Last invig this morning, which means I'm officially on vacation! Well, apart from some personal administration to take care of, that is. Still, I'm on my own time now and let next year bring what it will bring.

Boring ol' me spent the day with HL2 again. The current challenge is to defeat a whole bunch of 'striders,' immensely tall, spindly-legged mobile gun platforms. My 3 surviving squad mates are armed with 2 rocket launchers and a machine gun. My own rocket launcher is out of ammo, so I haven't a prayer of taking down a strider that's now blocking my path. The 2 idiots with rocket launchers refuse to engage the strider on grounds that their life expectancy would be significantly reduced if they did. So I'm a bit stuck. Maybe I should run out of the hole I'm hiding in and see if there are any spare rockets conveniently lying around just begging to be used. Not today, though. Gotta save some action for tomorrow too.

Finished duty early, about 10:45 am, so I went into Orchard Road for an early lunch before meeting Sham. It's been a long while since I went into Orchard by myself. These days, I hardly have a reason to go there at all.

Lunched at Pastamania, Scotts. Ordered prawns n 'shrooms on penne in a white wine sauce. Though the pasta was slightly underdone, on the whole it didn't disappoint. Prawns firm and fresh, 'shrooms, flavourful. The dish could use a handful of finely sliced raw button mushrooms for added texture and taste, but not many people would accept raw mushrooms on their plate.

Met Sham over a macchiato. It's good to discuss our ideas with an experienced scriptwriter. She kept us focused on the important details, avoiding distractions and complications, and in the end we created a workable storyline. Jane and Arron will learn a lot from working with her. I feel a lot more confident now about Drama Night '05.

Got home and it was back to HL2. The stages of driving vehicles is over. Squad-play is the next thing. There's nothing like having an ever-respawning group of alien monsters you can use as cannon-fodder to take flak on your behalf. They're loyal and mindless and they take out lots of enemy with ruthless efficiency. Having a squad of human beings is a little different. You want to take care of your human buddies 'cos you know they're not replaceable. So far, I've experienced both styles of squad mates. Doom 3 is such a lonely experience in comparison.

HL2 is already affecting my dreams. Last night I dreamt that the Earth was being invaded by alien spiders. I fought the invasion valiantly but it was a lost cause. Spider venom turned people into green-skinned, happy, zombie-like beings with no other thought in their minds than picking fruit from trees. At the end, I didn't make it. I was murdered by a fellow human being who thought I was burgling his house. I shouldn't have bothered.

Oh my! Wednesday already? Spent the whole day with Half-Life 2, immediately after invigilation, that is. Awesome game! Such detailed graphics, brightly lit outdoor spaces making the dark corners even more creepy by contrast. Clever puzzles to find pathways through the story, though tough, so far I've been able to figure them out through observation of the environment and occasionally blind trial and error.

The tension in the zombie chapter was way high, with an unending swarm of respawning zombies and rapidly depleting ammo adding pressure to finding the way out to the next checkpoint that much more terrifying. We get to drive vehicles too, and fire unlimited rounds at all and sundry from the mounted weapons. Steering is a little odd, using keys that I'm not used to 'cos I use a different set playing NFS:UG2. The buggy tends to get hung up a lot and even overturns if you aren't careful driving it. Here's a tip: use your gravity gun to get it upright again fast.

How absorbing and atmospheric is HL2? Well, Momo was sleeping in the beanbag behind my chair last night while I was killing um... things. I was concentrating so hard, I didn't hear June coming in to surprise Momo. All of a sudden, I noticed a long haired shoulder-height head appearing from behind my left shoulder. I screamed. She screamed. We clutched our own hearts for a moment then burst into relieved laughter. Momo slept right through it all.

The right key on Watson's keyboard has lost a corner. I must have rubbed it smooth through years of continuous use. Just noticed it.

I hate head crabs!

Looks like another mad week including the coming weekend. Only day to rest up might be tomorrow, Tuesday, and I intend to make the most of it.

Today I was working out the Drama Club's Action Plan for 2005, discussing the club's budget with the new Arts Coordinator, and being briefed about my role in this year's LTC (though I never wanted to ever participate in one of these things -- the Great Outdoors holds little promise for a city-boy like me).

The Action Plan is an annual administrative exercise to justify the activities we intend to carry out in the coming year. It also needs to factor in facilities and logistics needed, working backwards from the club's main event, Drama Night. Much of this practical planning is heavily dependent on our script which, as I speak, is still being mulled over by our budding student scriptwriters who may be in over their heads with this task.

It's time to call in the professionals, and this morning, I was lucky enough to contact an old friend, Sham, who is willing to give us a hand. Depending on the amount and scope of work required, her rates range from a coffee to, "um... haven't thought about it yet." At this point in time, my estimate is that what she can do for us will be worth at least a plantation or two. If she's helping, it's a load off my mind. Phew.

My replacement credit card arrived a couple of days ago with the instruction to use it within a fortnight, presumably to see if it is working. I tested it out at Swenson's over dinner. Their special this month is a mixed grill comprising a small steak, chicken, catfish and a couple of sausages. I like my steaks (bloody) rare, so a steak grilled to charcoal perfection isn't my idea of good meat. Also a lack of lamb chops takes a certain something away from the concept. Nevertheless, I was feeling carnivorous and a platter of sizzling animal matter, whatever the condition, made me happy and I wasn't about to complain.

Oh yeah. The credit card works!

Viewed Please Teach Me English on DVD. Forced to choose an English nickname for her English class, our heroine comes up with "Candy" in an effort to break away from the plain Jane image that the class, and everyone else around her attribute to her. Candy is hyperimaginative, like Ally McBeal, and she lives in a fantasy world of romance and where real-life conflicts present themselves to her as impossible-to-beat video games or as overblown action dramas.

In class, Candy finally meets the boy she's "been waiting for." Elvis flirts with every woman he encounters; hence much of the story is about Candy's different efforts to get him interested in her exclusively. Sometimes she tries too hard, like when she commandeers a public bus to tail him when she suspects he is going to have a secret rendezvous with pretty blonde Cathy, their English teacher.

The movie pokes fun at the Korean's absurdly high regard for "public officials," and considers the need and value of learning English, a foreign language, in one's own native country -- which sounds better and more sincere to a Korean, "I love you," or "sarang he?" There is emphasis on strong family bonds, and it is also quite clear that learning the English language is not a result of Western cultural imperialism, but rather a reflection of the reality of the times; and that native English speakers (i.e., Europeans) are equally keen to master the Korean language as well.

Quite a fun movie with laughs and some melodrama, perhaps cliched in places, but it helped pass an afternoon easily.

Connie's "N1 Synergy" thing was at the Library@Esplanade this afternoon. She had tapped me way in advance about this and I promised her a 10 minute mime demo and another 10 minutes of interactive talk time with the audience.

I intended to work on my demo as soon as the 'A's began but I didn't actually start rehearsing anything till this morning after June left for her follow-up eye exam at TTSH. It's not that I created something from scratch: these were a couple of skits that I've wanted to play for a long time, but never found an audience for them until today. No... actually, I have shown them during one of the JC1 GP lectures early this year, but in a completely unrehearsed, unpolished form to a captive audience. About 1+ hours' polishing went into the skits this morning then it had to do for the library's audience.

2 skits, one entitled, "Burglary," and the other, "Quality Time," debuted in front of a 'live' and mobile audience this afternoon. "Burglary," is quite straightforward. A pared-down version of a previous solo skit I devised a very long time ago. In this version, the burglary is carried out as the burglar finds solutions to opening various doors he finds placed as obstacles in front of him. "Quality Time," came out of an improv session also a long time ago and it deals with the complex relationship between a father and a son.

Both skits still feel rough and raw. What can you expect from only 1+ hours' rehearsal time? Tina would say that they are still full of "frou-frou" movements, meaning that there are still many incidental, unintended movements and gestures that mess up the story. Not pared-down minimally enough, in other words. Connie got it all on video, so I'd like to borrow the tape and see for myself just what the audience saw... and cringe.

The programme ended way earlier than expected. The poetry recitals lasted a fraction of the time that was budgeted for, so I had to extend my audience yak for far longer than the expected 10 minutes. I guessed this might happen, so I took the opportunity to give a rather reluctant audience a few pointers about "creating objects in space." Elements of shape, size, pliability (stiffness), and weight (or mass, or resistance) are essential to creating the believability of an invisible thing (ball, box, door, cup, etc.). So I got the audience slightly freaked out passing invisible objects among themselves.

If not for the enthusiasm of a little tourist boy and his Mom seated in the front row, my fellow performers in the back (Shan and entourage, Jane, and Anne) and a local kid who was watching though he wasn't even in the audience (he was seated in the cafe), I would have lost steam partway through my spiel. I still had to end the session earlier than budgeted 'cos I was running out of things to occupy the audience with, but I think at least I quit while I was ahead. That is, while I still had an audience.

Spent the rest of the evening wandering around Suntec City with June who came to support me. Bless her. Dinner at Kenny Roger's. June bought a clutch bag made of authentic kimono material in preparation for the prom. We also bought 2 Korean movie DVDs (2 for $30) at Blue Max. Teach Me English was playing on their plasma display and it looked quirky enough to catch our attention. I picked up Natural City to see how the Koreans interpret sci-fi. Also bought a bunch of fruit and vegetables from Carrefour 'cos they were cheap.

Oh yeah. Also Half-Life 2 is up and running. Once again, I'm feeling the effects of motion sickness so I'm sticking to Easy mode and playing only in small chunks at a time. 'scuse me, head crabs need my attention...

Had to swap out of invig duty today to attend the department meeting this morning. Invig has been so boring so far that it was a welcome break to meet everyone in the department again even though it was the same old meeting -- the kind that promises us that we're going to be even more busy than ever before. In business circles this is good news, but we aren't in that kind of business. Still, at least we can say we'll be safely employed for at least another year.

1000 students. 2 choices: to take 3 GP + 2 PW classes; or 4 GP + 1 PW and no CT. I opted for the latter. There are a few additional department duties to share out as well, like a committee to look into how to do up our GP "home" rooms properly, and a committee to improve our English language standards. Grammar Nazi Mei, how would you like to come back as a relief and help us out here?

We figured out our resource teams, our lecture teams and broke off by level (JC1, JC2) to discuss things in further detail. At JC1 level we did some brainstorming, mindmapping, big-picture scenario visualizing, then decided that Term 1 next year would be a good deadline to get all our resource packages done and disseminated. Simple, fast, efficient, decisive. Lunch and bowling to follow.

Lunch with Vince and Anthony was at the Roti Prata House on Thomson Road. Crispy prata, rich curry dip, though it took quite a long time for my order to arrive. They must have been timing it for Cara's arrival. Hurmph. Amy, Bee and HP joined us even later, after yet another short meeting following the Department one.

Finally got to use Anthony's cheap bowling coupon at Victor's Superbowl, Marina South. Average pinfall for me though I can't remember exact numbers now. We coached Bee (haven't bowled since 14) and HP (1st time bowler) and they made some good progress though they really need more practice. Our bowling "graduates" Amy and Cara maintained their form, Cara bowling impressively well, considering she hasn't bowled for months. Her 1st rolls are dead straight down-the-middle rockets which don't leave many pins standing for her next roll. She still needs to work on getting her spares, though.

Picked up Half-Life 2 on my way home. No time to load it up tonight but at least I know I have it, heh heh.

Oli is gone from Idol. A victim of the numbers game, and as June correctly predicted, she didn't lose out because she lacked talent. She lost out 'cos she didn't have the market support that Sly's xiao3 mei4 mei4 fanbase gave him. Oli appeals to a more mature taste, the kind that appreciates her music but is too mature to do anything trivial like, oh... maybe vote for her? Sly's fans are more in tune with SMS culture and think nothing of casting repeat votes on a whim. No surprise result tonight. Oli's good; she just won't sell as many records as the pretty-boy. Sad, but realistic.

Well, that's it. It's been about 24 hours since we repatriated Flirt. We thought the parting would be traumatic, as she has been accustomed to the good life over the last 3 weeks. But she seemed quite happy to go home. At first, she didn't know exactly where she was because of the upgrading being done to the Square where she lived. When she climbed out of her basket, things were looking familiar and she ran off to explore the rest of her environment without a look back to us. Her old boyfriend, Skull, was there to welcome her back along with the rest of her family, so it was something of a reunion.

Here, free at last, she can go search for a suitable place to deliver Girlfriend's grandchildren, and raise them, as she was meant to, in the wild. OK. That's a bit romanticized. Whatever. Her kittens have a better chance of survival now. If we had gone ahead with her spaying, we would have had to terminate her pregnancy too and I was really feeling uncomfortable about that. Now, I feel much better.

June's got her left eye lasiked, tomorrow, her right. Everything looks good so far, heh, literally speaking.

Chemistry invigilation. Invigilated for one (1) candidate, all alone in the classroom, everyone else being in the hall. For some reason, this one candidate has requested isolation. Perhaps she gets too distracted when other people are around her. I overheard that she's expected to do super well, so that's probably why they're entertaining her request.

Supposed to go bowling at Superbowl (Marina South) to make use of Anthony's cheap bowling coupon. Anthony suddenly became too busy, so we called it off.

Half-Life 2 is supposed to have been released today. Too lazy to go down to SL Square. What's the rush, anyway? Actually, I got annoyed because at the time I wanted to go into town there happened to be an unusual dearth of taxis, and people kept jumping in front of me to steal MY taxi. Got fed up and went home instead. Ah well, saved roughly $60 bucks today, not counting transport, so I'm not too unhappy about it.

Oh, and Happy Birthday, 'rah! Hope the day was memorable and eventful for you, exam notwithstanding!

Everytime I think Watson is finally running properly, something happens to quickly dispell that illusion. Sunday night I had just purchased a brand new yellow Hummer H2 and was happily driving it around town raising havok as usual when my screen suddenly went blank. On-off, on-off, and the only thing that Watson could do was spin his fans and light up his LEDs. Motherboard dead.

I wonder if all this is happening because I keep opening him up, messing around with his insides ever so often? But if he didn't crap out so much, I wouldn't have to, would I?

Brought him to my dealer yesterday but the service centre was closed for the holiday (oh yeah, happy Hari Raya!). Dealer confirmed this morning that the motherboard was at fault. Had to buy a new one with compatible memory and pay for service as well. This mon... week has been amazingly expensive. Please, no further expenses, ok?

Multiple entries today. Let's start with Shark Tale and The Incredibles. Both animated movies are entertaining, coincidentally (or not) about the same theme: attempting to gain social acceptance by pretendng to be what one is not. In ST, Oscar makes himself out to be a superhero "Sharkslayer" when he is actually at the "bottom of the food chain, lower than whale poo." Mr Incredible and family are forced to live out their existence as ordinary folk, when in fact they are so much more.

Same theme different approach. ST offers hope that no matter how lowly we appear to be, we will always be "somebody" as long as we are true to ourselves. TI's hope is in that no matter how held back we feel, we are individually special and when we take the opportunity to use our gifts we can change our environment for the better.

Both movies acknowledge that it is in mutual acceptance of and cooperation with the people we are closest to (in ST, even if they are people we conflict with on a daily basis), that's when society actually begins to take notice of us. After all, if we don't acknowledge the ones who love us for who we are, who else in the world will acknowledge us?

One last thing: I wonder if the Incredibles are a tip of the hat to the first family of the superhero universe? They have almost the exact same powers as the Fantastic Four -- elasticity, superhuman strength, invisibility/psionic projection but in a different combination. Even the costume design and properties are similar to the FF's. Wonder how Marvel is going to react to this?

Does this look like a cat with liver problems to you?

Flirt's condition hasn't improved, according to our vet. He recommends that it will be in her best interest to allow her pregnancy to come to term and then after she heals up we can consider spaying her. In the meantime, he has prescribed a special diet for her which we are to administer over the next two weeks. This is going to be a problem as our two existing cats seem to be increasingly hostile to Flirt and the fact that we will be in Oz around the time of her delivery means that we can't look after the new kittens when they come.

Possible solutions:
Anyone interested in offering a good home to a cute (though short tailed) young feline mother and her kittens, please apply immediately to me. Now. Or...
We will return Flirt to where she came from after a week of further treatment and let her deliver naturally, like in the way her mother delivered her.
Can there be any other viable alternatives?

Q-tip's new look

This sad looking chihuahua is actully Q-tip shorn of all fluff. She's developed a skin allergy, to what the vet doesn't know except that there's some bacterium involved. Apparently it's a common problem amongst the maltese breed. He's prescribed her an antibiotics course and hopefully it'll clear up soon and she will have a new coat to wear come the New Year.

Pix courtesy of Naughty By Nature

June "won" a $550 voucher for a makeover/glamour photoshoot from image consultants, Naughty by Nature. The voucher included makeover for spouse as well so since we didn't get our wedding shoot done we took the opportunuty to do a glamour shoot instead.

Quite obviously, most of the cosmetic retouching went to the wife whereas I had to content myself with a layer of foundation and a dash of lip gloss. It isn't usually a good idea to outshine the wife in a glam shoot, is it? It was her prize anyway.

We were in a quandry over what clothes to wear since we don't have anything "nice." So we went informally, hence the above.

Warm, friendly, chatty staff. Makeover and shoot were free, but to get the results in a professionally done package it cost quite a bit. $1,288 for a graphically enhanced (eyebags, blemishes removed, etc.) leather-bound damage-resistant album, 2 poster sized shots of our choice, 1 desktop shot of our choice, a CD-ROM containing all our shots (nice or not) and including a major discount if immediately paid for in full.

When it came time to pay, I discovered that my credit card had lost one corner and it was split all the way along the magnetic strip. Nestled in my wallet, it had unsuccessfully tried to take the shape of my butt and pathetically perished in the attempt. I had to max out my NETS and June came to the rescue with her credit card to pay off the balance. Must remember to reimburse her quickly as there is yet another major expense coming up soon. June's lasik treatment this coming weekend.

This year's AWS is going to be most welcome.

Went in to college and it's still a madhouse. Staff still busy with assessments, but there is an excitement in the air, like we're working on our own time, free and easy, and we're all upbeat because we are already in vacation mood.

Met Pete along with the other NYeDC advisors to work on next year's budget. Pete has some really good ideas for the club, and it's gratifying to know that he is on the same wavelength as me regarding the club's future direction. While we're budgeting for 2005, our plans extend to 2006 where we might just see a difference in the nature and operation of the club. A new professionalism will be the name of the game, and I hope we're not being too ambitious about it.

Picked up NFSU2 and while it is a free-to-explore city to drive around in, Exploration Mode is only our interface to finding races and upgrading and modifying our cars. The actual races are still on rails, but this way it seems to be the best of both worlds. Freedom to choose whatever you want to do, yet when the choice is made, the path to the objective is made clear, without getting lost in a mass of further choices. A lesson for us in education, perhaps?

Leaving the house soon. My brainwave for tonight: watch a late screening of Shark Tale which we will time to end so that we can catch The Incredibles immediately after. Animation double-bill. Be back soon!

Happy Deepavali, y'all! Took advantage of the public holiday to sleep in till about 9am. What luxury. Didn't really do much after that. We were quite bored facing the prospect of spending the day in front of the TV (and Watson, respectively) so we explored Ikea which was crowded like they were giving stuff away for free or something.

The first sight that greeted us was this long line of people loaded up with armsful of merchandise waiting for a taxi. The line stretched beyond the DIY hardware store on the ground floor, and loads of other shoppers pursuing other objectives packed out the place.

Of course we had to go against the current, entering at the POS and work our way backwards to the cafe where we rewarded ourselves with the usual, Swedish Meatballs and deep fried chicken wings. With the meatballs swimming in thick, creamy brown gravy, cranberry sauce on the side and 'taters for padding; and hot, juicy, oily crispy chicken, I'm not entirely sure the meal was healthy, but we were disciplined. No dessert.

We bought 6 packs of curtain rail mountings which we'll use to support the curtains June brought back from BKK. We also bought a plastic wall-mounted container, which I believe June will stick a fern into someday; and a length of Christmas tinselly stuff to make our place look a little more seasonal.

Christmas will be here soon! Yay!

Ahh... testimonials finished and I don't have to carry this guilty feeling around any longer. Let's see, in 03A2 there are some musicians, a couple of performance artists, an artisan, a pastry chef, a [media] critic, a number of athletes, a couple of teachers, and a few others who haven't quite found themselves yet. Have fun guessing who's who.

Next on the agenda: devise a mime demo for Connie's performing arts um... thing at the Esplanade Library next week; begin an e-project for English Dept; start training NYeDC for next year's Drama Night; and maybe someday get around to clearing my desk of junk and trash too. No rest for the wicked, eh?

Oh, the new staff posting to NYeDC is official. Cara's gone (Ministry); and Yee's gone (Library and Pre-U Sem need him too badly). Meet the new head of NYeDC (yipes!); and joining me are Mel and Peter K. Amongst the 3 of us, I hope at least 1 of us can be the organized, adminstratively inclined one. Guess I'd better start brushing up on Producer skills then. Sigh.

Wanted to check out the PC game shops this evening 'cos I heard NFS:U2 has been released! I hope there's going to be a completely driveable cityscape this time rather than a city-on-rails like it was before. *I checked: "Free-Roaming City," I guess that means yes; hurrah!

PC shops around the Yishun, Bishan area just aren't up-to-date though. I think I'm going to wait a week, then get NFS:U2 together with HL 2. Won't that be a blast? Watson needs a serious workout. Neopets games don't do his capabilities any justice.

Sleep tight, folks. For me tonight, I know I will.

College is still buzzing with activity. The J1 tutors are still hard at work with PW assessment and the word, 'vacation,' still doesn't mean much to anyone. And here I was, expecting to find a little peace and quiet to get my testimonials out.

Testimonial survival tips:
Look up the central database of comments that other tutors have written about your students.
Also look up the database of CCA records and PFT results.
Locate relevant info, copy, paste and edit as necessary.
Recall events or impressions of students that are not recorded anywhere and use this info to 'customize' each testimonial.
Where info duplicates, copy, paste, edit as necessary.
For 'difficult' individuals, save them to the last. By then there should be sufficient material from which to copy, paste... you get the drill.

Will my testimonials be ready by the new deadline? Hell, yeah! They won't be works of art, but they're honest, unbiased accounts put together from many different viewpoints, so they should be quite objective too.

Had a big scare looking at my invigilation schedule today. 3 hour paper and it looked like I was going to be relieved for only 20 minutes. That seemed quite inhuman, and I began wondering how a eulogy would sound like for someone who had died of boredom. "Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant," I silently acknowledged the Chief Invig. Fortunately for me, I had misread the schedule (it was a confusing piece of paper) and my relief was for 80 minutes in 2 separate blocks. Sense prevails!

Maybe next time I'll opt to invigilate at AJ, not because there's anything wrong with YJ, but because more of the people I hang out with have gone there (at least I think so). There's little advantage as far as commuting time is concerned and it's really dull just getting the day's duty done, then not even a sociable lunch to look forward to after that.

I wanted to go back to college to work after duty this morning, but then it looked like it was about to rain. I couldn't get a cab as it seemed to be that time of day when everybody else wants a cab too, and so I got lazy and went home instead. Thought I could work just as easily at home as in college. Uh huh.

I want a real vacation.

I mentioned I needed to get started on my testimonial writing at least a couple of weeks back, but as of last Friday's deadline, I still haven't got them done yet. With so many other more immediate concerns to deal with, it's hard to see how testimonials that will be distributed next year can have much priority. Good thing the deadline has been pushed back to a later date; time is still on my side.

Anyway, I've been sort of working hard on them this weekend, and stressing myself out choosing the 'right' words to say what I feel about 03A2. Partly it's because I'm such a perfectionist when it comes to writing that I feel the compulsion to make a simple letter of reference sound 'good.' Then I get frustrated and discouraged when the words don't sing. Paralysis sets in, and I'm back to the Neopets website again regaining satisfaction by achieving easier goals (I won a 2nd place trophy for Meriball, imagine that!).

This attitude isn't helping me reach my deadline, though. I have to remember that it's more important to state facts that will help a potential employer make a decision rather than blow people away with literary flamboyance. The testimonials are about my students, not about me.

Right. Just the facts, then.