The Prince and the pee

Spoke too soon about Maui's symptoms. Pee droplets appearing all over the floor -- and furniture (and clothes) again! Washing machine and dryer working overtime. Doubt we're going to be entertaining visitors any time soon. Or if we do have visitors, doubt they'll want to be entertained for long.

Immediate Rx: hospitalized him with Dr Kasey over the next few days for treatment and observation. Kasey has fitted him with a catheter and cleared the blocked tubes the x-ray revealed. Feeding, hydration and medication from now will be medically supervised until we can bring him home.

Yes, this is the other side of pet ownership that isn't glam and cute, but it has to be done nonetheless.

Castles in the air take shape in the sand

It's the post-exam period and the kids are getting a bit of a break from regular classes. This bunch is being groomed as future leaders so they've come to take some practical life lessons at Castle Beach, ECP. The sand sculpture in the foreground is a sample.

Instructor, Alvin, briefs the kids on the programme: Plan, Build, Sell. Personal note: I've never met a motivational speaker I liked. They always rub me the wrong way. This one is no exception. 'nuff said.

Some of the plans that emerged for the sand city the kids were supposed to build were ambitious and elaborate. One of the lessons they learned was to follow through on the vision regardless of difficulty, not settle for second-best which, apparently, they did.

Oh, well. At least they had fun.

Digging in

Root canal #2 went in really deep. Hurts more the second time around. The scraping I got used to from the first time, but in this instalment Doc Chan had to jam filling material right inside the tooth raising the pain bar a bit higher. Right now I can feel something like a screw or reinforcing strut in there and I don't know if I will ever be able to ignore the irritation.

The good news is that the new temporary crown has been sculpted to look and feel like the original tooth, and the surface texture feels smoother than the old one. I'm not done yet, however. Am looking forward to my pre-coronation next week. In the meantime, I hope I can graduate from porridge and mashed bananas to more substantial food real soon.

Jailbreak

The irrepressible Maui is quite the Houdini. Confinement is really not his thing. Locked up, he cries so loudly we worry that the neighbours will call an investigation into possible animal abuse. Regardless, he's figured out how to escape his prison. Either he's strong enough to pull the heavy glass shower door open by himself, or his shadowy protector (background) has been breaking him out from the outside. Never mind. His symptoms are subsiding so he's entitled to his freedom once again.

Prisoner of circumstance

Poor Maui is confined to the spare shower stall, along with his food and water dishes, a floor mat and his own personal sandbox. His Guantanamo Bay experience is hopefully temporary, that is until he can overcome his incontinence problem. Vet Nair guesses that Maui has been under stress and isn't drinking enough water, thus contracting a urinary tract infection.

His problem explains the little droplets of moisture we found all over the living room floor since yesterday. But it was only when I carried him for a playful noogie that I realized how damp my hand had become all of a sudden. Ew.

Nair shot him up with two weeks' worth of antibiotics, but he still has to take a daily syrup by syringe. To encourage him to drink more water, we're starting him off by filling his dish with pet milk, which he likes and will drink. Overnight, we'll change the milk for water and see if that works.

There is only one suspect as to who has been stressing out Maui: Pebbles. The two boys really do not get along well at all. Pebbles has since been banished, sent back to the tender loving hands of M-i-L who now has to look after him when May is away. Pebbles is now felinae non grata in our house. Sorry, May. :'(

Not the whole tooth

After a day to calm down from the initial shock, a more objective assessment of the damage is that it isn't as bad as I had imagined. Although I gave up the old molar for lost, it actually is still mostly there... except for about a quarter that's been temporarily filled in with spackle or whatever they're using. That would explain why when the dentist tried to show me the fragment that she'd extracted -- fell out, more like -- I was all like, "where's the rest?" to which all I got in reply was a mystified look.

The temporary crown has the consistency of sandpaper, though, and because it's the most unusual thing in my mouth, my tongue is rubbing itself raw on its surface. :p

Unexpected procedure

This really is an update on today's post, but it deserves a spot of its own. Funny how things turn out. First you comment that instinct is telling you to save a grand, later fate tells you you're gonna have to spend two.

Perhaps I should have taken the bosses up on their lunch offer, but I decided to eat alone. Halfway through lunch, there was a loud 'crack' inside my head. I thought I'd crunched a bone shard, but my tongue found a sharp edge where I once would have felt a molar. That wasn't good. The finger probe went in next and drew out blood. That really wasn't very good. Broken tooth, no doubt.

Did a Google search on my S3 and found a few dentistries in my immediate area. The first was closed for lunch. Fortunately, though the second was also closed for lunch, the duty dentist was still on hand to look at my emergency.

I had big plans when I woke up this morning. But in the afternoon, my mouth was numb and drooly and I was having an unexpected root canal treatment to save what was left.

I'd heard about root canal, and it usually isn't described as a pretty picture. Here, there were charts pinned to the wall explaining everything. The consent form they had me sign listed some possible horror scenarios that could occur though the dentistry absolves itself from liability for any such eventuality. Tools breaking off inside the tooth requiring further surgery, for example, or infections setting in if the patient was negligent in following after-care procedures. None of this information is helping me settle my mind that I'M HAVING ROOT CANAL!!! But I know I will regret not seeking treatment more, so I sign consent.

Anesthesia numbs, yet there's still feeling where you don't want it. But the procedure went tolerably well and I didn't die of pain or other complications like I thought I would. In the gap, now there's a temporary crown that feels more like a blob of hard, dried putty where there once was smooth enamel. I bought a couple of painkillers for when the anesthesia wears off, but it's worn off and I don't feel the need to take them. There is a mild, throbbing sensation at the moment, but no real pain. Perhaps my brain is still hopped up on oxytocin and assorted endorphins, naturally produced through positive emotional stimulus, such as through scrolling pix of lolcats, etc.

Dinner was a sad affair of soft foods: a triumvirate of medium-sized whipped potato from KFC, washed down with a delectable corn soup from MOS Burger. Looks cheap, but altogether costs more than a regular meal at either one of those places.

Today's treatment set me back over $400, while the entire series was quoted at two grand, barring complications. Hopefully, June's corporate insurance can help me recover some of the cost, but certainly not all of it. Poor Mr L33t will so have to wait another year for upgrades.

If it ain't broke (but I am)

I really wanted to fork out a grand on a complete overhaul of Mr L33t's system. This after a year of procrastination. I had already researched what I figured was the best motherboard-cpu-RAM and video card package for what I was willing to pay... and didn't go through with it.

The same reason for holding back is exactly the same reason from last year: there's nothing wrong with him. He's decently fast; gets all my work done without breaking a sweat; and for the record I've defeated Diablo 3 on Inferno mode (the hardest before Hardcore where death is permanent) with my Monk character -- on a four-year-old PC. He's even up to handling my D3 Inferno farming runs at Monster Power [level] 2, though I simply have no patience to increase MP levels any further.

I may yet go through with the upgrade sooner or later. It's a consumer inevitability. But not today, not while a cooler head rules and the wallet is tight.

Spot this!

GP 2012 was a bag of mixed nuts. Let's see what questions I can recall (in no particular order):

• Something about the functionality and beauty of math.
• Something about the value of preserving the world's minority languages.
• The protection of animal rights in your society.
• Can violence be justified?
• Should technology be used for financial gain?
• Is the economy the criteria for good governance?
• Can humour be serious?
• Something about the donation of "suitable" organs after we die... though I can't imagine why I would want to donate UNsuitable organs at any time.

And four others that probably left no impression on me.

I do recall my first response being that if the kids prepared themselves by "spotting questions", good luck to them. These questions appreciate a broad, current coverage of material, and can be a lot of fun to write as they present a nice range of thought-provoking assumptions. But then, those who rely more on a cut-and-paste approach would hardly find this exercise fun at all.

For my colleagues who like to identify "patterns" and "trends" in essay question setting, the vibe I'm picking up from today's experience is that the paper is being designed to be less predictable. Guess Cambridge is getting tired of our cookie-cutter essays and is hoping to encourage more originality of composition -- for the sake of their own sanity, if anything.

Over on Paper 2, the discussion was music and its function in society. Even if we don't raise the subject of music much in class, hopefully the kids do listen to some music and can talk about that... though extending from the individual perspective to the social perspective is what they realize they have to do. *keeps fingers firmly crossed

Ah, well, it's over. Whatever the kids did, we hope and we pray that it was enough.

The name's Little, Chicken Little

After "Skyfall" can anybody really justify why 007, James Bond, is still on the British taxpayers' payroll?

Warning: SPOILERS follow

Let's do a run-down of the events that occur in this installment:

1. Save Agent Ronson's life -- Ronson dies
2. Retrieve stolen laptop hard disk -- gets hit by friendly fire, target escapes
3. Goes on unauthorised three-month vacation -- MI6 gets blown up
4. Reports back for duty -- fails every field agent test in the book
5. Captures Silva -- Macao contact killed
6. Holding Silva -- Silva escapes
7. Protect British public -- subway disaster; Wesminster gets heavily shot up
8. Protect M -- Bond ancestral home, "Skyfall", blown to smithereens; M doesn't make it
9. Receive M's legacy -- gets M's favourite paperweight... and new boss is Lord Voldemort himself!

So, did Bond even get one thing right in this story? No wonder they say civil servants live off an iron ricebowl.

Kicking the last chicks out of the nest

Just three more hours and the Class of 2012 will be out of my hair, preferably for good. Their good too, not necessarily mine. This post-prelim exam period has been one of the most strenuous I've ever had with my consultation slots booked nearly solid over the last couple of weeks. Only a couple of cancellations, but empty slots get quickly filled up with other takers on the unofficial waiting list. I don't remember ever being this popular with my previous batches.

The actual paper is due this coming Monday, but I'm drawing the consults to a close here and now. Their success is heavily dependent on their independence so they have a few remaining days to prep themselves. The hard part for me, of course, is letting them go trusting that I've tutored them enough -- which is something I can never reassure myself of. But at this late stage of the game, it'll have to do.

I end with three kids I haven't seen at all through this period. Must remind myself that because they've left it so late, I must reinforce, not contradict; assure, not freak them out. Whatever they have to offer today will have to be enough for Monday.

USS Halloween Horror Nights 2

A little better strategy is in order if we want to enjoy this event at USS more next year.

Time: 2000-0100 hrs is too short to do everything, so despite the temptation to ride the coasters we have to be more focused on the specially themed attractions, even if it means forgoing our favourite rides.

Crowd: the place is swarming with merry-makers who create great atmosphere for the event, but also unfortunately make the lines for the rides and everything else very long. We waited about an hour to get on the Battlestar Galactica (Cylon) and another on The Mummy Returns. And that was all the time we had as upon exit from the Egyptian Necropolis, it was nearly 0000 hrs already.

Lockers: in crowded situations like this one, the time spent waiting and riding will invariably exceed the lockers' grace period and you have to pay the machine in order to get your stuff out of it. It gets difficult when all your belongings including wallet containing cash, NETS and credit card are locked in the locker as you are not permitted to ride with loose items in your pockets. For cash transactions, exact amount only, no change is given -- we found out a bit too late. For both rides, we ended up spending $18 on the lockers alone. Grr.

Food: we purchased the theme dinner at KT's Bar and Grill (on of the restaurants in USS). It was a three-course meal including a choice of baby pork ribs (above) and duck (below). The ribs were succulent and tender, likewise the duck. The theme decorations turned out cuter than the picture in the menu promised, but it was good eating anyway. There seemed to be a bit of a kerfuffle over the question of whether we had purchased the meal vouchers online, but it was only because online orders apparently received a complementary fruit punch, a nice surprise for us...

like so.

But back to strategy: the food was fabulous and reasonably priced ($28+++ per pax) but to start serving at 2000 hrs... well, the one hour we enjoyed eating was also one hour's headstart on the rides for everyone else who had nommed earlier elsewhere.

Parking: the one thing that worked for us was a last minute decision. Because parking was so limited at Vivocity, we detoured to park at the Beach car park on Sentosa. $3 entrance + $2 parking = $5 total. Even though the monorail ended service at midnight, it was a short and pleasant stroll back to the beach from USS to get M2 back.

Conclusion: to really enjoy ourselves, spend more money. Buy a day pass to ride coasters all day long, upgrade to stay for the night's activities and fork out for a universal express pass for faster (than normal) access to the attractions. Carry only a credit card and your smartphone (useful as a camera and for contacting separated party members) in a secured pocket, leave all other miscellaneous barang-barang in the car.

P.S.: To infer that we didn't enjoy the experience is not accurate. The creepy music and sound effects relentlessly permeating the entire theme park added atmosphere to the main street that was divided into sections by theme. From the House of Dolls at the entrance, to the post-apocalyptic urban cityscape, to the Mummy-cursed streets of ancient Egypt populated with ghouls and zombies popping up to scare random passers-by, USS really did take a lot of trouble to get the environment perfect for Halloween. All I'm saying is, next year, we go with a better plan to maximize the time allotted.

USS has dedicated staff. This forlorn ghoul guards the door of the closed gift shop. No one gets in regardless of how badly they want to buy a souvenir.

A celebration of "Decade-nce"

Congrats to Jo and Derek who are celebrating their 10th anniversary with a luncheon at The Wine Company. This rather unflattering pix shows one table of us colleagues all busy stuffing our faces.

The menu was pretty decent, starting with a seafood bisque that was rich in crabby flavour. The pix shows us chowing down on the Caesar salad topped with crabmeat. The main course was a thick slab of fillet mignon which I was looking forward to. I ordered rare but it was served done on the more... conservative interpretation of the word, shall we say? Dessert was a baked Camembert which was nothing I'd expected in generosity -- a whole wheel of Camembert baked over apple slices in a caramel sauce. The whole thing was thick and melty, and so good. But there was no way I could eat another. One serving was quite enough.

It was fortuitous to be at this particular table as we were short of one diner, which meant more food for the rest of us since the number had already been catered for and we didn't want be responsible for any wastage.

The event itself was quite an easy-going affair. Jo renewed her vows in the style of "Green Eggs and Ham" while Derek's was more conventional but culminated in  a surprise presentation of a huge bouquet of flowers. Otherwise, the guests were left to their own devices and entertainment... mostly. The finale involved a lucky draw, prize winners having to dance "Gangnam Style" or shuffle with "Party Rock Anthem" in order to claim their gifts. Fortunately, there weren't too many gifts and our table wasn't particularly lucky. Wait, does that mean we were lucky or unlucky?

Anyway, Mr and Mrs Lee, 10 years under the belt and many more to come!

Lazy day

I can (almost) has cheezeburger...

Finally, someone (besides our regular houseguest) is making use of the kitty shelves.

Looks good on paper

Staff bonding exercise bringing today's big meeting to a close. As delicious as the pix look, that's just colour paper made to resemble food. These were the exemplars.

And this is my table's creation. No prizes for guessing what it's supposed to be. An entertaining, mindless table game it turned out to be... despite us having to make fake food while the real food awaited us at the back of the hall.

A tangled mess

We found this poor fellow hobbling around in our void deck. He had got himself tangled up in a length of yellow string which bound both of his feet together. It must have hurt quite bad as he was incapable of escaping June's hands as she picked him up for a closer inspection. The string had cut deep into his feet. If we didn't do something quickly the lack of blood circulation would have rendered his extremities necrotic... and then it would only be a matter of time.

June left me holding the pigeon while she dashed upstairs for scissors. Good thing she went up and not me because I would have brought down the biggest pair I could find, but she cleverly dug out her pedicure scissors with the tiny, pointy blades that were just the thing for the delicate operation we were about to undertake. June slipped the tips of the scissors under the tight knots and gently snipped away. Passers-by were curious, but not enough to bother asking us what was going on.

I suppose we could have been gentler, but we did eventually free the pigeon from his bonds. The pix above is the 'after' and he seems visibly relieved from his ordeal.

My biggest worry now is that he is so relieved that he loses awareness of traffic and becomes immediate roadkill. But so far, that hasn't happened. We're still keeping an eye out for him, June feeding him some bread this morning. He is still quite identifiable due to his pronounced limp. Hopefully, that will heal in time.

School's out, consultation's in!

Now we're neck deep in consultation with the kids, it's time to review some tips for surviving the deluge of kids looking for a little personal attention:

Protect the larynx. Stay hydrated during and between consults. But since prevention is better than cure, opt to listen more and talk less. See next tip.

Avoid unnecessary pre-consult marking. There just isn't time. Make the consultees read their prepared essays or other written work aloud during consult so they learn to catch their own language errors -- and hopefully their own logical fallacies as well. The ear is a much stronger facility for filtering arguments; whereas the eye, being more directly wired to the brain and hence apprehends input without the mediation of language, tends to overlook such details. By training ourselves to listen effectively we can improvise with any question without prior preparation.

Schedule decent breaks. The demands we are putting on our brains is taxing and makes us prone to error over time. Breaks need to be spent with people we can be stupid with, preferably over a beverage and motivational food. We probably do not want to be seen in this state by our consultees, so our choice of recreation venue should minimize the chance of contact with them... but that's a judgement call. Some of us are not so sensitive about this point.

Get sufficient sleep the night before. Falling asleep while in consult can be quite demotivating to the kids. While it's an opportunity to give them a taste of their own medicine, it's best not to exact our revenge so close to the finals. We don't really want them to reappear next year to haunt us again.

Be realistic. Assess the consultee's capabilities at the time of consult. We work with what we judge they are capable of offering. Some kids just need shoring up and some positive reinforcement while others can be stretched a bit further. Regardless, the kids should feel better after the consult, not worse. What we don't want is to make them think that the standards are so high that they might as well give up now.

Enjoy the period of consultation. (1) We are free of the timetable! (2) We always look forward to teaching a class that is attentive, hangs on our every word, is generally responsive with feedback and asks its own questions. We'll never get it any better than when we have them one (or small group)-to-one  Two years they spend in class, but we actually see their learning expand exponentially here in the last few weeks before the finals. While on one hand that's rewarding, on the other it's just not an efficient learning schedule. I'm sure there's got to be a better way to do this.

Finally, 'Academic Consultant' has a classier ring than 'cher! Relish it while it lasts!

Same day, 30 years apart

If the cake appears to be in the process of immolation, it's because the candles represent two separate individuals celebrating their birthdays. The cake was homemade and the menagerie displayed on top suggests the theme for the evening:

Safari Night, guests expected to turn up in animal prints. Spent most of this morning shopping for such, but it appears that the material went out of fashion with Riz Low. Had to make do with a plain t-shirt and declared myself a greyhound. June didn't even bother with the pretense.

The caterer was Neo Garden. Apart from providing the theme set (above), the food was also quite a decent spread. Of note in the Asian menu were the noodles (tasty and very filling) and the special order chicken curry which everyone raved over. The chix and mutton satay went pretty quickly. Everything else was the usual buffet fare. One common complaint: it doesn't take much to make us feel stuffed any more. The hazards of ageing...

Empty nest

Doubt anyone involved in this shoot from two or three weeks ago will kill me for sharing it in this entry. We took this short clip to bid adios to our Class of 2012 which is now officially on study leave in preparation for the upcoming final exam.

This is not to say that the staff are packing our bags to wait out the rest of the year on a sunny beach in Hawaii, sipping mai-tais. Rather, we'll be up to our necks deep in mock exams, and individual and small group consultations until pretty much the paper itself.

About the video: I wish I could have directed a more coherent script rather than the episodic thing it is. Considering how little time we had to put it together, it had to do. And no, I'm not asking for more time, but maybe to think more towards a consistent narrative next time around... hmm...

NTUC (it's an anagram) fair price

Nice going, fellow netizens! We are Batman and Superman rolled into one, totally opening a can of whoop-ass on the bad guy (or in this case, gal) who dared to threaten humanity with a reprehensibly expletive-ridden racist Facebook status update. Social justice upheld, we can ride off back to our secret lairs to await the next crisis, ever vigilant against the evil forces that are forever looming over the good... and mostly helpless citizenry of Singapopolis.

It didn't matter that Amy Potty-mouth was having a bad day. It was inexcuseable that the happy noises of the people downstairs were disrupting her naptime, causing her to be extremely grouchy and anti-social. Her words were pure evil, rocking the foundations of our tremulously insecure society. And so we've made her pay the FairPrice: by uncovering her as a pariah against our fine society, we've put a once gainfully employed citizen on the unemployment line, which for her is going to stretch a very long way away from the service counter. She will never pay taxes in this town again. She won't even get to enjoy unemployment benefits, 'cos we don't provide any.

How we love to see the mighty fall in our society. There's no elation equal to the toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein, and any slightest provocation is an excuse to recapture the moment by enacting a little public humiliation on the perp before the burning at the stake. How we love to stick it to the privileged, to make them feel how we feel, suffer as we suffer. All it takes are a few ill-chosen words and we can apply the 'racist' brand, hit public enemy #1 with all the vitriol we can muster, and feel good about ourselves that when Rachel Prejudice dares to raise her head in our society, we watchdogs of Truth, Justice and Freedom will always be there to grind it back down with our heel. My friends, you are real heroes.

Let every update on Facebook henceforth reflect how happy we are; let us edit for political correctness, and scrub negative emotion from our posts. Singapopolis is a harmonious city, the envy of the world, and anyone who might suggest otherwise has clearly not bought into the doctrine and must therefore be expunged from existence. For a responsible citizen (or a friend) to simply reply to the perp's post pointing out that it was offensive and ask for an apology is simply inviting a debate on that which can not be debated.

Hence, our message is very simple: in our democratic society, everyone is entitled to freedom of speech... as long as they say what we want to hear. Say something different and your face will be all over the Hall of Justice, and the Hall of Justice will be all over your face. Capice?