College annual x-country run. Participants form up at the starting line. 

Focused and determined, Dot keeps her eyes on the prize.

And they're off! With Dot leading the pack.

No stray goes hungry when June's around. 

HP and Shah practice posing for product endorsements after their award-winning run. 

The last stragglers get wheeled across the finish line. 

'Blading with us pays off for JY -- 2nd placing in the Staff Race (Women). 

We're behind all runners in spirit, honest! 

Congrats to HP and Shah, 2 more EL Dept staff who have a trophy to display on their desks. 

OMG. Sorted through a pile of mail sitting on the shoe-rack and discovered a number of unopened bills that totaled up to quite a horrifying figure. These are bills over and above those I've arranged to pay through monthly GIRO deductions...

and over and above the bill I had to pay today from the contractor who did my bathroom renovation months ago. This evening, he came to see us in person to collect -- though the fault for the delay in payment lay in his administrative inefficiency and not in our tardiness. Good thing June remembered that our agreed-upon amount was actually less that the remuneration he was convinced he needed to collect. We showed him our bathroom to remind him what kind of work he actually did for us, and eventually he agreed on the lower price, thus saving us over a hundred bucks. At this time, every penny counts.

Well, thankfully, these bills mostly came from annual expenses and not monthly disbursements. It was just that when you let them accrue for a while, then open them all up at once, you're just asking for a heart attack, lor.

The 2nd issue of NY Connexions is now online!

Still working on improving the design and layout of the site, and still considering whether to migrate (repatriate?) back to the campus server when the contract for our current commercial server expires, but at least we have some new content.

Be nice and leave some constructive comments for our budding journalists, ok?

Yay! Got June a non-crappy V-day gift for a change. I know it's too early for the occasion, but when she actually does look longingly at something for herself -- which isn't often -- and reaches for her wallet, you know it's a good bet that it's something that she really wants. Best to strike when the opportunity stares you in the face.

So now June has a brand new Sony discman CD player, which I know she'll be using every day to listen to her CD collection. Though I tried talking her into accepting an MP3 player, she decided on the more retro option instead. Rebel.

Edit 01:
Hmm... it's morning now and on reading this entry again, I notice that it may possibly be misconstrued that I've made June appear like an unappreciative person, but that wasn't my intention. I really am a buyer of crappy gifts (usually due to last-minute panic shopping), if anyone's lucky enough to get a gift from me at all. It's a warm feeling to match the recipient with the right gift, and this time I think I did good.

Received my car loan statement from the bank in the mail today. After nearly a year's continuous monthly deductions from my financial pool puddle, I can proudly claim that I have nearly paid off my interest and in a couple of months' time I can start chipping away at my principle. Ouch.

When I look at COE and car prices today, I think of what I could have bought at the amount I paid a year ago for M2. Today, I could buy a Mazda 3, or just save $5k or more on the same car. If I was financially rational, I would reason that having a car is just money down the drain in terms of taxes, insurance, service and maintenance, fuel, parking, and, uh... anything else I might have missed out; while its asset value continues to depreciate day after day. Oh, and parking and traffic violation fines too. Nuts.

But I don't really care about all that. The experience of owning a car over the last year alone is worth more than the money I would have saved without one. All the adventures, all the friendship bonds made and strengthened would not have been possible without a set of wheels to call my own. From beach jaunts with the dogs, to bowling with the Boyz, to never eating alone, to the odd shopping trip or two, to blading at Bishan, to the mad scavenger quest... I couldn't put a price tag on how radically my life changed because I decided to become a car owner in the last year.

More importantly, I got to see people on a social basis; not just as work colleagues but as friends, and that -- as MasterCard would say -- is priceless.

A small, manageable group went blading today: June and me, JY and Tonny; Chewy dropped in on us a little later just to say, "hi!" Chewy's giving her injured knee another 2 weeks to rest and then she'll join us proper again.

Today we made 7 orbits around the park (Tonny blading backwards for most of the way) and the girls would want me to note that neither fell even once today. The obligatory splat came from myself, thanks to a twig that got lodged in my wheels while I was going at speed. No damage to my person, though my wristguard did pick up a sizeable chunk of Bishan turf.

Jen might be annoyed that we parked within a few steps of her front door but we didn't visit her [so we won't tell her, right?]. We were actually on our way to buy CNY cookies from the auntie at Katong Antique House who has become good friends with June ever since the scavenger quest of last month. We even had to buy our pineapple tarts and I'm sure there'll be lots of disappointed people this year who were looking forward to June's homemade variety.

Lunched at Glory Cafe. June ordered so much -- lodeh, beef rendang, chicken curry, sambal kangkong, sambal sotong -- I couldn't believe we polished the lot off between the both of us. But I was grateful for the Bundaberg Peachee. I was thirsty.

Mimi's come over for the weekend. We took her and Kaizer to the vet yesterday for their shots. For an 11-year old, Mimi is in very good health, according to her blood test results. Except for her teeth which seriously need some treatment. Old lady's gonna need dentures soon or something. We'll fix an appointment for her after CNY.

Took both Mimi and Q-tip to Sentosa (this place seems like my regular weekend hangout, doesn't it?). This time, it was to snap some shots of our Art kids as they painted their hearts out over some Sentosa-sponsored art contest. The shots will be for the college newspaper, the latest issue we hope will be published by Tuesday.

I found it was difficult to take pix of artists as they paint. If you want to frame the painting, you get a brilliant view of the artist's butt. If you want the face, the artist has to pose but then you lose the candor of the moment. What to do? I still have a lot to learn about photography.

Vince bought June and me an early dinner at Sunset Bay. I had a pretty decent lamb stew, but June's mixed grill came from the Neanderthal School of Culinary Arts -- Burn. Meat. Regardless, thanks, Vince!

Parents' Night on campus. The annual ritual of calling in parents of current year 1 kids to see for themselves that we're a decent college and that we'll take good care of their kids should they decide to stay on after 1st term.

Staff instructions are to "mingle with the crowd and make 'em feel welcome." Uh huh. Me? Mingle? When I already have problems mingling with my own friends when I get invited to their parties?

Well, I tried. I patrolled up and down from the staff room and past the wall of orbs to LT4 and back several times looking for any parent that might want to have a chat. No one did. A couple of my students waved in my direction, though their parents were engaged elsewhere, so after a while I began to feel like campus security instead of faculty staff. Yellow plaid short-sleeve shirted, college tie wearing campus security on foot patrol. No wonder nobody wanted to talk to me.

I hung around during the panel discussion with the Heads just in case Boss Lady got asked something she couldn't respond to about my subject. Fortunately, the parents were sensible enough to ask only a couple of basic questions about KI, so Boss Lady didn't need my help to field them. Otherwise, with a cordless mike in my hand...

Still, after formal talks had ended, I found myself face-to-face with a couple of my more enthu KI kids and their moms whom I spent some time bringing up to speed about this esoteric new subject their daughters had decided to take. Nice folks, neither critical nor cynical, but genuinely interested people. Hope I didn't get carried away and promise the moon again.

A well-deserved prata supper with Amy and HP. Long day.

Thoughts wandering again. Came up with this nonsense that I won't insist on everyone reading. Read only if you want to induce a headache. Click.

3 weeks into the new year and already it feels like we've been on the job continuously without a break. It's pointless to reminisce how spontaneous we were last year, running off to snack or do silly things whenever we felt like it. This year, our schedules and disparate agenda make even maintaining group cohesion difficult enough; though I still believe that once we get used to our new routines we'll learn to adapt to each others' once again. Today, I put the brakes on attempting to schedule recreation time into a weekly appointment book. Having to organize my whole life -- including when I can have fun -- just feels so... wrong.

The furore over draft dodging since Melvyn Tan's slap on the wrist, and the subsequent proposal to stiffen laws and penalties shows once again that we would rather do the right thing to avoid punishment than do the right thing because it IS the right thing to do.

Seems that when Melvyn 'got away' with 'only' a $3000 fine for all the years he didn't serve his National Service, those of us who did our time became all indignant and upset that his sentence was so light. What? If we had known that dodging NS would only cost us $3k we would have gladly paid up and thumbed our noses at Uncle Seng? As if.

I'm not trying to defend Melvyn for what he did, nor decry the non-consequences of his naughtiness. What I'm worried about is the fact that NS men appear to feel more strongly against the lightness of one defaulter's punishment than for the value of their own contribution of service to the place they call 'home.'

If the sentiment is truly such, then the main reason behind our serving NS is the fear of being severely punished if we don't. This attitude suggests that when we consider NS, we see an option -- either serve, or be punished. Most of us choose the former to avoid the unpleasantness of the latter; nevertheless, the latter may still appear to some of us as a viable choice. But if we think there is a choice in the matter, we are dead wrong because there is really no option: either serve, or the consequences will be far more severe than what the courts can throw at us.

It's true. It's here. It's now. What NBS and I have been preparing for all last year has become a reality. Today we officially launched our KI tutorials with our 20 students, just the exact number that we agreed is our maximum limit.

After our introductory spiel, we had a Q&A session during which the kids wanted to assess our confidence levels in leading them in a pioneering direction, and what if they don't pass it this year? Typical.

Anyway, the Gutter Boyz and our, um, groupies celebrated the birthday of one of our own. Ate at the Manhattan Fish Market, Plaza Singapura. We ordered 3 sets of flaming seafood platters for 2 (for Anthony and Wendy, Yee and Amy, me and June) while Vince and NBS went ahead and ordered their own things. The seafood platter comes in a large saucepan and comprises some blowtorched (hence flaming) shrimp, calamari, oysters and a large chunk of battered fish on a thick layer garlic rice and fries. Made for good eating, but the portions were so large that we couldn't eat it all.

Finally presented Anthony with his farewell gift. Today seemed like a good opportunity since most of us who signed his bowling pin happened to be around for this occasion. Guess he won't be forgetting us in a hurry. Heh.