Hua Hin 2010, Day 4

We know enough about Chat Chai Market to actually sample the wares and do some serious shopping.

We're back at Market Village...

...doing more damage to cheesy Italian food at The Pizza Company.

On to the CICADA Market (open Fri-Sun) to shop with the young, arty, trendy, hipster crowd.

June gets the honour of being the first customer of the day at this stall.

Some local talent. Maybe someday they'll be famous.

A parting shot. Getting here was a LONG walk from Market Village as we discovered.

No way we were going to walk back. A songthaew drove us back to civilization where we refreshed ourselves with coffee at Doi Tung. Click the link for more info about this Royally-sponsored social enterprise project.

A very simple dinner back at the Hua Hin Seafood Restaurant. And one very rare shot of the two of us together!

Last stop... Hua Hin Railway Station. This is the fancy Royal waiting area.

Hua Hin 2010, Day 3

Finally! The beach! Unfortunately, June is attempting to recover from something she ate that I didn't, so I'm left to my own devices this morning.

Thankfully, she's feeling a little better in the afternoon.

Better enough to split a quatro stagioni, that is! Too much Thai food, what can I say?

Da Mario Pizzaria for wood oven pizza by the sea.

Hua Hin 2010, Day 2

Armed with a list of local produce to buy, we recce Chat Chai market in the morning.

This vendor strictly enforces a no-fly zone around her merchandise.

Just what we're looking for: preserved seafood.

The Baan Manantha Hotel serves the same complementary brekkie every day. I'm not complaining, though -- there's bacon!

To get to Hua Hin Hills Vineyard, we take the daily shuttle from Market Village, Hua Hin's largest and most up-to-date shopping mall. It's about a 2km hike from our hotel.

Local wine under the Monsoon Valley label comes from here, Hua Hin Hills Vineyard.

Only baby grapes are on the vines. Harvest is long over.

It's really too hot to frolic among the vines, so we cool off at The Sala...

...sipping [home-made] grape soda.

Seafood pasta for lunch.

Sunset at the fishing pier.

Dinner including a lovely filler-free oyster omelet at the (hey) Meekaruna! Asked for a lemon juice, got a lemon sorbet instead. Delicious!

Dropped in on the Grand Night Market next to the Grand Hotel & Plaza.

Hua Hin 2010, Day 1

December vacation takes us to Hua Hin, small seaside town in Thailand

We had a transport assist from the airport thanks to Josh and Jan's contact who drives a taxi. The drive was about three hours. Now that we're more familiar with the place, we'll just take a mini bus from Monument BTS station direct to Hua Hin. Cheaper, though less comfortable.

Dinner at Hua Hin Seafood Restaurant, which we randomly selected while browsing through the night market.

Highlight of the evening was this beautiful lemon-steamed sea bass.

Of course, the thing to do at night is to pick through the colourful stalls in the night market.

And find dessert! Sweet potato balls (above) and Swensen's (below).

Dammit, Jim, I'm a teacher, not a dentist!

Useful link for future reference (see below). Too busy now to comment on it. Places to go, y'know?

“Teaching to the test makes your students do worse on the tests.... It turns out all that ‘drill and kill’ isn’t helpful.” ("What Works in the Classroom? Ask the Students", NYT, December 10, 2010)

The techno-suit: do more, be more

Science-fiction is coming true, though perhaps in a more benign form than envisioned in the movies. Cyberdine in our world isn't building Terminator robots but robotic suits that help enable the disabled. Ironically, the device is called HAL, also the name of the computer-gone-mental in Kubrick's '2001'.

Compare 'real' HAL with Lockheed Martin's HULC, not Marvel Comics' not-so-jolly green giant but another assistive robotic suit designed to help the US grunt be more than he can be. As far as aesthetics goes, the Japanese trump the Americans again, though the bright colours aren't very tactical on the battlefield.

Kids (and teachers) who think science-fiction is nothing but pure fantasy, are you having second thoughts now?

Makin' bacon (or eggs and green ham)

Happy Angry Bird Day Angry Birds!!! 'nuff said about my latest time-wasting indulgence. I have other important things to do too. Like expunging more ovivorous sus domestica with enraged avians.

Amazing Race: Narnia

I read the book and watched the movie, but I still don't quite get the point (if any) CS Lewis was trying to make in 'Dawn Treader'. Narnia:VDT reduced the vastness of the Narnian conflict of the previous two movies down to an Amazing Race-style scavenger hunt on board a Pirates of the Caribbean wooden vessel. While the change of scale made for more focused storytelling, the plot felt like a series of episodic challenges in a checkpoint-to-checkpoint run with a souvenir to collect at every stop.

Now, scavenger hunts are fun, especially when the seekers don't always act in unison; argue and bicker a lot; and vent their frustration over their or their teammate's incompetence. That's why we like watching the Amazing Race so much. But I've come to expect that the conflicts in Narnia are bigger than that.

Narnian conflicts are clashes of wills between implacable foes that scheme and strategize against one another. Both sides are usually fleshed out, their natures explored and agenda laid bare. But VDT is more one-sided, POV firmly fixed on the Treader crew while the audience isn't sure if the antagonist has an agenda or is even intelligent in any way. There are no hints as to its plans or ambitions other than randomly capturing hapless Narnians and keeping them together aboard longboats awaiting... what? Rescue?

Perhaps this installment was just meant to introduce a new player in Aslan's Grand Design: Eustace, the skeptic. A disbeliever, a complainer, has a scientific turn of mind but totally unimaginative because of it, Eustace starts out quite useless to anyone. It isn't until he learns how fallible he is, and how dearly his mistakes have cost him that he grows to eventually become the salvation of the Treader's crew when times are darkest.

Oh, wait. Maybe that is Lewis' point right there. Conflicts are not always large-scale; often they are personal and internal. Threats are not always definable, yet they are no less dangerous if left unchecked. The key advice for the crew is not to give in to temptation -- mostly the temptation to strangle Eustace. As for Eustace, Aslan can find redemption for even him and turn him from impediment to a key partner in the Treader's success.

Despite not being too impressed with the overall storyline, the going home sequence has never failed to get to me. At this point Aslan finally shows up and commends our heroes for a job well done, then rewards them by returning them to their drab, mundane, everyday existences, occasionally telling them they can't come back. Regardless, they're a little stronger, wiser and more able to deal with life's curveballs for their experience. If handled well, crisis will do that to you every time.

The crack in the Hoover Dam

Although media freedom is a value I would like to see pursued, I can't support Wikileaks approach towards it. I see Wikileaks as having killed the golden goose even before it had a chance to lay an egg.

For me, the main problem is that Wikileaks has been selective about what kind of information and, more importantly, whose information to release. Of all the secrets in the world, it's been targeting one particular country's to expose, the USA. Because Wikileaks hasn't also published the secrets of the more security conscious nations, like China or Russia at the same scale at the same time, the USA has become severely disadvantaged strategically, diplomatically, and not to mention the loss of face in the global community.

Now because of 'disclosures... that Nato had secretly prepared a plan in case Russia invaded its Baltic neighbours.... Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Nato had to explain why it privately considered Russia an enemy while publicly describing it warmly as a "strategic partner" and ally.' Russia clearly has the moral high ground here, but only because Wikileaks hasn't seen fit to publish or has been unable to obtain similar plans from the Russian side of the border. It would be naive to assume that Russia doesn't have one of its own.

If it's freedom of information Wikileaks wants, it should have the resourcefulness and courage to publish such information from the more closed up nations too, like North Korea and Iran, that are much bigger mysteries to us in terms of their global agenda. At least, be fair and lay bare everybody's secrets all at once and not just pick on the one nation that also happens to be actively campaigning FOR information freedom. Or rather, was.

What's happened is that Wikileaks has exposed one player's poker hand while the game is still going on. Sure, the player may have a hidden ace or three up his sleeve, but so have all the other players. It's the whole corrupt game we want to end, and not just punish the least discreet player for not keeping his cards closer to his chest. It's no wonder, then, that the Obama Administration which once promised an increase in information freedom suddenly now has to fix the huge crack in the Hoover Dam that Wikileaks caused -- which they now use as evidence that the President is going back on his word, thus justifying their actions.

And now the thugs who are taking 'vengeance' on organizations that are distancing themselves from the horn-tooter whistle-blower website are just being ironic. They call their own organization 'Anonymous' and use cute codenames although they're all for transparency and no secrets. I guess it's ok for them to have access to other's secrets as long as they don't have to share their's.

Openness and transparency are earned through the building up of trust. They cannot be achieved by eavesdropping, coercion and blackmail, which instead tends to have the opposite effect. If anything is to be learned from this event, it's that information is going to be locked up tighter. There'll be more paranoia, more security and more filters to put an end to further 'leaks'. Instead of a world with more freedom, we're going to be a lot more careful about what we say and whom we say it to, while looking over our shoulders to make sure no one else is listening in. Thanks a lot, Mr Assange.

A coffee, an e-book and thou

Sitting at a neighbourhood Starbucks takin' it easy with my Tab as an e-book reader. It feels a bit self-referential reading Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything". It's all about me, and you, but from a vast historical, scientific (in all its myriad branches), geological and cosmological perspective.

I'm like taking forever to get to the end, but it's a story that spans all of the beginning of time and the 4.5 plus billion years for life on Earth to get here, so I should be entitled to ooze my way through the chapters.

But this entry isn't a book review. Just an observation that having an e-book reader means having almost the entire library of materials published or otherwise shared by humanity compactly placed in my pocket. It's an idea I haven't stopped gushing over yet.

True, there are limits like access, though cheap, still costs money; and maximum memory storage is only(!) 32gb, but still that can contain a LOT of books already. But toting around a Tab for an e-reader also gives me access to other distractions, like what I'm doing now, as and when I want to vary my media indulgences.

Oh, and the other reason why I've gone with the Tab, NBS, is because it's a size that is pocket-portable enough and yet with screen real estate large enough for my ageing eyes to view text without having to keep scrolling all the time.

Blessings from an old friend

Here's a name I haven't heard from in a long time. Our last contact was way back in '92. Through the miracle of social networking, -- she found a nearly defunct email addy of mine -- Chik and I have touched base once again.

In the span of years between us, I have been piddling around with electronic self-publication while she has gone commercial. See? An autographed copy of her first paperback anthology of Christmas themed stories (available from Amazon.com) which she mailed over as a season's greeting.

Her stories are totally family-friendly, each presenting a strong moral point focusing on the Christian perspective of the purpose and meaning of Christmas.

A few are contemporary adaptations of biblical tales and other familiar narratives. Because they have realistic settings, easily identifiable characters, and very down-to-earth plotlines, they all have the potential to be re-adapted as short before-sermon dramas.

Anyway, it's a very novel greeting card from a very novel person. Thanks, Chik! Congratulations on being a published auteur, and all the best to you and yours this Christmas season!

Nex, please!

Trying out mobile blogging on my Tab. I'm now at Nex, the new mall that's just opened in the Serangoon heartland.

If ever we needed a place to hang out after work, this mall is a dream come true, and more! Don't be fooled by the entrance area. This mall starts out in narrow corridors but gets bigger as we go further in. It's designed almost like an inverted pyramid. The higher you go, the more shopping outlets become available.

Say goodbye to our cherished Cherish award! There're so many food options, from burgers to Japanese to, well, name any chain of popular food and it'll likely be represented here in one form or another. Cheap, expensive, multicultural, it's all here.

Lunch for me was a quarter pound Wendy's. The burger tasted as I remember, except in a proportion more suited to an American conception of Asian appetites. They don't understand us too well, do they? But what impressed was the speed at which the counter staff got to me depspite a long queue, and how attentive a table cleaner, Lisa, was. She noticed that I had not been issued any sugar or creamer for my tea. I said to "gimme some sugar, baby," and she readily obliged.

I can see this mall is going to be a great hangout for us staff and kids alike. Now, if only we could find the time when the new year begins.

Random pix post

Stealth cat assumes if she can't see you, you can't see her

One of the rudest snacks in the supermarket. Call the censorship board!

Clogged pipes

Odd that after six months, my respiratory condition seems to be returning. Not as seriously as it was earlier this year, but still noticeable. Regardless, I met Sully for another workout this morning though I didn't say anything to him about it. I was breathing hard only after a couple of stations and I was considering calling it quits already. Then it felt like I hit a figurative wall... and I could breathe again! Finished my session with no further difficulty.

Hard to say what's going on internally. One possibility is that there is an unknown allergen that makes contact with me twice a year. Another is that my lifestyle is too sedentary and that unless I'm actually exerting myself physically, my body has decided to cut down my air intake in case I pass out from inhaling too much oxygen.

I hope it's the second option. At least I can do something about that.

Hearts and other meat afire

Officially on vacation, being that duties ended this morning. It was partially to celebrate end-of-year freedom and also to commemorate another birthday that Wayne opened his house and his gas BBQ to us.

No clear summer skies for us, this was a burn-your-own-food occasion held under tropical monsoon conditions. But the weather couldn't dampen our spirits tonight. Unlike charcoal, propane cooks meat fast, keeping the flow of carnage constant. Major plus point there.

No more with our thoughts on work, conversation was mindless and easy. In general, there was the very fluid cluster around the BBQ as we took turns to burn something through the night; the mature cluster that engaged in polite, nostalgic conversation while they waited for compatible "spirits" to arrive; the TV cluster hooked on the evening serial; the butterflies that fluttered just about everywhere (as usual); and then there was the Dog who himself commanded lots of adoring attention. Turns out that lots of us are dog people so there was no shortage of hands to keep him happy all night.

Be that as it may, the Dog was also the victim of a love unrequited. His amorous advances were politely but firmly rebuffed by his one object of affection. Nothing personal, but the differences between them were irreconcilable: he was canis domesticus, she was homo sapiens. He was an old dog in winter, she a spring chicken. It would never have worked out.

Exam twit

On the eve of my last invigilation day, I'm thinking about that little twit that tweeted a photo of his exam paper before the exam officially started. (Yes, old news. Click the link for details if you must).

I'm not thinking of him, per se, but rather about the invigilators of that venue for that paper and the trouble they must have gotten into for not spotting his mischief and putting a stop to it before it became a national embarrassment. They have my sympathies, actually, because as an invigilator myself I know that especially in a large venue, it's nearly impossible to monitor every single candidate every second of the exam. And, honestly speaking, do we really want it to come to that?

The boy may not realize how big a deal his indiscretion was, though he's apologized for it. He claims his intention to continue his studies overseas as his mitigation, so I doubt the sincerity of his apology. Anyway, his one thoughtless act has put us on a very slippery slope.

It's true that what he did does not constitute cheating, but he possessed and activated the means to do so. The exam is based on the trust in the personal integrity of each candidate, but with this act of 'boredom' he has single-handedly cast doubt on the whole honour system. If one stupid boy could do it, it exposes a flaw in the monitoring system that can be exploited for future exams. But to see the flaw as a weakness is also incorrect because it is expected that every student is an honourable candidate. However, after this incident this assumption can not no longer be taken as automatically true.

In a more reactionary society, exam security systems will be reviewed and revamped to assume that every student is and harbours intentions to be dishonest. New measures for next year's exams could include anything from putting more invigilators on duty, to installing on site electronic monitoring systems and signal jammers (can you say, "increased school fees"?), to subjecting every candidate to pass a 'naked scanner' or pat-down before the paper commences.

Let's hope cooler heads prevail. Schools can't function if we start treating our kids like criminals. But for that boy, I'll leave this entry as yet another online indictment against him for putting our industry in jeopardy because he could think only of himself and his personal entertainment, but no further.

Breakfast with Q-tip

We promised Q-tip an outing, so here we are at Casa Verde (formerly known as Cafe Les Amis) at the Botanic Gardens. The name change is commensurate with the new focus on Italian cuisine, but I'm happy to report that the standard Western Set breakfast is still the way we remember. So hard to find real bacon these days, but this is one place that still serves it up in its delicious non-kosher, vegan-unfriendly, health-devastating glory.

Notice how the two rashers of bacon have surreptitiously migrated over to my plate? I admit, I'm the unabashed baconaholic of the family. Apart from my illicit gains, this dish is an Italian breakfast called Calzione del Mamma. Underneath all the green stuff is a thick omelette studded with bits of Italian sausage. No wonder Itie boys so love to live with their mothers. 

Spoke too soon. Meet the other baconaholic, sausageoholic and random-table-scraps-aholic of the family. Wonder if the fitness centre has a pet weight-loss programme we can sign her up for?

The first rule

Sully thinks I've advanced enough to actually start hitting something other than air in our training sessions. Intro... the punching-bag! What could be easier that to whack the heck out of a helpless target that can't hit back?

Wrong. Today's session was still all about technique, coordination, balance and timing. I learned the hard way, as usual. Throw a punch incorrectly and the impact rebounds, sending a shockwave back the way it came; that is, back through the knuckles and all the way up the arm. Ouch.

The first rule of Fight Club is "don't even join". At least, not till you've had more training.

As she wheeled her wheelbarrow

We said farewell to Mel. Again. For good this time. Booked a table at Molly Malone's at which we shared one last carnivorous meal as colleagues.

It was our regular, noisy table company, but somehow I couldn't get into the swing of the multiple conversations raging around me. One possibility is that I've been dissociated from everyone for so long, my social engine was taking longer than usual to warm up.

Another is that maybe I'm not taking Mel's departure as well as I thought.

So many friends have moved on already. Every time someone leaves, there's a whole new upheaval in the social dynamic.

Change is nothing new. Technological change I take to like a duck to water. Changes in my social circle, however, are a little harder to adapt to. But then, that's nothing new to me either.

'This R2 unit has a bad motivator'

We're all familiar with the carrot-and-stick approach as our primary motivation tool. We reward someone for doing good work and punish them for delivering something that isn't up to standard or not doing what we wanted of them.

In school, our rewards tend to be good grades, a glowing testimonial and maybe the occasional citation or cash incentive for exceptional performance. Undesirable behaviour, on the other hand, is punished with personal audiences with increasing levels of the campus heierarchy, discussions with parents, Corrective Work Orders, threats of repeating a year or a 'recommendation to seek educational instruction at an alternative institution'.

Daniel Pink, in Drive, calls this practice Motivation 2.0. Much of our workflow systems and even our economy itself is largely based on this model, and it's been very successful so far in moving us along. Motivation 2.0 is an excellent tool for mechanical, routine tasks. Nobody wants to do them, so offering people a decent exchange for their time and effort is the only way we can shoehorn human resources into our assembly-line industries.

Problem is that our economy no longer relies on routine mass-order jobs. Our employment opportunities are now shifting towards knowledge, service and creative 'products' where we have an edge over our more labour-intensive neighbouring economies. Good as 2.0 is in replicating a compliant, narrow-skilled workforce for the industrial economy, for tasks involving thinking and complex problem-solving, 2.0 doesn't work. Throwing in more money isn't going to make solving problems easier or faster. Pink even suggests that these material rewards might even be a de-motivational factor because it raises the pressure to get the task done (reward conditional to successful delivery) and it makes people work towards what the money's worth and no further. If this sounds like what schools are like today, that's because we are still following the 2.0 model, and yet are supposed to be grooming capable workers for the new economy.

Drive advocates an upgrade to Motivation 3.0, detailing scientific and behavioral studies; and case studies of successful corporations that have adopted this new approach. One of Pink's best examples is that Microsoft Encarta (an attempt at creating and maintaining a pay-to-use online encyclopaedia) which had a huge financial backing and lots of talented employees closed down after a few years of operation, whereas a loose organization with the same goals but having no paid management, no paid employees and no for-profit motive has become Wikipedia, one of the most-referred to and relied upon websites today.

The 3.0 model emphasizes autonomy, mastery and purpose as the prime movers of human achievement. Autonomy being the divestment of superfluous supervision over the worker and the work; mastery as in putting in time and effort to get good at a skill or skill-set; and purpose as in having a sustainable, believable and realistic rationale for doing the work in the first place.

I'm looking at my students past and future. Most of them came from 2.0 schools, and even when they arrive at our doorstep we still keep them suppressed under 2.0 principles. We complain about how unmotivated they are, how slow they are to absorb new ideas and concepts, how frustrated we are that they keep making the same mistakes even though we've corrected them time and time again. We run our education like a factory churning out neatly packaged mass products but we also realize that each student is an individual with individual learning needs and hence requires a personally customized instructional programme in order to develop each potential, like we promise to. That's quite the dilemma, isn't it, trying to meet 3.0 demands with 2.0 structures?

Our biggest problem with 3.0 is in the first pillar: autonomy. I'm not talking about staff autonomy because one of the reasons why I enjoy my work on campus is that I have loads of autonomy to run my classes and other programmes the way I want. I'm talking about the kids and how we have to monitor them, guide them, discipline them, safeguard them, and sic their parents on them (if necessary) their whole two years with us. I'm talking about not trusting them to do the right thing, and likewise them not trusting themselves, coming from environments that didn't trust them either. It's going to be difficult if I apply 3.0 while the rest of their subject tutors still manage them with 2.0, the way they're used to. The kids are so conditioned under survival 2.0 they don't see the higher purpose of 3.0 as a necessary or even a worthwhile aim. Avoiding a shelling will always win out over reaching for higher goals.

I'm absolutely sure 3.0 works. The kids in Drama Club grow and develop so many skills so quickly because they have the autonomy to do what they need to do to get their show on the road. They dedicate themselves to mastering stagecraft, turning in long rehearsals above and beyond their regular scheduled schoolwork and working with a true master of the craft like Tina or Rods. And they have a purpose to turn in a performance they can be proud of for our annual Drama Night or national competition. But these same kids are often in trouble in class because 2.0 just isn't adequate to motivate them to do as well in their academic obligations.

Working in an organization so firmly entrenched in 2.0, can there be a transitional step, a 2.5 that I can at least start on? Or have I been stuck on 2.5 all along? Whatever it is, it's time to throw a bigger rock into the pond. Our collective futures could well depend on it.

Digital generation gap

Among the various threats and opportunities dNYel had been discussing earlier, I'd like to throw in one more item that is BOTH a threat and and opportunity: the kids have gone digital and they think differently from us pen and paper types.

One of this year's GP essay questions was something about how technology has negatively impacted our skill levels. The bias to this question is from the fact that old schoolers like us took great pains to practice and train in the skills we wanted to be good at. Whether it was music, art or sport there were no shortcuts to developing the necessary muscle memory and the right kind of sensitivity to make it work the way we want.

But with technology, anybody with an interest and some patience can learn to use so many easily (often freely) available digital tools that can turn an amateur attempt into something approaching a piece of professional expression. For instance, music doesn't have to be 'original', it can be sampled from existing tracks and remixed with a GarageBand tool; a backyard lot and a few enthusiastic teenagers can become the platform for the next YouTube viral hit. You call THAT skill?

But really, who's to say it isn't? We oldies are conscious of the distance between audience and performer, but to this generation, there is hardly any difference between one or the other. Easy access to all these tools that were once only available to those who could afford them (i.e., the professional studios) has closed the gap so significantly it's almost pointless to make the distinction now.

What I'm getting at is that with so many opportunities for the kids to express themselves these days, it's still our job to return them to the table and focus on writing an essay or make sense of a given piece of writing. I suppose it's necessary. It's not so much that the exam only seeks to reward pen and paper skills, but it's the only opportunity they might have to create something original, by themselves, of themselves.

As we are in the process of figuring out our programme for the next batch of J1s, this digital mindset is one more thing to be aware of if we're going to engage them in any meaningful way.

Six-word stories

Here's an interesting movement launched recently: to identify what truly matters to you in exactly six words. The site is full of happy motivational phrases coined by contributors who also add a little background story to explain themselves.

I don't personally have an apt six-word motto to live by, or perhaps I'm too woolly-headed to quip an enlightening stock phrase for myself right now. This week, I only have one concern: "Treat animals right, you stupid humans!" If you've been following recent video links portraying acts of animal cruelty (which I will NOT perpetuate here), you'll know why I'm so bugged.

Sideline distractions

What a bunch of crybabies! Lose a game then blame it on being distracted by the sideline action? Dudes, if you're the serious athletes that you claim to be, you'd be keeping your eyes on the ball, not the globes. Or did you really sign up because it's the only chance you'll get to go to a beach populated by girls who only lug their jugs in a figurative way?

Actually, this post is just an excuse to link to a page filled with gratuitous pix of scantily clad women. What? I'm not a Yemeni beach volleyball player!

Organizational inertia

Change is in the air for dNYel's GP programme. At least we're starting to think about it, seeing that the employment environment has changed significantly. Like it or not, we're still in the business of cranking out economic workers, except that now our economy has moved from assembly-line manufacturing to knowledge management, creativity and service. Likewise, we're looking at our production model and making decisions about how best to modify working systems and overhaul obsolete ones.

No specifics as yet. Too many people have too many different opinions on how to proceed. There will be changes made in the coming weeks, but I hope that in an effort to please everyone it won't become 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'.

We'll take all the ideas, evaluate our options and eventually whittle them down into a workable strategy. That's the nature of an organization. Change may be slow, but if it is in the right direction, that's all that matters.

The Tabby field test

Took Mr Tabby on a date to Vivocity for a field test to see how I liked him. So far his reviews have been mixed so it was time to try him out for myself.

Portability:
He certainly is a monster of a mobile phone with his 7" screen. But he fit perfectly into the side pocket of my berms. I could even button the flap. His 380g of mass was noticeable as I walked, but it didn't bother me too much after a while. Guess people who wear cargo pants have the advantage if they want to carry him about hands free. Else he'll have to go in a bag.

Connectivity:
3G, Wi-fi, Bluetooth. Connections are quite fast, making web browsing easy. 3G, of course, requires a data plan from SingTel -- 12Gb per month, standard. That's irritating because in order to use 12Gb per month, I have to transfer the SIM card from my current fully-functioning phone to the Tab, rendering my phone useless. Unless I operate the Tab exclusively on Wi-fi, in which case I'll be wasting my monthly data quota. I suppose I'll be swapping the SIM quite often to get the best of both worlds.

Making phone calls on the Tab is ridiculous. No way I'm going to put that giant cell phone to my face to talk, so a Bluetooth headset is a must-have. Fortunately, launch day customers receive the very item, gratis. One more thing jiggling around in the pockets wherever we go.

Interface:
The touchscreen is very responsive under the fingers. Fast flicks and pinches result in eyeball-spinning scrolling but it responds well to slow, controlled movements too.  The QWERTY-keypad is touch-responsive, signalling every key press with a little vibration and a brief highlight of the key pressed. In landscape orientation, the keys are rather far apart, so holding the Tab in one hand leaves only one finger available to do the typing with. In portrait, however, both thumbs can easily reach all the keys making typing much easier this way.

Camera:
Er, I didn't buy him for the camera.

Apps:
Lots of free apps are available from the Android Market. Apart from the usual FB, email, GPS apps, I particularly like using the Tab as an e-book reader. It's so easy to open up Kobo, find any book and download  a copy. Books are cheap too. I bought 'Drive' and 'Rework' for less than half the price at the bookstore. It's so easy, it's scary how one can get carried away e-shopping and not realize how much money it will all amount to when it's time to settle the bill.

Other:
I'm having some problems getting the contacts I have on my SIM to sync with the Tab. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I should figure it out soon enough. Mr Tabby is a serious money-draining device because of his ease of access to (often paid, even if cheap) information, sometimes we don't even realize we're paying for it. Also, some apps insist on tracking the user by GPS coordinates, so if I was ever going to commit a crime, I have to never make him an accessory or he'll squeal on my every movement in a snap.

Verdict:
Thought it may have been love at first sight, it's not love at first date. No doubt Mr Tabby is going to be useful but we're going to have to adapt to one another's quirks and annoyances if we're going to make this relationship work. As it is, when he's in my hands, I'm addicted to pushing his buttons just to see what else he can do. Once I narrow down his most relevant functions to me, I do believe we'll get along just fine.

Launch day for Tab

I can't resist launch days. I hate crowds, especially excited crowds; and I hate lining up in long queues, but inevitably, I find myself there anyway.

Launch item in question is the Samsung Galaxy Tab -- big-assed brother to the 'S' launched earlier this year.

Much to my embarrassment, I found myself positioned #2 in line though I really didn't make an effort to arrive that early. Somehow as we slightly early birds were milling about, the organizers got their act together and herded us into line. By some strange accident, I found myself right in front.

Found out later that the very first four retail customers had already been identified and given VIP treatment, while I was #2 after them. Still, I was far ahead enough to be invited to view the launch concert in person. Some up and coming K-pop star, G.Na, was on hand to belt out a few English and Korean numbers and say some nice things about the Tab before we could rush over to the retail counters and collect ours.

So, without any further ado, presenting my very own Personal Non-Productivity Device, Mr Tabby.

Graduation bawl

With reference to 'Graduation: No gown, scroll or photo op': for crap's sake, lady, your kid has graduated... kindergarten! Perhaps that might have been a grand accomplishment for you -- could be still -- but your kid has lots more opportunities to wear the cutesy costume for your photographic pleasure when it actually means something to him.

You keep insisting the event will be an 'unhappy' one, but the only one who is unhappy is you. The organization is happy doing it that way; the kids are happy because they have no other frame of reference (besides you) to compare their celebration against; and the other parents are probably happy because they can quickly grab their bemused graduand, take him for a celebratory ice-cream sundae and pack him off to Chinese tuition straight after lunch.

You know what will be really unhappy? Forcing hundreds of pre-schoolers to sit still and quiet while hundreds of names are read out individually. Have you never experienced hell on earth before?

Your kid deserves to be happy on the day of his graduation, but he won't be happy because you won't be happy. Smile, please, for his sake. It's HIS party, you can't cry just because you want to.

The one question

Another GP year has come to a close. Today's final exam was, if not easy, then at least straightforward. Most essay questions looked do-able, and no nasty surprises. There was a head-scratcher over dying rich = dying 'disgraced', and a particular angle demanded by the tech question (tech has a negative effect on skill levels) which I hope the kids paid attention to. They do love the sci-tech subject so much, sometimes they forget to read the whole question. *shudder

But the compre paper totally vindicated what I had said about the application question all along. There is only ONE question to answer, no matter how many question marks appear. The main question is the one that asks if and/or how the one or two passages apply to the [new] given context from which perspective the candidate is required to consider. In other words, when we ask which author you agree with, or is more relevant, or otherwise presents a more convincing argument, these are just supporting questions that remind the candidate to make appropriate and relevant references to the passages in answer to the main question.

Trouble is, kids tend to spend too much energy answering the supporting questions (frankly, I don't care which author you agree with OR why), they have no time or forget to answer the main question. Instant fail.

This year, the application question went straight to the heart of the matter: how does the author's views on food apply to you and your society? It didn't even bother to ask the supporting questions, knowing how well we've drilled our kids to answer them. A single question mark sharpens the focus to a single key idea. That's the application question I understood right from the time they rolled it out. It didn't need to get any more complicated than that.

Attempting to make small talk

First, condolences to NBS who lost a Squeak. We pet owners share your grief as it is the same pain, regardless of their relative sizes. :'(

Second, while on duty this afternoon, I happened to overhear a conversation between a trio of fellow invigilators. It was all about tut tutting over some petty misdemeanour of a colleague of theirs before drifting on to discuss where they expect to be in five years' time. OMG, is this really the subject matter normal human beings raise when they make small talk? No wonder I have problems chatting people up. Small talk is just lost on me, who prefers to keep his own counsel over making such inconsequential matters sound so serious.

Which is why I am so thankful for my own colleagues. Our talk is anything but serious, nothing is too sacred to poke fun at -- not even ourselves -- and to anyone listening in on us we would probably make no sense at all.

We spent the evening celebrating another birthday. The a la carte buffet spread at Hibiki was very well done. We couldn't decide what to order so the staff presented our table for 10 a first round serving of everything on the menu. The ebi sashimi was so fresh it didn't remind me of fish bait for once. Even the unagi was palatable to my finicky standards. After the first round, we were only able to order another serving of assorted sashimi and teriyaki (for the non-raw food eaters) before calling it quits. Kind'a sad that this place that serves up such good food didn't have much business. We occupied the biggest table in the house, made the most noise and kept the staff most busy. They could certainly use more customers, so go!

Will end off this rather random entry with this clip featuring a totally audacious football play. Usually in [American] football, we can expect loads of violence, mayhem and broken bodies flung all over the pitch -- and that's just during the touchdown celebrations. In comparison, the following play must have been designed by Gandhi himself! Take a look...


And... that's all, folks!

Can you count to two?

End of year invigilation has started. Large exam venues are a pain as the candidature runs in the hundreds. Accounting for the papers collected takes some time as each one has to be tallied against the attendance sheet. So even after the paper has ended, we can still expect to remain behind for a while counting everything up. As with B-lo's nightmarish experience with her first duty last week, it could happen that counting could last up to an hour after the 'pens down' announcement.

As it turns out, my duty today was the best case scenario. It was a relatively small candidature, no doubt, but my assignment was to be responsible for the private candidates' column. Altogether there were a total of four names on my list, 50% of which were absent. It was a breeze to collect and count all the way up to 'two', and skedaddle while the others were still collecting theirs.

A good start to this year's duty, I think. Not likely to occur again; no one could be as lucky twice.

Evil makes good

This year, it's the villains who get the focus. For all their grandiose plans of world domination, they're only compensating for the one thing they have been deprived of: acceptance. That is, if 'Despicable Me' and the just opened 'Megamind' would have us believe.

Gru's three orphans grow on him, and his long-suppressed paternal instincts rise to the fore as he meets his new-found responsibilities like a man. Megamind gets afflicted with reverse Stockholm syndrome -- he kidnaps the same female reporter so often he eventually falls for her. When this pair of miscreants realize their human sides, they gain a purpose bigger than themselves and eventually make good.

If only real evil were so easy to identify. But it's the consequences of momentary idiocy; or blind, unquestioning faith; or misguided righteousness that are truly horrific. In fact, often the greatest evils are perpetrated by those who believe they are acting for the greatest good. Think about that for a bit.

Oh, and while we're on the topic of cartoon characters, alas, poor Sid. I knew him, Manfred. Sniff.

But I'm only 40! Plus.

Anyone reading my last few entries must think yours truly is nothing but a crotchety old f*rt shaking his walking stick at the world 'cos he can't find his dentures. Better get the defibrillator on stand-by in case he bursts a blood vessel.

Slow down, old boy; you're starting to show your age.

Grades, grades...!

Our children certainly are a product of what we teach them. I can hear adult voices behind these kids' assertions that grades take priority over graciousness. It's fine for anxious parents and driven educators to push their kids to better and higher achievement, but not at the expense of hollowing them out of their basic humanity and unique personalities.

I watched the Asian premier of 'The Walking Dead' on Fox, and I couldn't help noticing the parallel between the cannibalistic undead and the yao guai (hungry ghost) next generation we seem to be raising. They may not lack resources -- I'm sure they'll all ace their job interviews with those impressive grades of theirs --  but they're all empty inside. In an every-zombie-for-itself world, no one can tell friend from enemy, family from stranger. Everyone is a competitor, every decent human being left is either food or seeks to put them out of their misery with a bullet between the eyes.

Ok, I'm exaggerating. But parents, teachers, one day in the not too distant future, these kids will be employed -- as decision-makers who will be deciding on our fate. Let's see how proud you will be of them when you are mouldering in some forgotten corner of a retirement home wondering why you haven't seen Junior in so long. Your kids will be too busy fighting and surviving in this competitive world that you created in their minds to think about you any longer, except how soon they can cash in your CPF.

Planned obsolescence

That's it. Done with the last consult. The last three weeks were intense, but it felt good to talk with the kids around a conference table than to talk at them in a classroom. Despite the disastrous results they've been getting throughout the year, it's gratifying to see they haven't given up and are still intent on doing well.

But it's out of my hands now. I've relinquished my hold on the bicycle and it's up to them to pedal, coast... or crash on their own. Like an anxious parent, all I can do is watch them go; knowing that if I've done my job well enough, they won't need me any more.

Keep pedaling, kids, and don't look back!

Deprived of iron

Oh dear. It's true. I confess. Haven't gone to the fitness centre in almost three weeks. My schedule has been packed with consults getting their acts together (at last!) in the run-up to the finals next week. But as a result, my cold is coming back. Blocked and leaky nose, wheezing lungs... check, check and check.

Thankfully, I'm down to my last full day of consults. Immediately after, I'm going straight back to pump the symptoms right out of my system.

'A' is the new normal

FM says we should strive for excellence, and from the ground wells up an outpouring of insecurity, inadequacy and  indignation. We're already working so hard to score straight 'A's; what more could the man expect to wring from us?

Ironic for me to say, but scoring straight 'A's is the new normal. Excellence no longer resides solely in academic achievement because all Education can provide is just a common foundation on which every student can start from.

Education trains good habits, plays a role in character building, helps people develop some idea about how the world functions. For most people, that is enough. It is, really. It's great to be average. People like us are the base from which excellent people stand above the crowd. But we seem to be short of such people who develop interests in interesting things and in so doing become interesting themselves. It gets tiresome sometimes when we look at each other and see reflections of our own mundaneness. In our human sea of dull grey, we want to see a few shiny things that brighten the gloom.

I dunno. When I see the occasional shiny thing, I get inspired to do a little better. For most of my fellow citizens, when they see shiny things their first instinct is to shoot them down, like they represent an alien invasion, or something. Maybe that's not too far fetched an analogy: our sporting achievements tend to erupt into a War of the Worlds situation as we flagellate ourselves over why 'true-blue S'poreans' aren't excellent enough to compete against out imported talent.

We've grown a culture that chooses not to celebrate excellence. We discourage our youngsters from pursuing things they are good at or are interested in doing. We're afraid that if they do well in those things, they'll lose their place in the average mass where there is safety in numbers. Shining too brightly or swimming too far out at the edge is a sure way to get snapped at by a passing predator, so everybody swims in a homogenous unit, in a... dare I say it? A school.

If we're going to be a school, I'd rather not be in a school of ikan bilis (anchovies). Lacklustre, uninteresting, numerous, nobody sheds a tear when we crunch them with our nasi lemak. Let's be a pod of dolphins, creatures to be marvelled at, communicated with, studied like a fellow intelligent species; and even if we get clubbed to death by mad Japanese fishermen, at least someone will kick up a stink, rail at the heavens and miss us.

Maybe we don't know how to be excellent. We do have living examples among us, believe it or not. You have to admire the audacity of Fusion Garage CEO, Chandra Rathakrishnan, for launching the Joojoo just ahead of the market-changing iPad, probably against all good marketing sense and advice. If not for comparisons against the iPad, the Joojoo would have been a decent enough device, but Excellence was in the belief and conviction to launch before the gargantuan competition could. And survive.

There's this little 12-year old girl who has just become S'pore's latest world title holder... in yoga, of all things. I'm pretty sure she does just fine in school, but so does everyone else. But watch her through her routine and be amazed at her technique, poise and flexibility. What kind of training does it take to become this excellent? Well, there can only be one world champion at a time, so what can we laggards do to match up?

Obviously, we don't have to match her in her chosen field of excellence. We each have our own fields and our own ways to be excellent there. But even if we don't have any particular talent in any particular field -- and that would be the majority of us -- we can still heed the exhortation of dual paragons of mediocrity, Bill S Preston Esq. and Ted "Theodore" Logan, to simply "be excellent to each other...!" We can at least do that.

Our studies are important, like rice is important. It's our staple and we can't live without it. Excellence is ice-cream with a cherry on top. But you can have it only after you finish your meal. I want ice-cream. I'm sure you do too.

Lost generation needs a smack

Ah, our poor, lost younger generation who know not what they defend. You think too highly of yourselves if you think you are being called upon to defend king and country. 'Tis no ideal, no ideology, no Grand Plan you bear arms for. All the older generation asks is that you see fit to defend yourselves and your home, that's it.

What home, you ask? Remember the people who call you family, those you call your friends? That home. Like family, you don't get to choose whom you live with, though you can choose whom to be friends with. So it's not the place, but the people you share meals with from time to time whom you are defending. It so happens they all have to live somewhere, so yeah, that home.

If you don't know what you're defending, then you perhaps don't think your family and your BFFs are worth defending. You don't think of yourself as worth defending. That's fine. Lots of young people feel the same way. There were the Roman punks chillaxin' in their bounty. Tactically and technologically they had the best army in the world defending them, but the barbarians dropped by and trashed the place anyway, raping, pillaging and slaughtering as they went. What we DO remember of the Romans are the remains of what their forefathers had built... that's about it. Good company, you youngsters keep.

There's only one problem I have with you not knowing what home you're defending. You are talking about MY home too. Could you do an old guy a favour and wait until I no longer have a need for a home on Earth before you toss it away to the barbarians? Yes, the ones who are eyeing all the nice things you kids have 'cos the only way they can see themselves having the same privileges as you is by prying them from your cold, dead fingers. The same ones you are calling out to like a wounded duck calls out to hungry wolves for a swift and merciful end; the ones you are inadvertently inviting home with your legs wide open.

Humour me.

The straw critic

There's a recent trend in GP that so-called 'balance' points get snuck into essays under the guise of reporting the views of the 'critics'. Otherwise, they're called 'detractors' or 'pessimists' or some other appellation.

But who are these critics? What are they critics of? What views do they detract from? Fact is, unless the essayist is targeting a specific criticism held by a known group of people, the critic in the GP essay is a figment of the student's imagination.

It is a convenient device to hang a weak oppositional viewpoint on so that they can assure themselves that they have considered 'the other side'. But once having done so, the better students will offer a counter-counter argument which is irritating, or just forget to deal with the critics' view on the unwritten assumption that they're just critics -- what do they know? Unforgivable!

In most GP essays, the 'critic' is used as a logical straw-man. Bring in some arbitrary, extreme, obscure point and attribute it to some imaginary non-entity. Beat the stuffing out of it, or simply ignore it, it doesn't matter because it isn't real in the first place.

What's real? People who talk to imaginary critics in life are either the delusional homeless or the institutionalized. Whatever has made this batch of students become so crazy?

A small and simple Halloween

I've given up organizing campus-wide Halloween events because the occasion falls during the period when the big kids have finals to study for and the little kids are immersed neck deep in their group projects. If that isn't enough horror for them, I don't know what is.

This year, I kept things really small and simple: host just the drama kids for a little screamfest. There aren't that many of them and they look like they could use a break -- before they get desperate enough to eat each others' brains. And they really don't need any more junk food.

Imagine my surprise when they volunteered to take the event off my hands (along with my hands) and invite the whole world to my proposed do. Ah, such ambition, my little drama kids have. Such hubris.

Have to give them credit -- they did their best. Friday evening, it's back to just us, a small gathering of rowdy revelers gathered 'round yon projector for a seasonally appropriate movie screening.

The faintest of heartbeats

My worst fears are realized. It seems reports of Mr L33t's demise have been greatly exaggerated. The poor fellow's not dead, only irreparably lobotomised. Which is worse. No reason to purchase any further upgrades 'cos everything's working just fine -- except the hard drive which has utterly and completely failed.

As I said, all my important data has been backed up on an external drive, though I've lost everything of value within the past month... sort of being in between backups. But my saved games are probably unrecoverable.

Bought a 1Tb replacement HDD but will have to reinstall everything all over again. Painful. I'll have to replay all my games too! Someone's going to be busy over the December hols.

Alas, poor Mr L33t

A minute's silence for the demise of Mr L33t, who as of this evening refused to boot up. Cause of Death looks to be a general mobo failure, though he also showed signs of clogged air vents and an accumulation of dust on his interior surfaces which house sensitive electronics.

Will attempt to salvage still functioning transplantable parts, but it's time for a serious overhaul, maybe upgrades even. The only thing I hope for is that his hard drive is still intact. Too many personal photos and save games to see wiped clean. Yes, I have backups, but it's inconvenient to restore everything.

Think we're about to experience Mr L33t's third incarnation. That's the thing about PCs that die: they always come back better than they were before.

Wait, where are the animal pictures?

HOT date at the Night Safari's Halloween event.

Before venturing further, we fortify ourselves with Bongo Burgers -- safari themed fast food. The burgers aren't quite the size we remember, but if most people's appetites are anything like June's, perhaps its just as well. Guess who had to finish her leftovers?

The Haunted Village attraction was at the zoo. It's not visible from this pix but behind us the queue to get in here snaked a very long way away. To get to this entrance took about half-an-hour of patient stand-look around-move forward-repeat. Lots of atmospheric sound effects, spooky music and the odd costumed party-goer to keep us company in the meantime.

This bunch of fraidy-cats pushed June and me to the front as soon as we stepped through the creepy entrance. Inside, lots of spooks got their jollies popping up and scaring the bejeebers out of our makeshift party. It's good to travel with a crowd of screamers. People tend to bring their own atmosphere with them.

A close encounter with a spook. I asked for a close-crop, but this is ridiculous.

The other highlight was the spooky tram ride. It's the usual ride around the park to view the nocturnal activities of the animals, but tweaked with a soundtrack and the guide adopting a Monsterpiece Theatre presenter's voice as she nattered through her spiel on lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Could tell she was having fun 'cos this is about the only occasion that she could threaten stubborn flash photogs with a 'poke in the eye'.

Along the way, there were also frequent 'visitations' from our guide's scarier colleagues. Somehow, they know how to pick the screamers. My observation: to avoid becoming a victim of these apparitions, choose a seat directly above the tram wheels. No ghoulie would risk squished tootises for the sake of a shriek. 

Lots of other photo ops at the entrance plaza. The costumed ones are not above sudden acceleration to startle the unwary and pursue the fleeing.

If you're thinking of going too -- there's still this weekend and next -- go early, and don't waste too much time over dinner. We thought we had lots of time but after covering the Gui Mansion, the tram ride and the animal show, it was too late for us to take the walking trail where more surprises awaited us.

Wonder what the tourists thought of this very Asian-themed Halloween celebration?

Reading aloud

Consultations are coming in thick and fast. They can be a lot more draining than regular classes 'cos the kids are actively engaged and focused on asking questions that really make you think before shooting off a reply. Many of these past nights, mental fatigue sets in and I'm passed out on the floor of the study again. It's a seasonal thing.

But I've learned from last year. Around this time, I lost my voice for a week, losing valuable consult time with last year's kids. This year, Im drinking more water and, more importantly, I'm making the kids read their work aloud to me. I can thus minimize my vocal input, inturrupting where necessary and reviewing Cowell-style after.

While conserving my larynx, the kids also benefit from the reading as they can catch awkward phrasing and grammatical errors they've made. Listening is a skill we don't train much at our level, but it's too important to neglect, especially when GP is so particular about the use of language.

Also, it's good for them to read what they have written because with a 'live' and immediate audience they have to take pride in their essays and AQs. All the more so if they're reading aloud to a small group consult. Given more time and more practice, writing quality is sure to go up.

In other news, it's been HOT. It's been so hot, June and I have polished off a pint of Benjamin and Jeremiah's frozen confections a night. Soon, we're going to become what we eat: a Chunky Monkey(TM) and a Chubby Hubby(TM) respectively.