A deeper dive into She-Hulk 1X7: 'The Retreat'

The show has been criticized for being 'man-hating', and of pushing a 'female' agenda, but episode 7 clarifies that it is doing neither. It's not because of a simple inclusion of a few identifiable 'good' guys whom we'll probably never see again. There's a much stronger undercurrent, the foundations of which have become more apparent since the previous 'wedding' episode.

First, this show is very good at manipulating the audience through misdirection, and pushing, not an agenda, but emotional buttons. Episode 6 looks like it's a wedding. It is, rather, a look at Jennifer Walters as a high school student, but without breaking the timeline via a flashback to over a decade ago. No offence to Tatiana Maslany, but she would not pass off as a high school student if she were surrounded by a teenage cast.

A high school reunion would have been too obvious, but a wedding is the perfect occasion to bring all her high school friends back together and treat Jen like they used to way back then. Lulu is the queen bee who doesn't want anyone else to steal attention from her, while her 'mean girls' entourage continue to dump on Jen, who back then would have been happy to get any attention at all. Despite their age, Lulu and friends are written as high schoolers, with their obsession over boys (Lulu only wants to know about Jen's dating status), and her friends still talk about Team Edward or Jacob, which is what they would have been talking about a decade or so ago. Titania shows up as the school bully, and the fight is as juvenile as the characters they are symbolically playing. At the end, the bully defeats herself, which is usually how it plays out. And worst of all, no Daredevil in sight! Audience response: the wedding episode sucks. It's a horrible wedding because it doesn't feel important to the MCU storyline, and why tease DD when he's not going to show up? Rawr!

The show also occasionally brings up online sh*tposts from supposedly "hateful man babies", which are roughly analogous to people in our real world who identify themselves as 'incels'. The impression is that the show is making fun of its own of insecure, comic book reading, male fanbase, and that is a fantastic misdirection that draws the ire of the audience. Yes, the show is baiting the audience to hate it. In that red mist, what we overlook is that Jen, too, can be considered a female incel. Jen is unpopular, nerdy, and bullied in school. In adult life, she is insecure, unable to get a date, and seemingly defines herself by the lack of men in her life. The few who do date her put her down, none interested in a second time. These are all traits that resonate with people who identify as 'incel'.

Jen is plausibly about to give up dating when she meets Josh who likes Jen for Jen, and not for She-Hulk. But after a few dates, Jen, um, opens herself up to him, and he ghosts her immediately after. Jen's experience at Blonsky's 'Summer Twilights' retreat in episode 7 explains much of this show's philosophy, showing us how meta it gets. The emotional state that Jen is in when she joins Blonsky's therapy group mirrors ours by this time. Like Jen who ignores the group to look for a phone signal, we've also got better things to do than watch this boring show, but since it's on we'll just put it in the background. We've been promised an MCU fest, but we got an awful 'lawyer show' which has little 'lawyering' and a lot of one whiny woman griping about how unfair life has been for her. When Jen identifies the Wrecker in the group, she feels as attacked by him as we feel attacked by whatever agenda this show's been pushing that isn't to our liking. We feel as betrayed by the 'M-she-U' for making us watch this garbage as Jen feels betrayed by Josh ghosting her.

So what do we do? Do we, like Jen, instinctively Hulk out and immediately rage on the Internet, pouring out our hate and disappointment at this poorly written TV show? Do we make personal attacks on the female writers who care nothing for the source material and are themselves probably drunk, depressed, and are pushing a 'woke' agenda? Or do we sit in the 'calming chair' and work through our personal issues, and the real issues that this show raises for us to think about?

Like, can we spend time to listen to what another human being has to say about their pain, instead of valuing them only for how much they entertain us, make us laugh, or enact our revenge fantasies on our behalf? Can we empathise with them, accept them for themselves, and support them, instead of wishing She-Hulk would hurry up and punch something, but ignore Jen because her life is uninteresting?

And speaking to those in the audience who are feeling as lonely as Jen, She-Hulk is to Jen what Josh is to, well, someone who identifies as an incel. Josh is attractive, confident, successful, able to strike up and continue a conversation with their target, even from a cheesy pick-up line. But in the closing flashback, the show asks if we really want to be that guy, to use another human being and leave them confused and emotionally devastated once we've got what we want from them? Instead, the show assures us that there are people who will accept us for who we are, even if they look weird, or smell, or may even have attacked us once before. They may be awkward in how they express themselves to us, but their support is heartwarmingly genuine, if we, in return, accept them for who they are.

The huge MacGuffin in the room is Hulk blood, which @HulkKing is after. This group, I believe, is hiding behind a 'hateful man baby' mask. Their agenda is not against women, but against super-powered individuals, and it's just that She-Hulk is coincidentally a woman whom they are targeting. We don't know yet if this group wants to create more Hulks with Jen's sample, but this show has been hugely successful at making a lot of its audience Hulk out at their keyboards. How better to create an immersive narrative that encourages mass audience participation illustrating IRL the very themes it wants to raise for discussion? It can't get more meta than this. 

She-Hulk 1X7: laying it bare

I wonder how many items of clothing Luke Jacobson made for Jen? Nikki mentioned a business suit and a supersuit in the previous episode. In this episode, Jen for the most part seems to be wearing a casual ensemble comprising a light top and capris. Jen is called on by Blonski's parole officer to check on Blonski's inhibitor which has malfunctioned. Jen goes as Blonski's lawyer and also as the parole officer's muscle, so it's the perfect opportunity to showcase an outfit that caters to both contingencies.

Jen is still exploring her duality in this episode. She may have embraced her inner Hulk, but it's still not yet a comfortable fit. Her trip to Blonski's meditation retreat plays around with this discomfort as we know from the previous episode that there are elements that wish to do her harm. On the premises there is neither phone nor WiFi connection to the outside world, suggesting that she is cut off with no backup if something untoward should happen to her. The parole officer makes no effort to hide his paranoia and flees immediately after his mission is easily completed.

Jen wants to leave too, but two superpowered brawlers wreck her car while they are working out their issues with each other. With no signal and no transport Jen is trapped under suspicious circumstances. What if the whole visit was set up by the Intelligencia as phase two of their plan? Could Jen possibly fight off a handful of low-grade powered villains led by the Abomination if that is their plan? When the Wrecker shows up unexpectedly, Jen recalls him as the leader of the Wrecking Crew which attacked her in episode 3, and as She-Hulk proceeds to do some wrecking of her own. Blonski is able to calm her down and gets her to sit in on their group therapy session before too much damage is done.

Within the circle, the men share their vulnerabilities openly. Blonski maintains an atmosphere of trust which eventually allows the only masked member of the group, Porcupine, to remove his mask to reveal... no one we know. In this safe space, Jen feels comfortable to open up about her insecurities with her She-Hulk persona, saying that it 'feels like cheating' as she has the ability to whip out this huge advantage over other people to get ahead. She also opens up about Josh whom she had been dating for a week, slowly building enough trust to finally be intimate with him and immediately after he ghosts her. Saracen, the wannabe vampire blurts out that perhaps Josh was only after her blood -- an innocent statement that should set off alarm bells for us.

When the tow truck finally arrives, Jen is able to leave Blonski's retreat unharmed, and has made some new friends. The obvious threat has proven to be not only harmless, but also enriching for her. But in a flashback to Josh and Jen's last night together, Josh carries out phase ONE, and reports his success to @hulkking. The person Jen was most openly vulnerable with turns out the be her biggest betrayal. Which leaves phase two open: if not for piercing She-Hulk's impenetrable skin, then the gigantic needle from the previous episode is for whom? Since Bruce is off planet, my guess would be the Abomination.

A note about the recent lack of post-credit scenes: The post-credit scenes in the first four episodes were frivolous fun moments that had little to do with plot advancement. These final scenes have since become incorporated into the main storyline, and serve as a clear transition to the next episode.

Finally, going by the pattern of Jen's Luke Jacobson wardrobe, I'd expect to see her in her business suit next. It won't be until the final episode of this season that Jen is fully incorporated enough, mind and body, to wear her supersuit, and in so doing bear the mantle of a superhero at last. Which probably means no Matt Murdoch appearance next week either. I'm fine with that. I'm here to watch She-Hulk, not Daredevil. I know whose show this is.

She-Hulk 1X6: the clothes maketh the woman

People watching SH:AaL are disappointed that the show hasn't featured huge, monumental showdowns with the fate of worlds in the balance. There have been no jaw-dropping set-pieces, no inspirational moments, no stakes worth beating people up for. True. It's not that kind of show. So far, the series has dealt with internal conflict within the body and mind of Jennifer Walters as to who is in control of that very same body and mind. But now that that conflict has been largely resolved, we expect that we would be moving on to larger, more consequential conflicts within the MCU environment... but it was still not to be in this episode. Episode 6, aptly entitled "Just Jen", takes us on a much deeper dive into the person of Jennifer Walters -- who Jen is at the very core of her being.

Jen is whisked away from courtroom drama and into a wedding celebration. Jen reluctantly accepts the invitation to be a bridesmaid at her high school friend's nuptials, not because she wants to, but because she doesn't know how to say 'no'. She arrives like a superstar in her glamorous Luke Jacobson designed party outfit, and takes everyone's breath away. Lulu the bride, is of course pissed and makes Jen promise to revert to just Jen for the wedding. Feeling bad, Jen doesn't say 'no'. When Lulu's wedding planning staff quit on her for being a Bridezilla, she imposes all the staff chores to Jen -- general cleaning duties, and ironing the groomsmen's shirts -- while everyone else continues to enjoy the party. Jen is even assigned to walk with a canine partner down the aisle, while everyone else has a human partner. This story piles on aggravation after aggravation to make Jen Hulk out, but Jen resolutely stays just Jen. Even when her courtroom nemesis, Titania, makes an appearance as a wedding guest, Jen simmers internally, but doesn't boil over.

Bruce is wrong about what triggers the Hulk in Jen. Rage and fear may trigger his 'other guy' to come out, but Jen's trigger is different. It's not that she has more control, it's that she's a pushover. She avoids conflict and making a scene. She sucks it all up because she is submissive and compliant. We'll revisit this point later.

Having changed out of her Luke Jacobson, she wears the uniform of the other bridesmaids, which seems like she is one of them, but because the cut is She-Hulk sized, Jen once again looks puny and bully-able. It's likely that this was also the type of relationship she had with Lulu and her entourage all through high school. Jen may have been taken advantage of, but at least she had friends.

Not being able to stand up for herself is probably the reason she wants to be a lawyer. In this profession, she can stand up for others who can't stand up for themselves. Her business suits are armour that give her the confidence that Lawyer Jen has, that just Jen does not. This motivation is also why Jen is so reluctant to give up being a lawyer to train as a Hulk on Hulk beach with Bruce. Jen is invested in the totality of being Jennifer Walters: Attorney at Law, and becoming She-Hulk:Attorney at Law challenges her self-identity irrevocably. If the show hasn't been interesting for some viewers, it's probably because Jen avoids that conflict until the last straw culminating in episode 5. There is no superhero show if there is no conflict to resolve.

The 'B' story strongly parallels the 'A' story. It gives Nikki the opportunity to truly shine as a negotiator. We've already seen her negotiate with Pug, and the boba cafe barista in episode 5, but in episode 6, she negotiates a complex divorce case involving Mr Immortal, who has run out of several marriages by faking his own death, thus getting away from unpleasantness and alimony. Like Jen, Mr Immortal also pathologically avoids conflict, but by actually killing himself, then resurrecting and taking on a new identity once the messy paperwork has been settled.

In reviewing Mr Immortal's latest suicide attempt in a video posted online, Mallory and Nikki discover Intelligencia, a website dedicated exclusively to cancelling She-Hulk. Some posts on this site even go so far as to target her with death threats. This group is likely to be her new antagonist, taking her conflict from internal to external, moving forward.

The slap fight Jen has with Titania is a bridge between these two conflicts. Titania provokes Jen to become She-Hulk at the wedding. We learn that Titania is not a bully as she has no quarrel with Jen, but she views She-Hulk as competition for the attention of her 'Titaniacs'. The fight is for very low stakes, and it's quickly over when Titania accidentally faceplants herself and she literally 'loses face' in front of an Instagramming crowd. What we learn about just Jen is that her transformation into She-Hulk is not as seamless as confident Lawyer Jen's. Just Jen has to put in some effort to make that transformation, even 'forgetting' how to do it on her first attempt. It's not that she is in that much control over her 'other guy', but rather that her threshold for engaging in conflict is so high that it takes a lot of energy to work herself up that much.

Edit: Another way we could read Jen 'forgetting' how to turn is that she manipulates Titania into standing in front of her so that when She-Hulk does her ground-stomp, the shockwave hurls Titania onto the dance floor into full view of everyone. Since Titania wants to destroy She-Hulk in public, She-Hulk brings the fight to the public instead of keeping the battle outside where no one's watching. It's a tactical move showing how much meek just Jen needs to wear her She-Hulk persona when she needs to literally put her foot down.

The episode ends with an organisation that is active on Intelligencia, putting a plan in motion to kill She-Hulk, or at least steal her blood with a huge-bore needle... probably made of vibranium? Todd was asking some very suspicious questions before calling her a 'specimen' in episode 4. But if this needle is the 'next' phase, what could the previous phase be? It's heartwarming that after Jen's Kamikaze courtroom session in episode 5, someone called 'Josh' would be equally interested in both just Jen and She-Hulk. But who else would have better access to Jen's entirely penetrable human skin? But unlike Mr Immortal, Jen/She-Hulk won't be resurrecting if this group of 'hateful man babies', as Mallory describes them, gets its way.

And in the meta, this show, unlike just Jen, is clearly spoiling for a confrontation with the real world's She-Hulk hating mob. In making them an antagonistic character for She-Hulk to fight, the show not only breaks the 4th wall, but drags them in, potentially provoking a war both on-screen and off. It's the show saying 'we know you're trolling us on social media out there. You want to cancel us? Bring it, bros!' That is some meta-sh*t!

She-Hulk Season 1 mid-season review

The true persistent villain in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has been literally in our face for the first 5 episodes of Season 1. Her name is Jennifer Walters.

Until the end of Episode 5, She-Hulk is denied by Jen, repressed by Jen, and emerges only to be taken advantage of by Jen, whether it's for her new job, or for protection from thugs, or to get dates. Because Jen fears the destructive potential that She-Hulk represents, Jen adamantly controls She-Hulk, an ability she is so proud of and throws in Bruce's face right in the beginning, in Episode 1. But control over 'the other guy' is not what Bruce is teaching her to do. Jen's training montage begins on Hulk's beach resort, but it continues all the way through to episode 5 once she learns Bruce's main lesson: to integrate both halves into a singular being he calls, 'Smart Hulk'. It's a name other people called him, and it stuck, so now he proudly owns it.

Smug Jen, however, believes control over her Hulk self is enough, and so the first half of the series focuses not on the rise of She-Hulk, but on the complete and utter destruction of Jennifer Walters as an Attorney at Law, gradually degrading her courtroom status episode by episode from confident Assistant DA to an intimidated plaintiff who can't even speak at her own counter-suit against Titania for a frivolous trademark infringement. Even 'genius' cousin Ched gets to 'explain her own area of expertise', Trademark law, to her, and she knows she deserves it for her rookie mistake.

Simultaneously fighting Titania to regain her She-Hulk name, and accepting to wear the same clothes that 'suit' both personas in episode 5 is a huge step in reconciling Jen and She-Hulk. When a severely humbled Jen acknowledges the she and She-Hulk are one and the same, she finally relinquishes the 'Jennifer Walters: Attorney at Law' title -- which she insists on calling her 'lawyer show' -- and comes to terms with the 'She-Hulk: Attorney at Law' title, which is the actual title of the series.

Just as Donny Blaze in episode 4 uses 'cheap human tricks' to bamboozle his unimpressed audience, this show revels in using similar tricks of misdirection, such as the Wrecking Crew, their mysterious boss, and Titania, to hide the chief antagonist in plain sight. Jen Walters, a.k.a. She-Hulk is her own worst enemy.

This show has picked up a lot of largely undeserved negative comments from a section of its viewing audience. They view it as episodic, and lacking in a clear direction as each episode seems to deal with inconsequential issues with no major overarching threat that needs to be dealt with. But they are missing the woods for the trees. Perhaps this show is simply too clever for its own good, but under the hood, it's one of the most consistently and tightly-written pieces of meta-fiction I've ever watched on TV. Really looking forward to the remaining 4 episodes in which, I expect, the real superhero-lawyer show begins.

She-Hulk 1X5: Own the name

It's taken 5 episodes and the exact half way mark of a 9 episode series for its title to truly be "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law". Jennifer Walters had previously insisted that her human persona would be the main interest, and it's taken up till now for that persona to finally relinquish control of the narrative and let the rightful titular character, She-Hulk, take over.

Over five episodes, we have watched Jen's human persona being systematically destroyed, at least as far as the "Attorney at Law" title goes. By episode 5, Jen Walters is a client of the law firm she works for, and not even representing herself is the smart move. From prospective DA, to defence lawyer, to character witness, to client making a counter-suit over her own identity, the normal human being she wants to be is visibly shrinking smaller and smaller, just as the character is disappearing into the bland, oversized, corporate suit that She-Hulk wears to work.

To win her case, Jen must prove that she had consistently used the name 'She-Hulk' to identify herself before Titania trademarked it for her cosmetics line. In the previous episode, Jen had used the name She-Hulk to get dates on her dating app, and suffered some very awkward encounters. But despite how badly their dates ended, the guys prove decent enough to testify on her behalf. Their testimonies make it painfully clear that the dates only happened because she presented herself as She-Hulk in name and appearance, meaning that Jen's human persona would not have been as successful. The way Jen humiliated Dennis in court in episode 3, she suffers the same humiliation fourfold here, the undertext being that Jen couldn't get a date to save her life.

Sidenote: Just because we, the TV audience, see human Jen portrayed by the delightfully lovable Tatiana Maslany, the people of MCU Earth-616 probably see a different person, perhaps somewhat more akin to a mousy corporate drone with zero charisma and no appeal. Anyway...

The 'B' story involves Nikki and Pug embarking on a hilarious and embarrassing quest to find She-Hulk a tailor who makes apparel for an exclusive superhero clientele, further underscoring that Jen Walters doesn't dress herself well, either for work, or her social life. It takes some convincing, but Luke (MCU version of Edna) is intrigued by the challenge of making a suit that fits both Jen's tiny frame and She-Hulk's statuesque one. The secret isn't Spandex, but stretch wool, and lots of it. When both 'A' and 'B' stories connect, it's when Jen has won her case and her name, She-Hulk, back from Titania, and is fully prepared to embrace her She-Hulk persona instead of constantly denying and rejecting it. Her new outfit will fit both personas as needed, and hopefully make her look good, whichever persona is wearing it. Luke's genius will only be revealed in the next episode, presumably, so we can only speculate at this point.

Human Jen isn't gone. She, after all, comes up with the winning legal strategy, and is brave enough to character assassinate herself so that She-Hulk can come to life and have agency -- rather than be treated like "a thing that happened" to her -- and the show's title can make sense moving forward. Episode 5 is likewise brave enough to endure fan backlash by 1) having no fan-favourite cameos, and 2) no end credits sequence, suggesting that the show is now confident enough to stand on its own.

Still, we are teased with Luke hastily covering up a familiar horned helmet that's been negligently left exposed. Perhaps the highly anticipated cameo from the trailer is on his way at last!

She-Hulk 1X4: Dennis Bukowski is all of us

There's a repeating pattern in the first four episodes of She-Hulk. Whomever is made the butt of the joke in the odd numbered episodes, Jen becomes in the subsequent episode.

In the first cycle, Jen makes fun of Bruce, then becomes Bruce in the next episode. In the second and current cycle, Jen gleefully takes a huge dump on Dennis for believing that Megan Thee Stallion would date him, but Jen Walters can't even pull herself a mediocre date when she uses a similar dating app in episode 4. Not only that, but the date she does get is too interested in his phone to pay attention to the woman in front of him, and even skips out on paying for their drinks when he cuts their date short. While Dennis rates himself a 'New York 10, and an LA 11' Jen gets an impersonal, in her face (though not to her face) rating of '6, maybe'.

The point episode 4 raises is that everyone is as ridiculously self-entitled and delusional as Dennis, and this fantasy disappoints us when we wake up and see reality for what it is. Let's start with Jen. Seeing as she is having no joy matching anyone at all, she tries her luck using She-Hulk as her profile. Instant success! So many men think they have a shot at dating this fantasy woman, and the ones who do are treated with Jen/She-Hulk's subjective disdain. No one except this hunk of a doctor, who listens to her more than talks about himself piques her interest.

The rest of this episode's cast are living a fantasy too. Failing magician, Donny Blaze, aspires to create real magic. His meagre stint at Kamar-Taj has given him enough magic and a sling ring to do parlour tricks, though he is messing with powers he has no comprehension of. He unwittingly unleashes a demonic infestation, and only when confronted with the reality of how dangerous his powers are does he agree to at least abide by the terms of the injunction brought against him by Wong.

Wong's fantasy is more mundane. He wants to use American law to put an end to Donny Blaze's irresponsible use of real magic. Here we see the first indications that current laws that govern human behaviour are inadequate when governing superhuman activity. Actually, no. We already saw that in shapeshifter Runa's chaotic mockery of the legal process in the previous episode. And in any case, is Wong even entitled to bring a lawsuit against an American citizen? Because 1) is Wong an American citizen himself? and 2) isn't Wong a fugitive from the law for admitting to breaking Blonsky out of his secure facility? There's a difference between real entitlement and self-presumed entitlement.

As for She-Hulk's dream date, he is unbelievably patient when she is suddenly called to an emergency just when they are about to She-Hulk smash! He reads feminist literature while he waits. Such a dream. But when he wakes up and is confronted with the reality of the very human Jen Walters who has kindly made him breakfast, he's outta there. 'Hot doctor' turns out to be just a fantasy for Jen, as She-Hulk is for him.

It's possible that this fantasy theme extends to She-Hulk haters as well. Everyone thinks they understand She-Hulk (and Hulk) better. Everyone knows they can write a better screenplay, keeping better faith with the bi-syllabic monstrosity we all know and love. Everyone knows that they can write more compelling, even more "rousing" courtroom drama than Jessica Gao and her team can, and they even have their fanfics pinned to their refrigerator doors to prove it. But the reality is that it's not their scripts but Gao, et. al.'s they get to watch on DisneyPlus, which proves to be the most galling. This idea is summed up in the closing scene of this episode in which Titania is suing She-Hulk for the use of the 'She-Hulk' moniker as Titania claimed legal copyright over the name first. It's a way for the writers to break the 4th wall from our side to say that they may not be better writers, but Marvel picked their pitch first. Sorry, everyone else!

Madisynn brings quite a contrast to the other characters in this episode. She may be stoned and drunk out of her mind, but she is tuned into reality like no one else, having no fantasies of her own. Donny Blaze unintentionally sends her on this fantastic journey via the portal he opens, not caring what's on the other side, but she just goes along for the ride accepting the reality of all the bizarreness around her, even treating the pact she made with a demon so that she can go home as matter of fact. That she Netflix and chills with Wong later is oddly sweet. She makes no judgements about the company she keeps, and though she annoys him, Wong gives us a glimpse of his human side, watching TV with a date. They are the only couple in this episode who are really together, while the others, including Jen, are really only in it for themselves.

She-Hulk 1X3: Controlling the narrative

Ep 3's linchpin moments are when Jen no longer insists on having her 'lawyer show' but instead just tries to remind us that despite several characters who keep reappearing, it's still Jen's show. Ever supportive, in a later scene, bestie Nikki underscores that Jen needs to 'take control of her narrative'.

Easier said than done, though. She-Hulk has become a media sensation and everyone is running with She-Hulk, while Jen's story goes on the backburner. Despite securing Blonsky's parole release, the media cares nothing of Jen's triumph, but instead presses her on rumors about her Avengers status and her origin story (the "Mafia hit" being a callback to She-Hulk's actual origin story from the comic books). When Jen takes Nikki's advice to control her narrative on a TV news channel, all she is asked about is She-Hulk's diet and exercise regimen. At this point, is this show still about Jennifer Walters?

In her first 4th wall break of the episode, Jen is in her car but suddenly takes her hands off the wheel to talk to the audience. By now, she knows she is symbolically and literally not in control, and despite being in the driver's seat, she really is just a passenger on her show. Jen is also somewhat resigned about her story branching off into Dennis Bukowski's lawsuit, breaking the 4th wall once again at her favourite bar to observe that the two story threads are reintegrating. When Pug asks her to testify on Dennis' behalf, she gladly agrees as she has a story to tell about Dennis that she does have control over. This story will have an impact but, ironically, Jen will be telling it not as a lawyer, but as a character witness.

But many other characters in this episode too have lost control of their narratives. After all, everyone is the hero of their own story. Dennis was 'delusional' enough to believe he was dating Megan Thee Stallion. He regains control by suing Runa, shapeshifting Light Elf from New Asgard for impersonating the latter, hoping to get back the money he had spent on her. Megan Thee Stallion makes an appearance in the courtroom, a victim of identity theft, hoping to see justice done. Runa, believes she has 'diplomatic immunity', defends her actions as  'role play', and impersonates both Dennis and the Judge in a desperate attempt to overturn an unfavourable outcome when the case clearly turns against her. And Wong's story to save Blonsky at his parole hearing inadvertently gets Wong in trouble with the law.

Which brings us to the Wrecking Crew, a gormless quartet of criminals themed as construction workers, wielding powered weapons of some kind. Believing they have a chance to rob Jen on a dark street, they meet She-Hulk instead, much to their regret, 'nuff said. We'll circle back to them in a bit.

Like Jen, none of these characters' narratives they tell themselves lead them to their desired outcome. That's because their narratives are incongruous with their realities. Jen lies to herself that she will regain her 'normal, anonymous' life once 'this is over'. Dennis lies to himself that he is 'a NY 10 and an LA 11'. Megan Thee Stallion is a victim of Runa's lies, while Runa flat out lies. But the Wrecking Crew are lied to! Clearly, some mystery villain knows the power of Hulk blood and wants to get hold of some as part of perhaps a grand scheme to control the overarching narrative, but that's a story for another time.

If there is one narrative that does result in a desired outcome, it's Blonsky's. Blonsky claims to be reformed, and has his Abomination self well under control. The parole board, seeing a demonstration of such control approves his release. Could it be that Blonsky told the truth, and as such got the outcome he wanted? And would that mean Wong somehow lied, seeing as his story backfired?

Perhaps there is one more winner in this episode: the meta narrative. It preempted the IRL She-Hulk internet hate, giving the audience a laugh at the toxic comments aired and posted on the in-show interviews of, uh, persons with a beef against female versions of superheroes. Remember the rumor that She-Hulk got her powers after a botched Mafia hit which was the story in the comics? The TV show reminds us that it's a very different entity from the comics, and what the traditionalist fandom wants, they're not going to get. Reflecting negativity and hate back at itself is really an effective way to control the narrative.

She-Hulk 1X2: Jen learns the difference between ability and agency

 or, just because you can, doesn't mean you, uh, can.

Jen's hubris hits her hard with the greenest of fists to the face. Everything she had chided Bruce for in the previous episode happens to her in this one. Her life as Jennifer Walters has been taken away, though she is still fortunate enough to have family.

The name, "She-Hulk", derives from a quippy newscaster's sound bite, as her new green giant persona begins to take over. Everyone wants She-Hulk at Jen's usual bar, so she must enter as She-Hulk. But her boss is too intimidated to fire She-Hulk, so he asks her to revert so he can fire Jen. Holliway, from GLK and H offers Jen a job, but while he wants Jen's lawyer skills, he wants them hidden behind the physical presence of She-Hulk. She-Hulk attempts to do her job meeting Emil Blonsky, but the Damage Control guard insists she can proceed only as Jen in human form.  Even the post-credits scene shows Jen back in She-Hulk form helping her dad with chores around the house. While Jen demonstrated to Bruce how ably she could change forms at will in Ep 1, in Ep 2 every transformation she makes is not her choice, but due to another person's man's whims.

Although in Ep 1 Jen gleefully departs from Bruce's multi-year Hulk training regime, fully confident of her control over the Hulk in her, by this episode, her office and business cards are gone when she gets fired from the DA's office. After multiple rejections, Jen has given up hope of finding another job as a lawyer as she browses though Buzzfeed-like listicles of unusual jobs like Swiss village mascot. The only lifeline that opens for her via GLK and H is based less on Jen's merit, and more on She-Hulk being the "face" (rather than the Head) of the firm's new superhuman division. Because of the She-Hulk, Jen has lost control over her Jennifer Walters, Attorney at Law narrative.

Talking in the meta, Round 2 clearly goes to the superhero narrative putting the kibosh on Jen's "lawyer show". The former puts Jen through what she acknowledges Bruce had gone through as the Hulk. She has no agency over her transformations, and has lost control of the normal life she was desperately holding on to. But at least she hasn't destroyed a city yet. And the superhero narrative goes a step further by informing us the audience that Bruce has gone off-world, taking away the only person who knows what she is going through and can mentor her through it. This is knowledge that Jen is not privy to, and although she will suddenly find herself abandoned by her mentor, she may never know why.

She-Hulk strong, meta narrative stronger!

 A few hours remaining before the 2nd episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law drops. I thought the 1st episode was highly amusing, thoughtful, nostalgic, and complemented with some low-stakes violence, setting the tone for a series that is more light-hearted than usual, and relatable more on a human scale. I'm also very interested in the meta story, and how it shapes the narrative as told by Tatiana Maslany's Jennifer Walters (or Jen) who desperately wants her series to be a "fun lawyer show" rather than a superhero flick.

Jen is probably the first character in the MCU who rejects and denies her powers. Her concerns are entirely human. It's all about job, and recognition for her competence. Friends, and work rivals. And maybe in later episodes, her insecurities dealing with relationships. Perhaps her obsession with Captain America suggests some projection on her own love life -- but I'm speculating here.

As such, when she recaps her origin story to the audience, breaking the 4th wall as she does so, she is a terribly unreliable narrator. Afraid the audience will be distracted from her amazing lawyer super power, she hastily acknowledges her Hulk-ness, reassuring us that she is coping well, and that her condition will not be a further distraction from the courtroom drama she wants to tell. As such, her origin tale is perfunctory and rushed. Accusations that she is a "Mary-Sue" are entirely warranted, because that IS the tale she wants to tell. In the training montage with Cousin Bruce, she passes all her tests with flying colours because she refuses to tell us every painful detail of her learning journey, just enough to justify her return to her law firm and the case she is working on. Her flashback also features cartoonish characters, like the overly helpful bathroom ladies and the pervy males she meets at the Ideal Sports Bar. These people are told from her subjective point of view, and once again, she skims over the details that might have added more nuance to those encounters, while exercising her prerogative to be the hero of her own story. After her recap she reminds us once again that we are watching a "lawyer show".

The "lawyer show" however quickly degenerates into a pile of utter nonsense. Before Jen can even commence her closing arguments on a nondescript case, Jamila Jamil's Titania randomly bursts through a wall Kool-Aid Man style causing havoc. Her ridiculous outfit gives no indication of her identity, her motivation is undefined, and she attacks the biggest, greenest thing she sees, after it declares itself as "Jennifer Walters, Attorney at Law". The whole attack ends with a single punch from Jen, and that's it. Jen reverts to lawyer form, and in her disheveled state announces that she is ready to deliver her closing arguments... immediately cut to black. The "lawyer show" never once gives Jen a chance to shine as a lawyer.

Who is Titania (if you didn't already know who she was, you would never have known who she was)? What does she want? Who does she work for? How evil can she be? None of these questions are answered and the main antagonist in this episode is summarily dispatched with ease. It doesn't matter. In this establishing episode, whomever she was, she is not the most significant villain Jen is facing. Torn between the lawyer that she wants to be and the She-Hulk who keeps getting in the way of her lawyer-ing, Jen's true conflict is against her own narrative.

Is Jen a good lawyer? Her interactions with Bruce do suggest that she has impressive skills. She keeps getting the better of him not because she is a better Hulk, but because she is a "better lawyer than she is a Hulk". Unfortunately for her, her narrative, her story, is equally determined to prove otherwise. 

377A, the potential political hot potato nobody wants

So in the National Day Rally 2022, PM announced that Section 377A is finally being repealed. It's been a slow, gradual process laying the groundwork for the dissolution of a legacy law that we inherited from the Brits, made in times long past from which society has grown and changed. To put it simply, 377A criminalises the act of sex between men, and in these more open times is seen as an oppression of homosexuality, although the same law makes no provision for lesbian sex.

Despite times being more inclusive, there are still strongly vocal components of our society who believe same-sex sex is unacceptable, hence the need for years of groundwork: discussions, consultations and reassurances that all interested parties on both sides of the divide will get a fair hearing. For a time, the status quo held that although the law exists, it would not be enforced. But now, this archaic law is about to become moribund, with the compromise that only heterosexual marriages will be recognised and protected by our Constitution. One step forward, and one step back.

But is it, though? Because what I see is a mistaken conflation between the repeal of a defunct law and the implied support for the group the law penalised. The next step on this slippery slope would be that if this once-penalised group has gained even implicit support from the authorities, then the upholding of its asserted rights (in this case to marriage) should follow. That is not what's happening here.

Repealing 377A has nothing to do with supporting homosexuality. Rather, it simply gets rid of a potential political hot potato that creates unnecessary division between people who feel they must draw a line in the sand over the issue. As long as the law exists, no matter how much it is promised to be 'unenforceable', at any time, any zealot from either side wanting badly enough to make a statement could make a big enough fuss over an incident, and demand prosecution. Given how divisive the issue is, and that there are respectable, contributing members of society on both sides of the fence, any decision the courts are forced to make is bound to favour one side over the other, splitting society over a rift of no return.

To repeal 377A is nothing more than a pragmatic decision. It is a recognition that whatever goes on sexually between consenting adults in private is their own business, and not the government's. If someone gets injured, or dies during the act of whatever variety of sex, there are laws that deal with assault or murder. If a sexual act is done in public and is complained about, there are laws governing public nuisance. With 377A gone, anyone charged with such crimes makes for a clearly criminal case, instead of being charged with a law designed to target a specific group of people, raising accusations of unfairness, repression and the violation of human rights. For a Democratic society, such repercussions can be severe and difficult to recover from.

The LGBTQ+ community are disappointed that their right to marriage remains denied to them for now. But this discussion is for another time and cannot be a logical follow-through from the decision to repeal 377A.

Run free, Momo!

Saturday, 6 August 2022.

Mocha has left to run with her ancestors. Vet records say she was over 21 years old, though we've really lost count ourselves. It wasn't like we adopted her, more like she adopted us. Back at our old place, we heard a commotion outside our front door. We opened it to find our big ginger block cat bullying this tiny white furball. He'd probably scratched the tip of her nose and she was never able to get rid of the scar after that. Of course we chased the bully away, and in walked this little one looking like she already owned the place. I've never seen markings like hers, all white with coffee-coloured saddlebags on both flanks, heart-shaped helmet, and the tail, all fluffed up like a squirrel's from her previous altercation. She owned us right then.

She's seen a lot with us since. We moved to our new place, which isn't so new any more. She outlived a couple of our previous other pets. Once we tried entering her in a "biggest cat" contest, at 4 whole kg, but she protested so much at being brought outdoors, so we left her at home. She would never have won, anyway. We thought she was big, but we had no basis for comparison. She would only have measured a quarter the weight of the champion.

Recently, the signs of her ageing slowly started showing. She looked increasingly fragile and unsteady as she walked. Her incontinence indicated a failing kidney situation, though she did make an effort to pee in the same spot which we lined with absorbent mats. There were the occasional accidents, but you know, old people. We took her to the vet two weeks ago hoping that she was just fighting a UTI, but on the follow up visit, she had visibly deteriorated. This time, the vet confirmed what we'd already suspected -- that she just needs to be comfortable while we wait out the inevitable.

We placed her on a towel in the living room floor so that she would still be in the midst of family activity. Personally, I hoped that she would pass in the house she had lived in for so long, in familiar surroundings, with familiar beings around her. And so, she did. I sat with her in her last moments, stroking her fur, keeping her assured that she wasn't alone. I kept at it, not knowing exactly when she'd gone. But the dog knew. All this time the dog sat apart from us, but just as I began to question Momo's lack of responsiveness, the dog quietly walked over and sat on my lap. I let her sit for a while then moved when I needed to stretch my legs. When I settled, the dog immediately sat on my lap again. Dogs seem to pick up and respond to human emotional cues. The other two cats were off doing their own thing.

The rest was procedural. We took her back to the vet to get her certified and arrange for cremation. We never keep their ashes since they have spent their lives keeping us company, so now they've earned the right to run with their ancestors.

Speculating on the MCU with She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

It's just a trailer, but some quarters are concerned with how Ms Walters seems to be so much better at Hulking than the Hulk. Is She-Hulk the Mary Sue these folks see her as? Lets see...

She tosses a boulder further than the Hulk, but notice that Hulk is using his recently recovered hand -- previously severely injured from his counter-snap in Endgame -- and he is using a wrist toss, while She-Hulk throws from the shoulder, giving her greater leverage in this 'contest'.

She demonstrates greater agility in the 'balance' contest, but it's likely that when she was still just Ms Walters, she was already quite an advanced yoga student (benefit of the doubt here).

And with the other tests, it's just superhero physics. 

I believe what's going on in this tropical island Hulk testing facility is that the Hulk is being a sexist, overprotective big brother type, and greatly underestimates what she can do. So his 'tests' are pitched insultingly low for one thing; and for another, She-Hulk is probably an overachiever and highly motivated to learn quickly so she can get off the island and back to her normal life ASAP.

As for her 4th wall breaking asides, She-Hulk has been doing that since the 1980s. And she has done more than just talk to the audience. Fully aware of being a character in a comic book medium, she has ripped her way through pages of her own comic book, walked across non-narrative frames of advertising, and taken issue with her own writers and artists. I wonder if they would go that far in this TV series, perhaps taking us behind the camera, and continuing the narrative outside of narrative space, effectively blending her universe with the audience's. I relish the possibility of how meta this show can get.

Oh, and in case you worry about how violent she gets with the four puny thugs in the trailer, they're the Wrecking Crew and they have powers so they won't bruise easily.

Where might this show be taking us in the MCU? For a comedy, it could be taking us down a pretty dark path: The world is quickly becoming overpopulated with super-powered beings, and the "Book of American... uh... Laws" is becoming increasingly less useful in maintaining peace and order. When Phase 5 hits, I speculate the build-up of paranoia among powered and non-powered people groups with Avengers: Secret Wars breaking the camel's back. Phase 6 will begin a "Days of Future Past" type conflict, and an ideal time to finally introduce The Mutants, though hints of their existence will continue to be dropped throughout Phase 5.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The recent Marvel offerings have been reflecting a light-hearted comedic tone and I'm looking forward to having a few laughs with She-Hulk and her entourage of supporting characters, some well-known, others obscure. Let's laugh now while we can. I see dark days ahead.  

Low-bar predictions for Wakanda Forever

 

A bit late to the party. The official teaser trailer for Wakanda Forever dropped days ago at SDCC 2022 and I've been watching so many reaction videos responding to Ryan Coogler's latest masterpiece. For a trailer, the shots are beautifully composed and the way they are cut together is powerfully emotive. The focus is on the real life loss of Chadwick Boseman, the entire trailer a loving tribute to the Black Panther character who has done so much for African representation in the mainstream movies. Marvel not recasting him tells us there can be no other who can fill his traditional sandals. Whomever is going to be the new Black Panther will have to create and own a new mythology by themselves, and make us care as much. I do not envy the actor or actress who will accept the mantle.

What I wish to do, now that this movie has been so hyped, is to temper my expectations with low-bar predictions and hope that I am totally wrong. Last thing I want is to enjoy the trailer more than the actual movie, and I really enjoyed the trailer. So, my hopefully wrong predictions are as follows:

1) There won't be a single Black Panther replacement, but rather a 'Spartacus'- style Black Panther Squad

2) Namor looks like the main antagonist, but the action-packed conflict will brief as Atlantis and Wakanda team up against a common enemy

3) Queen Ramonda's (Angela Bassett) powerful speech about her "entire family is gone" is a flashback to the snap (do we know if Shuri and T'challa both dusted?) and not referring to current events

4) It won't be just T'challa we will be mourning, but Wakanda itself, along with its vibranium will be destroyed in the conflict with the Atlanteans. The title, "Wakanda Forever", as well as Kendrick Lamar's "Alright" which accompanies the second half of this trailer, building excitement, anticipation, and hope, are both ironic. Perhaps at the end of the movie, there remains a seed from which Wakanda can rebuild and reinvent itself from scratch -- a sort of cliffhanger to end Phase 4 and bring in Phase 5 of the MCU saga.

TIFO: how to appreciate a sundae

Whenever we go to Swensen's for ice-cream, the wife will invariably order her Coit Tower sans strawberry and hot fudge sauce toppings. I always assumed that she didn't like strawberry and hot fudge toppings. Today, she ordered the same thing, but the order got garbled in the kitchen. Both our sundaes arrived sans strawberry and hot fudge toppings. Small error, so I let it go. As I dug in, I realized what the wife had known for the last couple of decades of being married to me: ice-cream sundaes taste so much better without the intrusion of oversweet flavoured sauce toppings that are only added on as eye-candy, but overwhelm the subtler and more varied flavours of the ice-cream underneath. The brightness of plain vanilla blending with rich chocolate awoke in my mouth, and now I know what I've been missing all this time we've been going to our favourite San Francisco-themed dessert joint. From now on, it's going to be naked sundaes. Less is truly more.

Gaming strategy of the GCE H1 General Paper

This post is inspired by the GP Paper 2 timed exercise I gave today:

Here's the premise: An 'A' in GP translates to a band between 70-100 marks. So even if we lose 30% of the total mark, we still score an 'A'. And to pass, we can afford to lose 55% of the mark.

The paper comprises 1 section of short questions (17 marks total), 1 summary (8 marks), and 1 Application Question (AQ) or short essay (10 marks) based on a given set of 1 or 2 short texts about a topic of general interest. The marks from the questions total to 35 marks, with an additional 15 marks for language. Altogether, they add to a grand total of 50 marks. Assuming most students get 10 marks for language, losing 10 marks from the questions alone will still score an 'A'.

The short questions in the first section comprise a mix of questions that have to do with 1) vocabulary, 2) finding lists of linguistically-related things, and 3) finding lists of evidence supporting a claim. Higher-order questions involve 1) inferences, 2) or otherwise intuiting further meaning from the given text. Or we can break the short questions into translation and interpretation types, that is, those asking to extract meaning from what is written, and from what ISN'T written, respectively.

The current strategy employed by my students is that of a side-scrolling platformer: tackle every obstacle or every enemy sprite in sequence. Their threat-boards are lit up in red everywhere as they take on all-comers on the field one at a time. But this method slows them down significantly. There is a fixed time limit, and when they eventually clear their way to the boss monster of the AQ they run out of time, and the mission is incomplete, resulting in poor performance all round.

I'm proposing a different strategy now, that of an Action Role-Playing Game (ARPG). In these games, a few high-value targets are mixed in with a hoard of low-value targets. To survive, we prioritize our targets, even to the point where we decide to ignore a few. It's tempting to go after the high value targets first, but we underestimate how much damage low-value targets can cause en masse, so the smart thing to do is to avoid the Elites and clear the trash mobs first. When we have sufficiently thinned the herd, then we go after the Elites, ensuring we have time remaining to slay the Boss at the end. And if there's still time remaining, we circle back to mop up the remaining trash and Elites that have survived our onslaught.

In GP Paper 2 terms, the trash are the simpler questions involving vocabulary and lists, while the Elites are the inferential questions. The summary is nothing more than a long list of things. The Boss, that's the AQ. The game is to chalk up as many points as possible, as early as possible, even if we need to dodge the Elite questions at first, then going back to take them on, time permitting. Since there are 3 sections to the paper, each section maxes out at 30 minutes. On each 30th minute, regardless of how many questions are answered, port out to the next section. The AQ needs to be engaged on the 60th minute, latest. AQ done, cycle back until the full 90 minutes are up.

Spreading out the point acquisition reduces the risk of losing huge chunks of marks for a missed section, so knowing that some questions, or parts of questions, can be avoided or ignored until a more opportune time presents itself should improve performance moving forward.

My Prince Phillip story

It was '72.  I was 6. Their Majesties dropped in on our sunny isle to see how their old colony was doing. Mom was preggers but was nevertheless excited to have a chance to look at royalty up close and personal. They were scheduled to make an appearance at the then Singapore Turf Club (now Turf City). Somehow, Mom bundled me there and got close to the barricade bordering the red carpet on which the Royals would walk back to their motorcade. However, where we were standing, Mom may have been barely tall enough to see, but not me. All I saw were the legs of the union jack-waving throng lining the carpet. Determined not to miss a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see characters I've only read about come to life, I pushed forward and inched my way to the front. Perhaps I was too determined, but to everybody else's horror, I found myself ON the red carpet. Just then, a man patted me on the head and said, "Ho, ho, ho, look at this little boy!" and carried on walking along with a bunch of other people. Then nothing else happened. The royal party had walked past me, and I didn't get to see the Queen.

I was disappointed. All that effort, gone to waste. When Mom finally caught up with me, she revealed that the man I encountered was Prince Phillip himself! But my 6-year old mind could not comprehend that royalty did not dress in crown, gown, and scepter as they did in my picture books. They wore people clothes, and I didn't recognize them as what I saw did not match up to what I expected to see.

And maybe that, too, is the story of my life.

It's not an exam, it's an opportunity

There are no exams to take for learning to ride a bicycle, or any other skill we pick up in childhood. Either alone, or helped by friends, we play, fall, mess up, and play some more until we develop an appreciable facility that need not be validated by an external moderator. What keeps us going is how much fun we are having while we practice, and the sense of empowerment we get 'levelling up'.

What is left when we strip away the exam component from the H1 General Paper (GP)? For most of the fraternity, and practically all GP students, the paper and the exam are sadly indistinguishable. None would take the subject voluntarily, so it is compulsory for everyone to take. Since the exam IS the thing, no one looks beyond the exam, and every student is happy to drop it as soon as the final exam at the end of second year is taken and passed. No one forgets how to ride a bike, but GP is one and done.

If we forget the exam and stop worrying about the results, we could stop teaching 'skills' that are only relevant to the exam. Without things like 'question types', and the nit-picky 'close reading', and the excessive paraphrasing, and many other limiting, rule-bound redundancies, GP as a skill would be rather therapeutic, at the very least.

If learning skills is about fun and empowerment, then GP combines current affairs with language to the effect that our young students can grab humanity by the collar, give us a good shake, and show us how we've messed up the world for ourselves, for the planet, and for the future. The subject presents a unique opportunity for teenage angst, frustration, anxiety, and despair to have a legitimate, yet positive outlet. And when the students are done railing at humanity, they can say, 'Do you see what you've done? Do you understand what you've done? And now, you know what you need to do to make it right!'

Students are tired of being told what to do, so let's have a little fun with the exams. The questions on the exam are not for the students to answer, but rather for them to make humanity answerable for so much that has gone wrong in the world today, and to make restitution and amends thereafter. That's empowerment. And if the students can see the opportunity instead of the exam, the results will speak for themselves.

The difference between 'woke and 'cancel'

is that 'woke' engages an issue, whereas 'cancel' is an ad hominem attack on a person. How have we not figured that out yet?

Hurry up and wait

A pair of Karens behind me in line for COVID-19 shot. They are berating the poor employee who's just managing queue order about how they made the effort to "rush" down to their 9am appointment only to find that they'd have to wait in line with the rest of us plebes to get poked. They appear horrified that all of us seem to also have a 9am appointment. And now they are lamenting the inefficiencies of a system that cannot precisely tell them exactly when the doctor will see them. All this while, the employee is resignedly letting them rant in his face. And now, in a huff, they've cancelled their appointment saying they have other appointments to attend to today.

Has this precious duo never been to a clinic before? The appointment time indicates the time you are eligible to queue with everybody else. You queue to get a get a queue number, then queue some more while waiting for it to be called. When you hear your number, then it's your turn to see the medical professional for the jab. Then, as a precaution against adverse reactions to the vaccine, there's another wait for 30 mins in an observation area before being discharged. The whole process takes slightly more than an hour and a half.

So now we have a pair of loose Karens who have given up their shot at immunity from a global pandemic. There's always gotta be a few.

Almost, Impossible

Ah, Impossible meat. Served at Swensen's, the cheeseburger version is finally affordable enough to sample. Supposed to "taste like meat", I'd say it's close, but still not quite. Perhaps if a friend served it at their backyard BBQ without saying what it was, I'd unquestioningly nom it down. But seeing the item on the menu inevitably raises a comparison to the real thing. And where burger meat tastes like cow, Impossible tastes like beans.

What saved this one for me is the generous serving of cheese, fresh lettuce and raw onions between the buns. These additional flavours distracted from the veggie patty enough to simulate an authentic burger experience, but not enough to make me a convert.

A pity, since I'm at a stage when I'd gladly chow down on a veggie-based meat substitute to avoid animal slaughter, but that product is still a ways off yet in terms of cost and deliciousness.

Upsetting the balance (and everyone else in the fraternity)

We who teach argumentative writing are constantly aware of the requirement to present a 'balanced' argument. Perhaps it's the way this requirement has been phrased that we teach 'balance' as the primary objective of the written argument, but that is so out of touch with reality. As such, the way we teach kids to write arguments feels unnatural, and useless for any purpose other than for grading papers.

So we assume that arguments identify a subject in a state of disequilibrium, and that the purpose of argumentation is to return the subject to equilibrium. And perhaps the nature of our jobs contribute to this misconception, because that line of logic is less of an argument, and more of a scolding -- the kind that mollifies everybody and tells them to shake hands and make up at the end of it.

In reality, arguments exist to shake up equilibrium and cause disruption to what we assume to be 'normal'. In a state of equilibrium, there is no argument. Everyone agrees to not rock the boat, to maintain stability, and keep the status quo. Arguments arise when someone is no longer satisfied with the way things are, and raises a ruckus in hopes of making a change. Arguments advance a position to upset an existing balance, instead of forcing everyone back into a state of compliance and conformity.

Our mistake in teaching argumentative writing is in making balance the objective, rather than treating it as a means to an end. Instead, we need to teach that balance is important only so far as we are prepared to knock it all down. Balance is a pyramid of cans in a carnival game stall. Nobody approaches it to admire how well it is balanced. The attraction is to toss a ball at it and watch it explode into bits on impact. And collect the stuffed toy prize after.

Achieving balance is a lot of work, and yes, the effort is appreciated in the writing of the essay. But the fun part is in demolishing the balance which we have worked so hard to build. So, unfairly stacking the argument, as the kids like to do with the 'three points "for", one point "against"' conceit is like the same carnival pyramid of cans being nailed down on their pedestal -- no fun at all since the outcome is a foregone conclusion. So if that's what we're teaching the kids to do, ironically, what we call 'balanced' is ultimately biased from beginning to end.

Perhaps our mistaken approach is what turns off the kids from writing. We make them work for balance, but deprive them of the joy of demolishing what they have so carefully built, and sifting through the remains to find the prize: some discovery that brings a new understanding or insight to the subject of their discussion.

And that would be so much more rewarding for us to read, as well. There's always a sense that a balanced argument feels unfinished or incomplete. Like it's missing a 'so what?". Well, here's your 'so what'.

Education, the MMORPG

After the review session yesterday, from the fragments of observations other people talked about, I pieced together an analogy of how education works here, as in how it seems so successful at the early stages, then successes taper off at higher levels of development.

Our education system is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). All our kids play, or at least participate in the same game together. There are monsters to defeat, quests to undertake, and rewards to gain for every success. But it's quite a challenging, and punishing game in that it's a grind, meaning that we spend a lot of time doing repetitive, meaningless tasks to accumulate experience points (EXP) as we level up. Leveling up unlocks harder, but more rewarding challenges. Everybody wants to level up as quickly as possible to 'farm' the best rewards the game can dish out.

Most MMORPGs work this way, but our version comes with an online trading system. Advantaged players with the most resources at the start of the game immediately source out and buy the best Unique or Legendary items with which to equip themselves, even before encountering their first low-level rat-monster. Armed with the most powerful level-permitted weapon, and the toughest body-armour money can buy, players blaze through the earliest tutorial stages with ease. Their achievements are impressive, leveling up faster than the other players around the rest of the world. While most other players are still struggling with basic arithmetic, our players are already tackling rudimentary algebra. Collectively, we continue wowing the education world with players constantly topping the academic Olympiad and PISA leagues.

Our successes are based on the pay-to-win strategy that we are all complicit in. All the extra tuition, all the best assessment books, all the best IT equipment, everything money can buy that will give our players a leg-up we willingly spend on. We even pay for dubious 'cheat codes', as some tuition centres purport to offer. We believe in advantaging our players early so that they can have the best start in life. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Well, if our rapidly unlocked 'Achievements' are dependent on our money-bought equipment, then our players aren't really learning to play the game. They won't need to think around a task or puzzle, or figure out how to defeat a boss monster. You don't need to develop a strategy if you can just bludgeon a problem to death. Many of our players won't even need to consider co-op play -- since they can solo everything, why bother with the complexities of working with other people, and sharing the rewards after?

And so, for our players, education is a game in which they do nothing else but grind, level up, trade for new equipment, rinse and repeat until they max out their characters at the Level Cap -- that is, the level at which there are no higher levels to attain. At this level, our players believe they have attained "Education", and the game is over. After all, what's there to do when there are no more levels to grind for?

The thing with Education, the MMORPG, is that -- as with most MMORPGS -- the real game begins at the level cap.  At the End Game, the other players who have been learning the game instead of being 'carried' through start to shine. Having understood their characters inside-and out, and figuring out the game mechanics as they struggled through their levels, the real fun begins. They've learned to optimize their randomly-dropped equipment, and strategise around what they have instead of what they've bought to take on the toughest challenges. At this point of the game, the really good rewards are incredibly hard to find, but the sense of accomplishment is real, whereas those with a sense of entitlement are constantly frustrated by the rarity of the drops. Another reason to 'rage quit', since the game was never really very interesting for them to begin with.

What this analogy hopes to explain is how Education today seems to develop young minds so quickly and with so much promise, and yet in later life, most of them are stuck in unfulfilling, mundane job mediocrity, and are wondering where it all went wrong. So it's possible that we parents who so want to provide our children the advantages we never had growing up, could be killing their "joy of learning" with our good intentions instead.

The Black Panther: Lion King recycled?

Is it just me, or does The Black Panther seem like Disney's The Lion King in reverse?

Spoiler alert:

Mufasa (T'chaka) kills Scar (N'Jobu).

Scar's son (Killmonger) is exiled thereafter and makes friends with the Jackals (Ulysses Klaue and gang).

Meanwhile, Simba (T'chaka) becomes king, supported by his mom (Ramonda) and the spiritual Rafiki (Zuri).

Simba has a love interest in Nala (Nakia), and is friends with playful and inventive Timon (Shuri+Everett K Ross), and stubborn, charge-into-battle Pumbaa (Okoye).

Crisis happens when the exile returns to the tribe and challenges the incumbent for the throne.

In the end, House Mufasa still prevails over House Scar.

Not to take away from a great movie presenting strong nuance and food for thought, but perhaps there really aren't any new stories to tell.

The replacement

Behold the the new ride! Design-wise, it's still the same basic shape as the previous, so in a way, I feel I'm keeping the same old car, just with a heap of upgraded components.

Only got to drive him home from the dealership today, so there's not enough driving for a strong first impression. Still, there's a sense of more cabin space internally, while externally it feels slightly longer and the tiniest bit wider in bulk than I'm used to. And while the old car gave off a free-wheelin' fun vibe, this new model feels more mature in the upholstery, the safety features, energy efficiency, entertainment system, and the clean, functional dashboard display.

And because it's Chinese New Year, the dealership sent along a box of Goodwood Park pineapple tarts in the shape of ancient Chinese gold taels, each topped with a sliver of gold leaf. They offer a satisfactory bite, not crumbly and not too sweet. Best shared over a steaming pot of tea. Thanks, Mazda!

No longer mine

M2 has a new owner now. Handed over with both sets of (working) keys, manual, servicing booklet, and roadworthiness inspection documentation. His new designation: an Uber car.

Selling a car second-hand was an on-the-job learning process for me. Here is the sequence as I experienced it:

List car on online auction site. Drive over and have them photograph the car inside and out, and run tests. The car gets advertised on their website along with their report of your car's condition, according to their tests. Open bidding ensues. After 24-hours, bidding closes and the seller is informed of the highest bid. If acceptable, the auctioneer informs the bidder that the deal is on and... that's where I found myself on my own.

The bidder called me to arrange a viewing and a test drive. At this point, it would have been good for me to have had 1) downloaded a sales agreement, and 2) obtained a Transaction PIN (T PIN) from the One Motoring website, to avoid looking like such a greenhorn selling my car. Note that the T PIN is NOT to be handed over to the prospective buyer until the sales agreement is signed -- meaning that the intention to transfer ownership is confirmed.

Since I hadn't yet obtained a T PIN, I went to the LTA branch at Sin Ming. The experience was nothing like the stereotypical DMV staffed by sloths. Instead, it was over so quickly, my head was still spinning when I left, sealed T PIN in hand. Arriving there a half-hour before closing time might have helped. Maybe.

On transaction day (for me today), I exchanged the T PIN for a cheque, signed the transfer of ownership form, and we're done.

Last thing I need to do is to cancel my auto insurance policy for a pro-rated refund since the car is no longer under my name.

Sigh. Hope to see you on the roads again, old boy!

To market, to market

I feel like I'm selling a good friend off once again. M2's been a really good boy these 8 and a half years. He's given no trouble at all; and still gives fine, comfortable rides. I get speed when I want it, and confident control while corning. Compact, easy to park, manoeuvres easily around obstacles, he is difficult to give up. If it weren't for the dratted COE that limits car ownership to only 10 years, I'd keep him for years to come.

Here, I'm prepping him with an exterior wash and an interior polish so that he'd look nice and fetch a better price at the auction among 2nd hand car dealers. It feels like a betrayal, treating him so nicely now only for my personal gain. Really hope whoever takes over ownership from me appreciates the quality of this little car which has served me so well.

On a separate but related note, it's time to tell the truth about how M2 lost his original 17" stock rims and had them replaced with his first set of 15" sports rims. It was CNY 2015. On my way to work early in the morning, I made my usual U-turn towards the CTE. Sitting in the shotgun seat was a bottle of the wife's handmade CNY cookies intended for E. As I was making the turn, inertia caused the bottle to fall off its perch. I tried to catch it but in so doing, took my eyes off the road. Instead of straightening out, I kept the steering wheel on the turn. M2 mounted the central divider with a nasty bump, causing me to look up. It was horrific to see the metal railing just centimeters from my front grill. While thinking "this is it...!", I immediately yanked the wheel left. M2 responded instantly, barely avoiding disaster. The folks at the bus stop probably assumed that a stupid driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. Anyway, the initial bump tore my right front tyre, but I was still able to limp to the nearest service station. The rest of the story I'd already posted. Today, if anyone's curious about the car-shaped hole in the bushes of the central divider, yep, my bad.

Another set of wheels

Done it again. M2's getting to be 9 soon. Thought it a good idea to visit the Motor Show last weekend. Got a call today congratulating me on a successful COE bid.

That escalated quickly!

Old timer, meet new timepiece

Just arrived: my new wristpiece. As the box says, it's a Ticwatch with full Android Wear functionality.

Unboxing, the product bears a large display for which I am grateful. It has only one Home button on the left, but who needs more buttons when every other control you need is on the touchscreen?

The display is bright and clearly visible, and a relief as I am so used to squinting at my previous display, these eyes not being what they used to be. This model is the Ticwatch S, which means it comes with a lot of health apps, "S" being for "sports". One more thing to nag at me daily to get my 10K steps in. Other items in the box are a screen protector and a nifty pair of charging cables. I guess the future is here. If you see me talking to my wrist, I'm actually asking Google Assistant to take a note, make an appointment, direct me to a location, or text so-and-so.

Meantime, My old Pebble Time must have known he was soon to be replaced. Still perfectly functional, it really wasn't his time. But since his parent company got sold away, I needed to find a reliable replacement -- I just didn't expect the Ticwatch to be delivered so soon. Anyway, over the weekend, I suffered a careless misstep and fell head first into a parked bicycle. But most of the damage went to the old Pebble Time, with the now severely scratched faceplate. Guess it's his way of saying he will always be mine, now that I can't sell him off or give him away any more. I'll keep him paired with my old Note 5. Relics of yesteryear.

Making the switch to the Pixel 2 XL

Am now a happy user of the new Google Pixel 2 XL.

Straight out of the box, it's almost ready to use. Transitioning from my old phone was a breeze: all needed files, apps, and settings directly copied over via a data cable link between old and new phones. A quick re-login for social media apps on the new phone, and it's like I never left my old environment.

A quick tip for setting up the fingerprint security access: despite what the instructions say, tap your finger on the sensor. Each tap lights up a segment of a blue circle encircling the fingerprint icon. When all segments are fully blue, it's done. Now getting past the lockscreen is quick and accurate -- I haven't had my print misread even once yet.

Have yet to properly play around with the other features such as the new camera with 'portrait mode', though. My surroundings aren't all that inspiring to shoot. The 'blue shift' issue, well, I knew about it before I shelled out for it. The screen does turn perceptibly blue when viewed at an angle, but it's an imperfection I can overlook, literally.

Once again, thanks to my generous Uncle Moe for the annual provision!

Fillings, nothing more than fillings

A fully-packed day of wall-to-wall consults I had to cancel.

I’d been living with what I thought was a cavity in my molar for months. It made me chew on my left side, but occasionally a bit of stray food would get lodged in there and cause an explosion of pain inside my skull. But I have a deft tongue, good for dislodging food particles from hard-to-reach recesses in my mouth, and so the pain doesn’t last more than a couple of seconds.

Yesterday, however, something went in and the pain stayed with me for the next few hours. Definitely time to stop putting off the inevitable.

Today, I squeezed in an appointment with my dentist and expected the worst. Turns out there was no decay, but my tooth had cracked. The damage was bad enough to cause a little chunk of tooth to come loose, but not so bad as to leave the rest irreparable.

I had the sliver of tooth removed along with an existing filling which had been put in place years ago — a metallic blight against my natural enamel. Sounds painful, but I didn’t realise that was happening until it was over. The new cavity got a new filling, this time in a more natural colour. Yay!

Dentist suspects the crack might have been caused by me grinding my teeth in my sleep. There are wear marks and my canines are flattened. Next visit, we review the new filling, and barring further complications, reinforce it with a composite. Then maybe we’ll discuss the need for a night guard to deal with my night grinding.

Update 19 Jan 2018:
The repair has failed. Was crunching a McSpicy when the repaired molar split in half! Unsalvageable, it had to be extracted. Now living with a gap in the back. Dentist says that in time, my existing wisdom tooth will fill in the hole as it is growing in that direction, anyway. Haven't had an extraction since my early teens. Turns out the process was more frightening than painful. Maybe I have a good dentist?

Jaws

Had the fright of my life. It was our first ever extended family Nat Day feast. We were all anxious to sample the wife's newfound baking skills, and the BBQ that followed.

Cuz J brought around a bull terrier mix he had recently adopted -- actually saved from being put down by his previous owners. The maltipoo was on my lap when the bull came sniffing round. On catching sight of each other, the bull reared up and clamped his jaws on the 'poo, dragging her off my lap onto the ground. While the 'poo was screaming, I reacted, shoving what few fingers I could into the bull's mouth and tried to pull his jaws apart. J and son rushed over to help, the three of us tugging as hard as we could. In the back of my mind, I was wondering what damage the 'poo was suffering. She was still screaming. My forebrain kept focus on the immediate problem: open jaws, assess damage later. Somehow, the bull let go and we got a clean separation. He got an immediate time-out in the garden, while the 'poo went into the bedroom for a diagnosis. It could have been worse.The 'poo showed only bite marks on her right ear, bruised but not punctured. Lots of sympathy and comforting later and the trauma seems to have faded.

The bull will probably need more socialising to properly calibrate his IFF sensors. I'm guessing he saw the 'poo as prey -- like a large squirrel, or something -- and couldn't help himself. As for the 'poo and me, we're gonna be a bit more wary of strange dogs from now.

Cash-cade

A month ago, I had what I thought was a sudden craving to spend lots of money. Turns out, a month later, it wasn't so much a craving than a premonition. All I wanted to spend on was a new (and almost totally unnecessary) monitor with an HDMI port. Everything else was unplanned expense including repairs to Mr L33t; car maintenance; new health insurance policies; membership and late charges for a credit card I hadn't been keeping track of since I never use it; vet expenses for the cat's UTI, wedding gifts; and various entertainment expenses for out-of-town visitors. All worthy causes, no doubt, but the wallet is severely fatigued from the frequent open-close reps.

Austerity drive until next payday... which is looking so far away, at the moment.

Oversized

The new monitor finally arrived, a day late and unannounced. Just so happened I was home. So now I have a huge-ass big-screen monitor sitting on my desk, with barely enough space for my keyboard which is partially hanging off the monitor's baseplate. I might have to rethink the desktop layout, though I hate moving things about, now that everything has been let to settle for years.

At least my games are a lot more immersive, taking up way more visual real estate than before. Yay!

Pending delivery

Does anyone else feel trapped at home awaiting a delivery that's due, but with no specific prearranged time? Guess I'll just nip out for a bit. Need food...

Upgrade time!

Just for the record; my reference, really:
Upgraded Mr L33t again yesterday. He is now rockin' with the following components:
Mobo: Gigabyte AB350 Gaming-3
Processor: AMD Ryzen 1500X
RAM: 1x16GB Kingston
GPU: Gigabyte Geforce GTX1060

If there is a reason for the upgrade, it's due to a system crash that I was unable to diagnose towards a specific fault. What was clear that my secondary drive with all my data was one of the contributing factors. And, yes, I had eliminated that possibility in my testing and the system was still unable to boot.

Good news: Although I assumed the worst in being unable to recover my data files, I had backed them up on a portable drive and was pleasantly surprised to serendipitously rediscover them today. No questions asked, just re-backed them up on a new drive, just to be safe.

And tomorrow, the new monitor is scheduled to be delivered...

Are you normal?

No one wants to be normal in Singapore. A 'normal' person takes 5 years to complete secondary education. That's too slow. Not when 'express' only takes 4 years. If a person has to take an extra year to be schooled, they must be stupid and are an embarrassment to their parents who will never be able to hold their heads up again among their contemporaries, all of whom have 'express' children.

Faith Ng's play, Normal, directed by Claire Wong, focuses on two students in their 5th and final year of secondary education. Daphne blanked out after studying too hard at her Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE), while Ashley obtained less-than-outstanding results at the same exam -- which they took when they were 12 -- thus qualifying them both as 'normal', and nothing more.

Like every other normal student, they bear the label as a stigma. They have little confidence in their own abilities. Their well-meaning teachers' insistence on upbraiding them on their attire, punctuality and decorum at every slight infraction is simply focused on making the normals conform in outward appearance, but does little to challenge them intellectually where academic learning really counts. As such, with every school day feeling like prison, the normals feel increasingly convinced that they will end up not graduating and their lives will be over.

Unlike the other teachers they have encountered, the new literature teacher who runs the Drama Club takes a different approach with the normals. She believes in them and helps them work out their fears, anxieties and frustrations through theatre and convinces them that they can succeed in the end. But in a plot reminiscent of Dead Poets Society (1989), Ms Hue is alone in her efforts and the system beats down on everyone eventually.

The play is beautifully set. There is the main playing area in which all the action takes place, while a corridor runs behind it framed to look like school chalkboards when lit in front, but becomes transparent when lit from the back (the magic of sharkstooth scrim), revealing the ensemble engaged in a variety of school activities. In a genius piece of lighting design, this corridor-frame is uplit at both ends, casting a shadow that creates the illusion of an old school tower on the upper back wall of the stage.

A snappy script keeps moments of tension, bleak humour, and awkward tenderness flowing at a brisk pace. Scene transitions are done by the cast in low light while singing familiar girls' school songs -- efficient, entertaining and relevant. The dialogue is liberally peppered with colloquial vulgarities, which could be shocking -- if we didn't already know that schoolgirls actually do speak like that. However, in performance, because the dialogue is delivered in perfect English, the colloquialisms feel a little forced and incongruous to the lines. 'Natural' speech is still a paradox local theatre here has yet to figure out. Nevertheless, the few soliloquies at the end are vivid in their revelations of past history leading up to the decision the normals make when events that have transpired cause them believe that kindness has turned to betrayal.

For a play that turns a critical eye on the rigidity of the education system and how it adversely pigeonholes people seemingly for life, it is disappointing that the normals make the decision that they do. The characters of Daphne and Ashley are built strongly and sympathetically. As such, it seems a bit of a stretch that they would succumb to their circumstance rather than rise above it. Perhaps that is the point: that the system wastes much human potential. Like the Alpha, Beta castes of Huxley's A Brave New World (1932), the system gives few opportunities for 'late-bloomers' to excel, or even bloom at all.

But it isn't so much the system that finally drives Ashley's decision as much as her own persecution complex which locks her in a vicious cycle, causing her to interpret every interaction with her teachers as hostile, and escalating that hostility with her own defensive reactions. If Ashley is the architect of her own fate while 22 of her classmates are able to move on from where they are, then the character of Ashley is only there to play the stereotype, pander to audience expectations, and raise sympathy rather than deal with the real flaws of inequality and injustice inherent in a system that is ironically supposed to support meritocracy.

Otherwise, Normal is an excellent and realistic view of school from both student and teacher perspectives. While teachers are well-meaning at heart, their personal biases and choices in responding to their students can be very cruel, indeed.

Review originally published on https://tsupp.wordpress.com (26 March 2017)

Cake in a box

He hears, "put the cake in the box."

She means, "putthecakeintheboxthatIgotfromDaisobutdon'tteartheoriginalpackagingwhichhasinstructionsonhowtousetheboxproperlyandbesidesIwanttogivethewholethingtoCousinSallyasaChristmaspresentsopleasemakesureIcanresealthepackagingsoitstilllooksintactandnotlooklikeit'sbeenopenedbefore."

He puts the cake in the box.

She goes ballistic.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Essay: Are foreigners essential to a country's progress?

While others are groaning over a possibly apocalyptic US election result, I'm just going to share another freestyle essay and a self-critique. 'Freestyle' means no plan, just pure improvisation over a 90 minute time limit. And, yes, I do in that span of time allow pauses to compose my thoughts and make edits along the way.

The essay question as follows:
To what extent are foreigners essential to a country's progress? Discuss with reference to your society.

The essay here:
http://tinyurl.com/oz6y3gn

And the self-critique:

Clearly not a standard essay for the General Paper. With no plan, I let the scope of this essay go out of control and ran into trouble bringing the argument back into focus. The definition of 'foreigners' was difficult to nail down as the concept is more abstract than I had anticipated. While the simple idea of a foreigner is someone born outside of local borders, the conception of 'foreigner' is just as telling of a mindset as it is a place of birth. Besides, how does one discuss a relative thing like 'progress'? So many things to establish even before I can begin to make a case. By the time I got to make 'reference to your society', it was really the tail end of what I could manage within the time allotted. As such, the conclusion tries to make a point I hadn't had time to fully develop, ending on a hyperbole with little to no substantiation. And, yes, some evidence is contrived as well. As for balance, well, a resource is either essential (absolutely must have) or not essential (can live without it) and cannot be partially essential (which makes no logical sense at all). I chose to argue 'essential'. Being decisive motivates a stronger argument than being placatory.