Still, in attending Debate training sessions for the remnants of our JC2 debaters, I've found the debaters to be committed, self-reliant, motivated and organized. And they haven't given up yet. Without a coach today, they trained themselves, and I learned enough to see that debate training can actually be quite good even for the weaker GP students. Debating is systematic, logical and structured, mature and critical (in the critical thinking sense), everything we hope our GP kids to be. Could there be some way to turn this observation into something practical and useful...?