Can't see the forest for the trees

Went into the forest to meet our NParks rep for a hands-on session of ecological conservation, and our community service for the year.

Our job was to clear "foreign" plants that have taken root all over our previously pristine tropical rainforest and are now competing with the indigenous species for the same resources.

Wielding cangkuls we trudged through mud and soil to hack away at the ground, creating lots more mud and soil, this time of the airborne variety. Dig deep enough holes, break a few supporting roots, and the offending foreigners no longer have the will to stay in the ground.

Thus, we uprooted quite a few stubborn unwelcome invaders. But it was an intense afternoon workout doing so. Drenched in sweat, caked in mud, ant-bitten, and for all we did, we only cleared just a tiny, tiny section of our entire nature reserve.

Like it or not, it looks like the foreigners are here to stay. And no, that's not intended as a metaphor for any outstanding local issue commonly discussed in kopitiams and ST Forum pages. So don't anyhow quote me, ok?

Wavve hello!

Dinner at Wavve, a grill & chill place at the spanking new Orange Tee Building. I never even noticed it being built, yet there it was. The occasion was a birthday for whom the Guest of Honour arrived round about the time we were contemplating our dessert options. Traffic's dreadful when you're in a hurry.

Good opportunity to indulge the inner carnivore. My lamb rack went minimal on the greens (the leaf I accidentally dropped on my shirt counted as a significant loss) but the chunks of lamb on each of the three bones were decently substantial. It was all I could do to avoid gripping the bones in my clawed digits and rending flesh with my canines. But I was with polite company, so it was a civilized application of cutlery as usual. June gave me half her sirloin too, making a happy predator for the evening.

Our table went for almost the whole range of desserts to share. The creme brulee, profiteroles and tiramisu made their rounds... no, wait, the creme brulee was mine exclusively, ha ha! The desserts were light, not too sweet, the way we like.

Price wise it's ok for a finer-than-usual once-in-a-while meal. $70 paid for my share of birthday boy and his date's dinners as well as fully for June's and mine. Not bad.

Parenting according to Gru

Parenting, according to Gru, is a simple process. Take care of basic needs: "food, water, poo poo & pee pee". Take care of intellectual needs: basic education (dance class). Take care of higher needs: recreation and emotional bonding. Despite himself, he gets the childcare right -- a textbook Hierarchy of Needs met to Maslow's specifications.

Gru has no plans "for their good". On the contrary, his plans are entirely self-serving. His adopted orphans are simply a means to an end. Their safety and well-being are taken at the basic minimum standards, knowing that he can dispose of them when they have fulfilled his requirements of them. How heinous.

Why do we face a declining fertility rate in our country and in many other developed nations around the world? Because we want to be good parents. Gru is a monster in his regard for childcare principles, but he's got three kids while the rest of us have... significantly less.

As good parents, we place our kids first above all, ourselves included. We plan far ahead into their future, shape them according to what we have determined is best for them, and raise them like we're never going to let them go. We know about hygiene and health, about discipline do's and don't's, about child psychology and labels like ADHD and OCD which we identify in children and lament how we have failed them somewhere, somehow.

Our modern model of childcare looks really good. We've taken care of every aspect of child-rearing that practically guarantees healthy, happy kids that will grow into healthy, happy adults. Now, if only we had some kids to work our plans on.

Throwing punches

Sully has a new kind of training to add to my repertoire: boxing. Today I learned the basic movements to maintain a stable base from which to launch my deadly arsenal of jabs and crosses. I'd always thought I was a good scrapper, but when put to the test today my technique left much to be desired. Stance too easily sent off-balance; lax defending exposes my glass jaw to counter-attack; difficulty stringing jab-cross-duck combos together being too anxious to punch and not anxious enough to duck, or getting my limbs all tangled up due to a lack of coordination. What a pushover I'd be in a real fight, despite my illusions to the contrary. Lots more training to be done still.

RHD skit

The latest batch of Drama Club kids have taken the reins. Their first official performance was a short skit for Racial Harmony Day. They had only one week to script, rehearse and polish, but they were all gung-ho go-for-it. We seldom see this kind of enthusiasm, so we let them run with it.

First rehearsal, we had a basic outline. The characters were caricatures of our national ethnic stereotypes, the plot was thin, the resolution fuzzy at best. Definitely still needed a lot of work before it could be ready for show.

During rehearsal, my biggest worry was that the stereotypes would stand out stronger than the theme we had been commissioned to convey. True enough (as I hear from the grapevine), the kids played it for laughs, going over-the-top with their characters -- Chinese boy in particular -- resulting in a greatly mixed reaction from the audience. The kids in the audience seemed somewhat tickled, but the staff were aghast by the colour of the language used onstage, the resolution was still vague and inconclusive.

Great learning opportunity for our little aspiring artists: improv is fantastic for rehearsals because it always adds new dimensions to the development of a scene, character or plot; but there is no place for ad libbing during the performance of a commissioned piece.

Like it or not, the sponsor does not care for artistic licence or pointless, raucous comedy. The sponsor wants a specific message to get through to the audience, that's all. At least, don't do anything to embarrass the sponsor by association. Fail to deliver and face the curtailment of funding or even a lawsuit. We're lucky such consequences are not looking for us as a result of this performance.

Again, from what I hear, the audience did learn something from our performance: Chinese boy's ad libbed expletive-laden phraseology. Which wasn't exceptionally vulgar, but still, not the kind of language to use in polite company.

Sigh. They've only just started ,and already so much damage we need to get under control.

Wake of a stranger

Attended the wake of a stranger. We didn't know her personally, but she was a fellow volunteer at Gift of Love who passed away suddenly over the last couple of days. From what we've been hearing, Mdm W Wong was there twice to three times a week cooking for the residents, shuttling the sisters around on their errands and driving the ambulance as the need arose. The hole she has left behind is a big one to fill.

But as the Father who led this morning's service did not present a eulogy, neither will I. Instead, like him, I will present my own homily. The circumstances surrounding Mdm W's passing were as such: she'd been complaining of severe pains in her stomach for some time, though she put off seeking medical advice. When the pain finally became unbearable, it was too late. As I understand the story, appendicitis killed her. Her passing was all the more tragic as it might have been avoided with a simple medical procedure, had she sought attention early enough.

Mdm W really did give her all to follow the command of "love your neighbour...", and if more of us did likewise, that could help us solve  a lot of our human social problems. But we also need to remember the follow up to this Mosaic injunction, "... as yourself" (Lev 19:18). Yes, it's good to place other's needs before our own, but if we aren't feeling well, we should love ourselves too, and break off helping others at least long enough to find out what's wrong first, fix the problem, then go back and continue helping others.

We people need to be needed. Being able to lend a hand, or to be depended upon for one thing or another is an uplifting experience, one we wish to continue experiencing. Whether it's bringing food to old folks or consulting worried students after class, it feels good to be able to fill that need and contribute to another person's well-being. But as volunteers and teachers, let's also be mindful of our physical and psychological health, and step back for a while as and when we are tired or sick. There will always be someone else that can fill in for us, so the choice is ours: do we want our position filled temporarily, or permanently?

If we build it, they will come (eventually)

Quite a large group of soccer legends from past days of glory showed up on our campus field for a game. It was reminiscent of 'Field of Dreams', though it took more than three decades after we had built it for them to come. Some names like Abbas, Rafi and Tong Hai were familiar as were their faces, but others like Samad, Rajagopal and T Pathma had greyed beyond recognition, except to the more senior of us.

Greyed out or not, the old boys could still pull off an exciting match. Ok, not the "rah rah" kind but the they've-still-got-the-moves kind. Attacking football all the way, though admittedly it was this end that got attacked the most.

Abbas of the Shiny Pate put in more than his fair share of goals. Here he casually taps in #2 with more to follow. I can't believe he was found guilty of "match fixing" back in those days. The way he played, he was too hungry to let any goal opportunity pass him by. Can you say, "McCarthy witch hunt"?

Our campus team comprising staff and students got to play a half against the All-Stars' not-so-senior side. It'll be a day they will long remember with pride. Tales will pass on to the next generation how grandpa shared a game with the National team, some of whom won the M-League and M-Cup, iconic moments in our local sporting history.

Our campus team didn't fare too badly though the action was still camped mostly in our half. 

Wayne will never forget this moment when his crush crash with Rafi resulted in the two having a brief roll in the grass together. Wayne may never shower again.

And there goes the final whistle. The score... er, was anyone keeping track? Guess the biggest winner was our campus team for just having played the game.

Thanks for the game, All-Stars! Let's do it again sometime!

And one more item of note: though the duck appeared serenely gliding over the water, few would have seen the duck's feet furiously paddling like mad to keep it afloat. But that isn't really my story to tell...

Who can it be knocking at my door?

The TV was too loud to ignore the ringing of my doorbell. I'd just discovered a slew of new HD channels on cable and was fully enjoying the full benefits of digital media when the interruption occurred. Without a chance to pretend no one was home, I had to go see who was calling.

As usual, another salesman-type, this one purporting to represent the Community Chest collecting funds for wheelchairs for the disabled. It all looked quite legitimate, with serialized receipts and the name of the Community Chest in bold on some small print of a document he was showing me through my firmly barred front gate. Does the Community Chest really come around door-to-door soliciting donations? Do they afterwards make the donor write their particulars down on a form so that an "official" receipt can be sent later?

There were too many unanswerable questions and my closed mind was not prepared to accept long explanations from an itinerant supplicant outside my door -- "Family Guy" (in HD; but there isn't any real point to watch an animated series in HD, is there?) was on and I really wanted to get back to my sofa ASAP. Plus, being recently suspicious of charity appeals, having been bilked of my goodwill once too often, I politely declined and sent him on his way.

But what if his case was a genuine one? What if I had turned away an opportunity to help someone who really needed it? I find it so difficult to tell on a case-by-case basis any more and I am no longer as eager as I was to give the benefit of the doubt now. I blame society.

Don't try this at home

Have you heard Corrine May's new song in celebration of NDP 2010? It's called "Song for Singapore" and May renders it beautifully in the vid above.

But as an NDP song, I'm afraid tone-deaf people like me can't sing along. Though the lyrics are cliched familiar enough for a heartlander (and the avid Sesame Street viewer) to identify with, the rhythms and melody are difficult to follow unless you are as talented as she is.

National propaganda songs are best composed with tribally basic repetitive beats you can count with the fingers on one Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle hand. They are akin to nursery rhymes that stick in your head and irritate you until you sing them aloud to get them out of your system. They are so basic you can sing them out of tune and no one would even notice. Thus, they are memorable even against a rational citizen's wishes and are hence iconic.

May's new song, sadly, should come with a warning label: "This propaganda tool contains extreme euphony and should only be performed by a trained professional. Kids, don't try it at home."

Generational gap closing fast

Nephew, Eugene, got married yesterday. We never knew him as "Eugene" before, always referring to him by his more ethnic name. Sigh, still not used to receiving wedding invites addressing June and me as "Uncle and Auntie", especially when the Nephew is already an established career professional and not THAT much younger than us.

Dinner was at the Stamford Ballroom at which the clan shared three tables. Youngest nephew was at my table, or to put it more accurately, under my table where he decided to spend most of the evening. His primary activities included dropping cutlery and utensils on the floor and for a while he prostrated himself between the aisles in some undeclared protest.

Sometimes you wish they'd grow up faster; but before you know it they're already married and gone. Cue "Sunrise, sunset"...!

Drama Club BBQ, and a random cat pix

Oops, did I interrupt whatever you two boys were doing? Sorry!

Drama Club kids bid farewell to their seniors -- one last hurrah before momentum picks up and hurtles us through to the end of year exams. Apart from the sporadic, often failed attempts to dunk random victims in the condo pool, it was an easy, remarkably sane and civilized cast & crew party to celebrate Wow!Pow!Bow! 2010 and thank various club members for their contribution to it's success.

NYeDC is now in the hands of an organized and by-the-book exco, if tonight's event is anything to go by. Just as well. Admin is such a nightmare for me, and if the kids are willing to pitch in and help me out, I'll be the more grateful for them.

Wearing out our freedoms

Given a choice between wearing a bikini and a headscarf (of the religious sort), would anyone actually choose the latter voluntarily? It seems counter-intuitive to think so, but perhaps that's because we have certain cultural biases that value the freedom of wearing whatever we damn well please over the freedom to cover up our bodies and not call attention to ourselves.

Yes, they're both freedoms, but the sad thing is, it's a zero-sum game: we have to choose one freedom over the other; and regardless of which we choose, when we find ourselves running with a crowd of 'the other' we do call attention to ourselves like it or not. In that situation things can get uncomfortable, if not hostile.

The two choices of dress reflect two mutually exclusive philosophies regarding the self. The headscarf route is taking the comfort of anonymity, hiding oneself to look exactly like everyone else so that there can be no basis of comparison between one female individual and another. Regardless of what she looks like -- fat, skinny, flat-chested, pot-bellied, knockout gorgeous or hunchbacked -- everyone looks like a generic 9mm slug, and that's ok because no physical characteristic can possibly make her self-conscious or feel the need to do anything about it. Being comfortable with oneself, knowing there can be no pre-judgement from other people over the trivial matter of physical appearance is one of the best freedoms the world can afford.

Wearing a bikini represents the freedom to, um, I'm not really sure what. Bikinis show off things about oneself that we'd rather not show. We're constantly worried that we could come undone and reveal more than what we're prepared to reveal. What it does is that it places the responsibility of our presentability in public squarely on our own individual shoulders. To ensure the right things stick out and keep the wrong things tucked in  requires Work. It means eating right (in most cases that's mistaken for eating less); it means a punishing exercise regimen to sculpt and maintain a shape that first satisfies the self (good luck with that) and then satisfies others. And yet, not be too satisfying to the wrong others to avoid attracting unwelcome attention. That's a lot of rules to follow, many of which lie in fuzzy grey areas, for what we consider our "freedom".

Me, I'm not really sympathetic to either camp. I myself have never lived in fear of a wardrobe malfunction; nor been a victim of lascivious staring; nor had any such related problem. Regardless of what I wear, I swear I'm quite invisible to the crowd. I imagine even if I wore my skimpiest speedos in public few would notice the pasty apparition ambulating in their midst -- except for a sensitive minority mainly comprising  small children who would react in horror, recoil from the ghastly sight and maybe have nightmares for weeks after.

The happiest women, I think, are the ones who wear bikinis and can't be bothered about what anyone thinks of them. Think I saw some of those in Florida...

In case you're wondering, I'm just musing over "Bikini or headscarf -- which offers more freedom?"

Power failure

In the case of my mobile phone, low batt DOES effectively mean no batt.

Perfect 10

June arranged for us to have dinner with Adrian and Jen. In our search for someplace to eat, 10@Claymore's "Plates of Pleasure" promotion topped the list. Everything on the menu (above) in unlimited servings, plus the rest of the buffet spread. The 4-dine-for-3 deal for participating credit cards was the final deciding factor. 

Here is the saucy little fillet mignon that I had my eye on. I didn't really need to see the rest of the menu, this was priority number one. A very decent steak, cut large enough to savour but not so large as to overwhelm the appetite. There were so many other things to sample besides. Oh, the pinkish mass just below the asparagus spear (above) is mashed beetroot, which tasted way better than it sounds.

Adrian shows off his latest inspiration: a "canape" comprising a beetroot base and topped with avocado, alfalfa and a sprinkle of almond shavings. Each ingredient is strong-tasting on its own but combined, the tastes sort of cancel each other out, making a rather palatable blend of flavours. Night of strange tastes -- I thought the blue cheese on Carr's crackers was fantastic too.

Jen and June gamely sample Chef Adrian's new concoction.

It was a pleasant evening mostly devoted to discussing our individual mid-life crises over unlimited portions of food.

Final parting shot: remember the 10!

Steamrolled

Have to take my hat off to the octopus. The Xmac curse finally came to an emphatic end with the German World Cup machine stamping its authority all over the Argies, 4-0. This is one time I didn't mind losing to an invertebrate in a contest of prognostication. And if his foresight saves him from becoming tomorrow's tako-ball, more power to him! Great job, Paul!

And in the pix, Germany has another proud supporter of the non-human animal species. Yes, Q-tip, nice jersey.

Xmac vs. the octopus

The Xmac curse strikes the World Cup 2010 yet again. Brazil has been KO'ed out of the tournament by a very determined Dutch team 2-1.

In terms of clairvoyance, I've been just about as accurate as Paul, the soothsaying octopus in this competition. Except the teams I've picked to win end up losing. Well, let's see whether Paul or I can maintain our record at the Argentina vs Germany quarter-final tomorrow. Since we've both picked the land of sauerkraut to prevail over the dreaded Argies, one of us will definitely be wrong.

Systems overhaul

As my trainer, John was consistent and predictable. His method was to get me used to a routine and slowly, gradually increase the load. He'd challenge me to lift a little more from the previous session, and depending on my caprice, I'd either humour him or politely decline.

But John's gone home to his FT country and now I'm in the hands of Sully. Sully's approach is a lot more varied. My repertoire now includes balance training on bouncy pilates balls; flexibility training through manipulating medicine balls and free weights (no, not at the same time -- not yet, anyway); and stamina building on some of the other hamster-wheel type cardio devices which I've been previously avoiding 'cos they look either boring or dangerous.

Sully also watches my form carefully, making corrections and adjustments to stance, to grip, so that I feel the burn at the right places. Lower weight resistance, but more reps. I think he knows it isn't muscle strength I want, it's better functioning heart and lungs that I need.

Every session is a pain to go through, but this old, broken down bod seriously needs an overhaul. I must see this programme through!

World Cup 'live', sort of

For all my bluster over refusing to subscribe to the World Cup cablecast, I've still taken to watching some games via 'live' streaming. Horrible resolution; persistently inturrupted signal -- the last two goals Germany scored against England missed due to buffering lag  (4-1 wt*?! when streaming resumed); sudden jump cuts as streaming regains sync with real time (meaning that I hear my downstairs neighbour cheering seconds before I see the goal); and occasional signal backouts that last minutes, or until I refresh the page... sometimes not even then.

But I have nothing to complain about. It's free. Still, I wonder why I bother at all. Every team I've been rooting for has lost. Consistently. Anyone need a betting tip? Just ask me who I fancied for that match and bet the opposing team. Sure win one!

Out of the frying pan

Now that I've got used to one Personal Torturer, John, he's upped and left Cali for personal reasons -- hope your dad gets better real soon! Today, I got my first session with my new PT, Sully. Looks like Sully's personal mission is to turn scrawny 98 lbs weaklings like Steve Rogers into Captain America without the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Welcome to a new level of hell.

Start your engines

I've been in hibernation. Long hols effectively cut me off from social interaction. There's little reason to meet anyone, no collaborative agenda to accomplish, hardly any requirement to leave the house except for meals or the occasional airing. In this state of temporary isolation, one gets out of practice with basic conversational skills and when everyone is called back to commemorate the end of our social winter, the buzz of meeting everyone again takes quite some getting used to.

We are facing down the last weekend right now. The engine's been idling, now engaging first gear... Staff spent half the day with our usual pre-term opening meeting and being introduced to the newbies joining our ranks effective immediately. Second half my group got a tour of Jurong Island -- a rarely-seen section of our little nation because there really is no reason to go see it on a casual basis. It's a mass of storage facilities, a spaghetti of pipes running all over the place, steel geometric structures everywhere at a scale that the layman's mind can scarcely take it all in.

It's Mordor, only much cleaner and far more orderly. Probably every single thing that has been manufactured for mass consumption has passed through this tiny section of this tiny island as some form of petro-chemical raw material. I couldn't help thinking about our contribution to global warming considering how much toxic greenhouse gas and other materials we're processing right here and shipping off to the rest of the world.

Capped off the day with a refreshingly mundane meeting of friends at Amy's. A great chance to practice my social skills before term starts. Two birthdays to celebrate over fried chix, Japanese pizza(!) and chocolate cake. I think we must have hit some kind of chronological barrier because the Wii was promising a really mad, noisy session of hilarity and general chaos, but we spent the evening in table conversation and general gossip instead. And everyone, myself included, preferred it that way.