The pix for last night's show are up on Flickr. They've been shot by NYconneX journo, Khadija and friend, who did quite a good job capturing the excitement of the evening. Notice what I mean about performers not finding the light. Click here.

Tonight was the big musical talent show on campus. We had some very game contestants and a hopelessly partisan audience, who showed their unreserved support for their favourites, no matter what.

While the audience will always remember the judges' comments as truthful but insensitive (and that's not really my story to tell), for me I was looking at the overall presentation of the show, and I think another week's preparation and rehearsal time was necessary if we were to give everyone a fighting chance to win.

A week's prep would give time for the contestants to get advice on their performance and to get some stage experience, instead of just being handed a mike and shoved onstage to sing in front of a highly animated crowd. As it is, the performer's energy has to top the audience's otherwise it can get quite intimidating there on stage.

1 week and those of us staff with some performing experience might have had the time to give the contestants a few pointers that would up their stage-presence and confidence a little.

So performing cold, they made rookie mistakes like not finding the light, being stiff and unsure of their gestures and traffic patterns, hiding their faces, turning their backs to and/or retreating from the audience, and so on. My usual bugbears. Though these aren't things that our audience would actually pay attention to, I admit, a show needs time to polish in order to showcase its talents as best as it can.

And as usual, the opening and closing of the curtains between each contestant drove me nuts, sitting there in dead-air time. Frequent blackouts suck the energy right out of the stage and the inertia they leave behind makes it difficult to build the excitement for what's supposed to be onstage. No one likes to sit in the dark for too long.

Unsurprisingly, the one with the most performing experience won, hat's off to him. But the others never really had the chance to close the gap even a little. The talent was there, but time wasn't on their side, at least for this competition.

ST's cover page honours S'pore women documentary film-makers. It tells of how courageous and adventurous our women are, shooting stories in uncertain, exotic locations around the world. Their work is of such high standards that if they aren't up for some award, some big-name distributor wants to screen their films, and their audience reach is continuing to grow.

One reason for their success is because they are "patient" with their stories, often looking at the softer side of how people deal with the practical concerns of their particular situation. They are able to gain the trust of their subjects, and tell their subjects' stories without running a personal agenda of their own.

I quote from ST, "This trait of giving voice to the unheard and marginalised, the forgotten and neglected, is something that recurs in the women's work." Something I have to impress on my own journos at NYconneX.

And then, on the same page, there's another story of another aspiring documentary film-maker shooting in another strange and unfamiliar location, using creative camera techniques to capture a difficult subject. For his passion, this medical professional gets fired from the hospital he works for.

A case of intolerant Management? Rampant sexism in the workplace? Well, if this guy is dumb enough to get caught using a hidden camera to shoot his female colleagues in the shower, what do you expect?

Men. It's a wonder our women still put up with us the way they do.

Put on one more new hat today. Because of the college's big upcoming shindig, someone had to mail out all 13,000 invitations to our guests. So we packed 29 crates of invites into Gerald's tiny van, and with me in the cargo compartment and Boss-lady riding shotgun, we drove off to the big post office in Paya Lebar to get our bulk posting done.

With the unsecured crates sliding unpredictably around my delicate person, it was a bit hair-raising as we bumped towards our destination.

The bulk mail section is so unlike the civilized regular mail side of the post office. It's a place of motorized raising platforms and pallet trolleys, and big, friendly deliverymen who informed us that the bay we parked in was for the BIG trucks and that was why we couldn't get the raising platform to work for our dinky toy van. Another stout fellow showed us how to assemble a large trolley that looked like a cage on wheels into which we loaded our mail, crate by crate.

Among all the machinery, muscles and men, I was feeling way out of my element. Bet there were eyes on me thinking, "white-collar trash". And then, humiliation of humiliations, the guy at the counter wouldn't process our mail because despite there being three of us, no one brought our college's rubber stamp to make our transaction official.

Stupid, can't-even-get-it-right, white-collar trash!

And so we mark the demise of the Demented Equine in S'pore. It was an experiment that never really had a chance to succeed and, after less than a year of prancing and high-kicking, it's gone. I can't say I'm surprised.

The sad thing was, someone had thought that bringing underdressed fillies from Paree into stuffy S'pore was a license to print money.

On the surface, it does look like a lucrative venture -- bringing into the market a rare and tempting treat means the entrepreneur should be able to charge the sky for the commodity, and there'll still be a crowd snaking around the block for it anyway. And in S'pore there's nothing rarer than the opportunity to throw off our restrictive taboos without the fear of serious repercussions as a consequence. Unfortunately, this show just wasn't of the sort to break the piggy bank for.

First, the show didn't know what it actually wanted to be. It purported indecency by S'pore standards, and yet sold itself as an aesthetic experience, which literally whitewashed over the taboos our potential audience might have wanted to ogle break in the first place. No taboo, no product. No product, no consumer. Simple.

Conversely, if there's no chance of getting into trouble, there's no point to breaking a taboo anyway. Strike two.

Admission was too prohibitively expensive for the audience who might actually have wanted to go see the show, aesthetics be damned. A ticket to a Chinatown movie house is way cheaper and promises more excitement anyway, so there's no incentive for the old guys with umbrellas to move their tastes up a notch because they're already quite satisfied where they are. And they're just the offline market, 'nuff said.

The show did not have the critical mass that it had in Paree. Here, it had 1) no competitors to constantly keep it sharp and fresh, and 2) neighbours that provided neither complementary nor relevant products or services; making it 3) stand out like a sore thumb awaiting a mercy amputation, which has finally occurred.

Ultimately, the show that promised thrills for the multitudes of deprived S'poreans (and equally depraved regional tourists) only turned out to be a freak show -- which might have worked if they actually did show freaks. Instead all that was on display were gorgeous, talented, coordinated, articulate(d) human beings who ruined the show, and the box office, for everyone.

A nugget of Hokkien business wisdom succinctly and graphically sums up the state of our market: ai chee, ai pee, ai tua liap nee, which loosely translated means, "stupid customer, you can't have everything!"

Call me a fair-weather fan. After all, so many of us are when it comes to S'pore soccer. I caught tonight's cup final match on the one hand to see how our boys would fare under international pressure, and on the other to see if the game would degenerate into an international incident 'live' on TV. Fortunately, the only excitement remained confined to the pitch, and no more.

Watching our team play still doesn't give me much confidence, even though they were resilient enough to struggle past Malaysia in a hard-fought semi. We were still scrappy, unable to hold possession of the ball, slow to move forward and lack an imaginative midfield layer. Not particularly impressive.

We won tonight's game simply because our opponents couldn't capitalize on their chances at goal, while we happened to knock one in right against the run of play. Taking nothing away from Amri, but his goal was more a flash of personal brilliance than it was a team effort. And while that's all that counted in this game, the team really has to gel better together if we really want to move up the international rankings [Ed. Ok, lighten up, We won!].

Spent the morning at the local U at a forum organized by the SD Club. I don't know much about the club -- other than that NBS once hung out with them -- but they sure know how to pick their guest speakers.

The forum was about freedom of speech in S'pore and the speakers brought in their expertise from politics, the press and blogging. The Opposition guy who opened the session was a bit hesitant. He didn't look like he'd prepared any material, preferring to speak off-the-cuff from his own experiences at the last elections. According to him, it's ok to be an Opposition politician; difficult, but not impossible, as long as you keep your nose really clean and not do or say anything stupid that might get you sued after the elections.

The press speakers included my old school chum, Cherry G., of whom I will always accuse of scarring me for life in one of the games I mentioned in my previous post, but I do have a great respect for him nonetheless because of his critical eye on local politics, and his gumption for telling it like he sees it.

He said that whatever danger we perceive in becoming an activist for a cause we feel strongly about is only an excuse for apathy if it prevents us from doing something about it. But we do have to choose our battles wisely, in terms of our timing and the manner in which we fight them. He, himself, has had several times run afoul of the authorities for his scathing commentaries in ST. Yet, he is still a respected ex-journo and academic, and hasn't had the pants sued off him yet. The difference, he says, is that his bosses didn't panic easily, whereas Mr B was unfortunate to have a boss who overreacted when the government exercised its right to rebuttal.

Blogging is still the freest avenue for discourse, according to the speakers on the Internet issue. Most blogs have insignificant circulations anyway (mine is only a daily average of 11, as a case in point) and are hardly worth anyone's attention. Blogs, as I mentioned before, are policed by the blogging community already, so there's no need for the 'outside world' to interfere with whatever we say in our blogs.

Though we've heard of bloggers getting sued or jailed, in the last speaker's experience as a practicing DPP, because the process that an investigation file goes through before it can even be taken up in court is a long and complicated one, that their cases were actually brought before the judge was more of a case of their extreme bad luck rather than the fact that anyone was really out to get them.

The impression then, from today's forum, is that there is more freedom of speech here than we think. Only, the greater the reach, and the more impactful the speech is, we do have to exercise more and more care in what we say and how we say it. And, as the last speaker pointed out, as long as we stay away from the legally protected issues of race, religion and purposely trying to slime our incumbent politicians, we can write anything we want on our blogs and not worry about "disappearing" in the middle of the night.

Still, that's politics and police business. I'd rather be more careful about what my employer thinks about my blog. It's easier to get fired than jailed.

It's been a bad week for my ego and my public image. One whole week being in-between contact lenses, with my old pair damaged and unwearable, and my new pair being shipped in from who knows where. One week of having to wear my goggly spectacles in public, and recalling the names the kids in school used to call me since I was six and needed corrective lenses.

Back then, optical technology was still primitive and for my prescription the thickness of my lenses was in the region of bulletproof. I remember struggling against the specky, non-physical stereotype all through school, and taking it out on my hapless opponents on the soccer field with displays of reckless aggression. Overcompensating, as usual.

It didn't matter if the ball was a regulation size 5, or a cheap plastic ball. At one point we played soccer with a bottle-cap for a ball, our 'field' being a narrow, almost 45-degree concrete slope flanked by a drain on one side and the school wall on the other -- not because we were too poor to buy a proper ball (actually we were) but because it was more dangerous this way.

With my reputation for always being the most mud-caked, grass-streaked, blood-encrusted player left standing, I remember ending my days in school being called the "Mad Professor". That was a step up.

Today, my specs are of the high-index kind. Though my prescription has increased significantly since my schooldays, my glasses are much thinner than they were back then. But they give me a headache when I wear them for too long. So I'm really happy my new CLs have arrived at last, and I can see properly again.

I never gave them much of a chance, but I rooted for them amongst all the other teams anyway. They were always focused on their tasks, always thought their way around their problems, and very seldom did they display any negativity when the odds were against them. They carried with them a childlike wonder at the new and strange experiences their journey had in store for them, and above all, they never did lose their sense of humour, nor their penchant for play.

Congrats to JJ and Zabs on their victory in ARA1! They proved that their personal values of friendship and partnership can overcome the competitive pressure they faced in their climb to the top, and still get there before everyone else did.

They've gone and done it this time! They called June's name so often they wore it out. I won't pretend to know what exactly goes on in the logistics game, but Corporate must have done something spectacularly vexing for June to throw up her arms in despair and tender her notice on the spot.

Whoever can't hold on to June really doesn't know what he's got till she's gone. Few are as willing to work as hard for the little she gets, but even she has her breaking point. Good luck to them trying to replace her. Meantime, it's back to the want ads for a new job and, hopefully, a better working environment.

So there'll be another austerity drive in this household while we are now a single-income family. Since I've already been economizing on meals this year, I guess it won't be difficult to economize on other aspects of our lifestyle, at least until we return to the DINKy demographic again.

It's a better option, anyway, than having my wife worked to death on a cause she derives neither happiness nor meaning from. It's brave of her to put her foot down and declare "enough is enough!" and it's a decision I fully understand and respect. Now, THAT's stickin' it to the man!

Windows Vista is being launched as we speak, and I'm already downloading. Er, wait, I'm not downloading Vista. Let's get other people testing out the new system for a few months under real-world situations first, and if by then they haven't killed their systems yet (or vice versa), then maybe it's time to start thinking about my upgrading options. I may be crazy but I'm not stupid.

Rather, I'm downloading the new "Sam & Max -- Culture Shock (Episode 1, Season 1)" PC game that Neubronner reviewed in today's Digital Life.

This game isn't available in the stores. It's a novel method to distribute game programs by Telltale Games. "Season 1" is a series "episodes" individually downloadable in 6 separate installments. Each episode comes in at a low price and acts as a cheap sampler for the game. Like it, then buy the next episode; don't like it, you haven't lost too much money trying it out.

Having played the first Sam & Max adventure game by LucasArts way back in 1993, and laughed myself silly at the ridiculousness the deadpan dog and suicidal-homicidal rabbit got themselves into, when this latest offering came up last Christmas it was already on my shopping list.

Of course, the question of WHEN I'll have time to play PC games this year will have to be left open-ended. Frankly, I really don't know, but I'm buying my game first. I. Don't. Care. I want. Now.

I'm running my NY conneX staff ragged with my demands for work to be delivered on a regular basis, and I wonder if they only just see it as 'work' or 'obligation', or if they can see past their quotas and understand that there is also a little magic in the stories they are writing?

That magic has to do with making themselves disappear, while simultaneously being the channel that gives their interviewee a voice, and a chance to speak their story to the world. I think that's the driving force behind why journos do what they do, the good ones, anyway.

Seen from this angle, the journo's job is a very human, very compassionate one. It's an aspect of the profession that I hope my staff will pick up on the job.

ST's interviewed a TV journo who seems to have got it right, and whose passion for the job has kept her going for 25 years already:

The television image cuts to the presenter holding the microphone. She is not glamorously dolled-up as some television personalities are wont to be.

Instead, she is wearing a bright orange polo T-shirt and a pair of nondescript cream-coloured pants, her long hair tucked beneath a baseball cap.

There is not much expression on her face, no exaggerated furrowing of the brows or watery eyes.

But the look of concentration as she listens to the woman's story tells you in a subtle yet unmistakable way that she shares - and understands - the pain and loss.

The images change again, showing the presenter going from one flood victim's house to the next, braving the midday sun in search of more heartwrenching tales.

It is all in a day's work for Channel 8 stalwart Chun Guek Lay.

Recounting her assignment in Johor Baru two weeks ago, she reveals she was seriously thinking of wearing a pair of shorts - just in case the floods hit again.

'My job requires me to look good, yes, but I'm a journalist first and foremost,' she says matter of factly.

Excerpt from Mak, Mun San. "Anchor Woman." The Straits Times. Jan 29, 2007.

I'm disturbed by the number of possible ways a guy can get in trouble because of the content he puts up on his blog or website. S'pore bloggers get jailed; Malaysian bloggers get sued, while their PM berates them for spreading lies and sedition; A US teacher gets fired for 'inappropriate content' on his MySpace page, even though he claims a hacker put up the material and he took it down immediately when he noticed it.

It's too easy for a random reader to take offense at a blog, or even a single post, and put in motion a course of action that is totally out of proportion to the situation. It's probably due to the clash between people who don't understand the 'net, and people who use it with ease -- so much so that they forget that the occasional, casual surfer tends to take information posted on the 'net way too seriously. It's probably the same people who are likely to fall for a Nigerian scam email that are also likely to confuse a 'net persona with the real person behind the website.

Taking action in the 'real world' for some offense taken from web content often goes beyond the pale. The web has its own rules about proper 'netiquette, and as such, deals with conduct breaches in its own way. The 'net, after all, is nothing more than a medium of communication, so if someone doesn't like something that's been posted, there is a direct line back to the author through which one can express one's displeasure. That's why bloggers have a 'comment' function at the end of their posts, and some display their email addresses too -- they want to know what people think about the ideas they share.

Commenting opens a door for dialogue and debate, not just between the author and the offended party but potentially amongst a community of interested parties as well who can just as easily voice their views, adding their collective wisdom to the discussion.

It is the community then that will ultimately decide how objectionable the material is, and not just the singular, subjective view of the offended party. And if the content is collectively deemed too objectionable, it can be removed quite easily, unlike, say, material in the print media which once distributed is virtually impossible to retrieve and destroy. In this way, the controversy that arose on the web gets settled on the web without having to spill over into real life.

Still, there's no point for bloggers to ask for trouble and needlessly incur the wrath of the 'real' world. People are more receptive of new (or different) ideas if they are presented politely, mindful of the sensitivities and taboos of 'real' society. We never know who might stumble on our blogs, so while we should feel free to share our thoughts, let's play it smart and try not to piss anybody off from the get go. After all, we blog because we want to communicate, don't we?

At last my campus-issued laptop purporting wireless compatibility shows signs of connectivity. I'm doing the road warrior thing right now, surfing with no strings attached at McD's, King Albert Park. I'm sitting here with the intention of getting a few essays marked (yeah, right), but I'm also pursuing a story for NY conneX. The things I gotta do to keep my promises...

I'm about to rendezvous with the staff accompanying the Outdoors club on their hike along a stretch of deserted railway around the Bukit Timah area. The staff will be stopping here to lunch on Big Macs, while the kids will stay out in the wilderness and eat leaves and berries and things (or so they tell me). It's educational.

Hopefully, I can get some quoteworthy impressions of today's programme from the staff, and some of the kids, if I can find them...

... My contact, SXL and hubby arrived early. Chatted with them while they lunched, then they brought me over to where the kids were -- along the KTM railway line, resting up before the next leg of their expedition. It was raining so we all got quite wet, me because I was unprepared for the weather, the kids because it was fun to splash around in mud and puddles. City kids.

Catch the full story in NY conneX next Thursday! *crosses fingers behind back

Someone June detests wheedled and begged for a benefit he didn't deserve and got it. When she found out about it, she was understandably furious. After all, her work ethic is so much stronger than the guy's and to June, a contract is a contract, so he shouldn't even have had the temerity to ask for more in the first place.

I don't think I helped her mood much when I responded to her story from a Sith-y frame of mind (yes, the Dark Side seems to be strong with this one lately).

I said that if he was dissatisfied and fought for more, despite his contractual binding, what he won was what he deserved, because he was willing to struggle for it. Whereas, in June's case, since she was content with her contract, she too deserved what she got -- and rightly so -- because she worked for it.

OK, so I wasn't sympathetic, but it's time to wake up and realize that the world isn't fair. Corporate management has no time to observe the steady, quiet worker. Management already has enough problems to deal with, so while they're grateful for the busy cogs running in the background, keeping the wheels of industry moving, they also tend to take them for granted. If they're already with the program, there's no need to give them special attention.

But it's the squeaky, wobbly cog that threatens the smooth running of the company's operations that needs to be dealt with. And with labour laws being the minefield they are, sometimes it's easier to just throw money at the problem than fire. So with a quick application of corporate lubricant, the cog is happily running again and management can quickly go back to taking care of business as usual.

Corporate is illogical, brutal and uncaring. Corporate will try squeeze more from you than you promised, and give you less than they promised you -- unless you can turn the tables somehow. So you are either contented with your exploitation, or you risk it all and stick it to the man!

Or you quit the whole thing and take up teaching instead.

The DSTA is offering a $1m prize for designing a robot urban warrior? That's kinda' pittance considering how much they'll make if they ever get such a thing mass marketable for the world's military markets...

Men, listen up! This one is your new platoon mate. He just posted in from the defense lab to assist in your FIBUA ops. His dossier say his name is 'Terminator', but you all can call him 'Ah Ter' for short, lah.

You all chow Hokkien peng now have some tough competition for Best Recruit. Ah Ter very smart -- his results is A*Star one -- and for physical fitness, he is the real Ironman, ok? So you all better give him the proper respect and don't let me catch you programming him to do your area cleaning for you, understand?

Anything you can do, he can do. You can topo in the jungle, he can topo around a building. You run the SOC, he also can overcome obstacles. But he can also do more than you! He is training to negotiate with terrorists, but so far he can only negotiate with the stairs. He can also take lifts -- not like you lazy buggers! If I catch any of you lazy buggers taking the lift, you will all knock it down twenty for me! How to pass your IPPT if you everytime take lift, huh?

And the best thing about our robot friend here is that unlike the remote-controlled bomb-disposal unit, Ah Ter is completely autonomous. A-U-T-O-N-O-M-O-U-S. That means Ah Ter got initiative, not like you useless people...

Eh, Recruit Ah Ter! Sit down! I never authorize canteen break yet! Ah Ter! Come back...!

Please advise women how to deal with MRT perverts
ST (online) Forum Letter

ON JAN 20 at about 7.55pm, my wife took a train from Bugis MRT station heading towards Jurong East MRT interchange.

A middle-aged man boarded the crowded train in one of the stations along the way and stood in front of her.

The zipper of the shorts he was wearing was down. He was moving his folded umbrella around his 'private parts' to attract the attention of passengers seated nearby.

He also stood in a way that enhanced the opening in his shorts.

My wife was embarrassed by the action of the man and did not know what to do. The train was also crowded and it was inconvenient for her to vacate her seat.

For the sake of women passengers, could the MRT authorities advise them on how to deal with such a situation?

Nelson Quah

Dear Nelson,

Your wife should commit to memory as many details about the pervert as she can: dress (or undress, as the case may be), accessories, facial features, identifying marks, etc.

She should alight at the next immediate MRT station and inform the MRT staff about her inconsiderate fellow passenger, give his description, and if possible, which car she last saw him in. MRT staff will board the train at the following station, apprehend whomever fits the description and confine him until your wife can make a proper identification.

If your wife positively identifies the suspect, the MRT staff will arrange for her to make a police report, following which the police will investigate the matter by interviewing both her and the suspect separately. Your wife may face more than 1 interview if the suspect claims trial.

At the trial a few weeks later, if your wife maintains an unwavering testimony and the judge finds the defendant's protestations lack credibility, the defendant may receive a fine, or get his butt thrown in jail, or both.

This is the end of the story as far as the Authorities are concerned. [True story, btw. The perv's MO looks exactly like that of the guy Mrs X threw in jail when she faced the exact same situation not too long ago. Maybe he hasn't yet learned his lesson?]

Or, your wife could just politely tell the guy that his fly is down, putting the onus back on him to zip up. Depends on how brave she is, and how much time she has to waste with the Authorities to assuage her embarrassment.

If for a moment I thought that I have been trying to gain attention with my antics on campus, I'm glad I've come nowhere near the nonsense these HK tutors are up to:

In a highly competitive HK tuition market, tuition agencies are now marketing themselves by showing off their most attractive staff in their advertising campaigns. We're talking 'attractive' as in long-legged catwalk-sizzling supermodel-types with the poise, coiffure and come-hither allure to match. Don't ask me what the men are marketed like, 'cos I've never met an attractive man before, and I don't particularly want to either [ed. careful, your biases are showing].

And this whole image thing isn't just for a one-off photo-shoot either. They maintain their appearance in class too, or I guess the fallout from a false-advertising claim would be quite devastating to the company. So they're all gorgeous and dressed to kill so that they can teach a bunch of horny 14 year-olds English.

While having a swarm of English-speaking Gisele Bundchen lookalikes in my staffroom would do wonders for my morale, I do wonder which demographic the ad campaigns are pitched at. Would the pre-adolescent student have enough decision-making ability in the family to insist on going to a school whose teachers have the most outstanding gazongas? Would a mother trust a teacher who looks better in person than she did in her wedding album? Or does dear, distracted, drooling Dad decide? I dunno enough about family dynamics in HK to say for sure, so marketing the sex-appeal of teachers doesn't make much sense to me.

But so far, all this looks like fun and games. Besides, it's great for the teacher's ego to admire his or her own glam poster put up at the MTR station, and the money's apparently great too -- the best tutors teach up to 4,000 kids, so they must be getting astronomical fees.

But what exactly are they teaching the kids? From the article, as far as I can tell, the one (and only) expert educational point they impart is in "predicting what questions will be asked in the exams." Now, that is absolute crap, teaching kids to memorize and regurgitate on cue. If that's all, I hope the kiddies will get their money's worth in jiggly eye-candy because they sure aren't getting an education.

Nothing like a bit of venting and ranting to sift the mind and the heart and see what it is that's been bothering me lately. Sorry for yesterday's self-indulgence, but I think I've got it figured out.

I remarked before that my current work culture has become a lot more intense than before. Even the newbies are already going flat out, punching in long hours with all manner of purpose-driven activity. And I've been trying to fit in, y'know, group solidarity, that kind of thing. Yes, I have been taking steps to grow up, as per NBS' admonishment.

But I might have overcompensated and seem to have taken greater strides than I have been ready for. I've been offering advice to people who don't need it, and perhaps even attempting to arm-twist others into supporting one or another of my new hare-brained causes of the year. So far, everyone's been polite and tolerant, but looking back I feel embarrassed about what I've been trying to do to make myself "useful around the house," as moms like to say.

To keep my sanity this year, I have to remember these few things:
1) Stop competing and comparing myself with others.
2) We each have our own pace and our own paths.
3) Be myself, and not try to be who I'm not.
4) 1 Cor 13:11 reads, "When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me," and not, "when I put childish ways behind me, I became a man."

Thanks, Taily, for the positive reinforcement.

Perhaps I have begun the year with more idealism than brains. I might have made more promises than I can realistically keep, and my most optimistic way out is if the people who haven't been taking me seriously last year continue to not take me seriously this year. That way I can narrow my focus to just those who do.

With me it's always the big dreams and the foolhardy desire to champion lost causes, but I don't have the ability to manage the organizational mechanisms necessary to make the difference. It's my fatal flaw.

So while I tend to make a spectacle of myself with my, "Hey, everybody, look what I can do," everyone else is like, "Very nice, dear, just don't fall down and break your neck, ok?" And then reality and life revert to status quo as soon as I run out of steam.

My main problem, I think, is that I've been alone for too much of my life. While everyone's charging off together in one direction, I've been off on my own path following the beat of my own drummer. It's an extreme defensive reaction against the herd instinct and it might have been an asset at some earlier time for me, but it certainly isn't helping now that cooperative endeavour is the name of my new game.

It's what happens when the lone wolf unexpectedly finds himself absorbed into a hunting pack. Alone, he's nimble enough to change direction at will, spin on a whim and halt on a dime. In a group, however, things move a lot more slowly and more carefully, with more consideration for others. But old survival tactics and coping strategies are hard to get rid of, while new concepts like social structure, hierarchy, protocol and team dynamics are not so easily learned, or even understood. So it's always going to be a struggle.

June's probably right. I should accept my limitations, just stay focussed on my core business and stop trying to be too clever. Why do I keep forgetting that 1) it doesn't always have to be about "me", and 2) more often than not, less is actually more?