That's Tim on the left. Tim's my nephew. Tim's showing off his newborn son, Thomas, to the clan. I have risen to the venerable rank of Grand Unclehood. OMG.

These are Myco and her parents, Tim's in-laws, who are also meeting the clan for the first time, hence the occasion for our clan gathering tonight.

Some of us who supervise Project Work (PW) labour under the misconception that a good project is necessarily exceptionally brilliant in terms of originality and innovation. They expect to see proposals the likes of which they have never seen before, that will solve a problem they've never heard of, in a way that they'll never understand. If the kids can't reach this standard of inventiveness in their Preliminary Ideas (PI) submission, it's back to the old drawing board until they can propose something more acceptable to the US Patent Office.

True, someone raised a concern that potentially a PW tutorial (comprising 5-6 small working groups) could submit 5-6 proposals, say, for a similar Amazing Race style event. But, so what? There might be the problem that the Supervising Tutor will get bored stiff very quickly, but the PW marking criteria does not say that we should be looking to reward particularly novel or entertaining ideas only.

Besides, those of us who demand rocket scientist level projects will find themselves running into even bigger problems down the road. Ultimately, the proposals have to be both feasible and manageable to carry out by the kids themselves (at least in theory) and unless the kids make some very solid plans to do so, the most faniciful of ideas will simply fizzle out as no one -- not even the Supervisor -- will likely have any idea how to make something concrete out of them.

So no, we don't need plans that will save the world. We don't expect every student to be a mini Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, Edison or Da Vinci, in order to get a good grade in PW. There's enough room there for such exceptional students to shine, but we do not penalize students if they don't make that grade. How many of us could?

What do we look out for then, if we are marking for "Generation of Ideas"? We look to see how the proposed event/activity/whatever is appropriate to and is representative of the person or event that inspired it. We see if the proposal is able to match its stated objectives. We see if the kid can properly define the scale of the project, and estimate, acquire and manage the resources necessary to excecute the plan and make it work.

We are looking for practical, manageable ideas. It's ok to be derivative, as long as the kid modifies the original to suit the purpose of the project. So 5-6 Amazing Races inspired by the Israelite Exodus, Gandhi's march to make salt, Mao's Long March, Lewis & Clark's trek across North America, and Oprah's rise to become the highest paid female in the entertainment industry, sure, why the heck not? I'd love to see how our kids can make an Amazing Race (even in microcosm) based on any one of these legendary personalities. That's already challenge enough to keep their generation of ideas flowing.

Rehearsals for the Admiral piece have recommenced after a 3-week break during which the cast took their first major exam of the year. Ran the whole thing through for the first time, and it's a relief that save for one remaining scene the Admiral's fully blocked out in rough. That means all the movements and patterns are almost in sync with the script and the fine tuning can begin soon.

Must work on their diction and projection. They're starting to move quite nicely, but it would also be good for the audienc to actually hear what they're saying. Also, must remind them to consistently keep their energy levels up and not look like they're just waiting around for their next line or movement.

I have a great cast. Though the majority of them are beginners, they're committed to the play and are learning their roles quite diligently. I can see they're quite tired already, but they stayed till 2100 tonight to rehearse, no complaints. We'll be rehearsing till later and later in the days to come and that's going to test everybody's resilience to the max.

Hope there's enough time left to create a show they can be proud to have played in.

When looking for dragons to slay, don't announce it too loudly. Dragons don't fight fair. About half-a-dozen small ones have ganged up, and are surrounding me for a grand butt kicking. 'nuff said.

Meantime, celebrated a birthday at Sunset, location picked for its variety of beer labels available. Also, our table picked up the courage to try level 3 buffalo wings. Mixed reactions. A couple of us want to try level 6 now. The rest just burned up on re-entry.

Love Sunset.

This year, June's annual company incentive trip took them on a week-long stay in Brisbane and Melbourne. There was some hassle over flight delays departing and arriving, but she's home safe now! :D

Earth Hour has come and gone. I did my part too. I switched off all my lights at home and fled with Q-tip to Sunset for a nice, juicy steak. Sunset was crowded and I didn't have a reservation... and I was keeping a dog's company, so I got a seat at the outdoor bar counter where Jerry himself was holding court with his regulars.

When Jerry got hauled back inside to work, I found myself in the company of an American couple who were probably seeing each other socially. They'd lived here for more than a decade and a half already and the guy was well-acquainted with the small towns in Malaysia that I'm not even familiar with. Both are seasoned travellers, so far from their places of origin, yet so at home here halfway around the world.

So while I was hoping for a brilliant view of the sunset, I wound up socializing instead. That was good too.

I came home about 20 minutes short of 2100. For 20 minutes, I just sat in the dark, no fan, no entertainment. Just me, a dog and two cats, sweaty and getting sweatier, bored out of my skull. Only Maui was happy, practicing his 'kowabunga' pouncing technique on Kaiser and Q-tip under the cover of darkness.

As soon as my digital clock hit 2100, everything went back on and online again. It's no use... we're already too addicted to the light and the 'net.

Friends we may be in real life, but when it comes to battling it out for House pride, we staff become unbelievably partisan. But there is no rivalry between the Houses as is between House Peggy and House Fifi. It's probably because outside our Houses we are a really close-knit group, that's why our passions spill over when we compete against each other.

Before the matches, there's the drawing up of division lines, the trash-talkin' and intimidation... and some behind-the-scenes skulduggery going on as we pick our battles, choosing events that will give our sides the best advantage to win.

As reviewed by the Phys Ed folks Mel and I met by coincidence at Island Creameries for after-game refreshments, the staff games are the most nail-biting to watch as we go at each other tooth and claw. For us who played Modified Frisbee (it was Peggy vs Griff), bumps, scrapes and possibly bruises that will probably show up tomorrow were par for the course, from the collisions and tumbles that occurred all too frequently during the game. Even the P himself, who represented Griff and was the game's top scorer, wasn't spared.

The kids' games are usually less violent, according to Phys Ed. I figure we still recall the way we used to play when we were schoolkids ourselves. We weren't as safety-conscious then as our kids are now. Blood, sweat and dirt we knew intimately, having had our faces rubbed in it all the time. Games were unsupervised, improvised, and apart from a few basic ground-rules to remind us which game we were playing at the time, pretty much anything went. And that was how we played today.

The more civilized of us, though no less competitive, went on a trekking race through the Botanic Gardens, our games venue. Nevertheless, the tensions between Peggy and Fifi remained high, no one being too friendly today.

Peggy came out tops in both staff events, but that's the odd thing about us. We win our battles, but eventually end up losing the war. The day went to Fifi, so hey, congrats!

We shall reconvene for lunch, Monday.

Young, mobile, more adventurous than I'd ever give her credit for. I'd underestimated how badly my lunch companion of today had been struck by wanderlust as she talked about her options for moving out and moving on.

And why ever not? The world is so accessible to us these days, as long as we can contribute to the community or at least not make a nuisance of ourselves, anyone is welcome to live anywhere they want. Just pick up a random pin, plunk it on any random coordinate on the world map, and chances are, we could find ourselves there in person within the week.

So what's with my own inertia? I seem to have lost the drive, the desire to have adventures of my own. Perhaps I'm too settled, too comfortable, have too many responsibilities to discharge and debts to pay off.

I do know I'm not too old, though. And I'm not yet accomplished enough. Every knight has a dragon to slay, and I'm pretty sure mine has yet to challenge me. If it has it was probably the size of a cicak which I killed by accidentally treading on it. When I take stock of everything that I have, I feel like I'm living a life I never really worked hard enough to deserve. Shouldn't I go have another look at the radar to see if my dragon's looming on the horizon?

I have a mad fantasy. At some time in the near future, my pals and I will take over the college and we will be the ones making the policies and running the programmes. Today's news of promotions for quite a few of them is entirely heartening as now we are all one step closer to fulfilling my dream.

The news was also timely as I was starting to waver over my own next step. There was a little self-doubt for a while, a little loss of confidence, but I feel a little more encouraged today.

Why do I call the fantasy mad? My pals are too young, too mobile, possibly too impatient as well. So many of them have already left for greener pastures or new experiences. A few more are already making plans, weighing their options. I don't begrudge them their freedom. Few people these days keep a single career for life so I won't expect them to either.

But for today, congrats on your success! Let's celebrate your achievements and continue to enjoy each other's company... while we still can!

Cyclists on the road are totally abhorrent. Especially the ones that cycle like the Highway Code everyone else abides by doesn't apply to them.

This moron -- not some uncle-guy but a young-looking rides-a-bike-for-exercise guy -- blithely cycling against the flow of traffic just cut across my path as I was turning out from a busy intersection. I didn't see him as I was concentrating on the direction the traffic was coming from, and if I had been in a little more of a hurry, he would have discovered from underneath M2's undercarriage that cycling isn't as good for his health as he thought.

Fortunately for him, just as I was accelerating out onto the main road I could still hit the brakes with inches to spare from the juicy target in front of me. He didn't even blink, kept riding on like he didn't even notice how close he was to being introduced in person to M2's front fender.

If I had hit him, it would definitely not have been my fault. But I don't need the extra nightmares, nor the investigations, nor the expenses incurred either.

If cyclists want to be respected on the road, like Mr B is pushing so hard for, then they'd better start respecting the Code. Else stay off the road, stay off the footpaths, just stay at home. Period.

The Xmac & June Travel Agency went into business again. It was a whirlwind half-day city tour for June's Thai colleagues here on a business visit. Today was their last day in S'pore and time for a little r&r.

We began with some sightseeing down by the Civic District, looking at the government buildings, posing for pix at the usual tourist places. These gals just love posing for shots, as you can see on the left.

And because we had legitimate tourists in our company, we had an excellent excuse to take a ride on the S'pore Flyer, 'cos otherwise we wouldn't have bothered.

There's only one real reason to ride the S'pore Flyer. It definitely isn't for the excitement as at the speed of one revolution per 30 minutes, there is hardly any sensation of movement at all. The view is nice, but since we're already used to high-rise living and working, and our landscape being what it is, it isn't exactly breathtaking either.

Nope. The only reason to go ride in a transparent cylinder with 25 other people at a time is to absolutely go wild and crazy with a camera and take lots of "we were here!" shots. Cameras exchange hands freely between fellow Flyers for great mutually-assisted group photos.

There's nothing wrong with the Flyer itself, per se. The staff are warm and helpful; the big wheel operates so smoothly and silently there's a strong sense of security riding it; and everything looks very high-tech and professional. It's just that Fun is a bring-it-yourself factor, so future Flyers, be prepared to be sociable and feel free to camera whore without embarrassment. Nobody's looking at you anyway. And don't forget to look out the window once in a while. The view's still part of the package too.

We introduced them to some cheap local food at their request. They'd already been feted with Chinese seafood, Japanese and Western over the last couple of days and they were craving for a little local flavour.

Pressed for time, we introduced them to the food court at the Convention Centre. Didn't really impress them much, but we did a good job of clearing the plates anyway. Then off for some hasty snapshots of the big fountain before returning them back to their hotel to collect their luggage.

One last stop before the Airport: Mustafa's for more economically priced souvenirs to take home with them.

Next time we're in BKK, we'll have some new friends to call on who'll take good care of us. Nice to do our part for Thai-S'pore diplomacy!


more pix here.

I think Horton is KI material, and I'll explain why. Only not here. My re-telling of this Dr Seuss classic tale makes for long, tedious and cumbersome reading, not for the likes of these pages. If you are brave enough, refer to the following link: The KI of Horton.

BTW, the entry refers to the movie version of the story, not the original Dr Seuss book, which can be read as a social commentary -- as in, say, a parable of the increasing recognition of minority rights in the USA -- though it doesn't go as far as the movie in fleshing the characters and situation out.

I've never had to teach so many kids in such a short time as I did today. I ran four repeating back-to-back sessions involving a multimedia presentation as well as a physical demonstration. My muscles will be aching tomorrow.

It was quite the object lesson working with this type of kids. However much planning had gone into the schedule, there's so much unpredictability with the audience that whatever I said and did had to be on the fly. It helped that I had prepared a general structure though getting there was literally half the fun. Frequent questions from the floor kept derailing train after train of thought, and dealing with the occasional reluctant 'volunteer' (why do they volunteer if they don't actually want to do anything?) forced frequent changes of plan on the spot.

But from the feedback I got, I think the kids did learn something new and they did have some fun as well, which as I observe, seems to be a rare commodity during curriculum time. Yay! Mission accomplished!

An important date came and went quietly, marked only by a simple dinner at Akashi, which has reasonably (I say 'reasonably' as I was prepared to pay more for a special occasion) priced sets though it looks kinda' ex from the outside. A tempura-soba combination for June, a bento for me.

An animated movie followed to remind us that we were still young at heart despite the years that we have accumulated since we last regarded cartoons as a media staple. Yes, we watched 'Horton'. Wonder what happened to the rest of the title?

When I first encountered Horton eons ago, I actually watched it as an animated short on TV. It was Dr Zeuss brought to full, anthropomorphic, technicolor 2D-life.

The movie is all that and more. Jim Carrey and Steve Carell reunite (remember 'Bruce Almighty'?) to flesh out the characters of Horton the elephant and the Mayor of Whoville respectively. The two are great foils for each other. Horton is quite anarchistic and lets his imagination run wild -- oh, the anime sequence... -- while the Mayor is all constrained responsibility, tradition and order. No matter the character type, they both face the same problem: they both have acquired a new knowledge that threatens their societies' security and even their existence, yet no one believes them and mostly everyone is anxious to put an end to the insanity that they both appear to have descended to.

There's a great many levels 'Horton' can be read at. I hadn't seen the complexity before, but the book can be a great introduction to several of the concepts we will encounter in KI. I think I'll make it a required reading for the JC1s. Or they should at least go watch the movie.

ST's "Pets' Corner" party at ECP. Quite daring of the organizers to make the occasion open to pets of all sorts, canine, feline or rodent. There was an event for every species. When we arrived, the hamster races were on.

Our primary goal was to enter Momo in the "Cat Kong" contest. Heaviest cat takes the top prize of $150 cash. Momo, however, had her own ideas and protested so loudly that before we could even get to our lift lobby, we decided she had been traumatized enough, so we hurriedly made a U-turn and took her home instead. Just as well, as she was nowhere near the size of these behemoths, some of whom were more than double her weight class. This ginger weighed in at over 11kg!

At least Q-tip got something for her outing: a trim of her paw fur, a "pet"-icure, and an ear cleaning.

Back home, we needed to do some Maui-proofing. Now that he's big enough to jump up to the window ledge, we had to mesh up the window to prevent him from encountering the great outdoors from the wrong altitude.

And because we woke up (twice) to a gushing kitchen tap -- and we have no idea how many hours the water had been on for -- we covered up the taps with disposable containers to prevent accidental activations by careless kitten feet. Our water bill will be interesting this month.

Torrential rain couldn't dampen our long-awaited Batam getaway. Typical of mostly all our escapes, the only item on our agenda was relaxation at all cost, and there was little to do but relax as the downpours on Days 1 and 2 kept us indoors.

I kicked off my vacation schedule nua-ing through a 3-hour spa session with a tiny but sturdily-built masseuse. As I relinquished my bathrobe to her, I knew I was in good hands... and good feet as she commenced her assault with a stroll along my legs and spine. That initial foray softened up the ground for a thorough ploughing using alternating hot and cold stones. Once I was sufficiently reduced to a compliant pastry dough, it was off to the steam room to stew, then a bubble bath after. I ended with a foot reflexology treatment that I barely felt as by then I had already shut down my higher order thinking and was operating on motor function alone.

There was only one thing left on my mind: me hungry...! Just like my travelling companions who so kindly waited for me to finish my treatment before proceeding to dinner. Dinner was part of our package: nine assorted dishes of fresh seafood and veggies served with rice. Hunger appeased at last, we hung out at the lounge where the lounge singer got friendly with us and got Mel, Ton-y, Amy, B-lo and NBS to each sing a duet with him in turn. The rest of us -- HP, Wayne and I -- didn't make it past the Lounge Idol auditions. :P

Day 2 was entirely memorable due to the massive amount of rain that fell the whole day. It was a good day for the rest to get their spa treatments done, so between shifts we entertained ourselves just hanging out in our villas chatting, watching TV (no cable!) and occasionally dozing off where we sat. So much for Wayne and Ton-y's ambitions for a banana boat ride, but even if the weather was good, few of us were enthused enough to muster the energy needed for that.

We reconvened as a group for another seafood dinner, this time at the Rezeki, apparently the next best seafood place in Batam to the "Golden Prawn" where we had planned to go at first, then decided was too far away. We rode in two cars to get there, weaving our way around the many potholes that gave the narrow streets their distinctive character. We ordered an assortment of shellfish, crustaceans, a sea-bass and broccoli (for Mel), all very fresh and remarkably economical after splitting the bill eight ways.

Day 2 ended with a raucous KTV session back at our resort. Most of the song selections qualified as 'elevator music', but what th' heck, it made for a silly two hours' worth of late evening entertainment.

Day 3 was the day Day 2 should have been. Gloriously bright, hot sunshine, which saw us frolicking in the resort pool for the better part of the day. Unfortunately, the tide was out at this time, dashing Wayne and Ton-y's banana boat hopes once and for all.

After check-out, there was little else to entertain ourselves with. Did a couple of hours browsing through the sole Mega Mall, spirits buoyed by A&W curly fries and root beer floats served in tall chilled glasses -- a rare treat for us. That, and the J.Co donuts that we both scoffed down and brought home as souvenirs of our latest escapade.

I think the most important thing we've learned is that we're not likely to kill each other on trips. As far as travelling companions go, you guys rock!

Batam

Just a few of our holiday snaps from an unnamed location in Batam. It's such a great little hideaway, with comfy beach front villas, decent food, warm, friendly staff, and a lovely spa staffed with confident, experienced masseuses.

While I'm too tired to do a proper review right now, check out what NBS has to say about it -- she was blogging on-site.

Day 2.

Day 3.

Officially on vacation! :D

Back soon!

It may be spring break week, but it feels nothing like a break just yet. Between rehearsals in the morning and KI "chats" in the afternoon -- and more of the same tomorrow -- it looks like I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.

Today's sessions, while necessary, have been quite fruitful as well. The more I work Pao Kun's awkward script with my cast, the more I can sense the movement, the timing and the rhythms that'll make this show tick. Problem is, I have so little rehearsal time left I fear it's only going to be half-baked by showtime. And in any case, I'm only using the spoken text as a counterpoint to the movement, like background music to a piece of choreography (in the loosest definition of the word), that our rather literal audience is in for a head-scratcher of a performance.

In terms of real calendar time, minus the two-week block test period coming up, I have only one week left to curtain. Internally, I'm panicking. Thank goodness for the short getaway beginning Wednesday that's coming up...

Wireless PowerPoint presenters are all the rage right now, with one staff member after another buying one of these handy little devices for themselves. They're fun to use in lectures as we can untether ourselves from our mouse or keyboard and interact eyeball-to-eyeball with our audience, or at least get as close as our microphone cord will let us, without having to run back and click a button every time we need to advance our slides. When I braved the crowds at the IT Show today, that was one item on my shopping list.

The Logitech one I had my eye on, unfortunately was not on display. But I found an iSmart one, a totally brand new model that looked a lot sleeker than any other I've seen before. It was slightly longer and fatter than a fountain pen with the control buttons all within easy reach of the thumb. It had the standard advance-back buttons, in-unit USB receiver storage, a laser pointer and a couple of additional features. It functioned as a remote mouse using an in-built joystick and it also had a 128Mb internal memory for storing ppt files so there's no need to lug around a separate portable hard drive unit.

A couple of quick phone calls later and I had two more orders (from Jane and Jon) to add to mine. And then it all went horribly wrong.

The first unit I tested worked fine, but the second, third and fourth units all refused to communicate with the demo tablet PC at all. No one could get the cursor to move with the remote joystick at all. What took the cake was when the increasingly flustered vendor tried out the fifth unit, the cursor on the OTHER demo laptop moved instead. By this time, June was tugging my sleeve and quite audibly suggesting that we "go have lunch first."

I'm curious to discover the cause of this unbelievable cascade failure. Since each remote has its unique receiver, could there have been some mix-up in the packing of the units? I kinda' felt bad for the vendor. While I'm quite used to experiencing such monumental embarrassments on a regular basis, most lesser mortals might actually take it to heart.

These things don't generally occur at a product fair like this, so there's only two explanations that I'll accept: 1) Murphy strikes again, and/or 2) gremlins. Shoulda' remembered to lock them up before I left the house this morning. Net result: no sale.