Learning from a hole in a wall

I think Sugata Mitra's TED Talk in it's entirety is worth the link. Mitra has been experimenting with kids and computers and is now proposing that even without a trained teacher, kids with a computer and broadband Internet access can organize themselves and learn what they need to learn.

Now, wait. If what he has observed is true, then S'porean kids should be freakin' geniuses! Many of them are carrying around their own personal Internet devices in their pockets. Those who don't still have lots of free (or cheap) access to the 'net almost any time they want. Plus they have the added advantage of having access to us, trained teacher professionals who are ready, willing and able to mould the future of our nation. But, sad to say, to call the majority of our kids 'geniuses' is somewhat of an exaggeration. And I'm not trying to be modest here.

Worse still, why is it that when we come across students who are struggling with one subject or another, our first line of attack is to cut him or her off from this very key learning tool in our wired age? In some countries, Internet access is a human right, so this approach could in some circles be considered an atrocity!

In our case, Internet access is a major advantage that we have yet to exploit properly. What we haven't come to realise yet is that access to fast information at our fingertips will only work to help us become smarter people if certain fundamental premises are already in motion. According to Mitra's findings, kids are self-organizing and they learn according to what they as a group are interested in learning. Also, kids learn collaboratively and cooperatively. Information is shared among kids freely, thus when one makes a discovery or arrives at an understanding of a concept or whatever, very quickly this new knowledge spreads to the rest of the group. Result: smarter, more motivated kids who understand what they are learning and can recall their learning much better than our exam-smart text-bookish S'pore students who 'slog their guts out' and have had no fun with their learning process whatsoever.

Unfortunately for us, the ones standing in the way of our kids actually learning and enjoying their learning is... us. Teachers. We don't let them self-organize. We organize EVERYTHING for them; their materials, their time, their tests, their co-curricula activities; inside school, outside school we manage them and continue treating them like unweaned breast-fed babies regardless of their physical age. I wonder if that's why we feel so sucked dry sometimes?

But the worst thing is that because of what we are doing, because of our lack of trust in our kids, we instil in them the idea that they can't trust anyone either. Not their friends, not their classmates, because everyone is competing for a limited number of university places. Competition is the biggest killer of collaborative and cooperative learning, and without this fundamental pillar of learning our job teaching individual selfish information hoarders can actually be quite a futile one, a joyless one and a thankless one.

This sort of competition-is-good (or at least inevitable) attitude goes right up to MP level, so making the necessary changes to the way we teach to maximize our latest tech assets will be 1) difficult, and 2) will have to start on a very small-scale, perhaps within one's personal sphere of influence, no more.

Who's with me?

On task

The best thing about finishing prelim exam grading a whole weekend ahead of schedule is that I now have all the time in the world... to finish grading my assignment backlog. Yay.

Values in two hours

Big industry boss wants us to teach our kids values. The plan is to allocate two curriculum hours a week in which the kids can learn the values of citizenship and about their social and moral responsibilities as human beings who can balance their reasoning abilities with their emotions.

This latest development could be a step in the right direction, seeing as how our kiddies are so drained of soul by the time they've passed junior high. This is one opportunity for us to reach them with a different perspective from the usual results-are-everything message they're so tired of listening to. That is, if they don't have a test to pass at the end of the year just to prove that this extra class justifies the taxpayers' monies funding it, in which case the whole exercise becomes self-negating. Actually, taxpayers don't have to worry since we'll be teaching it for no extra pay, but you know how accountants get about justifying every microsecond of our time -- it's their job.

I can see how such classes would be great for the kids in secondary school and below, though I believe they already have some kind of social studies and civics and moral ed classes. An extra two hours a week could help them put the theories they learn in-class into real, practical projects; or at least get them learning about their world butts-off, hands-on. These are skills we can't learn from textbooks anyway, so let's get active for a change. Let's use this opportunity to show them what goes on outside the classroom, unmediated, uncensored, and fully sensory.

I wonder if these two-hour weekly sessions are meant to continue through junior college? If we start taking in kids who have real experience working within the community since their secondary school days, I'll bet our GP classes will be so much more engaging for both us and our hypothetical future students. After all, everything Boss wants taught we already cover in GP, with the exception that we have an exam at the end the kids must take.

With the experience they bring with them coupled with their mid-teen maturity, they should be ready to discuss the basis of their beliefs, the nature of the human condition, human partnership with one another and stewardship over the rest of the world, and have a sense of fun, innovation and hope for their future.

I know I'm being idealistic. Our intentions are always good. I'm just worried about the accountant in his little back room working out how all this is going to pay off in dollars and cents, effectively placing a price tag on the priceless, thus rendering it worthless.

Amazing prescience

Tues 21 Sept 2010, 1030 hrs:
C (via email): Please report for duty tomorrow at 1415 hrs...

Wed 22 Sept 2010, 1315 hrs:
C (via voice call): Oy, where the @#$& are you? You're on duty now, y'know!

Xmac: Oh? Your email said to report at 1415?

C: Really? That was a mistake. Please report now!

Wed 22 Sept 2010, 1330 hrs:
D  (over PA system): Due to a disruption on the MRT line at AMK station, this afternoon's paper will be delayed and will commence at 1430 hrs.

C: Er, there's a delay. You want to come back at 1415 hrs?

Xmac: Sure. Whatever.

Wayne and the beans talk

Sometimes we get lucky with the little tributes the kids leave leave at our feet on Teachers' Day. Wayne, in particular, received a bagful of Sumatra coffee beans. The idea is that he takes these beans to their source -- Starbucks in this case -- where they are ground up and served as regular brew, no charge 'cos they have already been paid for.

Why did I say 'lucky'? Because apart from bringing his bag of magic beans, Wayne brought an entourage with him: B-lo, HP and me. Hey, coffee is good, but downing eight cups in one sitting by oneself is only asking for trouble.

Spent the afternoon at a nearby Starbucks, sipping coffee with our feet up... and grading essays. We were working, ok? And B-lo called it 'enjoying a lazy afternoon'. We're getting a little worried about that girl.

Tongue-tied in nots

I take my hat off to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Master of the multiple negative. Responding to international sanctions against Iran, he says:

“Now, this doesn’t mean certainly that we [don’t] take it seriously, but it does not mean that it has a negative influence on our economy, because it does not.” (Jerusalem Post, 9/20/2010)

It's a head-scratcher at first glance, but it actually does make sense. But if the way he speaks is any reflection of the way his mind works, it's no wonder we are having such a hard time understanding each other.

English alone will never suffice. Does anybody remember 'Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra'? It's gotta be something like that when dealing with the Iranian leadership.

No taste for the bitter

When June cooks, the animals usually crowd around her legs, mewing and making enough of a nuisance of themselves to be noticed and offered a taste of what's in the wok. Once in a while, Momo would take an impatient nip at an exposed ankle which would result in her summary ejection from the kitchen. Ms Teeth-and-claws would then spend her exile in my study where I am supposed to entertain her until the cooking's done.

This afternoon, June cooked in peace. The animals, they were minding their own business in the living room giving the kitchen a wide berth.  On the menu was yesterday's bittergourd fried up with mincemeat and dao chioh (a thick version of fermented soybean sauce)... nothing the animals recognised as food.

Can't say I'm a big fan of bittergourd either, so fortunately the dish wasn't for us. Packed with nutrients, June's culinary masterpiece was for the old folks we take food to once a month. To my surprise, it went down with them just fine, though out of the corner of my eye I spotted a couple of surreptitious food trades going on between some of our beneficiaries.

Meanwhile, M-i-L has taken receipt of our remaining stocks of bittergourd. I can just imagine what's on the menu for next week...!

To market

Out of curiosity, we visited Tg Pagar Wholesale Centre to see if we could pick up cheap vegetables for tomorrow's cookout. June was looking for bittergourd to experiment with -- the old folks are going to be her guinea pigs.

Apart from us human traffic in this huge market space, there are steel dollies, fork-lift trucks and bicycles transporting cartons and pallets of fresh veggies that we have to constantly dodge. But despite all this bustle, the wholesalers are by and large very friendly with us and are ready to offer advice and favourite recipes. We found out that the limes we picked to make lime juice were the wrong type -- big ones don't yield as much juice as the smaller dark green ones -- and only use sugar sparingly because it doesn't take as much as we think to make it palatable.

June got a recipe for her bittergourd along with some storage tips: if they're already ripe but you're only going to cook them tomorrow, cut them in half, remove the seeds and they will not become over-ripe when tomorrow comes. With that, the auntie sold us her entire stock of four remaining bittergourds for $2 the lot.

At the fruit section we discovered this melon, a shipment of which had apparently just come in. Upon inquiry, we were told that it was a Spanish melon (I couldn't get a better translation) and that it only makes an appearance once a year. How fortuitous for us to come a-visiting on this very day! $8 a fruit, thank you!

They weren't kidding. The inside is white, looks and tastes like winter melon, but so very sweet and juicy! Best eaten cold. Also, best shared with many people because this is not a fruit one can eat in quantity. The flavour is that rich.

Edit 1:

20 Sept 2010

We've been had! Turns out our Spanish melon is nothing more than a Spanish variant of the Chinese hami melon. They're selling it at Giant at $5.95 each. Welcome to another episode of 'Two Turnips Buying a Melon'.

Make them first!

S'poreans are not producing enough babies because, according to the DPM, we are waiting to achieve a 'perfect life' before we feel secure enough to make those adorable little copies of ourselves. His advice: make them first. Life will never be perfect anyway, so get on with it! This, of course, is hot on the heels of PM's recent national address in which the PM presented the same exhortation.

Look, I'm not against the making of babies. In fact, I'm all for making lots and lots of babies! It's a fantastic process, but what does one do with the end product? The responsibility of having to personally look after each one for 25 years of their natural lives is a more effective contraceptive than a rubber prophylactic soaked in a vat of industrial-strength spermicide.

Anyone want to discuss how we as a nation have become too responsible for own own good?

Zombie tsunami

The most successful video game turned movie franchise has to be Resident Evil. 'Afterlife' represents its fourth instalment, opening with Alice taking revenge on the Umbrella Corporation for unleashing the un-deadly T-virus on the world.

Being the only successful host of the T-virus, Alice has superhuman powers... and she remembers everything. By this time, she has evolved into an unstoppable force who has brought "friends" with her into Umbrella's Tokyo headquarters. Poor Umbrella security, it's a massacre.

The demolition of Tokyo could not have taken more than 20 minutes of screen time. There's a problem when the protagonist wipes away her antagonists so easily -- the conflict gets too easily resolved. It's all well and good to feature chicks with guns and katana and throwing stars mowing down the opposition, but there has to be an element of danger, or at least a chance of being defeated to maintain the audience's interest. Alice in her mutated state is not interesting at all. Not for long, anyway.

Fortunately, events transpire to revert Alice back to her human self for the remainder of the movie. Now she has to rely on her courage, wit and survival skills alone to stay alive. And now things get interesting. Hooking up with a handful of survivors in LA, she has to devise a plan to get them to safety -- a dubious-looking container ship off the coast offering infection-free refuge -- but they have to get through the entire undead population of LA to get there.

With the undead pounding on the gates of their fortress seeking the only fresh meat in the city, for Alice, Claire, Chris and company it's run and gun a la Left 4 Dead. The situation is completely hopeless, undead pouring through the survivors' last defences in a literal zombie tsunami. It takes great teamwork, ingenuity and impeccable timing to pull off some dramatic escapes. The weak and indecisive, however, are punished for their hesitation or unwariness with a swift and gory demise.

What I like about 'Afterlife' is that there is no hope of victory. No celebrations, no medals at the end, just a sense of breathless relief before the next insurmountable wave strikes again. This is one enemy that cannot be taken head-on, hence there is no dishonour in a fighting retreat. Escape and skin-of-the-teeth survival is the game, no illusions about that. Resting on one's laurels is fatal.

This idea resonates with us because this is how we experience life. Challenge after challenge, daunting odds, threats at every turn; it's all so overwhelming. We may wish for superpowers to help us cope, but there's no such thing. Instead, the more realistic option is to find the right friends who share the same goals. Watch each other's backs, move in the same direction and develop a near-telepathic teamwork that will accomplish what one cannot alone.

Such a struggle, life is. When do we ever get to rest? The answer is, as long as we want to stay alive, never. There's plenty of time to rest when we're dead.

I watched a play in Mandarin!

Had to go catch Theatre Practices' 'Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral' to see how the original production company envisioned this very difficult and abstract play that our own NYeDC produced a couple of Drama Nights back. For Mel and me, the biggest problem was that the whole play was staged in its original Mandarin instead of the English translation we were familiar with. We had to rely on the subtitles provided to get us through the night.

As best as I could figure, the set was the hold of a shipwreck from which ten survivors have to escape. They have no idea who they are or why they are there, only that some external force is playing some twisted games with them. In between survival games, the survivors entertain each other with their recollections of Zeng He, the Eunuch Admiral.

That they are stranded with nothing but the clothes on their backs is an excellent reason for them to rely on mime to help tell their stories. Hence, the stylized movement done with precision and care, simple, minimalistic and very clear. But that also was an odd thing because the publicity materials call this production a 'kinetic interpretation' but the visuals were mostly static. It was like pose - chunk of text - ensemble pose - more text - more posing - etc. As far as artistic direction went, it was more tableau than theatre.

It was a very well done tableau, though. The initial set was claustrophobic but opened up in various places to create new and surprising play spaces and levels. With the interaction of the performers, the beautifully coloured lighting design and a couple of other surprising effects that temporarily changed gravity and another that added a visual component to a change in weather conditions (trying to avoid spoilers here) it was like looking at a pretty talking picture book. Though we were totally reliant on reading subtitles, we didn't miss much action 'cos when we looked back at the stage it was usually the same image that we took our eyes off last.

This production wasn't much fun. The interpretation was deadly serious. If there was any attempt at humour, perhaps it was lost in the translation? But then the audience wasn't laughing either, so I guess not. Overall, an interesting visual experience, but impact was... meh. Not to make any comparisons, but suddenly I have the urge to dust off the video of our own performance and watch it again.

Malacca revisited: Day 3

Our home away from home -- Hotel Puri. We're back here because it's familiar, it's located right where the shopping is and though the rooms are a bit Spartan (oh, beware the hot water in the shower!!!) they are decently comfortable enough.

Because we woke up early, June and I walked over to look at the historical part of Malacca before repeating all the shopping madness of the previous day.

The ruins of St Paul's are the gutted remains of this historic edifice. We get a real sense of history looking at these burial slabs dating back hundreds of years inscribed in a text so alien to us today.

Our second attempt to sample the cendol at Jonker 88 failed again. We settled for Donald and Lily's cendol and laksa instead. Also not bad.

Mel found this great chill-out place just down the street from our hotel. The Baboon House is so unlike its name, so tranquil, cool and relaxed. Great for reading and (ahem) grading papers -- yes, that's what else we came to Malacca to do.

I realize that for this trip my camera didn't point at too many people. It's more for the food and the sights. So, for the record, apart from those already mentioned and/or photographed already, my travelling companions also included Amy, B-lo, Fen, Liz, HP, To*ny and Wendy A. Always a pleasure, guys!

Malacca revisited: Day 2

A couple of misses on this trip. We liked the cendol at Jonker 88 the last time we visited, but today we couldn't get past this crowd. The other miss was my much anticipated A&W root beer float which I could almost taste... but the service was so slow we had to leave to meet our bus just before my turn at the counter.

But there's no passing up Nancy's Kitchen for Peranakan food. Fish maw (her pio) soup behind the ayam buah keluak.

Kueh pie tee, light, crispy, savoury-sweet. There were other dishes as well, but eating always takes precedence to taking pictures.

Night time found us at the Geographers Cafe. Our orders were a crazy mix of international flavours and some smuggled-in street food as well.

Mmm... satay made with chunky chicken meat, still juicy not grilled to death. The gravy was a bit watered down though, so good thing the meat could hold its own without it.

In case you think we did nothing but eat, we also did stuff like strolling along the riverside for a view of the nightlife here.

And shop for souvenirs for my graduating kids. These are personalized wooden teddy-bear cut-outs made into fridge magnets. The shop is Home Sweet Home, Mahkota Parade, and they make other wall hanging products as well.

Malacca revisited, Day 1

Road trip to revisit old Malacca town. None of us wanted to drive up here ourselves so we chartered a 14-seater bus with driver. Our journey began in fits and stops. There were initial problems with the bus, but in the end the bus driver broke down and had to be replaced. Eventually we arrived, checked in and made a bee-line to this shophouse for lunch... chicken rice balls!

For the uninitiated, the chicken is in front and the rice balls are behind. There is actually no need to ball up the rice other than for its novelty value. And maybe to distinguish it from the Singapore variety which follows a similar recipe.

No pix from dinner at the Portuguese Settlement. Fingers too busy and too covered with viscera gravy to wield a camera. Returning here was quite an experience. As always, we got lost and took the scenic tour of Malaccan backroads before getting our bearings right. After a little spiffying up, the place is now overrun with seafood touts that surrounded us, each promising the best dining experience and 'no regrets'. Travellers tip: the longer you delay the more persistent they get; so just make a decision (Wayne arbitrarily chose Stall #6) and that was that. No further harassment, and true to their word, no regrets over the quality of the food.

Study techniques that work

Am temporarily making a note to link this NYT article on study techniques that work. Don't have time to sift through it right now, but I don't want to lose the URL 'cos it may be important, you never know.

You want fries with that?

At Everything with Fries (Holland V), it's hard to tell if the main course is the thing you ordered or the fries that accompany it. The cheeseburger I ordered was thick cut served with a standard fresh vegetable topping and a side Caesar salad, but all that only took up half the plate. The remaining half sat a pile of garlic and herb French fries in the midst of which perched a single garlic clove which suggested that their fries are done with authentic ingredients.

So the curry fries came fried in curry leaves and curry powder -- a very flavourful concoction, while the sour cream and onion and salt-and-vinegar combinations were thankfully subtle, not overpowering. Overpowering was Mel's lemonade which nearly bowled her over at the first sip. But that's the way Mel likes it, so no problem there.

Not so sure about the one egg soup Wendy A was raving about. It's a chicken stock soup with an egg yolk beaten into it; the remaining white is made into a soufflé raft  floating on top of the soup. It tasted oddly sweet and savoury -- an acquired taste, says Wendy.

We shared a Nutella tart for dessert which was sweet, sweet, omg sweet. Some things come too rich for my taste. I don't know how the others felt about it, but it disappeared quite quickly despite my not helping so much.

The Holland V outlet has great service staff. Ours was bright and chirpy, genuine in her responses, patient about our queries (Mel, Wayne and I arrived earlier than Amy, HP and Wendy so she had to endure lots of questions from us while we waited for the rest of our table to apparate). Overall, the atmosphere is clean, friendly and pleasant.

As to the amount of fries that went with everything, barring that it was a rather late lunch, I didn't need dinner. At all.

Mo' money blues

The way to S'porean hearts is through their bellyachin', especially about the sad, hard lives they live. And nothing gets S'poreans as riled up as the issue of National Service. So the PM announces in his NDay Rally speech that our citizen soldiery will receive a token of recognition for their contribution to national peace and security valued at at least $9000 each that will go towards funding their further education and ease the cost of home ownership. And predictably, the cries of anguish over our abuse and mistreatment rise to the heavens.

Old retired soldiers of Mr Brown's generation (including yours truly) are angsty that because we've already completed our service the award isn't meant for us:


The currently serving NS men are insulted at the paltry sum offered. By their calculations, they should be receiving at least 15 times as much. Yes, there's nothing like having an education and an Excel spreadsheet to make an unhappy army camper.

And S'porean women are upset too because for once they don't get it.

In S'pore there is so much peace and security we find no greater joy than in bitchin' over how our lives could be so much better. Sigh, if only we had mo' money, we'd be much happier people...!

National Dog Walk 2010

Q-tip's new summer look keeps getting her mistaken for a chihuahua, especially today at the National Dog Walk & Carnival 2010. Sad to say, because of the rain the venue was a swamp so we didn't stay long. We did, however, visit a stall run by a pair of enterprising college alumni designing and selling Tees (human sized). Part proceeds go to Action for Singapore Dogs (ASD). They have a blogshop, CHlittleshop, so go visit and support, 'k?

Since we were in the Sunset Way neighbourhood, we made a pit-stop at The Daily Scoop. But they only open at 1400 on Sunday, so lunch before dessert at June May's.

Interesting set lunch menu: lasagne and float. Here's the lasagne.

And here's the float. The iced lemon tea on the left is not part of the set.

A fission of givin'

A church raises $21 million within a 24-hour period. It's big news because of the recent public discussions over the amassed riches of organized religion, raising suspicion and alleging impropriety in the raising and disbursement of such monies by what are ostensibly non-profit organizations.

This story reminds me of the miracle of the five loaves and two fish recorded in the Gospels (Jn 6:5-6:15, etc.). The mystery of this miracle is in how limited quantities of matter (bread and fish) can be multiplied several times over to feed 5000 people, while leaving behind significant excess, without breaking the laws of Newtonain physics.

If that is the question, we are looking at the miracle in the wrong way. In a crowd of 5000, it is quite inconceivable that the only food resource among them is five loaves and two fish that only one boy had the presence of mind to take with him that day. If one boy could have packed a meal with him there'd be many others who'd have brought food along too. This boy, however, gets his place in canonical history because his offer to share his resources catalysed a mass movement of the "haves" to share their resources with the "have-nots". The miracle isn't about the violation of the laws of physics but in getting people to share what they have willingly with others, and that is no mean feat.

We can account for the excess gathered at the end of the feeding frenzy by the Principle of the Buffet Table. Because everyone has some they become polite and will settle for a little less just in case someone ends up with none. We can count this effect as either altruism or a sensitivity to "good form". Either way, the buffet table will always have left-overs. This effect is all the more likely to occur if the environment or event itself encourages civic consciousness or at least consideration for others.

Such an environment is palpable in CHC in which communal involvement is strongly emphasized among a very large and inclusive population base representing a wide range of mixed incomes. With the environment primed for placing others before self, it only takes a small catalyst to ignite a fission of givin'. $21 million in 24 hours? Is that all?

Celebrating us

In today's celebration of Education Professionals, the student body organized a concert tribute to us. All performances were dance items, including NYeDC's. Makes sense because in a large hall with poor acoustics the only things that will keep and hold our audience's attention are music, colour and movement. No one can follow a storyline under such conditions.

Our item was set to the Muppets' version of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' depicting various classroom interactions between students and different teacher personalities. Not strictly dance, more like mime and movement though we're still a bit rough at that.

The noobs who came on after us brought the house down, as I expected they would. They really showed that our staff aren't the stodgy no-lifers that we appear to be. They said they toned down some of the raunchiness from the staff dinner performance, but I don't remember seeing anything particularly tasteless then.

Spent the afternoon in good company. Lunch at Jones the Grocer where I finally found a place that offers pastrami sandwiches. Also ordered a cheese platter to share. The atmosphere here is very pleasant. Attentive wait staff always on hand with water refills and dish clearing. Expensive, though. Pastrami sandwich was more sandwich than pastrami. Though the bread was lovely and chunky and thick, I prefer the pastrami filling to be thicker than the bread slices holding the whole thing together. This is all Joey Tribbiani's fault for setting my expectations so unrealistically high!

In other madness, while Mel and Wendy A adjourned to parts unknown, the rest of us adjourned to Ben & Jerry's where we drank so much water Wayne had to justify the presence of so many shotglasses on our table. Here he attempts to build Dempsey Hill's tallest free-standing structure of dining crockery, setting the record at ten individual pieces in a stack. Amy's pix captures this historic moment (left). HP's wallet went missing; Josh displayed some dexterous sleight-of-hand in his vanishing act; To*ny displayed outstanding clumsiness in making said item reappear. Brilliant.

To all teachers working tomorrow on Teachers' Day... why?

The tiger in the tank

Some of the best teaching moments occur during individual consultation periods when the kids actually come with questions to discuss. I've learned my lesson about focusing my consults on content -- don't offer them any more than they themselves have offered already. Telling them what info they should have included here and there when they didn't have such info in the first place just demoralizes them and makes them feel like they're never going to catch up with the bar we keep raising.

More content isn't going to help, especially when it wasn't their content to begin with. My strategy from now is to focus on extending mileage on what information they already have, always with the caveat that in the interim between now and their finals there's still time to build up more content on their own.

I think that's the best strategy to take into the exam hall because that's exactly what they're expected to produce. The test is on maximizing what they have brought into the venue, that's it. There's nowhere else they can get more content from, not till they change the nature of the test anyway.

Some ground rules we established from today's discussion:

• Absolute #1 rule: Always tell the Truth -- don't know, don't write.
• Reasoning counts for more than content.
• Broad-based content produces more mileage than focused topical content.
• Content is flexible and the same content can be used to respond to many questions
• Good responses strongly link supporting content with question requirements.
• Argument always precedes balance, and not the other way around.
• Every question must be taken on its own merit. There is no "aren't I supposed to...?" If the question does not ask for it, don't.
• Time taken to analyse question requirements is better use of time than planning (or worse, committing to) a response without first knowing what the question wants.

No particular order of importance, though. It's not a process but guidelines to keep in mind. Yes, very common-sense, but a guided-analytical approach is far better than the panic-vomit approach.

It was particularly enlightening when a kid asked me to analyse an Economics question because she didn't understand why her interpretation was deemed wrong by both her own mates and the Econs tutor. I told her to use the GP method of analysing questions on this one. She was dubious at first, but a lightbulb went on as she proceeded. Now she could clearly see what the question wanted and why her answer was so far off base.

Arby always remarks how the kids don't seem to think when they approach questions in his subject. Perhaps they didn't have the right tools and the know-how to use them correctly in the first place. Ladies and gentlemen, today we might have made a breakthrough! Hope this time it has longer legs.

The Rambo and Friends Show

In 'The Expendables', Stallone rounds up the venerable action heroes of yesteryear and throws them all into his latest celluloid outing. Snipes is missing, though. Guess even they couldn't arrange a jailbreak for him.

The story is nonsense. Stallone's small group of mercenaries get hired to take out a Banana Republic Generalissimo for an offer of cash, but they find another reason to do the job for free like the true-blue all-American good guys they are. Even Li. The story, as we know, is just an excuse for pitting one action hero against another using fists and feet, blades, guns, vehicles and explosive ordnance, as far as the alliances between them can stretch the boundaries of credibility.

But there's the fun, isn't it? Who cares much about plot in a movie that promises action and delivers spectacle? On the cards: Lundgren vs Li; Stallone vs Austin; in a handicap match Statham vs a bunch of recreational b-ball players; Statham vs Rourke in knife throwing action; eh, and the other tough guys who are unfamiliar to me off-hand don't get all that much air time (maybe that's why they're called the Expendables?). Real big-time stars like Willis and Ah-nold show up too, though they get cameo roles in which they talk tough and leave.

In typical boy fashion, Stallone and Co take down an entire nation, ruining it's political infrastructure; internal security and air-defence forces; economic and industrial capabilities (main export appears to be cocaine); and it's primary imp-ex facility (a single docking pier). Why boy fashion? If Stallone had just asked nicely, I'll bet all this senseless destruction and mayhem and the occasional expendable (small 'e') disintegrating in a shower of gore and gibs could have been avoided. But then, with his mumble, even if he did ask nicely nobody would have understood him anyway. Out come the guns again.

Yeah, I needed to watch a mindless, testosterone-heavy, male-bonding action flick. It's marking season, don't you know? Let the blood-letting begin!


Via: Term Life Insurance

Sacrifice of dignity

Combined schools dinner time again. Every year our family of schools gather to congratulate each other over a formal Chinese dinner and sit through the evening's entertainment. This year, the Big Wee Man himself presided over the festivities and came over personally to offer a toast to each table. That's an honour we don't get every day.

Very proud of our newbies. Every year (apart from a couple of notable exceptions) it's the obligation of the new blood to offer an item for the showcase of performances. Consider this sacrifice of dignity as their initiation ceremony into their new place of occupation.

Our noobs delivered a double-bill, the first inspired by Stomp ('live' percussion performance group, not official Singaporean tattletale/complaints website) and the second a dance number to 'Bad Romance' which was a hoot-and-a-half. Coordinated zombie jerky movements choreographed to bad, loud music. Can't fail! Really looking forward to their encore performance in Tuesday's concert back on campus. The kids deserve to end their special day on a high.

Trapped for months

I'm not one to make light of a bad situation, but being trapped in a collapsed mine for four months waiting for rescue sounds like a great way to take a vacation off work. Especially when my rescuers are taking care of my nutrition, entertainment and potty needs -- i.e., everything they can to keep my morale up so that I wouldn't develop claustrophobic bonkers syndrome and kill all my fellow survivors around me. Books, video games and all the antidepressants I can eat for four months. Tempting.

Mom's green thumbs

The frangipani stem June and I brought back from Hawaii as a souvenir for Mom finally bloomed. We're talking about a trip that even pre-dates this blog, so yeah, it was worth a photo.

Pix taken by Mom and sent via Bluetooth in a cell phone to cell phone transfer. First time for Mom, and she's quite proud of herself about it.

In a sad coincidence Mom's minor celebrity neighbour sold his house recently, and the new owner chopped down the beautiful frangipani tree growing in the garden. It and a couple of other large plants were in pieces on the sidewalk waiting for the next garbage pick-up. Why can't the new owners just move in to the existing premises without uprooting the other residents who have just as much right to be there?

Mom picked up a promising couple of branches off the sidewalk, hoping to regrow them in her garden. If our twig transplanted from Hawaii could thrive till today, these have a fighting chance to live on. We're counting on Mom's green thumbs to work that miracle.

Shy beauty

In commemoration of today's special event, it had to be nothing less than a first class slab of beef done by people who understand the meaning of 'rare'.

This gorgeous hunk of fillet mignon was demure and fairly trembling with anticipation in my presence. As she opened up to my advances, a delightful blush of pink rose to meet my gaze; so warm and tender as she met my mouth again and again. Yes, a truly 'rare' carnal experience with such a pretty filly. She didn't come cheap either, but there was reason to celebrate tonight.

Location: Stuart Anderson's Black Angus Steakhouse, NUS Bukit Timah Campus. A touch of nostalgia too because this was my campus for  year when it was NIE, NTU, before NUS took it back. There's a smart casual dress code though we didn't see it strictly enforced.

Fire! Fire!

On the pretext that there were important papers to be signed in the staff lounge, dNYel had me charging straight in, wondering why there was so much fuss over such a minor issue. Once inside, they sprang a real fire for me to fight. The flames were huge and I couldn't even approach without first donning a protective fire-retardant suit and arming myself with a high-pressure hose.

Fortunately, my fire-fighting skills were as sharp as ever. When the flames finally died down, we celebrated with cake while keeping our tootsies warm in the dying embers of the sudden blaze. Toasted marshmallows would have been a nice touch to follow up.

Thanks for igniting the flames, my friends! The warmth will stay with us long after we've moseyed off into the sunset.

Service or slavery

Poor YOG volunteers. Such terrible working conditions, bad food, unappreciated servitude. I can almost feel for this forlorn complainant slogging it out at the Olympic Village. Almost.

Sorry. Whatever he may call himself, his heart and mind are not those of a volunteer. He sees himself as an indentured slave; and so he is, compelled to labour under his own sense of injustice at the drastic, if temporary, upheaval in his usual day-to-day routines.

But he is a slave with a great deal of miscarried authority. Mr Hall Supervisor is frustrated that his co-workers "are working WITH, not under" him (emphasis his), suggesting he wants to be the Big Man In-Charge. He lets this attitude carry over into his dealings with his guests! Like a tiny tinpot tyrant he tells his guests off for smoking and sitting on railings. In his sheltered world, he doesn't realise that in many countries there are far worse dangers to fear, and that the police are a source of ridicule and disrespect, or otherwise a source of terror and violence. Being a policeman to people from so many different political systems and social backgrounds is just asking to be derided at the very least. Fortunately, he hasn't been beaten up, though that may yet come in time.

Mr Hall Supervisor is more a martyr to his own cause than he is a volunteer to a cause greater than himself. He complains about unfulfilled compensation, as if compensation is a volunteer's due. Whomever plans the bigger picture can only see the bigger picture. Every specific need on the ground cannot be catered to every individual volunteer's convenience. So, yes, there will be snafus galore, but dealing with problems on the ground either shows class and personal initiative or there-I-fixed-it, happy now?

Every setback is an opportunity. Packed buses and long waits at the bus stop are really lonely when there is no one to talk to. Here the volunteers are literally rubbing shoulders with the cream of international athletics -- young, vibrant, exciting people (some might even be girls!) anxious to discover what they can about their host country -- and Mr Hall Supervisor just wants to sulk in his corner, bristling and prickling with leave-me-alone. Sigh. Such opportunities going a-begging.

We read a lot about how unnecessary the YOG was. How the money could have been better spent on ourselves instead of entertaining all these foreigners. Let's put this view in perspective. What is Singapore's core business? We'd like it to be shuffling paper in a predictable 9-to-5 air-conditioned office job, wouldn't we? That's what we exert so much energy studying to get into university for. But if Singapore is really going to survive, our place in the world is to be able to throw the biggest parties that keep international party-goers coming back for more! Realistically, there isn't much else we can offer. We have to learn to be hosts of the best hospitality and highest standards of professional, friendly service and here at the YOG , unfortunately we see some of our service staff just not being able to fit the bill. (BTW, it's his future core business as well, being a current student from **ATEC).

As a nameless events coordinator once said, 'we let you work with the stars for a WHOLE fortnight, and you still want money?!' I don't doubt that the volunteers are working hard. Long hours, blood, sweat and tears I understand. My problem is that Mr Hall Supervisor has no clue whom he is working for. Poor fellow is literally his own boss and is suffering for it.

Kid, in your own self-importance you are viewing the task as being more important than the experience. Turn it around! Time to climb out of your ostrich hole and cast you eyes towards a bigger horizon and a bigger world than you have ever imagined. Learn the difference between service attitude and servitude. And do try to get a life.

NYeDC goes Bohemian

A bad week with lots of deadlines to meet and the grading, oh, the grading! Training temporarily on the shelf.

Most exciting thing happening, though, is the Drama Club's concert item that we're currently auteuring. It would make more sense if the staff we hope will participate can make rehearsal time, but failing which the kids will have to play teacher characters on their behalf.

Basic blocking is done, enough anyway to get us past our audition... just barely. Today we work on character interactions, scene transitions, entrances and exits, and activity specific individual movement -- all for an item just under five minutes' duration. Already lost a couple of afternoons on it, expect to lose a few more.

Hope it'll be worth it!

Paternal instinct

Said too much at lunch. We were gossipping about new dNYel staff Elim's beau whom we had seen on campus on a previous occasion. As we updated Lucy on this juicy tidbit, I intimated that as a group we did not approve of him.

First impressions, right? Compared to Ellie's immaculate, professional, confident demeanour, beau looked like an unkempt neanderthal adorned in mismatching 'zebra and leopard prints'. Not impressive at all. Tut, tut. *shakes head in despair.

But if I were to look at the situation objectively, that's how most couples look. One makes a great first impression behind which the other tends to languish. It's the same with June and me, no prizes for guessing which is which.

What if we had seen beau appearing like a suave Prince Charming instead? Heck, I'd still disapprove on grounds that such a man is only out to impress, all facade and no substance, or worse, out to cheat an innocent of whatever he can get.

If I was ever a father to a daughter, any interested boy will have to get past my shotgun first before he gets in through my front door. Bah, it's stress I don't need, and I'm thankful I don't have.

From behind the counter

Some dNYel people plus family walked through McD's Open Doors to view the operation from behind the counter. The idea behind giving us this opportunity was to show that there are no conspiracies or hidden agenda, and that the food they serve is indeed as wholesome, clean and fresh as they claim. Considering I am one of McD's best customers, I didn't need a lot of convincing but it was worth a poke around backstage anyway.

To me, McD's is a symbol of independence. When they first opened here, I was already in my teens, mobile and in possession of  moderate teenager allowance. I could blow a week's worth on a Big Mac and Coke, but if I really wanted to, no one could say, 'no!' I'd starve the rest of the week, but that was MY decision to make, so there.

And so we toured a spotless kitchen -- spotless that is until HP dropped her milkshake and whipped cream on the floor of the freezer. Oops. We saw the process of putting together a sandwich from scratch, cooked to order on the spot. They emphasized their policy of only choosing suppliers with socially responsible and environmentally sustainable practices with no record of animal abuse, at least until the point when the animals become meat patties.

The guides fielded all kinds of questions from us quite openly. We asked about specific kitchen practices, crowd control, marketing procedures and employee issues. Above all other indicators, it is the employees themselves who are the best indicators of the worth of the company they work for. They know the ins and outs of the business and they know best when the company is trying to pull sh*t because they are the ones first impacted by it.

In this tour, the employees we met were fully committed to their employer. My last question was, 'who gets to play Ronald McD?' to which our guide instantly shot me a look of utter incomprehension and replied, 'Ronald McD is Ronald McD!' Now THAT is serious buy-in to the company's branding. If the employees believe in it, that's good enough for me.

Now, if only someone could tell me which part of the cow the beef patty comes from. They assured us that it didn't come from a sirloin, rib-eye or T-bone cut, but definitely somewhere much cheaper. But they didn't know exactly where. Oh well, as my advertising elective prof used to say, a cow is a cow is a cow. It's 100% beef, no gluten, no fillers. Any other questions?

Service with a smile

Times must be hard. These 'Friendly' people are busy distributing flyers advertising their services door-to-door around my block. Apart from approving loans, I'll bet Jason will kindly extend his services to home redecoration too.

Need a loan? Pick up the phone! :)

A 'see-you-soon' to Lucy

Time to kick back and focus on good eats with good folks. Here, we're bidding Lucy a great time in Vancouver where she'll be working on her Master's.

'Here' is Buono, Lichfield Road. It's Wednesday night and ladies eat for free (from the 'special' menu). Looking a our table, there seems to be lots of ladies.

Considering what we put away: 3 kinds of antipasti, a hefty serving of pasta for almost each of us and some desserts to share, we ended up paying about $30 a head, really, not bad at all!

National Day eve

Finally, all positive factors converge to give Q-tip the outing she's been waiting weeks for. We're at the Marina Barrage to take in the sights and sounds of the new happenin' place the URA's developing.

Kite flying's a big activity here. The breezes are strong enough to lift kites off easily, even big 'uns with long, trailing tails.

Have to say that despite the stated opening times on the official website, the Gallery Cafe actually opens at 1030 hrs. If you go at 0900, either have brekkie beforehand or bring your own sandwiches. As it turned out, we waited for the cafe to open. Breakfast menu wasn't very exciting, mostly heavier options and salads like for lunch.

Fortunately, there is also a selection of local foods on the board. Nasi lemak was ok, served with green rice, a wing, an egg over-easy and a sprinkling of ikan bilis and peanuts. Bit expensive at $5+ a serving.

Evening we met our old friend JH, back from his travels. Originally from S Korea, he's now got the opportunity to work here as a expat.

Dinner was at Por Kee. We always order the same thing: the tofu speciality, Thai-style steamed fish, champagne pork ribs and a veggie dish. Food was excellent as always.

The point was, we wanted to welcome him with some good local food, then we remembered we had brought him here before, the first time he came to visit us. Then he tells us Tiong Bahru is his usual lunchplace since his office is just around the corner.

We take him to dessert at Island Creameries -- and he gets his laundry done here since he lives in the neighbourhood. Guess he's no longer a stranger in our part of town.

Face the wall

Took Q-tip to the beach, given today's half-day. At some point, I chose a picnic table to sit at and watch the sea. As I sat there, I thought of MM's recent suggestion that we should do away with the retirement age. There I was, with time on my hands, doing something pleasurable, and if I were to retire when my time comes I could theoretically do this all day, every day for the rest of my life. Or do all the other things we wish we had time for but are unable to because of our work schedules.

I didn't find the prospect appealing, however. Maybe if I hated my job I'd feel different but I don't. Maybe if I had a job that I slaved away at for a pittance I'd feel different, by my job pays decently enough to live comfortably as long as I don't suddenly crave a luxurious, ostentatious lifestyle. Like MM, I also dread the time when I have to stop work after which "I'll just shrivel up, face the wall and just that".

Yes, MM's quite clearly presenting a false dilemma. But it's the social contact I will miss the most from the working environment. Work gives me a reason to be around people. Apart from work, I don't offer much reason for people to be around me.

Earned privilege

Interesting that in the general meeting with P, he mentioned how past college Principals ran their campuses with less emphasis on extrinsically enforced discipline so that the environment would be more akin to that of the university and away from the secondary school. These days we feel the need to lay down the law as the kids seem to be either lacking in direction or the ability to discipline themselves.

Times have changed. Comparing senior high students of the past with those of the present, the big difference was that "in my time (cough... cough... hack... hack...!)" my contemporaries were proud to be college students. When they wore their uniform, they wore it with dignity because so few others were privileged to wear the crest, those colours. They represented the best and brightest of their cohort, on the cusp of a very privileged level of education that would put them in a social strata above the general population. That meant living up to a higher calling, meeting standards of decorum and courtesy befitting of the upper-class they were destined for. Principals of the past didn't have to worry about behavioural micro-management because the intrinsic motivation to self-manage was already strong in their students.

What has changed since then is the loss of pride in being a college student. No longer a privilege to be studying in a JC, it's now a basic expectation for every secondary school student. The kids here feel that there is nothing special about being here. There is no sense of accomplishment or achievement but rather a perception that it's just a normal part of all the rights and privileges they feel are entitled to them. They're not really here because there is a burning desire in each one to be here; they're here because everyone else is here. A college education is nothing to aspire towards -- it's become common, average and taken for granted.

If junior colleges have discipline problems, the root cause is the loss of earned privilege. At the risk of sounding elitist, we've let the riff-raff invade our campuses and infect us with their common mediocrity. Be that as it may, since they're already here it's up to us to run our campuses not as survival boot camp which further reinforces the competitive dog-eat-dog slave mentality that our current kids have, but rather show them how to live up to the higher standards they are being called to. We teach them to raise their eyes, not drop their chins. We really don't want to become a secondary school. That would be a huge and probably irrevocable step backwards.

Cocktail party with parents

Back from a cocktail party with the kids' parents. The kind in which we're supposed to tell them that judging from their mid-year grades, their kids aren't doing well in this or that subject and with the finals in 90+ days we need to work together and help them do something about it.

But with the parents we're seeing tonight, this kind of kick-'em-in-the-a** advice applies only to a tiny minority of our young charges. These parents tell us that their kids are already working hard, they study, do their homework, revision, so why isn't it translating into better grades? Quite sad, and frustrating to be in that kind of situation for a student, isn't it? All that hard work not paying off?

For this bunch of kids we had to advise them on stress management. They need rest, exercise, and a good night's sleep. They need to learn how to handle their pressure and personal expectations. The parents we talked to were nice, agreeing with us that their kids were too anxious, lacking the confidence they need to handle their exams without panic. And at the same time, not slack off. It's a delicate balancing game: breathe, breathe...

Well, here's another hat we gotta learn to wear. This one's a little less straightforward than the old Drill Sergeant one. Guess we'll just have to keep the latter only for special occasions from now on.

Hair-raising tale

Over the past weekend, a number of us staff independently got haircuts. The two most severe crops belonged to Wayne and me. Upon questioning, Wayne -- in jest -- claimed his crop was to honour Hair for Hope; to which I replied in all seriousness that my cause was Hope for Hair. True story.

Singapore stresses education

...or does education stress Singapore?

This week Sing Poly asks if our education system is too stressful for our kids. They made a video poll featuring the views of their respondents and included a skit about how kids prepare for their tests. Yep, sure enough, the respondents agree that stress levels are too high for kids while the skit features a zombie ploughing through piles of textbooks that reinforce his zombie state in a vicious cycle.

I admit that the stresses are high here, but I doubt the system has as much to do with it as the methodology by which we attempt to survive the system as we perceive it. By way of analogy, the system is like an active volcano that we have chosen to settle beside because of its fabulously fertile soil conditions. But the stress comes because we attempt to appease our irrational, implacable, unpredictable Volcano God by throwing our young people into it. As far as I know young people, they do not appreciate being sacrificed, but what can they do, right? The volcano is more real than their sad, non-existent lives.

If we're to reduce the stress, it's a lot more realistic to fix how we cope with our neighbour, the Volcano, rather than fix the volcano itself. For one thing, it's never going away and for another, we haven't got the resources BP has to fit a cap over it.

We are still using the study methods that our more scholarly ancestors once used. Actually, only one method: sit down with our textbooks and 'mug', a process that transforms pigment-based information into synapse-activated information. Our parents believe in it because it worked for them, our teachers believe in it because it worked for them too. However, today there is so much mediated information available that is constantly morphing, updating, expiring, renewing that our old methods of acquiring information for personal storage can neither cope with the quantity of it all nor keep up with its rate of change. Even the activity of acquiring information for permanent storage may have become irrelevant anyway, since very little of it can be said to be permanent beyond certain basic fundamentals.

If our tried-and-tested study methodology cannot help us, then it has to go. It's premises were selfish and competitive anyway, accumulating information for oneself to be used only in a specific circumstance -- answering exam questions; useless for anything else. In order to deal with the kind of information flow that we have today, we need a study method that eschews competition in favour of collaboration. Information can no longer be a miserly hoarded commodity but managed like a living currency used for buying, selling, exchanging or otherwise transacting more information, always trading upwards.

Without the urge to hoard, we can rid ourselves of compartmentalization. Rather than being separated out of our normal daily experience as 'study' or 'prep' time, our curriculum can become a normal part of our daily conversation and interaction in which we use every opportunity to learn (and share!) something new.

How is this supposed to reduce exam stress? If curriculum can become currency, if content can become conversation, we will see exam questions as just another opportunity to start a discussion thread, a normal part of our daily existence (despite the difference in the medium of expression), and not some alien inevitability that exists to test our survival skills from time to time.

In other words, kids, parents, teachers, I appreciate the dedication you put into studies, but you're doing it wrong. Epic FAIL.

Raining on my parade

Poor Q-tip has the worst luck. We had plans to visit the Marina Barrage, someplace new and dog-friendly to go for walkies. But her stupid owner chose to go to work on Saturday when it was gloriously dry and sunny, and today it just raining cats and dogs.

*remains grouchy the rest of the day

Essay leverage

Currently training this batch of kids to be less topic conscious so that if they encounter a list of essay questions that ask about unfamiliar subject matter, they won't panic, talk nonsense and die. I believe that the question provides its own answer, so any question is equally do-able, given a reasonable amount of general (not topical) knowledge.

The strategy is to remove the pressure on the kid to cook up an arbitrary answer to the least scary-looking question, but instead simply work on expanding any question of choice to essay-length, thereby allowing the question to answer itself. I mean, since the question already provides its own energy, it's much more efficient to leverage an answer using that energy rather than having to generate a whole new energy from scratch to come up with an answer by ourselves. And, it's far better for the question to drive the content rather than have the content force itself upon the question -- the latter being the mindset that I'm actively battling since it's the usual way of approaching essays around here.

Have I had any success with this approach? I've had a cursory look at the latest set of essays my tutorial groups have turned in for grading. There doesn't seem to be any particular question that is a common favourite, which usually happens when the kids home in on one or two topically "safe" questions. Instead, I'm looking at a broad range of questions with different topic foci, different question types.

The randomness of distribution tells me the kids are more comfortable in choosing questions. Maybe they're taking greater risks than they have before, but the fact that they are now branching out and no longer bunching up is a sign -- they are taking their first steps towards intellectual freedom.

Mark to reward, not punish

I'm not sure if non-GP tutors can understand this, but I'm irritated that some of my colleagues are requesting sample essay outlines as aids to grading the kids' essays for this week's common test. For the info of non-GP tutors, such outlines contain a list of possible points that a student might raise in response to his or her chosen question. 12 questions on the test paper means 12 separate lists of open possibilities.

I hesitate to provide such a dubious thing because knowing us, we will use it to hunt down points that do not appear in the students' essays and penalize them for their omissions. The more missing points, the more their grade slides until we hit the basement. Another failure. Then we wonder why we have so many casualties and are aghast as we count up the number of kids we need to remedy.

Cambridge tells us that our grading philosophy should be to reward students for what they do offer, and not punish them for what they miss. That means every essay needs to be taken on its own merit without a comparison to an ideal. While we are grading, we are looking out for logical structures, supporting reasons, consistency of argument and, broadly, relevance to the question. When we do see evidence of such argumentative skill, we add to the score until we can add no more

This does not mean that the essay will automatically pass, but it does mean that we are prepared to listen to each student, inasmuch as we want them to listen to us. 'Marking schemes' prejudice us in that students who don't say what we want to hear must be wrong and therefore failed.

I think that on the whole, we really have a misconception of what failure is. We think of the essay as a soccer game. Scoring points is like scoring goals while losing the game means not scoring (assuming that the non-existent opponent has scored more goals and has therefore beaten the essay writer). To us, that translates as win = pass, lose = fail. But in truth, winning and losing are part of the same game. We win some, we lose some, but the important thing is that we continue to play because we can.

Failing a GP essay is possible, but not for the reason of 'losing' the game. Failure is equivalent to being disqualified in a match for infringing the rules. Why kids fail is because they don't know how to play the game. They don't know where the goalposts are. They don't know where the out-of-bounds lines are. They don't know what's a fair play and what isn't. So failure isn't a failure to raise the right points, it means the rules and objectives of the game are not clear to them.

Content may mean the difference between a kick-about between friends and an EPL match. Regardless, the scoreline doesn't really matter as long as everyone plays to the same rules, aims at the right goals, and stays within the agreed-to boundaries. If our kids can do that, they don't deserve to fail. So let's not prejudice ourselves by watching the scoreboard when we should be enjoying the game instead.

Can't see the forest for the trees

Went into the forest to meet our NParks rep for a hands-on session of ecological conservation, and our community service for the year.

Our job was to clear "foreign" plants that have taken root all over our previously pristine tropical rainforest and are now competing with the indigenous species for the same resources.

Wielding cangkuls we trudged through mud and soil to hack away at the ground, creating lots more mud and soil, this time of the airborne variety. Dig deep enough holes, break a few supporting roots, and the offending foreigners no longer have the will to stay in the ground.

Thus, we uprooted quite a few stubborn unwelcome invaders. But it was an intense afternoon workout doing so. Drenched in sweat, caked in mud, ant-bitten, and for all we did, we only cleared just a tiny, tiny section of our entire nature reserve.

Like it or not, it looks like the foreigners are here to stay. And no, that's not intended as a metaphor for any outstanding local issue commonly discussed in kopitiams and ST Forum pages. So don't anyhow quote me, ok?

Wavve hello!

Dinner at Wavve, a grill & chill place at the spanking new Orange Tee Building. I never even noticed it being built, yet there it was. The occasion was a birthday for whom the Guest of Honour arrived round about the time we were contemplating our dessert options. Traffic's dreadful when you're in a hurry.

Good opportunity to indulge the inner carnivore. My lamb rack went minimal on the greens (the leaf I accidentally dropped on my shirt counted as a significant loss) but the chunks of lamb on each of the three bones were decently substantial. It was all I could do to avoid gripping the bones in my clawed digits and rending flesh with my canines. But I was with polite company, so it was a civilized application of cutlery as usual. June gave me half her sirloin too, making a happy predator for the evening.

Our table went for almost the whole range of desserts to share. The creme brulee, profiteroles and tiramisu made their rounds... no, wait, the creme brulee was mine exclusively, ha ha! The desserts were light, not too sweet, the way we like.

Price wise it's ok for a finer-than-usual once-in-a-while meal. $70 paid for my share of birthday boy and his date's dinners as well as fully for June's and mine. Not bad.

Parenting according to Gru

Parenting, according to Gru, is a simple process. Take care of basic needs: "food, water, poo poo & pee pee". Take care of intellectual needs: basic education (dance class). Take care of higher needs: recreation and emotional bonding. Despite himself, he gets the childcare right -- a textbook Hierarchy of Needs met to Maslow's specifications.

Gru has no plans "for their good". On the contrary, his plans are entirely self-serving. His adopted orphans are simply a means to an end. Their safety and well-being are taken at the basic minimum standards, knowing that he can dispose of them when they have fulfilled his requirements of them. How heinous.

Why do we face a declining fertility rate in our country and in many other developed nations around the world? Because we want to be good parents. Gru is a monster in his regard for childcare principles, but he's got three kids while the rest of us have... significantly less.

As good parents, we place our kids first above all, ourselves included. We plan far ahead into their future, shape them according to what we have determined is best for them, and raise them like we're never going to let them go. We know about hygiene and health, about discipline do's and don't's, about child psychology and labels like ADHD and OCD which we identify in children and lament how we have failed them somewhere, somehow.

Our modern model of childcare looks really good. We've taken care of every aspect of child-rearing that practically guarantees healthy, happy kids that will grow into healthy, happy adults. Now, if only we had some kids to work our plans on.

Throwing punches

Sully has a new kind of training to add to my repertoire: boxing. Today I learned the basic movements to maintain a stable base from which to launch my deadly arsenal of jabs and crosses. I'd always thought I was a good scrapper, but when put to the test today my technique left much to be desired. Stance too easily sent off-balance; lax defending exposes my glass jaw to counter-attack; difficulty stringing jab-cross-duck combos together being too anxious to punch and not anxious enough to duck, or getting my limbs all tangled up due to a lack of coordination. What a pushover I'd be in a real fight, despite my illusions to the contrary. Lots more training to be done still.

RHD skit

The latest batch of Drama Club kids have taken the reins. Their first official performance was a short skit for Racial Harmony Day. They had only one week to script, rehearse and polish, but they were all gung-ho go-for-it. We seldom see this kind of enthusiasm, so we let them run with it.

First rehearsal, we had a basic outline. The characters were caricatures of our national ethnic stereotypes, the plot was thin, the resolution fuzzy at best. Definitely still needed a lot of work before it could be ready for show.

During rehearsal, my biggest worry was that the stereotypes would stand out stronger than the theme we had been commissioned to convey. True enough (as I hear from the grapevine), the kids played it for laughs, going over-the-top with their characters -- Chinese boy in particular -- resulting in a greatly mixed reaction from the audience. The kids in the audience seemed somewhat tickled, but the staff were aghast by the colour of the language used onstage, the resolution was still vague and inconclusive.

Great learning opportunity for our little aspiring artists: improv is fantastic for rehearsals because it always adds new dimensions to the development of a scene, character or plot; but there is no place for ad libbing during the performance of a commissioned piece.

Like it or not, the sponsor does not care for artistic licence or pointless, raucous comedy. The sponsor wants a specific message to get through to the audience, that's all. At least, don't do anything to embarrass the sponsor by association. Fail to deliver and face the curtailment of funding or even a lawsuit. We're lucky such consequences are not looking for us as a result of this performance.

Again, from what I hear, the audience did learn something from our performance: Chinese boy's ad libbed expletive-laden phraseology. Which wasn't exceptionally vulgar, but still, not the kind of language to use in polite company.

Sigh. They've only just started ,and already so much damage we need to get under control.

Wake of a stranger

Attended the wake of a stranger. We didn't know her personally, but she was a fellow volunteer at Gift of Love who passed away suddenly over the last couple of days. From what we've been hearing, Mdm W Wong was there twice to three times a week cooking for the residents, shuttling the sisters around on their errands and driving the ambulance as the need arose. The hole she has left behind is a big one to fill.

But as the Father who led this morning's service did not present a eulogy, neither will I. Instead, like him, I will present my own homily. The circumstances surrounding Mdm W's passing were as such: she'd been complaining of severe pains in her stomach for some time, though she put off seeking medical advice. When the pain finally became unbearable, it was too late. As I understand the story, appendicitis killed her. Her passing was all the more tragic as it might have been avoided with a simple medical procedure, had she sought attention early enough.

Mdm W really did give her all to follow the command of "love your neighbour...", and if more of us did likewise, that could help us solve  a lot of our human social problems. But we also need to remember the follow up to this Mosaic injunction, "... as yourself" (Lev 19:18). Yes, it's good to place other's needs before our own, but if we aren't feeling well, we should love ourselves too, and break off helping others at least long enough to find out what's wrong first, fix the problem, then go back and continue helping others.

We people need to be needed. Being able to lend a hand, or to be depended upon for one thing or another is an uplifting experience, one we wish to continue experiencing. Whether it's bringing food to old folks or consulting worried students after class, it feels good to be able to fill that need and contribute to another person's well-being. But as volunteers and teachers, let's also be mindful of our physical and psychological health, and step back for a while as and when we are tired or sick. There will always be someone else that can fill in for us, so the choice is ours: do we want our position filled temporarily, or permanently?

If we build it, they will come (eventually)

Quite a large group of soccer legends from past days of glory showed up on our campus field for a game. It was reminiscent of 'Field of Dreams', though it took more than three decades after we had built it for them to come. Some names like Abbas, Rafi and Tong Hai were familiar as were their faces, but others like Samad, Rajagopal and T Pathma had greyed beyond recognition, except to the more senior of us.

Greyed out or not, the old boys could still pull off an exciting match. Ok, not the "rah rah" kind but the they've-still-got-the-moves kind. Attacking football all the way, though admittedly it was this end that got attacked the most.

Abbas of the Shiny Pate put in more than his fair share of goals. Here he casually taps in #2 with more to follow. I can't believe he was found guilty of "match fixing" back in those days. The way he played, he was too hungry to let any goal opportunity pass him by. Can you say, "McCarthy witch hunt"?

Our campus team comprising staff and students got to play a half against the All-Stars' not-so-senior side. It'll be a day they will long remember with pride. Tales will pass on to the next generation how grandpa shared a game with the National team, some of whom won the M-League and M-Cup, iconic moments in our local sporting history.

Our campus team didn't fare too badly though the action was still camped mostly in our half. 

Wayne will never forget this moment when his crush crash with Rafi resulted in the two having a brief roll in the grass together. Wayne may never shower again.

And there goes the final whistle. The score... er, was anyone keeping track? Guess the biggest winner was our campus team for just having played the game.

Thanks for the game, All-Stars! Let's do it again sometime!

And one more item of note: though the duck appeared serenely gliding over the water, few would have seen the duck's feet furiously paddling like mad to keep it afloat. But that isn't really my story to tell...

Who can it be knocking at my door?

The TV was too loud to ignore the ringing of my doorbell. I'd just discovered a slew of new HD channels on cable and was fully enjoying the full benefits of digital media when the interruption occurred. Without a chance to pretend no one was home, I had to go see who was calling.

As usual, another salesman-type, this one purporting to represent the Community Chest collecting funds for wheelchairs for the disabled. It all looked quite legitimate, with serialized receipts and the name of the Community Chest in bold on some small print of a document he was showing me through my firmly barred front gate. Does the Community Chest really come around door-to-door soliciting donations? Do they afterwards make the donor write their particulars down on a form so that an "official" receipt can be sent later?

There were too many unanswerable questions and my closed mind was not prepared to accept long explanations from an itinerant supplicant outside my door -- "Family Guy" (in HD; but there isn't any real point to watch an animated series in HD, is there?) was on and I really wanted to get back to my sofa ASAP. Plus, being recently suspicious of charity appeals, having been bilked of my goodwill once too often, I politely declined and sent him on his way.

But what if his case was a genuine one? What if I had turned away an opportunity to help someone who really needed it? I find it so difficult to tell on a case-by-case basis any more and I am no longer as eager as I was to give the benefit of the doubt now. I blame society.

Don't try this at home

Have you heard Corrine May's new song in celebration of NDP 2010? It's called "Song for Singapore" and May renders it beautifully in the vid above.

But as an NDP song, I'm afraid tone-deaf people like me can't sing along. Though the lyrics are cliched familiar enough for a heartlander (and the avid Sesame Street viewer) to identify with, the rhythms and melody are difficult to follow unless you are as talented as she is.

National propaganda songs are best composed with tribally basic repetitive beats you can count with the fingers on one Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle hand. They are akin to nursery rhymes that stick in your head and irritate you until you sing them aloud to get them out of your system. They are so basic you can sing them out of tune and no one would even notice. Thus, they are memorable even against a rational citizen's wishes and are hence iconic.

May's new song, sadly, should come with a warning label: "This propaganda tool contains extreme euphony and should only be performed by a trained professional. Kids, don't try it at home."

Generational gap closing fast

Nephew, Eugene, got married yesterday. We never knew him as "Eugene" before, always referring to him by his more ethnic name. Sigh, still not used to receiving wedding invites addressing June and me as "Uncle and Auntie", especially when the Nephew is already an established career professional and not THAT much younger than us.

Dinner was at the Stamford Ballroom at which the clan shared three tables. Youngest nephew was at my table, or to put it more accurately, under my table where he decided to spend most of the evening. His primary activities included dropping cutlery and utensils on the floor and for a while he prostrated himself between the aisles in some undeclared protest.

Sometimes you wish they'd grow up faster; but before you know it they're already married and gone. Cue "Sunrise, sunset"...!