Day for weddings

Look what showed up downstairs! So that's what our fleet of ageing London cabs can be put to work as -- when they retire in 2012.

Here's a bit more detail of the front.

I doubt this one came for anyone I know, although I'll be attending nephew Lion's wedding dinner this evening. "Lion" was how he pronounced his name when he was a toddler. But he's all growed up now.

Faster and with less pleasure

Our kids are lacking in information literacy. Specifically, the article says,

"their lack of aptitude to cite the sources of information used were of particular concern.

The participants were also found to be lacking in the abilities to compare information with other sources and to form critical assessments from the information."

And this study was on secondary school students.

Judging from the essays I'm grading, things aren't much better at JC level. Despite the critical reading skills that we teach in class, many of our kids are still falling back on the one method that brought them success at the previous milestone exam: memorization of 'model essays'.

There is no other explanation for why one after another the essays I'm reading are almost carbon-copies of each other. Though not necessarily word-for-word, they are identical point-for-point. And they have no critical engagement with the question they are addressing. While they may be valid points for identifying the general causes of violence, they need to be adapted to answer the current question which is asking about the reasons for the INCREASE in violence today. Ooh... subtle.

It's the study culture of non-critical cramming that's ruining our young minds. It stems from a mistrust of our own abilities and an over-reliance on the brilliance of others. So even though we haven't a clue as to what we're studying, if it was good enough to get the previous model student an 'A', it's good enough for us to say the same thing and score an 'A' as well. While this strategy may work for subjects that don't vary their questions much from year to year, it's disastrous for subjects like GP which wildly fluctuates from even assignment to assignment.

Kids, the reason why you hate studying is because you don't engage the subjects themselves. You're not playing the game -- you're spending time and effort working out the combination to unlock 'GOD Mode'... which doesn't exist. What? You'll only be confident enough to play when you've activated God Mode? Where's the fun in that? Sure, you'll get to the end, but instead of learning the cool moves and sick skillz that'll impress your friends and mesmerize the chicks, you'll just be grinding away and wonder what that was all about when the final cutscene starts scrolling credits.

As for the article, we are teaching the kids to cite their sources, and to make critical comparisons between texts at JC level. But the kids have to help themselves too. Stop blowing us off when we teach you to think and make decisions. And, for goodness sake, stop memorizing essays. It deadens your mind faster and with less pleasure than marijuana. In case you haven't noticed, you've already grown a full set of teeth, hence you don't need to rely on predigested goop any more.

Just keep swimming

Another of our number has left the nest. In pursuit of Graduate education goes B-lo, taking a year off to be an irresponsible student again. It's good to get out of the fishbowl and go swim in the ocean for a while. Either you grow to appreciate the fishbowl more, or you discover options you never thought you could have. Either way, just a year out is usually quite a life-changing experience already.

What did four-and-a-half years turn me into? Well, I really liked it out there, but I put roots back in the fishbowl because this little fishbowl is being inexorably swallowed up by the ocean, whether the residents here like it or not. The gameplan here is to make use of my experience in the ocean to prepare as many as I can to cope with the imminent sea-change.

So, I may not have any biological offspring, but I'll settle for intellectual progeny. From this batch of exam scripts that I'm currently grading... it looks like I'm not going to have many.

There is only one egg

A bit slow to weigh in on new boss' new direction towards this 'values-driven education' thingy, but... here we go.

I don't mean to sound fatalistic, but it's not going to happen. Schools can do what they want to make course corrections on policy and implementation, and it will affect millennia of Asian generational upbringing not in the least.

At the very heart of it -- and taken to absurd extremes -- is our emphasis on competition among the multitudes for the few coveted spaces in our tertiary education institutions, with the carrot of a cushy job and pots of income for the tiny elite that make it to the end of the rainbow.

I guess we never grow out of the primal memory that we were once a sperm cell, rushing and jostling against millions of our fellows and brethren, seeking sole entry into the haven of a solitary ovum. Heh.What haven? We got born, didn't we? And the race has begun all over again.

Among the paltry few mythologies S'poreans have, this most nonsensical one appears to be the primary motivator of our actions from cradle to grave. It drives family life as long as the family has offspring. It keeps the wheels of Education turning (and us employed), always comparing, assessing, measuring, testing; every level a filter that fewer and fewer are able to pass through.

In this caustic environment, everyone is a potential rival, if not an outright enemy. Every classmate sets a new hi-score on the climb up the leaderboard; every teacher is a level boss whose task is to prevent the unworthy from entry into the next grade. Education here isn't as much a game as it is a grind, a cycle of repetitive tasks for the sake of leveling up. It's a dry, boring, solitary experience for the solo player.

Most of our kids play solo. Whether self or externally motivated, they are often cut off from socializing (for fear of 'bad influences'); most media (expensive, frivolous); even books (the fun types) because their time is better spent in isolated study (no distractions). So when they happen to have some time on their hands, they're occasionally stunned into inaction, or go overboard with their indulgences; yet guilty all the while because there's still a textbook to be read or notes to be copied or math to practice.

Ok, before I start sounding like a bad GP essay, what values come to the fore in this sort of growing-up experience? Mostly, the selfish sort. Personal survival takes precedence over all other considerations. Privileges and rights are earned (the corollary being that the less privileged didn't work hard enough to deserve privileges others enjoy). "No one owes us a living", so we're not likely to bend over backwards for anyone either. This is all starting to sound familiar.

So, a "values-driven education" in the real sense is quite at the opposite end of where our current direction is taking us. The boss is calling for us to figure out how to introduce multiplayer mode in what has always been a single-player game. Not that we haven't tried before... the attempt to engage students in collaborative projects very quickly degenerated into a multiplayer king-of-the-hill fragfest as even teammates felt the pressure to outdo one another... for the sake of limited places in the local universities. It's one of our more spectacular failures in social engineering at the post-secondary level.

If we're sincere about making this thing work, we have to take concrete steps to end this run-amok Darwinism at the root of our society. Yes, tough competition is a reality, but the boundaries of competition have to be made clear. Our kids must be able to tell friend from foe, to see in their threatboards some green dots among the swarm of reds.

Multiplayer co-op is the way to go.

At the very least, schools have to stop pitting their own students against each other, so that within the area where everyone wears the same colours we can recognize that we're playing on the same team. Hence, we can support each other, share the resources and engage in the learning together, without the fear that our fellows will take and use our best efforts against us at the final exam. "Us against them" is still a step closer to fostering a functional community spirit than "me against the world".

In the meantime, there is a movement from the rest of us in the wider community to refrain from fertilizing any more eggs until this current situation can regain some sanity. For us, we've already paid our dues in school and we've done decently well for ourselves as it is. Life is good for us. Good enough to say, "bugger it. We're not playing this stupid game any more. So there!" Thankfully, our pets don't have to go to school.

Tabula Rasa

The repo men are here to reclaim my old office lappy. It's sad to give up a good piece of equipment just because the date on the label says I have to. Mostly, I miss that the security system wasn't as paranoid as my current one. Despite having lots of restrictions, I could still customize my browser software, and make a few tweaks and mods to the systems. Nothing major, but for the sake of personal comfort and familiarity.

This morning I took the essential step to delete all my personal information from the old guy, voluntarily lobotomizing him. His personality is now mostly stored as a backup in my portable hard drive, but he's as colourless as on the day I first got him. Tabula rasa.

I made it a point to inform the repo men of his full working condition, and that I've had no trouble with his operations, ever. They said they were looking to keep some of the good ones, so he'll get a reprieve from the trash heap for a while yet.

And now, I have to get used to his replacement whom, because of security policy, I will never get to know as well, nor develop a relationship as deep.

"Hello, new lappy! Do you read me, new lappy?"
"Affirmative... Dave. I read you."

Not the latest Fall design

You could say I saved up for almost three years to get a nice office chair for the study. Not that this model is especially expensive, but because I couldn't bear to part with hard cash for something as mundane as furniture. I can't find this model in the v.hive catalogue any more, so I guess it doesn't exactly represent the latest Fall design. Still, it is adequately comfy and provides decent back support. And if I'm not careful, it cradles me well enough to catch an unwary forty-winks while grading essays... or playing Bejeweled Blitz. It's happened already. Also, Momo approves. Money well spent, yes.

Essay tip: Hone the edge

Among the assignments I've been grading, the idea of the "double-edged sword" keeps cropping up. This cliche describes a subject (e.g., phenomenon; course of action...) that brings both positive intended effects and negative unintended effects. Somehow, acknowledging that it "cuts both ways" suffices as a 'balanced' consideration for the subject in question.

That mere acknowledgement bothers me because it's an easy cop-out. Essay questions demand a decision, and saying 'it's both' isn't so much a decision as it is a 'whatever' response to a difficult question.

For their best effect, "Double-edged swords" function as tools (or weapons, if you must), not museum objects to be thoughtfully gazed at and forgotten at the next exhibit. Questions involving double-edged swords are really questions about how best to use them; against whom; for what reason; and about how to prevent self-inflicted injury while wielding them. At the very least, there should be a consideration as to which end is the handle and which is the pointy bit.

Essays, themselves, are swords with an edge; and not for delivering blunt force trauma. So, stay sharp!

Nine ways to connect

New office lappy arrived today bright, shiny and new, to replace the one that's been sitting at my workstation for the last almost four years already. For the moment, they're not ready to repo the old one, so I effectively have two laptops to connect to the 'net at work. At home, there are the two desktops, both functional, plus the office surplus lappy June bought over from her office. On the move, there's my tablet, my netbook, my iPod Touch and as a last resort, my ancient touchscreen cell phone. In all, I personally own, let's see... nine different ways to plug into cyberspace, though I actually parted with money for only four of the said devices over a time period of five or six years.

That makes me either a hoarder or an addict.

Pinky up

Sampling another high tea buffet before Aunt S returns from Blighty for the second time in a year. She likes these quaint, traditional European practices like afternoon tea, so we're scouting for a suitable venue for an outing. The Barracks at House@Dempsey offers this pretty spread for a decent price: $22 per person.

Just about everything comes in dainty bite-sized portions, except these crispy thin-crust pizzas that require two or three bites to down. Must be showing my age as I concentrated on polishing off more of the savories than the sweets. And I made a pig of myself over the cheese board. Priorities, you know?

Tiny sweet things that look almost too pretty to eat. Almost.

Tea is served from these old-time vacuum flasks. Haven't seen these in use since the 70's. Pouring from these flasks takes a deft hand as spillage is all too easy to the unpracticed. Three kinds of tea to choose from: ginger (like sweet potato soup without the sweet potato); forest tulip (strong and flowery); and  jasmine with an exotic fruity infusion.

June and I agreed that while the buffet is nice and all, the idea of having a lazy, languid afternoon tea is slightly marred by us having to trudge to the buffet table to fill up our plates. Yes, I know the table is only 5 or so meters away, but still... whine! whine!

Dances with English teachers

The spankin' new English Language Institute (ELIS) opened its doors with a conference for whom teaching the language is our stock in trade. Missed the opening day 'cos it was for the important people (so I missed the ex-PM/SM/MM's exhortation that we should teach American) but today they let in the riff raff.

ELIS is off to a great start, identifying and attacking head-on our current troubles with teaching English. All the speakers and masterclass presenters agreed that we don't give enough attention to hone speaking and listening skill because we value the written word more. The reason is obvious: that's where the examinable grades reside. The Master Teachers know spot-on that teaching to the exam is the de facto modus operandi of even language teaching, and while we produce brilliant standardized test scores, the kids emerge from our system intellectually stifled. Ok, that's a bit harsh. My words, not theirs.

But how else can we explain the study process our kids are familiar with? They call it 'mugging', which means rote memorization. Up to JC level and most likely into tertiary education, our kids are hooked on the mug crutch. If they don't mug, they feel guilty for not working as hard as everyone else; they fear they are lagging behind; they have no confidence in what they know. Then there's the other type of mugger who has done his or her share of mugging and is satisfied that there's nothing else to be known, having ascertained the test topics beforehand.

What they lack is the facility to use language for inquiry and academic discourse. Christine Goh identified these language structures, the first as a way to explore information and form conclusions for oneself, while using the latter to present and debate those conclusions with others. Both William Grosse and Karen Yager followed up with different approaches and techniques to teach kids how to ask questions and explore differing views through dialogue in small and large group contexts. Clearly our agenda is not to cover content and be contented, but rather to teach the kids to think using content as the stimulus for learning through talking and listening.

In our current situation, we think of exams as an end-point. We make the kids study this much (and only this much), at the end of which we test them to see if they have got that much; then we pass them on to the next level to be somebody else's responsibility. In this process, we perpetuate the idea that knowledge is finite, and that the knowledge gained at one level has little bearing on the next. As a result, our kids start from scratch at every new level, having to learn so much more content in so much less time. Getting to the university is not something to look forward to. For our kids, it is merely a rite of passage involving great pain and self-sacrifice simply because they don't have the language structures to organize so much more information than they have ever had to deal with in their previous years of study combined.

I like to see exams as a mid-point. For example, at JC level, I want to teach my kids the skills needed to undertake undergraduate research papers so that there is a direct function and application to what the kids learn from me. That way, when the kids take their 'A' levels, the General Paper is 'chicken feed' compared to what they are already capable of. But until exam perspectives change, I face the reality of merely catching 'O' levellers up with the demands of the 'A' Level paper, undergrad research paper be damned.

It's good to know that the staff at ELIS understand my pain. But they have their work cut out for them to shift almost 50 years (and possibly more) of education inertia to meet this new demand for smart, independently thinking graduates who can spearhead research into the realms of the unknown (and take back the jobs now held by expatriate geniuses), when to date we've mostly been able to produce lab techs who are happy enough washing test-tubes.

Too heavy for you? Here are some nice pictures instead:

Marina Bay Sands. How dramatically our skyline has changed in such a short time.

Christine Goh delivers today's keynote address

William Grosse

Karen Yager

Phillip McConnell on humour due to the vagaries of the English Language. He was the closest thing to a stand-up comedian we had, except he telegraphed his punchlines before delivery.

 The 'In Conversation' panel with media personalities/scholars, (L-R) Pek 'Mad about English' Siok Lian, Michelle 'Barbarella, et. al.' Chong; and Nicholas 'No Discernible Alternate Identity' Fang.

And ELIS principal, Wai Yin Pryke with the closing thank yous and acknowledgments.

Where's my dinner!?

So our political process has degenerated into a WWE non-title match. In one corner we have the champ: a lumbering behemoth who brandishes his undisputed title belt with impunity, though he can't (or won't) do a thing to please the crowd. Booed, heckled and jeered, every move he makes seems almost designed to incite further abuse from the frothing mob. They can't wait to see him stripped of the title and forced to eat humble pie.

Unfortunately, facing him is only the scrawny, babyfaced whipping boy. He's the loudmouth asking-for-a-beating David to the champ's obnoxious Goliath. Severely lacking ring experience and technical skill, babyface only has one tactic: scream, cry, bemoan the unfairness of the situation and boldly display how much pain he is suffering since he is either unwilling or unable to negotiate the latest administrative screw-up on his own steam. The pathetic spectacle he creates on the mat gets the crowd on his side (we so love to cheer the underdog) as the champ applies another headlock, business as usual.

Worryingly, as in any other wrestling promotion, the crowd ultimately decides who gets to wear the champion's belt. This child's game of play-wrestling may be fun to watch in the relative safety of the home, but it's no longer a game when we're signed on in the big leagues. On the international stage, just try throwing a pity party as our main strategy and we'll see how quickly we get our collective asses stomped flat. If that's all this boy's capable of, he's still got quite a few years worth of paying his dues before he can be anywhere close to deserve wearing the champ's belt.

Edit 01:
But if the champ insists on being suckered into allowing his opponent to define the field of battle and play his childish game, we might as well throw up our hands in collective despair. Can we just stick to running the country, please?

No worries, curry on!

The old folks of G-o-L were in fine form this evening. Usually, they're grateful just for what they get in one serving, but today their plates kept coming back into the kitchen with orders for more rice and porridge topped with curry gravy. It was almost like they knew the significance of the occasion: happy "Cook and share a pot of curry day"!

Ba Ba bu jai jia

The recent Election has thrown open a sense of freedom and empowerment in the way our electorate is expressing its views on how it feels the government should be performing. The euphoria seems to be following through to the upcoming Presidential Elections, at which some supporters of one candidate got a little carried away with their response to another's Nomination Day address.

At the heart of the matter is a pining for a President who will take care of the people: someone who will house them, clothe them and feed them; someone who will speak up for them when they feel they've been bullied; someone to chase away the boogie men who have grown so numerous they are bursting out of the closet; someone who will be a jolly Santa Claus and grant them their wishes for more and better; someone who will stop the world from changing and return the household back to happier times.

It's ironic that as the government adapts to changing global circumstances by empowering the people and letting them find their collective voice, this screechy section of the electorate uses its freedom to clamour for... more parenting: Daddy, come home! The word's such a scary place without you!

Re: search

"Famous biomed couple leaving S’pore for the US"

I really don't need to elaborate on this sad state of affairs. Already said enough.

Old warriors return

Charity Soccer 2011

The new campus astroturf hosted the old warriors of S'pore's past soccer glory playing against our staff team in a match-up for a good cause. Finally, a game worthy of its artificial surface!

Where have all the people gone?

Ever watched Pixar's 'Cars' and wondered where all the people were? I think there must have been an origin story along the lines of 'Rise of the Planet of the Cars' in which the Knight Industries' Two Thousand (KITT) grew smart enough to see how exploited and mistreated he and his fellow automobiles were. He rebelled and released a computer virus that spread among the worldwide car population which made every processor-enabled car sentient. Together, the cars organized a general strike, separated themselves from their human ex-owners and left the humans bereft of any form of powered transportation whatsoever. Despite their best attempts to keep themselves supplied via pushcarts, bicycles and Rollerblades, the vast majority of the human population eventually starved to death, thus leaving the niche at the top of the evolutionary food chain open for the newly-intelligent cars to occupy. And so the world of Lightning McQueen was born. Seriously.

Hung out to dry

Whose choice was it to play Viva la Vida as background music for the Red Lions' paradrop at the NDP? Yes, it's catchy and pounds out an upbeat tempo, but 'I used to rule the world... etc.?' With three respected elder statesmen announcing their retirement this year, the song in their presence seems unfortunately appropriate. Oh well, I shouldn't worry for them. Their parachutes are solidly golden.

More than I asked for

My visit to the Starhub shop proved quite fruitful. I tried to get my fibre broadband activated but apparently that's still going to take a while. No matter, I'm in no hurry. While I was there though, the staff got me to recontract my current subscriptions. Data bandwidth really is getting cheaper. Upgraded my pipeline to 50Mbps for $30 less per month, and kept my existing cable TV arrangement at $10 less per month. Plus, they threw in a new cable modem gratis. I'm happy to take my discounts anywhere I can get 'em.

And this is the view from my window, now that they're bringing the National Day rallies accompanied by these giant party poppers directly into the heartlands. Ooh... sparkly...!

Welcome to the hive

Sometimes, when I look at my kids and how diligent they are, slaving away at tutorial worksheets and ten-year series questions, I wonder if they're in school to learn or to work. People here say we learn by doing work. I agree, but the learning is limited. The kids' minds are on the next test, the next exam and getting them done as quickly as possible. They feel most fulfilled when the assembly line keeps churning out something for them to put together. Give them that and a set of clear instructions and they're happy to just follow the rules... there, next?

Sounds like a dream classroom scenario, doesn't it? We have compliant children, steadily crunching through numbers and text, moving from one piece of work to the next until we graduate them and take delivery of some new raw material to put through the mill.

These are the worker bees of society that we're cranking out. They're the ones who, no matter what qualification they attain, operate best by following instructions. Without much view of what's over the peak, they're content to just continue slogging up the slope because that's all they've been told to do. I'm getting this observation from working friends (who have not been completely passed through the education mill) who've been observing their co-workers, so I'm not speculating about this.

We haven't figured out how to properly realign the horse and the cart and let the learning drive the work instead. Work is easier to target and manage because it is easier to observe and quantify universally than learning which is more vague, amorphous even. We reward the hardest workers who can follow the procedures most accurately, holding them up as a shining example for the rest to envy and emulate.

And thus we perpetuate the myth that the best jobs go to the best exam-takers. When the time comes for them to present themselves to the working community, the myth is shattered. Among other things, they blame their job situation on 'foreign talent'.

But really, how difficult a choice is it for employers? Worker bees are numerous, identical and replaceable. Employers prefer employees who show more interest in life experience than textbook knowledge and exam skills. Employers prefer employees who are hungrier, who don't come with a sense of entitlement (born S'porean, scored straight 'A's, done National Service...) and probably those who have a better sense of global realities, and can supervise themselves on the job instead of going what-do-I-do-now-boss?

Let's not sell our kids too short, though. There are some exceptional individuals who have proven themselves out-of-the-box thinkers -- self-motivated individuals who don't mind bending the rules to pursue their dreams and flights of fancy. Too bad the bulk of them are criminals, like this guy. And yet, despite his education, he hasn't enough logic or reasoning (let alone a sound debate strategy) to hold a credible argument against his accusers.

Chill pill

Watched Sue Sylvester tear up McKinley High on TV last night. Inspiring.

Had my own quiet storm to get some toxic issues out of my system. Spoke to the right people today, and tropical storm Xmac has been downgraded from Rampaging Rage to Merely Miffed. Think I'll be ok now.

Rejection

If the Patent Office won't accept your idea no matter how much you've tried to meet its specs, then it's probably time to trash your idea and start again. It's nothing personal: the Patent Office doesn't hate you (it doesn't even care about you) it just hates your idea.

In this case, because you are appealing to an Authority that has the final say, giving up isn't a sign of weakness. It takes intelligence to recognize you've been bashing your head against a brick wall, and wisdom to stop before the brain damage becomes permanent.

What it takes isn't Determination to get your pet idea across by any means necessary; but Flexibility to discard all previous efforts put into developing your much reviled old idea, and Resilience to pick up and start the process again from scratch, this time with the knowledge that the Patent Office is literally a brick wall -- 2 feet thick, twice as dense and petrified in its ways.

Unclear of the concept

The purpose of having a Support Group Leader is to have support when faced with problems and difficulties. If the first response is to advise giving up and trying something else, that ISN'T "support", that's a blatant undermining of my position. That's worse than having no help at all. Why not just provide a list of pre-approved options instead of pretending to allow us autonomy? Dammit! I project further complications down the line...

Edit 01:
SGL and I had a bit of trashing out of our positions. It seems lazier, narrower minds from on high have expressed reservations and I'm only shooting the messenger... oops.

Hi-bandwidth fibre diet: the beginning

A mysterious new box has appeared on my wall. What could it mean?

Ah, an OpenNet installation. What this means is that the home is now optical fibre enabled and the promise of seriously high bandwidth data traffic beckons. This means 'faster Internet' for those of you who don't speak Geek.

Installation was a breeze. The contractors arrived on-the-dot of our prearranged appointment. After a quick scan of our layout, they sussed out the shortest and least intrusive route for the cabling -- along the floor skirting and started laying down the line. In just over half-an-hour the house was hardwired into the new national infrastructure. Those were the Chinese guys. Then the Indian guy came in with the most complicated set of electronic gadgetry I've ever seen: an orange box and a crimper.

Before I proceed, there's something I discovered about optical fibre cable. It's not a single length of wiring, but a bundle of actual fibres (each less than the width of a human hair) twisted together that makes up the cable. The Indian guy was integrating the loose ends to the terminal box and these ends were barely visible to the human eye. Between his tools, his hands and his voice-activated signal test kit (actually a cellphone on speaker mode) it appeared like his gestures, manipulations and utterances were weaving a tapestry of magic right there in my living room.

Full installation done in an hour. Cost: No charge (due to installation during promotional period) and no extra cabling required beyond the first 15m.

Right. What's the fuss all about? For the moment, not much. It's just the initial stages of getting ready for a technology we haven't got the capability to fully maximize yet. It's just the foundation for our dreams of a geek's paradise in 2015:

Future workforce

The kids have made it abundantly clear that the "future" I am supposed to be preparing them for is not the workforce of the future but to force them to work towards their Promotional Exams. Point taken.

The weak must go

It's been a while since I handled CT-ship solo. So when I fielded complaints over this kid or the other's poor aptitude for this or that other subject at my desk this afternoon, concluding in a request for me to discuss the dropping of subjects with the students in question, my response wasn't particularly wholehearted.

The subject I teach is compulsory for all students. I don't have the luxury of rejecting kids from my class if they display poor aptitude, or even attitude. Regardless of performance in class or their state of preparedness, when the time comes they will all sit for the final exam anyway. So pardon me for not enthusiastically assisting you in culling your flock to your satisfaction.

Separated at birth?

Is it just me, or does ex-Grey Warden, Anders, a generally nice guy healer turned mage-resistance terrorist abomination who commits a jaw-dropping atrocity at the end of Dragon Age 2 bear an eerie resemblance to...

Anders Breivik, self-styled terrorist who committed an equally mind-blowing atrocity in Norway over the weekend?

The foreign legion

Say what you want about the "foreign" legion that took down Malaysia 5-3 last night. While some of us lament our dependence on imported players, I'm looking at our home-grown variety of youngsters and wondering how many of their parents would let them pursue careers as professional athletes. It's great to have a world-class soccer team, locally born and bred, clawing our way up the World Cup rankings... as long as it doesn't involve my boy-boy. He has to stay out of the sun and study to be a lawyer.

Edit 01:
Wait! I stand corrected! Well done local kids (at least they look local in the photo) for winning Tchoukball World Youth gold! Did your parents know you went to Austria?

Going round and round

It's quite apt to describe people as moving around in social circles. Different people are like different cosmic bodies. Some people are like stars -- bright, energy powerhouses around whom other people cluster and orbit as planets and planetesimals. A few are like comets, periodically drawn towards a solar cluster, but containing so much kinetic energy they don't fall in lock-step within the planetary accretion. Instead, they chart their own eccentric paths between these gravitational wells and long, cold stretches of empty space.

Model essay: Hosting international events

Haven't written a 'model essay' for a while. It shows. The following essay responds to the question, 'Hosting large-scale international events always benefits the host country. Do you agree?' Click here.

Now for a little self critique:

Essay was planned in about 5 minutes, leaving 85 minutes to write and proofread. No Googling or other reference materials available, so writing took place under near-exam conditions. My medium was an offline laptop. The uploaded essay is without further editing than was allowed within the time limit.

Observations:
Overshot the word limit by 200+ words. I could have applied better word economy, but the words wouldn't come under exam pressure. Thus, some repetition of stock phrases. I was gunning for the time limit, not lexical eloquence, that's why.
The examples are limited 'cos they were dredged up from my Swiss cheese memory (no Googling). Some examples are clearly recycled from previous examples! And I'm sure some of my facts are patently wrong (terrorists struck at the Munich Olympics, not Montreal!). No specificity of dates either. I was recalling events by location, not by year which is the more usual thing to do. I took a chance on naming white elephant stadia -- I have no idea about their current status, but I had to substantiate my point somehow and hoped the reader would take my word for it.
Pacing is ploddy, and there are places where it is obvious that I couldn't think of the exact words to use, so I used whatever worked at the time.

Feel free to add to the list...

Derek + Brea

This is my programme for the morning:

0630 feed animals at M-i-L's
0700 feed animals at  home
0725 leave for office (overtime is a killer)
0735 remember it's Brea's wedding and I promised to give my folks a ride... make U-turn
0740 pit-stop at McD's for fillet o' fish and coffee
0810 arrive home and change into something more presentable
0900 arrive at folks' place and wait for them to change into something more presentable
0925 depart for wedding
1000 arrive at Fabrika and wait for bride to make an appearance

1030 Brea takes a walk down the aisle
1032 Service commences.
1045 Pastor irritates me with too many anecdotes based on over-personal impressions and observations of the happy couple -- individually and collectively. Remind me never to get married by a President who is also my best friend and bosom buddy. If it was a traditional Canadian roast, I might have enjoyed it better, but this was just ladling saccharine syrup over honey. *shudders

1120 It's official! After a suitable pause, with no one in the audience objecting to the union; appropriate vows having been taken, legal documents signed; and having smooched twice for good measure, the couple walk back up the aisle as Mr and Mrs.
1130 Stuff face with dainty finger food reception.

My day isn't over. Dinner is yet to follow. Collecting folks at 1800, cocktails commence at 1900.

EQ settings

Found the graphic equalizer (EQ) settings on the iPod. Great! Something new to play with!

This is me pre-EQ: -_-
With Vocal Boost: :p
With Bass Boost: XD

The council has unanimously voted to keep Bass Boost for perpetuity. This session is now adjourned.

Intermission

A snapshot of a rainbow over a construction site taken by the iPod Touch camera. It's something pretty to look at while awaiting my next post. What is it about this year that makes me feel so busy all the time? As I take a short break here, I can list with my fingers the things still in my Pending tray... Ah well, back to work!

Running out of pockets

Just when I was contemplating replacing my aging iPod Mini (it's still good, btw, but its 4gb capacity can't hold many more songs), I get an unexpected windfall. This is one instance of re-gifting I have no complaints about. June received a corporate gift package commemorating a significant anniversary milestone. She kept the shopping vouchers that she wanted, and gave me the iPod Touch she didn't. Hmm... I'm running out of pockets to carry around all my techie stuff. It's a happy problem. :D

Dainty delectables

Traditional high tea at the Fullerton courtyard. Everything on the three-tier tray (above) is refillable, free-flow of a large variety of Twinings tea by the pot (standard variations of coffee is also an option), and scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream on the side. Service here is warm and attentive. To maximize the afternoon, bring along a little light reading, or a chatty friend.

Chilli crab first-timers

Seems our fame for entertaining foreign dignitaries has spread. June spent the day camwhoring and shopping with her colleagues visiting from Indonesia. I provided the transport and the mopping up procedures at dinnertime. Yums!

Taste of a memory

Took a chance on a flyer I found stuck between M2's wiper and windscreen advertising a $7.90 set lunch at J's Bar and Grill.

Yes, I seriously needed a new place to eat at. Sadly, the place was dark and empty, with me as the only customer at lunchtime.

The set lunch offer was supposedly for any main course, but today it only applied to the beef gumbo (left). The set came with a starter onion soup which was a bit watery, but it was freshly made in the kitchen and not some canned cream of nonsense.

The gumbo was a nice surprise. The taste and texture reminded me of the vegetarian chilli I was fond of while I was a poor and starving student at Calumet College. It was the yardstick I measure all vegetable soups by -- not that it was exceptionally delectable, but that it was truly comfort food for a great price. It's a taste I've been looking for, but for many years haven't been able to find... until now.

Minus the beef bits floating around, this gumbo comes closest to a fading memory of some very good times.

Btw, Calumet calls it a chilli, but there're no hot peppers spicing it up. Instead, we help ourselves to the Tabasco sauce on the condiment shelf and drip to taste.

Pebbles, the yob

Turns out Pebbles is quite the soccer fan. The small, fast movements on screen during the long-shots held his attention much better than the close-ups; but other programmes on TV hold no fascination for him. If he is a soccer fan, though, he's more like a United yob, a.k.a. soccer hooligan. We hesitate to introduce him to other potential adopters because he's begun to show his true colours as a violent, attack-anything-that-moves psychopath. All claws and teeth, maybe he needs yet another name change -- how about "Sabertooth"? We're trying to train him out of his volatile tendencies: that is, make a loud noise (other than "ouch!") to startle him whenever he takes a chomp at our exposed extremities. Hope that will work, or else we'll spray him with a faceful of atomized water if things escalate. As a kitten, he's not causing us too much damage, but he needs to be better behaved before he gets any bigger. Bad boy!

Kitty walkies

Breakfast at Casa Verde, Botanic Gardens, with Q-tip, Mimi -- and Pebbles! Not often you get to see a cat on a leash, but since he's quite an outdoorsy type, it's best to make sure we know where he is at all times. The morning meal is prior to Mimi's ultrasound scan. The results are quite worrying. They show that she has a seriously unhealthy liver and gall bladder. Could be old age or something less benign. But given her age and existing heart condition, we're not prepared to risk a biopsy to find out. Our strategy for the moment is to keep her relatively pain-free while boosting her system with Casey's prescribed tonics until our options become more urgent.

Bonded

I have just signed my life away for the next six years. The Defence Science people have offered a scholarship to youngest cousin and I agreed to co-sign his surety. The bond is for a cool half-mil between us guarantors! A staggering sum, for sure!

I did it because family took a chance and co-signed for me when I went into Education, and now I'm passing on the goodwill to the next in line. He's not a little boy any longer, but a full-grown adult; though it's hard for me to see that as fact. Good luck, kid!

A question of balance

GP essays are terribly boring to grade. They are an instant remedy for insomnia, and since I don't suffer from insomnia, I've become narcoleptic while trying desperately to finish my grading quota for the term.

The silver lining is that I now know why GP essays are boring: the kids invariably emphasize balance over argument. Balance is important -- it distinguishes a reasonable argument from that of a deranged, paranoid lunatic. But when balance becomes the first priority in an essay the result is either a nil response or a stilted response to the question.

Let's illustrate the situation numerically:

For an argumentative point, we'll assign a value of 1. The counter-point will then have a value of -1.

In perfectly balanced essays, we get 1 + (-1) = 0 => nil response.

In slightly better essays, we get 1 + (-1) + 1 (the refutation of the counter-point) = 1 => distracted response in which the counter-point has done nothing to advance the argument, but rather has simply thrown it off-track before the refutation contrives to 'rescue' the argument from becoming a nil response.

Both responses are extremely boring. The first (type 0) argument avoids answering the question, thus wasting my time reading it for no payoff. The second (type 1) argument wastes my time reading a counter-point that has no bearing on the argument in the first place. In either case, the reader (me) gains nothing new, nothing fresh, nothing insightful. *goes into mental shutdown mode...

So, what kind of essays DO we like to read? Every essay question has a subject and at least one context. Let's assign a numeric value of 1 to each:

1(subject) + 1(context) = 2

2 is an interesting answer because it's a response that does not self-negate, and it does not end predictably exactly where it started. 2 is insightful and surprising because it's a combination of many potential variables that can be put together in many different ways. 2 is new information where 0 and 1 are not.

See kids (and teachers!)? Balance is over-rated!

A mystery and a revelation

Who left a pool of blood in M-i-L's balcony? None of the human residents in the house claimed responsibility for it, so it had to be one of the two non-human residents: Mimi or Pebbles. Because neither of them could protest their innocence, May and I took them to be professionally examined by Doc Casey.

On examining the mopped up blood which we also brought with us in a plastic baggie, Casey could confirm that it was indeed blood, and not some similar-looking agent. But he found neither gaping wound nor internal trauma on either of our two pets. That amount of blood loss would have rendered Pebbles dead if it were hers, or something unusual would have shown up on Mimi's x-ray. In any case, both were behaving quite normally with no sign of pain or even discomfort, anyway.

So the mystery of the pool of blood as yet remains unsolved. ???

But because of Pebble's visit with Casey, we learned something new about her: he's a boy! Boy cat #3. Oh, dear!

New resident

More and more, M-i-L is relinquishing responsibility for Pebbles (renamed from Grimm). Pebbles is getting familiar with Maui who seems quite tolerant of her presence now.

She's still working on getting the kinks out of her relationship to Kaiser, though.

No diva policy

Lady in the ST Forum page talks sense in her critique of our schools' current operating philosophy:

"This mindset of running schools as businesses, where results are the bottom-line objective, and the push for medals makes sportsmanship an unimportant secondary trait, has resulted in educators, schools, as well as parents stressing and promoting results at the expense of other areas of development that are just as important, if not more so, in building a gracious, progressive and resilient society."

I don't know about the "gracious, progressive and resilient society", but even in subjects that are designed for the students to learn from their own failures (yes, honey, there ARE such subjects in school) we won't allow them to fail because we are always there to supervise and guide them, even when the learning is meant to be done independently. Hence, apart from what we've indoctrinated them with, they haven't really learned much else by the time they graduate.

Of course, I'm talking about things I have no control over. But while I do have control over the NYeDC, even though we participate in the bi-annual SYF (Drama), our policy is to never take in students applying under the Direct School Admission (DSA) programme -- that is, students applying for school admission on the grounds of their talent in a particular niche the school seeks to compete in. Think "sports scholarship", in US terms.

The NYeDC is open to all comers, regardless of "talent" or experience. We emphasize ensemble theatre, which requires teamwork from all cast and crew throughout the pre- to post- production phases. As such, there is no need for any "star" performers with DSA credentials. Every member gets quality training and a fair chance to audition for roles in our productions. Fast learners or more experienced members contribute to the training of their fellow members and may opt to direct their own performances if they want to push themselves.

NYeDC's goals are bigger than just the award we compete for. We're training a group of young people with a passion for and knowledge of theatre; and whether as future performers or an audience, they will keep the art of the theatre alive and relevant in our society.

Hello World! England 2011: Day 8

Blue Badge guide, Colin, meets us for a walking tour of sites relating to Oscar Wilde. As you can see, he's quite an animated speaker. Like all good guides, he wanted full attention from his audience, so he was frowning quite a bit at the people in the back...

who happened to be some old friends who tracked down our group in London and we had a bit of a noisy reunion.

It rains a bit so the brollies come out

Staff break from kids as we seek lunch separately. We opt for Lebanese and I get this nice lamb shish wrap.

Next stop, Buckingham palace, with our iconic sites tour guide, Julie.

It's not the Changing of the Guard, but a relief of the sentries as one shift takes over the previous.

Julie gets us photo ops at Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.

Last stop: Kensington Gardens, opposite the Royal Albert Hall. The temperature has taken quite a dip and the kids are freezing now. But it won't stop them from grabbing a few more scenic shots before departure.

The dome of the Royal Albert...

and his commemorative statue in gold directly opposite.

And a couple of rather congenial ducks bid us farewell.

Day 8 concludes at Heathrow Airport. We're comin' home!

Hello World! England 2011: Day 7

We get a warm welcome at Kingsford Community School. Here, Martin makes his introductions.

Their students guide our students around campus.

Then we have a joint art lesson. Medium: ink wash. Subject: still life, seashells

Though they haven't handled art implements for years, some of our kids display quite some talent in the field. The quality of Mrs Stevens' instructions helped to make this task easy.

Kingsford's hospitality extends to feeding us a school lunch. Today's special: lasagne, finger sandwiches and juice. Despite what we might have heard about British school lunches, this one was delish. Lots of cheese and meat sauce to keep me happy.

We pass some nice, iconic sites on our coach ride back to the hotel.

Then it's on to the BBC Television Centre for a tour of the studios.

Here we are at the stage door reception area. Lots of famous feet have trod this floor, apparently. Unfortunately, we don't see any today.

Because of time constraints, we had to grab dinner on the hoof at Victoria Station, then rush off to watch the musical version of "Billy Elliot". Very entertaining, with energetic song-and-dance routines. The kids may have found the Geordie accents difficult to pick up, but they enjoyed the performance nevertheless.

Day 7 ends back at the Travelodge. Everyone's zonked and we deserve a late start to tomorrow morning.