Model Homeowner

Strangers merrily traipsing around my house is something I'll never get used to. It feels all the more creepy for me as the agent we engaged does all our interacting for us. He's taking our viewers around, chatting and making nice with them, while us two gormless blockheads remain seated and frozen on the living room carpet pretending to be busy watching TV. We'd like to be nicer hosts, really, but we don't trust our own blabbermouths in case we say something stupid about our house that the viewers might take negatively and use as an excuse to bargain down our asking price. So sitting there on the carpet, I feel like Steve Martin's character in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", playing his Ruprecht, the Monkey Boy role.

Or else like an animatronic mannequin posing in a showflat, supposedly enjoying his idyllic environs, being the object of envy of every prospective buyer that walks in. *click, wrirr... "my_house_is_great. wanna_buy_it?" ...bzzzt!

When strangers walk into your house and start pointing at various nooks and crannies, whispering among themselves, you know that what you once thought of as yours is no longer. In snatches of overheard conversation, people are weighing the possibilities of converting my living room into a balcony, running cable TV into the bedrooms and partitioning off my dining room and air-conditioning it. Perhaps a serious offer will be coming by our way soon?

Hellboy 2: TGA sort of echoes the human vs nature theme that we've already seen in Prince Caspian and LOTR, except the battleground is the urban landscape of human civilization. It's Nature fighting back in a small, almost helpless way, as the revolt is practically led by a one-elf army while Nature, the faction he purports to fight for, wants no part of his revolution. All Prince Nuada has is his wushu fighting style, a hulking bruiser for a friend, oh, and an evil plan to unleash the ultimate weapon that will extinguish humankind from the face of the earth.

Hellboy himself isn't much different from Nuada. He fights for a people who does not want anything to do with him, their initial admiration turning to fear and distrust when in a pitched battle a city block gets pretty much levelled through melee combat and small(?)-arms fire while they watch in horror.

The problem with Nuada is that he is too focused on a single goal, making him psychotically obsessive and unable to tell friend from foe. So bent is he on vengeance that it's all he thinks about. It's all he trains his body for, it's all his schemes are directed towards, and he no longer cares what he has to sacrifice in order to get what he wants.

In contrast, Hellboy has lots of things to distract him from brooding over his unpleasant future destiny. There's his job, his friends, his smokes, candy, booze, TV, and his girlfriend, Liz, whose explosive tantrums with him are alarmingly increasing in frequency. "I'd give my life for her, but she wants me to do the dishes", he grumbles to Abe, his fishy friend. A typical sentiment of us guys for whom women will always be the Great Mystery.

I like the movie for it's portrayal of simple, mundane humanity that stands out in contrast to the fantastic, bizarre creatures and environments of del Toro's design. Even the constant chaos of the BPRD (Hellboy's secret home base and office) is just another normal day on the job for the blokes working there. Despite our vulnerabilities and what we consider our faults and vices, it's still great to be human.

Free childcare and paternity leave to encourage more births in the S'pore? Ok, free childcare would take some of the financial pinch from raising a kid for a fraction of the 20+ year commitment that parents here face per kid, but paternity leave sounds as attractive as a root canal with only a sledgehammer for anesthetic.

Taking a year off work is in itself tempting, but paternity leave isn't exactly a summer vacation on a pristine tropical beach with an umbrella drink in hand. Paternity leave's never caught on because more often than not, the paternal half of the genetic merger would rather slog out an 18-hour shift at the office where the stress is constant but predictable, than stay home all day spooning mush into one end while manoeuvring around drool and barf, and cleaning poop out the other. Waking up at 4 a.m. isn't for driving out into the country for a spot of fishing, it's to calm a little banshee with a bottle in his mouth instead of over the head... mutter... grumble... yawn... zzz.

I dunno. Alvin would like nothing better than to come home to a brood of kids; he says that's what will ease his day and make him feel all calm and blissful after a hard day at work. Me, nothing raises my blood pressure faster than a little 'un, not to mention being surrounded by them. To me, that's stress I don't need. I'm fine if I happen to be temporarily looking after a kid or two that I can happily return to sender after a few minutes, but who am I going to return my genetic offspring to if I need to get on with my life? As a responsible person, if I made the mess, I have to clean it up. So let's not start, shall we?

Ultimately, it isn't about more incentives to boost the population. People who want kids will have them anyway, regardless. It's the growing number of people like me, all with shrivelled, blackened, hardened raisins that pass for our hearts that need to be addressed. Go all Scandinavian on us if you like. Doubt we'll budge.

Of the few people viewing my place, we had a big surprise last night when none other than Chewie showed up at our front door with Zak, maid and her mom-in-law in tow. Her m-i-l is in the market for new digs, we've got ours on offer.

It was funny to watch Zak get aqcuainted with Q-tip. He was so tentative as he took stabs at her fur with his tiny fingers; and the cats, who kept their distance, fascinated him.

So, of everyone I know only Chewie has seen the inside of my sanctum sanctorum. Since we're selling, any day is open house day. No more closed door policy to drop-ins, friends or strangers alike, at least for now.

Her m-i-l seems impressed with her tour and she's making a second visit tonight, but she isn't exactly jumping to make a bid just yet. It's that kind of a dicey market in property. Everyone's playing it cautiously, cards close to chest. Everyone's looking for a fair deal.

Every child has a different learning style and a different learning pace from every other child. We know this and we firmly believe in it, but regardless the traditional Asian method of education still tailors its teaching approach more or less towards a one size fits all strategy.

Multiple Intelligences: a nice idea, but there'll be time for the kids to develop it on their own once they get past the 'A' Levels. It can't be helped, we say, our production cycle runs less than two years, we've already designed the blueprint for what we consider to be a QC tested and approved product, so we'll do our best to squeeze all our raw materials into the molds we've already cast and hope they'll turn out the right shape at the end of the process.

We've used this manufacturing model for education since the industrial revolution, but while our civilization has already moved on to the digital age our education factories have yet to really catch the wave. This is because we plan for the economy rather than for the people themselves, the emphasis being on the word "for". We know the needs of the job market so we plan for our kids' "employability". We know the needs of our individual students (which generally boils down to the rough guideline of "get as many straight As as possible") so we plan their curriculum and otherwise their lives for them.

And the kids themselves, though they hate being told what to do all the time, after living like this long enough, they get quite lost when suddenly they have to decide things for themselves. For example, they are most likely to prioritize their homework schedule according to which tutor is most likely to give them grief for NOT doing their homework, and so on down a sliding scale. And they wonder why they have no 'free' time. Technically, they are little more than remote controlled automatons responding to signals emanating from the source of the loudest voice. I thought education was supposed to liberate and empower people?

Actually, it does, but it's a delayed gratification thing. The kids will only appreciate what they've been through when they receive their results, when they become adults with good grades to back up their aspirations. That's why the Koreans suffer cram school and write motivational notes to themselves to see the ordeal through.

But trust the Americans to pioneer new ways of student-centric learning using the tools available to us in this digital age. It goes beyond our kids' mundane "research for project work on the Internet is more convenient than having to trek down to the library to flip through the pages of dusty old books and teachers can post our homework online [such slaves!]" response to essay questions of such subject matter. We're looking at ways students can choose what they want to learn, whatever style they want to learn in, at whatever pace they feel comfortable with, and ways for tutors to personalize lessons tailor-made to individual student specifications.

Now there's a field worth exploring with my current batch of kids. But logistically speaking, I'll need to work with smaller groups than what I currently have. Hmm...

Things have been relatively peaceful while Maui recovers from his op. He's not quite up to bouncing off the walls like he used to, but he is still his curious self, following us around hoping to con the unwary of another helping of kibble, as if we don't feed him enough.

And there's that mysterious case of a collapsed ironing board that took place sometime this evening when we weren't looking. That kind of disaster is a Maui trademark, but there was no conclusive evidence to pin on him, and the witnesses aren't talking.

Meantime, Maui's resting from his exertions while Kaiser tries to keep his cool, having to share the sofa with his manja little buddy.

When you just do your job without taking pride in your work, you become quite the a**hole. Because the end result is all that matters, there's no thought to the process, consequences and repercussions of your choice of action. And if you leave more destruction in the wake of achieving your desired end result, you are probably Hancock, the superhero whose callous and careless problem-solving methods leaves those he rescues and other bystanders rather less than impressed.

Hancock is driven to do the right thing: fight crime and save lives whether human or otherwise. He doesn't know why he suffers from this compulsion to be a do-gooder, after all, with his power and his attitude who could stop him from becoming an evil a**hole instead of the altruistic one that he is?

For all the good he does, Hancock has no purpose in life. When he's done saving the world, he's either getting drunk or hangin' out in his RV of Solitude, looking over a world that could be his but doesn't want. He is painfully aware of being the only one of his kind, so he doesn't have much stake in the society around him. Like many of us, there's only a sense of mission: just do the job and go home, with no sense of involvement in the community. It seems a noble and selfless existence, but it's also stupid and ultimately pointless.

About halfway through the movie, Hancock gets a revelation that changes his view of his entire existence. At this point, the movie takes on quite a different complexion. It's an almost schizoid the way slapstick comedy switches into melodrama. Guess it's impossible to sustain a comedy about an irresponsible super-powered being without making him turn over a new leaf somehow.

I went to watch 'Hancock' expecting to laugh myself silly given the angle of the trailers, but I got something of a reflected image instead. I too tend to swoop in, solve problems, and fly off again when I'm no longer needed. In situations where there is no agenda to pursue, I'm at a loss as to how to contribute to the social setting. Hopefully, I'm not as detested as much as Hancock is: I don't have his power to make people regret calling him an "a**hole" one. more. time.

Maui had a month's stay of execution, but it had to happen sooner or later. Doc Kasey deemed him old enough to be 'fixed', and we're looking at the after-effects. This is not a happy cat.

We kinda' felt sorry having to do it to him, but he was already starting to bother Momo, and eventually someone was going to get hurt -- if not emotionally then physically -- if we let him pursue his interest.

It was really sad when we brought him home and watched him stagger groggily around while he refamiliarized himself with our house. He couldn't walk properly probably due to the effect of his anesthesia, and he must be feeling the pain from the op as well. Poor fellow.

His appetite is still good, though. We put him on a fast 12 hours before his appointment as a precaution against choking on his own vomit if the anesthetic made him throw up, so he was quite ravenous by dinnertime.

He's up and about, and more or less walking properly again, now that he's had a chance to recover somewhat from his ordeal. Think he'll pull though ok.

Mas Selamat is on my mind; months, perhaps, after the fact. Golden Boy is S'pore's celebrity escapee who fled detention while he was being held as a suspected terrorist, in case people have already forgotten.

It's because I was previewing "The Road to Guantanamo" on DVD to see how I could use it for class that's when I came to the conclusion that if Goldie was in the custody of the US, he would never have got away. It would have been impossible. He would have been under 24-hour watch in a see-through cage, made to sit all day not talking, not praying, not doing anything except being watched like an animal in a zoo. Just being still and quiet. Did I mention being watched?

No family visits, no lawyer visits. His exercise would have been a five-minute walk once every week. That'll build some muscles. The boredom spending days, weeks, months on end like that is unimaginable. It's almost a relief when the guards drag him out of his cage for his interrogation, daily beating and general abuse, just because at least that's something to DO.

And that kind of treatment is for people the US isn't even sure are actual terrorists. It happened to four guys, Brits of Pakistani descent, who happened to be touring in the wrong part of Afghanistan when the Coalition forces likewise came a-callin'.

No, we were "complacent". We let him out of his cell, allowed him some privacy when he did his toilet, gave him time with his wife and kids. We almost treated him like a human being, despite knowing full well who he was and what he was capable of. We acted like we had nothing to fear from him. We paid a high price when he took advantage of us, but you know what? I'm proud that we did exactly that. That our security personnel are still able to see people as people, not just as the threats they represent.

And that brings us to today's news story: Ingrid Betancourt and fellow hostages escaping the clutches of their captives in a daring, well-planned helicopter rescue by the Columbian army. In a many months' long operation, army infiltrators lulled the rebels into a false sense of security. Hence the FARC-all job of guarding the 15 captives "Cesar" and Co. would otherwise have been watching more closely.

And the one big question that will stick in all our minds is, why couldn't Goldie's escape have been at least as spectacular? But we all know, nothing exciting EVER happens in the S'pore.

The valuation for our current place has finally arrived. We knew we would be selling at a loss, but it turns out the loss isn't as horrific as we thought it might have been. Our neighbour's been eyeing our unit 'cos he'd like some space for his little family and yet not stay too far from his mom, so if we can settle on a price we'll have a sale. Else, it'll be back to our agent and the open market.

Already today, we made a downpayment on a closet set for our new place, with an option for a kitchen set and a feature wall. We went with Closet Design's promotional package, a reasonable price for quite a modern urban designed wardrobe with quiet closing drawers, a finish that won't stain (the designer set a shelf alight with a bit of lighter fluid, yet there was not a mark when the flame died down), and durable sliding doors.

The designer who spoke to us was an easygoing, affable fellow, confident but no pressure. His designs looked fresher and much more flexible than the generic designs we saw at IMM last weekend, so that kinda' decided it.

On our way home, we stopped at Just Anthony. June had her eye on a low, flat Chinese drum she thought would be great to convert into a coffee table. They'd sold out the one in the colour she wanted, so she settled for a smaller drum she thinks would make a great side table, once she can figure out how to acquire an appropriate stand for it.

The new place will be June's dream home.

The person most qualified to lead is the one with the higher test scores. At least, Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) believes so, as do most of the kids undergoing education in sunny S'pore. This, Smart boldly declares to Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), an agent with vastly more field experience than him. But it isn't who leads that counts, it's how they are able to partner up, support each other's weaknesses with their own strengths, and ultimately trust each other despite evidence that seems to indicate that they shouldn't, that make them the on-screen pair to watch this summer.

"Get Smart" is one of the funniest movies I've watched this year. The situation is ridiculously improbable, but the moments that kept me laughing were the numerous lines of deadpan dialogue, and caustic one-liners exchanged between the characters. Smart, an analyst and a meticulous office worker gets to face off against violent terrorists, assassins and nameless henchmen in order to save the President (a bit like a George W gone senile) the target of a nuclear detonation in a major US city, as plotted by Siegfried (Terence Stamp).

But Smart is no bumbling Johnny English. Despite his lack of field experience, he is "not totally incompetent". He has the skills, though not quite the finesse of his partner, Agent 99, and lethality of his role model -- the compromised, sidelined and frustrated Agent 23 (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson"). Smart is smart, able to pick up clues garnered from evesdropped conversations and make informed -- if long-winded -- deductions, but is also quite adept at improvising his way around tight spots in a trial-and-error fashion.

Fortunately, his errors are quite forgiving. If anything, Smart gets into trouble more often with his own secret agent gadgets. His personal nemesis is the Swiss Army Knife with additional attachments created for him by his two geeky lab tech buddies, Bruce and Lloyd. For an inanimate prop, in Smart's hands it almost develops a personality that seems to delight in tormenting him.

Terence Stamp, as the evil Siegfried, is most memorable for his stinging one-line insults that are even more deadly than his genocidal ambitions. At the receiving end is the monstrous, yet vulnerable Dalip "The Great Khali" Singh, Siegfried's personal Swiss Army Knife of sorts.

While there are moments of pure slapstick, "Get Smart" with it's inside look at how ridiculous, improbable and impractical spy flicks are turns out to be as smart as movies of this genre can get.

Edit 01:
A rather dispirited set of recent entries. Mostly half-hearted attempts at getting my brain reacclimatized back to the work routine and social environment I've been rather cut-off from since the summer hols. NBS has a much more interesting take (entitled "Pet') on last night's activities compared to the dry record below.

Celebrated two birthdays with the Batam crew, Sha and Fen making up the full table. We'd heard about the 50% discounted seafood at Ah Yat, Shaw Towers, so that seemed like a great new place to try out.

We opened accounts with a pile of cereal prawns and another of mussels, and a sea-bass steamed in black bean sauce. The mussels were of a freshness I've never experienced before -- the meat sort of burst into mussel juice at the first bite, while I'm more used to the kind that's rubbery and needs a good chewing before it's in any condition to be swallowed.

We also ordered a dish of stir-fried broccoli that turned out to be the most expensive dish of stir-fried broccoli ever, costing more than the even the steamed sea-bass. Did I mention seafood was 50% discounted? Amy thinks they have to make up the difference somewhere.

But the whole point of this jaunt all the way to Beach Road was the crab. We ordered three pairs of crabs in the black pepper, garlic steamed and cream varieties. I dunno. I like my crab steamed, but the steamed crab didn't exactly make me sit up and take notice of it. That didn't stop me from demolishing probably more than my fair share, but if the steamed crab wasn't impressive, I can't say much for the other two varieties either.

Anyway, happy birthday to our two birthday girls!

Tired of eating cheaply so often these days. We decided to indulge ourselves at Charco's which offers chix, ribs and schnitzel. I found this place a couple of weeks back when I was actually looking for the Botak Jones AMK outlet. It seems the Botak guy has moved out and Charco's is happily filling the vacancy.

For a kopitiam stall, Charco's offers an extensive and varied menu. What June and I went for was the daily special: quarter chix with three different side salads x 2 for under $14.

While the chix itself is tender and tasty (they'll do it to a traditional Portuguese recipe as an option), I was more taken by the salad bar featuring eight different kinds of salad from which I could pick any three as side dishes. On the plate in the picture, we're looking at Greek, Caesar and potato salads. Not bad at all.

Warning!
Wild animal on the loose

Wanted for causing:
- Collateral damage to kitchen crockery
- Severe contusion to female owner's right 2nd last toe (due to falling kitchen crockery)

Approach with caution!
- Suspect is armed with extraordinary charm
- Able to extract forgiveness easily from his victims and pursuers alike


No reward offered for suspect's capture and punishment.

Spent the last three days working with the rest of the staff on the College's direction for the next few years. Not going to say too much about that as lots of details are still in the process of being hammered out.

Because we had to review our previous goals and set new ones, it was interesting to hear what the different people involved on campus had to contribute towards the general direction we eventually found some consensus on. As we also included representatives from our student body, their parents and alumni, there were lots of views to consider, and not everything complementary either. So some of the changes we are proposing should be quite timely, though the things that ain't broke we ain't fixin', so there.

Meantime, it's confirmed. June and I have committed to our move up north, having exercised our Option to Purchase now that the bank has approved our loan. We've already engaged someone to envision the interior of our new place, and someone else came over yesterday to appraise the value of our present place. Things are moving so quickly.

Now that the reality of the move has finally sunk in, I guess I am becoming excited about it. Seems like every ten years or so, I acquire a new address. Nomadic lifestyle.

As a further aside, management presented me with my long-service cert during the big meeting today. It was funny, the number of gasps and the buzzing that went on among the gathered staff when VP called out my name. I know just how they felt 'cos I was feeling the exact same thing. Even I can't believe I signed my employment contract a whole decade ago. Must be the reason why I'm behaving a little older and crankier these days.

And as a further, further aside, thanks, Amy, Dee and HP for the lovely souvenirs y'all got me from NY, NY. Considering what I just recently bought, it was just as well that it was a trip I missed.

Questions arise about the effectiveness of mainstream teachers and school programmes due to the high demand for after-curriculum tuition with star tutors who have an apparent knack of turning flunking students around into exam aces. With this kind of success rate, any student who isn't taking some kind of tuition is going to want to add their name to a long waiting list, giving even more credence to the already mystical following that these self-styled academic gurus have built around themselves.

We teachers in the mainstream are our own worst enemies in this game. We think too highly of ourselves and our ability to "make a difference" to the kids under our charge. We've bought in too deeply the tenets of our own industry's recruitment campaigns, holding ourselves more responsible than necessary for our kids' successes. We think that because we "mould the future of our nation in our hands", any mistake we make, any standard we let slide, is going to bring the future crashing down around our ears and it'll be all our fault. And not just us, but everyone else not in the industry will be pointing fingers at us and saying likewise too.

Because we bear this imaginery burden, we take our craft a little too seriously. Every little thing becomes a teaching point for us, and not always in a nice way. Even the tests and examinations we set become "teaching tools" instead of just being assessment milestones. What I mean is, we set questions we don't really expect the kids to answer so that we can teach them after the exam how to answer the question properly. When we mark exams, we strongly penalize every infraction because then we create more opportunities to teach what the "correct" answer should be. It isn't policy, it's more like reflex.

While it's great that we are so dedicated to our work, perhaps the exams aren't the best material to make teaching points out of. It's a pity, but normal, ordinary people see exam scores as a measure of personal competence in a subject, whereas we teachers expect them to make mistakes in the papers; so we seem to be working at cross-purposes here. Poor scores at the tests, exams and continual assessments that we set drive the confidence right out of our kids and drive them straight into the open arms of private tutors who lay out the welcome mats for them. Private tuition has become a most lucrative enterprise in this kind of education environment.

How do tutors and tuition agencies gain that magical aura that seems to make silk purses out of sows' ears? From the results their kids attain from the external exam (i.e., Cambridge) itself, which is ultimately what counts in the job market. The external agency, unlike us in the teaching industry, has no agenda whatsoever in setting and marking its exams. Cambridge has no personal stake in the individual candidates' papers. Cambridge just marks what appears on exam scripts. In other words, Cambridge as an external marker is more likely to give a fairer assessment of the papers they receive than we are when we set and mark our internal exams, anxious as we are to ensure the kids make all the mistakes they can during our assessments so that they don't make the same mistakes during the Cambridge exams.

Private tutors point to the Cambridge marked results and -- voila -- instant success.

This is not to say that private tutors aren't excellent teachers in themselves. They probably are, and it's a lot more motivating when kids are taught by someone they like, but don't be fooled by the numbers game. There's still no substitute for disciplined self-study, for asking questions and clarifying points no matter who is at the head of the classroom.

One thousand dollars buys the Option to Purchase (OTP) a resale flat. We met the seller with our agent, and with a few signatures and a cheque of exactly that amount we have bought ourselves 14 days to secure a bank loan to finance our latest purchase. It's pretty much certain that we're moving out within the year.

I dread the idea of packing up all the stuff we've accumulated since we turned our once pristine, empty apartment into the home I've grown so comfortable in. Today, there's junk everywhere -- it's like a rat's nest, padded all over with debris and detritus that gives a place that "lived-in" look.

But because we have to sell off our current place, we're facing quite the daunting task of bringing sterile order back into the chaos we've allowed our place to settle into. And this has to be done quickly before we start inviting prospective buyers in to appraise our humble abode. No one's gonna be tempted to buy a pig-sty.

Oh well, guess how I'll be occupied this weekend?

We've taken our first steps towards changing our residential address. Just met with our agent who helped us work out our finances and, yes, it looks like our second-choice unit is just barely within our means. But for the forseeable future, we're going to be seriously cash poor 'cos forking out the downpayments and legal fees will just about wipe us out.

But the place we'll be moving to will be much closer to decent public transport, shopping amenities, and M-i-L. By moving up north, the Wong colony will have achieved reunification.

Most of all, we're moving to cut our losses on our current place. That's us and our business logic: buy high, sell low. Somehow, I don't think we've quite got the hang of the property game. But if we delay selling now, our valuation is most likely to dip to a point where we'll never be able to sell and we'll just have to grow old and die here. What a cheery thought.

Anyway, I'll probably keep a record of our transactions here in case anyone wants a blow-by-blow account of the processes involved in both purchasing and selling an HDB unit on the open-market. Who knows? Someone might find this info useful.

Meantime, what have I been doing this past week? Nothing much, really. I cycled about 20 km in a single sitting, having found the park connector from ECP to Changi Beach park. Been bowling a couple of times, and euthanized the effectively brain-dead Boyz once and for all while I was at it. Completed Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect on Cirrus, my new Athlon X2 based workhorse, who has replaced the still-comatose Mr L33t (who for some reson I haven't been able to revive as yet). And I watched Kung Fu Panda which I'd like to comment on if I had the energy.

And I still have a few days of vacation left to enjoy. Yes.

Single guys would rather stay single than make a mistake and have a bad marriage, according to a survey by a guy who is single and curious about his "condition" and that of his fellows. Successful but single, it's not surprising that the one thing they fear making a mistake on is one that will affect them for life. Anyone can recover from financial setback, anyone can claw their way back to the top from a humiliating plummet, but nothing reeks of "loser" more than the emotional trauma of committing to the wrong woman, and paying for it once the alimony judgement weighs in.

We've recently put a lot of pressure on ourselves when it comes to love and pairing up. We look at movie romances and mistake that for love. We can afford better things for ourselves now, so our expectations are much more attainable than ever before. It's no longer an impossible dream to buy our dates candlelight dinners and ocean cruises; to say nothing of champaign, roses and chocolate. Romance is ours to buy, even if on a budget.

But that's just the materiel -- keeping the mood of a romantic atmosphere is a lot of work. Romantic spontaniety is a myth. It takes planning, foresight, being always thoughtful and selfless... and impossible to sustain for long. Especially when married, because spouses are in each other's proximity all the time. Once married, it's like exposing all the behind-the-scenes preparations to the audience who's been marvelling at the show until they get invited backstage and handle the props for themselves. Then they're no longer impressed.

So our modern men do have a legitimate fear. A marriage based on this sort of high-pressure performance cannot last, so for them it's better to be single than suffer the inevitable heart-wrenching, socially-stigmatizing, emotionally overblown divorce proceedings from which there is no profit, only rack and ruin thereafter.

How did our previous generations survive life-long marriages the way they did? How did they put up with each other as they aged and grew less glamorous year after year? As they lost their hearing and yelled at each other (like my grandparents did with frightening frequency)? It's probably because they knew that romance is only love in its infancy. These days, few of us will allow love to mature further than that.

Love isn't roses, or laughter or sunshine all the time. Love is taking crap for each other and from each other and still staying together no matter what. It's probably best summed up by the character of Golde in the Fiddler on the Roof who replies to her husband's query if she loves him:

Do I love him?
For twenty-five years I've lived with him
Fought him, starved with him
Twenty-five years my bed is his
If that's not love, what is?

Can't help those guys who aren't married, and prefer it that way. To those of us who are, none of us married the "wrong" woman. Remember that when we married, we made a life-long committment "for better or worse". Expect the worst, 'cos that's where love shines truest.

Prince Caspian rules! After the disappointment that was Lion, Witch, Wardrobe, the sequel is a much more spirited effort at fleshing out the main characters and their role in the events that follow, rather than just letting a great story tell itself via a different medium.

While "Caspian" doesn't live up to the grandior of LoTR -- the props and set looked very much recycled from LoTR -- the human characters really hold their own in this movie. Five angsty teenagers, each bearing a mighty responsibility; and as a parallel of our world it is a choice that we ourselves have to make soon: to save what we can of our natural resources, or strip the earth bare with our machines and machinations.

Because the deus ex machina, Aslan, only shows up at the end, the famous five are left on their own to muddle through a horribly sticky situation. How to reinstate a deposed Caspian to the throne so that his tree-hugging policies will restore peace and balance to the natural world, a.k.a. Narnia? At odds with them is the environmentally-unfriendly, technologically and logistically superior yet fractious human alliance of Telmarine.

High King Peter's first-strike manouvre reflects his hot-headed tendencies. He lets his fists think for him, as we see in his scuffle at the Strand ending with an adult's admonishment to "act [his] age." Peter learns a hard lesson as he watches his Narnian forces get decimated as a result of his ill-planned assault on the Telmarine keep itself.

The fight sequences in this installment are so much better arranged and are more memorable than LWW. The kids are more gung-ho in combat, going all-out with no quarter, and they look like they are fighting for their lives. Even Susan goes at it with her bow, but in close-quarters combat she uses the shaft and point of her arrows just as effectively as her unerring marksmanship. It's also gratifying that despite his dimunitive nature, Reepicheep's "cute" factor gets played down in favour of his capability as a master fencer. Come to think of it, no one's cute. Not the dwarves, the centaurs, the minotaurs, not even the stupid squirrel. Big grin for that.

The Telmarines themselves, power-hungry backstabbers that they are, think they are in for an easy victory. Their forces vastly outnumber what's left of the Narnians, they have an effective cavalry and artillery complement and their morale is high. But by then the teenagers have figured out how to work together, spelling the end of the Telmarine regent's tyrannical reign.

Peter and Edmund lead the hold-off forces, Susan rides armed escort for Lucy's recce mission, while Caspian brings in the cavalry. And the Telmarines fall victim to natural disaster as Aslan finally makes his appearance. It's no joke being swallowed by a tsunami. Like the Telmarines who blithely mess around with their natural resources, we had best heed that warning as well.

The critical thinking panel discussion I attended today raised an interesting issue: how do we teach critical thinking at secondary school level, and why should we even bother since the 'O' level exam doesn't actually test such an ability?

And suddenly I'm asking myself, "doesn't it?" And then I recalled that in the ten years plus I spent in primary and secondary education, I was simply fed material to memorize and got graded according to how closely I reproduced said material at the exams. Not very well, I'm afraid.

That's a fine and efficient way to ensure the kids do well when their annual results come out. After all, how else could my teachers deal with 40 screaming kids in a classroom apart from making us all sit down and shut up while she delivered the next set of predigested facts from the syllabus to a literally captive audience?

It's the same with the most revered TYS with kids faithfully practicing answering past questions as if the same questions will repeat themselves year after year. Success for them means recalling the answer closest to the answers at the back of the book, and they're satisfied that they've done the work expected of them.

Which is true: that is a lot of work, although not necessarily a lot of thinking, so the learning turns out to be somewhat limited. Then the more successful kids step up to college level and wonder why their scores for GP are scraping borderline when in sec school they were the pride and joy, the creme de la creme of their beloved alma mater. The next level for them is quite a large gap to bridge, and it's hard to convince them that their previous secrets to success were actually bad habits, and they need to trade in the old comfortable ways for new ones that are more difficult to master, but work better in the long term.

There was this couple of independently raised examples from two of our panellists: Prof Mo said that he had once observed a 7 year-old repeatedly jumping as high as he could go because he was testing a theory that his teacher had proposed to him: The Earth rotates around the sun. So, the boy reasoned that if he were to jump high enough, the earth would rotate under him and he would land in a different spot from where he had taken off. While there were certain flaws in his assumptions leading him to conclude that because he landed in the same spot every time, his teacher must be wrong, it shows that even little kids have some critical thinking ability and they already can exercise it in their observations of life around them.

Contrast this example with the one Ken raised: his 16-17 year-old students consider critical thinking and philo classes a waste of time 'cos there's no 'O' level paper on the subject. They don't like to think, they say, 'cos it's too hard. Save them time, just give them the answers and they will gladly memorize the material with the time saved.

So, what happened to turn the curious 7 year-old into the jaded, pragmatic 17 year-old? 10 years of education for the masses, perhaps? Fortunately, the fact that we are having discussions such as this one shows that the industry is making inroads into overhauling the old ways. Soon, I hope.

Oh, btw, the venue for the panel discussion brought back some good memories for me. I wandered those old corridors back then as a student. Even though that old institution has since been replaced by this current one, the campus is still mostly the same. But I wasn't there long as a student -- well, long enough to develop my first serious crushes on my girl classmates but not long enough to do anything about them. As Ben said, c'est la vie.

Finally got my paws on "Mass Effect" for PC. Vista gave problems when I first attempted to start up the game. It simply refused to start. But after a call to EA's helpdesk which advised me to switch off Vista's User Account Control (UAC), I actually got my first taste of this epic space melodrama.

The game space is amazingly huge. I've seen two locations so far, Eden Prime which was a tutorial run for basic game controls, and am currently exploring Citadel, a sprawling complex of districts full of mini quests to accept and fulfill. I still need time to get used to the many keys needed to conduct squad combat properly. Until I figure them out, I'm gonna get killed a lot but that's the learning curve.

Apart from the above two locations, there's a massive galaxy to explore system by system, planet by planet. While I've been only doing grunt fighting so far, there's promise of vehicular combat and space combat as well to look forward to. Death-dealing comes in so many forms!

Despite my excitement, there's still one serious annoyance with the game: It has shut down on me twice already in mid-game, causing the loss of any unsaved content, and forcing replays of certain encounters which I'd already seen, before being unceremoniously dumped back out into the Windows environment so unexpectedly.

Wonder if there'll be a patch soon that will address this problem. Meantime, I'll look around the 'net for a viable solution. Grr...

It's an argument that we in the industry will never win. We're taking flak again, this time for making kids continue classes even though they're supposed to be enjoying their summer break right now. Where is this criticism coming from?

Even in the US, summer school is a legit practice. Kids actually get threatened to be sent to summer school if they are not performing during regular term time. Summer school is also great to attend to gain extra academic credits and makes the study load lighter by a course or two when term resumes. All the more so here then, with parents so anxious about their kids not scoring 'A's, I would think they'd somehow make summer school mandatory without our initiative.

If we didn't hold the kids back, we'd still receive flak anyway for being slack, uncaring, selfish and any other unflattering description because we are not helping the kids to do better at their upcoming exams. After all, we are well-paid civil servants , so we'd better do more to justify our upkeep, some people would say.

Since there's no pleasing anyone on this issue, I'm just going to continue working at whatever needs to be done, whether its admin, lesson planning, materials gathering, assignment marking, course taking, and I'll do it wherever I want, at my own time, without distractions from management or client-base, and I'm going to be happy. I'm on vacation!

Stabbing people in the back is a useful skill to master in "Assassin's Creed". As crack assassin, Altair, who seeks redemption for an earlier botched hit, I have a list of nine very bad men to put paid to. Or rather, my ancestor has to and I'm sharing his memories of his greatest hits via a device that allows me to do so.

Assassins carry out a routine before striking. They infiltrate the target's city of residence; seek out as much information as possible about his whereabouts, activities, strengths and weaknesses; sneak past his guards and finally give him a taste of cold steel in his gut.

That's the theory, anyway. A more skilled player than me might just have the patience and timing to make his kills as smooth as butter and keep the body count to a minimum if he wished to sincerely follow the Creed. But where's the fun in that? Clumsy ol' me just blunders into a hornet's nest bristling with angry men holding pointy objects and having to slay them all. If I manage to poke the right target it's because he was stupid enough to stay and fight with his men. Of course, some targets choose the better part of valour, so those guys need to be timed properly or chased down, apologies to whomever stands in the way.

Fighting is easy to pick up. It's just a matter of timing Altair's attack against his opponents'. Time it right and be rewarded with a cinematic of a deft parry or a brutal finisher. There are lots of variations, and I believe that as Altair unlocks more as he progresses through the levels. Altair often gets surrounded with a mass of enemies, but by methodically picking off each enemy the body count racks up until no one is left to challenge the might of the Assassin. Yes.

But sometimes the fighting can get tiresome, so if there's no one important to kill in the mob another option is to break off and run through the crowd of civillians and climb over the rooftops to find a hiding spot -- a pile of hay or a curtained pavillion. Once the pursuers have lost line of sight, they quit their search (slackers!) and return to their posts.

On the way to the big party, though, there are certain buildings to climb to get a better picture of what's happening in the neighbourhood; hidden flags to collect; civillians to rescue from thugs and bullies; people to pickpocket from; others to intimidate for the information they hold, or just eavesdrop on surreptitious conversations between loose lips. Occasionally, a fellow assassin will point out certain secondary targets to eliminate on the quiet, or initiate a race across the rooftops just for fun.

So there's lots to do in between the big kills, although up to a point, even the variety of activities becomes repetitive after a while. Still, these asides are mostly optional. Completing any two or three per city is enough to unlock access to the big cheese himself, and his cryptic final words that make Altair wonder if he is on the right side of the war after all.

Many people have a problem with the ending sequence to the game. Just when you think there's more to come, the game stops on a cliffhanger. The problem is, you don't know the game's ended. You just keep walking around in a closed room where you can access clues about what's to come, then there's nothing else to do except wander around aimlessly wondering what the heck to do next. There's only one thing left to do: see that little box marked with an 'X' on the top right hand of your game window? Click that then get on with your life.

Currently exploring the Holy Land in the 12th century, during the Crusades. My persona's hands soak in the blood of all who stand in the way of my efforts to restore peace to the region (heh, a side note about the necessity of violence for the sake of peace). I fight for neither Sal-a-hadin nor Richard. My struggle is against those who work in the shadows, who profit by fuelling the fires of the conflict, prolonging the war for the sake of their own private agenda.

Or so I've been told. Lately, I'm not so sure any more...

People get upset when their kids fail tests and exams. They get especially upset when they find out that their kid is just one casualty among many others in the cohort. They question the school practices, the competence of the teachers, they feel the pressure to get the kid some private tuition, everything except tell the kid to go study, or get his life under control or something.

What are parents really expecting when to the vast majority of them, perfection = 100%? They expect their kids to hit a target that high at primary and secondary level, and raise hell when the kid falls short within a 5% margin or so. At college level, how do we convince the same parents that because an 'A' grade describes the band from 75% and above, the pass mark actually works out to 45% and even then that's erring on the conservative.

Speaking from the experience of a foreign education, it certainly encouraged me that my profs never did pressure me for an 'A' performance. We all had the understanding that a 'C' grade was entirely satisfactory. 'C' stood for 'competent', a decent level of proficiency in the subject so that I didn't have to be shackled to my desk and textbooks all day and instead did other things with my life that weren't necessarily academic or even intellectual. I still turned in a "B+" average in the end, which meant I did spend some time studying, but my studies were never my life.

Having said that, things are quite different back here. Here people study to live, and our education experience tells us 'A' or die. We have a very penalizing attitude to our tests and exams, which filters down all the way to our setting of papers and our marking. Our papers are necessarily difficult because we hold our kids to very high performance standards. We often teach beyond their syllabus requirements, making them stretch to grasp our material. And when we mark, we usually have very high expectations of them. When they don't quite live up to our expectations, our marking reflects our disappointment. But we are loath to 'dumb it down' because no one is prepared to accept lower standards, and so the hamster wheel just keeps going faster with every subsequent batch of kids.

Wonder how many (if any) of the kids who, on entering university, suddenly realized that we were already trying to teach them the same stuff a couple of years earlier? Just asking.

Indy's back and it's another fun run. There are thrills galore in "Crystal Skull", though some of the stunts are worth the scrutiny of the Mythbusters guys. How Indy escapes a nuclear blast test is unbelievable -- i.e., cannot be believed even with copious amounts of disbelief suspended; rather than whoa, awesome, dude!

In this fourth installment the action takes place in Indy's backyard: in the US and in South America. It's the 50s at the height of McCarthyism. Paranoia runs rampant against the Communist threat, and apparently with good reason as a whole platoon of KGB goons in US Army uniforms drive freely around the country seeking paranormal artifacts kept in cold storage in Area 51. Indy himself becomes a victim of the witchhunt due to his unwilling involvement with the Area 51 incident, and having previously lost Marcus Brody and Dr Jones Sr., and recently his tenure at the University, decides to start a new life across the Atlantic.

His journey east gets interrupted by Mutt, a young, leather-clad biker and school-dropout, who brings news that an old colleague and friend is in danger, so off they go to a family reunion of sorts in the jungles of South America.

Spielberg ties both modern and ancient mythology in this episode as Indy discovers a link between the ancient culture of the Meso-Americas and the Roswell incident of 1947. Apart from his escapades in fast moving vehicles on the edge of a precipiece, quicksand, army ants and the usual company of heavily-accented gun-totting goons, Indy movies are fun to watch because they invent answers to some of the mysteries left behind by our long-lost and forgotten ancestors whose technological prowess we tend to underestimate.

In Crystal Skull, we glimpse deiety in yet another form, though this time one that is less than traditionally conventional. From this perspective, the story gets quite a bit hokey with lots of plot loopholes. Like for example, what were the crystal skulls doing together for a thousand years before one got stolen; then when the one is finally returned, what's the reason for all the sudden fireworks? Action and adventure get a heavier weightage than a coherent storyline, but that's Indy.

Ultimately, Crystal Skull is commercial fluff. It's addictive, like a bucket of warm popcorn, and offers as much nutritional value.

Spent another day improvising GP essays in front of students. One of the requests they made was for the question, "Is competition healthy for man?" Thought I'd put my take here in a more formal presentation. Click.

In our industry-sponsored dialogue with professionals from outside our industry, we had a couple of government-types and one NGO rep discuss with us the energy issue facing our country today.

While much of the presentations were rather technical to follow, we got the general idea that we are way too dependent on our neighbours for our sources of gas that powers our electrical generators that keep this wired nation humming. Like our water issue, our R&D experts are exploring other forms of power generation leaving no stone unturned in our quest for energy self-sufficiency. Interesting possibilities for our future, yes.

Meantime, we have to save what we can because we are running on finite resources. The second industry expert spoke to us at length about how his organization works to make buildings more energy-efficient. While we got lost in his diagrams, chart and tables, we met in him a guy who really takes pride in his work. With good old engineering know-how, a building's heating and cooling systems can be redesigned to reduce power consumption amounting to quite significant savings every year.

But it was the NGO rep that got our attention because he was talking about things within the household consumer's control -- that's us. He spoke about our behaviour as power consumers and laid out lots of eco-friendly options which we can make to live more responsibly. He spoke about the now compulsory labelling of appliances by his organization which appraises how energy-efficient they are (the more ticks the better); their efforts to educate the public with clean, green living; awards programmes and incentive schemes for organizations going eco-friendly (no school has won such an award yet, he said); and various opportunities for volunteer work.

In the wrap-up, we got the idea that both green initiatives and economic growth must balance each other. Pragmatic, as always, our colleagues in public service.

When will I learn that the only one I can count on is me; the only one who shares common goals with me is me; the only one committed to my cause is me? I should have expected this; after all, my charisma level is roughly equivalent to that of a corpse lying in an open field, and even then I couldn't attract the flies.

How did the game go today? We can safely say that we've firmly cemented our place at rock bottom despite facing a team we could have beaten. The Boyz were a complete no-show, and it was only thanks to the goodwill of ol' Des as a last minute subby that we were allowed to bowl at all -- one bowler short.

This is the last time I'm going to be organizing something that is so low on everybody's priorities. It'll be the last time I'll be organizing anything at all. I'm tired of being constantly brushed off like some kind of inconvenience. From now on, this act is going solo.

How's that for self-indulgent?

Installing Windows SP3 killed Mr L33t! Partway through installation, the update hung and Mr L33t went straight into a coma. The poor guy is now in intensive care. The best I can hope for is to salvage whatever files I can from my archives, then it's probably "good night, sweet prince." A full Windows re-install will be needed to revive him, but I don't have the time for that now.

Usually, I'd be climbing the walls in anxiety right now -- such is the extent of my addiction -- but I'm quite philosophical about this latest untimely demise. As it is, Mr L33t was starting to show his age already. He didn't even live up to the minimum specs of "Assassin's Creed" which I bought to keep me company over the coming hols. I'm also looking forward to picking up "Mass Effect" for PC which should be launching in a couple of weeks, just in time for when I'll be slightly freer to game on again.

So as soon as I'm able to get some time off, I'm donning my geek glasses and pocket protector and heading off to the market for some serious hardware upgrades. At this time, I wonder if Vista is worth investing in? Full DX-10 functionality... tempting.

Yay! Long weekend! Took my first Saturday off this entire term. Really been looking forward to it since quite a while ago. Had a most fruitful time cuddling up with essays to mark, with more essays to look forward to today and tomorrow's public holiday as well. If I'm good, I'll be done with this entire batch of essay marking by late afternoon tomorrow. Then I can sort of rest until the mid-year exam essays arrive at the end of the week. Have to earn my June hols, don't you know?

Looking at the PW results some colleges have been able to achieve in the previous project work cycle, it's easy to get the impression that an 'A' grade in the subject is a dime-a-dozen, and that there's some kind of magic formula that when followed makes scoring top marks possible. Perhaps there is, perhaps there is a way to template the perfect project, and it's tempting to do so for the sake of the grade. But I don't see the point of following a formula as if there was only one single solution to every problem we're going to encounter in life.

A template is like a join-the-dots puzzle, success involves just pencilling a line from digit to digit. So the 'A' grade via template is just an acknowledgement of how well the kids followed their instructions. How difficult can that be, tracing a pre-determined path to create derive a pre-determined picture? What a surprise! When a toddler is able to do this we remark how clever it is. These are college students we are dealing with. What's an 'A' worth these days?

Which is why I get disturbed when I hear tell of students' proposals getting rejected outright and sent back to the drawing board because the proposal didn't live up to the super's pre-conceived expectations. We're supposed to be working with the students on this, not against them. So I'm not surprised when some kids eventually see the whole thing as a waste of time, because literally what amounts to hours of work gets summarily dismissed and there's no progress to show for it. They get bored, resentful, and lose confidence in their project. When it's time to make their presentations that's what gets reflected. Ironically, aming for an 'A' grade like this becomes counter-productive to both the grade and the learning behind it.

Fortunately, the groups I have seem motivated and have delivered creative and meticulously crafted proposals, so I don't have to worry too much over WHAT they are planning. I'll keep an eye on them to see HOW they are carrying out their plans, but at least they're off and running already. I can do my real job of supervision by managing group dynamics and being basically a cheerleader and resource for them, but I have firmly taken my hands off the micromanagement controls and am letting them run the nitty-gritty on their own.

I already have a group dysfunction to manage -- mainly a self-interest vs group-interest conflict -- but this is where the super's real work begins. Of course there will be conflicts; that's what we were hoping for when we threw separate individuals together to work as a group. How the different personality types learn to speak up and settle their differences, come to agreement and focus on a common goal, then work in cooperation with each other and build bonds based on the trust that accumulates as they pass milestone after milestone together. That's the most important lesson to learn from PW. If the kids learn this early enough, there'll be enough time to put together an impressive, professional presentation that deserves an 'A' from start to finish. That will be an 'A' to be proud of.

It's the end of the Drama season! Time to dress up, break out the sparkly juice, and laugh our brains out till late.

As riotous a time as we could have sans alcohol, we lived it up and bade farewell to the J2s in an evening of finger-foods, fun and games.

The incoming J1s who organised the party did well with their logistics and timekeeping precision. Their games were hilarious to play, except the one where I got my instructions confused and instantly self-immolated on my first utterance. Well-rigged, ppl!

Nice to see how this bunch of Drama kids took to improv. They haven't entirely got the theory right, but they were enthusiastically launching themselves into their assigned characters with minimal think time. Five different improv groups playing out five different scenarios, each group presenting a different playing style as best suits their collective personalities. Could be the basis of a set of rules for a new improv game! Hmm...

Kids finally got to see themselves on Drama Night. We sped through video highlights of both "Admiral" and "Walls", and it was funny to hear them groan at their own performance. As Wayne said later, "good actors don't like to watch themselves act," and the kids must be living up to that latest Waynism.

Gonna miss the zany but committed J2s, looking forward to working with the meticulous J1s. Not sure if there are any crazies among them, but I guess I'll find out soon.

Many thanks to everyone from x32 for the off-beat, unexpected and totally sweet thing y'all did for me today. It took a lot of effort and much thoughtfulness, and I really appreciate it very much. Even we staff need positive feedback at times -- yours came unsolicited, and right out of the blue. And, yes, in case you've been wondering, I've been off medication for almost a week already, and I hope that means the worst is over.

An end to two items on my weekly schedule. The first is the Drama competition which ended early this afternoon; the second, my 6-week self-leadership course which I have been faithfully attempting to follow as a personal commitment.

Our drama entry played exactly as I've seen it rehearsed many times over. It was as competent and as polished as it's ever going to get, though perhaps I'm seeing it through the eyes of someone who's seen the repeats once too many times.

I hope I'm wrong, 'cos the kids put in so much time, effort, and much of their lives into this production, but I'm going to be conservative about our chances at a top award this year. For me, the play looked so polished that it lost it's sense of 'reality' which was what was so strong about it to begin with. Well, better over-prepared and over-rehearsed than under, I suppose.

The other thing is the course I'm taking with a number of staff from across the departments. Apart from the key concepts of mentorship and rapport-building through both theory discussions and practical application, my best takeaway is in having made new friends from fellow staff I would generally not have had a need to talk to as part of my daily routine. Because everyone was keen to learn and participate, it was actually fun to play the games and open up about our current challenges and future goals to get affirmation and support from each other.

And now it almost feels like half the year is over already. Wow.

Big college concert night at the Conference Hall. I'm no big fan of sit-down symphonic music but it helped that the band played lively, upbeat, familiar tunes that kept the mood light and happy. The concert combined the strings of the traditional guzheng with European wind and percussion instruments for something of a fusion performance. It wasn't entirely perfect, a bit more rehearsal time would have helped smoothen out the blend better. Nevertheless, it was a credible enough show for me to be absorbed into the music and enjoy the evening.

'Peter and the Wolf' turned out amazingly cute, as I'd expected. The props makers spared no effort in creating a huge cardboard set comprising a massive tree, a reed bank to represent the edge of a pond, a working gate and a little farmhouse, all cut and painted from old packing crates. The cast's enthusiasm in playing their characters won over the crowd, particularly the bird who kept flitting and flapping almost right through the entire piece, wowing us with her endurance and stamina. It was a nice touch to introduce colour and movement to the concert, and we did appreciate the variety.

Among the audience was this bunch from x17 who, like everyone else, was busy taking photos after the concert was over. Well, I had my camera with me too, so I guess I was no different.

Oh, before the concert, Mel, Wayne and I quite confirmed that around Shenton Way on Saturday evening, there's practically nothing to eat. All potential eateries have closed and it's easy to starve on the street there and then.

Fortunately, we stumbled upon Honjin Japanese Restaurant, still open for business on Robinson Road. For its location, the prices aren't too bad, between $18-28 for a teishoku bento.

The decor is entirely Jap, right down to the wait staff dressed in yukata. The illusion ends there, though, 'cos they don't walk at all Japanese, and while polite, their accents betray a more local, heartland origin.

But who cares? The food is good (yummy, juicy sukiyaki beef) with a generous array of sides, chawanmushi inclusive. Yay! One more place to eat at!

Unplanned double date at Izakaya Nijumaru where we shared a table with Jamie (June's colleague), and bf. The first thing we saw as we entered was the sushi bar, the second was a friendly hand waving at us to make up a foursome.

Located at Cuppage Centre, the premises are rustic Japanese with bamboo highlights. Furniture is rough and ready, and the place overall looks more robust than fine in the way we think Jap cuisine should be.

The house teishoku featured saba, pork stew and a prawn tempura. I sampled some of the saba and pork from June's set. Both tasted as strong as they were chunky, fish oil mixing with pork fat sent my tastebuds into overload. Not subtle, but a working man's meal that was. Definitely too strong for miladies' delicate constitutions, they didn't have very good things to say about it.

I was conservative and opted for the sashimi set. Three thick slices each of tuna, maguro and yellowtail(?); a side of French beans fried in egg; rice and miso. No complaints from me about what I ordered. As long as the fish is fresh and the wasabi sings in my ears, I'm good to go. Besides, I was hungry.

Price: reasonable. Two sets and a chawanmushi set me back $42 plus tax.

Edit 01:
Oops. Blinded by optimism, I misinterpreted the tournement bowling scores. It was an even draw between us and our opponents, sharing 10 points each. Our overall scratch pinfalls actually dropped and we've been knocked off the top-3 high scratch series score. We've not improved our position on the league table either. BUT we actually drew with the current fifth place team, so there's still hope yet to finish this year about mid-table.

All I ask at the end of this day is rest. And after a long day of switching hats every other hour -- such is my schedule on Wednesday -- that's exactly what I'm doing. Absolutely nothing. Perhaps except contemplating which game to play on Mr L33t until my eyes bug out. And then I'll probably be too lazy to even slot in the requisite CD-ROM and instead go to sleep. Hey, I deserve it.

Asthma or no, when duty calls, el capitain must still show up at the lanes and bowl his set. Team comprising me, Ton_y and Andy did ok today. Our opponents were pretty evenly matched with us, but they got tired at the last game. We have a chance of earning some decent points and climbing out of the depths we've begun in.

My average dropped a bit to 157 over four games, but it looks more realistic now. Overall, our total pinfalls is better than our last game's, improving by about a hundred. As usual, official results should be out by late Thursday.

Follow up visit with Doc Toh was inconclusive. Can't establish much else other than that the drugs are working and I'm still breathing (though, he says, at 85-90%). Advised to continue pill-popping regimen while my supplies last, and just keep monitoring. I suppose in this case, no news is good news.

Breathing difficulties have resurfaced after a year, especially bad today. Doc Toh is concerned, and mystified, as am I about the cause. He's decided to treat the symptoms as adult-onset asthma. Gave me a whole bunch of pills to take, mostly anti-inflammatories and a steroid to keep the airways open. Review again with him tomorrow evening. This isn't funny.

Concert Band's performing Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf." Traditionally, there's a little drama to go with this piece, illustrating the role each major instrument plays in the orchestra. Through simple association, the bird represents the piccolo, grumpy Gramps represents the bassoon, the trigger-happy hunters represent the kettle-drums, and so on. As the instruments interweave their themes through the score, the story of how brave Peter captures a voracious wolf prowling around the farm comes to life before the audience's eyes.

HP brought me in to see how her actors could learn to move like the characters they are playing. The kids and I had quite a workout as we practiced the walks of different animals and human character types. We really worked the knees and thighs as I decided to base all movement on variations of the demi plie in third for a uniform look. So demonstrating and practicing how to walk, run, jump and fly on the half crouched vertical position soon translated into cramps all up and down my quads.

But never mind me. The kids are looking stiff and slightly uncoordinated since these movements are new to them. They've understood their basic stances and ambulations, but it's going to take some practice before they make their movements confident and smooth. Hope they work hard over the weekend, and learn to use the music too. After all, it's their first taste of classic French mime based on classical ballet.

I'll check in on them again soon. They only have one week to put it all together.

If "Iron Man" is anything to go by, we can expect a summer season of big action thrills. Familiar names, though they may be, this summer's movies are going to prove that there's a lot of mileage left in the characters we admired when we were kids.

I never cared much for Iron Man. The name didn't strike a chord with me, but of all the pantheon of superheroes, he seemed like the easiest to draw. A basically human shape, a yellow-and-red colour scheme and a completely expressionless face kind'a like this --> {-_-}, and there was a costumed crimefighter I could reproduce on pages of jotter book paper, even when my artwork skill was just about zero.

In the comic books, IM a.k.a. Tony Stark, is one of the most flawed, troubled persons to wage war on crime. His heart's liable to give out any minute, he was a warning as to how substance abuse can destroy lives, and lately in the Civil War story arc, he comes off as a self-righteous jerk with the expertise to make his fascistic plans a reality. And yet, Stark fights for the very best of reasons, doing what he feels is necessary to right the injustices inflicted upon the world.

Robert Downey Jr plays a convincing Tony Stark, complete with goatee beard. Downey Jr is himself a troubled celebrity so he should understand the role quite well, though Stark has a slight advantage being a design, engineering, robotics genius.

The movie is action-thrill all the way. The televised footage of Afghan captors displaying Stark as their latest hostage is reminiscent of many other hostage displays in real-life. It's just uplifting when Stark turns the terror on his captors while escaping captivity, and the retribution he exacts on them later during his rescue of a besieged village is pure lizard-brain elation. Yes, it's fantasy, but it's always a rush to see the bullied fight back and win.

But that's just the sideshow for the battle about to take place, this time a little closer to home...

Stark has everything he wants, but what he needs he has to keep at arms' length. He's a war-monger hoping to bring peace to the world. He's a dying man with a never-say-die spirit. A good boy, and a bad boy all at the same time. Welcome to a world of contradictions embodied in the man who wears the armour. Iron Man. Cool.

Got a look at the SYF venue where we're performing 'Walls' once again. It was a gigantic stage, at this moment still under construction, but it should be quite finished in the next two weeks.

I was to help plot the lights at this new venue, but the two lighting crew learned to operate the light board so quickly, I decided to fire myself so as not to get in their way.

It felt quite good to be useless as the rest of the time I was just enjoying the antics on stage and not having to worry that anything was going to go awry. Everyone knew their jobs, and they were doing just great. If only CCA was always this easy.

BTW, I updated "6 impossible things..." today with another K&I post. Should also be good for GP. Have a look if you want.

Now that there's a movement to make kids belt up in school buses, we've lost yet another of our potential kids' playgrounds for before and after school entertainment. Gone are the days when we rambunctious toddlers would run up and down the narrow aisle to "socialize" with the other kids. Dad once said he knew I was coming home from school because he could hear the bus long before it pulled into view.

The school bus was fun. Early in the morning, it was the one last sanctuary before another long, dreary day at school stuck behind my desk. If I got sleepy, I'd just doze off only to be rudely awakened by the occasional e-brake stop, the momentum smashing my face against the steel back of the seat in front, or the loose side-window would abruptly slam shut against my forehead. At that, I'd blink blearily before drifting back off to sleep until the next e-brake. I think I spent much of my schooling life looking like an abused child, but no one at that time dared to ask about my domestic situation. Parents, kids and teachers knew their roles back then.

En route home, sleep wasn't as much a priority as playing cards with the gang (we played "Top Trumps", not poker), or playing catching over and around the seats, or beating up on the moron kicking the back of my seat 'cos he was bored and looking for a punch-up to pass the time. We had a saint of a bus driver who stoically kept drivin' on while Chaos ruled the rear compartment.

Now, if the seat-belt thing becomes law, all the little kiddies will be strapped into their transport like raw cargo being delivered to the processing plant. I imagine if they can't let off steam physically, mentally they'll be screaming for the loss of yet another outlet of youthful aggression expression. And woe betide seat partners if they can't stand each other. As soon as they reach school and the seat-belts come off, the only way to separate the two is with a crowbar, and only after a few solid whacks to soften the resistance.

Yes, I know there's a safety concern, so there's a good reason for safety belts. And I'm not trying to make light of the recent tragedy. But I am glad I'm not a child today.

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As a PW Supervisor, I have a particular job to do that my students have not yet quite understood. And this misunderstanding is causing lots of frustration on both sides. My role is not to APprove projects, but rather to IMprove them. So while they send me proposal draft after draft, hoping that I will at some point say, "that's it! That's perfect!", that's not what's going to happen. I will always find ways to make the proposal better. The disparity is that the students see their projects as a destination whereas I see them as a continuum. There IS no end in sight. Honest.

Why it's so frustrating is because the students tend to do what they're told. I keep telling and they keep doing and it never seems to be good enough. Every proposal gets sent back to the old drawing board, the old ogre is never satisfied, damn him! But, hey, if PW was simply about following instructions from some crotchety codger who doesn't know what he wants, then PW really should be scrapped as yet another redundant exam subject.

But the PW process is more about learning to think up a project and then think through it from the perspective of the one who will eventually be presented the project. Most students are satisfied accomplishing the former, and don't push on to even attempt the latter. Then when they receive feedback on their proposals, they think there's something wrong with themselves, or something wrong with the ideas, when most of the time, what they have is quite good enough.

What's missing is their ability to adequately communicate their ideas to the third party, and to see what they have written through the eyes and ears of their audience. This is the leap in thinking ability they have to make in order to succeed at PW. They need to articulate their ideas clearly and coherently, anticipate queries and potential objections, and project an air of confidence that they have done their homework, and competence in the area of work they wish to undertake. Some professionalism in the way they they present their materials won't hurt either.

If they could just try to read what they themselves have written, distancing themselves from their own authorship, and critique their own proposals from a third-party perspective, ask themselves the hard questions and prepare to answer them, then they won't need me any longer, and they can start working for themselves at last. Perhaps then they will see that I'm less tough on them than they will be on themselves.

Until then, it's like I'm driving a school bus and the kids inside keep asking, "are we there yet?" All I'm doing is driving, I'm not going anywhere except down the road. Hopefully, at some point, the kids will quit watching the scenery and poking each other, but instead watch me as I turn the wheel, upshift, downshift, accelerate and brake. And when they finally get it, they'll get off at the next bus stop, climb into their own vehicles and trundle off -- on their own -- towards a destination of their own choice. These will be the successful kids.

So completely brain-dead that "Superhero Movie" was the perfect weekend therapy. Full of cheap sight gags, toilet humour and frothing over with sophomoric innuendo, SM proves that the line is indeed fine between heroism and hilarity.

SM takes the basic script of "Spider-Man", though the protagonist, Rick Riker, is more tragic than hero. Brought up believing that he is destined for saving-the-world, do-gooder stuff, the harder he tries to be a hero, the more misfortune he brings to others.

Unfortunately for Riker, his sources of inspiration are his Uncle and Aunt whom he lives with. Both spout inane advice, but his Aunt in particular speaks in such cliched platitudes that her flatulence carries more authority and impact in the movie.

The moral dilemma his nemesis, The Hourglass, faces is to use his life-absorbing power on one person a day, in order to gain sufficient energy to live one more day. So his decision is obviously clear: kill as many people as possible at one time to gain immortality. Duh!

I was in the mood to laugh my guts out, and so I did. But a crucial scene involving Riker's discovery of the true identity of The Hourglass was mysteriously censored (there was a notice at the box office to inform us to expect cuts) due to some offense against some religious issue. *shrugs. But the cut is so obvious that characters inexplicably jump locations and action, which probably offended my sense of continuity more than protected my religious sensibilities.

Oh, stay to watch the clips during the end credits if you must. They appear to be deleted scenes from the final edit. Just leave your brain at the door.

Results from our last bowling session are very encouraging. Officially, the Boyz have climbed up one spot in the rankings to 15th of 16, plus we've won two special awards. Anthony got 2nd placing for his high game with handicap totalling 232 (including handicap 21), while the Team got 3rd placing in the team scratch series totalling 1811 pinfalls excluding handicap (i.e., we're overall the 3rd highest scoring team without adding our respective handicaps). Not bad at all!

The dog and rabbit "freelance police" team wraps up its second season with an extra-large helping of bizarre adventure. The usual pattern of a Sam & Max point-and-click game is to solve an initial set of three puzzles, thereby unlocking a final set of three new puzzles before the resolution. In this fifth installment, just when we think we're done, the adventure continues. After all, with a title like, "What's New, Beelzebub?", we should guess that a date with the big guy downstairs isn't going to be so straightforward to come back from and still look forward to a Season Three.

While the puzzles are still the mundane trial-and-error approach of applying different inventory objects to hotspots on the screen to see what works, it's the snappy dialogue among all the characters that drives the comedy forward. Apart from Sam & Max themselves, I especially like the 10-foot tall killer robot who philosophizes about life using only snippets of song lyrics from the '80s. And Tiny Timmy, the rat, whose every other utterance is *bleeped* out because he suffers from Tourette's syndrome. One of the puzzles actually involves finding a way to un*bleep* his dialogue because a vital clue gets *bleeped* out along with the rest of his profanities. Hilarious.

Although Episode Five can stand on its own, it'll make more sense having played the four episodes before. Episode Five ties up all the loose ends in this Second Season, including all the odd time-travel paradoxes scattered around the previous four episodes, and resolves every cliffhanger as well -- such as where the molten lava disappeared to when the volcano erupted in Episode Two. Also, all the characters from both Seasons show up in one way or another, with some eyebrow-raising developments to some of the characters as well.

However, not everyone will be able to stomach the themes of Episode Five as it goes all out to make light of our beliefs about the afterlife and the torments that await us there. Best to slap a "Not Easily Offended" label on the game as fair warning to those who might be. Then again, if you were easily offended, you probably wouldn't be playing Sam & Max anyway.

The Boyz are back on the lanes again. A last minute substitution brought back Anthony to the fold, so it was him, Victor and me today. Considering we haven't bowled in quite a while, I think we did decently well. I calculate my average to be 160+ over four games. But Anthony had to be the show-off and probably scored both the lowest scoring game (98) and an impressive 211, which after adding his handicap, could well total up to be the highest game of the day.

Official results will most likely be released on Thursday. I seriously hope we've managed to claw our way out of last place after tonight.

This rare omen started the day for me on the opening night of Drama Night 2008.

In contrast, instead of another auspicious sign from above before yesterday's closing show, we began with a problem. M2's battery died just as Mel and I were leaving campus to go to SRT.

That wasn't good 'cos we were carrying my laptop containing the 'Admiral' soundtrack, and we still had to swing through Gardens to collect some... perishable props for the show.

But from the crisis, the small swarm of staff crowding around M2 to lend a hand, give advice or provide moral support was simply heartwarming. There was Ho, who connected Lena's jumper cables to his car's battery, though that failed to produce a large enough jolt to get M2 started. Richard rode home to bring back his set of jumper cables and the truck he would be driving later that night. Wayne lent me his AA card to call roadside assistance, Jane came over to see what was the matter and sympathize, as did EmL. Jon drove Mel to collect our deep-fried bananas and then to the theatre on time even though he'd already been there the previous night. Pau drove over his SX-4 and with his industrial-strength cable, we finally brought M2 back to life. Wayne helped me text Richard that all's well so he wouldn't return to find he'd missed all the excitement. And Gurmit stayed with me till the end of the ordeal to make sure I didn't get a heart-attack or worse.

X-departments coming together to help a fellow colleague out; our campus is truly a kampong, and I'm so glad for it. Thanks everyone!

Once M2 got started, I drove straight to the Shell station in Gardens. There they quickly replaced my dead battery with this fluorescent green one (no, I didn't choose it myself, honest). Now my engine compartment looks like it's got some attitude.

Anyway, Drama Night 08 has closed and we're a step closer to our college's professional theatrical credibility. Now that we've seen what our students can do in this venue, as Mel said, we can never go back to LT4.

Anyone wanna see the last of my Drama Night pix click here.

Opening night for NYeDC with four short plays for the price of one ticket.

There's nothing like the excitement of playing to a packed house, and the SRT auditorium was just buzzing with it.

'Admiral' went off admirably, all cast and crew fully backing each other up. Great to see XYan (not in pix) take the lead and work so hard at being such a professional on stage, setting the example for her juniors to follow.

Hats off too, to the rest of the cast who have been likewise working hard at line memory, movement and speech delivery; but most importantly in being so supportive of one another and of the 'Walls' team as well.

Not surprisingly, our audence had a hard time comprehending our abstract piece. I had lots of questions about it during the interval, and I found myself over-intellectualizing our interpretation as I tried to explain it to Lynette and Haze. Even I started getting confused with my explanation after a while, so I just ran with whatever impressions they got from it... which wasn't really that far off. What was gratifying was that they did respond to the little running sight gags we engineered into Kuo's script. Those they got.

As for 'Walls', the audience could better relate to the more realistic presentation. There was little to interpret as it was a straightforward in-your-face portrayal of young people in quite some serious pain.

The audience appreciated the stunningly real explosion of emotion onstage, and it even amazes me that rehearsal after rehearsal, the cast can sustain being the characters they play without degenerating their portrayals into mere 'acting'.

'Walls' is a wonderfuly therapeutic piece for people with psychological baggage.

Drama Night 2008 closes tonight. It's been a memorable run. We seldom say it outright, but we have some great kids on campus.

Forgive the obsession with Drama Night. It's taken over my life this week and I'm exhausted. For the first time, I wiped out at my desk during lunch break, completely zoned out in la-la land. Mel said that even the ruckus she and a bunch of others were making fooling around with a toy lightsabre in the staffroom didn't rouse me at all. I was that far gone.

Full-dress rehearsal went fabulously well for 'Admiral'. As I had hoped, the cast went home depressed last night but returned prepared to take on the new level of performance they'd been challenged with. Apart from a couple of wardrobe malfunctions and a few line gaffes, when they were on, they were spot on. Finally I got to see crisp, clean, coordinated movement, which shows they've been practicing. Very, very proud of everyone involved onstage and off. Only one more day to up the bar just a little higher. They're ready.

Btw, SRT's advertising our show in their eNewsletter. But we now have the enviable privilege of announcing that tomorrow we open to a full house! Both nights are sold out now, many thanks to the college and everyone else who bought a ticket for supporting us!

'Admiral' kids and 'Walls' kids have finally seen each others' plays. 'Admiral' kids are feeling inferior as 'Walls' is quite obviously more dramatic, more heartrending, more colourful, and more meticulously put together. This is undeniable. 'Walls' kids have been at it for much longer. They wrote their own script and based much of the drama on their own feelings and emotions. Their words are real to them, even if the situation is fictitious, and the script calls for full emoting of anger, angst and pain. In that sense, 'Walls' is realistic and direct.

Have to explain to 'Admiral' kids that their play is quite different in intent and form. Rather than emoting, they have to intellectualize their characters' experiences and abstract rather than feel their expression. While the pain is no less real, they have to interpret it through their text and movement rather than through the natural emotional outlets of shouting, screaming and crying. Therefore, their demands are quite different, requiring more control and precision timing to tell their story.

'Admiral' is after all a movement piece, the text seldom matching the action exactly word-for-word. This piece is really going to be tough going for the cast, and for the audience. Considering how far they've managed to come in the time they've had, I'm actually quite proud of them already. But now that they've seen 'Walls', we've raised the bar. Let's see that as a positive, a spur to take our performance up a notch. The time for a quantum leap is here!

Edit 01:


Drama Night 08 Rehearsal
Opening week for Drama Night. One last rehearsal on campus, then tomorrow we bump in at SRT. I notice that I haven't got any production pix of Admiral. I've been so busy directing, I've forgotten to make a photo record of the process. Hope Mel is up to holding a camera tonight. It's our last chance to capture our work-in-progress.

Only three more nights to curtain...