For once, a relief staff got a send-off in style. We bought CQ high-tea at the Goodwood Park Coffee Lounge and bade him farewell as he takes up a new job in the banking sector. Guess the boy was destined for greater things. Heh.

High-tea here comprises a spread of local hawker foods of which I enjoyed the laksa best (no hum, unfortunately). A surprise find was the apom with caramelized banana gravy -- I haven't seen this dessert for a while. And though June's assessment was that the actual cost of the spread was quite cheap -- she knows the f&b market pretty well -- at least they provided us with ice-cream from Mövenpick. Undisputed quality there, according to Baggy.

But amidst the face stuffing, the shop-talk and the vacation-planning, we also had to remember that the guy who hung out with us for several lunches, a couple of dinners and a 4-day road-trip is on his way out and up, and hope that we have left him some good memories to take with him.

See you around, CQ, and good luck!

I'm tired of Lady Croft's company. Yeah, I am playing "TR:Legend" 'cos it came bundled with one or the other of my recent hardware purchases. But cool, smart and jiggly as Lara is, I need a dose of the real world once in a while.

As it happens, I'm running around unsupervised today (June had to go work) and in times like this, I usually end up spending money. I decided to spoil myself lunching at Corduroy & Finch along Bt Timah Road, just before Sixth Ave. Always wanted to go there since the treasure hunt of last year (we thought it was a checkpoint for one of the clues) but never got around to it.

The place reminds me of a New York deli, except it's spotlessly clean and the staff are polite, service with a smile, y'know, and look like they're happy to work there.

French onion soup topped with emmenthal was nice, but even better when on request they provided a generous portion of shaved parmesan which I happily dumped into the tureen. Parmesan thickens the soup and gives it a kick, which otherwise tends to be quite bland.

The chix sandwich was more like a chix salad served between 2 thick slices of bread. It came with sliced hard-boiled egg and a thin sheet of emmenthal. Mmmm... beautiful. I made the mistake of asking for the sandwich to be toasted though. I never learn. Toasted bread -- particularly around the crust -- causes mouth lacerations. My upper palate and tongue have been nicely scraped raw and have gone temporarily numb. Hopefully, I'll get my tastebuds back by dinnertime.

Washed it all down with ginger beer, Bunderberg, I think. It was cool and soothing, just the thing for when you feel like you've been Frenching a cactus.

Grand total: $31 for a lunch for 1. Consider myself well and truly spoiled!

Jus' love 'em Teen Titans.

Here's a plot idea that will never be aired since the networks have cancelled the series, but anyway...

It's been nearly a year since Beast Boy has left Titan Tower to join Titans East. The undercurrents between Robin and Starfire have now resulted in them becoming officially an item.

The usually astute Raven appears to be thoroughly surprised by this development, while Cyborg's internal sensors and scanners had been picking up the signs of the budding relationship for quite a while.

But leadership is lacking at Titans East, and Robin is pursuaded to join Beast Boy to whip the East team into shape.

So Robin leaves Star behind at the Tower with Cyborg and Raven.

Titan Tower is feeling quite empty now, with just the 3 original Titans holding the fort...

Fighting super-villains and psycho aliens are business as usual for the team, but how can they fight what Starfire calls "Rekmas"? That's gonna be next season's biggest challenge. Stay tuned!

Another 2-year cycle has come to an end as we bade our JC2s farewell today. Officially, they're kicked out of the nest and by right should be soaring on their own as of now. Congrats, you guys, you've made it this far, so now it's time to really exercise those academic muscles we've been working you on and grab some serious air!

We, your flight instructors, will still be accompanying you along your way over the next couple of weeks, so feel free to continue dropping in on us for advice and more practice as you prep for the trials ahead.

And even as we were waving away our seniors in the morning, we opened our doors in the afternoon to the secondary schools, whose kids were anxious to get a glimpse of what a college campus looks like.

My duty (and thanks to NBS for performing above and beyond by sharing my load with me) was to answer general enquiries about the college, the subjects and the campus environment. Oddly enough, most enquirers only wanted to know if they were good enough to be accepted as students next year. Guess they have more practical and immediate concerns right now to be asking about anything else.

And so the Circle of Life is about to swing around again...

Mel's been pursuasive. She got me to help the Drama Club put together a short presentation for our college open house tomorrow. Can't say that we had a lot of time to rehearse it; it's still pretty rough right now. Really, it's a skeleton plot and the details simply haven't had sufficient time to develop.

Disclaimers aside, working with the new bunch of Dramatists has made me miss the Drama Club and all our madcap activities.

It's so much fun to see a story develop from the various improvisational fooling about that happens when people are fully immersed in the serious business of play. Taking inspiration (ok, stealing ideas) from Tina, we got the kids playing with buckets, brooms and mops, and seeing the different kinds of things these household items can be used for other than what they were designed to do.

Among the things that came up, someone suggested "knights". We played around with stock characters from the old tales of chivalry and derring-do, and some stereotypical plot devices, and thus our "Arthurian legend" came into being. The best thing about it is that the ideas were almost entirely from the kids themselves. All I needed to do was to stitch together the loose ends, and voila!

We go on at 1630 tomorrow, so if y'all have about 10 minutes to spare around then, we could use your support! Anyway, hope our little visitors will like it.

Lunch at Sloan Court Hotel with June. Amazing that we ended up there since we began the day intending to meet JY at ECP for cycling.

JY informs us she'll be late, Mom calls me at breakfast about some emergency (turns out Aunt needs to be rushed to the airport for her flight home), JY says she's not done yet, we drive Mom to church, JY says she's not done yet... and it's lunchtime already. :P

Sloan Court's great for a leisurely lunch. The restaurant is decorated like a Tudor-style hunting lodge, complete with replica weapons (though not necessarily hunting weapons) adorning the walls. I thought I saw a moose head mounted up there somewhere too.

There is a certain austerity to the place, like all the furniture and fittings have been there for a very long time. Folded-up coasters balance uneven table legs; underneath the table settings, the tablecloths are threadbare and worn; and the cutlery is all mismatched. But rather than make the place look unpleasant, it feels so comfortable, like home. No fuss, no pretense, no nonsense.

Food-wise, just go for the set-meal. We ordered the more expensive option: roast-beef which came medium (sigh, no blood). Every day is a different item on the menu. Lunch is between $10+ to $18+ depending on your choice of meat.

A bit nostalgic for me to revisit the place as well. This was the site of the first time ever that I got stinkin' pissed drunk. Hee hee. Hic. Ah, the momories...

Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" calls to mind Taily's question: "What is the worth of a blade of grass?" In the awful carnage that occured on the day that changed the world, Stone focuses his attention on just 2 police officers trapped in the rubble.

McLaughlin and Jimeno, 2 of 5 volunteers who swallow their fear and venture forward to assist in the evacuation of the towers. But here's the thing: before they even have had a chance to help anyone, the sky has already fallen on their heads and they lie buried 20 feet below visible light.

Stone ignores the major tragedy and loss of life and keeps our attention on the efforts of the two men who though separated and out of sight of each other keep each other alive by exchanging stories about their loved ones.

When word gets out that the two are still alive, the news mobilizes whole battalions of emergency and rescue personnel. Though only a few men can actually work on extricating them, due to the tight confines they are trapped in, when they each finally break the surface, the welcome they get from the hundreds of PD and FD volunteers is overwhelmingly tremendous. Everyone is just so happy to see them alive, and anxious for them to return home to their families.

Only 20 people got pulled out alive from the wreckage in which nearly 3,000 perished. Jimeno and MacLaughlin were numbers 18 and 19. But as in the story of the lost sheep, there is great rejoicing when the single lost sheep has been found.

What's the value of a blade of grass? Taken out of context, it means nothing. But when we connect its roots to the field it belongs in, it's true value is actually quite astonishing.

Horrid haze hangs heavy.
Hostile heat harms historical habitats.
Hacking, heaving; holding hanky handy.
Hope heaven hastily halts haughty human hubris.
Health, hurry! Hie hither home!

It's the mooncake festival tonight, and I've taken my 2 nephews down to the playground to bask in the light of the full moon. So many other kids down here with us, swinging their lanterns and sparklers. Some are busy trying to set the playground on fire with such arrangements of candles as are usually seen on a psycho's shrine to the object of his obsession.

Apparently, amongst all this lunacy, traditional Chinese scholars are meant to drink tea and compose poetry. That explains the few lines above that begin today's entry. Yes, it's supposed to be poetry. And it's about current affairs too.

So there.

What is, "family"? Family is a beat-up old VW bus. The horn is broken and sounds intermittently, attracting all kinds of embarassing attention. The clutch is broken so it needs to be push-started, everyone putting their weight behind the machine until the starter can kick in and 3rd gear can be forced into engaging. Since the bus is now on the move, it has to be boarded one at a time on the run.

The first few times this process occurs, it's a mess of coordination, and getting moving seems pretty touch and go. But on further repetition, a system slowly emerges and eventually it becomes smoother and smoother, almost effortless.

A family may be completely dysfunctional, comprising every manner of misfit who can't even get along with their own closest kin. But the nature of the family is to bind people together as one, whatever friction is generated between its members. And when 1 family member is threatened, all differences get set aside and the family faces the threat together.

Whatever am I talking about? I must say no more or I might just spoil the fun when you go watch Little Miss Sunshine. This movie would've passed under my radar if Shah didn't highly recommend it. She wasn't wrong, and now I'm highly recommending it too! Whaddaya waiting for? Go!

With regard to yesterday's entry, on 2nd reading it does rather seem pessimistic, as Mei has pointed out. I actually meant it to be read in a positive light, and I'm glad that Mei did fill in the blanks for me in her comments.

Let me expand on what she said. Y'see, by the time we've completed our undergrad studies, we've actually just had a glimpse into the known areas of work done in our disciplines. Our undergrad degree acknowledges that we have the necessary grounding to then start work on the unknown areas outside the borders of our current knowledge. That piece of paper we work so hard for is our licence qualifying us to explore beyond; to apprehend the unknowable; to distill new understanding; and to communicate our newfound knowledge to others; and thereby make our own meagre contribution to the sum total of human knowledge, taking us one more step closer towards a more unifying Wisdom [KIds, pay attention here].

Most people these days are content to take their undergrad qualifications as proof of their ability to slave away for some corporate entity for the rest of their days. They undermine all the work they've put into their studies by taking this attitude, but that's the nature of our employment market. Forget your airy-fairy dreams, people gotta eat!

But those who know the true meaning of their qualification and accept the responsibility therein are ready to take their toe out of the ocean and immerse their whole selves into it instead. The unknown is obviously scary, but it is also a source of great freedom and exhileration as well. Too bad that the ocean is so vast, but there are so few explorers to help chart it.

Why am I working with Education? Because I'm in the business of training explorers of the unknown. It's difficult because many of my students see a more pragmatic end to their studies. Often, we seem to be working at cross-purposes. Still, for every batch I get a Mei, a Faith and a Taily. That's what keeps me going.

As we move closer to the 'A' Levels, our J2s are very much aware that they are approaching a big hurdle they have to clear before they can move on to the next stage in their education process. But while their eyes focus on the obstacle itself and how insurmountable it seems, how many of them have thought about what awaits them on the other side?

It takes 12 years of schooling on average to qualify as an undergrad. Within that time, how much knowledge in our basic disciplines -- language, math, the sciences, aesthetics -- have we already crammed into our minds in order to just sit for our entrance exams? Well, from our J2s' perspective, a lot. The endless late nights beating their heads on page after page of textbook material and lecture note scraps, and bits of tutorials they're still trying to make some sense of; while the X-box is mouldering away in the living-room (though Dad the dinosaur still dusts it off occasionally to play Tetris on).

All this sacrifice, we hope, gets us into our first tutorial room as a freshman at the uni. If we've made it this far, we've got to remember how smart we have had to be to get here. A moment of pride is justified.

However, within the 3-4 years of study till the time we receive our undergrad degree, we will learn only 1 lesson, and it will be the most important one we will ever learn in our lives. That lesson we will remember, as we step up to shake the Dean's hand, is that everything we've learned in our now 15-16 years of study add up to a staggering sum total of absolutely nothing.

The receipt of our degree is a humbling occasion rather than a proud moment. It's the time we actually see the vast ocean of knowledge for what it is, and we are finally convinced that what we know amounts to less than a drop in that ocean.

If we have learned this lesson, we are firmly placed on the path of wisdom, and our Education has actually meant something. But if we we think that receiving that piece of paper shows the world how smart we are, then I'm sorry to say that we've wasted our time.

I feel very challenged right now. Tomorrow first thing in the morning I'll have a lecture hall almost all to myself, and I'm to talk about 3 of the essay questions that we used in the prelims. Talking about 3 essays isn't the problem per se. But talking about 3 questions within the time limit that I've been given is going to be quite a feat.

At my usual rate, I'm like 1 hour per essay question (for someone as shy, quiet and retiring as me, I hog more mike time than I am usually aware of). Tomorrow I'll have to keep it down to about 20 minutes max per question. Maybe I should get someone to ding a bell or something for me?

I'm starting to realise that I get too anal about content and then I'm yammering on and on, layering more material than the kids can deal with. I mean, it's impressive and all, but all the kids need is just the bare-bones argument structure. Then they can fill in their own content as is relevant to the question.

Ultimately, it isn't about the content. It's about being able to have an opinion about the issue/s the question raises and being able to defend that opinion rationally and reasonably. That's it.

OK, something to bear in mind while I continue to prepare my lecture...

So Faith asks the $64,000 question: Why did I come back? If only we could discern the secret to bringing home our diaspora, our government wouldn't have to be so worried.

Unfortunately, there's nothing to be learnt from my experience. Well, nothing relevant to the government's problem, anyway. The truth is, I have a very bad habit. When I get to the top of my game, I become very reluctant to move on. I don't want to change level, and I don't want to change the game either. Physicists call this tendency, "inertia." It's a great asset that keeps a body in motion, but it's a terrible liability when the body comes to rest.

After achieving an academic qualification I had never thought I was capable of, my reason for being away from home ceased to exist. In my remaining days out there, I was supposed to find employment to qualify for a work permit. But I wasn't ready to make the transition to employment so soon after my recent brush with success. Getting a job meant I'd have to get back on the ground floor and work my way up again. How painful is that?

Thing is, by not making that choice to go to work, the days slowly bled away on my student visa, and eventually I got kicked out of the paradise I had come to love. Stupid. Stupid Stupid. Lazy. Stupid.

Still, if you asked me today whether I have ever wanted to go back, I'd have to honestly say, "no." Location isn't the major factor as to where we choose to settle. Location is important, but human beings don't always choose based on logic alone. The friendships and the relationships I've formed here since I returned are stronger than glue. It's because of the people around me that's how I know I am where I am supposed to be. I am home.

Feel free to barf now.

When I left home at the age of 22 to study overseas, I left feeling I HAD to leave because I was neither wanted nor valued here. My academic achievments were worth less than nothing. At the age when my schoolmates were going to work with high expectations (it was the boom period of the late '80s), I was still the proud holder of only a rudimentary 'O' level cert, with the job prospects of a [insert whatever your mother lamented your fate would be when you got 97/100 marks here].

From the airport, I was determined to make a better life for myself out there. I had my ticket to ride and there was the possibility that, hey, maybe I would never have to come back again! Promises, promises.

I spent nearly 5 years living in a time zone exactly 12 hours apart from my point of origin, literally on the other side of the earth. And I'd be lying if I said I missed home. What was there to miss? Family? But I was independent, free, to go where I wanted, do what I liked, whenever I liked, buy whatever I wanted, with no one to answer to but myself. Food? I was surrounded by such a variety of food from all over the world, with way cooler places to eat it in too.

The grass in the park didn't induce itching, the weather didn't encourage sticky sweatiness (except in late summer), the people were friendlier and more used to seeing strangers than they are here. There were sports teams we could really root for and scream our lungs out for (go, Jays!!!), and when the Jays won 2 back-to-back championships in 92-93, I learned what pride really felt like. You get the idea. I never wanted it to end.

Today, I've been living back home for nearly 3 times the length of my stint overseas. Ironically, I've spent about half that time working with the social institution that caused me to leave in the first place: Education. Funny how life turns out.

Reflection prompted by today's ST article on the 'Singapore diaspora'.

Lost Olly today. Just like that, upped and left for the poly. Sigh. Well, good luck, m'boy and may you find better success where you're going!

Got an unexpected call from Will, saying he has finally compiled the footage of my last major performance with MU. That performance was 4 years ago already. How time flies.

This evening we dropped in on MU ostensibly to collect the DVD from Will, but also to sit in on our last rehearsal together, for the last show we'll be performing together. Though I say, "we," June and I will be in the audience this Saturday instead of being in the show itself.

It's the last show because we're closing shop end of this year. Our key members are committed to their work here locally (like me for example), while a couple of us are headed overseas to LA and Paris, and there's not enough critical mass left to keep the group together.

Still, as Tina sort of suggested, the company has fulfilled it's purpose, providing us with training and exposure and now, we're free to go independent and explore the world on our own. It's a GOOD parting.

Genting is bidding to install THIS as part of their plans for the IR on Sentosa?

It's about bloody time! Trash rationality and whatever bleeding-heart arguments about conserving the natural environment, moralistic pontification about the ills of casino gambling, yadda, yadda, yadda...! For my own personal pleasure and selfish desires -- barring any other offer for an even bigger, better, faster 'coaster park -- they've got my vote!

Who's with me on this one? Say, "Hulk, yeah!!!"

We in the staff room have always been indignant of the staff appraisals we have to sit through every so often. We think of them as a "corporate American" idea that puts undue pressure on us and pits us in unhealthy competition against each other to attain the best personal ranking at the end of the year.

This potentially divisive but mandatory exercise in worst case scenarios could lead to backstabbing, theft of ideas and innovations from others, a disruption of trust amongst people who need to work together as a team, leading to a survival-of-the-fittest scramble for the top. Doesn't seem like a healthy environment to bring kids up in, does it?

But Stossel, in "Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity," is forcing me to have another look at competition and what it does for the consumer. John Stossel is a free-market advocate, and speaks out against government control policies in the US economy. Indeed, the amount of meddling that goes on there that he exposes makes them look like hypocrites when they criticize us for our state-planned economy.

OK, granted that if such a book were written here about our government, there'd be a general consensus to treat it with suspicion, disdain and contempt as we do with Mr Chee and his publications. But Stossel's critique of the US government has nothing to do with us, right?

Anyway, back to our topic of competition. Market forces, Stossel believes, are the answer to pretty much everything that's going wrong in his country. If the market is free to apply Adam Smith's "invisible hand" the US would get the best solutions to poverty, hunger, gender equality, human rights, healthcare, and, yes, education as well. But instead, government controls and regulation kill competition and makes these problems worse than ever.

Competition is good because it forces people to improve and innovate, in order to provide goods and services to consumers at either better prices or some other value-added incentive. The consumer will always benefit because of the choices there are available on the market. Those who aren't chosen go out of business (tough) but the consumer benefits from getting the best value for money every time. In this economic model, if we put the consumer first, then everything supposedly will fall into place.

What if we applied this theory to our own education system as well? How much better would I perform, knowing that if I failed to deliver the goods I'd be immediately replaced by a young tyke eager to earn his stripes? How much more would I be motivated to innovate, to prepare my lessons better, to be more well-read and knowledgeable, to make my lessons more fun and engaging, if I knew the students could choose between boring ol' me or some other less socially inept teacher instead?

Frankly, I'm afraid to know the answer. But it does put the appraisal into another perspective.

Wonder if this idea would apply if we made things more competitive for the students too? Would they be falling over themselves to be more diligent and turn in better work on time? Ok, let's not get carried away.

For goodness sake, people, stop abandoning your pets! Driving towards Yishun dam we saw a small shape crawling across the road. It was a tortise and it looked lost and disorientated. Cars and huge trucks occasionally whizz by along that stretch and it was a prime candidate for road-kill if we didn't do something.

Fortunately, it wasn't a busy road (which is why people tend to speed here), so I pulled over to the road shoulder. June performed the rescue, plucking the tortise off the asphalt. She said that it was trapped between the kerbs on both sides of the road and could never have climbed to safety without assistance.

But what to do with it? To release it back on either side of Yishun dam would be counter-productive. Too full of people, too many cars and trucks, and water so deep it could drown. So we drove him deeper towards Seletar Camp where there is a little water feature that extends out of the golf course there. There's tall grass, shallow water, water-lillies and tiny fish swimming around, and there we left it.

Hopefully, no one will disturb it there.

Actually, what we did wasn't much better than what its original owners did. It's still very cruel to abandon a pet into the wild. There are too many unknown factors to know what the impact of a new organism will be on an existing ecosystem. The risk of damage or destruction to either one is very high. We tried to salvage what was a certain fatality, and under the circumstances that was the best solution we could think of.

Don't make us have to make decisions like that again. If you're thinking of abandoning your pet for whatever reason, stop it! Bad human! Go to your corner! Don't make me go over there...!

The Singapore Dream is still pretty much like the American Dream of the '50s. If you work hard enough now, one day you'll have accumulated enough wealth so that you won't ever have to work again. Then you can retire, live out the rest of your days in a big house, drive a big car, ad nauseum.

We've all heard this tale before. This myth is our defining characteristic as Singaporeans, our national identity. We can't tell stories of ourselves without using it as the overarching theme, or the central tenet. "Singapore Dreaming" is no exception.

Like many of its predecessors, Mr and Mrs Goh's tale reminds us that beneath the successful, sparkly-clean, luxuriant veneer that we like to show off to our foreign guests and visitors, there are still people for whom the dream hasn't yet become reality.

But the daily grind is our reality, with its physical and psychological pressures at work and emotional stresses at home, particularly for those of us who face an ever-widening gap between our experience our expectations.

Every character in the movie has a failed dream, a dashed hope. Whether it's wedded bliss, parental approval, or material comfort (even if not wealth), these aspirations remain elusive to them.

Only Pa (Richard Low) makes it in the end, sent off in style at a lavish funeral. In effigy, Pa is swimming in hell money, surrounded by paper models of opulence, all consigned to the flames for him to enjoy in the afterlife. As we watch the paper mansion burn and collapse into a heap of ashes, we have to ask ourselves if that's all there is to look forward to in life. Well, at least Pa died with his Dreams fulfilled. The rest of his family still have the rest of their lives to fulfil theirs.

Though Seng got what he deserved in the end, even he has my sympathy. It isn't easy being the One everyone pins their hopes on to raise the family name a notch up the social ladder. It's the life of the fatted calf -- given the best of everything while the rest of the family skimps and saves on themselves, knowing that at some point he will have to pay everything back twofold or more. Seng isn't seen so much as a person, but rather as a family asset with an unrealistically high return on investment (ROI). Even at the funeral, Seng still has to follow his father's path, unable to break away and chase after his girlfriend, Irene, whom he loves(?) and owes so much to, who is leaving him.

So even here in luxuriant, opulent Singapore, life sucks. But the PRC beer girl (NBS, the role was made for you!) makes an interesting counterpoint. Singaporeans passively wallow in their suffering only seeing the hopelessness of life. We give up our dreams so that we can make money. She, on the other hand is willing to suffer to make money so that she can realise her Dream someday. With that kind of attitude, no wonder China is on the rise while we appear more hopeless and helpless every day.

Although Mr Goh has a regular funny column in the Sunday papers, and a funny web identity talking his cock on Singaporean issues, the movie isn't a comedy. The plot is tight and tense, events winding the characters up towards their breaking points. So, will the family remain intact through it all? Telling would be spoiling. Haha.