A wedding in Bangkok

First night in BKK was to attend June's colleague's wedding in BKK at the Novotel Airport Hotel's ballroom.

It was an evening of hobnobbing with the Thai personnel, many of whom June contacts by email. Now they finally meet in person.

Win already

Who knew my Windows 7 upgrade would still cost me some mo' money? I did some research, see? I didn't want all the drivers, settings and programs I'm already comfortably running on Vista to be completely wiped out by installing the new OS. It's such a pain to reload everything back the way it was. My research turned up 'PC Mover', a useful little app that saves the old configurations and re-uploads the whole thing onto the fresh install. Quite a lifesaver, that. Only cost US$19.99 to download and use.

Not that the transition was perfectly smooth though. I had to reinstall my Norton anti-virus because it didn't understand how to function in this new environment (PC Mover already warned me about this, so it wasn't a surprise). But my Belkin wireless G USB adapter proved too primitive for the new OS to handle -- even in Win XP compatibility mode. With no Win 7 drivers forthcoming from Belkin, I had to go out to buy a more contemporary Linksys replacement at $59. And now i'm back online again.

So, the benefits of having a fully functional Win 7? Um... programs load marginally faster than in Vista. But other than that, I haven't really tested it yet. Too busy getting my configs customized back to my taste before I go exploring through the new frontier.

In case anyone's interested, my back's mostly recovered. Now there's only a twinge where there was once agony, and it only hurts again when I hyperextend -- not that there's any good reason for one to hyperextend their backs. I just want to see how far I can push myself before the pain returns. Yes, I'll continue to be careful. I'm still in no condition to play hero.

Leaving for Chiang Mai in a few hours time. In-laws will have the run of our place in return for pet sitting duties. Wonder if there are any reputable Internet cafes up there? If not, this could be my last entry until I return.

Xmac is... ON VACATION!

Progressively recovering

Thankfully, my back doesn't hurt as much now. And as the pain is receding, I can flex and bend further... well, enough for me to vacuum the floor with my horrendously expensive vacuum cleaner -- no, not the Roomba, the manually operated one. I've still got a little over 24 hours to recover before I head north for a few days. Will try as far as possible not to do any heavy lifting so as not to aggravate the injury, but luggage inevitably tends to get heavy. Have to see how there.

Anyway, today I had an important decision to make. I haven't yet made use of the $400 our benefactor (who shall remain anonymous) had left for me this year. I needed to make a purchase fast, before the accounts close. Yes, it's a use-it-or-lose-it proposition. I narrowed my choices down to a) an iPhone 3GS or b) a Windows 7 upgrade package. Neither item would I purchase on my own, but since the cost was going to be credited to someone else's account, they became viable choices to drool over. Guess which I picked?

Still mobile

Thankfully, I haven't been incapacitated. I am still mobile, just inconvenienced. Am learning to rely on my knees more and am supporting my weight against sturdy objects like tables and walls if I need to go off-balance, say for changing clothes, or standing up or sitting down. The worst pain comes from standing from a lying-down position, like when I wake up from bed. That now requires some thought to minimize the strain.

The worst case scenario would be that I had slipped a disc. But in the doctor's professional opinion, my back injury is not that serious. More likely to be a sprain because the pain is not directly in the centre of my spine, and because I wasn't doing any heavy lifting when it happened. I got a prescription for a muscle relaxant, painkillers and anti-gastric pills to counter the painkiller's side effects. Need lots of home rest and fortunately (or unfortunately?) it's the December hols when I can rest up without guilt.

Speaking of injuries, it seems more kids are getting injured at play these days. How in the world can that be possible? As far as I have observed, our kids don't play. They aren't allowed to play because they have to be doing homework or 'mug' all the time. Our playgrounds are foam padded, the equipment plasticized with no sharp corners or hard edges. Toy safety regulations are paranoid, to say the least. Hmm... there may be one explanation: more parents are taking their kids for medical treatment over minor scrapes and bruises that in the past we kids just ignored and let heal on their own. These days, any abrasion would warrant an anti-tetanus jab. Parents.

Sore back

I promised myself it would never happen. I was always conscious to take care of myself, always being sure to bend at the knees when lifting heavy objects. Nevertheless, somehow I've thrown my back out. And I wasn't lifting anything.

It probably happened because of some uncomfortable sleeping or sitting position, causing a strain in my lower back which I felt as of yesterday. Didn't think much of it at the time, but today when I bent over to pick up Momo (I hadn't even touched her yet), I felt something give and I had to spend some minutes flat out on the floor hoping to straighten out my spine again.

Been in pain the rest of the day. In-laws were really nice. May brought dinner over 'cos I didn't feel well enough to walk, and Ling brought over a Salonpas muscle relief patch to ease me through my sleep.

Doubt it's the kind of pain that will just go away in a few days. Will seek medical attention in the morning.

TO alumni meet and feed

A day of catching up with friends from TO. Haven't seen Jon for ages. We missed him the last couple of times he's been back to visit, but couldn't pass up this opportunity to finally meet for lunch at least. Jon probably wasn't one of us who used to sing "Please don't send me to Africa", because that's where he worked as a missionary among the Xhosa for three years. Now that he's done with his adventures in the bush, he's returned to civilization with the lovely lady beside him and the wee bairn in arms. Shoutout to Cat and Sam too! Our schedules have been too crazy to meet properly this year(!) until today.

Dinner at Mary of the Angels. Jen invited us and Adrian to attend the Choice 29th Anniversary D&D. Quite a fun evening, opening with a dance-along to Wondergirls' "Nobody", and lots of great musical performances to keep us entertained through the evening. Plus a few table games too, the good thing being that it didn't matter if we didn't want to participate, but just focus on our food and conversation. We let the competitive ones at our table represent us, no pressure for the rest.

Anne's turn

'Tis the season for weddings. It was Anne's today at the illustrious St Iggy's. Compared to the uncomplicatedness of Lynette's, Anne's was a traditional Catholic mass with the full works, right down to the communion. Traditional has its own charm too.

Because of the time of year, I saw more students than staff in attendance. Shoutouts to Faith and Clara: so happy to see that my ex-Presidents are doing well for themselves. On the other hand, it's quite a downer that apart from Gerald and me, no one else from dNYel could attend. Ha. As soon as we are free from the fetters of the timetable, we're all out of town.

Aggregation, not aggravation

Went for some IT course on campus, not knowing who the instructor was going to be. I was under the impression that it was some vendor making a quick buck running courses for teachers on vacation. Imagine my surprise when I walked into the com lab a little bit tardy and met the Shambles guru himself, Chris Smith, face-to-face. Wow. If I had known earlier, I might have signed up for one or two other modules. This one, as it turned out, I was somewhat familiar with already.

The course was about using Internet apps "to save time", and most of the stuff he was showing us were things I am currently using, like subscribing to RSS via a reader or aggregator. From the the number of blogs I'm following, I always get to read the latest entries on a single page in my Google Reader. I get my fill of the most up-to-date web comics on PageFlakes. Yes, I suppose it would be more convenient to stick with one aggregator, but I find text works better on the former, while graphics stand out more via the more visually impactful layout of the latter. Of course, I didn't know what Chris was up to when he got us to sign up for a Netvibes account, so now I have another PageFlakes-like app with pretty much the same functions to play with.

What that all boils down to is that I don't have to go trawling laboriously through every single blog or other content provider looking for new and interesting stuff every day. All I do is subscribe to each site's RSS feed, and anytime the site gets updated I'll be notified via my Reader. So because stuff comes to me now, I need hunt and gather no longer. I have evolved.

Turning my personal fun and games into something useful for the classroom, RSS is also a great shortcut for monitoring each student's subject blog. Say I have about 70 kids to supervise, I'd go crazy clicking 70 blogs daily looking to see if they have done their homework. Instead, I open my Google Reader and only the blogs that have been updated show up automatically -- while the rest is silence. That's just one small example of what I can do with RSS to make my life easier.

What we are ultimately doing is managing information overload. I'm in the midst of learning how to do exactly that using the tools and the skills that allow me to access all the stuff I like to immerse myself with on the 'net -- that will hopefully aid me on my journey to become a better, smarter person. I'll have to figure it out fast, 'cos that'll be what we'll be teaching our kids from now on, and there's no better subject than GP to do it in.

Media balance

I am so glad the "MDA ensures 3,000 hours of wholesome TV content every year". At least the little kiddies' moral and social well-being has been properly taken care of. Goody for them.

But what about for me? Why is my TV still devoid of the remaining 5,760 hours of unwholesome content that they've promised? Fine, we have programmes like "Cosmo & George", "We are R.E.M.", "First Class" and "Polo Boys" but, please, could I have some quality unwholesome content too? :(

Revelling in the rot

These past few days have been ill-spent in indolence and self-absorption. Not doing anything to help humanity nor lifting a finger to save the world. The world can take care of itself for a spell, and no one said I was indispensable. So I've just been revelling in the rot, allowing the ol' brain to decay, letting everything go back to tending toward entropy. I'm tired of fighting, tired of thinking that I'm so important. I'm quite obviously so not. What I want is to continue spending the next few days content to nurse an icy umbrella drink in one hand while slumping comatose in a deck chair on a white-sand beach. No responsibilities, no obligations, it's all me-time.

I'm sure there's an off-button to the guilt, though. Don't just stand there -- help me find it!

Pole position

This FT debate is getting out of hand. This is surely the beginning of ethnic discrimination policies coming to pass. Look at this headline: "No poles for driving test". What? Anyone whose surname ends with _ski shouldn't drive, is that it?

Nice nuptials

Congrats to Lynette on the occasion of her wedding at The Fullerton! The ceremony opened in formal military style with the couple making their entrance under raised sabres. After a smartly efficient common law service, another little Miss of my acquaintance became a Missus. How quickly they grow up.

This is my table. As it turned out, I got to share it with Lynette's jie mei (bridesmaids). Yes, THE most in-demand table of all if I was a Wedding Crasher. Lynette was wise to put me and Josh (and Jenny and Gary) at this table 'cos since we're already married we would have no cause to accost the ladies or otherwise distract them from their MC duties. We did manage some polite small talk, so the table atmosphere was still quite warm and cordial throughout.

A pleasant, polite affair with everything running smoothly, on-time and according to plan. The experience Lynette gained planning this year's TD dinner must have helped her a lot in pulling today's event off without a hitch.

Ten years

June and I have been married exactly a decade as of today. We marked the date quietly. No big celebration, no big fuss, just a simple dinner at a restaurant we didn't even have to make reservations for. Dinner for two.

What was disturbing was on our way home, we walked past a couple who were not behaving as couples do, or even should. The girl was seated on the ground, nearly slumped over, back against a wall of a void deck of our neighbouring block. The guy was bent over her, hands at her throat. Clearly, they'd been fighting.

We stopped and made it clear that if anything untoward was to occur, we'd be on hand as witnesses. When they saw us just standing there watching everything, the guy acted like he was helping her stand up. But then she called out, "help me!" instead. So we both marched over to make sure she was all right. We weren't alone. Another fellow joined us, and together we put it in no uncertain terms that the guy's behaviour was unacceptable. June went so far as to make a 999 call, but at the girl's urging we did not press the matter.

After sorting things out between them (apparently alcohol and adrenaline do not a good cocktail make), we let the girl depart in one direction and made sure the guy left in the opposite direction. I doubt that would have been a long-term solution for the two, but at least I hope the guy will think twice about abusing his girlfriend again, knowing that the public will not stand for this sort of nonsense, and is willing to take serious action if he does.

There are things men do not do to women (or children, or animals) and it thoroughly pisses me off when I even hear reports of such things happening. To actually see such abuse with my own eyes, in my own backyard... dammit, we're supposed to be better than that.

Anyway, that was our 10th anniversary. An interesting present, then, from above.

I haven't the words

For the record, when I was in Pri 1 (a long, long time ago) I was asked to choose which language I wanted to take up as a second language. A second language was compulsory, being that a policy came down from on high that everyone should have a bilingual education.

In my own wisdom, I opted for Malay. As a six-year-old, I had it all figured out. I was already quite adept in reading and writing English; and Malay was taught using the exact same alphabet. I would have no trouble with the pronunciation of words and the grammatical structures didn't seem to differ much between the two. Malay was a simple substitution code for English, so learning Malay as a new language should have posed little difficulty for me. As a six-year-old I had a clear strategy: take Malay, ace the exams, no problem.

The Fates had other plans for me, though. I never made it to my first Malay lesson. I was literally Shanghaied off to study Chinese by certain elements that did not agree with my assessment of the situation. By the time I took my 'O's, the only thing I'd learned from Chinese class was that I wasn't as smart as I had once thought I was. I believe I wear those scars still.

The sad thing was that I had a choice, and I made a choice, but there's not much a six-year-old can do when his choice gets overruled by people who think they know better.

Fine. I suppose I was a nightmare to teach just as it was a nightmare language for me to learn. I was a rebel with a closed mind, fearful and suspicious of every teacher I had. I had horrid ones that threatened and actually hit students for whatever reason (I did mention this was a very long time ago, did I not?) but I had nice ones as well.

Regardless of teacher disposition, nothing helped. The most telling incident I can remember was when I scored an impressive near-80% on one test in Sec 3. I had a nice teacher then, and I remember putting full and total effort into memorising everything she wanted me to memorise. I wasn't disappointed with the test results. But I realised that all my efforts went into memorising something I had no recollection, no understanding of as soon as the test was over. The results would not have been duplicable on a retest. To me, that was just too much work for too little gain.

In any case, the way it was taught back then is not how people learn a language. It would probably have been very good practice for people who already knew the language to have a better, more in-depth appreciation of it. But for someone who was barely conversant in the first place... well, I don't quite have the words.

It's important that we can all express ourselves in more than one language, and yes, I do feel somewhat handicapped with my less-than-satisfactory command of Chinese today. But it's not too late to pick it up, even now. Chinese serials on TV with subtitles help with the conversational aspects which I can practice with other people should the need arise. But please, don't send me back to the classroom again.

Human road-kill

It's inevitable for people who drive that since they spend so much time on the road, at some point in time they will encounter some form of road-kill. Two legs poking out from under a white plastic sheet was what I saw today while on my way to work. There were cops standing around examining the scene, awaiting the clean-up crew to arrive.

Not hard to speculate what had just occurred: truck and motor-bike attempting to merge into one lane, inadvertently merging into each other instead. The operator of the smaller vehicle apparently did not survive the merger.

Motor-bikes are one of the road's most unpredictable factors. They're small and nimble, and appear and disappear off our scopes seemingly at random because they can get to places drivers don't expect to be looking at because no one in their right mind should be there at all. Often, as soon as I signal to change lane, a motor-bike a safe distance behind will suddenly accelerate to get in front of me and I'm forced back into the lane I attempted to leave. Bikers can be so irrational.

But I'm not here to rail at the idiocy of others; and I'm certainly not saying that that was what happened in this traffic fatality. We can't fix other people so let's just be more proactive about the things we can control. Drivers, signal early and check your blind spots always. And can we, like Canadians, give a car's length respect to the bike in front of us and not force them to squeeze in between cars because that's so dangerous? Yes, the idiots will do it anyway because they can, but teaching them a lesson by getting them killed is not an effective pedagogical strategy. Let's please try something else.

Mel's new place

Officially met the kids I'll be inheriting next year. A massive redeployment of staff means I'll remain in the 2nd year team and hence take over these classes from their original tutors whom they will lose in the reshuffle. Personally, I'd prefer to follow a batch through the two-year term; get to know my charges better that way. But I guess spending just one year with this group will have to suffice. In the half-hour allotted for our meeting and intro, we discussed a little theory and a little of my "pedagogical" philosophy. Hope I haven't already confused them too much. We have a whole year to look forward to together.

Pulled an extended duty for my last hall monitor slot. A sole candidate requiring a laptop to type his answers on. And with his splinted and bandaged index finger, he looked like he needed the extra 45 minutes which I couldn't begrudge him.

Dinner was at Mel's new place. A house-warming, of sorts, but mostly it was an opportunity for Mel to try out her new culinary skills on the rest of us. Recipes born in desperation from an imaginative mind to satisfy the need to eat. Been there before but really only learned to prepare eggs in one or two ways -- fry or boil -- and mostly surviving on instant noodles, and acquiring a taste for bagels and lox. For Mel, her experience taught her to cook not just for her own self-preservation but also for others to savour. Tonight's fusion-experimental dishes worked very nicely. My compliments to the chef!

Choice of company

It's been a week of alternating between official duties and exploring Ferelden, chasing every quest and sub-quest via my Warrior and her all-woman party. Freud might have something to say about my choice of adventuring company, but I just think it's more badass to have a bunch of girls kick macho male enemy butt. Besides, the male characters I could opt to play with have boring personalities. Two won't talk to me 'cos they're, like, strong silent types; one's a whiner; one's a sleazebag; and the last is a drunk who prefers to belch then fall down and mumble incoherently rather than have a proper conversation. Typical.

So, tonight's dinner with Jen put a temporary end to a week of partially self-imposed near social isolation from real people. Our dinner programme began at 1500 at her workplace where, in an effort to get ourselves at least contributing to society in some little way, we stuffed envelopes with appeal cards for pledges and donations to the organization she represents. We had lots of help: about 70 kids of mixed nationalities (someone remarked it was like the UN) had descended to tour the place, lend a hand with the mailers; and interact and play games with the residents.

In a sense, the residents were helping the visitors out more because the latter had to have some kind of community involvement as part of their training, and the former were happy to oblige. Anyway, we all worked furiously to prepare as many envelopes as possible for mailing. The kids were boisterous and playful, but still got the job done without too much distraction. And when everyone went outdoors to play, both residents and visitors clearly had great fun with each other. We old-timers stood on the sidelines, nodding sagely at the proceedings while ducking the occasional stray dodge ball carelessly cast in our general direction.

Later at dinner proper, it was finally down to Jen, June and me in serious conversation over nachos, salad and pasta. "Serious", as in the adult, mature sense rather than giggly hee hee ha ha sense. Basically just to catch up and see how we've been faring since we last met, oh... months ago.

I really need to get out more.

So slow!

Network seriously lagging at home. Web pages are taking, like, forever to load -- if at all. Hello...? Testing... testing...!

Edit 01:

Finally couldn't stand the lag and called Starhub's helpline. Very patient service as Technical Assistance talked me through the diagnostic procedure. Despite long pauses in between instructions as I connected and re-connected cables and waited for a test file to download, there was always a calm, reassuring voice at the other end of the line telling me the next step. And this was already close to midnight, mind you. Someone was available even past midnight to entertain my queries.

Didn't get immediate results, but the problem at some point seemed to correct itself. But they promised me they'll still keep looking into my original complaint so that it doesn't happen again.

Bouncing back and forth

Technically, I have not been compelled on pain of death to appear on campus on a daily basis while on exam duty. Nonetheless, it has been necessary to be on campus anyway because there's still work needing to be done, regardless. The year may be grinding to an end, but it hasn't ended yet; and there's the pre-flight checks and prep for next year as well. What? You think school "just happens"?

It makes a difference, though, when Management removes the "compulsory" label from the usual punch-in punch-out routine. It's a move that shows the value of trust over control; that we're there not because of someone else's say-so, but because we recognise that our responsibilities are indeed ours and so we do what we can to fulfil them.

Don't feel sorry for us if you see us bouncing back and forth between our campus and the exam venue (which is on some other campus). We're ok with that, really.

The show goes on

Negotiations for a new instructor for NYeDC went well. Met prospectives at Sleek Espresso Bar over tea and cake, and it's great to see a familiar face whom I'll get to work with again. Also, we have been commissioned to work on comedy next year, taking a much needed break from the hyper-emo stuff that Drama Night has come to be identified with.

I think we've got the right people to put together a great show with lots of laughs. We'll be banking on our new instructors' forte in physical theatre, and we'll have still have Tina as overall QC. Now to find a suitable script and get the show on the road in six months.

... no pressure.