To market

Out of curiosity, we visited Tg Pagar Wholesale Centre to see if we could pick up cheap vegetables for tomorrow's cookout. June was looking for bittergourd to experiment with -- the old folks are going to be her guinea pigs.

Apart from us human traffic in this huge market space, there are steel dollies, fork-lift trucks and bicycles transporting cartons and pallets of fresh veggies that we have to constantly dodge. But despite all this bustle, the wholesalers are by and large very friendly with us and are ready to offer advice and favourite recipes. We found out that the limes we picked to make lime juice were the wrong type -- big ones don't yield as much juice as the smaller dark green ones -- and only use sugar sparingly because it doesn't take as much as we think to make it palatable.

June got a recipe for her bittergourd along with some storage tips: if they're already ripe but you're only going to cook them tomorrow, cut them in half, remove the seeds and they will not become over-ripe when tomorrow comes. With that, the auntie sold us her entire stock of four remaining bittergourds for $2 the lot.

At the fruit section we discovered this melon, a shipment of which had apparently just come in. Upon inquiry, we were told that it was a Spanish melon (I couldn't get a better translation) and that it only makes an appearance once a year. How fortuitous for us to come a-visiting on this very day! $8 a fruit, thank you!

They weren't kidding. The inside is white, looks and tastes like winter melon, but so very sweet and juicy! Best eaten cold. Also, best shared with many people because this is not a fruit one can eat in quantity. The flavour is that rich.

Edit 1:

20 Sept 2010

We've been had! Turns out our Spanish melon is nothing more than a Spanish variant of the Chinese hami melon. They're selling it at Giant at $5.95 each. Welcome to another episode of 'Two Turnips Buying a Melon'.

Make them first!

S'poreans are not producing enough babies because, according to the DPM, we are waiting to achieve a 'perfect life' before we feel secure enough to make those adorable little copies of ourselves. His advice: make them first. Life will never be perfect anyway, so get on with it! This, of course, is hot on the heels of PM's recent national address in which the PM presented the same exhortation.

Look, I'm not against the making of babies. In fact, I'm all for making lots and lots of babies! It's a fantastic process, but what does one do with the end product? The responsibility of having to personally look after each one for 25 years of their natural lives is a more effective contraceptive than a rubber prophylactic soaked in a vat of industrial-strength spermicide.

Anyone want to discuss how we as a nation have become too responsible for own own good?

Zombie tsunami

The most successful video game turned movie franchise has to be Resident Evil. 'Afterlife' represents its fourth instalment, opening with Alice taking revenge on the Umbrella Corporation for unleashing the un-deadly T-virus on the world.

Being the only successful host of the T-virus, Alice has superhuman powers... and she remembers everything. By this time, she has evolved into an unstoppable force who has brought "friends" with her into Umbrella's Tokyo headquarters. Poor Umbrella security, it's a massacre.

The demolition of Tokyo could not have taken more than 20 minutes of screen time. There's a problem when the protagonist wipes away her antagonists so easily -- the conflict gets too easily resolved. It's all well and good to feature chicks with guns and katana and throwing stars mowing down the opposition, but there has to be an element of danger, or at least a chance of being defeated to maintain the audience's interest. Alice in her mutated state is not interesting at all. Not for long, anyway.

Fortunately, events transpire to revert Alice back to her human self for the remainder of the movie. Now she has to rely on her courage, wit and survival skills alone to stay alive. And now things get interesting. Hooking up with a handful of survivors in LA, she has to devise a plan to get them to safety -- a dubious-looking container ship off the coast offering infection-free refuge -- but they have to get through the entire undead population of LA to get there.

With the undead pounding on the gates of their fortress seeking the only fresh meat in the city, for Alice, Claire, Chris and company it's run and gun a la Left 4 Dead. The situation is completely hopeless, undead pouring through the survivors' last defences in a literal zombie tsunami. It takes great teamwork, ingenuity and impeccable timing to pull off some dramatic escapes. The weak and indecisive, however, are punished for their hesitation or unwariness with a swift and gory demise.

What I like about 'Afterlife' is that there is no hope of victory. No celebrations, no medals at the end, just a sense of breathless relief before the next insurmountable wave strikes again. This is one enemy that cannot be taken head-on, hence there is no dishonour in a fighting retreat. Escape and skin-of-the-teeth survival is the game, no illusions about that. Resting on one's laurels is fatal.

This idea resonates with us because this is how we experience life. Challenge after challenge, daunting odds, threats at every turn; it's all so overwhelming. We may wish for superpowers to help us cope, but there's no such thing. Instead, the more realistic option is to find the right friends who share the same goals. Watch each other's backs, move in the same direction and develop a near-telepathic teamwork that will accomplish what one cannot alone.

Such a struggle, life is. When do we ever get to rest? The answer is, as long as we want to stay alive, never. There's plenty of time to rest when we're dead.

I watched a play in Mandarin!

Had to go catch Theatre Practices' 'Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral' to see how the original production company envisioned this very difficult and abstract play that our own NYeDC produced a couple of Drama Nights back. For Mel and me, the biggest problem was that the whole play was staged in its original Mandarin instead of the English translation we were familiar with. We had to rely on the subtitles provided to get us through the night.

As best as I could figure, the set was the hold of a shipwreck from which ten survivors have to escape. They have no idea who they are or why they are there, only that some external force is playing some twisted games with them. In between survival games, the survivors entertain each other with their recollections of Zeng He, the Eunuch Admiral.

That they are stranded with nothing but the clothes on their backs is an excellent reason for them to rely on mime to help tell their stories. Hence, the stylized movement done with precision and care, simple, minimalistic and very clear. But that also was an odd thing because the publicity materials call this production a 'kinetic interpretation' but the visuals were mostly static. It was like pose - chunk of text - ensemble pose - more text - more posing - etc. As far as artistic direction went, it was more tableau than theatre.

It was a very well done tableau, though. The initial set was claustrophobic but opened up in various places to create new and surprising play spaces and levels. With the interaction of the performers, the beautifully coloured lighting design and a couple of other surprising effects that temporarily changed gravity and another that added a visual component to a change in weather conditions (trying to avoid spoilers here) it was like looking at a pretty talking picture book. Though we were totally reliant on reading subtitles, we didn't miss much action 'cos when we looked back at the stage it was usually the same image that we took our eyes off last.

This production wasn't much fun. The interpretation was deadly serious. If there was any attempt at humour, perhaps it was lost in the translation? But then the audience wasn't laughing either, so I guess not. Overall, an interesting visual experience, but impact was... meh. Not to make any comparisons, but suddenly I have the urge to dust off the video of our own performance and watch it again.

Malacca revisited: Day 3

Our home away from home -- Hotel Puri. We're back here because it's familiar, it's located right where the shopping is and though the rooms are a bit Spartan (oh, beware the hot water in the shower!!!) they are decently comfortable enough.

Because we woke up early, June and I walked over to look at the historical part of Malacca before repeating all the shopping madness of the previous day.

The ruins of St Paul's are the gutted remains of this historic edifice. We get a real sense of history looking at these burial slabs dating back hundreds of years inscribed in a text so alien to us today.

Our second attempt to sample the cendol at Jonker 88 failed again. We settled for Donald and Lily's cendol and laksa instead. Also not bad.

Mel found this great chill-out place just down the street from our hotel. The Baboon House is so unlike its name, so tranquil, cool and relaxed. Great for reading and (ahem) grading papers -- yes, that's what else we came to Malacca to do.

I realize that for this trip my camera didn't point at too many people. It's more for the food and the sights. So, for the record, apart from those already mentioned and/or photographed already, my travelling companions also included Amy, B-lo, Fen, Liz, HP, To*ny and Wendy A. Always a pleasure, guys!

Malacca revisited: Day 2

A couple of misses on this trip. We liked the cendol at Jonker 88 the last time we visited, but today we couldn't get past this crowd. The other miss was my much anticipated A&W root beer float which I could almost taste... but the service was so slow we had to leave to meet our bus just before my turn at the counter.

But there's no passing up Nancy's Kitchen for Peranakan food. Fish maw (her pio) soup behind the ayam buah keluak.

Kueh pie tee, light, crispy, savoury-sweet. There were other dishes as well, but eating always takes precedence to taking pictures.

Night time found us at the Geographers Cafe. Our orders were a crazy mix of international flavours and some smuggled-in street food as well.

Mmm... satay made with chunky chicken meat, still juicy not grilled to death. The gravy was a bit watered down though, so good thing the meat could hold its own without it.

In case you think we did nothing but eat, we also did stuff like strolling along the riverside for a view of the nightlife here.

And shop for souvenirs for my graduating kids. These are personalized wooden teddy-bear cut-outs made into fridge magnets. The shop is Home Sweet Home, Mahkota Parade, and they make other wall hanging products as well.

Malacca revisited, Day 1

Road trip to revisit old Malacca town. None of us wanted to drive up here ourselves so we chartered a 14-seater bus with driver. Our journey began in fits and stops. There were initial problems with the bus, but in the end the bus driver broke down and had to be replaced. Eventually we arrived, checked in and made a bee-line to this shophouse for lunch... chicken rice balls!

For the uninitiated, the chicken is in front and the rice balls are behind. There is actually no need to ball up the rice other than for its novelty value. And maybe to distinguish it from the Singapore variety which follows a similar recipe.

No pix from dinner at the Portuguese Settlement. Fingers too busy and too covered with viscera gravy to wield a camera. Returning here was quite an experience. As always, we got lost and took the scenic tour of Malaccan backroads before getting our bearings right. After a little spiffying up, the place is now overrun with seafood touts that surrounded us, each promising the best dining experience and 'no regrets'. Travellers tip: the longer you delay the more persistent they get; so just make a decision (Wayne arbitrarily chose Stall #6) and that was that. No further harassment, and true to their word, no regrets over the quality of the food.

Study techniques that work

Am temporarily making a note to link this NYT article on study techniques that work. Don't have time to sift through it right now, but I don't want to lose the URL 'cos it may be important, you never know.

You want fries with that?

At Everything with Fries (Holland V), it's hard to tell if the main course is the thing you ordered or the fries that accompany it. The cheeseburger I ordered was thick cut served with a standard fresh vegetable topping and a side Caesar salad, but all that only took up half the plate. The remaining half sat a pile of garlic and herb French fries in the midst of which perched a single garlic clove which suggested that their fries are done with authentic ingredients.

So the curry fries came fried in curry leaves and curry powder -- a very flavourful concoction, while the sour cream and onion and salt-and-vinegar combinations were thankfully subtle, not overpowering. Overpowering was Mel's lemonade which nearly bowled her over at the first sip. But that's the way Mel likes it, so no problem there.

Not so sure about the one egg soup Wendy A was raving about. It's a chicken stock soup with an egg yolk beaten into it; the remaining white is made into a soufflé raft  floating on top of the soup. It tasted oddly sweet and savoury -- an acquired taste, says Wendy.

We shared a Nutella tart for dessert which was sweet, sweet, omg sweet. Some things come too rich for my taste. I don't know how the others felt about it, but it disappeared quite quickly despite my not helping so much.

The Holland V outlet has great service staff. Ours was bright and chirpy, genuine in her responses, patient about our queries (Mel, Wayne and I arrived earlier than Amy, HP and Wendy so she had to endure lots of questions from us while we waited for the rest of our table to apparate). Overall, the atmosphere is clean, friendly and pleasant.

As to the amount of fries that went with everything, barring that it was a rather late lunch, I didn't need dinner. At all.

Mo' money blues

The way to S'porean hearts is through their bellyachin', especially about the sad, hard lives they live. And nothing gets S'poreans as riled up as the issue of National Service. So the PM announces in his NDay Rally speech that our citizen soldiery will receive a token of recognition for their contribution to national peace and security valued at at least $9000 each that will go towards funding their further education and ease the cost of home ownership. And predictably, the cries of anguish over our abuse and mistreatment rise to the heavens.

Old retired soldiers of Mr Brown's generation (including yours truly) are angsty that because we've already completed our service the award isn't meant for us:


The currently serving NS men are insulted at the paltry sum offered. By their calculations, they should be receiving at least 15 times as much. Yes, there's nothing like having an education and an Excel spreadsheet to make an unhappy army camper.

And S'porean women are upset too because for once they don't get it.

In S'pore there is so much peace and security we find no greater joy than in bitchin' over how our lives could be so much better. Sigh, if only we had mo' money, we'd be much happier people...!

National Dog Walk 2010

Q-tip's new summer look keeps getting her mistaken for a chihuahua, especially today at the National Dog Walk & Carnival 2010. Sad to say, because of the rain the venue was a swamp so we didn't stay long. We did, however, visit a stall run by a pair of enterprising college alumni designing and selling Tees (human sized). Part proceeds go to Action for Singapore Dogs (ASD). They have a blogshop, CHlittleshop, so go visit and support, 'k?

Since we were in the Sunset Way neighbourhood, we made a pit-stop at The Daily Scoop. But they only open at 1400 on Sunday, so lunch before dessert at June May's.

Interesting set lunch menu: lasagne and float. Here's the lasagne.

And here's the float. The iced lemon tea on the left is not part of the set.

A fission of givin'

A church raises $21 million within a 24-hour period. It's big news because of the recent public discussions over the amassed riches of organized religion, raising suspicion and alleging impropriety in the raising and disbursement of such monies by what are ostensibly non-profit organizations.

This story reminds me of the miracle of the five loaves and two fish recorded in the Gospels (Jn 6:5-6:15, etc.). The mystery of this miracle is in how limited quantities of matter (bread and fish) can be multiplied several times over to feed 5000 people, while leaving behind significant excess, without breaking the laws of Newtonain physics.

If that is the question, we are looking at the miracle in the wrong way. In a crowd of 5000, it is quite inconceivable that the only food resource among them is five loaves and two fish that only one boy had the presence of mind to take with him that day. If one boy could have packed a meal with him there'd be many others who'd have brought food along too. This boy, however, gets his place in canonical history because his offer to share his resources catalysed a mass movement of the "haves" to share their resources with the "have-nots". The miracle isn't about the violation of the laws of physics but in getting people to share what they have willingly with others, and that is no mean feat.

We can account for the excess gathered at the end of the feeding frenzy by the Principle of the Buffet Table. Because everyone has some they become polite and will settle for a little less just in case someone ends up with none. We can count this effect as either altruism or a sensitivity to "good form". Either way, the buffet table will always have left-overs. This effect is all the more likely to occur if the environment or event itself encourages civic consciousness or at least consideration for others.

Such an environment is palpable in CHC in which communal involvement is strongly emphasized among a very large and inclusive population base representing a wide range of mixed incomes. With the environment primed for placing others before self, it only takes a small catalyst to ignite a fission of givin'. $21 million in 24 hours? Is that all?

Celebrating us

In today's celebration of Education Professionals, the student body organized a concert tribute to us. All performances were dance items, including NYeDC's. Makes sense because in a large hall with poor acoustics the only things that will keep and hold our audience's attention are music, colour and movement. No one can follow a storyline under such conditions.

Our item was set to the Muppets' version of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' depicting various classroom interactions between students and different teacher personalities. Not strictly dance, more like mime and movement though we're still a bit rough at that.

The noobs who came on after us brought the house down, as I expected they would. They really showed that our staff aren't the stodgy no-lifers that we appear to be. They said they toned down some of the raunchiness from the staff dinner performance, but I don't remember seeing anything particularly tasteless then.

Spent the afternoon in good company. Lunch at Jones the Grocer where I finally found a place that offers pastrami sandwiches. Also ordered a cheese platter to share. The atmosphere here is very pleasant. Attentive wait staff always on hand with water refills and dish clearing. Expensive, though. Pastrami sandwich was more sandwich than pastrami. Though the bread was lovely and chunky and thick, I prefer the pastrami filling to be thicker than the bread slices holding the whole thing together. This is all Joey Tribbiani's fault for setting my expectations so unrealistically high!

In other madness, while Mel and Wendy A adjourned to parts unknown, the rest of us adjourned to Ben & Jerry's where we drank so much water Wayne had to justify the presence of so many shotglasses on our table. Here he attempts to build Dempsey Hill's tallest free-standing structure of dining crockery, setting the record at ten individual pieces in a stack. Amy's pix captures this historic moment (left). HP's wallet went missing; Josh displayed some dexterous sleight-of-hand in his vanishing act; To*ny displayed outstanding clumsiness in making said item reappear. Brilliant.

To all teachers working tomorrow on Teachers' Day... why?

The tiger in the tank

Some of the best teaching moments occur during individual consultation periods when the kids actually come with questions to discuss. I've learned my lesson about focusing my consults on content -- don't offer them any more than they themselves have offered already. Telling them what info they should have included here and there when they didn't have such info in the first place just demoralizes them and makes them feel like they're never going to catch up with the bar we keep raising.

More content isn't going to help, especially when it wasn't their content to begin with. My strategy from now is to focus on extending mileage on what information they already have, always with the caveat that in the interim between now and their finals there's still time to build up more content on their own.

I think that's the best strategy to take into the exam hall because that's exactly what they're expected to produce. The test is on maximizing what they have brought into the venue, that's it. There's nowhere else they can get more content from, not till they change the nature of the test anyway.

Some ground rules we established from today's discussion:

• Absolute #1 rule: Always tell the Truth -- don't know, don't write.
• Reasoning counts for more than content.
• Broad-based content produces more mileage than focused topical content.
• Content is flexible and the same content can be used to respond to many questions
• Good responses strongly link supporting content with question requirements.
• Argument always precedes balance, and not the other way around.
• Every question must be taken on its own merit. There is no "aren't I supposed to...?" If the question does not ask for it, don't.
• Time taken to analyse question requirements is better use of time than planning (or worse, committing to) a response without first knowing what the question wants.

No particular order of importance, though. It's not a process but guidelines to keep in mind. Yes, very common-sense, but a guided-analytical approach is far better than the panic-vomit approach.

It was particularly enlightening when a kid asked me to analyse an Economics question because she didn't understand why her interpretation was deemed wrong by both her own mates and the Econs tutor. I told her to use the GP method of analysing questions on this one. She was dubious at first, but a lightbulb went on as she proceeded. Now she could clearly see what the question wanted and why her answer was so far off base.

Arby always remarks how the kids don't seem to think when they approach questions in his subject. Perhaps they didn't have the right tools and the know-how to use them correctly in the first place. Ladies and gentlemen, today we might have made a breakthrough! Hope this time it has longer legs.

The Rambo and Friends Show

In 'The Expendables', Stallone rounds up the venerable action heroes of yesteryear and throws them all into his latest celluloid outing. Snipes is missing, though. Guess even they couldn't arrange a jailbreak for him.

The story is nonsense. Stallone's small group of mercenaries get hired to take out a Banana Republic Generalissimo for an offer of cash, but they find another reason to do the job for free like the true-blue all-American good guys they are. Even Li. The story, as we know, is just an excuse for pitting one action hero against another using fists and feet, blades, guns, vehicles and explosive ordnance, as far as the alliances between them can stretch the boundaries of credibility.

But there's the fun, isn't it? Who cares much about plot in a movie that promises action and delivers spectacle? On the cards: Lundgren vs Li; Stallone vs Austin; in a handicap match Statham vs a bunch of recreational b-ball players; Statham vs Rourke in knife throwing action; eh, and the other tough guys who are unfamiliar to me off-hand don't get all that much air time (maybe that's why they're called the Expendables?). Real big-time stars like Willis and Ah-nold show up too, though they get cameo roles in which they talk tough and leave.

In typical boy fashion, Stallone and Co take down an entire nation, ruining it's political infrastructure; internal security and air-defence forces; economic and industrial capabilities (main export appears to be cocaine); and it's primary imp-ex facility (a single docking pier). Why boy fashion? If Stallone had just asked nicely, I'll bet all this senseless destruction and mayhem and the occasional expendable (small 'e') disintegrating in a shower of gore and gibs could have been avoided. But then, with his mumble, even if he did ask nicely nobody would have understood him anyway. Out come the guns again.

Yeah, I needed to watch a mindless, testosterone-heavy, male-bonding action flick. It's marking season, don't you know? Let the blood-letting begin!


Via: Term Life Insurance

Sacrifice of dignity

Combined schools dinner time again. Every year our family of schools gather to congratulate each other over a formal Chinese dinner and sit through the evening's entertainment. This year, the Big Wee Man himself presided over the festivities and came over personally to offer a toast to each table. That's an honour we don't get every day.

Very proud of our newbies. Every year (apart from a couple of notable exceptions) it's the obligation of the new blood to offer an item for the showcase of performances. Consider this sacrifice of dignity as their initiation ceremony into their new place of occupation.

Our noobs delivered a double-bill, the first inspired by Stomp ('live' percussion performance group, not official Singaporean tattletale/complaints website) and the second a dance number to 'Bad Romance' which was a hoot-and-a-half. Coordinated zombie jerky movements choreographed to bad, loud music. Can't fail! Really looking forward to their encore performance in Tuesday's concert back on campus. The kids deserve to end their special day on a high.

Trapped for months

I'm not one to make light of a bad situation, but being trapped in a collapsed mine for four months waiting for rescue sounds like a great way to take a vacation off work. Especially when my rescuers are taking care of my nutrition, entertainment and potty needs -- i.e., everything they can to keep my morale up so that I wouldn't develop claustrophobic bonkers syndrome and kill all my fellow survivors around me. Books, video games and all the antidepressants I can eat for four months. Tempting.

Mom's green thumbs

The frangipani stem June and I brought back from Hawaii as a souvenir for Mom finally bloomed. We're talking about a trip that even pre-dates this blog, so yeah, it was worth a photo.

Pix taken by Mom and sent via Bluetooth in a cell phone to cell phone transfer. First time for Mom, and she's quite proud of herself about it.

In a sad coincidence Mom's minor celebrity neighbour sold his house recently, and the new owner chopped down the beautiful frangipani tree growing in the garden. It and a couple of other large plants were in pieces on the sidewalk waiting for the next garbage pick-up. Why can't the new owners just move in to the existing premises without uprooting the other residents who have just as much right to be there?

Mom picked up a promising couple of branches off the sidewalk, hoping to regrow them in her garden. If our twig transplanted from Hawaii could thrive till today, these have a fighting chance to live on. We're counting on Mom's green thumbs to work that miracle.

Shy beauty

In commemoration of today's special event, it had to be nothing less than a first class slab of beef done by people who understand the meaning of 'rare'.

This gorgeous hunk of fillet mignon was demure and fairly trembling with anticipation in my presence. As she opened up to my advances, a delightful blush of pink rose to meet my gaze; so warm and tender as she met my mouth again and again. Yes, a truly 'rare' carnal experience with such a pretty filly. She didn't come cheap either, but there was reason to celebrate tonight.

Location: Stuart Anderson's Black Angus Steakhouse, NUS Bukit Timah Campus. A touch of nostalgia too because this was my campus for  year when it was NIE, NTU, before NUS took it back. There's a smart casual dress code though we didn't see it strictly enforced.

Fire! Fire!

On the pretext that there were important papers to be signed in the staff lounge, dNYel had me charging straight in, wondering why there was so much fuss over such a minor issue. Once inside, they sprang a real fire for me to fight. The flames were huge and I couldn't even approach without first donning a protective fire-retardant suit and arming myself with a high-pressure hose.

Fortunately, my fire-fighting skills were as sharp as ever. When the flames finally died down, we celebrated with cake while keeping our tootsies warm in the dying embers of the sudden blaze. Toasted marshmallows would have been a nice touch to follow up.

Thanks for igniting the flames, my friends! The warmth will stay with us long after we've moseyed off into the sunset.