Dinner at The Olive, Labrador Park. It was a special occasion, after all. Finished off another pile of marking; only another, oh, 997 more to go or so.

It was a cool evening up in the hills. Chilly, in fact. We were dining al fresco, and the restaurant didn't even have to switch on the overhead fans.

Stuffed ourselves silly yet again. We had a seafood platter to start and a 'shroom soup each. It came with a warm roll that tasted fresh out of the oven.

I had a seafood 'shroom linguini aglio olio, heavy on the garlic, just the way I like it -- you can see a bit of it in the pix. I had 5/8ths of the lovely thin crust pizza that June's holding, while she had the rest.

Too full for dessert. Came home looking forward to the tub of Chubby Hubby (how approporiate) in the freezer, but as of right now, there is still no room in our fat faces even for ice-cream.

Blogging from fireworks display at tg rhu!

Test pix via mobile post.

Testing: 1st attempt at mobile blogging. Will it work?

I seem to be on a roll with NE issues, probably due to the recent NDP, the big conference our bosses have had over it, and today's staff conference at which we spent much of the afternoon discussing possible implementation strategies at college-level.

I think a lot depends on us staff and how we ourselves buy into the ideas that we need to consider as members of our community. Simply put, if we adults roll our eyeballs at it, then we should expect our kids to do likewise. We set the tone, we set the example, and we're better teachers of the wrong things than we give ourselves credit for -- such is the perverseness of our charges.

We're also at fault for constantly presenting our kids with the scariest visions of the future which we promise they will inherit. We emphasize the threats to ourselves, the competition we constantly face, the endless work that will escalate as they grow older so that the hamster wheel of academic study will eventually be traded in for the Fitness Treadmill of Infinitely Increasing Speed when they enter the working world. And that's just for our individual, personal survival.

'Look at the next door kid -- he's scoring straight 'A's, not to mention your Pri. 6 cousin who's going to a top JC in the North; and you? In some crappy, neighbourhood JC nobody's ever heard of. How to compete like that, ha, boy? Ai... yoh...! No one owes you a living, you know?' As parents, we repeatedly flash this message that even our nearest and closest are our rivals and will snatch away all we hold dear if we give them half a chance.

If this is the life we promise our kids, then why should we be surprised when our kids turn a cynical eye towards their homes, their lives and their future? No one in their right minds would take pride in their society if that's how they view it.

The threats are real. Our constraints are all too plainly obvious. Our precariousness occupying this chunk of real estate in this 'hood is something our closest neighbours constantly remind us of. So, yes, our kids have got to be aware of these realities. But we've got to balance out the picture for them too, to show them that there's still something worthwhile to live here for.

What's worthwhile is for us adults to demonstrate in the way we live and work -- and I said 'adults', not just 'teachers'. While we work hard, there are other facets in our lives that we don't show our kids; whether out of shame, or because we don't wish to set the 'wrong' example, or sometimes because we ourselves have neglected those facets due to our own busy schedules. We play, we laugh, we joke and kid around among ourselves, we take time off to go wild and crazy and do silly stuff, we have a good diversity of friends we are close to whom -- rather than view as threats -- we mutually support and back up. Our kids need to see this aspect of adult life as well, though I suspect very few do.

Glad to see the bosses are thinking of how to make NE more relevant to our kids. Here are my suggestions:
NE needs to show that there's more to life than endless, repetitive work.
NE needs to show that the shared load is easier to bear, and that there are people available who are willing and able to share that load with us.
NE needs to create opportunities for the kids to simply have fun and socialize with each other, using any excuse that might bring people together: loud music, extreme sports, community theatre, whatever, keeping the teenage students' budget in mind, of course.
NE needs to provide a wide variety of experiences to kick them out of their dark, dank cupboards-under-the-stairs and out into a wider world where we hope someday they'll come to live in.
NE needs to allow the kids to organize some of this stuff for themselves so that they'll be assured that doing it their way is just as meaningful as they doing it our way (if not more so).
NE needs to stop focusing on the individual's patriotism, loyalty, citizenship and any other concept we can make the poor sod feel guilty about, but rather appreciate (NOT reward) service and/or contribution to the community as something from the heart, and not for personal gain.

Finally: "Too much 'me' in NE turns NE into an NE-me" (horrible pun I shall falsely attribute to P 'cos I'm sure he'll eventually discover it for himself, given enough time).

For those who think success in Economics is all about "regurgitative, vomit essays", RBong, who sits at brekkie with us, was venting this morning about how Eco students still have no appreciation for what their questions require but will just spew everything they have memorized as soon as they spot a familiar word or topic in the question. So take it from a senior Economics staff member: blind regurgitation is more likely to earn a smack than an "A".

On the broad scale, Eco isn't that much different from GP. Questions are unique problems that the student has to solve by constructing plausible solutions based on the knowledge fragments accumulated through classroom teaching and personal study. But every subject also incorporates a specialized language and vocabulary that are appropriate to use when discussing matters arising from the subject. Eco uses funny Latin phrases like ceteris paribus, and as Taily pointed out today, Bio defines certain concepts in particular ways (usually because such definitions are already quite efficient and elegant, and have probably been coined by their original discoverers, so we shouldn't mangle them with our own definitions, though that is entirely possible).

So, yes, memory work is still highly valued -- the way we need it to learn a new language -- but only so far as amassing knowledge fragments goes. Answering questions in any subject requires a careful analysis of what the question wants, then devising a solution accordingly, using the language appropriate to the discussion. We don't need graduates who are hard drives and encyclopaedia; we already have those at our fingertips so having more organic, walking ones would be quite redundant. We need people who can think, so kids, take it up a notch and start thinking for a change.

Happiness is sharing ice-cream with someone you love. In this case, it's a New York Super Fudge Chunk from Ben & Jerry's while catching CSI:Miami on AXN with June. Finally, a chance to sit and indulge after a loooong day shopping with the in-laws.

Yup, the Wongs went on a hunt for a whole new garden to plant in their new balcony, turning M2 into a greenhouse on wheels for today. We, with 2 nephews in tow, were off exploring the huge, new IKEA mega store in Tampines, and Giant supermarket. This complex of bulk retail stores have been around for quite a while already, but June and I have been so sua ku, we've not had an opportunity to visit this place until now.

It's like shopping for the Sims^TM. So many items to choose from to improve our material well-being -- from furniture to electronics to food and other household necessities. Crammed with passengers and their purchases, M2 has never felt so heavy to drive before. Last stop was back to our place where we collected our last passenger, Mimi, whose home is finally ready to take her back.

NDP was fun -- a great show and an awesome spectacle, but it isn't a patriotism-inducing event and it wasn't meant to be. All the excitement, the flag-waving, the sharing of common space with fellow citizens plus the state leadership all in smelling proximity to each other counts for nothing as far as nation-building goes. But as a birthday party, now there's reason for a rollicking good time if ever there was an excuse for one. There's no need to over-politicize the event, so when the Brown dude got all morose over it, it was such a wet blanket entry, I thought.

Since the nazis and the communists, we've become quite suspicious of large-scale nationalistic parades that we now view as brainwashing propaganda. We're now a lot more sophisticated, never again to be swayed like a brainless herd of sheep enforcing mob legitimacy for some bemedalled banana republic dictator. Never again, no, no, no!

C'mon, lighten up! Sure we have problems and other things to worry about. People don't have enough money to counter rising costs, transport sucks, there's no respect for the elderly (ahem), education is a high stress mess, our art and culture scene is a farce, a million and twenty-four things to fret over 364 days of the year. Is just one day a year to be thankful for what we do have too much to ask for?

Patriotism isn't about flag-waving, or banner hanging, or wearing the colours, or any of that outward nonsense. Patriotism is engendered by only 3 things in life: family, friends, and a roof over our heads. Family is the springboard, home base and supply depot from which we launch our adventures in life. Friends support the load, share the work, infect each other with motivation and drive, and fuel us with enough ha-has and :)s to keep us pushing forward when things get tough. And damned if I'm gonna give up any piece of that crappy roof over my head, especially when it's costing me 30 years of my working life to own it, friends notwithstanding.

So what does Nat Day ultimately remind us? That despite our troubles, our less-than perfect existance, and the overwhelming urge to point out that someone should do something about it, this rock is home to no one else but us, and the gaudy, cliched red-and-white bunting that waves above our heads is no one else's but ours. So there.

M-i-L scored tix to NDP@Marina Bay which June and I gratefully accepted. It was another spectacular performance of military hardware, dazzling pyrotechnics and mass talent. But dunno why this year, the crowd we sat among was listless and boring. There were quite a few uncles and aunties who weren't energetic and some better off Chinese families (judging by their awesome photographic equipment). I felt like an idiot clapping and going, "whoo!" At one point, I was the only one "Stand[ing] up for Singapore", but I didn't care. I'm used to being an idiot anyway, and I was there to have fun, stuffy, boring people be damned.

The only other exceptional crowd member got up to bhangra

A freefaller makes a perfect touchdown

A stately flypast accompanies the National Anthem

The madatory pageantry

The Pres gets obscured by a flurry of mad flag-waving

Sheares Bridge set alight

Nasty things. Glad they're on our side.

The party gets started in earnest

We have great seats! The firework display is smack in front of us.

Happy 42nd, S'pore!

The secret to academic success depends as much on our ability to forget as it does on our ability to remember. In our department, we do everything we can to help our kids remember: we provide lecture notes the kids can follow along while we lecture, like a monotone karaoke session; we insist they copy points we flash off our so-carefully prepared PowerPoint slides; we lace our lectures with facts galore because we worry that the kids don't know anything so it's up to us to fill their empty jars, ignite their unlighted candles or whatever turns us on. I wonder if all that effort we put in is actually counter-productive to what we want the kids to do at their exams?

The way we put so much importance on our lectures and the supporting materials therein presupposes that there is only one way to view an issue -- our way. So the kids get the impression that if they can recall what they have heard in lecture, or study their notes, essay outlines and compre answers we so conveniently upload for them online, that's all they'll need to get by in GP (or any other subject they take, actually).

Wrong. If that's their study strategy, all the kids are doing is taking in particular answers for particular questions, and heaven help them if during the exam the questions they prepared for don't appear; or worse, if they identify a question as similar to what they have prepared for but isn't actually asking for the same thing.

That's why the kids need to learn how to forget. Forgetting doesn't mean the information gets irretrievably lost. It's more of a coping mechanism to deal with information overload. It's a skill that allows us to distill the relevant through filtering out the irrelevant. It's an ability to take in what is taught, but break it all down to differently-shaped, differently-sized, multi-coloured Lego bricks. Of course, the more pieces, the more options, the more flexible their design structures can be, the more questions they can answer, hence the need to read beyond the lecture as well. So instead of memorizing a single monolithic structure per topic, they're amassing a pile of random playing pieces that they can put together in different combinations, forming different structures as necessitated by the different questions they have to solve.

For me, an ideal lecture would entail full engagement between lecturer and kids. No notes, nothing to copy, but everyone listening and asking questions as the need arises. Give the kids lecture notes, they don't have to listen to the lecturer since they already have the notes. Make them copy and they will neither be listening nor engaging 'cos they'll be too busy scribbling. We just need to expose the kids to information (structure is more important for the lecturer than for the audience), allow them to interact with or otherwise use the information to generate new knowledge, but as soon as the lecture is over, forget everything. That is, break up the impressive Lego structure that the lecture has constructed, rendering the information back into its component pieces, then throwing all the pieces onto the pile ready for use in the near future. Recalling that one has seen a Lego elephant someone else has built doesn't mean being able to build it for oneself as the need arises.

When it comes to the exam, the kids need to pull various pieces from the pile as appropriate to the question, and construct their answers accordingly. Doing it this way means the kid has to consider which Lego pieces go best together in what combination in order to present the best answer.That's exercising thinking and creativity, and taking personal responsibility for the choices they make as they construct an answer to their question -- and that's the point of the exam. And that's the kind of thinking individuals we want our kids to be when they graduate.

Ultimately, we want to hear the kids' own voices come through the answers they construct. We would like to see some passion for the topic and that they are writing about an issue they personally care about. Last thing we want is to hear our voices echoed (more often than not, badly) back at ourselves. So don't. Forget what we lecturers tell you because that's just one very limited perspective from just one angle of just one issue relevant to just one question. Lectures are only the packaging that we use to dress up the information we're giving to you.

Any kid can tell you, nobody plays with an unwrapped Christmas pressie. That's dumb 'cos what's inside is a whole lot more fun to play with. As beautiful as the wrap may be, the joy of Christmas is ripping into the package, discarding the tattered remains and extracting the toy inside for yourself. Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of yet another bunch of Lego fragments to add to your collection. Have fun at the exams!

There's a Psych paper on this idea of selective remembering and forgetting (which I've bastardized and oversimplified above). Just skip to the conclusions on page 7 if the reading gets too heavy! Or read Psychology Today's Camille Chatterjee for her comments on the same paper.

The Nat Day concert was a failure of coordination, highlighting the real but often overlooked need for a stage manager and at least one full rehearsal involving all performers and support crew. We had very basic technical glitches that kept the stage empty while confusion reigned backstage. The MCs eventually threw out their scripts and winged it while decisions and instructions flew in all directions as various personnel tried to sort out the mess.

Still, as Paul observed, the audience very patiently bore with the start-stop show, and offered their encouragement to each item regardless. But just because the audience is a tolerant one doesn't mean that we can get away with an onstage fiasco. Yes, everyone's busy; everyone has no time for a full coordinated rehearsal; but we have to look at the bigger picture beyond our own individual items or duties -- everyone pulling together for a great show. After all, isn't that the message behind every Nat Day celebration?

Anyway, I'm glad our mad piece of silliness got a warm reception. It wasn't entirely intelligible -- some of my directorial decisions could have been better -- but it was fun working with these guys: Mel, Wayne, Alvin, Lynette, Gilbert, JY and Loke. They run high on spontaneity, low on inhibition. Sigh. If only there was time, I'd like to see if we could pull some of these guys together to form an improv comedy club with some form of long-term sustainability. Hmmm...

It was nice to go back to lunch at Friends after so long. Since we discovered Aston's across the road went much easier on the wallet, the latter has become our Gardens refueling station of choice. Today, we had both time and money to spend, so Friends it was. Air-conditioned comfort, proper chef-prepared cuisine served in orderly courses affording time in between for polite and not-so-polite yak with Amy, Baggy, HP and Mel. Leisurely lunches are such a rare occurrence these days.

And our little houseguest, Mimi (L), has been staying with us over the weekend while M-i-L's been getting her new digs in order.

This latest sleepover, Mimi has been such a great influence on our usually antisocial Q-tip (R). Q-tip's habit is to spend every evening alone under our bed, popping out every now and then to see if we're doing anything exciting, like sneaking out of the house without her, or eating fruit or whatever.

But with Mimi providing competition for human affection, Q-tip spent this entire evening faithfully by my side in the living room while I watched TV, just like a normal dog for once. Guess we shouldn't underestimate Q-tip. She may look like a dumb blonde, but she can still learn new tricks.

Listening to: Corrine May's Beautiful Seed :)

I have a great job. There are mad seasons that spring up all of a sudden that drive me to exhaustion, but thankfully they are usually relatively short-lived. Then there are periods of... well, not quite rest, but a much reduced pace that I can use to catch myself up to speed and operate on cruise mode for a while.

This week, for instance, is Nat Day week. That means tomorrow's concert at which we'll debut our hastily choreographed piece of nonsense, then that's it for scheduled work until next Monday! That's a great opportunity to put a major dent in my mountain of marking, and squeeze in a life on the side. Breathe... breathe...

Still alternating between marking and moving, and squeezing a little personal downtime in between. The latter usually means taking a couple of hours past midnight to indulge in reading "Deathly Hallows".

Meantime, I'm quite proud of my marking speed: nearly completed 1 set of full assignments, only another 998 more to go... hur. And moving M-i-L's hoard of personal possessions has been an almost Sisyphian effort...

An unusually harrowing week ends on a pretty decent note. I've got a crew of sporting, slightly mad staff eager to make a spectacle of ourselves on stage at our nat day concert next week. For once, I have to yell at people and tell them to "Stoppit! No! Behave!" So much better to work with these guys who are willing to go over the top right from the beginning, than a bunch of drooling mouth-breathers who just wait around until someone tells them what to do. In any case, from zero idea, we've worked out a basic story-line, eschewing lyrical dance (which was Loke's original idea) for simple mime movement instead. We have yet to set it to music, but I think we've made impressive progress as of today.

And since it's Sha's birthday this weekend, we had dinner with her at Ichiban Boshi, AMK Hub. But because we were busy with different things at different times, different shifts of friends ate with her. It was an odd combination that I came with -- Mel, Wayne and Paul -- and we joined Sha so late she was about to have dessert while we were still looking at our menus. Conversation was loud and hilarious, innuendo flung around the table with wild abandon. Yeah, TGIF!

I've never seen so many piles of homework hit me like this before. I have assignments, tests, assessments, timed exercises, all pounding down around me like the prelude to a world-ending asteroid strike.

Then there are still a number of other little deadlines to tag (including tomorrow's Career Chat I'll be sharing with Amy at which all the sordid details of my time-obscured mime career will be put to public scrutiny, as will Amy's daily grind of ambulance-chasing as a tabloid journo).

There's also a little matter of a National Day item to rehearse for -- it goes public next week and our crew have no idea what we're doing yet!!! *hyperventilates into a brown paper bag that smells faintly of yesterday's ham sandwich

Oh, and the last 2 nights expending muscle and gasoline power helping the in-laws move into their new place add another layer of fatigue to this week's schedule. And as far as I can tell, the end is not yet in sight...

No peace for the wicked (Is 57:21).

Another week of deadlines to meet on top of everything else. We're like hamsters in a fish tank paddling like mad to keep our heads above water. Who asked us to be greedy for fish?

Got a fresh pile of essays to mark, and expecting another set in the coming week. Too busy and tired to make a proper entry tonight. NYconneXions has been updated, though, if you want something to read... zzz.

Another essay exercise for my kids means another essay from me to entertain myself with while overseeing the task. Question reads: "Science cannot explain everything; religion can. Discuss."

In answering the question I tried to be objective. Instead, I ended up sounding more aetheistic than anything else. Oh, well. Click here if you must.

Dinner at Mad Jack, in Jln Kayu. The old Teochew porridge place is long gone, and has since been replaced by this Aussie-styled burger joint.

This place offers a Halal menu, so no Q-tips permitted on the premises. Poor thing.

For just slightly higher than food court prices, we got a burger and a striploin steak. They offer a triple-deck burger they call a "Blue Mountain", but I chickened out of that challenge and went with the reg'lar ol' single-patty variety. On hindsight, I think I could have taken on a Blue Mountain and survived.

Love the patty. Tastes freshly hand-made before grilling. There's no filler or other nonsense holding the patty together, so it's pure meat and can still fall apart in the sandwich. Never mind, that's why they provide forks.

The fries are large but surprisingly light and fluffy, and go nicely with the Heinz ketchup proudly displayed on every table.

Still, while the food's pretty decent, I feel it lacks the presentation of, say, Botak Jones. Mad Jack's is stark, minimalist and fuctional, whereas Jones is overwhelming with the largesse of their portions.

Jones still rules the big burger places here in S'pore.

NYconneX seems to have touched a nerve with last week's project work article! And I couldn't be happier! There is a real discussion going on with angry, angsty comments in the tagboard. Finally, we're getting to the point where our readers are opening up and speaking their minds. Perhaps they aren't so apathetic after all.

The beef is about how some JCs have attained a miserable "A" "B" grade percentage in last year's assessment compared to others scoring astronomical results. The kids are upset that for many of them, their efforts didn't score them an "A" and they are bemoaning that PW is just a waste of time, should be scrapped... whine, whimper, sob.

There's no consistency in the grading, and supervisors have their own interpretation of what's important and give conflicting advice, depending on who's asking and who's answering. In other words, PW is one big giant complete mess and so what's the point?

People, arise and savour the olfactory sensation of fresh brewed caffeine. In the real world, there IS no consistency. Unless a group firmly believes in the worth of what it's doing (like maybe the Al-Qaeda), projects usually put people who hate each other together to work towards a common but highly negotiated, diluted, compromised goal. Group members are hell to work with -- we have control freaks; leave-me-aloners; slackers who need fork-lift assistance to help them turn over in their beds; slave-drivers; just to name a few. And in the real world, project failure is more common than project success.

An even bigger mystery is how some projects can be so utterly crap (check out the multitudinous complaints directed at the iPhone, for example) and yet, they are such commercial successes. NASA engineers scribble ideas on pub napkins (see Wolfe's "The Right Stuff") and they send astronauts to the moon and back. In short, why some projects succeed and so many others fail, no one can say for certain.

Part of the reason for a successful project could be in the way the project is ultimately sold. Regardless of how much effort goes into a project, how well it has been researched and tested, if no one buys it (literally and figuratively) it's wastebasket material. For our kids, I think many lose points for being unable to carry themselves confidently at the oral presentation. If they doubt their own project, it shows. If project members haven't been carrying their own weight, it shows. If the team lacks unity, it shows. If you don't believe in your own product, or your own rationale for doing it, who will? I wouldn't buy your product if your pitch went, "We don't know why we did it, but we won't go to university if we didn't." That's just stupid.

And what about The Grade itself? If we were grading the kids on how much effort they put into their project, how many late nights they spent on it, how many brain cells they sacrificed for it, how much TV and Nintendo time was lost because of the endless meetings and paperwork they had to file for it, and we didn't give them an "A", that would be grossly unfair of us. Unfortunately, that's not what we grade their projects on. Ultimately, we want a project that works, that is socially responsible in its benefits, and is something we can believe in. Give us something REAL, and maybe, just maybe, we'll appreciate what you are offering.

PW isn't about the grade, anyway. The learning comes more from the attempt and the experience in working with others towards a real and realistic objective. If you get an "A", maybe you'll get to go to the uni. But if you learn how to collaborate, solve problems, and sell your own creations to an audience, maybe you don't need university to get on in life, after all.

Caught the RSC double-bill over the weekend, together with the lit and drama kids. It was wonderful to see how lengthy Shakespearean speeches could be so visually arresting as they are being delivered. The actors move, position and pace themselves so well, the audience is looking at a constantly moving picture that is coherent with the speech. Nothing random or incidental in the movement, but nothing static either; King Lear may have been nearly 3 hours long but it was a fascinating experience nonetheless.

The costumes were lush, rich fabrics with very striking colours -- quite a contrast to the simple pragmatic set that transitioned quite seamlessly with the action. Set changes took place in full view of the audience, though in half-light. Like characters themselves, each piece of set entered with purpose and exited with purpose, so even these brief in-between periods were interesting to watch.

And the story itself is as relevant today as it was way back when. Who's gonna look after senile old dad once the error message on his ATM reads "Insufficient funds"? Even though the old man hasn't actually lost his wits -- well, not all of them anyway -- neither of his daughters whom he has generously given all his assets to will put up with his excesses, and instead plot to remove the decrepit inconvenience once and for all. Too bad the country has to got to war as a result.

Sir Ian got a well-deserved standing ovation for his portrayal of the old king. Such a range of human emotion, and such a drastic change of status plus the intermediate stages in between the extremes already isn't easy to play, let alone the fine balance between sanity and stark raving nuts that the old king teeters on. Whoa.

Chekhov's The Seagull was another quality production of the RSC. Played in contemporary English, it was a little easier to follow than King Lear, though the plot is just as convoluted. As Sir Ian clued us in on Friday, most of the characters are plagued with self-doubt. They struggle to meet their own expectations, which are what they perceive society expects of them.

Everyone is unhappy because they can't get what they want, particularly in the area of love. Each is in love with someone who is in love with someone else. In the attempt to gain the favour or even the attention of the one they love, several characters embark on a self-destructive trail leading deeper and deeper into despair. Some characters deal with their situation better than others, of course.

I guess this is true for the human condition. People's desires can never truly be satisfied, with each success, each conquest simply being an eye-opener to new heights to scale, new goals to achieve. Perhaps it's the difference between those who curse God for what they don't have rather than thank him for what they do.

Still, having said that, I personally support our right to be unhappy. I'd rather live knowing there's more to life out there, than being satisfied thinking that was all there was to life. Faint heart ne'er fair hand won.

Hey, 'deep, here's a recording of Sir Ian's spellbinding recitation so we'll never forget it!

Our special guest on campus today was Sir Ian McKellen whom his hosts, SRT, brought over. The RSC's on tour in the region and this was an opportunity to get up close and personal with the people in their host country, and our opportunity to interact with a real theatre professional with years of experience under his belt.

His audience were most of our lit and Drama Club kids, all of whom have bought tix to watch King Lear tomorrow night, and Seagull on Sunday afternoon. So this was an opportunity for them to thank us for our enthusiastic support.

There was a lot of excitement among the kids, and LT3 was buzzing right up to the time our guest walked in. The most keyed up must have been Mel, who played hostess to the event. She looked to the furniture arrangements, refreshments, liaison with SRT, and even as she assigned us staff with various duties to carry out (I got to be official PowerPoint slide clicker) we all took terms to calm her down. For the last couple of days as she was arranging this visit, she was a nervous wreck.

Sir Ian was a gracious guest. He thrilled the Drama Club's "Othello" main cast by identifying each one in the audience and addressing them in turn. Very few people can make this combination of literary, theatrical, arts kids quiet for long, but as he spoke, the kids hung onto every word. Whether he shared his personal theatre experiences, his observations of the Hollywood film set, or the real need for the world to seek acceptance for diversity, or his delivery of a 16th Century speech by Sir Thomas Moore, he had the crowd in awe.

Sir Ian's purpose was to promote theatre among the young people, and I hope that what he saw of "Othello" in the pix we showed him showed him that Drama is alive and well in NY! His other message to us was about welcoming the stranger, the foreign-born visitor to our land, which is a highly pertinent one for us to remember. For one thing, we commemorated Racial Harmony Day (not that I think he knew anything about it) today, and for another, it's important to remember that we are an immigrant nation after all, so if anyone needs to be nice to foreigners, it's us!

More pix:

Bade farewell to Gerald's dad who lived 6 more years after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. June and I dropped in at the wake for a short while, then had to go up north to help M-i-L begin her move her new house. Fortunately, the new place is only a few blocks away from the old one, and with the 2 trips we made with M2 stuffed to the brim with odd bits of barang-barang, we officially commenced the exodus.

The APEX people have finally uploaded their comments about NYconneX: "Intriguing presentation of very well-written, involving content -- a site full of appealing stories, reviews, news, and staff biographies makes for an interesting and very inviting site."

Not sure where they got staff bios from, but at least we know what worked. Now it's time to ramp up quality control for the new management team. APEX has linked our URL to their site, and we're already starting to get hits from the outside world.

The 'Swarm Theory' article in Nat Geo (07/07) has redefined the way I view leadership. (Warning: this entry contains more than a little self-indulgence, prolonged perusal of which may cause headaches or narcoleptic seizures).

I was observing Mel today and couldn't help wondering how it was that she could initiate a project that would cost students nearly $100 each, and she still had over a hundred students sign up for it. Similarly, Amy just announces on the quiet, "Let's go watch Shrek," and 500 kids sign up, pay their money, and Eng Wah's never seen a better afternoon crowd on a Monday.

If I tried something like that, I'd probably get about 12 kids signing up in total, and 8 kids will call me on the day to tell me they're dropping out, and can they have their money back, please.

Now I see the answer possibly lies in our different styles of leadership philosophy, and paradoxically, while their styles are particularly suited to lead people, my style works more like how Swarm Theory works.

First, I'm actually quite horrified with the 'hive-mind' mentality. There's no individuality, no free-will, just mindlessly doing the bidding of a central intelligence that does all the pre-thinking for the collective. Star Trek's Borg collective, for example, purports itself as functioning under a hive-mind. There is only one Queen who makes all the decisions, while the individual Borg do whatever she tells them to do, then go back into their closets when they're done. Often, they wind up dead.

But, surprise! The above scenario is quite the opposite from how swarms operate! The scenario is more reminiscent of how human beings organize themselves. A central government, often under the leadership of a charismatic personage, that rules by limiting the choices of the people. And people, while in love with the illusion of 'self-determination', actually like to be told what to do because it takes the responsibility and burden of choice off their shoulders. Life, after all, is complicated enough as it is.

This sort of leadership requires careful planning on the part of the central deciding body. It anticipates problems; plans contingencies; allocates resources; draws up SOPs, rules and regulations; and concerns itself with the 'fairness' of job allocation (you can abuse people however you like, as long as they still have the inalienable freedom to complain).

Each stage of planning reduces the choices people can make. The more detailed the plan, the more structured and organized it is, the fewer options are left for the individual worker to deal with. Hence, people gravitate towards micromanaged organizations which make the masses move more or less forward towards a predetermined objective. Predetermined, that is, by the leadership.

While Mel and Amy set very admirable objectives that benefit their students no end, other less selfless leaders have used central control to build monuments to themselves at the expense of their followers, or leave legacies of horror in their wake. In situations where individuals need to exercise thought and moral consideration, central control switches off the individual's mind, and absolved of choice, the individual simply "obeys orders". Think of the central controlling agencies of the Nazis, or the blind obedience of extremists to fatwahs issuing from dubious authorities with questionable motives, and we see how the system fails its followers, and harms others that are not part of the system.

On the other hand, it is the characteristic of swarms to have neither management nor organization that is held within an exclusive group of individuals that sets itself above the mass. The Queen bee simply lays eggs, and doesn't "control" the movements of any other bee, worker, soldier or drone. Each individual simply does its job based on the need.

No individual has a collective "big picture". They only see what's in front of them, but this information is relayed in an ever expanding chain (of information and not command, mind you) so that the collective group "knows" what needs to be done, what actions need to be taken, even if the individual has no clue what's going on.

When decisions have to be made for the group, personal evaluations are made of the options given, a simple voting process takes place (see experiment with how the test bees choose their new hive) and the majority wins with no repercussions on the losing voters. By swarm intelligence, the decision is almost always the correct one.

It seems odd to me that in a swarm, every individual exists as an individual and is respected as an individual. Every individual is trusted to do what is necessary at the time it is needed, without having to be told what to do. There is way more freedom in a swarm than in a democracy. How about that?

Unfortunately, human beings cannot move like a swarm. People place too much vested interest in themselves and so they can never feel equal to anyone else around them. People either desire to rise above their neighbours and dictate their desires for the group to comply to, or they feel powerless and refuse to make decisions even for themselves.

I certainly am no leader of people. I am a swarm of one.

Just brilliant. I get upset by a printer that refuses to print, and I take it out on the first person to say the wrong thing to me. And NBS was, I believe in all sincerity, just trying to be nice. My response was uncalled for. I wasn't being ironic, sarcastic, or even remotely humourous, as I am on the rare occasion. It was pure bile and rudeness, and immediately regretted the moment it came out. Way ta go, idiot. You really know how to push people away.

Fortunately, NBS isn't the over-the-top emo type. I don't think she took it to heart. Apologies for being such a piss-pot this morning.

I've always preferred the company of women. When a bunch of guys get together, there's very little else they can do except compete with each other as to who the biggest jerk is. The winner gets to be the leader of the pack, then they go looking for another bunch of guys to prove how big a bunch of jerks they all are.

There, in a nutshell, is how basically every gangfight, battle and world war starts. It's just testosterone frothing wild and unchecked, and civilizations get swept away by the hormonal tsunami. Just point to any place on the map that is experiencing some kind of conflict today -- Pakistan, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, southern Thailand, southern Philippines, Nigeria -- these are all hotspots for all those in contention for the Jerk of the Year award. These are also places in which testosterone has completely overbalanced estrogen -- either by physical demographic or by willful repression -- and there's no holding back the tide any longer.

Whether it's a government-backed army, a people's movement, a rebel force or terrorist organization, it's usually a large number of grizzled, unwashed, female-deprived males making up the main body. Maybe that's why God created Eve. Adam didn't need a 'helpmate' for assistance dealing with the animals around him, he needed help reining in the animal inside him.

Women, I find, are a civilizing influence, when they have the power to be themselves. For the sake of female company, men take the effort to smell nice, look presentable, practice basic courtesy, and have the opportunity to think of someone else besides ourselves. Ok, there are women who will observe that men are still seriously lacking in chivalry here in civilized S'pore. True, but we're not exactly the Taliban either.

Still, Asian society is something of a concern seeing as how our traditions place more value on boys than girls even today. Somehow, Asian families are finding ways and means of tipping the odds towards bringing forth offspring of their preferred gender, leaving a disconcerting numerical discrepancy between boys and girls growing up in the years to come.

It's bad enough when boys compete against each other for "fun", but when men compete with each other over women, that's when the s**t really hits the fan. That eventuality looks like it's not going to be long in coming:
Hainan's missing baby girls
Why baby boys are more sought after in Asian societies
Who will marry us?

Doh! Let's enjoy civilization while it lasts.

When I drive down Braddell towards Thomson, it always amazes me that the authorities actually bothered to split the road to preserve a giant angsana tree that's been standing in that exact spot for the last 80 years. It also amazes me that the tree is one of the oldest of its kind on our island. 80 years. My grandfather lived till he was 90. And by Sunday, this well-weathered octogenarian will be on the chopping block, yet another victim to Singaporean impatience and inflexibility.

Because, despite signposts and warnings, my fellow drivers refuse to slow down to accommodate the road diversion, thereby posing a danger to themselves and to other drivers on the road. It isn't like the little island the tree stands on pops up like a surprise, forcing drivers to slam on their brakes to slow down. The signs are clear and given well in advance, but still... around here, 'slow' is a worse profanity than that other 4-letter word.

And so, because our drivers are stupid, we lose yet another connection to the Earth, another reminder that our planet doesn't exist for the human species alone. In our mania to travel in straight lines at great speeds, we forget to bend, to sway, to enjoy being flexible and appreciate the variety of pace and rhythm, and everything else that makes life interesting in its diversity. And we shrug our shoulders while we complain how stressful life is.

It isn't just about a tree -- although that is sad in itself -- but there's a price to be paid for such callous treatment of things that inconvenience us in the slightest. The immediate punishment is to bear the shame of being associated with the many drivers that ultimately signed the old tree's death-warrant. The longer-term consequences that will befall us as a people for harboring such an attitude, I dare not even speculate.

You have to respect Dolores Umbridge. Of all the teachers at Hogwarts', she may be the most facistic, sadistic, self-righteous, self-aggrandizing, pain-in-the-butt on the staff roster, but you really must take your magic hat off to her grasp of pedagogy and how she applies it.

None of the students in the Defence of the Dark Arts ever learned the subject faster than when she was in charge. Her strategy is simple, straightforward, but most importantly, effective. She alienates herself from most of the student body (except for the students looking for empty titles and commissions), rules by decree and terror, clamps down on freedom, withholds knowledge, emphasizes theory over practice, and instead enforces study solely for the sake of passing exams. Hmm... sounds familiar.

Umbridge is such a horror, Harry and co. decide they aren't learning anything useful from her and they start teaching themselves, designing their own curriculum, and by fusing both theory and practice in their study, they are producing their own patronus by year-end -- advanced stuff for their level. People may hate her affected mannerisms, but, boy, the Umbridge Method brings quality results in the shortest given time!

Wonder if our students would take their subjects into their own hands if we stopped being nice to them, and started behaving more like Nazis and less like their friends? One thing I'll say about the Hogwarts' kids is that they trust and respect each other enough to accept teaching from their peers. What I worry about is that our kids have been raised to be so self-deprecating, so teacher-dependent they won't be able to do likewise.

Welcome to Urban Pooch -- a doggy day-care, grooming, supply store and cafe catering to the discerning palates of both human and K9 companion. Urban Pooch is at Monville Mansions, off Balestier Road. It's a tranquil little oasis compared to the heavy traffic of the main thoroughfare.

Finally, an eating place that's totally dog-friendly and specially licensed to welcome the likes of Q-tip's species. Here, people and dog may eat in peace at the same table. They won't necessarily eat the same food, but the doggy portion looks just as well presented as the human. Chix or lamb, Q-tip?

Service is very personal, since Raye seems to run the operation by herself. I think one of her perks is meeting all sorts of dogs and giving each one an adoring pat on the head. She's quite polite to their owners too.

Main courses come with a side of sup du jour. Today's happened to be a creamy homemade mushroom soup.

I ordered a honey pepper chicken and it came with a colourful side salad. Doesn't it look attractive?

One thing about the food, though, the doctrine here is to go big on taste. The chicken marinade is very generous, thick and rich. Personally, I prefer a more subtle flavour. I like my meats to speak for themselves, but then, I'm a purist about this sort of thing.

I believe the portions are cooked by the order, so next time I'll just remind Raye to go easy on the sauces and keep the meat simple.

If I had a superpower, it would probably be a very limited ability to warp reality to suit my whims and fancies. But it's not a power I have any semblance of control over, though.

Just last Sunday while shopping with June, I had a sudden inexplicable craving for donuts. I must have had a mental flashback of the Krispy Kreme in HK, but since there was no outlet within walking distance from Causeway Point, I had to settle for a plain sugared donut from BreadTalk. It wasn't bad, but not quite what I had in mind.

It takes about 2 days for my reality-warping power to kick in. Awaiting me on my desk at work this morning was a huge box from the Donut Factory containing a chocolate glazed and a plain glazed just for me. It was a Department treat and a motivational boost from Cynth. Must thank her for bothering to line up for them, and for somehow guessing the one item that would perk me up the most. Thanks, Cynth!!!

Then later at dinner with my in-laws, May, who just returned from the US miraculously produced 2 more donuts from... the one, the only, Krispy Kreme! How amazing is that?

So here I sit, stuffed full with a grand total of 4 quality donuts in a single day, eyes glazing over from the sugar rush that's kicking in right about now. What a great superpower!

Now, this is looking like the height of terrorism paranoia:

JI turns to business to help fund activities
It is believed to be selling magazines, VCDs, fertiliser, bread and coffee
By Leslie Lopez, South-east Asia Correspondent

JAKARTA - REGIONAL terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) appears to have gone into business to help fund its activities.

Suspected JI-linked groups have been selling magazines, VCDs, industrial items such as fertiliser and even everyday goods such as bread and coffee, an investigation by The Straits Times showed.

These businesses operate mostly in Indonesia. (ST, July 9, 2007)

'Ey, brudder, come inside lah. Don’t shy. Going shopping for the wife, ah? You come to the right place, man! What? Ya, ya, we just open shop. Everything also we got.

Groceries? Ya, we got bread. White bread, no problem… it’s my pleasure to take out my knife and slice the head off for you first, wait ah… Oh, you want the long one, izzit? Ah, that one very good for roti bomb, I mean, roti John, right? Can, can.

And coffee? Don’t worry, I got the best kind! It’s so strong, it can keep you awake long enough for you to drive your car through an infidel checkpoint just to see some fireworks! A once-in-a-lifetime experience, guaranteed!

You want to see some of my special stocks? Behind that shelf are our more… ahem!… restricted magazines and VCDs. Everything you want to know about the art of stripping weapons and laying bare the secrets of how to be the bomb at parties, I got!

I also got the latest Playjihadist™ where the centerfold model is fully spread out in little bits and pieces all over a public road. She's so hot, she's still smokin' -- show you everything she’s got under her ski-mask, and more!

Oh, fertilizer for your garden, ah? I tell you what, this one I specially import from that kuching kurap little red dot neighbour in the north. Ya, they call it the Straits Times™ but you and I know it’s really compost, correct or not?

Wah, your shopping basket is quite full already. Come, let me total up for you… Hmm? Oh, haha, this is a picture of my uncle, Osama. Ya, he’s my favourite uncle because his bins are always laden with good things. In fact, I get most of my supplies from him! I'm doing my best to support him in his old age, lah.

Brudder, if you don’t mind me saying, ah, why you let your wife make you go shopping for her? You should be more of a man, man! Eh, I know a place where you can get all the virgins you want, who exist just to give you pleasure. Come, follow me into the Men’s Department. There’s this extinguished, I mean distinguished, vest I’d like you to try. Ya, of course! You can’t make a big impression unless you’re dressed to kill…'

We're at Sun Plaza for the Canberra Family Day Cold Dish Cookout

June and M-i-L get busy dicing fruit

A short break to say something nice about the sponsor's products.

Phew! All done!

Ta-dah! It's our ever-popular Waldorf Salad!

But, whoa. Check out what the competition have produced.

We had to leave before we knew the results, but M-i-L hasn't called, so I'm guessing we didn't win this time 'round!

This friendly fellow welcomes diners to Beaulieu House, the little eatery in Sembawang Park. I was feeling bo liao myself, so to take some refuge from the remnants of mid-year exam marking that's currently frying my brain, I thought I'd have a little lunch here.

Odd that this place isn't that far from where I live, relatively speaking, but this is the first time I've ever attempted to eat here. Then again, when I'm here I'm usually with Q-tip who isn't allowed inside most eating places. Today, I was flying solo.

There's a warm, rustic charm to the interior. A little country, and a little history, after all, this quaint little Colonial house is supposed to have been the residence of some European Admiral at some point in the past.

On the menu is the option to go Chinese or Western. I was in the mood for a Western set lunch.

Despite the atas name and setting, the food is neither posh nor pretentious. The starter was a simple pile of fresh tossed salad covered over with French dressing. The main course, a chunk of boneless roast chicken, smothered in a little mountain of fried onions and garlic; chips; and more salad and French. Dessert was a serving of chilled sliced pineapple, watermelon and papaya.

The cuisine here turned out to be more of the home-cooked comfort food variety. There's quantity, and there's the feeling that someone you know, maybe Mom or Grandma, cooked this meal for you. That, and the iced tea, hit the spot this afternoon. Mmm...

The JC1 kids are off honing their leadership skills over at the MOE Labrador Adventure Camp, so I went over to snap a few shots for NYconneX. Can't have an award-winning mag if it isn't constantly kept up-to-date, right?

This batch of kids got to play on the high-elements while the other batch went topo-ing around outside base camp. All the climbing and descending from great heights looked like so much fun, I felt like joining in. Perhaps next time there's a training for instructors...?

But today I had an appointment with JY and Jo in the East. I promised to help Jo with 'blading, and for a beginner she seems to have learned the basics quite quickly. She's already able to walk forward quite confidently without support, so all she really needs is to work on her aesthetic. One thing at a time.

Both JY and I are so exercise-deprived we jumped at this opportunity to de-mothball our 'blades and get moving once again. JY's elated that after only one session, Jo is already tempted to go shopping for her own gear. Definitely some female bonding is imminent.

We, sans Jo, met Mel, B-lo and Haze for dinner at NYDC, Wheelock. Company's a bit different from the usual crowd, but no less engaging and noisy. NYDC offers a reasonable baked pasta/rice dish. I tried the "Three Amigos" variety, the "Three" referring to a meatball, Itie sausage, ham combo. Coated thickly with mozza, plus my own liberal sprinkling of Parmesan, it was quite a substantial meal for only $10.90.

Took M2 back to Mazda. They're recalling all M2s in batches to replace the front coil spring. I believe that's something to do with the shock absorbers, though what the problem actually is, I'm not clear about. Still, it's a free service and they gave M2 a long overdue wash and vacuum too. Job done in less than 3 hours. Didn't feel any different driving home, but will keep monitoring...

I found this little surprise in a UPS package on my desk this morning. Looks like NYconneX has finally got some recognition, at least from this organization that looks at the effectiveness of corporate communications publications and gives out this yearly award.

This award didn't exactly come out of the blue, though. I sent our favourite college newsletter webby in as a entry a few months ago, but considering we were going up against professional corp comms departments, all I could hope for was some constructive advice from the judges about how we could do better next year.

But to receive a Grand Award plaque was totally unexpected. Considering what our fellow awardees produced -- Flash animation, slick layouts, big attractive pix, layouts optimizing use of space, easy navigation -- for the moment I'm still wondering what we did right to impress the judges. The judges' comments will appear on the Awards website "in the days ahead", so I'll keep checking in until they say something about us.

This award belongs to Loga and the journo batch of '06-07, for with their faithful updating of content, with Christine's web design, with the variety of articles ranging from the thinking to the bimbotic, we are really getting a behind-the-scenes view of the college from the students' perspective, and perhaps that "inside" information about our college organization was what got the judges' attention. Just speculating for now.

Coincidentally, today was the inaugural meeting of the '07-08 journos headed by Clara. I just had to wave the plaque at them during the meeting to spur their ambitions a bit more. Hope I didn't overdo it with my gushing... heh.

I intake wine in very small quantities, very infrequently. Especially now that I drive, I've seen even less of the stuff than previously. A little vino looks good at the right occasion on the table, but generally, I'll pass on it if offered. My past experience with alcohol isn't a happy one: just a tiny amount of beer makes me puke my guts out, vino knocks me right out.

With this past history in mind, I signed up for the Wine Appreciation session Linc organized for the staff this afternoon. He promised cheese and crackers in between sips of a few different wines, plus I believed I would be in good, jovial company, so I couldn't resist paying $40 for the experience.

I honestly didn't expect to be impressed with the wine selection. Don't all wines taste the same? No they don't, as it turned out. For every bottle opened, I accepted enough to wet the bottom of my glass, but also enough to savour the different aromas and tastes of the New World wines the supplier brought.

Guess as an inexperienced drinker, I liked the lighter wines better: the sauvignon blanc and the merlot; while I poured away most of the shiraz and cabernet sauvignon. Taste-wise the latter were too tart for my mouth to enjoy. The surprise was the last bottle, an expensive, award-winning Old World Italian wine. In an instant, I learned that expensive wines taste expensive, and I understood why people would pay money for a good bottle. This one would have been a waste to pour away, so what I couldn't drink, B-lo cheerfully finished off for me.

The cheese that Linc bought also kept us good company. The cheddar was standard, but the spiced cheese, brie and camembert went well with the Carrs (both regular and peppered) as always. Fun as it was to crunch cheese and crackers between refills of wine, I'm glad we paced ourselves so that our supplies lasted the entire afternoon.

Oddly enough, all that vino didn't affect me like it usually does. I didn't drink much, but combining the 6 bottles we sampled, I must have consumed more than half a glass, the amount of which usually puts me right out. Guess it must be due to the pace we were going at: swirl, sniff, sip, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, sample cheese, sample cracker, sample cheese and cracker, sip some more, repeat a couple more rounds, then we're ready for the next bottle.

Our $40 fee also bought us a bottle of merlot and a bottle of shiraz to take home. Think they'll make nice Christmas gifts for the right people.

Not a day after the release of the iPhone, we are already getting reports that some people's motivation to fork out US$500-$600 for this shiny new piece of gadgetry is to smash it up just to see what's inside. Then they show off what they've learned by publishing their research on the 'net, like the folks at Wired mag did. Granted, 'Wired' probably used a corporate account to finance the operation, but other regular joes paid out-of-pocket too.

Would we S'poreans ever do such a thing? For a few weeks, I even kept the protective plastic layer on my Samsung's glass panel, just to keep pristine (*blush). And I paid a comparative fraction of what a new iPhone would have cost me for it.

See, the difference is that we S'poreans are ultimately end-users. We pay retail for a gadget, we max out its functionality, occasionally we personalize its aesthetic to suit our tastes, and when it gets obsolete we dump it and get the next-gen model. We don't care what goes on inside, we don't care what makes it tick. We don't work on it, we want it to work for us. We get maximum benefit, wring it dry, love it and leave it. There's a word for this kind of behaviour: superficiality.

We do the same thing with people too. Our maids, foreign workers, employer-employee, vendor-customer (both ways). We don't bother with what's going on inside them, what they're thinking about or what motivates them. As long as they work to our specifications, there's no trouble, but as soon as there's friction we're already thinking of a replacement.

For them Americans, they're willing to pay good money to settle their curiosity. They think about how it works, while we're busy wondering, "why doesn't it work?" They're busy tinkering, innovating, and making lots more money when they come up with a new device. We're just happy to buy new stuff. I ask you, between the California blonde and the SPG, who's the real bimbo?

If innovation is to be our future, how do we stop being a nation of sarong-clad bim-bots? It starts with what we teach our kids (ya, ya, I know, groans all-round). Each of our subjects have a certain amount of content, but we've got to deliver the content in such a way that the kids can engage it with curiosity. They gotta want to question the content, take it apart, and see how it works for themselves. We gotta stop emphasizing that simply repeating content back to us is evidence that they know their stuff.

We can start by getting rid of our biggest crutch: the "ten-year series", which gives the faulty impression that the questions will always be the same, hence the answers will always be the same. We should get rid of our reliance on 'model answers' -- t'ain't no such animal. We need to teach the kids to respect every question on its own merit, and help them develop the skills to systematically work out their answers, rather than spew out everything they can remember on the topic, which only shows how well they memorized their stuff but says nothing about their ability to deal with the problem.

We gotta teach them how to relate to people better too, too see people as people and not just another appliance to be used for convenience sake, or whatever. Of course, all easier said than done.

And, no, I'm not gonna start by smashing up my Samsung. Nice try.

ST asks if S'poreans are bad drivers. It's a valid question, after all the number of traffic fatalities is still high, incidents of road rage are on the increase, and we all could list a number of poor driving habits we encounter by our fellow drivers on our roads.

Generally, I encounter the impatient sort, the tailgater, the no-signal lane-changer, the idiot who speeds up to close the gap when I dutifully signal I want to change lanes. The morons who think my minimum safety distance is sufficient space to cut into my lane. Each incident raises driver alertness, but it also causes an emotional response as well -- anger, which often triggers a desire for vengeance or at least competition. All very dangerous impediments to safe driving.

There'd be a lot more of us still alive if we were a little more patient with each other, a little less in a hurry ourselves. Good luck with that in modern, busy S'pore, you say. Perhaps the problem isn't that the roads aren't safe enough, but rather, that our roads are too safe. According to the theory of 'risk compensation', animals and people tend to take greater risks the safer they feel in their environments.

Perhaps we need to remove our numerous traffic lights, our speed limits and warning signs. Get rid of our lane markings and do whatever else we can to raise the threat level on the road. Then perhaps our drivers will start taking more personal responsibility over the way they drive. Roads don't have to be safe. Drivers do.

Think I got this idea because I'm crazy? It's an idea that seems to work. Check out this article by Anne Casselman in Discover mag. Click.

Our popularity waxes and wanes like the phases of the moon. When nobody wants us, crickets chirp blissfully in the background. When we're needed, well... today for instance:

We finished mashing our egg-salad last night and took a 3-hour time out to sleep before buttering 17 loaves of bread this morning. Each slice thinly spread with an even coat of butter just so, in order to complement the flavour of the egg filling without overpowering it. We quarter each sandwich, so our target was to make 600 quarters before noon. Mission accomplished... just barely!

Showered and dressed, delivered the sandwiches to Bro in Geylang, then on to Queenstown to attend the wedding of Josh and Jan (pix left). In a compact little service involving lots of singing, they finally tied the knot in front of us (they had already tied the knot in front of Jan's folks in Bangkok a year or so ago). I always thought Josh reminded me of Bert, but as he sang to Jan, his easy-listening vocals reminded me then of Kermit's. Random thought.

Couldn't stay long, though the reception was quite yummy. We had a pot luck at Jen's place and we still had to go pick up dessert. Jen does a beautifully light pie-tee that we put together ourselves. She also cooked her Peranakan specialties while Adrian improvised an exotic chicken dish though he only returned from HK past midnight last night. Our dessert: Ritz apple strudel, hastily bought from Parkway Parade. We were late, and we'd just run out of imagination. Fortunately, Jen had a couple of tubs of Tiger Sorbet and Chendol ice-cream from Island Creameries to make our contribution a little more exciting. She's a great hostess!

Busy, busy day.

Not often Lucy requests us to join her for lunch, but when she does, she picks a great place to eat. Botak Jones, Toa Payoh branch, where they've also opened Brewski Jones (as advertised on the radio). Same heap of fat, juicy burger, fries and coleslaw for a measly $6, and a bit more for additional toppings like bacon, cheese, sauteed 'shrooms. It's such good value that a bunch of sec school kids seated at the next table looked so at home, like it was their school canteen or something.

The Botak Burger's a great big mess to eat with your bare hands, but there's no better way to enjoy its in-your-faceness, literally. The fries and slaw are the steady, take your time to nibble as you talk excuse to remain seated and stretch lunchtime as long as possible.

Lucy and B-lo ordered the hand-made margaritas from Brewski, while Amy and Wayne split a Stella Wayne had a Stella. The rest of us, HP, Josh, NBS and I made do with pop and fruit juice. Dunno what Amy had to drink. But all too soon, it's back to work and to our ever slow to dwindle pile of exam marking. Guess what we'll be doing all weekend long?

Well, maybe not me. I'm currently waiting to be activated to work in the kitchen. I have 120 hard-boiled eggs to mash into egg-salad filling for 17 loaves of bread. Bro needs a delivery of our special sandwich 'cos he's catering a buffet tea tomorrow afternoon at his restaurant. That, plus a few other items on our agenda for the weekend is going to keep June and me really busy for a while...

"Transformers" has to be THE summer blockbuster to watch this year. The scale of adventure and excitement goes over the top in comparison with everything else I've watched so far. For the portrayal of sheer destructive power and the readiness to use it; for the variety of ordnance and fighting styles in combat sequences; for the disproportion of the odds stacked against us pathetic humans in the face of an interstellar invasion and our willingness to fight on anyway, this movie simply took my breath away.

The plot is surprisingly tight, considering the number of threads holding the story together. There's ancient history, recent history, government conspiracy, different levels of warfare, and the human element all interwoven at a pace that just doesn't let up. What helps the story move is the clarity everyone has in their own purpose. Good is good, evil is evil, and the conflict boils down to survive or die. No further complications. You want anything more complicated, go read a book.

Left to our own devices, our terrestrial human weapons are already devastating. The sequence depicting an air-to-ground assault by US combined forces shows off the might of an A-10/AC-130 gunship strike. Our current conventional weapons can level a village in seconds, but that's what it takes to neutralize a single Decepticon invader which still can make a getaway sans a number of body parts.

As with Bay's "Armageddon", our species deserves to continue surviving because we will fight tooth and nail for the right to. While the Autobots arrive to protect our species from the Decepticon threat, we aren't simply cowering behind our defenders, but we're fighting there alongside with everything we've got. Many times I could almost hear Churchill's inspirational "We shall fight..." speech while the battle raged onscreen. And I could just sit in my seat awestruck.

For me, of all the movies of this year, only "Transformers" has so far provided the biggest emotional rush I expect from a truly memorable movie. From the crazy but entirely-human human characters to the awkwardness of the Autobots attempting to blend in with their surroundings upon their first arrival -- you'll believe a machine can have feelings -- to the technophobia-inducing Decepticons who represent all those times when our machines have turned bad on us, the conflict pitting defenders and protectors against the invaders is so epic in scale, some scenes I was laughing out loud, others I was going, "oh no, oh no...", and in yet others I had tears in my eyes was weeping openly.

To sum up, I'll just quote Mel, my seatmate: "Whoa. Yeah! Cooool!" And to think I was never a fan of the animated TV series. Thank you, Michael Bay, for preventing this year's summer releases from being a total waste!

Hmm... for some strange reason, I wanna buy me a Chevy now...

Am marking the essay, "Greed is good." Comment. A nice, open-ended question. The instruction to "comment" leaves the essayist a lot of room to explore the concept of Greed, and its effects on us as a people, and its impact on the world. But because the discussion could literally go anywhere, it's of vital importance that the essayist nails down a clear definition of Greed and use that definition as a standard of comparison in order to determine just how good greed is.

For a more interesting discussion, we might want to define greed as an extreme form of human behaviour. We are looking for a clash of ideas, else an argument wouldn't be an argument otherwise.

If greed is extreme, then greed goes beyond the desire for more, and for better -- which, unfortunately, most of the essays I'm marking tend to stop at. Everyone wants more, everyone wants better, so what makes the greedy stand out? Greed pushes the limits of what is normally acceptable, tolerable and reasonable, in terms of quantity desired, and in terms of the methods by which such desires are satisfied, usually at the expense of other people.

So to answer the question, the essay must provide yardsticks (e.g., moral or religious) by which to determine the difference between normal, acceptable desire and that which goes beyond the pale, i.e., greed.

The essay should explain why people generally take a dim view of greed, but more importantly, show that there is a direct relationship between this extreme behaviour and the harm it brings as a consequence. There needs to be sufficient supporting evidence illustrating this cause-effect so that we can draw specific principles about greed from the examples cited.

But according to the question, greed is good, so how can this be? "Good" suggests that there is some benefit to be derived from greed despite its negative consequences. Again, the discussion needs to show a causual link between greed and specific (though perhaps unintended) benefits accruing to the individual or to larger society. Again, with the use of supporting evidence to back up the claim.

Now we have a clash of the negative and positive effects of greed, but to leave the discussion like this is neither instructional nor helpful to our understanding of greed. It's balanced, but boring.

A little insight would help spice things up a bit. Perhaps we could say that although greed generally leads us to some very negative consequences, greed is still an essential trait in people because it shows us that there is more to achieve in life, to push beyond our current limitations and makes us innovate and stretch ourselves to reach that which was once unreachable. Such has been the process of human progress. It is how we have thrived as a species and have come to dominate life on this planet... But at our current level of progress, can our planet sustain any more of our greed, or do we need to find a new way to progress before our greed kills us all? (Haha, how drama)!

Something like that.

In response to Taily's comment, no, I'm not bored -- not with blogging, anyway. I'm just bored. Period. I'm looking back at my recent entries and I see little else but moans and whines. It's like I've become a different me. And eventually, I got quite fed up with moaning and whining, and then there was little else to say. I needed a break, and I took one.

This past hols, I found more than ample opportunities to be by myself. People took separate vacations out of town, and there were days I literally didn't need to vocalize anything beyond a couple of perfunctory sentences to order food or whatever. As much as I appreciate the solitude as ol' Bill Wordsworth did once, I didn't find the experience particularly inspirational enough to write about. So I didn't.

I'm no people person, but I do need a few people with whom I can sharpen myself on and maintain my edge. My sense of humour depends on people to bounce off, but as you can probably tell of late, my entries have been losing their enthusiasm. Even my media reviews have become quite colourless. Boring.

Which is why I'm actually grateful the term has started. I grateful for having regular lunch company again, and I'm grateful for tonight's dinner in HP's honour, and the opportunity for light, easy, irreverent, silly chat tossed around the table once again. It doesn't happen as often these days, but I'll take what I can get.

I am becoming a regular feature at my local Silver Cross medical outpost. I've always avoided doctors 'cos once you start seeing them, once is never enough. It's true.

This time, I need medication for conjunctivitis, a.k.a pink eye (US) or sore eyes. Bloodshot, crud encrusted eyes, itchy and generally uncomfortable. It's usually spread by contact, so how I contracted it is a mystery. After all, I've not had contact with anyone for the last couple of weeks or so. Well, except for June, but she's healthy as far as I know.

But I have been subjecting my eyes to a bit of strain lately. My efforts to help Haunted Woods in their Altador Cup campaign this year has turned into an obsession. I've spent too much time scoring points for last year's champs, though at this stage of competition it's starting to look like a lost cause. Doubt we'll even reach the semi-final rounds now. So much for our hopes for a double. BTW, SingTel is finally offering the NeoPets Lutari Island download for most 3G mobile phone models now... except mine (boo hoo).

I've spent the rest of the time squinting at the tiny screen of my GBA, hacking and slashing my way through the most excellent Final Fantasy VI Advance. It boasts quite a pantheon of playable characters, most with unique abilities, so careful character selection is an advantage when performing particular tasks. Many characters upgrade their abilities in unique ways too, and there is a multitude of optional but fun side-quests to get involved in as well.

But playing FF6 on an LCD screen little bigger than the one on a mobile phone is hell on the eyes. Particularly when there are lots of indistinguishable details that the brain works overtime to decipher. Oh well, at least the ol' brain's been getting a little exercise.

Maybe that's it. Reverting to geek-boy, staying out of the sun (it's summer, for heaven's sake!), turning pale and growing mushrooms on my back and shoulders isn't the most healthy way to spend the June hols. No wonder I'm sick.

Tonight's dinner was a date June and I have been consciously ignoring since the beginning of the year hoping it would go away, but it finally arrived anyway. In honour of Fathers' Day, a distant cousin of mine invited my whole extended paternal clan down for dinner at the Ritz-Carlton. It was to be a gathering of everyone whose common ancestor went back up to 6 generations -- my great-grandfather. People I've never seen before in my life were going to be introduced to me as some relative or other, by blood or marriage. Well, you know how much I look forward to first contact situations.

I expected a much bigger turnout, but several families were unrepresented, so there weren't that many people there that I didn't already know. Well, there was mom's old colleague who turned out to be my aunt, a cousin from Edinburgh, and by some quirk along the generational line (and not because I'm that old) there was this little girl who was my grand-niece.

The evening turned out less painful than we anticipated. There was a little handshaking and a couple of exchanged pleasantries, but nothing uncomfortable or awkward. The programme promised table games, but thankfully the organizer conveniently ignored that item. As it was, there was so much on offer at the buffet tables, and it was a bit sad that there weren't more of us to help finish off the amount we left over.

After dinner, we had a bit of a sing-along worship session, followed by some preaching of good family values, particularly that of the Man's role as husband and father in the family. It was Father's Day, after all. It was a biblically patriarchal message, but it was my dad that set the example for us in a practical way -- he paid for dinner on behalf of the side of the family he represented. Thanks, dad! and Happy Dad's Day!

At the end of Week 3 of the June hols, with everyone I know out of town, I've let myself go wild and am now looking at my most unglam. Unkempt even. And there I was with June having supper at the Teochew porridge place at the corner of Upp Serangoon and Jln Rengkam. I'm all sweaty from the spiciness of the otah, and I'm all slobbery with sauces and gravies from the other side dishes. Then, wouldn't you know it, along walks by Faith and her parentals partaking of their evening constitutional. It's a wonder she recognized me at all. We have a brief flurry of hand waving and then, I suppose, as they continue walking she is probably explaining that the old scruffbag she greeted actually has a respectable profession, yadda, yadda.

Haha! Hi Faith! *waves