Small celebration at Sun Ray

Celebrated someone's belated birthday and someone else's be-earlied birthday at our favourite pet cafe.

The pet in question is always happy to be here.

Apart from socializing with handsome boy dogs, she also got a dish of boiled salmon, all to herself.

 Her owners went with a salmon fillet...

and a rare striploin that was still a tad more done than was appreciated.

No complaints about the chocolate lava cake, though! Served with a side of vanilla ice-cream in the little cup in the background. Yumz!

Lavaedge: decent food, pointless Groupon

Went for brunch at Lavaedge, which used to be the cantina at the top of the hill overlooking MacRitchie Reservoir. What was once an old, ramshackle structure is now this bright, cheerful afternoon tea spot in a garden retreat.

The deal is that it's a semi-buffet. Side salads, some breakfast items, dessert and hot and cold beverages are all free-flow. The selection isn't much but the presentation is quite pretty.

We ordered a salmon steak for one main course...

and this handsome ribeye for the other. Although I asked for rare, this one came on the conservative side of medium. It was no less tasty and the gravy kept it nice and juicy, but I still missed the tang of redness in the meat.

The meal was pricey for what was offered, though. We had a Groupon coupon, but to our surprise it functioned more like a prepaid voucher than a discount coupon. If the order did not exceed the voucher value, there was no refund for the difference. If the order exceeded the value of the voucher, we had to top up the difference. My math isn't that great, but we might as well not have bothered with Groupon for what we paid and got. It would have worked better if we had bought it as a gift for someone else, now I think about it.

Luckily the food and service were decent. Nice view of the reservoir too, in air-conditioned comfort.

GP do's and don'ts

A few maxims for success in GP:

Don't impress others, express yourself.
Don't impose on the question, expose from the question.
Don't implicate, explicate.
Don't implore, explore.
Don't complain, explain.
and finally...
Don't implode with a whimper, explode with directed energy.

That's all.

Misconceptions about meritocracy

People have a very wrong idea about 'meritocracy'. They view it as a singularity in space/time when it is actually a pyramid. It is true that there is room for one at the top, but there is more room for those in the middle, and there's lots more room for those at the bottom. Thus, it is like any other form of social stratification except for the opportunity for one to transcend one's strata and advance to a higher one.

Which is where the problem is. Everybody feels pressured to clamber up the pyramid to get the tippy-top space at the apex as quickly as possible. If it's too difficult they blame the system for being unfair when, in fact, it's just physics: no two physical bodies can occupy the same space at the same time. The people at the top can't reach down and pull you up without sacrificing one of their own, so don't expect that to happen any time soon.

The rational thing to do is to recognize where one is in space and maneuver oneself upwards over time. So how does one get up to the top? The other mistake that people make is to work harder because they somehow believe that there's a cosmic principle or something that rewards hard work. So people work, but eventually they get stressed out, disillusioned, and hate everything when they stagnate at a level below their expectations.

Notice that the people at the top are the ones who get other people to work for them? If you're working very hard, you're probably working for someone above you. You're not going to impress them by showing them how hard you are working. The harder you work, the more important it is for them to keep you where you are because you get work done for them. What will impress them is how well you get others to do your work for you. That will give you time to smarten up, and not look so harried while getting your job done. That will prove you are ready for the next higher tier up the pyramid.

We don't need a 'compassionate meritocracy' -- a contradiction in terms if you ask me. Remember: the dairy principle that 'cream rises to the top' trumps the cosmic principle that promises 'rewards for hard work' every time. To get ahead, you only have to beat yourself.

"Lettuce" get moving!

Look, it's snarky Gary, June's pet snail. For a week, he's been sulking out of sight, protesting against his rations. We though he might like chye sim for a change from his usual. No dice. He went into hibernation and I never saw movement from him again. Just to see if he had finally died, I put in some fresh butterhead lettuce. It was a miracle! Clearly, he loves the lettuce.

Discover Dogs 2013

Took Tasha to the Expo for the Discover Dogs 2013 event. She had a whale of a time socializing with so many other dogs in various states of dress and grooming. We tried her out on the agility circuit and she had no difficulty making the jumps. She'll have to conquer her fear of the high ramp, though... and, of course, learn to be more responsive to her owner's voice commands if she wants to compete in this arena. Meantime, we went shopping for dry food, treats, shampoo, ear cleaning fluid and picked up a bunch of free samples along the way too. We spent enough to claim a free ear cleaning for Tasha. My, doesn't the groomer look familiar, Tash?

Education: one-dimensional no longer, we hope

Schools really do have to de-emphasize academic achievement based on test and exam scores while giving non-academic activities a big boost.

Co-curricula activities (CCAs) hone talent in sport and aesthetics; and provide experience in service-oriented project tasks. Community involvement (if not done in a too-contrived manner) lets kids experience and participate in the real world away from their sheltered, blinkered lives on campus or at home.

If we're worried about the kids' employability think about this: academic certification only ascertains which league a person is eligible to play in, but it doesn't guarantee that he or she will be picked to play on a team. A company in the real world wants an employee who can cope in the real world. Those with talents in multiple fields have the most opportunities as they are those most sought after.

Kids gunning only for academic achievement, your certificate can only prove one and only one ability you have to offer: that you can take a whole year to reproduce a chunk of text from memory. Wow. I'm so impressed. Let me Google up who else can do the same thing in less time...

Them's fighting words

Thanks to a visit from yet another motivational speaker, I've been thinking about what I would want to say to my graduating class on the last day of the timetabled curriculum.

As usual, this speaker's message is no different from the previous: it's all about delayed gratification. Kill yourselves for eighty days and enjoy life after.

I prefer a more realistic message:

Kids, you're going to look back upon these last two years and remember them as a holiday camp. Where you're going, life is going to suck so totally, sometimes you'll wonder whether it's worth getting out of bed and slogging it through yet another day. You may already feel like that now, but it's only going to get worse, not better.

You're in school now because you're in training. It's safe in here. Failure in training has fewer consequences than in real life. As long as you learn, you will fail; but as long as you fail, you will learn. The outside world is not so forgiving.

As it is in the military, you're going to cry for mommy while you're training in boot camp. But the reason you're being trained now is so that we can send you into the battlefield later. You're sheltered and protected when you're in training; out there in the rain, muck, blood, fuel, flames and cordite, you screw up, you die or get limbs blown off or worse, get someone else killed. You're being trained to go to war, not Club Med, so don't expect too much when you leave this safe haven of Junior College.

Why then should you bother to train so hard now, when there is so little to look forward to, out there? Look at it this way: would you rather go out there without adequate training? Because one way or another, you'll end up there anyway. If you weren't attending Junior College, you could be out there right now.

Training hard and training well means you're building instincts that just may help you survive another day. Knowing how to survey the lay of the land; learning skills, tactics and strategies for survival and victory; and developing the stamina, resilience and resourcefulness to see your plans to fruition; these are your rewards for working hard now, so that when you eventually take to the field you're not just cannon fodder, but rather in a position of command (even if the only squad you have to command is yourself).

Like it or not, in whatever career or vocation we find ourselves in out there, we all have one singular objective. To achieve it, our personal survival is a prerequisite. The end of the world is coming. Every passing day brings it a little closer. Our job -- I mean everyone's job -- is to fight on and delay that inevitability for one day more. Together, we're going to hold out until we hear the declaration, "Today we are cancelling the Apocalypse!"

Only then will we even think about "enjoying life" as a personal entitlement.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but better to hear the truth now than experience it first-hand for yourselves and become bitter and disconsolate over it. Loss of morale at that point is the first stage to getting yourself killed. Fat lot of good you will be to the cause then.

Chuck the big expectations of happiness. Work hard; train hard; fail a lot; learn a lot; survive and every day, will yourselves to fight on for just one more day. Go into battle with this mindset and every small victory, every simple pleasure will be that much more meaningful and enjoyable. Forget "delayed gratification"! Where we find true happiness is daily, in the small things in life.

Suit up, check your gear, it's time. Move out!

Twinkies taste test

I never knew what I had till they were gone. In all the time I spent in TO, I never had the urge to pick up and taste this legendary American supermarket staple. That is, not until they disappeared off the shelves not too many months ago. Only then did I regret being too cheapskate to indulge my curiosity when they were in abundance around me.

Well, the good news is, they're back. Even better, May acquired a box (a whole box!) for me to taste test. So... golden sponge cake? Check. Cream filling? Check. But the individually wrapped confections were somewhat smaller than I had imagined. The sponge cake had a pleasant springiness to the bite, though it was dry in the mouth. Definitely needed a beverage -- a glass of cold milk, say -- to wash it down. The cream was smooth and had the type of consistency that was perfect for squishing between the tongue and the upper palate.

Taste? Sweet. As expected. It's more a soft candy bar than the 'snack food' it bills itself as. So it's unlikely to be the first thing I'd think of stuffing my face with in a zombie apocalypse; but as a sideline indulgence... sure. Bring milk.

Langkawi Highlights

Langkawi Highlights, a set on Flickr.

Been out of town over the super-long weekend with seriously dodgy wi-fi and no way to update.

First time travelling with extended family, three tiers deep. Also for the first time, I belong to the highest ranking tier. Representing the next and subsequent generations were my niece and her hubby followed by their little 'un (my grand-nephew!) who turned one while we were there.

'There' being Langkawi. It was a trip we'd been planning since CNY and though the weather alternated between torrential rain and drab, patchy skies we still had a good time.

We rented two cars for island transport. Roads were quite clear, most drivers tended not to speed and navigating by GPS made driving rather easy. Stick shift, though, so auto drivers like me were last choice for wheel duty.

Accommodation was at the Federal Villas which was basic but comfortable enough. I did have a lot of wi-fi connection problems, considering that I had to pay for it (RM40/24 hrs), though some of my travelling companions had a better time of it with their devices.

Food-wise we opted to cook our own brekkie on the provided hot-plate: supermarket-bought eggs, bread, cheese, spreads, cereal, yogurt, spiced with condiments stolen liberated from the previous night's dinner. Lunch was usually a free-and-easy affair apart from one memorable occasion celebrating grand-nephew's birthday with eight lamb shanks(!) at Secret Recipe. And we were faithfully regular dinner customers at Fat Mum's (a.k.a. Eagle View Restaurant). The first night we had to wait about two hours to be served due to the unexpected holiday crowd, but we learned and ordered two hours early the next two nights. Why Fat Mum's? Because of walking distance from our hotel, and because the food was so very good. Of the mixed dishes and rice, most notable were the Teochew steamed fish, tofu in special sauce, noodles on fire (house specialty in which yee fu noodles are wrapped in alum-foil and flambeed) and the crispy squid rings which I don't usually like but these were deliciously crisp and so not-rubbery.

We descended upon every meal like a plague of locusts, almost cleaning out every dish, barely leaving the garnishes and overlooked crumbs behind. That attests to either the general quality of the food in Langkawi, or our terrifying appetites coupled with a no-waste policy.

Of tours we took a couple. The boat ride through the Kilim Ecoforest Park was an interesting look at the local wildlife -- eagles in particular -- in their natural habitat, plus some fish farming and natural landscape formations. The Sky Car ride was scenic, climbing to acrophobic heights from which we could look down and see practically the whole island and its neighbours in the Andaman Sea.

The first family trip has been a pleasant enough experience. If enough of us can find another common set of dates, another trip could be in the planning.

By popular request

Whatever people may say about the quality of our national songs, the liveliest Nat Day celebrations we have involve raucous, off-key, mass sing-alongs that bring out the spontaneity and randomness of the kids. Nice to see them all having some crazy fun together for a change.

Last-ditch effort

Annual meet-the-parents session. Used to be we would seek parental pressure as a final motivating force to get a slacking, underperforming kid pulled up by the bootstraps. At this late stage in the game, one last-ditch effort from all interested parties might make all the difference.

Current trends, however, have necessitated a new tack in the way we approach parents. The thing is for us now is to figure out what to with kids who do have a strong work ethic, but unsatisfactory results to show for it.

Interestingly, the parents are agreeing with me that their kids are overstressed, that they don't manage their time well enough, that they need to eat better and get more sleep. They recognize the need to work hard, but not to the point when it becomes counterproductive. Tired kids means their capacity to learn gets diminished; which results in poor grades; which adds pressure to perform; which begets frustrated, stressed-out, tired kids. A vicious cycle.

I suppose this new wrinkle to an age-old problem is somewhat easier to deal with. It's easier to redirect a body already in motion and make changes to a strategy that isn't working to one that does work, than to kickstart a body at rest with no strategy whatsoever.

Chewed up

The only way Tasha can interact with the world is to chew on whatever strangeness she comes across. This piece of strangeness happens to be Mr Tabby's charging/data cable. I thought I'd put it out of her reach, but I guess I underestimated her determination to explore where no canine teeth have gone before.

Fortunately, despite the Tab being first generation, I could still find a replacement cable. Tasha, you owe me $18. X(

Regulars

We're fast becoming regulars at Sun Ray. Consider it a default choice due to factors of proximity, friendly service, good food and dog welcome policy.

Looks healthy. Tastes great. Kept cold throughout the meal. It was both a drink and a dessert.

Sup du jour: crustacean-corn. June said it was too salty. I concurred. Then I realized it was probably my fault. The pepper grinder incorporated a salt grinder that I didn't notice before. So a liberal sprinkling of pepper came with a corresponding amount of salt as well. Design flaw.

Seafood spaghetti aglo olio. Nice, but I saved my stomach for...

the strip loin. As usual, served with the correct doneness of rare, with the rind of cow fat left intact. So good.

Btw, no more weekend set menu, we were told today. Never mind. What we wanted wouldn't have been included in the set anyway.

Fellow flailers!

Following up from my previous entry, I got to see a lot more of my colleagues who are enthusiastically flailing about in unfamiliar territory than I gave credit for.

The souvenir book (left) the organizers handed out is quite a thick compilation of lesson plans and strategies used across all levels of education designed to get the kids off their lazy butts and take a more active and purposeful role in their own learning.

Some of the stuff that I got to observe were tools I and anyone else have easy access to for free over the 'net. The strategies they shared were simple enough, and up to a point I'm using them the same way. It's good to know how closely parallel we are in our objectives, and even better to learn from the variations in the way we use these tools.

Dean Krishnan would be happy to see how so many of us are trying out new methods of student engagement rather than stick to the old tried-and-true formulas that we have grown accustomed to.

Maybe the four-lane highway we're all waiting for our pioneering flailers to construct is closer to realization than I had imagined...?

Give a man a fish and he'll expect you to catch more for him tomorrow

I very much doubt that such a dramatic conspiracy theory actually does exist. The quote, "people here are taught what to think" is to some extent true, but it does not occur as a result of any Head Office directive. In fact, Head Office is constantly encouraging us to take courses in which we learn about fostering in our classrooms creative engagement, critical thinking, and collaborative and self-directed learning while navigating through the wild and woolly Internet zone.

Head Office recognizes that our economy is unable to survive on mass production any longer and our task as educators is to take apart the apparatus that once churned out factory drone workers (I'm a product of that system... and no, I'm not proud of it) and rebuild a more modern structure in which to develop a new generation of imaginative, creative, analytical, design-driven problem-solvers, ready to take on the challenges of an uncertain future.

In the meantime, instead of the government asserting its authority, there has been a great loosening up of citizens' freedoms. The media are age-restricted rather than blanket-censored; Internet access and the discourse that transpires therein is largely free-and-easy; the police are hardly anywhere to be seen (sometimes we even wonder if there are enough police around to maintain law and order if things went bad); and people are becoming increasingly bold and more vociferous, taking issue with the apparently incompetent and self-serving policies of the big, bad government.

20 years ago, when the Man had it all locked down, the government was inviolable. Today there exists a relationship between the government and the people we can only describe as "no up, no down". Today, we think nothing of hurling rotten tomatoes at our MPs and Ministers whenever they say something stupid or make some gross miscalculation in their decision-making. The roles of master and servant have almost reversed places in this new flattened hierarchy.

The guy being interviewed in the Al-Jazeera clip above thinks we are sheep, but clearly, we aren't. We may be the product of an education system that tried to make us meek assembly-line operators. We are the generation that was taught what to think, but even so, we aren't thinking along party lines. Instead, we are thinking we want more opposition voices in Parliament, more representation for our own needs and aspirations which are far from fulfilled, less BS from the incumbents and more engagement in talking about the things that we want rather than having what we need forced down our throats.

If today's generation is being taught to learn by rote, it's because that's how we learned when we were that age. Pupils, parents, pedants and Principals swear by that method, so no matter what Head Office tells us, at implementation level we do our own filtration and fall back on what has always worked best: standard answers which we all agree on, making them easy for the kids to memorize and for us to grade. This is the legacy effect of an education system that surpassed all prior expectations and is now struggling to cope with a new reality. Few want to let go of a system that worked such wonders before and venture into untested waters to explore beyond the familiar. Fortunately for us, I do see the few out there, flailing about, doing their best to trailblaze a four-lane highway for the rest of us to follow. But until that happens, the old methods will still be with us for a while yet. Hence, the inertia.

Elitism is only half the story

Interesting that retired PM Goh is reminding the privileged people to guard against elitism.

I'll open a can of worms by suggesting that in creating a social divide, it takes two hands to clap. While we would like the privileged to not act like jerks who have too much money to know what to do with, the rest of us not-so-privileged folks should likewise not let the income gap cause us to despair and pigeonhole ourselves into thinking we've stagnated, and blame the 'elites' for keeping us down.

Our economic system still offers opportunity for everyone who seeks it. For us starting at the bottom of the pile, if we set our sights high, there are ways to get there -- but not through the safe, secure office job we've been promised as a child for studying our brains out and passing exams.

We're only stagnated if we swallowed that promise hook, line and sinker. The way up is tough; fraught with failure and dead ends. At times, our progress is so slow that it may look like we'll never get there, but we keep moving forward with our dreams, our plans and our goals anyway. People will kindly 'advise' us with the best of intentions to be sensible and get back on the 'safe' path again, and many times, we'll be tempted to quit. And if we listen to them, that too is stagnation.

I'm not saying that we should gamble blindly, but rather to have a dream we can articulate and have a plan we can put in action. We learn from our failures, pick ourselves up and keep climbing. And even at the end if we don't 'make it' the way we had originally defined 'make it', we're still further along ahead of where we were when we started our journey, and much happier for it.

Or just be content with what we have and live within our means, even if we have to forego the luxuries we see other people enjoying. After all, on first impression, there's no way to tell if they are up to their necks in hock in order to luxuriate in their finery.

Elitism means to keep things from people. Envy seeks to take things away from people. Both forces at work in society cause irreparable rifts between people, making them think that the existing system does not work when in fact it does. It works on the principle of Generosity: to put things in people's hands. Give.

Dog play date

Tasha's going to meet a new friend over dinner so she's spending the morning at the groomer's to get her presentable.

This is Twinkle, a fellow maltipoo. Although they both belong to the same designer breed, their genetic variables make them look and behave very differently from each other.

This is the location of our date, III Cafe. It's on East coast Road, around the corner from Siglap. But to find the place you have to first enter George's Mad Grill, then keep right to slip in through a side door and up the stairs to this little pet dining haven.

The menu for humans offers simple dishes without too much variety. We ordered two sides of ham and bacon pizza to share among our party of four.

The baked salmon was the overwhelming favourite main course, beating out the wrap 3:1. The salmon came with a zesty fruit salad which was sweet and refreshing. The salmon itself was a bit dry and overcooked for my taste -- but then I prefer the sashimi style any day.

Dog dish: huge meatballs (your choice of meat). And this is Tasha wolfing down her share like there's no tomorrow.

Group photo time! And yes, Pebbles came for the ride too. But he stuck close to his corner of the sofa and socialized with the others... from a distance. other diners brought other kinds of pets than dogs too. A couple of kids, who got somewhat more attention from Tasha than they liked, brought a guinea pig in a small mammal carrier.

Ok, so food-wise, Sun-Ray Cafe offers a better quality menu at slightly higher prices, but this place is more spacious, offering the dogs more room to run, play and mingle. The atmosphere is bright, open and friendly, so be prepared to entertain strange dogs coming right up to sniff you at your table while your dog does the same to other tables.

Down in the dumps

So we made yet another world-class top-ten: #10 on Gallup's list of the most pessimistic countries in the world. We're right up there with Greece and a bunch of rather depressing Euro countries, Haiti and Taiwan, so we're really partying with the best of them.

The linked article also recalls another poll in which we bottomed out as the "least emotional people in the world". Has anyone really seen an unemotional Singaporean? What with the road rage, the railing at government inefficiencies, the whining and complaining that's become our national pastime (along with shopping and food bingeing), "unemotional" is quite an ironic description of the Singaporean mood-meter reading.

Which is why I suspect Singaporeans are fantastic liars when it comes to providing information for inconsequential surveys. It's ingrained somewhere in our psyches from our immigrant peasant roots that we never let on how happy we are, especially in front of strangers. To do so would be tempting fate to reverse our fortune with a disaster or three. A couple of generations ago, people named their children after farm animals so that passing mischief makers -- mortal or ethereal -- would mistake the subject of discussion for a common thing, instead of the bundle of joy it was and so not bother trying to make off with it out of malice or spite.

Interpreting the Singaporean response to Gallup's latest poll has to be read within our cultural context. The fact that we made it to the top-10 pessimist list actually means the opposite. We actually are a damned happy people, but you'll never hear about that from us.

A tumble

Dropped in to see Mom. She'd taken a tumble down some stairs over the weekend. She said it was because she was stumbling around in the dark. It's what happens when you've lived in the same place for so long, you don't think you need to switch on the lights any more to navigate your way around. But a moment of inattention later, an accident occurs.

Good to see her cheerful, alert and recuperating at home. And her sense of humour is still intact. Although there's a big bump on her head, there's no concussion. However, her arm is in a cast for a suspected hairline fracture in her wrist.

It's that time of life when we start worrying about our old folks.