Friday afternoon off is a luxury. And I fully exploited that luxury today. Drove out to ECP, strapped on my 'blades and felt the wind and the sun on my face. First time in a long while, it seems.

ECP is a more fun venue than Bish Park. It's like comparing the open road to a fish bowl. It's just a long stretch from end to end, and by the time you've covered that distance, you feel like it's quite some achievement already.

At ECP, I felt my quads cramping up quite early on my run. Sweat came earlier. My big toes started feeling numb after some time (and are still numb now) and I developed a 1cm wide blister on my right instep. All signs that my 'blades need adjustment for a better fit, or maybe I was pushing myself a bit harder than usual, being alone on the pathways today.

Being alone meant I could move faster, not worrying about anyone being left behind. I could take the slopes and not worry about my companion/s panicking and getting themselves or somebody else hurt halfway down.

But it's also fun to be with people you know, sharing the experience and maybe talking about it later. A shared memory between friends. At one point, I kinda' missed Anthony and his ability to pull people together at the drop of a hat. We've lost our party animal; and every organization needs one. Sigh.

But Amy and HP showed up later with their rented bikes. And about the same time, Vince called and asked if I wanted to go bowling. Hey, better late than never, eh? :)

We've seen the official scoresheet. Vince and I won outright, regardless of our handicap! The second placed team had exactly the same handicap as us, so we are the champs after all.

It might have been a different story if the bowling club members were allowed to partner each other, but as organizers they had to at least give non-bowlers a chance to win too. In that loophole, we had the advantage.

Vince and I are champs on the lanes this year! So happened we were the only 2 staff in competition, everyone else being somehow otherwise occupied, while we both cleared our schedules for this, our event of the year!

So Vince can finally say he has won a bowling tournament after 4? 5? years of on-campus competition.

What can I say? I bowled my usual competition score, averaging 142; Vince likewise, averaging 126, over 3 games each. I was quite amazed to score like I did, considering how many open frames I left per game, and how difficult it was getting strikes on my lanes. This game wasn't anything like our last practice, but I guess it was enough.

Of course, the non-bowling club members' most generous handicap helped our game a lot...

Oh, and we got interviewed by our campus-TV news rivals who wanted us to comment on staff participation in student-organized activities. Hope they caught my good side on camera!

I have made a complete fool of myself in public and my face has never been redder. I'm referring to my entry dated 2 April 2006 (below) confirming once and for all what a tightwad I am. And, oh, how gullible too.

I got myself all worked up over the 'neocharge' levied on loading Neopets pages, ya? Check the date again... yes, I must be the biggest April Fool to fall for a stunt Neopets makes a tradition of year after year. How violently I reacted too! You don't get that much emotion out of me easily, if you know me well enough.

Now to find a paper bag to put over my head...

Since I'm considering doing something potentially unethical with other people's blogs, in my own blog I'm seeking opinions on the matter before I make an irreversible decision.

The point of NY conneXions as conceived in its previous incarnation was to be the nexus of student dialogue and debate. It was, as I understand, meant to be a platform for students to comment on events, people, and items of interest to and about the college. That ideal hasn't changed, but since we linked the journal to the college server and insisted on improving the quality of our reporting (work-in-progress, trust me), and on being fair-but-positive in outlook, it's hard to get away from the idea that we've become the official mouthpiece for the admin rather than a discussion platform for our students.

To remind our students that they have a stake in this journal too, I decided to open up the writing of the Orientation 2 '06 experience to the general student body, asking them to submit the text of or links to their blog entries about it, but to date no one's sent anything for us to publish on the matter.

It's not that they haven't written anything on O2: just Google and a multitude of entries from a number of different bloggers pop up. So here's my problem...

There's such ample material out there, both positive and negative. I'm tempted to just 'kope' text from several J1 bloggers and stick them into the conneXions article just to 'force' contributions. I'll remove the links to the original blogs and we'll just do a little editing to keep the 'contributors' as anonymous as possible, though total anonymity will be impossible to maintain, of course.

I've already put together 4-5 pages worth of contributions and all I need do is upload them, and one way or another, all hell is probably going to break loose.

Do I really want to do that...? Advise, please...!

Call me a skinflint, miser or cheapo nenek, but I have developed a serious aversion towards the Neopets site ever since they started this system that charged users neopoints (NP) for loading pages from their site. Get *free* omelette, pay 10NP; get *free* tombola dip, pay 10NP; get *free* uncertain blessing at Coltzan's Shrine, pay 10NP; you get the idea. Even reloading a previously visited page costs NP. Ridiculous!

There's this complex argument that inflation has gone so high, items have become unaffordable for the casual user, so they need a system that will remove NP from the economy to reduce this runaway inflation. Well, I am a casual user and with this system in place I don't even earn enough interest in my fixed deposit to cover what I usually do on the site in the first place -- which is to get *free* stuff!

Neopets says this system will reduce bandwidth usage on their ever popular site. It certainly has. I don't want to darken their doors again, even if I never feed my Wocky again.

I know it's just virtual money that's being drained, but in order to keep visiting Neopets I have to play the games just to earn NP so I can afford to keep visiting the site. That's not virtual time being wasted, it's MY time.

Sorry, Neopets. It's been fun, but if this system remains in place, it's adios amigo!

Finally caught "V for Vendetta" with June. A very GP-ish movie asking the question, "Terrorist or freedom fighter?" Also, lots of questions dealing with justice, politics, religion, bio-ethics, the arts, and the media. Juicy!

June points out that this isn't essentially the action flick that the trailers promise, but I appreciate the slower pace that develops the plot layer by layer, revealing more and more of the mystery behind the dystopia the world has become for the characters in the movie.

The bomber, V, who models his appearance and ideals after Guy Fawkes is the lone voice daring enough to point out that the emperor has no clothes. Everyone else has been cowed and/or become disinterested by a monolithic, authoritarian, oppressive regime, where people "disappearing" after a late night visit by the police is almost routine.

In order to rile up the people out of their resignation, stupor and apathy, V first catches everyone's attention by blowing up the Old Bailey in London and then throws down a challenge. V names his next target, the Houses of Parliament; and the date, the next year's Guy Fawkes' night. To the authorities, it's "try-and-stop me;" to the people, it's a rallying cry for revolution against the incumbent government.

So begins a chain of events that V orchestrates. His vendetta is against those people in power who had literally made him the monster he has become. His call for revolution is in earnest, but his job, as he sees it, is to clear the way for the people to rouse themselves and reclaim for themselves the freedom taken from them by the High Chancellor's Nazi-like Norsefire Party, and not to do it for them.

V judges the people's will to act through Evey, whom he shelters when she inadvertently gets implicated in the Old Bailey attack. Through Evey, we catch glimpses of V's elaborate scheme to bring down the governemnt. Her response to V's activities mirrors the sentiments of the people who, though subdued, are far from the sheep the government takes them for.

Despite the effort the government puts on the political spin machine, the public sees right through the media and privately sneers at the whitewash. Emboldened by V, pockets of dissent rise in small acts by various individuals, each one building to encourage other acts that are increasingly daring. Even Gordon, a highly regarded late-night talk show host and a seeming member of the political elite reveals his own dissent in his final broadcast, a blatant parody of recent events featuring V making a complete laughingstock of the High Chancellor, and the viewing public makes no pretense to hide its laughter.

The plot places great importance on us getting to know the individual, mundane details of a number of characters' biographies. One of the characters only exists in flashback, but even her story is told if only as pencil scribblings on some toilet paper. The glaring ommission is V's own backstory. We never really know him apart from fragments of others' memories and inferences, though through an exquisite deception we will get to know him better than any of the other characters in the movie. As V proclaims, "Artists lie to expose the truth. Politicians lie to hide it."

In any case, V represents an idea, not a person. The people, though not sheep, feel alone in their dissent. It takes an immediately identifiable icon of utter audacity, to unite them in small, insignificant acts of rebellion. After all, compared to the complete and spectacular obliteration of a venerated public building, what is a little spray-can vandalism of a public poster by a kid wearing an identical mask to V's?

V, the bomber, sets things up so that he isn't the one to deliver the coup de grace on the Norsefire administration. That final act isn't for him. Change has to stem from the collective will of the people, not the will of a single idealist. The people themselves have to decide what they want, take action and wield People Power once again; and all V's efforts lead the people to this point.

Within a year, V lays down his challenge, instigates the people to play his game while making their way smooth and enacting his vengeance all at the same time. V fulfills all his promises by the end of the movie, but do the people do their part as well? Will they betray him in the end? No spoiler from me about that. Go watch this brilliant statement on ideas and people and politics to find out yourself.

"V for Vendetta" goes on my list of top movies for 2006.

Got to drive the Swift back to college after lunch. Being used to M2, I was extra careful in handling an unfamiliar car, and may have driven a little slower than the cars behind me would have liked. The Swift takes some getting used to, being that it seems to have been designed for someone more compact than me to drive comfortably. It's probably because I didn't bother to adjust the seat to suit my bulk (I didn't have time to customize the configuration properly), that's why the ride back felt like quite a tight fit.

Everything about the Swift has a lighter touch than M2; the steering, the cornering, even the hand-brake came up so smoothly with minimal application of strength. Nice touches, but I feel too oafish to handle such refinement for long with confidence. I know it's just illusory, but I was afraid bits of the Swift would come off in my hands as I grappled with them, the way I do with M2. Fortunately, I left it in one piece back at the campus parking lot for Amy to reclaim later, after her lunch with HP and Vince.

In the late afternoon-evening, I rediscovered bowling in Hougang with Vince. After a frantic week searching for a fellow Pegasii to partner me in next week's college bowling challenge, today I got the news that staff do not have to pair up by House any longer. Staff form the 'Open' category and compete directly against the students.

We needed to at least try out the lanes at our competition venue, so Starbowl Hougang it was. It's very easy to throw strikes here. The pins fall quite easily. The lanes seem to favour the straight-down-the-middle kind of balls, so I should have a slight advantage. But from an 8-game series, my score tended to fluctuate between the mid-120s right up to the 190s, but the frustrating thing was that I couldn't string 3 solid games together for a decent 3-game total score. That would be crucial to doing well next week.

Next, I need to go register us for the tournament... hope there're still some slots left.

Whole college staff attended a course on "Brain Based Learning." Do a Google search on this phrase, and a lot of material pops up on it.

From what I gather, it's a theory about understanding how the brain functions, then tailoring the learning experience for our students accordingly. In this way, we take advantage of the brain's own workings in order to maximize the amount of stuff our students can absorb in every lesson and retain over the long term.

It sounds like a useful idea, after all, if we could apply such techniques to creating learning strategies that our students can use for better results, then by all means, y'know. But a theory like this one -- which is apparently still in its experimental stages -- requires a full course-load to appreciate and understand. We compressed it down to about 4 hours yesterday afternoon, and it felt like something got lost in the translation.

It didn't help that the delivery by the instructor was supposed to be the model we were meant to follow in our own lessons.

The session involved lots of quick personal discussions about the little bite-sized chunks of info he presented. There was lots of movement -- he constantly moved around the room while expounding nibblet after nibblet of wisdom; and he constantly got us to move around as well, moving with our chairs from table to open space, while changing partners for our little discussions. These discussions were supposed to allow students to check each other's comprehension and recall of the lesson material so far, and correct as necessary. And they were frequent.

He taught us to give our usually complex instructions one-at-a-time so that there would be no confusion amongst the students as to what was expected of them, and would willingly comply because there was no ambiguity in each instruction whatsoever. He taught us to say, "thank you," to our discussion partner for sharing and to celebrate with enthusiastic applause anyone's contribution to the larger group.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Then why did I feel throughout the session likeI was being treated like a kid with attention deficit syndrome? And why did I feel that I was being exhorted to treat my students similarly, like complete idiots who can't even tie their own shoelaces? And why did the idea of dishing out step-by-step instructions make me feel like a psycho with control issues?

Maybe I'm just old-school after all. I'm used to learning from long, quiet stretches reading from dusty old books with minimal yakkity-yak from anyone else around me. I don't have the attention span of someone who was raised by Sesame Street as a toddler and prefers to surf the 'net rather than search for answers in real life.

Well, maybe that's how it's going to have to be for this generation's bunch of learners. The Americans seem to favour it, anyway. Wonder why?

Yesterday was my first meeting with the PUS kids as a full group. Between Gerald and me, we've to decide how to allocate specific tasks to them based on how they auditioned. Some kids naturally fit into their roles, but the others aren't so clear. We'll be scratching our heads over those kids for a while.

So tired last night, I fell asleep watching House on AXN. Even the nasty doctor's barbs couldn't keep me awake long enough to find out whether a young man's multiple system failure was caused by his fiancee's insatiable sexual appetite or not.

Today was likewise another long day. Met the J1 Journalism kids at the production meeting. They seem a bit wary of their surroundings for the moment; but once we really throw them in the deep end they'll start getting comfortable and learn to swim, I hope. One J1 proposed to write a regular column on PC/console game reviews -- a dream come true for me! Hope the others find a niche for themselves soon.

Couldn't stay to share pizza with them. Had to run off for in-line 'blading lessons which the College arranged for interested kids. Why do I need lessons? Because there are certain skills -- like the crossover -- that I require more basic training in before I can execute them. In a way, I learned to run before I learned to walk. Now I'm taking remedial classes.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Xmac and I have something to confess. I'm a teacher, and I blog.

The Sunday Times today asks, "Should teachers blog?" I take exception to being singled out for my profession and being questioned for my decision to post my scribblings on-line. The first concern ST puts forward is that it might be psychologically damaging for students to read what their teachers actually think about them. Second is that teachers can get into trouble with the Ministry if they grouse about their work, colleagues and school environment.

The latter arguments could be applied to anyone else in any other profession as well. People in other industries have been fired before, so we've learned to be a bit more circumspect airing our views in the public arena, just in case. Hence, the bland, politically correct points of view I've been putting forth here. Score one for perhaps over-cautious self-censorship, zero for being a sensational, attention-grabbing, audience-attracting sponsorship magnet that will allow me to give up my day job.

The first concern -- about fracturing students' delicate egos -- is a little tougher to address. It really depends on our motivation for blogging. If it's just a carthartic release from stresses at work, then a teacher sending mixed signals in person and on a blog means that neither message has the credibility to be taken seriously. Both messages stem from masks that the teacher wears: suppressed emotion in person, vented emotion on-line, and neither are reflections of honest, reflective thought.

Venomous words can and do sting, but the difference in blogging is that people go looking through search engines for things other people say about them, and when they find unpleasantness they get upset. Isn't that asking for trouble in the first place? Our students need to learn to take honest criticism, but they also have to learn to discern which critique to take with a pinch of salt too.

The other motivation for teachers' blogs is to communicate with their students directly on-line, where everybody 'lives' in the same community as equals. These blogs aren't just random rants about anything and anyone in particular, but they are about reaching out to students with reminders, nags, advice or concerns; establishing a platform for sharing common resource materials; or even showing students that their teachers are human too and that they do have a life after school.

To say that teachers should or should not blog is asking a nonsense question. You could substitute "teacher" with any other profession, and you'd get the same nonsense answer. Blogging isn't a matter of "should/not," it's more a choice of what we do with the technology available, for whichever audience we have chosen to address.

Words can build up or they can tear down. I hope I've been doing more of the former than the latter here for my visitors. That is my choice.

June's taken a fancy to visiting Hokkaido in the summer. Apparently, there are vast fields of lavender and sunflowers to admire, and the seafood couldn't get any fresher. So it was off to the NATAS fair for us to see what packages were on offer.

We started out looking at group tour packages. Groups are about 20-30 strong, and being sociable with so many fellow holiday-makers for the entire trip didn't appeal to us at all. It wasn't that our Korean tour of '03 was such a terrible experience; it was just inflexible and we couldn't be independent of the group at all. It was only when we extended our tour for another 2-3 days in Seoul that we felt like we'd escaped the herd and we were free to waste our time and money on whatever we ourselves wanted, rather than on stuff the tour organization decided we should.

From our initial research today, we got bolder and started asking around for free-and-easy tours instead. But the tour operators showed us how expensive such expeditions could be, simply because we couldn't get bulk discounts.

There was a section of the travel fair that caught our attention. 2 huge video walls screening sights from Hokkaido. The organization doing the screening ran a fly & drive tour, i.e., fly there, pick up a rental Toyota, drive yourself around Hokkaido aiming to arrive at the designated hotel for the day by nightfall.

There are recommended stops between hotels but because it's a self-drive tour, we can pick and choose which locations to dally at, which to skip or even run off on our own if we knew of some other place that would capture our interest more. Howzzat for flexibility? Well, apart from having to make it to the right hotel to sleep in at night, that is.

One of the rental cars on offer is the Toyota Prius, 1.5l hybrid, running at 35.5km/l, with on-board GPS nav system. Sweet! And accommodation is entirely 5-star including meals and most have a hot spa facility free for guest usage. Wow.

The cost at Twin rates: $2888 for EACH of us, which is steep. But if we went Dutch, though still a pinch, is barely affordable. Then we discussed the package some more with one of the guides for this tour who clarified that there are other expenses such as gas, parking, tolls, entrance fees, lunch, etc., that aren't covered in the packaged rate. A more realistic cost figure would be closer to $4-5K each. And we're like, "oh...!"

Pity. Maybe if we saved on going anywhere this year, we might consider this package again next year. Meantime, I know June's still searching for better options...

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!