My vacation in Bioshock: Infinite

Looks like the vacation is prematurely over. Been recalled from Columbia, but although I haven't uncovered all its secrets, I have completed the main tour.

Columbia is a city in the clouds. Set in 1912 and made to float on high by complex quantum mechanics it is a beautiful town when you arrive. It is also devoutly religious, with the citizens swayed by their leader and Prophet, Father Comstock.

While the place is quite lovely, I'm not here for the scenery. Because of what I owe on the surface, I'm up here to abduct the one thing these Columbians hold dear, their "Lamb". Upon delivery to my mysterious employers, they will "wipe away the debt".

Yes, I'm a bad person, and I know it. My presence here will disrupt the peace of this miraculous floating city and make the inhabitants very upset with me. But I never imagined that my actions would spark off a civil war, and at the same time uncover the horrifying plans Father Comstock has for the world below. The Lamb I came to take is the key.

Although I don't have much justification for my actions, it makes me feel better that the privileged Columbians are white supremacists who keep black slaves and exploit Chinese labourers and craftsmen. It doesn't help that the freedom movement (a.k.a. Vox Populi) is intent on wiping out their previous masters, so it doesn't look like I'm on anybody's side in this war. I just want to get off this cloud city with my prize and shoot everyone who tries to stop me. Simple enough.

My assets are a wide range of weapons starting with an effective sky-hook which doubles as a melee weapon as well as a means of zipping around town on sky-rails which are normally meant for mass transport. All other hand weapons are upgradable, though I prefer the carbine as rapid-fire one-shots are more accurate than auto-fire. There are also Vigors to collect: biological enhancements that allow me to do superhuman things like set people on fire or electrocute them from a distance. Occasionally, I also find articles of clothing that amplify the effects of my fighting capabilities with brief invulnerability or to extract more hurt, for example.

My fourth, and probably best asset, is the Lamb herself: a 17-year old girl by the name of Elizabeth. She sees me as her best ticket out of town. Because she is special, she is confined, groomed, experimented on and her only friend before my arrival is a giant bio-mechanical monstrosity she calls Songbird. Did I say she was special? She can open doors to other realities and make them real in this one. Apart from gun turrets and medical supplies which she can call into action to help our escape, she also keeps me stocked on the fly with weapons, ammo, and salts which power the Vigors. And she's someone to talk to in between lulls of fighting. Closest thing I've had to a friend for a while too.

Elizabeth also revives me when I die in combat. I doubt she has a divine resurrection power. It's more like she reaches into another reality in which I haven't died yet and pulls that me into her current reality. To me it's like coming back to life, but in fact I'm just being replaced by another me. Head-scratching stuff.

While we're running and gunning to find an airship to take us back to the surface, I'm constantly discovering new information about the origins of the city and further details about my mission. These little clues seem almost trivial at first, but eventually they amount to a mind-blowing (or is that boggling?) truth, so intricately woven I'm still struggling to wrap my mind around all the facets and implications of it today.

Bioshock: Infinite is a first-person survival horror (though perhaps not as creepily horrific as Bioshock 2) shooter that has thrilling gameplay with strategic elements and a powerfully gripping, well-paced storyline you just have to see through to the end. Fortunately, it's not an epic that takes too long to play through -- just a couple of days if you must look everywhere for everything (and even then, I haven't found everything yet) and a few in-game surprises that are really cool. Even the post-game credits shows off a making-of clip if you are patient enough to get to plus an end-credit scene that adds a bit of closure... we hope.

Exam stress

It's been nine weeks since we sent Tasha to basic obedience class. In one week's time, we face her final exam. We're stressed out 'cos it looks like she's on the verge of flunking out. She's been such a rebellious teenager: bored, distracted, looks everywhere except where her instructions are coming from, and I swear she rolls her eyes every time we make her sit-stay.

Clearly, the cert means more to us than to her. So for this week, we're increasing her training from one to TWO hours a day to get her ready for her test. We're going to be very stern and correct every little mistake until she gets the routine down pat. What was it they said? "Don't practice until you get it right; practice until you can't get it wrong."

But don't get us wrong. We have the best intentions for her. Apart from being more assured of her safety in public, we want to let her have fun and still trust her off-leash, and we have plans to enroll her in agility classes. Since she likes to jump so much, it would be such a waste of her talent if she didn't hone this skill and do herself and us proud.

Suddenly, although we have been consciously avoiding it like the plague, we've become S'porean parents ourselves.

Reports of my demise

Hi! My name is Gary. I'm a snail. Some weeks ago, the nice lady of the house found me amongst some pandan leaves she took out of her refrigerator. I had gone into hibernation because of the cold, but she gave me a chance to thaw out -- and I did. She's kept me since in a plastic box on the kitchen counter and gives me lettuce to eat, which I love.

A couple of days ago, I sealed myself in my shell to sleep while my shell grew a new layer. Because the seal was white and I hadn't moved for two days, the stupid man who also lives here (God knows why) thought I had died. He told the lady of my "condition" and made her quite upset. However, she'd kept snails before and knew what I was going through.

This morning, when I awoke, the stupid man saw me and said, "it's a miracle!" The real miracle was that he was too lazy to throw me out with the trash when he thought I was dead. Dumbass.

Cat tree

May bought this cat tree at 50% off at the Pets Station warehouse sale. It's meant for Pebbles, but she delivered it to my place as there are more cats here to use it. Pebbles will play in it when he visits. The thing is so tall, it barely fits under the false ceiling. My worry is, the more you pay for a cat toy, the less likely a cat would ever play with it.

Fortunately, we have a taker. Someone appreciates the hemp for sharpening claws on. Not five minutes later, when I didn't have a camera on me, someone else voluntarily jumped to the next highest platform to have a look-see.

And just another view of claw-sharpening ecstasy. Mmm... yesss...!

Party on in Citadel DLC for ME3!

Game Downloadable Content (DLC) usually adds a playable chapter to a game you already own as a way to keep replayability, at least until the next instalment. Most games don't even do that after a while (Dragon Age II... I've just about given up on you!). But the new 'Citadel' DLC for Mass Effect 3 kept me occupied the whole day today with a variety of unexpected activities that blended run-and-gun, duck-and-cover (which IS ME3) with the fetch-and-carry of a point-and-click classic adventure game for a rather unique payoff.

The premise is that Shepard and the crew of the Normandy SR-2 get recalled to Citadel for -- of all things -- shore-leave in the middle of the Reaper war. So now Shepard gets to enjoy swanky new digs with upgradable furnishings with which we can play interior designer. While at Citadel, Shepard gets an alert that he (I'm playing a male Shep) is a victim of identity theft, opening up a hectic battle with only a souped-up pistol, limited ammo and no healing medi-gels as he battles solo through heavily armed mercs to regroup with his squaddies.

It's tough at first, especially when you've forgotten most of your keyboard settings, and the initial panic of an unfamiliar combat situation, but eventually muscle memory kicks in. Survivability increases when Liara and Wrex show up to watch your back, but it would help to know where the extraction point is instead of running around at random under heavy fire hoping to trigger a bacon-saving rescue.

The one behind the identity theft scheme is an uncomfortably familiar figure we know from... past encounters, but we'd never think we would face in a firefight. A tough fight it is too, with not one but two enemies who heal and regenerate shields quickly, with the fate of the Normandy (my ship!) at stake.

The whole point of this crazy battle is to have every squad member contribute in some way to the retaking of the ship. Even Traynor (who never gets to go on missions) puts her expensive tastes to good use. Mission success triggers a follow-up mission -- which is where this DLC ventures into the bizarre: actual shore-leave.

At this point, the game goes into interactive story mode. A whole new area on Citadel becomes available, purely for recreation. There is a casino, an arcade and a combat simulator to play in. There are credits, unique weapon mods and household furnishings to win in the casino and arcade while the combat sim unlocks further difficulty levels, scenarios and more characters to add to the squad roster, simulated, of course. You could spend hours here getting addicted to the numerous mini-games scattered on this level. Your squad mates offer to play a round with you too, so you can see how they are enjoying themselves when they aren't being shot at. Even characters from the ME and ME2 who are not part of the roster in ME3 show up and reminisce the good ol' days.

There's a lot of running back and forth to meet all these characters set loose on the Citadel, but the idea is to send invites to a party you're hosting in your fancy new apartment. It's an awkward party to be sure, with everyone making conversation instead of mincemeat. As host, Shepard gets to run all over his apartment looking for someone to talk to until everyone's just about talked themselves dry. Which is probably why I don't host parties in real-life. Too much work.

The conversations are hilarious, though, revelling in the awkwardness the different characters have with each other. Prejudices, old wounds, memories remembered by some revealed to others who have forgotten, while everyone becomes more inebriated with each successive conversation. They're so much like friends and colleagues that it's hard to remember the characters are just CGI puppets after all.

So much has gone into the storytelling that makes this DLC worth the download. Sometimes, it's tedious with so  much running back and forth between locations, but that's the limitation of the game design. It is, after all a shooter first, though the story itself is a thumping page-turner. It's good to have a night of non-violent camaraderie (Jarvik, Zaaed and the Krogans notwithstanding) before returning to the front-lines the day after.

Misteaken identity

Wow. A gorgeous pork chop from the Colbar. Problem is, I ordered a steak. My fault. When this dish was served, I was temporarily distracted. When I bit into it, I knew something wasn't right. Then my steak came. I couldn't send the pork chop back 'cos I'd already taken a chunk out of it. So I kept it and they refunded me the difference of $12. I really wanted a steak. :(

Magnum Oh PUS

PUS has been keeping me busy this week, which explains the couple of belated posts below.

My job as facilitator for a conglomerate of participants hailing from three separate institutions is a tough balancing act between aggregating many different ideas and perspectives from all these very enthusiastic young 'uns and distilling a consolidated idea from the group.

The other difficulty is in communicating the consolidated idea back to the group in a way that they 1) understand, and 2) still believe it was their idea in the first place -- which it is... but with some assembly on my part.

Meryl helped too, despite the fact that she just got married over the weekend. Hats off to her and my fellow PUStules who have to camp out with the kids throughout the four day three night experience 'cos they're organizing the event. Awesome job, ppl!

Pollen for high tea

High tea binge continues at Pollen, beneath the Flower Dome in Gardens by the Bay. Making a reservation here allows us to bypass the main ticket-only entrance.

It's quite something to be wandering around a temperate flower garden encapsulated within a huge glass container. It's like living inside a bottle, where everything is immaculate and artificial.

Thing about high tea here: no refills. This is two orders of sandwiches. Nice sandwiches made in combinations of ham, chicken, salmon, egg and cheese. They even dress the rocket separating the two portions, in case you need a palate reset in between sandwich morsels.

For thew sweets, the standouts were the eclair stuffed with cream and strawberry slices (middle) and the carrot cake cupcake with mascarpone topping (top).

A better view of the eclair.

And topping the topping, a tiny fleck of gold leaf. I still don't know what it tastes like. Eaten with a huge bite of cupcake, I didn't even notice it going down. It's also probably why there's no refills.

Filling up at the Fullerton

I guess you could say that end of term deserves a little celebration. High tea at the Fullerton should do it.

Tea being a red vanilla-cocoa-mint concoction which was surprisingly good. I kept this pot with me throughout, although I could have switched to another blend if I wanted.

Our fully-loaded starter tray. As usual, we were only interested in refilling the savouries rather than the sweets. Sign of ageing, definitely.

Mid-year break, at last!

It's been a brutal Term 2, but it's over... more or less. Just another few days to go with our commitment at PUS 2013, which promises to be (if I may quote Amy) exciting, delirious or mad. What it entails is advising yet another bunch of kids on a project they are proposing that will accrue great national significance by 2030. Oh, is that all? No pressure, then.

She's got the looks

The advantage of having a maltipoo is that she can either keep the Bohemian maltese look...

or get her fur trimmed and neat so she looks like a smart poodle.

Man, those gams! This girl's built on stilts!

Cherry red

Cherry red Pebble arrived a couple of weeks ago, but has remained unboxed until now. Initially purchased for the wife, but it's not quite her style. Been debating what to do with it. Thought of wearing it myself, but red really isn't my colour either. But I found a happy buyer in my neighbour, so I'll be selling it off at cost. Yay for colleagues with geek cred!

Off campus rom-com

Who would have guessed, when we arranged a weekend road trip way back in '09...

that this pair would find themselves on a leaky boat

and wind up tying the knot in '13?

Congrats, Ton*y and Pauline! :)

Sports Carny 2013

Here I am traversing one of the high elements structures on campus during Sports Carny 2013. This station was one of my more successful attempts, being that it was the easiest of the four stations I signed up to try.

Abseiling was an abject failure as I lost my footing on the wall and couldn't get back, resulting in an ignominious lowering back to ground level like a rag doll on a harness.

The Huggies is a tightrope along which are suspended grab ropes and, well, things to hug for stability. My initial attempt at this station caused a near unstoppable wobble along the cable until I was advised to cross sideways and I learned to grab my supports using alternating hands rather than rely on just one with the other holding on for dear life to the belay rope.

My final station was the Confidence Leap: launching myself off a platform to smack a target ball suspended a couple of meters ahead, all the while trusting that the three belayers below could support 80kg of flying meat.

Closest thing to bungee jumping 'cos what appears to be a free-fall isn't. It's only the moment when you dive off the platform that you're truly airborne, the rest of the way down you're just being lowered gently and slowly till touchdown.

In case you're wondering, that's not me in the pix (Left). One does not take a self-portrait in mid-air -- too much shake for the shot to turn out well.

In other news: dNYel won the staff race for once! The gold medal winning effort was an historic moment for us. Very proud of BLoh, Gerald C, WR, the new Josh, and JoLee for proving that English teachers can run too.

Bobs up... again

In the aftermath of Drama Night, we did a stock take and found Bob, whom we thought we had lost over the years. He is in serious need of a bath, but the wear and tear that he's exhibiting tells me he won't survive another spin cycle. We also have a new exco -- all female, which I suppose is compensation for the all male exco of last year. And we've decided to grant honorary NYeDC membership to all cast and crew of Drama Night 2013 to thank them for their contributions. That means that if they are already involved in one CCA, they can consider us their second CCA in their testimonials.

Mo' money

The secret to being rich is to convince a lot of people to give you a little money. A thousand people won't miss the dollar they spend on your cause, but you will be a thousand dollars richer.

Maybe the reason why the income divide we have here is growing is because our national aspiration is to attain the cushy, air-conditioned job with the stable pay for life. With such an assurance, we don't mind spending a little here and there to make our lives cushier because there's always more money -- even if it is a mere pittance -- coming in next month.

In the meantime, somebody's gratefully receiving the money we are thoughtlessly frittering away. Those guys are the rich and are getting richer because there aren't too many of them while the mass of us fork over our hard-earned cash over to them because we think we deserve what they are offering to us in exchange: mostly disposable luxuries which we know we can live without, but are nice to have anyway.

So the poor, that's us, are those who spend money at every opportunity we get. The rich, on the other hand, are those who make (or take) money every opportunity they get. Seen in this light, it isn't so much the system that's exacerbating our income disparities as it is our frugality or lack thereof in managing our own incomes and impulses.

This would also explain why we are a great place for foreign multimillionaires to park their wealth. I'm assuming 'foreign' because... well look around; how many locals do you know who are millionaires compared to those who aren't? Our local people are neither ambitious nor dishonest. We know our place and would do nothing to jeopardize our ricebowl by stepping out of line and doing stupid things with other people's money. We are a nation of nose-to-the-grindstone employees, happy with a fixed wage, but at the same time hopelessly vulnerable because we are both easily replaceable and disposable. It's ironic, but our desire for job-for-life has made us this way. But we are trained from young to be a redundancy of cogs in the machine, after all.

I'm not knocking the system. I like the system, in fact. It's an open system that allows those who have seen through the facade to exploit it and make themselves rich as long as they have a plan to do something different, and are willing to risk it all, possibly more times than once.

I have seen through the facade... now if only I had a plan... and some guts...! And if I didn't already buy [insert random disposable luxury item here] to make me believe I've already made it, and therefore don't need to work any harder for any more money.

It is Finnished (actually, it's barely begun)

It's a misconception that Finnish schools don't conduct tests until the kids are 16 or whatever. There is no learning if there are no tests. We always test knowledge for veracity, accuracy, adequacy and applicability to the contextual environment we are learning in or for. To do otherwise is to accept teaching wholesale and without question -- which is indoctrination rather than education.

Every experiment conducted is a test, every problem to solve is likewise a test. The difference is that in the land of the Finns, it is the process of knowledge acquisition that is being constantly tested, while back in the rest-of-the-world it is the competence of the child that is periodically tested. Failure in the former means back to the drawing board, try another approach, do more research, ask more questions; whereas in the latter, failure means the kid is not fit for a higher band, so off you go to join the other dregs of society 'cos that's where you belong. After all, it can't be helped... scarce resources and all that.

What is really absent from Finnish schools that we have in abundance is not tests but competition between the learners. This is not to say that there is no competition at all, but that within the Finnish education system, the emphasis is not on individuals competitively scrabbling about for limited university places, but on cooperative and collaborative learning where success is a total team effort involving teachers and kids working together to make it happen.

Over here, we marvel at the Finns but we make a lot of excuses as to why we are unable to replicate their system in our own schools. After 40 over years of succeeding through competitive education, there's too much inertia to make drastic changes at the national level. However, the nature of systems is that they're infinitely scalable, hence if too big for the entire organization, I can reduce it down to encompass a class or three.

Today was my test case. Last week, I did my set-up: an in-class timed compre assignment under exam conditions. Individual effort, closed off from any external sources, although I did give them the concession of additional time to complete the assignment. This exercise was to make it clear to everyone that there were no free riders, and that everyone was putting their own individual effort to come up with their own answers to the questions therein. But I did not collect their scripts at the end.

Today, I reminded them that although their individual effort was evident, the result distribution could hardly be expected to be equitable. Some bright sparks would do better, the others could only look forward to more dismal prospects. In order to level the playing field, I told them to identify those who probably had the best answers and let the rest 'copy' from them. I didn't tell them who had the best answers, and I didn't tell them how to identify them. I did tell them not to get superglued to their furniture and that they could move around to find the answers they wanted.

As expected, they gravitated around their own immediate social groupings, but it was the first time I heard everyone focused on listening to each other and reading out their answers to one another while they collectively and critically discussed the merits (and demerits) of the answers they were sharing. There were even instances of intellectual promiscuity as information was traded and evaluated across discussion nodes, though that was far and few between. But still, a promising start.

And so begins a new adventure in turning the end of year 'A' levels from an impossible solo slogfest into a massively multiplayer co-op game. If I can create and sustain this kind of collaborative learning environment for my classes, the benefits are twofold: at the end of year consultation period, the kids will be first consulting each other before consulting me, leaving me free to concentrate on the most desperate cases or to deal with common group problems, making consultations more effective, directed and focused. Second, the kids would have built for themselves a network of telepathically interlinked brains which they can tap on through the ether as they are working on their final exams without feeling the need for me to be there with them telling them what to do. At that point, they will be independent just when they need to be.

Success in the education game in S'pore has a lot to do with correctly identifying friend from foe. In the classroom, their are no foes, only friends. Remember our campus motto? It's time to make it real.

Source: How do Finnish kids excel...

Imperfections 2013

Because I was performing in a play for Drama Night 2013, I have precious few production stills; and not for all six, either. This is one of the best from a tiny collection of stills culled from the video camera I was using to shoot the performances on both nights.

6 10-minute plays, a mixture of dramatic moments and absurd comedy in a performance we called 'Imperfections' because of the flawed nature of the relationships and situations our characters found themselves in.

Tickets were a hard sell this year. Our publicity engine was definitely not running at full steam and not being very imaginative either. The poster-ticket booth campaign is so last century, but we stuck with tradition, resulting in a lukewarm box -office response. Fortunately, we didn't incur too much cost, so we should at least break even.

As usual, what audience we had was supportive and generous with their cheers and applause, which is always nice.

Most gratifying for me was the fact that most of our cast and crew were no members of NYeDC but a mixture of kids from a variety of other CCAs who were interested in theatre and wanted a go at it... without the investment of too much time and energy, of which they already have so little.

My own little cast and crew (mine was the only ensemble piece) was no less enthusiastic, though they, like everybody else, had so many other commitments to juggle. Green like anything, yet recruited so close to curtain, I had to resort to mainly tableaux set-ups, sacrificing movement and comedy for clarity of intent. If only I had even just one more week...! Oh, well.

I was also fortunate to have Sirius as my Director-in-chief again. She is so dedicated to the show and worked like mad behind the scenes. She was good for costuming and blocking advice; stagecraft training; and most memorably jumping in wholeheartedly with a crazy, unreasonable request of mine: get every single cast and crew member made up like a zombie as soon as they were done with their piece. The closing zombie onslaught would last only seconds in real-time, but she did everything she could to make as many as possible look truly horrific.

Drama Night 2013 is now officially over and I can sleep again. At least until PUS prods me back into action all too soon. Bleh.

PS: I'd like to post the video of the finale night's performance, but my licence agreements forbid me to do so. Yes, we do things legally at NYeDC. Darn it all.

Director's reservations

I've never been so freaked out over a performance this close to curtain. My little 10-minute offering is still in pieces and I've been adding to it until there's far too little time to rehearse all the ideas I have. While the core cast have been quite committed, they're still very inexperienced and I estimate we need at least another week to get it up to satisfactory. There are peripheral cast purely for gags as well, but I've decided to cut them as they need even more time before they are ready to perform the kind of physical comedy called for. Instead of milking the script for laughs, my new objective is just go minimalist and impress the audience with precision delivery instead. It'll have to do.

Perhaps it was a mistake to be director and cast member at the same time. As Producer I should be looking after the overall show, but my focus is too tight and narrow and I've let a lot of other things slip. Fortunately LL's there to pick up the slack. But some things are too little, too late.

Curtain up on Friday. Yikes!

Pebbles is two!

"It's my 2nd birthday. Is everything in readiness for the celebrations like I asked?"

"We're working as quickly as we can, milord!"

The eclairs are looking especially tempting

"Yes, this spread is satisfactory. Well done, humans!"

"Die, cake, die!"

"Meh. Wake me up when it's all over."