No, dammit! Where do such people get off running down the industry like this? The letter writer may have been well-meaning, pointing out the flaws in our system, but his whiny tone grates on my nerves as he casually devalues everything we do as teachers, especially when he suggests that we spend most of our time and energy "padding our portfolios" instead of teaching. And if he is one of our own, I recommend he check his attitude at the door.

He's right about the marking. Barely into the second term and the leading edge of a tsunami of assignments has just struck the beachhead. I foresee the red-ink blood of innocent ball-points being spilled over the panicked chicken scratched foolscap sheets turning the ocean crimson, but that's exactly how we devise our "individualized instruction". Every assignment gets our full attention; every sarcastic comment we scrawl in the margin a personalized chastisement for merely whiffling at rather than actually hitting perfection.

But that's just the marking. My colleagues are out there in the corridors after hours consulting individual and small groups of students. How dare you insinuate that they aren't genuine in their concern for their students' efforts to learn as much as they can before the impending exams? We could be making a little extra on the side giving private tuition, but we're expending our time to teach our kids for free. If our kids get great results, our kids stand a better chance at aiming for better opportunities in life, so at the end of it, who is the happier for the time spent? A happy kid is worth way more than a fat portfolio... and the beauty of it is, they're not necessarily mutually exclusive.

The appraisal routine may be a structural flaw in the system, but it does not get in the way of the job. Neither does it invalidate the work we do. Who asked anybody to attend courses that are irrelevant to them either professionally or personally? Who asked anybody to initiate ideas they don't believe in or put forward just for show? If we don't have an interest to learn new tricks or try new ideas then what the heck are we teaching our kids? That knowledge is finite and conformity is the way to go? If that's the case, when we shudder every time we encounter instances of "padding" while vetting their graduation certs, we can't blame them at all. They were just following our example.

And such efforts ring so hollow, anyway. Who's going to believe a portfolio so full of such glaring holes? No wonder there are such disgruntled people as the letter writer. If I directed most of my efforts building this empty vacuum of nothingness, I'd be grabbing the nearest assault rifle and going postal too.

No doubt the job is tough. Every other job is too. And I know I'm not the hardest worker on campus (I have an award to prove it -- thanks, Taily and Que!). So many of my colleagues are slogging at it every day, and I will not tolerate without a response anyone disrespecting their committment with such impunity.

If the job's too tough, make yourselves happy and go. If you're simply concerned about stuffing your own portfolio, you're a bad example to our kids, so go. Please.

The Boyz are back. The new Boyz, that is, bowling their guts out in our industry's annual bowling tournament. Due to personnel adjustments, the Boyz were missing in action for two years. I'm surprised we're still on the organizers' mailing lists.

The new Boyz comprise Ton_y, Victor and "Andy", who took to the lanes in our first game of the tourney. It's going to be a grueling year with games every fortnight from now till November. Fortunately, it's a trios league so one of us can rest while the other three bowl. I took the first break to accommodate Drama rehearsals.

Competition is tougher than ever this year. Our opposing teams are fielding serious bowlers with horrendously high averages. From the first game, we're already 16/16 in the standings, though I confess I haven't the faintest idea how the points scoring system works.

BTW, the old Boyz are welcome to swell the ranks of our current team if they can spare the time. More of us means longer rest breaks in between games, otherwise we'll be flat out by the end. But, regardless, our policy of bowling our guts out and laughing our heads off is still our raison d'etre.

I have nothing but the Admiral on my mind now. Curtain is little more than two weeks away, and rehearsals occupy most of my free hours. Two more weeks to hold out... and hopefully emerge from the experience with my sanity intact anyway.

Fact is, my cast has been truly amazing. They've been a joy to work with, considering that the majority of them, save one, claim they've never performed on stage before. From being too embarrassed to even twitch weeks earlier, they've since learned to improvise their own characters with the little bit of mime technique I been teaching them along the way.

I'm so proud of my JC1 cast members as well. Out of nowhere, they volunteered to do some choreography for me and today I have a snippet of a salsa dance number to throw into the mix as an added visual treat. That's kinda' representative of how we've taken the Admiral script with it's deeply emotional, occasionally self-absorbed monologues and given it our brand of bizarre weirdness. We like that. Yes.

The kids are having fun with the play, and that's awesome to see. Can we hold it all together when play becomes intense, backbreaking work over the coming fortnight? I really hope so. Admiral deserves to be the play everyone talks about when they remember Drama Night in the years to come. And I hope they'll remember it for the right reasons.

When the 'papers report that unlike our less well-off neighbours who respect their elderly folk, our aged clean toilets to fend for themselves; and that our young people are rich and can afford "lifestyle aspirations" according to their whims and fancies, what are we to conclude about our country?

While it's easy and tempting to assume that only the young have privilege at the expense of the elderly in S'pore, and that no one cares about people after their recommended shelf-life date expires, we should realise that the reports are about two extremes in our society.

We sympathise with the old folks struggling as best they can to make ends meet, but the focus of the Amex survey targetted only a handful of seriously wealthy professional tykes and their spending habits. Doubt Amex was interested in asking about their spending on philanthropical causes (if any) so we'll never know.

The rest of us are just normal, everyday schlubs, who do too worry about our rising costs. From food to the latest ERP charges, we're working our butts off just to get by. Like everyone else.

Ok, so maybe not like EVERYone else. We feel the pinch, we complain a lot, but we have enough going for us (for now, anyway) to opt for cheaper alternatives if we have to. What can the world's poor do when even staple food prices spike beyond reach?

A cheerful roundup of the weekend news... Goodnight, and sleep well!

That's Tim on the left. Tim's my nephew. Tim's showing off his newborn son, Thomas, to the clan. I have risen to the venerable rank of Grand Unclehood. OMG.

These are Myco and her parents, Tim's in-laws, who are also meeting the clan for the first time, hence the occasion for our clan gathering tonight.

Some of us who supervise Project Work (PW) labour under the misconception that a good project is necessarily exceptionally brilliant in terms of originality and innovation. They expect to see proposals the likes of which they have never seen before, that will solve a problem they've never heard of, in a way that they'll never understand. If the kids can't reach this standard of inventiveness in their Preliminary Ideas (PI) submission, it's back to the old drawing board until they can propose something more acceptable to the US Patent Office.

True, someone raised a concern that potentially a PW tutorial (comprising 5-6 small working groups) could submit 5-6 proposals, say, for a similar Amazing Race style event. But, so what? There might be the problem that the Supervising Tutor will get bored stiff very quickly, but the PW marking criteria does not say that we should be looking to reward particularly novel or entertaining ideas only.

Besides, those of us who demand rocket scientist level projects will find themselves running into even bigger problems down the road. Ultimately, the proposals have to be both feasible and manageable to carry out by the kids themselves (at least in theory) and unless the kids make some very solid plans to do so, the most faniciful of ideas will simply fizzle out as no one -- not even the Supervisor -- will likely have any idea how to make something concrete out of them.

So no, we don't need plans that will save the world. We don't expect every student to be a mini Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, Edison or Da Vinci, in order to get a good grade in PW. There's enough room there for such exceptional students to shine, but we do not penalize students if they don't make that grade. How many of us could?

What do we look out for then, if we are marking for "Generation of Ideas"? We look to see how the proposed event/activity/whatever is appropriate to and is representative of the person or event that inspired it. We see if the proposal is able to match its stated objectives. We see if the kid can properly define the scale of the project, and estimate, acquire and manage the resources necessary to excecute the plan and make it work.

We are looking for practical, manageable ideas. It's ok to be derivative, as long as the kid modifies the original to suit the purpose of the project. So 5-6 Amazing Races inspired by the Israelite Exodus, Gandhi's march to make salt, Mao's Long March, Lewis & Clark's trek across North America, and Oprah's rise to become the highest paid female in the entertainment industry, sure, why the heck not? I'd love to see how our kids can make an Amazing Race (even in microcosm) based on any one of these legendary personalities. That's already challenge enough to keep their generation of ideas flowing.

Rehearsals for the Admiral piece have recommenced after a 3-week break during which the cast took their first major exam of the year. Ran the whole thing through for the first time, and it's a relief that save for one remaining scene the Admiral's fully blocked out in rough. That means all the movements and patterns are almost in sync with the script and the fine tuning can begin soon.

Must work on their diction and projection. They're starting to move quite nicely, but it would also be good for the audienc to actually hear what they're saying. Also, must remind them to consistently keep their energy levels up and not look like they're just waiting around for their next line or movement.

I have a great cast. Though the majority of them are beginners, they're committed to the play and are learning their roles quite diligently. I can see they're quite tired already, but they stayed till 2100 tonight to rehearse, no complaints. We'll be rehearsing till later and later in the days to come and that's going to test everybody's resilience to the max.

Hope there's enough time left to create a show they can be proud to have played in.

When looking for dragons to slay, don't announce it too loudly. Dragons don't fight fair. About half-a-dozen small ones have ganged up, and are surrounding me for a grand butt kicking. 'nuff said.

Meantime, celebrated a birthday at Sunset, location picked for its variety of beer labels available. Also, our table picked up the courage to try level 3 buffalo wings. Mixed reactions. A couple of us want to try level 6 now. The rest just burned up on re-entry.

Love Sunset.

This year, June's annual company incentive trip took them on a week-long stay in Brisbane and Melbourne. There was some hassle over flight delays departing and arriving, but she's home safe now! :D

Earth Hour has come and gone. I did my part too. I switched off all my lights at home and fled with Q-tip to Sunset for a nice, juicy steak. Sunset was crowded and I didn't have a reservation... and I was keeping a dog's company, so I got a seat at the outdoor bar counter where Jerry himself was holding court with his regulars.

When Jerry got hauled back inside to work, I found myself in the company of an American couple who were probably seeing each other socially. They'd lived here for more than a decade and a half already and the guy was well-acquainted with the small towns in Malaysia that I'm not even familiar with. Both are seasoned travellers, so far from their places of origin, yet so at home here halfway around the world.

So while I was hoping for a brilliant view of the sunset, I wound up socializing instead. That was good too.

I came home about 20 minutes short of 2100. For 20 minutes, I just sat in the dark, no fan, no entertainment. Just me, a dog and two cats, sweaty and getting sweatier, bored out of my skull. Only Maui was happy, practicing his 'kowabunga' pouncing technique on Kaiser and Q-tip under the cover of darkness.

As soon as my digital clock hit 2100, everything went back on and online again. It's no use... we're already too addicted to the light and the 'net.

Friends we may be in real life, but when it comes to battling it out for House pride, we staff become unbelievably partisan. But there is no rivalry between the Houses as is between House Peggy and House Fifi. It's probably because outside our Houses we are a really close-knit group, that's why our passions spill over when we compete against each other.

Before the matches, there's the drawing up of division lines, the trash-talkin' and intimidation... and some behind-the-scenes skulduggery going on as we pick our battles, choosing events that will give our sides the best advantage to win.

As reviewed by the Phys Ed folks Mel and I met by coincidence at Island Creameries for after-game refreshments, the staff games are the most nail-biting to watch as we go at each other tooth and claw. For us who played Modified Frisbee (it was Peggy vs Griff), bumps, scrapes and possibly bruises that will probably show up tomorrow were par for the course, from the collisions and tumbles that occurred all too frequently during the game. Even the P himself, who represented Griff and was the game's top scorer, wasn't spared.

The kids' games are usually less violent, according to Phys Ed. I figure we still recall the way we used to play when we were schoolkids ourselves. We weren't as safety-conscious then as our kids are now. Blood, sweat and dirt we knew intimately, having had our faces rubbed in it all the time. Games were unsupervised, improvised, and apart from a few basic ground-rules to remind us which game we were playing at the time, pretty much anything went. And that was how we played today.

The more civilized of us, though no less competitive, went on a trekking race through the Botanic Gardens, our games venue. Nevertheless, the tensions between Peggy and Fifi remained high, no one being too friendly today.

Peggy came out tops in both staff events, but that's the odd thing about us. We win our battles, but eventually end up losing the war. The day went to Fifi, so hey, congrats!

We shall reconvene for lunch, Monday.

Young, mobile, more adventurous than I'd ever give her credit for. I'd underestimated how badly my lunch companion of today had been struck by wanderlust as she talked about her options for moving out and moving on.

And why ever not? The world is so accessible to us these days, as long as we can contribute to the community or at least not make a nuisance of ourselves, anyone is welcome to live anywhere they want. Just pick up a random pin, plunk it on any random coordinate on the world map, and chances are, we could find ourselves there in person within the week.

So what's with my own inertia? I seem to have lost the drive, the desire to have adventures of my own. Perhaps I'm too settled, too comfortable, have too many responsibilities to discharge and debts to pay off.

I do know I'm not too old, though. And I'm not yet accomplished enough. Every knight has a dragon to slay, and I'm pretty sure mine has yet to challenge me. If it has it was probably the size of a cicak which I killed by accidentally treading on it. When I take stock of everything that I have, I feel like I'm living a life I never really worked hard enough to deserve. Shouldn't I go have another look at the radar to see if my dragon's looming on the horizon?

I have a mad fantasy. At some time in the near future, my pals and I will take over the college and we will be the ones making the policies and running the programmes. Today's news of promotions for quite a few of them is entirely heartening as now we are all one step closer to fulfilling my dream.

The news was also timely as I was starting to waver over my own next step. There was a little self-doubt for a while, a little loss of confidence, but I feel a little more encouraged today.

Why do I call the fantasy mad? My pals are too young, too mobile, possibly too impatient as well. So many of them have already left for greener pastures or new experiences. A few more are already making plans, weighing their options. I don't begrudge them their freedom. Few people these days keep a single career for life so I won't expect them to either.

But for today, congrats on your success! Let's celebrate your achievements and continue to enjoy each other's company... while we still can!

Cyclists on the road are totally abhorrent. Especially the ones that cycle like the Highway Code everyone else abides by doesn't apply to them.

This moron -- not some uncle-guy but a young-looking rides-a-bike-for-exercise guy -- blithely cycling against the flow of traffic just cut across my path as I was turning out from a busy intersection. I didn't see him as I was concentrating on the direction the traffic was coming from, and if I had been in a little more of a hurry, he would have discovered from underneath M2's undercarriage that cycling isn't as good for his health as he thought.

Fortunately for him, just as I was accelerating out onto the main road I could still hit the brakes with inches to spare from the juicy target in front of me. He didn't even blink, kept riding on like he didn't even notice how close he was to being introduced in person to M2's front fender.

If I had hit him, it would definitely not have been my fault. But I don't need the extra nightmares, nor the investigations, nor the expenses incurred either.

If cyclists want to be respected on the road, like Mr B is pushing so hard for, then they'd better start respecting the Code. Else stay off the road, stay off the footpaths, just stay at home. Period.

The Xmac & June Travel Agency went into business again. It was a whirlwind half-day city tour for June's Thai colleagues here on a business visit. Today was their last day in S'pore and time for a little r&r.

We began with some sightseeing down by the Civic District, looking at the government buildings, posing for pix at the usual tourist places. These gals just love posing for shots, as you can see on the left.

And because we had legitimate tourists in our company, we had an excellent excuse to take a ride on the S'pore Flyer, 'cos otherwise we wouldn't have bothered.

There's only one real reason to ride the S'pore Flyer. It definitely isn't for the excitement as at the speed of one revolution per 30 minutes, there is hardly any sensation of movement at all. The view is nice, but since we're already used to high-rise living and working, and our landscape being what it is, it isn't exactly breathtaking either.

Nope. The only reason to go ride in a transparent cylinder with 25 other people at a time is to absolutely go wild and crazy with a camera and take lots of "we were here!" shots. Cameras exchange hands freely between fellow Flyers for great mutually-assisted group photos.

There's nothing wrong with the Flyer itself, per se. The staff are warm and helpful; the big wheel operates so smoothly and silently there's a strong sense of security riding it; and everything looks very high-tech and professional. It's just that Fun is a bring-it-yourself factor, so future Flyers, be prepared to be sociable and feel free to camera whore without embarrassment. Nobody's looking at you anyway. And don't forget to look out the window once in a while. The view's still part of the package too.

We introduced them to some cheap local food at their request. They'd already been feted with Chinese seafood, Japanese and Western over the last couple of days and they were craving for a little local flavour.

Pressed for time, we introduced them to the food court at the Convention Centre. Didn't really impress them much, but we did a good job of clearing the plates anyway. Then off for some hasty snapshots of the big fountain before returning them back to their hotel to collect their luggage.

One last stop before the Airport: Mustafa's for more economically priced souvenirs to take home with them.

Next time we're in BKK, we'll have some new friends to call on who'll take good care of us. Nice to do our part for Thai-S'pore diplomacy!


more pix here.

I think Horton is KI material, and I'll explain why. Only not here. My re-telling of this Dr Seuss classic tale makes for long, tedious and cumbersome reading, not for the likes of these pages. If you are brave enough, refer to the following link: The KI of Horton.

BTW, the entry refers to the movie version of the story, not the original Dr Seuss book, which can be read as a social commentary -- as in, say, a parable of the increasing recognition of minority rights in the USA -- though it doesn't go as far as the movie in fleshing the characters and situation out.

I've never had to teach so many kids in such a short time as I did today. I ran four repeating back-to-back sessions involving a multimedia presentation as well as a physical demonstration. My muscles will be aching tomorrow.

It was quite the object lesson working with this type of kids. However much planning had gone into the schedule, there's so much unpredictability with the audience that whatever I said and did had to be on the fly. It helped that I had prepared a general structure though getting there was literally half the fun. Frequent questions from the floor kept derailing train after train of thought, and dealing with the occasional reluctant 'volunteer' (why do they volunteer if they don't actually want to do anything?) forced frequent changes of plan on the spot.

But from the feedback I got, I think the kids did learn something new and they did have some fun as well, which as I observe, seems to be a rare commodity during curriculum time. Yay! Mission accomplished!

An important date came and went quietly, marked only by a simple dinner at Akashi, which has reasonably (I say 'reasonably' as I was prepared to pay more for a special occasion) priced sets though it looks kinda' ex from the outside. A tempura-soba combination for June, a bento for me.

An animated movie followed to remind us that we were still young at heart despite the years that we have accumulated since we last regarded cartoons as a media staple. Yes, we watched 'Horton'. Wonder what happened to the rest of the title?

When I first encountered Horton eons ago, I actually watched it as an animated short on TV. It was Dr Zeuss brought to full, anthropomorphic, technicolor 2D-life.

The movie is all that and more. Jim Carrey and Steve Carell reunite (remember 'Bruce Almighty'?) to flesh out the characters of Horton the elephant and the Mayor of Whoville respectively. The two are great foils for each other. Horton is quite anarchistic and lets his imagination run wild -- oh, the anime sequence... -- while the Mayor is all constrained responsibility, tradition and order. No matter the character type, they both face the same problem: they both have acquired a new knowledge that threatens their societies' security and even their existence, yet no one believes them and mostly everyone is anxious to put an end to the insanity that they both appear to have descended to.

There's a great many levels 'Horton' can be read at. I hadn't seen the complexity before, but the book can be a great introduction to several of the concepts we will encounter in KI. I think I'll make it a required reading for the JC1s. Or they should at least go watch the movie.

ST's "Pets' Corner" party at ECP. Quite daring of the organizers to make the occasion open to pets of all sorts, canine, feline or rodent. There was an event for every species. When we arrived, the hamster races were on.

Our primary goal was to enter Momo in the "Cat Kong" contest. Heaviest cat takes the top prize of $150 cash. Momo, however, had her own ideas and protested so loudly that before we could even get to our lift lobby, we decided she had been traumatized enough, so we hurriedly made a U-turn and took her home instead. Just as well, as she was nowhere near the size of these behemoths, some of whom were more than double her weight class. This ginger weighed in at over 11kg!

At least Q-tip got something for her outing: a trim of her paw fur, a "pet"-icure, and an ear cleaning.

Back home, we needed to do some Maui-proofing. Now that he's big enough to jump up to the window ledge, we had to mesh up the window to prevent him from encountering the great outdoors from the wrong altitude.

And because we woke up (twice) to a gushing kitchen tap -- and we have no idea how many hours the water had been on for -- we covered up the taps with disposable containers to prevent accidental activations by careless kitten feet. Our water bill will be interesting this month.

Torrential rain couldn't dampen our long-awaited Batam getaway. Typical of mostly all our escapes, the only item on our agenda was relaxation at all cost, and there was little to do but relax as the downpours on Days 1 and 2 kept us indoors.

I kicked off my vacation schedule nua-ing through a 3-hour spa session with a tiny but sturdily-built masseuse. As I relinquished my bathrobe to her, I knew I was in good hands... and good feet as she commenced her assault with a stroll along my legs and spine. That initial foray softened up the ground for a thorough ploughing using alternating hot and cold stones. Once I was sufficiently reduced to a compliant pastry dough, it was off to the steam room to stew, then a bubble bath after. I ended with a foot reflexology treatment that I barely felt as by then I had already shut down my higher order thinking and was operating on motor function alone.

There was only one thing left on my mind: me hungry...! Just like my travelling companions who so kindly waited for me to finish my treatment before proceeding to dinner. Dinner was part of our package: nine assorted dishes of fresh seafood and veggies served with rice. Hunger appeased at last, we hung out at the lounge where the lounge singer got friendly with us and got Mel, Ton-y, Amy, B-lo and NBS to each sing a duet with him in turn. The rest of us -- HP, Wayne and I -- didn't make it past the Lounge Idol auditions. :P

Day 2 was entirely memorable due to the massive amount of rain that fell the whole day. It was a good day for the rest to get their spa treatments done, so between shifts we entertained ourselves just hanging out in our villas chatting, watching TV (no cable!) and occasionally dozing off where we sat. So much for Wayne and Ton-y's ambitions for a banana boat ride, but even if the weather was good, few of us were enthused enough to muster the energy needed for that.

We reconvened as a group for another seafood dinner, this time at the Rezeki, apparently the next best seafood place in Batam to the "Golden Prawn" where we had planned to go at first, then decided was too far away. We rode in two cars to get there, weaving our way around the many potholes that gave the narrow streets their distinctive character. We ordered an assortment of shellfish, crustaceans, a sea-bass and broccoli (for Mel), all very fresh and remarkably economical after splitting the bill eight ways.

Day 2 ended with a raucous KTV session back at our resort. Most of the song selections qualified as 'elevator music', but what th' heck, it made for a silly two hours' worth of late evening entertainment.

Day 3 was the day Day 2 should have been. Gloriously bright, hot sunshine, which saw us frolicking in the resort pool for the better part of the day. Unfortunately, the tide was out at this time, dashing Wayne and Ton-y's banana boat hopes once and for all.

After check-out, there was little else to entertain ourselves with. Did a couple of hours browsing through the sole Mega Mall, spirits buoyed by A&W curly fries and root beer floats served in tall chilled glasses -- a rare treat for us. That, and the J.Co donuts that we both scoffed down and brought home as souvenirs of our latest escapade.

I think the most important thing we've learned is that we're not likely to kill each other on trips. As far as travelling companions go, you guys rock!

Batam

Just a few of our holiday snaps from an unnamed location in Batam. It's such a great little hideaway, with comfy beach front villas, decent food, warm, friendly staff, and a lovely spa staffed with confident, experienced masseuses.

While I'm too tired to do a proper review right now, check out what NBS has to say about it -- she was blogging on-site.

Day 2.

Day 3.

Officially on vacation! :D

Back soon!

It may be spring break week, but it feels nothing like a break just yet. Between rehearsals in the morning and KI "chats" in the afternoon -- and more of the same tomorrow -- it looks like I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.

Today's sessions, while necessary, have been quite fruitful as well. The more I work Pao Kun's awkward script with my cast, the more I can sense the movement, the timing and the rhythms that'll make this show tick. Problem is, I have so little rehearsal time left I fear it's only going to be half-baked by showtime. And in any case, I'm only using the spoken text as a counterpoint to the movement, like background music to a piece of choreography (in the loosest definition of the word), that our rather literal audience is in for a head-scratcher of a performance.

In terms of real calendar time, minus the two-week block test period coming up, I have only one week left to curtain. Internally, I'm panicking. Thank goodness for the short getaway beginning Wednesday that's coming up...

Wireless PowerPoint presenters are all the rage right now, with one staff member after another buying one of these handy little devices for themselves. They're fun to use in lectures as we can untether ourselves from our mouse or keyboard and interact eyeball-to-eyeball with our audience, or at least get as close as our microphone cord will let us, without having to run back and click a button every time we need to advance our slides. When I braved the crowds at the IT Show today, that was one item on my shopping list.

The Logitech one I had my eye on, unfortunately was not on display. But I found an iSmart one, a totally brand new model that looked a lot sleeker than any other I've seen before. It was slightly longer and fatter than a fountain pen with the control buttons all within easy reach of the thumb. It had the standard advance-back buttons, in-unit USB receiver storage, a laser pointer and a couple of additional features. It functioned as a remote mouse using an in-built joystick and it also had a 128Mb internal memory for storing ppt files so there's no need to lug around a separate portable hard drive unit.

A couple of quick phone calls later and I had two more orders (from Jane and Jon) to add to mine. And then it all went horribly wrong.

The first unit I tested worked fine, but the second, third and fourth units all refused to communicate with the demo tablet PC at all. No one could get the cursor to move with the remote joystick at all. What took the cake was when the increasingly flustered vendor tried out the fifth unit, the cursor on the OTHER demo laptop moved instead. By this time, June was tugging my sleeve and quite audibly suggesting that we "go have lunch first."

I'm curious to discover the cause of this unbelievable cascade failure. Since each remote has its unique receiver, could there have been some mix-up in the packing of the units? I kinda' felt bad for the vendor. While I'm quite used to experiencing such monumental embarrassments on a regular basis, most lesser mortals might actually take it to heart.

These things don't generally occur at a product fair like this, so there's only two explanations that I'll accept: 1) Murphy strikes again, and/or 2) gremlins. Shoulda' remembered to lock them up before I left the house this morning. Net result: no sale.

Tense, worried, anxious about the impending release of final exam results last night. Tonight, relieved that while unspectacular, my '07 batch met my projections for them with only one surprise -- someone fared much better than expected, though all credit goes to his own efforts at the eleventh hour.

Still, what's got me thinking tonight is that the resuls have been largely unspectacular. Not excellent, not amazing, not stupendous, just... adequate, good enough. These results are sufficient to get them over to the next level, though they aren't going to win anybody any scholarships. Should I be satisfied with that, or could I have pushed them harder to do better than they did?

In S'pore, is adequate ever good enough?

The class of '07 will be descending upon campus tomorrow for the expected reunion at which we will collectively view the fruit of their labours. May my D3s and E2s be happy with their results. As for my intrepid 6 pioneers, I sincerely hope that your courage and trailblazing efforts are well-rewarded, and that the experiment has gotten off on an encouraging start.

All the best for tomorrow!

Drama Night 08 -- Walls

Drama rehearsals are so much fun, I've almost forgotten. Here we are right at the developmental stages of NYeDC's new original piece, "Walls". While we're crediting Steph as the scriptwriter, it's the cast's own soul-baring, their own stories, and their own workshopping that Steph has woven together into a coherent package.

While Steph's pretty much in control over on this side, I'm panicking on my end. I really need to give my own cast The Talk. If I can have their full attention for just another six weeks, I just know they'll do the old Eunuch proud. In the meantime, I'm grateful for my core cast members who are giving their all, and they've been doing some nice work to date. But the rest of the cast, however... just gotta iron out our scheduling discrepancies. rawrr!

Edit 01:
While the stuff below this para deals with how news articles should be written, my old buddy, Cherry-Ann, has something to say about how journalists should ask questions. Check out his entry: http://journalism.sg/2008/03/02/the-other-casualty-of-the-great-escape-mainstream-media-credibility/
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I know I ought to let go and move on, but even though I'm no longer with NYconneX I still feel the itch to drop in now and then to contribute my occasional 2-cents. I do believe strongly that we have the potential here to create a training ground for students who aspire towards the profession of journalism. Ha! Easy for me to say -- I'm no journalist myself, just someone who writes junk on a blog.

There's a lot of learning that we can acquire just by doing, as I have had through the couple of years I spent editing for the campus 'paper. But without the wisdom of someone who has actually been in the business, the learning tends to be limited and myopic. So, if there are any NYconneX journos out there who are still reading this, here are some sharp insights from SPH's Mr Ngiam about the job. He touches on journalistic professionalism, and the free press and censorship -- issues that a person of his experience is better positioned to advise on than I.

If I was trying to be a serious 'citizen journalist' instead of just some random mad blogger, I would feel humbly chastised by his words.

Fact: schools operate on limited resources. It would simply be fantabulous if schools could offer every co-curricula activity (CCA) under the sun, from Aiki-do to Zookeeping, but how can a school apportion its annual budget to keep every activity functioning? Should it be fair and allocate an equivalent amount of cash to every CCA? That'll cater to lots of interests, of course, but a pie can only be sliced so thin before each slice becomes meaningless.

Every CCA has its demands: equipment, attire, and training, for example -- none of which comes cheap. And contrary to popular belief, even schools are not exempt from paying for such, despite our lofty purpose of Educating the Young. So yes, unfortunately schools are also subject to the laws of supply and demand when it comes to allocating resources.

It's simple economics. Supplies and resources get channeled to where demand is highest. How do we determine how much demand there is for a CCA? The question goes back to the students: how badly do you want it? Will you put yourselves on the line, train hard every day, learn the skills to improve yourselves one game at a time, and leave a legacy that will inspire your juniors to press on with your passion once you've advanced to a new division? These are the CCAs that deserve the support of the school which will gladly pay to keep such passion alive year after year. These are the types of CCAs that companies willingly sponsor because they embody the values that the sponsors wish to be associated with. Such CCAs never run out of resources.

What of the other students who may have the interest, but lack the will rise to the top of their game? Or those who just want to play "for fun" not for glory? To these students, honestly, what do they need the school's resources for? There's no point for the school to provide them with professional grade equipment and training if they're just looking forward to a private game of tiddlywinks after class. If they're not embarrassed, I would be.

If students really want to play for fun, they can buy their own cheap stuff, improvise their own play space, organize their own games and play till their hearts' content. That's fun. Nearly any activity can be had with the minimum of resources and a modicum of ingenuity without having to waste precious resources if fun is all you want out of it.

Some people think schools are like Santa Claus, happily distributing toys to all the good little boys and girls. Get real. School is limited, more like a toy box. It may contain great toys or crappy, broken toys, mostly a mix of both. And yet, it doesn't matter because whatever toy in whatever condition you pull out of the box, a real kid will still be able to have fun with it. Perhaps our kids have forgotten how to be kids?

The Yorkies of S'pore met once again after a long break of, uh, a few years. Think our old Alma Mater must have got worried and sent down Prof Gerry (3rd from left) to see if any of us were still alive down here.

Fortunately, not only were we alive, but we were also hungry. Tempt us with a bit of food and we'll come running, no questions asked. We descended upon the White Rose Cafe, York Hotel (where else?) for quite a decent high tea.

Joyce had pre-arranged to meet me and Cat here, and we got to make some new friends from among our junior Alumni as well.

There was no formal agenda apart from the eating and table-hopping. It was nice to talk to people again about how much the old campus has changed, how the weather is still as gorgeous as I remember (yes, -20 below has a certain charm to those who've survived through seasons of flaky skin and chapped lips), and how we would never have returned if we had found gainful employment there.

I could have been part of the brain drain, I admit, but then if I didn't go in the first place, I may not even have discovered I had a brain to drain. Um, I do, don't I?

It's our society's own fault that people put off having kids till "later". Biologically, we are quite capable of reproducing in our teenage years, but society tells us that we aren't ready then. We're not (psychologically) mature enough, not financially secure enough, not socially stratified enough to bring a new life into the world, and we believe it. In fact, so many of us believe it so strongly that we still believe it well past our 40s when the peak our our hill looms just an Ollie away. We're not ready, we haven't got the money, we still have dreams we want to pursue that will presumably get us out of this social rut we're in before Baby ("Wah! Wah!", not "ooh, baby...!") ties us down irrevocably, once and for all.

It's society's rules that we have to get an education, get a job, get a mortgage, get insurance, pay taxes and do our part as a consumer of resources before we're considered responsible enough to bring forth offspring. If we strictly follow these rules, we'll never get to spawn at all as we'll never have enough personal security to know when we have met the prerequisites.

No wonder teens act up the way they do. They are physically mature but society keeps them immature with a brick wall comprising rules, norms and expectations that stands in their path. The collision is seldom pretty. Teens wonder why their parents/teachers/authority figures are so stupid; their parents et al, wonder what past sins they are being punished for. What a mess.


Which is why Juno is such a fortunate pregnant teen. Her friends and family take her shocking news with stoic resignation, then put their full support behind her decision to carry her baby to term. Instead of seeing the situation as the end of the world, they see more excitement in the potential for new life.

Despite the mistake she has made with her social timing, Juno is never alone in her predicament, nor made to feel guilty about keeping her baby even though she is still attending school. While she still gets stares from strangers and schoolmates who make fun of her, the people that matter to her continue to shower her with love and encouragement, making her burden just that little easier to bear.

Teenage pregnancy is no laughing matter, no matter the light treatment the movie gives it. Prevention is still better than cure, but if regardless of our best efforts as caregivers and it happens, it would be wonderful if the family just deals with the situation instead of making it worse through blame and recrimination.

Ultimately, it's Juno's courage, her commitment to do the right thing, her strength of character and her intelligence that salvages a bad situation and make it work for the greater good. Juno's a lovely character and a totally watchable movie if just a touch idealistic.

It's Chinese Drama Night on campus again. Tonight's performance of the White Cloud Gang was for the first time a feature-length production rather than the usual double or triple bill.

The plot involves a cursed Chinese hairpin imbued with unholy power by a vengeful butterfly spirit bent on bringing down a dynastic kingdom over the emperor's indiscretions with her. The curse is so potent and so transcendant across time and space that disaster befalls the present-day family and friends of a teenaged girl who happens to find the ancient hairpin while on a camping trip.

It really is thanks to Amy that I've got the plot figured out this far. With the absence of in-house subtitles, Amy kept a running translation of dialogue and situation for me so I wouldn't feel too far behind.

A couple of observations: performers seemed very anxious to leave the stage -- before the scene has had time to build, it was over as there was no one left onstage to engage the situation. As a result, the occurrences and encounters offstage often appeared more interesting than what was happening onstage. Too bad all the characters tended to be so conflict averse. Lots of spicy details could have come out if the characters had interacted with one another more, but everyone was just too much in a hurry to leave in a huff instead.

Also, too many unnecessary scene changes in long blackouts. There were fewer and faster blackouts this year, but still... The kids who write these scripts tend to write as though they are producing TV drama in which a quick cut can warp time and space in an instant. This convention does not work for theatre with a 'live' audience, obviously.

Wonder what people are going to think of our Eunuch Admiral play in April? Chances are, the audience will be just as confused.

Baggy's leaving on a two year vacation, following her hubby's latest job posting. Her bags are packed and she's almost ready to go live the life of a Sydneysider taitai (lady of leisure).

Boss ladies, Cynth, Jo and Amy sponsored the Bon Voyage cake to conclude our department meeting (left).

Now that Baggy's gone, I believe I'm the last one left of the staff that fell off the turnip truck arrived on campus that January of 2000, so long ago. So many have left already, and I am aware that there will be more to follow. The pond is starting to look emptier and emptier. It's occasions like these that remind me that this is a workplace after all.

Still, amongst friends, a small group of us -- who could spare the time -- took Baggy out for a farewell chix rice lunch. Even Vays dropped back in from maternity to join us.

The pix (left) was supposed to be the beginning of a longer series of farewell lunch pix, but I was thinking of my stomach first as usual, and carelessly left my cam in M2 while we ate. Duh.

Oh, well. Bye, bye, Baggy!

Got family in England riding out the big quake. The following is a mass email from our Mancurian colony, basically telling family here that everyone's still ok, not to worry:

"I thought you would like to know that it lasted for awhile, was 5.2 on the Richter scale and it felt like there was an elephant under the bed. I thought the cats were having a fight on the bed and almost shouted at them until Dan said it was probably an earthquake. The house then spent the next half an hour settling down, with much creaking and groaning of pipes. The in-laws, who were pretty much near the epicentre of the quake slept through the thing... I ask you? Poppy is convinced that the trampoline has walked off the patio onto the surrounding gravel...hmmm. Ok. end of excitement. Now I need some sleep."

Good idea.

Meantime, despite the number of nasty shocks Indonesia's had in the last few weeks and predictions of the "big one" yet to come, CalTech quake expert, Prof K Sieh, assures us that 'tectonically, Singapore's possibly one of the safest places on Earth.'

Good to know.

Matters of the heart are clear-cut and simple for the S'pore male, if what we read in the Sunday Times is true. How does a S'pore guy know when a S'pore gal likes him? He gets the privilege of paying for her meals, opening her doors, and carrying her handbags and shopping bags. If he's really lucky, he even gets to see where she lives when he deposits her at her front door after being entertaining, charming and generous with her during their romantic date.

It's also equally clear that when S'pore gal goes out of her way to make S'pore guy feel special, to cater to what the guy really wants without him having to work too hard for it, and even allow him to entertain the illusion that he might actually be interesting, witty and desirable, the warning bells of our more aware males clang with the intensity of a paranoiac Peter Parker's spider sense. If it's too good to be true, it probably is. Beware the "honey trap", set by the real girlfriend, baited by a fraud.

Whether the guy passes the "honey trap" test or not, the result is pretty much the same. The relationship has come to an end. If the sting is successful, she gains sufficient evidence to prove that the split was not her idea. If unsuccessful, it's still a clear signal to him that she doesn't want him to carry her stuff, open her doors and drop her off at home any more. Think of it as the ultimate going-away pressie: after he has spent so much on the dating, it's only fair that she spends an equivalent amount on the break-up.

It's unsurprising then that good ol' boy, Edison Chen, wants to quit showbiz in HK. It'll be so much more lucrative conducting dating motivational workshops for the hapless S'pore male. :P

Propaganda doesn't look like propaganda if you present it as a hilarious satire. In the DS Dollies' History of S'pore, few sacred cows survive intact by the end of the show. Every S'porean's pet peeves get some air time -- en bloc woes, personal taxation, parking enforcement, neighbourly relations, even the issue of ministers' salaries, all dressed in an amazing variety of colourful costumes, set to catchy beats and slick dance numbers, and slain upon the altar of uproarious, raunchy comedy.

The DS Dollies themselves are wonderfully energetic and versatile with their characters. With quick-change costumes and accents, they play a roughly chronogical series of vignettes involving a multitude of our favourite historical working-class stereotypes (and the occasional world leader). From pirates of the high seas, to the women entrepreneurs of the leisure and entertainment industry, to the samsui women, to the colour-blind kampong aunties, we get the sense that our current concerns are nothing new. Like we do today, our predecessors too could have faced rising costs, unsympathetic public officials, unequal income distribution between the leadership in comparison with everyone else.

As the sacred cows fall one by one, oddly enough we discover that it isn't unpatriotic to air our worries in public, or to laugh and poke fun at ourselves and our foibles. By the end of the show, we audience members are singing along with the Dollies' renditions of national songs, many of us waving our national flags (they handed each of us one during the interval) in time with the music. Despite our grouses about life in S'pore, we are still proud to be S'poreans.

But most of all, we're proud that even growing up in "straitlaced" S'pore, there's still enough homegrown talent to create the music, dance and comedy that make the DS Dollies franchise such a success.

Went to Kum Kum's wake a day later than my fellows had planned. June was busy and I did not wish to meet my long-lost school chums unaccompanied.

After all these years, apart from the moustache he sports, he didn't look all that different from the guy who sat behind me in our last two years of secondary school. Our inquiry revealed that he'd been battling liver cancer for a year already and had finally succumbed.

Guess he wasn't particularly inspired by our nickname for him, so for his official fighter jock callsign he answered to 'Mongol'.

So, to the 'Mongol' whose dreams of flying became reality in life, now the sky's no limit.

Took 12 J2s to the big general knowledge quiz at the national uni. There was a record-breaking number of teams participating this year with more institutions fielding more teams. The teams sat through the preliminary round in which each member had to complete a pencil-and-paper multiple-choice quiz comprising 50 questions. The top three teams with the highest team totals went on to entertain everyone else in the final round held in the afternoon.

The finals was vastly more entertaining than the preliminaries. The three teams representing AC, JJ and R, had to answer time-limited questions in three separate rounds. The first was a multiple-choice with no penalty for wrong answers. The second was a true-false with penalties for wrong answers. The third and last round was a Jeopardy-like game with opportunities to double points for correct answers, be penalized for wrong answers, and to shunt questions to a rival team hoping they don't answer correctly and threrby lose points accordingly.

Arch-rivals, AC and R kept 'sabo-ing' each other, leaving JJ virtually unscathed through the final round. In their all or nothing game, AC emerged victorious while R came off worst. JJ happily accepted second place, though not to take anything away from their performance as they answered their questions correctly when it counted.

Wonder if we could run a similar contest on campus among the CTs? It could make for a fun and educational Assembly session.

Bowling alleys. How hard can it be to find one to train in during the late afternoon/early evening hours? Yishun SAFRA fully booked for school tournament. CSC fully booked for school training. Star Bowl closed for a complete overhaul, reopening in July or thereabouts. My last resort was Marine Bowl, ECP, which had some vacant lanes at last.

Marine Bowl boasts the most basic of electronic scoring systems. The pin sweeper is wobbly and the setter occasionally loses a pin on the second roll. The lanes are narrower and shorter than any I've ever bowled in. But because the pins are packed a little more tightly together, it's a great place to rack up some easy strikes.

Bowling here can be quite an ego boost as the pins go down quite easily as long as the ball stays roughly on course down centre. Check out the scores of my three game series: 148, 212, 159. Now, that's a forgiving lane!

Just got word of the demise of an old school chum of mine. From his obituary, it seems he was an air force pilot of both fighters and unmanned aerial reconnaissance craft. No idea what happened to him, so I'll probably find out... if I decide to attend the wake tomorrow.

I'll just immortalize this story of him here: When we were classmates in lower secondary school, there was a cartoon on TV called Kum Kum. We nicknamed my friend after this character because they shared a similar name. One day, he got in trouble with our lit teacher who hauled him up in front of the class and gave him an earful. Thinking the tirade was over, my friend turned to walk back to his seat. But, no, our teacher wasn't finished. She stretched out a hand at him and called him back, "Come come!" I doubt she ever knew the reason why the class dissolved into hilarity at that.

The dog and bunny detectives never fail to amuse me. Sam and Max are into Season 2 Episode 3. This time the case involves returning the undead -- zombies; an emo goth vampire; and his Frankenstein monster -- back from whence they came.

For all the cartoon violence that has been a trademark of the Sam & Max franchise, this episode actually deals with death, though in its own loopy cornball fashion. Let's just say the undead in this universe aren't so bad once you get to know them.

As usual, as with any other point-and-click adventure game, there is a mix of easy puzzles and obscure head-scratchers, though for the latter, the solutions are usually quite 'duh' once you figure out that the game leaves ample clues to indicate what you should do next. The challenge is in seeing the connections, which usually fall into place only after lots of random clicking on-screen.

The one great moment in the game for me is in the exchange between the monster and Max. The monster tells his woeful tale of being the only one of his kind... alone, so dreadfully alone; "no one to confide in, no one to love," to which Max astutely replies, "No one to smack you and tell you to get over yourself already!" If Max wasn't the psychotically violent half of the "freelance police", he'd make a wonderful psychotherapist.

Finally gathered enough people together to throw Mel a seriously belated birthday lunch. We made up a table for 12 (including Linc who made a special guest appearance), occupying the entire bank of tables along the side wall.

The prices at Friends have increased quite a bit. What helped is that with HP's membership privilege, we got a 1-for-1 deal for every Executive Set Lunch we ordered. For those less mathematically inclined, if we had ordered 12 sets, we would have only paid for 6.

For $29 something +++ per Exec Set, we got a soup du jour (the fates arranged that today's soup combined two of Mel's fave things: soup and broccoli); a choice of lasagna, hamburger steak or sea bass; dessert which turned out to be carrot cake; and a choice of hot beverage.

To avoid the V-Day crowds, we held back till today to use the Spa Esprit@House vouchers I gave June for Christmas. She could have used them for one glorious afternoon of personal pampering, but she chose to buy a single treatment for each of us instead.

Spa Esprit@House is one of the big tenants of Dempsey House, occupying one whole floor of differently themed massage rooms and relaxing corners for tea and light reading. The set-up is modern and professional, and the rooms give a calming sense of privacy as they overlook the secondary forest area of Dempsey Hill.

We both opted for the 'Hot Stone' massage which fully focused on the back, neck, shoulders and limbs... whatever was accessible without having to flip us over on the table. Having slept badly the night before, I was grateful for the extra attention I got for the crick in my neck I'd been nursing all day. While the massage didn't make the pain go away entirely, at least it got soothed down some.

The massage was mostly the application of rolling pressure to the muscles. With the application of some wood-scented essential oil, ginger and black pepper, after a while I felt like pastry being prepared as piecrust. There was an odd disconnect between mind and body -- about halfway through the treatment I couldn't tell if I was awake or not. Mind in beta, body in alpha, a pleasantly weird sensation.

After a relaxing rub-down, it was dinner at Margatita's. I had no idea what I was in for when I ordered the lamb shank. I got two huge, meaty bones of stewed lamb with tortillas on the side. June ordered the mixed fajitas, chix and beef served on a sizzling hot plate. There was so much in just these two dishes, we couldn't get everything down. Way too full for the Ben & Jerry's we had planned on.

Next time, we'll split one main course and top up with a couple of starters and dessert. Or work out a solid week beforehand.

Off topic: Anyone looking for more kitten pix? Got a couple of new shots over on Flickr.

Pegging pay to performance is a contentious issue for the education industry. Facing a shortage of teaching professionals, the US has begun debating this idea to as means to attract and retain good staff. Attracting talent is not so much a problem. Wave enough money around and potential workers will line up around the block to submit an application. It's sort of like chumming the waters to bring the fish to a boat. But without appropriate tackle, hooking and landing the big fish is going to be a much more difficult proposition.

We need a better analogy to understand how the human resource of our industry works. How about a well kept aquarium instead, with a diversity of niches where different kinds of organisms can be at home in, be well fed, happy and can expect to live a decently long life? One of the mistakes the industry makes is to take a one-size-fits-all approach to their aquariums, not bothering with regular maintenance, and very quickly the fish choke and go belly-up in the murk. In such environments, only the scavengers will survive by eating the crap and scum that the tank is rich with.

While education boards in the US are still debating with their unions, as of last week we have already transferred our lot to a performance-rewarded aquarium -- more like Sea-World than a living-room fishbowl, to extend the analogy. All public teaching staff individually had to choose to either keep their pay package at status quo or to adopt the new performance-based pay package our industry has decided to implement from this year on. Even if we opted out of the new system for now, on our next promotion our pay will go according to the new scheme. The assumption is that if a teacher is worthy of promotion, he or she is already performing well (and probably intends to continue performing well) and might as well be rewarded accordingly.

Now that most of us have opted for performance pay, the next question is how to measure 'performance' so that we get the pay we deserve? I think that our baseline concern is not in how much the high-fliers are going to get, but it's more about how poorly our lower performers are going to be treated.

If this new system is going to work, the one thing our policy makers have to absolutely assure us on, and our middle-management has to absolutely carry out is to ensure that while our rewards may be performance-based, our survival is not. Our schools are not jungles in which predators prowl and prey have to keep looking over their shoulders at every snap of a twig. If this is the mental picture our HR has about our new pay structure, there may be a catastrophic brain-drain which we may never recover from.

The new pay system has got to be sold as if our industry was a massive Sea-World theme park. Every organism is well taken care of and given clean tanks, suitable habitats to live in, and have their daily dietary requirements met. The environment is predator-free so each organism can happily focus on the Maslow-ian higher-order things in life, like teaching kids.

Having few worries about their basic needs, there will be a much larger pool of staff interested in doing a little bit more for better rewards. Every Sea-World needs its dolphin/orca/sea-lion shows to bring in the crowds, so these performers get additional training, more varieties of stimulation, recognition and applause. They get their names in lights and their faces on posters. They are the reason why people come to Sea-World in the first place.

But without the smaller fish-tanks for the people to admire, there would be nothing to do between the shows (performers need their rest time too) to keep the people interested. So whether they 'perform' or not, every individual organism has a role to play in the industry. Their efforts, big or small, keep their visitors happy and coming year after year, ensuring enough revenue to pay for regular maintenance, upkeep and rewards for themselves. Of course taxpayers pay for the service our industry provides, but we do want happy taxpayers who feel their taxes are well spent, don't we?

In our industry, a lot of what we do tends to be unquantifiable because we deal a lot with human unpredictability, so we really do need to view 'performance' as a value-added incentive, not a threat to our survival. Convince us of this in our daily work and in our work environment. Don't make teachers territorial and competitive with each other but value everyone and what each of us has to offer. Give more to those who do more, but don't take away from those who do comparatively less (for one reason or another). If that's how our industry shapes up, I think we'll have a winner on our hands.

Can teaching creativity be possible? Isn't creativity an in-born trait we either have or don't have? Or can creativity be nurtured through a social environment that encourages its members to play, be silly and be free to ask the really stupid questions?

That was what this bunch of us signed up for today; the chance to shuck off the weight and wisdom of our years and be noisy, mischievous, shameless little kids once again.

This time, for being the monkey who disrupts class with his antics, instead of death-threats and letters to our parents we got rewarded with chocolate! And guess who amassed the largest haul of cocoa-based goodness? Ahem.

But this full-day workshop was about having purpose-oriented fun. We participants -- representing organizations involving different fields of education, transport and maintenance -- were there to experience how to solve our industrial problems, or explore potential opportunities using innovative thinking tools fueled by freedom, fun and play.

In between laughing, egging on and cheering our fellow participants to perform eyeball-rolling acts of ego suicide (like playing modified games of catching and pole dancing), we were gently being led to put together a business concept for some unlikely product or service that arose from our games.

A few competitive brainstorming sessions led us to ask 'what if...?' questions somewhat akin to Lewis Carroll's "why is a raven like a writing desk?" conundrum. But since we were thinking within the contexts of our particular industries, our questions came out something like "What if our office set-up was like the S'pore Flyer?" or "How can we use a bus to assist in ship repair?" or my group's "What if education was fast food?"

If we're stuck for ideas, the theory goes that by putting different things together in weird combinations and thinking through the random associations and connotations these combos embody, we can find a seed of a powerful new innovation that may solve an immediate headache, or become the next big thing to take the world by storm... who's to say?

While this method sounds suspiciously like the monkeys with typewriters theory, because there's some actual thought going on, the odds for success are marginally better. The oddities our various groups ended up pitching were things like creating a carnival atmosphere in the admin office; training office staff with a magician's showmanship to add entertainment value to the basic service provided; an ERP system to track and fine latecomers; a personal counselling service to help troubled workers be more confident and effective in their workplace; and a transforming bus that assists with ship repair (which we voted Idea of the Day). Obviously, Feasibility is another lesson for another time.

Today, we learned to not fear the stupid question, but rather how to ask the stupid question, no matter how stupid. A better tomorrow depends less on the clever answers people work out, and more on the stupid questions people ask. That's human history in a nutshell.

The car stays home today. I'm taking public transport into town; yep, cutting class to attend a course at the National Library. No way am I shelling out for ERP and whole day parking downtown. Gonna join the rest of humanity jostling our way through the bus and subway system enroute to and from work. Should be setting off in the next few minutes. It'll be like old times again.

For once, Drama Night has a proper performing venue. This despite having convinced ourselves that the only available venue was back in LT4. But because it became possible to share the stage with a concurrent production, this year we get to tread the boards of SRT. Yes!

Went with Mel and Steph to recce the site. We looked at the stage, backstage, changing rooms, and we're pretty sure the kids will give extra oomph to match the glam factor of performing in a professional theatre. No doubt we have to share the morning show's set and lights, but we're adaptable.

Now the thing is whether we can produce a show worthy of the space. Steph's piece should be well in hand, given her experience in directing, but I'm still kind'a antsy about mine. Today's rehearsal at least showed some of my ideas are feasible, and that I do have a core set of actors to build the show on. We're off to a slow start, but at least we're starting to move.

The South Koreans see that proficiency in English is essential for staying competitive in this world. We've known that all along, making English one of our official languages. South Korea wants to start teaching English classes in English -- a bit late in the game, since we have already implemented this revolutionary innovation since granddad's time. And yet so many of the essays and assignments I've received for marking only just approach the quality of perhaps the harder working students in ESL class. Grammar, syntax, paragraph construction, vocabulary, convey some basic sense of the subject in question, but because of frequent poor expression it all sounds like I'm being reached out to by some rudimentary intelligence rather than the erudite seekers of answers that the students are supposed to be.

Making English an "official language" may actually have the drawback of allowing our people to settle into complacency about it. It's an official language, therefore whatever vernacular we use must therefore be good enough, collect or not? When it comes to spoken English, we have the attitude that when in S'pore speak as the S'poreans do. As long as can unnerstan', can awreddy, w'at!

It's also a pride thing. S'poreans speak Singlish. It's our identity, our heritage and our proudest export to the rest of the Commonwealth. C'mon, lah! We not kentang or banana; wanna be so Ang Mor for what? Speak "proper" English in school and be labeled a Western wannabe, a freakshow, an object of ridicule and contempt. This probably happens in most neighbourhoods and families as well, so there's little encouragement to learn more than what passes for basic comprehension.

It's little surprise then that our students find difficulty expressing themselves in public. The brand of English they use is obviously inappropriate for formal discourse, and naturally, it's easy to develop an inferiority complex coming face-to-face with others who have a stronger command of the language. This lack of confidence is more pronounced in the colleges ranked below our mythical "top 5" JCs. They are "top 5" because their students use a higher level of English that allows them to access, digest and discuss higher level reading material. Those kids thrive on, and are stimulated by stuff that would put their lesser peers to sleep. They get to be the future brains, bureaucrats and insensitive policy-makers, while the majority of their cohort get by with their daily grind and complain how unfair life is.

I daresay the English teachers we have on campus are among the world's best. We have an oyster for every student who passes through our classes, but few of them actually reach out and take what is rightfully theirs. The rest rather slog away at more concrete subjects like the sciences and math, but they forget what language medium they receive such instruction in. That's like sweating it out making bricks, but without the cement of English to bind all the brick fragments together, they'll never be able to build a house. And they wonder why their lives are so hard.

"The private English education market is estimated to be worth about US$15.8 billion (S$22 billion) a year, fuelled by families who spend an average of 700,000 won a month on their children, according to the Samsung Economic Research Institute." That's a lot of moolah to be shared by those of us who can teach English. Perhaps we should put some thought into getting a piece of that action and be paid by people who can appreciate what we have to offer.

Women are such incredible motivators for men to do great things. Or if not, then to just get off their lazy butts and do constructive things with their lives. It's sort of biologically hardwired in us guys that women have to be impressed, and so we scramble to make ourselves more outstanding, to prove we can provide, to otherwise jump up and down, wave out arms and yell, "Pick me! Pick me!"

But over time, guys discovered the online world, and they have started overwriting their biological programming with Internet code. It's something of a revolution. They're tired of women pushing them around, making them jump through hoops, and saddling them with irrational domestic responsibilities at the prime of their lives. No longer are guys content to be willing victims, sacrificing themselves to the altar of the preying mantis / black widow sisterhood. Guys have finally found a way to turn their backs on hormonal tyranny and return to what nature intended them to be: slacking, unwashed neanderthals, as they "huddle together and have fun" for the rest of their parents' lives. The Internet: the saviour of MANkind, fancy that!

Boys. Heh, what do they know? All it takes is one woman to be firm enough, who will reach out, grab and drag the unwary guy home by the ear to reactivate the biological imperative again. For me, I believe that when June decided to take me home, reality split in two. In one reality, June never appeared in my life and I'm still the 'home boy' that I was more than a decade ago. But in this reality, I have a great wife, a home of my own, an interesting job, a decent income AND I still have the Internet to regress to when I feel like it.

Women are great motivators. Men are easy prey.

You'd think Maui was totally sedate, the way he curls up to sleep...

but he's also got real guts staring down Kaiser like this.

There's more testosterone flowing through my house than ever before.

Maui launches a surprise attack.

The boys play "King of the Hill"

Year of the rat notwithstanding, the new kitten rulez!

Maui takes a swipe , but the teddy bear's reflexes are just too fast.

Mom? You in there?

Cover me! I'm going in!

For the second year running, we had our clan reunion dinner at Ban Leong Wah Hoe, Casuarina. The food portions were as generous as always: from our three tables, we collected several containers worth of leftovers to take away.

The clan reconvened at Aunt L's to carry out our traditional Chinese familial duties. This year, the game was Bingo, with Aunt L particularly anxious to put her brand-new lottery ball tumbler to good use. Won a little, lost more; but it was for a good cause. The family that plays together, stays together...though not necessarily in the same house.

Happy year of the rat!

Our little newcomer is making Q-tip a little uneasy. June's officially calling him Maui, and while he's adjusting to his new environment, we're devoting a lot of time and attention to him to make him feel safe and welcome.

Q-tip's a little jealous of this new addition competing for our time, so she's temporarily abandoned her usual reserve and reticence to hang out longer with us in the living room. Or else she's frequently hovering within our peripheral vision just to make sure we remember that we still have a dog in the house.

It'll be a delicate balancing game of dealing with Q-tip's insecurities and Maui's demands for attention, but I believe June and I are pretty fair with our pets. One more shouldn't disrupt our routine too much. I know we'll adapt and manage.

"If you save someone's life, you become responsible for that life." I can't verify this quote anywhere, but I'll take it to be true anyway. Hence, I have a new member in my family: this four-week old kitten, as yet unnamed.

It happened when we took Mimi to the vet for her shot and a follow-up exam of her recent allergy attack. I found this little guy sitting atop the car in front of mine in the parking lot. No way he could have got up there by himself, and I can't bear to think what would have happened to him if later the car drove off with him still on top.

I couldn't put him back on the street either 'cos the cars were passing by so close to the slip of a sidewalk, the only place I could have put him on. So it looks like he's gonna be my third cat despite the resistance I've put up over the years not to have more than two.

He's tiny now, and so fragile, though Kasey gave him a clean bill of health. But his paws tell me he's got great growth potential. We got him some milk, a personal sandbox to suit his size, and recycled a sleeping basket for his comfort. He hates being left alone right now, so I let him fall asleep on my stomach before transferring him to his basket.

He's the smallest ball of fur we've ever picked up. He's just awakened again so now he's sharing my office chair as I'm typing. I can't help it. I want him to know that as long as I'm around, I'll protect him and keep him safe, come what may.

Hmm... hope he'll be ok when June and I go to work tomorrow.

The militants responsible for blowing up the pet market in Baghdad have finally made a statement about how far removed they are from the rest of normal human society. The weapon: bomb vests strapped on mentally disabled women (though I don't know how the militants mentally disabled the women... probably through endless repetition of boring militant rhetoric). The detonator: a cell phone. The target: pets -- kitties, doggies, monkeys (actually, these shouldn't be kept as pets), birds, and the kids who throng the market every week looking for an animal they can shower their budding affection on. And the regular joes, shmoes, and janes taking their families out on a weekend jaunt, the usual IED fodder.

Don't know what's up with them militants. It's fine if they blow themselves up 'cos there'll be less of them in the world, but they aren't even doing that now. They're detonating bombs by remote control showing that cynical as they are about life, they do feel that there is at least one life worth saving: their own.

If we look through their eyes, this is what we'll probably see: Women have attractive qualities so they make good bait to draw as many as possible into the kill zone. The mentally disabled are of no use to anyone and are probably carrying the curse of the Almighty anyway, so no loss there, and no backchat either. The cell phone to them is not a device for getting to know people but to communicate their miscreant tendencies instead. The poor shlubs who got blown up , well, the more the merrier, and the stronger the statement that nobody matters in this petty vendetta of theirs. And the animals? People seem to care more for the four-legged beasties that serve neither as labour nor food than for the militants themselves and their pitiful cause, so they deserve to get blown up too.

That's it, then. There's no one left that they would want to share this world with. So why don't we just offer them a nice asteroid for them to inhabit and leave the rest of us alone? A couple of hundred smelly bearded guys squatting on an arid rock floating through the cosmos. After all, if and when they achieve their desired objective, that's still going to be the net result.

It was kinda' fun to self-diagnose my own inner-demons, though the game initially was to source interesting reading material for KI from Psychology Today. I like the articles 'cos they are easy to read, without all the technical gobbledegook that professional shrinks use to euphemise "I haven't the foggiest idea what's wrong with you. Solve your own problems. That'll be $150 for this afternoon's session, thank you!"

The topics make for highly compelling reading: advice on confidence-building, an in-depth look at introversion as a personality trait, how to get over a break-up, taking apart "champions of lost causes" to see what makes them tick (tick, tick, tick, boom!). I could picture myself lounging on a comfy couch as the Doctor probed the deepest, darkest recesses of the cesspit I call my mind with the most impertinent of questions.

Fortunately, my indulgence in an afternoon's worth of pop psychology didn't cost me a cent. I grabbed the couple of issues lying around in the college's library stacks for a free consultation.

For a moment this afternoon, I really wanted to shut down my brain. It was textual overload after a whole day of processing text from a variety of sources: admin forms, news, lecture notes, play script, meeting notes, routine schedules, email.

It was the compulsion that was scary, like being addicted to the stuff: ploughing through one thing, then putting it away and instantly, instinctively, reaching for another. Even when I was trying to rest, I'd naturally gravitate to the library looking for something new to read, or trawl the 'net for news and trivia. My whole world today comprised nothing but text, and nothing but text could fill my world. Seems as if I was trying to occupy my mind though there was nothing there but noise, yet too afraid of the resulting silence if I stopped. Weird.

Let's not do that again. ok?

Teachers are great students, contrary to popular belief. The Civil Defence people came over to teach us staff how to save lives in an emergency, but I also got to see how fantastic lessons are conducted as well.

We ran three modules in one afternoon: fire fighting, CPR and first-aid. They could have been dreadfully dull as they involved us learning procedures for dealing with various types of emergencies, but we had a ball of a time instead.

Some things the trainers did right:
(1) Invoked self-interest -- we saved our lives and those of our friends too
(2) Liberally used self-deprecating humour -- they didn't take themselves or their content too seriously
(3) Delivered only core ideas -- just enough theory for background understanding but not to confuse or bore us
(4) Lots of stories -- we could vividly visualize the situations we had to respond to
(5a) A variety of media -- text and visual...
(5b) A variety of practical activities -- contextual and tactile
(6) Highly participatory, spontaneous presenter-audience interaction -- non-threatening environment giving free-rein to questions and responses from both parties

But most of the enjoyment from this afternoon's session was due to (6). We staff may have been bored and tired, but we were fully participating in the lessons anyway. We asked as many questions as the trainers asked us, we answered questions voluntarily even if we didn't know if our answers were right (we didn't take it personally if we were wrong, sorry B-lo), we threw observations, comments and questions as they occurred to us even if it meant interrupting the presentation. We took every opportunity to engage, sometimes even make the trainer eat his words (like making him confess that Chapter 1 in the Training Manual had some outdated information).

We had a great time, 'cos we wanted to learn, and more importantly, we wanted to play and have fun with the trainers and their programme. That, I think, is already half the battle in creating a lively, constructive learning environment -- the learners themselves having a good reason (whatever it is) for attending class.

Ha! Everything I learned about teaching, I learned from a firefighter.

Kids are left to roam the streets unsupervised during the afternoon hours and dogs have to live in pet hotels costing a monthly bomb of a bill. Sumiko continues acting wistful, pining away for a family with kids of her own to assuage her boring single life. When we connect the dots in today's ST, we're looking at a picture of a people who are lonely even in the midst of company. Is that what life in S'pore is like these days?

While I have little affinity for kids, it does perturb me that of the kids surveyed there were so many left to fend for themselves while the adults were out at work. That they were gormless enough to receive a stranger's advances suggests that they are quite lonely for an adult's attention, especially if the adult treats them as equals and not talk down to them. Kids like being helpful, particularly if it seems to them as if they posess some knowledge the adult does not, like how to get to the MRT station for example. And with all the questions the reporter asked, the kids are quite happy to spill the beans on their personal lives. Who else is there to talk to? Who else has shown them such interest in a while?

On the other end of the spectrum, some people are spending a lot of money making sure their dogs are well taken care of. They can't help it. Our society isn't open enough to tolerate the idea of peaceful mutual coexistence between the species. So by legislation or public censure, we separate companions from each other, and make them pay a hefty penalty if they wish to continue the relationship. I shudder to think what happens to those who can't afford to make such payment, and I'm reasonably sure there are lots more who fall into the latter category than the first.

Even the free-wheeling single, living an independent life, accountable to no one, unencumbered by family responsibilities goes all misty-eyed longing to exchange all that for domestic bliss and its attendant shackles and chains and the promise of a lifetime of hard labour that follows. At least she won't have so much time on her hands that she's "bored out of her mind" over the weekend.

Isn't that the problem? We only want a family on the weekend to keep us occupied and busy. Family isn't so important on weekdays because we already have our hands full with our occupations and businesses. It's fine to let the kids roam the playgrounds on weekdays, we'll make it up to them on the weekends when we pack them off to tuition and ballet class and check on their homework when they come home at night. Oh, by the way, remember to drop in on Fido at the pet hotel on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We have to hug him and let him know we love him, or he'll have separation anxiety, you know?

Geez. Even I think there's something wrong there.