June and I met JY, Tonn and Thad at ECP. Bicycle rental for me and the 2 girls, the guys 'bladed. We covered pretty much the entire stretch of beach on either side of the McD's, about 2 hours of cardio-vascular activity for us.

Put all the calories lost back with interest at lunchtime. Went to Swenson's at Parkway Parade where I ordered the unhealthiest-looking thing on the menu: the Cheesy Beef Burger. But it was the first time I have gone into a Swensons and left without ordering ice-cream. Dessert we saved for New Zealand Natural: mocha almond fudge+walnut butterscotch for me, and chocolate ecstacy+vanilla classic for June. Mmm...

M-i-L signed Q-tip and Mimi up for a "Dog Parade contest" at this RC block party in Toa Payoh this evening. The programme involved some karaoke items, a balloon artist, and us, the canine celebrities of the day.

Each handler did a catwalk (how ironic) with our dogs who were mostly dressed to impress the audience. There were a couple of nudie entries like the retriever and the westie, but it was the smaller, dressier dogs that got the gasps and the applause. And the photo ops.

The contest results were exactly the same as the last time: Q-tip (Miss looking-fab-in-her-faux-Burberry's-trenchcoat) was 2nd runner-up; Mimi (Miss Personality/Photogenic) emerged the Champion. They won a doggie hamper (sponsored by Annie's Pets Corner) and a trophy each. So Neopets.

More pix here.

Began the day with news that my timetable will increase by 4-and-a-half more hours per week, which I kinda' expected it would. The difficulty is in getting myself acquainted with another bunch of J2's who are already used to one tutor and now have to get used to a new one: me. And I only have 6 months or so to get them up to standard for their 'A's, though as of right now, I'm told, they aren't doing very well. A challenge, then.

Also began preparations with Vince, Nirmy, Cynth and Boss Lady for a 2-hour long presentation on critical thinking for a bunch of Ps and Vice-Ps of our cluster. When we gave this presentation to our own staff sometime last year, we never expected the upper-echelons to take us so seriously and offer us to such scary levels. Hope we won't disappoint.

1 piece of good news I did receive was that my request to push back PUS submission deadlines was cheerfully granted, so we -- me, Mel, Gerald and the PUS kids -- can breathe a little easier next week.

Went to lunch with Amy and Dee. I haven't had a Han's black pepper steak in nearly 10 years, but it's still quite good value for money. Food-court style steak with emphasis on "pepper." It burns lips, tongue and stomach, but what a feeling! I extinguished the flames with an iced lemon tea, and unless I'm mistaken, it isn't the usual post-mix crap but the real stuff -- real tea, real lemon, real cold. The set also includes garlic bread (slightly over-toasted walnut bread) and a slice of mystery fruit (which I declined to touch). $7.50 for the lot. 10 years ago when I was dirt poor, this was a luxury meal. Today, it's comfortably affordable. Life is good.

Joined Vince almost immediately after lunch at Friends to keep him company while he marked exam scripts. I still had a bunch of scripts too, so it was quite a productive hour of marking and having tea. Discovered that Friends offers a home-made variety of vanilla ice-cream which is beautifully rich and flavourful. It even has traces of raw, ground-up vanilla beans speckling the white, creamy goodness. This is one place to remember for ice-cream.

Spent the rest of the evening photographing the O2 Finale dance party. Not sure why even, 'cos no one's been assigned to write the story. But if it's pix you be wantin', you can get 'em here.

Another satisfactory day of marking. Maybe it's because most of the essays I'm marking actually have some decent current affairs content and language usage. And most essays come in legible handwriting too.

A few of these scripts overshot the 800 word limit too, so I'm going to have to advise some students to be more concise. But there are a couple of other students who turned in scripts lazy as heck, who tried to pass off clever rhetoric as arguments, cliches in place of of evidence, theories instead of facts.

The general problem for this tutorial group is that they present topical knowledge (of which they do have some, thankfully) without likewise presenting a clear opinion on the topic. It's a start, at least.

I was a good boy today for having put a major dent in my marking load. Hope I can keep it up and not get distracted with other activities over the next few days, then I can start wearing all my other hats again with a clear conscience.

Rewarded myself by watching my "Mirrormask" DVD this evening. Weird. Most of the movie takes place in a dream. It's a blend of 'live' action with Henson puppetry with CGI, and often it's hard to tell which is which.

Gaiman's designs are as surreal as they are bizarre. Strange creatures like headless storks that make up a police contingent, dove-apes that prefer swinging to flying, a spider that doubles as the Black Queen's eye, petrifying tendrils of darkness that sweep relentlessly across the cityscape... the brain works overtime interpreting the visual stimulus and trying to make sense of it all.

The experience is like having a nearly 1-hour long hallucination without having to consume drugs. I kinda' liked it for the story, but the surreal elements got too much for me. I'm pretty sure my own dreams are less fanciful, more realistic -- and I found this dream hard to accept and believe in after a while. Thankfully, the movie is relatively short.

Think I would have enjoyed the story more reading it than watching it. But that's just me.

Marking season is upon us again, but Vince found time to make up for his rain check from June's dinner. NBS, who was likewise absent with apologies last Saturday, joined us at Shima Aji for the sashimi buffet.

The raw fish, as usual, was delightful. I tried the tempura shishamo -- done so crispy there was nothing left to waste. And with the delicate little fish eggs rolling around on the tongue, it was quite an experience. It had a strong fish oil taste, though, like a dose of cod liver oil with every bite; so I could only manage downing 2 fish before the law of diminishing returns kicked in.

Washed down with lots of wasabi and green tea, it really was a good dinner.

We took Mimi home to M-i-L's this afternoon. Mimi's had a long vacation with us -- about 3-4 weeks -- in which she went out with us quite a lot. She won't get many chances to take car rides when she's home, but we feel that at least she won't be so starved of human company there, compared to our place where for much of the day there's only Q-tip and the cats to entertain her.

Mimi may be a noisy little thing, and combined with Q-tip the mess they make can be quite a headache, sometimes, but we're going to miss her. Always following us around, snuggling up to us whenever she gets a chance, asking for tummy-rubs, going mad whenever we come home... Q-tip could learn a thing or two from her.

Hope the folks at home remember to keep brushing her teeth.

June's big day yesterday. Celebrated at (relatively) dog-friendly Sunset.

It was a simple affair: called a few friends together, made dinner reservations, ordered a cake from Awfully Chocolate, picked out a token gift from Mintmark & Co.... There were still a couple of hitches and hiccups 'cos I'm not exactly the best of social event organizers, but things went mostly according to plan.

Happy birthday, June!

Glad to have these guys around to help me celebrate with June! Hope everyone had a good time! 

Knowing what the dogs are up to today, Kaiser gets his own photo shoot at home. 

Got the dogs professionally shot at Pets Cover Looks as we got a coupon for a free photo shoot at their studio. The shoot was indeed free, but we paid $388 for the photos on a CD. Made a nice pressie for June!

A few more of their better shots, click here.

Kaiser checks out this ku niang Japanese limited edition "cherry blossom" flavoured Kit Kat which I picked up to sample. It really is very sweet.

Met up with Adrian at Northpoint. While waiting for him to arrive, I bought "The Constant Gardener" and Gaiman's "Mirrormask" on DVD.

Then we went for dinner at Bottle Tree Village (pix above). Very ulu, very dark and narrow road to drive down to get there, but the view across the Straits of Johore is quite something to behold. Food's quite good -- Chinese restaurant zi cha stuff. We had their homemade tofu; fresh, crispy French beans; beef with spring onions; and half a huge fish head cooked with bitter gourd which we couldn't finish. Quite reasonably priced too: $61 for the 3 of us, considering the location.

Unpleasant news in the ST Obituaries today. This kid who occasionally came over to my place to play with my sister has passed on. The two were best friends since kindergarten (SVDP), in primary school (CLGC), secondary school (SJC), then college (CJ). Then finally their education and career paths took them in separate directions, though they still kept in touch quite frequently.

In Beijing, she caught the flu but thought nothing of it at the time. Before long, it developed into pneumonia. Further complications brought her immediately into ICU and that was it.

No, I didn't know Erica well. To me, she was just my kid sister's playmate. And I didn't recognize the photo in the papers either. I knew her as a child, but never as a career woman nor as a mother. And I didn't expect the child to go so soon...

Someone I knew; someone I might have got to know better, but didn't.

I think I'm losing the patience required to be a real PC game player. Either that or I'm a total loser for getting my butt handed to me on a plate so often, and hence resorting to cheating with GOD mode just to finish Q4.

I no longer have the dedication to try and try again, slowly figuring out the right combination of tactical maneuvers to help me survive the next onslaught of beasties. This is especially taxing in the later levels when bigger, tougher, heavier armed enemy critters continue to respawn without end. As soon as you down one, another pops up and goes immediately for your jugular.

Forget it. Just invoke "invulnerability" mode and finish the game. Done. Now I can go back to normal life again.

Normal life, for example, means meeting up with real people like Amy for lunch, then having Vince join us for another quick bowling session at the CSC.

NY conneXions only has 1 article this week 'cos it's the March hols, but yesterday's futsal event was too big a deal to leave unreported. Read the story here.


Spent the afternoon cycling Ubin with Vince, NBS, Lucy and Mr B.

Here's our reward -- the reason for delaying our expedition till the late afternoon.

More pix here.

Whoa! Spending too much time on Stoggos, not enough time on Bloggos.

Anyway, the college hosted a joga 3 futsal event for the students yesterday. It was quite exciting to watch the organizers set up 4 futsal courts in the parade square and from there build up a carnival atmosphere with lots of happy, pumped-up kids running around and actually having fun.

I would have liked to participate, but people worry for me and my doctor's orders, even if I don't worry so much for myself. So I contented myself with my digi-cam snapping shots for NY conneX instead.

The highlight of the event was a special guest visit from the Brazilian futsal squad. They showed off their ball skills in a number of exhibition matches against our student teams. The Brazilians were clearly there to give us a feet-on demonstration of "joga bonito," or "play beautiful," and not to massacre their challengers like they might have.

Missed the close of the event 'cos of other work commitments, so I don't know which student team won the tournament eventually. Bah. Information incomplete.

Finally got some company for bowling in the evening. Vince and me, and we both seem quite out of practice, ending a 6-game session with decidedly average averages. We've received our invitation to sign up for the Ministry league again, but we really have to consider whether such a commitment is feasible this year.

It's been a long 2 days wandering around the planet Stroggos fraggin' Stroggs. What? They'd do the same to me too, if they saw me. Actually, they have been rather kicking my butt in turn, and making me quite annoyed. Loaded up Quake 4 on Friday night and I'm still working my way through the levels.

Dunno why, but I'm enjoying this game more than Doom 3. Many scenes are as gory and disturbing -- the waste processing plant was particularly horrid -- but maybe it's because there are more NPCs to interact with and who are actually helpful that makes the difference. Characters you come across either restore your health or armour, upgrade your weapons or offer new ones, and join you in firefights, so you don't often feel completely alone. Also, it doesn't give me motion sickness when I play, so I can enjoy the game for longer stretches than the previous one.

This year so far has been great for my wallet. I don't get so many opportunities to go out at night now, seeing how busy everyone is. Even June's new job makes her keep much longer hours than she likes. And with my own schedule, it's really hard to find common leisure slots in which I can have a proper go-wild-and-crazy time with the Boyz. The upside, of course, is that I get to save on expenses. This month I was surprised that payday seemed to have come earlier than usual. Maybe it's a good opportunity to build up my travel fund again...

Meantime, there's always Watson for company. 'scuse me, there's an ex-commanding officer of mine who's been captured and transformed into an unstoppable killing machine by the Makron. They're all after my blood now so I'm gonna have'ta smack'em all upside the head with my BFG an' show'em who's boss. Back to the trenches...

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." Socrates

Y'see? NBS and I have widely differing opinions as to our expected end results for KI students. No doubt we both want them to eventually become wise beyond their years, but we seem to be disagreeing on what to consider as progress milestones.

For me, I look at the culture schoolkids are raised in today and I see an environment in which kids are taught to shut up and accept "knowledge" from whatever higher authority. Kids don't go to school to ask questions; but rather, they go to answer them. So after 10+ years of such conditioning, kids believe that answers are more valuable than questions; and if they don't have immediate answers, they think they're screwed for life.

The education system tends to be prescriptive. It doesn't encourage curiosity, but instead gives the impression that whatever isn't in the syllabus isn't important, and therefore there isn't any need to find out more than what's in front of the nose. Questions probing beyond tend to fall somewhere between "impertinent" and "irrelevant," and more often than not are quashed by a teacher's icy glare.

The child's eventually learns to recognize what are potentially inappropriate and/or embarrassing lines of inquiry and self-censors verbal articulation of thoughts that need clarification or further explanation, though such questions may hold valuable keys to gaining a better understanding of the concept being considered. This self-censor -- which has the power to save "face" -- is unfortunately also the biggest stumbling block to a child's learning ability.

The self-censor is an important socialization tool. It prevents misunderstanding between people, and it alerts us to sensitivities of the concept under discussion. But under repeated conditioning it kicks into overdrive and we can't be bothered to argue with it any longer. We take the easy way out and stop questioning altogether.

Most of us live under the tyranny of the self-censor for the rest of our lives. We're too afraid, too embarrassed, too polite to ask questions any longer. We remain quiet, content to absorb information but not engage it, and so our learning ends once we leave school. The KI student works to overcome this fate, taking back control from his/her self-censor so that he/she can reclaim the freedom to question and be curious once again.

As for our field trip to Parliamant House on Wednesday, our KIds showed the will and the audacity to ask about things they didn't understand, or about discrepancies between their expectations and what they actually observed. The questions may not have been profound abstractions showing off how smart they were, but rather admissions that they didn't know what was going on and yet they wanted to find out anyway. This, to me is what learning is all about. The answers they got to their queries were quite satisfactory, and compared to their seniors who tended to just sit quietly, I'm sure the KIds got more out of the visit.

NBS isn't wrong about wanting to be more ambitious for the KIds. As we progress, they will learn to raise the level of their queries. But after having had only 1 term with us, they are already starting to become curious about their world again. That, to me, is a stumbling block removed. Heh. Between NBS and me, I think we're going to see our 1st batch of KIds through ok.

Considering I've had about 3 hours of sleep between yesterday and today, I still feel pretty good. For one thing, the latest edition of NY conneX is online! And for another, I'm anticipating that apart from a couple of administrative chores tomorrow, I can get some make-up rest time in the afternoon. Oh, wait, there's still a pile of essays left to wade through. Whatever. There are only 24 hours in a day after all.

NBS and I have very different opinions about how our field trip to Parliament House went this afternoon. Because Parliament was in session -- today they were debating the budget for MoM -- we got to sit and observe the proceedings for about a half-hour. It wasn't exactly a full house, but a number of recognizeable people were present, including the PM and SM, and Mr Chiam too.

During the 'education' part of our visit, while the JC2s remained quiet, our KIds jumped right on the Q&A session and pestered our patient guide with question after question. NBS lamented that their questions weren't particularly intelligent. They were mostly procedural and speculative questions and perhaps they seemed like a waste of time to answer.

But to me, the level of questioning wasn't important. The fact that they were asking, and treating the guide as if he would give them answers (which he did) rather than tell them to shut up (which he didn't) showed that they were actively engaging the content, if not necessarily the substance, of the learning experience.

So instead of sitting and absorbing like sponges like everybody else, they pushed ahead and sought out further information than was immediately obvious. If they picked up this confidence from just our first term together, then I think we're moving KI in the right direction. And I'm quite proud of the KIds after today's session.