Finally, the prelim discussions are over! We have settled on the questions so far, and everything looks alright to go. It looks like it will only be a slightly tough paper, so it should be able to boost the students' morale somewhat. Hopefully. After the meeting, I was just typing subject tutor comments for my students. Argh, that took quite some time, and I still couldn't finish for all my classes.

My whole day was supposed to be lined up with consultations, but in the end, two students didn't show up. One was very late because she was spending time consulting another tutor; the other one just did not appear, and did not contact me to cancel his appointment either. The same one that took 2.5 hours yesterday. I think I shall not entertain him anymore, since he acted so irresponsibly. Even so, I was attending to 3 students after lunch, and 1 student following that. The latter student I was pleased with, because last week he said he would come and look for me, and he did. He's one of my weakest students, and he has finally pushed himself to practise some prelim papers. There was a staff conference right after I was through with him, and immediately after the staff conference, I was ambushed by another student for queries. Unfortunately, this time round, I was left with a couple of questions in which I could not explain the model answers provided. At first, I was rather disappointed in myself, but when I asked some colleagues, they didn't really understand either, so I figured it was something quite far out of my expertise anyway, since I only took chemical engineering in university, and not pure chemistry.

I was supposed to meet an old friend for dinner today, but as of the late afternoon, she still couldn't confirm with me whether she can meet up, because she was tied up at work. In the end, I decided that I would postpone the dinner to next week since I should be quite free in the September holidays. Apparently Lena and Evan were planning to have a nice dinner in the evening, and they jio-ed me along. I took the time to finish typing comments for all my subject classes (just how many ways can you say a student is hardworking...?), and that leaves me only the AVC students' reports. That one will be a minor nightmare, since I only worked closely with sparingly few of them. How on earth am I supposed to write a detailed report on their commitment and character when for some, I don't even know the faces to the names?

We headed down to this Japanese restaurant at Siglap by the name of iGen dining, which is next to Cafe Cartel. Here's a shot of the sashimi bar, and the lone patron seated there.
















It was ala carte buffet style, inclusive of sashimi! The two ladies don't eat sashimi, so I whacked essentially 10 plates of sashimi combined (onto 2 big plates). The sashimi was as good as I remember Miramar's Ikoi Restaurant's sashimi to be, and I was savouring every mouthful of it. Especially the swordfish sashimi, which was succulent and surprisingly sweet. I managed to take only a blurred shot of the one sashimi chef shuttling to and fro.
















We only ate for an hour plus, but we really ate a lot. Lena could really eat, at least far beyond what I typically see for a girl, whereas Evan ordered too many things that she only ate a small mouthful to sample, and left us to finish up the mess she left behind. Here's a shot of the food (I should have taken a shot when everything just came), and Lena's hand was captured reaching for it.
















The price actually came up to about $34 per person, which was close to Ikoi's prices. Ouch. But the food was excellent, and so was the company. Heh. After dinner, we went down a couple of shops to Haagen Daaz for dessert. I think I can visibly see my waistline thicken an inch as a result of today's dinner. We had 4 scoops of icecream altogether, and I believe that Bailey's Irish Cream flavour is one of the best things that Haagen Daaz has to offer. It tastes absolutely fabulous~

For this, I willingly and voluntarily grow fat. Bwahaha.

Only one student came to look for me for consultation today, but he took a whopping 2 and a half hours of my time! It felt more like private tuition than a Q & A session. He came by, and dropped a whole stack of prelim papers he tried, and I saw little bookmarks all over the stack, and he warned me he had a whole lot of questions to ask. So there we were, outside the staffroom, and I saw colleagues go to class, and when they returned, we were still stuck there. After 2 hours, I told him that I needed to go eat lunch, and had work to clear up, and thank goodness, Dawn and Lena walked by, and I was able to escape for lunch.

He just smsed me to book me for tomorrow afternoon. Argh. It's not that I don't want to spend time on my students, but this guy is a smart kid, who has been doing well. And he is taking the special paper for chemistry! He is one student who does not need this extra help actually - not as much as my other students at least. If other weaker students come and look for me, I would surely put him at a lower priority. How ironic, isn't it? Those who need it the most are not coming, and those who don't need it are coming for help. Of course, as long as I have time to spare, I would still answer his queries. It's just the thought of why some students in particular I'm most worried about are nowhere insight that bothers me. Now I could summon them to school to check on them, but I'm sometimes torn about the idea. On one hand, I would force them to show up and be accountable about their preparation, since they may lack initiative, but on the other hand, I always think that which doctor forces patients to come to him? The patient needs to recognize that he is sick, and actually wants to get better first before anything can be done right?

I went to meet Stanley for dinner to get a couple of Christian Teachers' Conference tickets from him. One of the convenient things about having friends working at church office is that you can pull some strings to get hold of some things that would be harder to get on non church service days. Kinda out of nowhere, he was talking about this freelance graphic design project he was offered, and needing help. Then he suddenly remembered that I do graphic design, so now I'm roped in. It's still in the works of discussion, but it might be worth about 3k takings combined for two of us. Not bad at all. But it will be quite a lot of work up till December...hmm....

God, thank you for making me artistic and IT savvy. Yay! If this takes off, I guess this will be the second big-scale freelance project I've done. Jehovah Jireh - the Lord will provide~

It's a relatively short day today. Study break for the year 2s is such a relaxing thing! Of course, the day is filled with meetings, and some admin loose ends to clear, and various nitty gritty things, but somehow, when I'm not teaching, I guess it doesn't wear me out as much. Maybe it's in the talking, or the giving of oneself, that tires? Only two students came to look for me for consultation today, and even then, it didn't take that long to go through their queries. There are only a couple of possibilities there: 1) they really know their stuff! 2) they still haven't revised enough. Again, I would estimate that the latter is more probable. Sigh.

After school, I went down to meet shups! for pool. I think I was preoccupied with something on my mind, and I played rather average throughout. She was quite on form, despite the fact that she should be equally preoccupied. We only played for two hours plus, but because of our hearts not being in the game, and the minds thinking about other things, it felt extremely loooooong. Such that when we got the bill, we both thought, "Wah, so cheap only?" Actually, we only played rather briefly in contrast to how awfully long we thought it was. Rare that time crawls so slowly for me; usually my day passes way too fast. I think it's just that I happen to be in a strangely contemplative mood today.

The combined service in the morning at Suntec was packed out! I think all the retail shops must be wondering why in the world was there so heavy human traffic today. Strangely enough, the Suntec admin didn't make both escalators near the exit downriding, so the whole 10000 people were trying to move towards one escalator to get out of the place. Human jam. The next bad thing is all the food places in Suntec to Marina Square were packed with people. So much so that the cleaning aunty came by and asked me where all we people wearing red are from.

I met Sherry and her friend YT after lunch to bring them to the Spookshow. We went up to queue at around 1.30 pm, but actually I remembered the time wrongly, thinking the show starts at 2 when it's supposed to be 2.30 pm. We were right in the front of the queue, and I thought we could get the front middle block, which are the best seats. The moment the doors open, there was a mad rush into the place, and everyone who got to a row practically tried to 'chope' as many seats as possible. I managed to find 3 seats actually, and as I was moving in, this lady behind us suddenly dumped her bag in front of me, and said, "Sorry, the seats are taken." I asked her how many seats she actually needed, and she just told me "All". I was quite pissed at that point in time, but Sherry pulled me away before I could kick up a ruckus.

We went all the way to the back middle block, because the angle of elevation makes it good for viewing. I found another few seats, near to where a friend of mine was sitting. There was this group of girls in the row in front, and this one boy (same group with the girls) who was at the row I was trying to move into. He was hestitating, and they were discussing whether to sit here or elsewhere and stuff. So when I moved in, one girl turned to me and said, "Sorry, these seats are taken." I didn't say anything, but I think I shot her a glare so menacing she cringed and said, "Never mind, you can have them." As she moved off, Sherry heard her say something (which i missed) like, "Cannot sit then cannot lah, no need to stare at me like that." Later on, I was looking to see if I can find that girl to apologize to, because the object of my wrath should have been the aunty in front actually, but I guess this girl unfortunately triggered the reaction. I think after teaching for a while, I mastered the look of sha qi (killer aura?) to silence my students when they are noisy. A very effective way of crowd control sometimes. Bwahaha.

The show itself started late, but the illusions were quite nicely done. I'd seen most of the tricks last year, but the new ones were quite impressive. Unfortunately, neither Sherry nor her friend seemed touched or moved by the preaching, but at least, they stayed throughout. I thought the people who got up and left the moment the preaching started were rude. Even if you don't wish to listen, at least you should still respect the person on the stage. It's the same irritation I feel when the students in TJC make so much noise while there are performances on stage. Utter disrespect for the performer. Looks like the courtesy campaign that ran from time to time wasn't very effective. I guess it shows in our country's dismal drop in position in the international standards for the service industry, with many complaints being an issue of courtesy. The way it is going, we will soon have an utterly egocentric, rude and apathetic generation of youths. And I think more than half the blame goes to the parents for not keeping them in check and in reign. When I have children next time, may God in His mercy help me to raise them up well. Don't let me become one of those parents who let the kids run amok in MRT trains, shopping centres and all.

After the show, Sherry and I headed down to Geylang to meet our colleague Tearle for dinner. The original plan was to eat claypot rice at Lorong 33, but when we sat down, the aunty asked us if we wanted white rice instead, because the claypot rice will take very long to be ready. It was about 6.30 pm then, and we asked her how long will the wait be, and she told us matter-of-factly, "8 plus." Wah kau. Wait 2 hours for dinner? I think I would have collapsed there and then before the food actually came. So we packed up, and made our way to Fatty Weng Restaurant instead, which was our backup plan. The food wasn't very cheap, but it was tasty. I also found out that my colleagues are both very fussy about food.

As we were leaving, I saw my bus a short distance behind me, and the light turning green, and the bus starting to accelerate. I turned and saw the bus stop ahead, and it looked reachable. Without hesitation, I secured my bag, and sprinted. Despite the leather shoes and jeans, and a full stomach, I was running so fast that when I stepped on the downward sloping parts of the pavement, the momentum was so great that I practically lurched forward, unable to stop myself. Only a decent sense of balance kept me from flying forward and landing face first. The bus stop was further than it looks, and I think I made a pretty good 100m sprint, and caught the bus! WoohoO~ I can still sprint! I remember sprinting after buses when I used to send my ex home late, and have to run after the last bus every time, but that was a long, long time ago.

I'm out of practice though. My legs are aching terribly now. I need to resume jogging again!

I went down to Suntec to eat dinner with my boys, but more specifically, to pass them tickets for the Spookshow. The place was jam-packed with people today, and I'm not sure if it's because of Spookshow in particular, or just that Suntec is ultra crowded on a Saturday evening. I won't know, because I'm seldom at anywhere but church on Saturday evenings anyway. My youngest boy brought a classmate, who received Christ! I'm so happy for him. I only wonder if he'll come for cell group or service. At least, he knows my boys and I, since we all met once at the birthday party of one of my boys. Thank God~

After dinner, I met J for pool. He reached late, so in the meantime I played an hour worth of Photohunt. It's been too long since I last played. I'm not as skilled as I used to be. And I played till my eyes hurt. Argh. They should have a prolonged exposure warning on the game. Wonder if I was cross-eyed at the end of it...I lost to J terribly. I think I only won like 5 games in the whole 3 hours plus we played. He was too accurate today. Scarily so. Still, it was good training. It felt like it's been so long since I last played, but actually, it's only been a week. I think it's because for quite a while, we were playing at least twice or thrice per week, so relatively, it felt like it's been a long time. Heh...

What a long but happy day this Friday was! And this will be a long and happy post. Heh.

I wore my bright orange boardshorts with big white and red flower patterns, along with a pair of bright orange flip-flops to school today, earning me the titles of beach boy/bum and surfer dude. I believe I was quite noticeably one of the most brightly-dressed among the male staff, and I went to lecture in that attire! Oh man, it was a shiok feeling to drag my flip-flops across the auditorium stage, and give a lecture.





















After the lecture, we all headed to the hall for the Teachers' Day concert. The performances were pretty good actually, but the students are always noisy even during a performance. After the concert, my students came to find me to give me cards and presents. Frankly, I wasn't expecting anything much, because I assumed they would all be busy mugging for the coming prelim exams, but I was quite pleasantly surprised. I received a mug, a soft toy sheep, two boxes of chocolates, one box of baked cookies, and a big handful of cards.
















The soft toy sheep immediately joined the ranks of my dog. Now my dog has been elevated to the status of sheepdog! Isn't the sheep (or is it a lamb?) cute?
















The presents are sweet and all, but personally, what would touch me the most are the written messages of the students in the cards. I stuck the cards I received thus far from my current batch of students onto the inside of my cupboard, and I guess a few years down the road when I run out of space there, I'd better find an alternative. Seriously, I think a teacher's sense of satisfaction comes during about twice in a year. One of them is Teachers' Day, where the show of appreciation from the students can make a world of difference. The other one would probably be the day of release of the 'A' levels, where you see the fruit of your labour. I was particularly touched by students who wrote personal notes to me, regarding how I'd changed things for them with what I said or what I did. One girl still remembered specifically what I said to the class on one occasion, which had motivated her from that point onwards. Honestly, if I'm a more emotional person, I think I would weep reading all these...but I'm not. Heh. Anyway, I think this is what they mean by intrinsic rewards of the teaching profession...genuinely priceless.

After the concert, we had a wonderful lunch sponsored by our zap shop and bookstore. Strangely I ate very little, and probably the lack of appetite is caused by too little sleep for the whole week. The ice cream was good stuff though, and I had my fill of that instead. Hehe. When we went back to the staffroom after the lunch, we went on a photographing frenzy. The first photo is with Tunleng, who had received a nice bouquet of (artificial) flowers from her students.
















After we took the photo, one colleague commented that it reminded her of a ROM kind of photo. Suddenly, we were all taking photos with that handy bouquet. Here's one of Sherry and me.
















Hmm...enough of the flowers. The next photo is with Lena, the new pretty biology teacher. She's holding up her toy chick she named JiJi, whose 'siblings' have ended up with other colleagues, courtesy of her.





















Lena happens to be the (evil) president of the Bully Dawn Club, and here's a picture of me with the unfortunate bullied victim, Dawn. It's one of the silly things we do to maintain our sanity, I think.
















During the few spare hours before the Teachers' Day dinner at Furama Waterfront Hotel, I accompanied Lena to go hunt for her Shanghai Nights outfit. We combed the whole of Bugis Junction, to no avail, and as a last resort, we headed to the OG at Albert Complex. Surprisingly, they actually had very chinese-looking apparel. In fact, the brand of that section is i-shanghai. So the last resort turned out to be the best option. We wandered around the newly opened Bugis Village a while, and saw many interesting stuff to buy, but due to the lack of time, we'll leave the shopping to another day. I went home to rest for a short while, but had no time to nap, and was out again.

I think Shanghai Nights as a theme was easily more successful than last year's Grease theme. Many of the female staff already had suitable ethnic clothes due to the annual Racial Harmony Day, so it feels as if more people bothered to dress up for today's event. Anyway, I thought that since there was like easily more than a dozen new teachers, and that I was sabo-ed last year to go up on stage for whatever reason, I wouldn't kenna again this year. I was wrong. One of the new teachers was 'arrowed' instead, but when he was told to get another guy, he picked me, of all people. So I joined in the mass embarrassment yet again. On a positive note, I won second prize in the lucky draw! Now, I have never won prizes in lucky draws up till today, and I think it's really God's blessing. When I arrived early at the hotel, and was picking a number for the lucky draw, I was rummaging among the various pieces of paper with the numbers on them. Suddenly, one particular number almost leapt out at me, and I'm pretty sure God whispered, 'Take it' at that point. Yep, and that number got me a second prize, which is a $150 Robinson's voucher. Cool~

The food was not bad at all, as compared to last year, at least, and after the dinner, on the suggestion of a colleague Evan, we headed down to the K Box at Lucky Chinatown. I had the luxury of being the thorn among four roses tonight, and one of the new teachers, SX, who joined us proved to be a superb singer, Sherry sung well as usual, and Lena had a sweet voice. I had fun, even though my throat wasn't at its best condition after some Ngoh Hiang yesternight at Smith Street for supper. I guess we all just wanted to unwind a bit for the weekend. Here's a shot of Evan, my JC friend and now colleague, and me inside the karaoke room.





















This kind soul actually drove us home after the session. Hmmm...I think I look horribly unphotogenic. Sigh. Argh! I forgot to take a picture of me wearing the Shanghai outfit.

I went to Lagoon (East Coast) for lunch today! On a spur of the moment, some colleague mentioned the laksa there, and one asked another, and we found that we all had a common lunch slot, so my level head drove us there. Although the laksa gravy was thick and rich, it was humless (couldn't resist the silly pun...), and I hold the adamant belief that laksa would not taste like laksa without the distinct smell and taste of the hum inside. I think the most satisfying thing was that it was a moment of escape from the everyday mundane grind, and we just all pack up and run off to a different place for lunch.

My last lesson with my sports class was rather amusing. I had finished what I was supposed to do in the syllabus, so I made it a Q and A session. Only a few students were asking questions, and the rest were making a riot. I find it somewhat disconcerting that they are still shockingly cheerful despite the impending doom of the prelims and 'A' levels, but I suppose kids will be kids. One of the students asked me to write him a recommendation letter, because he wanted to apply for some Canadian university, and I did. When I passed him the letter, he looked visibly impressed by the English, along with the rest. Hehe...duh. I'm not the madpoet for nothing. I told him that I had to use bombastic language to made things sound more positive in the letter without having to lie. Bwahaha, kenna suan again.

I went home and finished another anime 'Now and Then, Here and There'. It's a short one of only 13 episodes, but the story is resounding in weight. It has sci-fi and magic in it, but these two elements seem like only part of the environment and not an important theme. The underlying theme is war. The main character Shu, while trying to rescue a stranger, was transported into another world. He was captured by an insane dictator (seriously, he is insane, prone to moments of uncontrollable rage), beaten and tortured, and then forced to join the army. There are other children forced into the army too, but they are jaded individuals, despairing and longing for home. While imprisoned, he met a young girl who was also transported here by mistake, and that girl was used as a comfort woman (nothing sexual shown in the anime, just implied from scene to scene), until she finally escaped. Shu is the only character that doesn't get jaded throughout. His optimism seems to be the main thing keeping him alive, and despite all his predicaments, he does not kill a single individual because he thinks it's wrong. The whole anime is a heavy critique of war, and in this anime, it portrays people (villains) with seemingly just causes gone horribly wrong. I like Shu's most used line, "As long as you are still alive, sooner or later, good things are bound to happen", which seemed like a beacon of hope in an anime of grim despairing reality. The brutality and deaths of many characters are jolting, and serves to highlight the insanity of fighting and wars. It's the kind of anime that after I finish it, I go 'whooooa' at the seriousness of the issues surfaced. Good stuff. Now on to the next anime, Gilgamesh!

After the anime, I went to Chinatown with Sherry. We were hunting for clothes, wait, to be more specific, costumes. Tomorrow the school is having an early Teachers' Day dinner in celebration, and the theme is Shanghai Nights. I don't have a suit lying around, so I cannot do the triad look that made Chow Yun Fatt famous in his early days. I contemplated other alternatives, but in the end, I thought I'd make a trip down to Chinatown and see what clothes there are. In the end, I found this shop with a nice and helpful owner, who recommended me a chic black chinese top, which looks like what a Chinese merchant would wear. I'll wear it as a jacket though, on his suggestion, because it does look more stylish as he predicted. I'll take pictures tomorrow and blog them...I'm sure there's gotta be somebody who would bring a camera there. I figured that I can spend a bit of money on this, since every year I can recycle it for Racial Harmony day! I don't know why I bother actually. I'm pretty sure only the language and arts male teachers would bother to dress up for all these annual events.

The best thing is, tomorrow students and staff get to wear slippers and casual attire, which must be brightly coloured! Apparently, there was some fund raising event that sold bright flip-flops, so there was this arrangement made. I will wear bright beach attire and orange slippers (bought from fundraising event) to school tomorrow! How cool is that??? And since I was arrowed to take a lecture slot to go through the most recent lecture test answers, I'll be lecturing in the auditorium (first time), wearing beach wear and slippers! Historical, ain't it? The idea simply blows my mind. How cool is that??? I have a cool school~

My itchy fingers searched out at least two thirds of my students on friendster so far. Now that they are graduating, I think I am fine with adding them on friendster, and I searched them out just to prove how easy it is to locate someone on it. I think, considering that the study break is coming up, and exams are imminent, I would probably give them my msn contact too. Since I am perpetually reachable online, I might as well do some question answering over msn where possible, instead of being 'recalled' back to school every now and then for consultation. I haven't tried it before, and I think I should test it out to see its feasibility. I think my students are old enough to not come and disturb me for no good reason. Big assumption here, but I think I want to see if the results are worth the hassle. My students were shocked when I told them I found them on friendster. They kept asking, "How you find us one??" Guess they aren't very savvy and resourceful after all. It's soooo easy to do a search. Maybe I should go find some long-lost friends in that case...

In any case, as I was searching for my students, I discovered that my principal was on friendster too! Actually, on closer inspection, the account looked highly dubious. I showed my colleagues today, and it kicked up a small hoohah. A colleague walked past, saw her profile, and was commenting that my principal actually heard students comment that they talked to her on friendster (when she clearly doesn't have an account) and grew exceedingly curious about it. She was technically fine with it, but I think to have someone impersonate her, and worse, the impersonator actually communicated with students in her capacity, is not a good thing. I wonder what the person has been saying to the students. And the fact that she has about 500+ students in her list, and that from the testimonials of the students, there should be quite a big handful of students who actually do think it's her. Ok lah, I guess at least an account of a funky principal is more credible than Osama Bin Laden or Bush or Lee Kuan Yew, as I've seen in some contact lists.

I brought home some marking to do today, thinking it would be quite time consuming to be marking the option topic tests since it's entirely qualitative for the answers. Unfortunately, it didn't take very long to complete the marking for one class because the answers were very skeletal at best. Clearly, my students did not study enough for it, and as far as I can tell, in general, the students didn't really put this test at high priority. In fact, there were many who didn't even know there was a test. Totalling the scores was a grieving experience. I hope they have enough time to really buck up, because they are still failing horribly. I seriously don't know how they can get away with all the test failures and be nonchalant about it. I think this is one area I'll never be able to empathize with. It's one thing to take things in stride, but it's a totally different thing to be apathetic or unmotivated. I'm undecided if I should give them a wake-up call, which, at this stressful point in time, I wonder if it will do much good, or just leave them alone to their own devices. I am assuming any sane student would eventually realize that these last 2 months are the final lap to their JC life, and I also presume that no student would actually want to fail their 'A's. It's only an issue of whether they are still salvageable by the time they finally wake up and come knocking on my door.

There is little time left. I wish I can stop worrying about and for my students, but if I could that, I guess it would make me a lot less humane, and defeats my very purpose of being here in teaching in the first place. Yet on my end, it is sheer agony to see them still in their flippant mindsets and attitudes, lost and not recognizing the gravity of it all. I think I really was in a different world. According to several friends and colleagues, this was the norm even back in the days when we were students. But I was oblivious, apparently. My good friends all did well, in general. My class was a scholar class, and at our worst, the worst result of the weakest student in any test or exam would still fetch a decent C grade. Failure cases were very few and far between. I think I am still viewing my students with the standards of my life as a student, and the gap is far too wide. Yet I can't bring myself to think 'ok lah, a pass will do.' How can anyone aim so low? Where is the pride? How can they struggle to get into TJC or any reputable junior college for that matter, and then only aim to survive?

It boggles my mind. It really does.

A colleague, who's one of the older teachers around my department, came by, sat me down, and said she had something serious to discuss with me. After talking about some school stuff, she finally got to her apparent main point, "Eh how are things developing between you and (colleague) X ah? Does she like you? Do you like her?" (-_-) The shock factor was there not because of the question, but because of the seriousness and directness in which she asked it. Hmm, the list of people concerned (there's only a thin line between concerned and kaypoh, of course) for my future happiness just lengthened by one again. Apparently, very few people understand the idea of platonic friendships...very, very few.

I went K Lunch with Huijun this morning! Actually we had planned to start at 11 am, but the girl couldn't wake up. But she arrived in relatively short time from the time I woke her up. Even so, we couldn't get a room, and had to wait till 12.30 am. While I was waiting for her, I went idly shopping around, and to my surprise, I found the game Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance in Comics Connection!!! Now, back in the old old days (actually not that long ago) when it was still Playstation 1 era, I had a rare few favourite games. Other than the popular Final Fantasy series, the next favourite is Metal Gear Solid. It was the first time an espionage action game was introduced that was wildly successful, in which it's better to move around undetected than go around shooting people to death. When there was supposed to be a sequel, I was so excited, but then it came out on PS2. At that time I couldn't afford it, although I really wanted to buy a PS2 for the sake of this game, and maybe Final Fantasy X. Anyway, in the end, I got a free Xbox from Starhub maxonline, so I gave up on the idea of PS2. Not like I had enough time to watch all my anime and play all my games. That's why I was so pleasantly surprised to spot the sequel on Xbox! Without hestitation, I bought it. Of course, on hindsight, I am way overspending today, but more on that later. I am happy~

While waiting for the KTV room, we went to check out the clearance sale that TS video was having at Lot 1. There were some really cheap bargains lying around, and after fishing and digging for a long time, I actually found some good stuff. I found Kungfu Hustle DVD at $6. I found Mospeada, this really classic anime that was showing on channel 8 when I was a kid, also at $6 for a complete 9 vcd series! There's one more anime which I haven't heard of, but heck, it was only $6 for 11 discs, so I thought, might as well give it a shot. This is merely the beginning of my spree today...

Actually, having only two people sing KTV isn't all that bad. We get to hog the mike all we want! And there's only one other person around to embarrass yourself in front of. So I attempted all the new songs I haven't sung before and wanted to try today. Unfortunately, I had one stupid blocked nostril today, and sounded a little funny some of the time. Still, it was fun. But shortlived. The session ended at 3 pm, which was only about 2.5 hours. I think both Huijun and me felt that it wasn't enough, and we were a bit buay song, because the guy who told us to come back at 12.30 pm said we could have the room till 3.30 pm, but then he changed shift, and the next person drove us off at 3. Half an hour meant a lot of difference, ok!

After that was done, I headed down to Sim Lim square to meet my ex. She wanted to look for some software, and I wanted to check out anime and games. When I arrived there earlier, I went to the third floor to my trusted Arts Brothers shop, only to find that they were clearing out! I went to ask around, and actually, they were merely moving upstairs to another shop space, and were having a clearance sale. There was a 50% off on some anime DVD titles if you purchase 2 or more titles! Fwah! Without much hestitation, I grabbed some of the series I wanted to watch, but had not found people who had them, or had not gotten to download them yet (if there were unlicensed ones available). Even at 50% off, it still costs like $35 a box, but heck, imagine what it would cost without a discount! I am willing to pay for original stuff. No more will I tolerate bad discs hanging on me. No more going to unreliable shops to buy anime. In the end, I bought Gilgamesh, s.CRY.ed, and Texhnolyze for about $105. Ouch. A friend commented that I sound like a serious collector. I guess I am, after all, since I do collect quite a large number of titles that are original. In comparison, what I download is less than 5% of my whole collection as it stands, so I guess I am a collector. I think I tend to collect too many things. I collect movies, games, comics, magic the gathering cards, erasers (when I was a kid), stickers (when I was a kid), and etc. I have the heart and nature of a collector! Bwahaha. No wonder my mum always complains my house is full of junk. Hah! Junk only to her, she who doesn't appreciate true worth of such things. Heh.

We then went for dinner at Marina Square, joined by her close friend and another friend. We ate at Carl's Jr, and my goodness, it is gooooood stuff. I have long been dissastified with Burger King's declining standard of burgers, even though by far, I still think their burgers outshine MacDonald's and KFC, but then the burgers have been shrinking, the beef patties have become thinner, the mushrooms have become fewer (I only eat Mushroom Swiss...it's the best burger~). Carl's Jr's burgers are huuuuuge. Even with my monstrous appetite, I just managed to finish the whole thing and the fries. After some time. It's a bit more expensive than the average fast food chain here, with my Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger meal costing about $10, but the burgers are really nice. The beef patties were thick and juicy. The cheese was rich. At the rate that Burger King's been deteriorating, I think Carl's Jr is going to replace BK in my ranking of burgers.

After dinner, we headed down to Timbre at Armenian Street, which is a new setup replacing the old Fat Frog. Apparently one of their mutual friends was going to play live at the place, so they went to support, and I kinda went along. It's a nice place actually. Here's a funny sight at the substation when I was heading to the toilet. I dunno whether it's supposed to be some sculpture or what, but it looked kinda odd. Canned food on a sampan? Maybe I'm not that artistic after all. Too cheem for me to appreciate.
















Here's a shot of the place now. I'm not sure how different it is from Fat Frog, but I think the location is so...ulu. I also realize that the night mode of my camera phone is pretty steady actually. Either that or I have very steady hands. Bwahaha.
















A shot of the band playing. Sigh. My cameraphone can't zoom, and that sucks. So the band is that tiny speck in the middle. They were pretty good, although I found the songs getting kind of stagnant after a while. The lead guitarist, also the lead vocalist, had a pretty good voice that sounds like Sting and Eric Clapton's husky type, and so he ended up singing most songs along that line. I think a bit more variety to their repertoire would have made them more spectacular.

ARRRGGGGGGGHHHHH.

I'm not been so pissed for a very long time. The last 2 episodes of Gungrave are spoilt! Cannot be watched! There were three spoilt episodes so far, and I patiently scrolled the timebar watched snippets of functioning parts, and went to search for an online episode guide to fill in the many blanks, but that was still tolerable. But the LAST 2 EPISODES???

Right now, I feel like setting fire to the shop that sold me the discs. The first 10 episodes in the last disc were running perfectly. Perfectly. Ten full episodes. And then it hangs on me. The spectacular climax to a solid anime, ruined. It was a superb anime, and it has earned its place in the upper echelon of my anime list. But the discs made it a horrible viewing experience. Can you imagine watching your favourite TV show for a whole season, and suddenly at the last 2 episodes, and then they took them off the air? It's one heck of an irritating cliffhanger feeling.

Now where did I buy this from? I have a vague impression I bought this from a hypermarket kinda place in the old Turf Club, when I happened to be there for lunch with my level head. I should have known better than to buy anime from dubious locations. *hammers self on head.

What is this? I am home on a Fri night. Without any plans. For some strange reason, the people I usually hang out with seem to be too busy with work/church, have some other plans already, or not feeling well. Looks like I'll have to be contented with my anime.

What is this? My anime discs for the current anime, Gungrave, are scratched/dirty, and I can't view some episodes! Arggggggggh. It's so frustrating to watch a series halfway, and you have to skip some episodes because of the discs being bad. And I bought the set in Singapore some more!!! The ones I bought from China are all fine, in contrast. My goodness. I think I should just buy the anime from the couple of shops I have come to trust. And stick to the better code DVDs.

Actually, because of my lack of plans, I hung around in school despite ending early. I managed to finish setting S-paper question for prelims, settle my upcoming work review, and went around chatting with various colleagues at different points in time. I only try to flee school early when I have something to do in the evening. In the absence of that, I can linger around really long. At one time, I was so free that I helped a colleague top up whiteboard markers with ink. The year 2 chem tutors continued a meeting to discuss the prelim questions today in the morning, and I think I had the best laugh of the week there. One colleague's 2 questions were so difficult that even we, the teachers, had to sit back and think a while. Some got tricked by the questions, but the main thing is that the whole thing is so tedious, and difficult, and the worst thing is that they border on things that the students never learnt before!! I took one look at the questions, and I was laughing all the way maniacally. The students will die if these questions went into the prelims. Die with a bitter taste in their mouths, hating chemistry forever. In fact, I think if they knew this tutor set the questions, they would probably send death threats. Yup, the questions were that ridiculous. Eventually, we settled for a 60% overhaul, keeping only the relatively easier parts intact.

I was on my way home, going to the lift at my block, when I saw a small flower pot whiz through the air, miss the head of a woman seated at the bench at the ground floor by a foot, and smash to a million pieces. Then the woman began cursing and swearing, which, I think was reasonable, given the shock of it all. One foot more, and I think her head will be smashed to a million pieces. Talk about killer litter. I'd better be careful when I walk around next time. My block has many people who keep flowers and plants along the corridor outside...

Today is yet another throat-drying, lotsa-talking day. Amidst some miscommunication first thing in the morning, everything went well and I finished what I wanted to do in school somewhat earlier than expected. Yesterday we had to do some data entry thing for SPA, the really inconvenient practical system now. I left school early, so I was messaging a colleague that he can double-check my entries today. He commented that actually he can just check his own, and I replied that we chem engineers are efficient. Heck, while we are at it, we are infallible! So today when he checked mine, he found one typo, and I had no end of jibes from him and my level head. Aw man, joke backfired. Guess, I'm not perfect after all. So sad. -_-

I met J for pool today. I was very off at the start, but picked up along the way. I succeeded in pulling off a ridiculous 5-ball proxy that I meticulously planned, aimed, and executed. That was the best shot of the day, I think. Then J decided to push for tougher training. Every shot we make we need to not just declare the target pocket and target ball (the usual), we need to declare which is the next ball we want to hit, and which pocket to hit it to. If we fail to execute it, we miss a turn. Wah, really an intensive way to train on placing. It drags the games a lot, but it forces one to really focus. Cool. Hehe.

Today my HOD came to observe my lesson with my sports class, for official purpose of work review, which will directly affect my ranking, and that directly affects performance bonus of the following year. She sat at the back of the class, doing some of her own work, and jotting down some observations from time to time. But everytime she looks up, she has a quizzical frown on her face, so I never can guess if she noticed something wrong or bad, or something else. Anyway, my usually super lively sports class was very quiet today. I think students are either intimidated in the presence of higher authority, or this is their idea of cooperation to 'help' the teacher. Actually they don't realize that absolute silence is not necessarily helpful in the progress of a lesson. Heh. Anyway, fortunately, despite the boring lesson (I'm on the topic of transition metals...it's all regurgitation from the notes actually...yuck), in today's lessons, I was planning to use a 3d model to show how a certain theory works. So at least there's something interesting to show. Else, this is a topic that can put myself to sleep...

I'm getting a sore throat again, but this time, from the sheer amount of talking I am doing these days on continuous stretches because of remedials and consultations. Ok, maybe not sore throat, but a really dry one. Occupational hazard, especially when you are teaching the year 2 batch. Looks like it's time to fork out some money and stock up on the honey. Hey, that rhymes. Sounds catchy...Fork out some money and stock up on the honey~yeah.

Wait. That sounded a bit neurotic. Ah never mind.

I accompanied Sherry to Sony Ericsson's service centre in the evening. Her K700i has spoilt on her 5 times so far. I think the service staff should be able to recognize her face by now. I think they have changed her mainboard, battery, charger, and camera for the past 4 occasions, and other than the casing, I don't see what they haven't changed. I'm tempted to have a bad impression of Sony Ericsson's phones because of this, but in all fairness, I don't see that many of my other friends' SE phones malfunctioning. I think the logical conclusion to be drawn is that she, like one of my blood brudders, has the IT midas touch. Midas touch in a really bad way on electrical components, hardware, software, and what not. She was upset but still didn't really kick up a fuss as I thought she deserved to, so for her sake, I sure hope they change a brand new set for her. Spoiling 5 times in all different components is no joke sia.

President Nathan stays another term! Surprise surprise. But yay! I'm so happy! I don't have to spend 27th Aug manning a polling station from 8 to 8. Not counting the preparation work before, and the packing up after. I don't have to go down on 26th Aug to recce the polling station and help set up. I can go for the spookshow on that Sat with my boys and their friends, but the only problem is...I exchanged my tickets for the Sun show liao. Oh yeah, and of course I'm happy *cough cough* that our current president gets to stay in his position till he's like...89? Isn't it a show of great racial harmony when he gave a thank-you and a let's-rally-together speech in Mandarin, no less? I can't speak four sentences of Tamil for sure, so you gotta give the man some credit. The only thing that gets to me is that some 70% of the news today is about him. Too much airplay is baaad.

My goodness. The remaining 30% of the news is so interesting. How technology has progressed! There's research done, and now we have ultra-thin film batteries that run on...drops of urine! Stretching my warped imagination a bit...maybe someday down the road, you can recharge your car battery by peeing into it. Bwahaha. Now that would be technology. I suddenly remember the gravity-defying time-travelling car in Back to the Future II that runs on garbage. Hmmm...

Out of nowhere, I received some unexpected encouragement from Winnie all the way from Japan! Actually, she only got interested in an anime I was raving about on my blog some time ago, but the fact that she did after reading my blog was very encouraging. I think quite a few friends have commented that they kinda skip/gloss over/ignore the anime blog entries. Now at least I know some people do read them. I'm sure I can infect more people with the anime fever. Hehehe. *Rubs hands in glee.

I happened to catch the new channel 8 series at 9 pm Baby Blues, because my mum was watching it, and I was in the living room doing work. Argh. There are times when you can smell the pro-government policy messages so distinctly. There was one part when Allan Wu was speaking to Michelle Chong (with his horrible sounding mandarin as usual) about having babies, and it goes something like, "Did you know that the government has such-and-such benefits for having babies?" and Michelle replies that she knows, and she furnishes more details, much like she is speaking directly from some brochure/advertising campaign that could have been done by the government. The conversation sounds so 'natural' it makes my hair stand on end.

The day was made so much longer by a meeting to discuss the prelim exam questions, and staying back for small group Q & A session. I hope this prelim exam won't slaughter the cohort like the June Common Test did. Although as we discussed, we found the questions interesting and doable, my gut feel is that it might prove rather challenging to the majority of the students still. Ah well. We still have to maintain a standard higher than Cambridge in terms of difficulty, of course. It's an issue of reputation and training the students. I'm more than happy to stay back to answer questions from my students, especially when the questions are queries that arose because they attempted (many) ten-year series questions. Although at the end of it all, my throat was so dry and hoarse that I drank about 2 full bottles of water thereafter. Small price to pay...heh.

In the evening, I met J for a pool session. It started off well. The score was 3-3, fair and square good play on both sides. After that, shups!, Bao and Wencong joined us. Wencong didn't play, so we ended up playing doubles. Thereafter my standard became mediocre again. I drew a small conclusion from today, and all the previous occasions. Most of the time, I play at my best against J alone. Somehow the focus is there, the competitiveness is there, and it just makes me play more seriously and better. So the only wise decision is to not take the results of the doubles, or my performance during those games, too seriously. The difference is too noticeable. All the spectacular shots were made before and after the rest joined us. Hmmm...but just what exactly is wrong?

In a strange twist of events, my evening turned out quite far from what I expected. Originally, I was supposed to join FiOne and her friends to watch the fireworks today, which happens to be the last day of the fireworks festival. It turned out that she and Owen, the only other person I know, were still at Marine Parade having dinner, and could not rush down to meet me in time. So she made arrangements, and I met up with three of her friends, who are absolute strangers. We headed down to the waterfront by Esplanade, and waited for the fireworks to start. Eventually, that whole group only made it in time to see the last minutes of the fireworks, and we met up only after. I think I'm getting old. The fireworks didn't impress me at all. At that point in time, I acutely felt that such moments ought to be spent with people dear to me. Close friends or loved ones, else to me, standing there for half an hour waiting for some twenty minutes of fireworks was frankly quite pointless, if it was merely for the sake of the pyrotechnics. It is one of those loneliness-amidst-a-huge-crowd feeling that overwhelmed me. As with all other things I do, I believe that the company is always far more important than the event or activity.

I think the only fireworks display I've watched so far that left an indelible impression is the one for the opening of Esplanade. That was one spectacular display. It didn't help, of course, that there were palm trees blocking the view, because everyone expected the fireworks to come out somewhere else instead and so didn't find the best spot, and that a couple of guys in front of me were trying to capture the whole display with their digital cameras and had their thick fat arms in the air, holding the cameras high, filtering off half my view. The considerate nature of my fellow men never ceases to amaze me.

After that, we met up with FiOne's group at Bakerzinn for a drink. There were 14 of us in total, and I knew only two people. The rest of the people are all from her network in church. I felt seriously out of place. In such situations, there are only two options. The first is to be sociable, or even flamboyant, and get to know everybody. The second is to lie low and be quiet. Sometimes I take the first option, in the absence of people who love the limelight. Today I chose the second option because there were a couple of people who can't stop talking, making the former idea unfeasible. Also especially when in a big group, and there's someone new i.e. me, the courtesy of inclusion of the newcomer is not extended. At that moment, I suddenly wonder if some of the people new to church feel exactly the same way - being excluded from established cliques and all. I suppose it's different group dynamics. Or maybe the average group of friends is particularly exclusive. Maybe the people I've been usually mixing with are exceptions to the rule, and are very welcoming to the new people they meet, causing me to have such expectations.

I've just finished watching the anime Zone of the Enders or Z.O.E. Dolores. It's not as addictively good as some of the other anime I have, but it's not bad at all. I'd rate it maybe three and a half stars out of five. The whole anime has a couple of big themes in it which are not usually present in the anime I've watched. One theme is about family. The hero of the anime is not the typical young and dashing man; in fact, he is a forty plus year old rugged looking father of two grown-up kids. When he stumbles upon information that his wife, who had left the family to pursue her work, may actually be alive, he went on a search for her, with his kids, hoping to reunite the family. This is amidst a sci-fi premise of huge mecha, space travelling and all, and complications of becoming a fugitive because he was being framed for many crimes, and etc. It's interesting how the characters developed, and the two kids, who started off hating the father's guts (for not preventing the mum from leaving in the first place), slowly growing to love the dad.

The other theme is about racism, although in this anime, it is shown in the form of hatred for people born on different planets (Mars and Earth). Overall, the anime is pretty good in content, covering some rather unconventional themes and ideas, but I think I didn't like it as much because the anime had some over-cute elements (the hero's mecha is a huge pink robot with a personality of a teenage girl), and the main villain is slightly too two-dimensional. I think if his character and how he becomes obsessed with vengeance is fleshed out more, it would have made a lot more impact.

Now onto the next anime: Gungrave! From the reviews I've read thus far, this one seems to be extremely promising.

I went to play pool with J and Collin after service, but not for very long. I think I played pretty well today. I won about 4 in 10 games against J, which is a good sign. J actually paid me a great compliment; he said that he thinks I'm more accurate than he is in terms of long distance shots. Of course, the flip side of it is that my placing still is far behind his. Ah well.

When I came home, my mum was happily telling me that there might actually be no contest eventually for the presidential election. She knows that I don't really want to do election duty anyway. Hmm, it is very interesting how JTC and Hyflux showed their dissatisfaction with one presidential candidate Kwan right smack in the ten days before election polling day, and how all the dirty linen are coming out right about now. I wonder what deep dark secrets the other contenders have. I am sure they must have many, just waiting to be uncovered. I'm also very certain our current president, in contrast, has a squeaky clean slate; I mean, why wouldn't I trust with 100% faith what our local newspaper reports? I am now almost certain that on 27th Aug I don't have to stand around on duty from 8 to 8. It doesn't matter now anyway, since I just bought tickets to the Sun matinee show for the Spookshow instead of Sat.

Nicole Kidman still looks great, and Tom Cruise is a dumbass.

That is the conclusion I drew after watching Bewitched earlier on. As a comedy I think it was fairly successful. I had quite a few laughs along the show, and Nicole Kidman seems to take to comedic roles fairly well, despite her acting credibility. In fact, the whole show developed pretty well in terms of plot, and then, somewhere three-quarters into the show, it deteriorates. No spoiler here, but a couple of side characters seem to be having some curious side-plots developing, but with no apt conclusion, which makes me feel as if the movie abruptly ended. I found the storyline rather interesting though: that the movie Bewitched itself is about people filming a rehash of the original Bewitched. Not a great movie, but funny and watchable.

I noted that in recent Hollywood movies, there seems to be many scenes where people knock hard into glass doors/walls/windows etc. A Lot Like Love had a scene like that, and so did Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Valiant's trailer had it too, and I think the new Herbie movie trailer seems to have it too. It's getting rather formulaic and cliche by now. Actor/actress bangs into glass door/lamppost/pillar that he/she didn't notice. Falls over/almost faints. Haha. Very funny.

As I was going to meet Elaine for dinner and the movie, I saw some TJC students at the mrt station. They didn't see me, so I quickly walked by. When I met up with Elaine, I realized that we were both wearing pink tops, and dark jeans. I thought to myself, 'what are the odds that my students will come to Cineleisure too?', figuring there's some chance, since the place is a teenybopper hangout. Then as I was eating with Elaine at Pastamania, I saw my student queueing there for the food. What are the odds indeed. My reputation has already become murky by the students' own funny assumptions, so I thought having one of my students spot me alone with a girl wearing what looks like matching outfits is definitely not a good thing. When we left, I think I managed to walk by unnoticed. Maybe getting a haircut before I came out made me less recognizable. And speaking of murky reputations, I was crossing the road after lunch with three of my female colleagues, and my cheeky student walked by and commented loudly, "Wah, Mr Low, one on three ah?" And my new colleague heard it! Ugh.

After the movie, we went to Esplanade to find Weiling and a couple of her friends. They were at Max Brenner Chocolate Bar. I found the name interesting, with the pun on 'bar'. Bar as in a bar of chocolate, and bar as in a place to hang out, like a pub? Or maybe I read too much into the name...We joined in to sample the chocolate fondue. Sinful indulgence. I say sinful, not because chocolate is too sweet or fattening, but for me, chocolate is a throat killer. Other than durians (and maybe 16 fried chicken wings), it is the next food that makes me most susceptible to a sore throat. I am already feeling a worsening of yesterday's slight sore throat right now. Argh.

Inbetween the movie and the chocolate, we were at Borders for a while. I finally managed to copy down the email addresses and phone numbers of a few publishers who have published local authors' works. I shall seek God on this, and see how I can actually get my poems published. I need some divine favour before I go try to squeeze out some sponsorship from National Arts Council. Anyway, I don't suppose God gave me a talent only for use in obscurity right?

I just came back from another KTV session! Today not in good form. I'm having a slight sore throat, probably because of eating 16 fried chicken wings my mum cooked yesterday (over lunch and dinner lah). I think over the course of the KTV session, I had a Strepsils overdose again. I think I'm supposed to only take maybe 2 in 6 hours span, but I took 6 in 2 hours. Little wonder why lozenges have negligible effect on me. Originally it was supposed to be Steph, shups!, J and me, but Steph has fallen ill, just like many people around me in school.

I had to combine one of my classes with the class of a colleague who has fallen ill as well. Her class was a nice and obedient bunch, quite the opposite of my own classes. Yet for some reason, I dreaded lessons today. Frankly, it felt like Monday today, and it felt like the weekend was just over. This is probably because Mon was National Day celebrations, so there were no lessons that day, and it felt remarkably similar to my regular Fridays. In addition, the schools all received Wed off, so it was exactly 2 days of break after Mon, feeling almost identical to a weekend. I think I'm still in some kind of a holiday mood. I was also moving around rather zombified today. I slept at 2+ am, which is not uncommon for me, but somehow I'm exhausted for the whole day. I must be getting old. Anyway, I slept late because I was trying to finish a really cool anime series. I had been missing the last 4 episodes for ages (more than half a year!), and I finally got my hands on them so that I can conclude the series.

Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex 2nd Gig. A mouthful of a name, but it's one heck of a spectacular anime! The animation is beautiful, detailed and of high resolution. But the storyline! It's a sci-fi futuristic action, coupled with political intrigue and philosophical ideas. The plot and concepts are so sophisticated that it stands out way beyond the typical anime. There was a Ghost in the Shell movie released in Singapore a long time back, but the second movie never made it to our screens. Then there was the series by the same name, except it was 1st Gig. This is the second series, in continuation in terms of the characters. In fact, the plot is so complicated that watching the last 4 episodes now while the previous episode was viewed like almost 8 months ago, I'm lost in some parts of it. I had to rewatch the 1st Gig series 3 times to get a full and clear picture of every little thing that goes on in the plot, and I suspect it is no different for 2nd Gig. In fact, watching anime series like this one makes me feel that most of the drama serials showing on TV are just outright crap in terms of plot. Except for Desperate Housewives, perhaps. I wonder when the second season will start showing...

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a fabulous movie! In fact, it is so nice that I would put up a spoof pic of me in Willy Wonka's suit and hat on my blog despite the spoof pic looking ugly. I will never leave a bob hairstyle in my life now that I know what I would look like after I churned out this pic.

The show's great. It has the characteristic dark feel to it in all Tim Burton movies, but nothing scary of course. Johnny Depp is perfect in his role of Willy Wonka, idiosyncratic weirdness and all. The premise of the movie makes it extremely family-friendly. 5 golden tickets hidden in 5 chocolate bars around the world, and whoever gets the tickets get to visit the chocolate factory which has had its gates shut to the outside world for a long time. Four of the five kids are character stereotypes of bad traits in children, but frankly, I think it is quite a good representation of the problems today. One boy is an absolute glutton, and is obese; one girl is extremely accomplished, but supremely competitive and proud; another girl is outright spoilt, pampered indulgingly by her filthy rich parents; another boy is an obsessed gamer, who thinks too highly of his own intelligence. Caricatures as they may be, I think they do capture the essence of the social problems of today, making the film's (and the book's, I suppose) message highly relevant. Lastly, we have our protagonist, who is an adorable boy with a good heart.

As they visit the factory and take a tour of its premises, one by one, the kids fall prey to their own weaknesses, although it looks as if it's planned beforehand, due to the sudden massive dance items Willy Wonka's midget helpers put up everytime a child suffers demise due to his or her characteristic weakness. The song lyrics capture the essence of the message against each 'vice', but otherwise, an inattentive audience would probably miss the morals of the story hidden in the lyrics. It is a beautiful story about family, and parenting, at the same time speaking out against some social diseases of today. The ending, to me, was fairly predictable, but well-executed. I think the whole heart of the film lies in the concluding minutes, and family love shines through, while the whole message of the film lies in the songs specific to each of the obnoxious kids. Thumbs up for the film!

Before the movie, I dropped by the class barbecue of my sports class. They are a really energetic and entertaining bunch of kids. It was fun interacting with them on such a casual level. On one hand, joining them felt nostalgic of my teenage years, but yet, on the other hand, the gap between us is clear and distinct, since I am their teacher, and I recognize that no matter how friendly I can be with them, there is still a clear boundary. It would be nice though if we can interact more freely after they graduate. Now the teacher-student distinction is way too prominent.

On my way to the barbecue at my student's place, I passed by Geylang, where the roads were momentarily closed to allow all the vehicles which took part in the NDP to pass. Now, in the past years, I have always spent National Day at home, so I was unaware of street sights. Therefore, I was quite surprised to see many residents lining the streets, especially with little kids, watching the military vehicles go by. They were waving enthusiastically at the soldiers, who also waved back to the crowd as they went by. There is just a sense of patriotism in the air that I am really sure cannot be captured by watching the parade from the television screen. It left a funny impression in my mind somehow. Personally, I can't picture myself doing the same thing. The thought that flashed past my mind was more like 'urgh, two and a half years in the army, I've seen all that I want to see of those vehicles'.

Some photos are in, courtesy of efficient Sherry. I think she is the only friend I have who processes the photographs she takes usually on the day itself, and since we are usually online at night, I can get them within a day. On the other hand, my old friend Yuren can owe me birthday photos for a year or so, longest record being almost two, I think. Once again, I'm tempted to get my own digital camera. Considering my interest in graphic design and all, I think I would probably be trigger-happy with a camera should I own one. Let's see if I will have enough money to buy one when I get my December bonus. I can only hope~

(below) The five ladies with me at KTV. They knew I was taking their photo, but apparently two of them still couldn't take their eyes off the television screen. Sherry is upset that I left a gap between her and the others when I was taking the pic. Ok ok, I'm not professional enough, I admit.















(below) Three of my colleagues and I. Finally, a pic where my face does not look grossly fat. Still round, but not grossly fat. Heh...















(below) Yakun's half-boiled eggs! With some toast in the background on the top right corner. Doesn't it look delicious? Yummy!

National Day celebration in school today was quite boring. There weren't as many performance items as last year's, and this year, there wasn't any community singing. There was a failed attempt to sing the new National Day song by Rui En, but nobody seems to know the lyrics. The students' council tried to put up a mass dance, but it looks horribly unrehearsed and last minute. Only the games were mildly amusing. I sympathize with the MCs today though. There were quite a few glitches, and performers not being ready yet, and they had to come out to talk crap to keep the audience going. There was one girl from Tianjin, here on exchange, who came out to sing a traditional chinese folk song (I think), and it's one of those high and lilting voices. Not bad at all. Especially considering she is probably around the same age as the students here or younger, and she went solo, in a foreign land. I'm impressed by the guts alone, if nothing else. There was another student from Taiwan, here on some immersion programme as well, and she went up to play the piano and sing Stefanie Sun's Tian Hei Hei. Equally gutsy, I'd say.

Originally a whole bunch of us colleagues planned to go cycling, and we brought all our sporting gear, but it was drizzling when we were preparing to leave the college, and the sky was heavily overcast. I planted the suggestion of K lunch, and to my surprise, everyone was alright about it! Haha, I was just lamenting to Huijun yesterday that I haven't went to karaoke for a long time, and I had no kakis, and today, I managed to go. Some people said they wanted to join us, but in the end, most of them didn't show up, leaving me in the company of five ladies. I feel so blessed. Haha, not just because I have the company of all of them, but rather, I think somehow I hogged the mike a lot today. The songs I chose I sang; and some of the girls chose some songs by male singers, saying they want to hear the songs, i.e. I sang; some of them chose duets, i.e. I have to sing; sometimes the girls chose songs by female singers that only one girl knows how to sing, so the second mike was 'wasted', so I sang along as male accompaniment. I think I got the most out of my K lunch today. Hehehe... I picked sashimi set, forgetting my huge portions of sashimi yesterday. From the same restaurant somemore - Suki Sushi.

After KTV, we hung around Parkway Parade to shop around a bit. Eventually we settled down at Yakun. I still think the half-boiled eggs from Yakun are the best! Although today's ones were slightly overcooked. Four of us sat around and chatted for some time before we each went off on our own. I headed home for a good rest, planning to stay home originally. Then shups! messaged, asking to meet for dinner. Since today is the rare day in which my mum did not cook dinner, I decided to meet her. And since there were no plans for the evening, we decided to play pool. Since it was pool, I called J out, and shups! asked Bao out. Bao brought along this chap Timothy (who looks a lot like Simon Yam), who, while ordering mee goreng at the pool parlour, was asked "Um...we put ham inside the noodles...are you ok with that?" We had a good laugh about that - he sure was dark, but I really doubt he looks like a Malay.

The three of them left relatively early, leaving me to train with J again. Unfortunately, I think I played better when the three of them were around. J thinks my standard is good already, but somehow I still haven't reached the consistency I pegged as a standard for myself. I aim to be deadly accurate eventually, but I'm not quite there yet. My placing is still off much of the time. More training!

When we left the pool parlour, it was just past midnight, and I caught a glimpse of the fireworks at the Esplanade area from where I was at Beach Road, although most of it was blocked by Suntec office towers and Swissotel. Not bad at all. Heh.

I met my cousins for lunch/dinner at Lot 1 this afternoon. We were at Suki Sushi from 1+ to about 5 pm, and I lost track of the number of plates of sashimi I ate today. Today's swordfish sashimi was very nice. Juicy and sweet. I think we ate enough to cover both lunch and dinner, but I still need to have a bowl of cup noodles to tide me into the night. My colleagues and I were considering Suki Sushi for the next chem department treat, so I guess the place should do.

We went to catch Tsui Hark's Seven Swords in the evening. Again, it's one of those shows that's hard to rate. It's not a bad show, but it's not an excellent show either. Somewhere in the average range. The plot is rather simple, but there are many moments in the film that felt disconnected. I suspect that maybe Tsui Hark meant the movie to be way longer than the current approximate 140 min, and there was heavy snipping. The fighting scenes weren't spectacular; Hero and House of Flying Daggers easily does better in that department, although there was one fighting scene between two swordsmen in a narrow corridor, and they were moving up and down the walls nimbly. That should be the most stylish fight scene in the whole movie. I think the problem with the movie, as the show's title suggests, is too many characters. Other than the seven swordsmen/women, there's still the main villain, many colourful villain underlings, and side characters who do have some plot significance. A definite lack of character development in the movie. And out of the seven swords in the movie, only the you long jian (free dragon sword?) looks good enough to be worthy of mention. The saving grace though is that at least the movie ended decently, not like House of Flying Daggers, but it ended with the appearance of possibly having a sequel.

J and I went to play pool after service, and boy, were we mediocre today. It feels like a complete waste of time and money. Sigh.

I just realized not everyone knows what a sonnet is, so for the record, I'll explain it in this post. It's a poetic form with exactly 14 lines. The structure can be varied, but popular ones include

1. 3 stanzas of 4 lines each, ending with a couplet, which was the structure Shakespeare used
2. 2 stanzas of 4 lines each with rhyming pattern abba cddc, followed by a stanza of 6 lines of rhyming pattern efefef, which was the structure Elizabeth Barrett Browning used.

Also, very often, each line follows iambic pentameter - using my simplified explanation, iambic refers to having a stress on every alternate syllable, and pentameter refers to 5 (penta) stresses in a metre (or line). Technical, I admit, but this is why I love to write poetry in classical form - concise, with nice rhythm and rhyming pattern, and requires more thought to wordcraft than modern poetry.

Here's the first sonnet out of the Festival of Praise that chronicles the experience of yesternight.

THANK YOU

I trembled from my head to toe, enthralled—
As ten thousand people worshipped God,
And hungry hearts were joined in one accord
To seek His face, His presence filled the hall.
Every verse resounded with the weight
Of its meaning, and He searched my heart
To know I’d meant it all, right from the start,
With same intent as the lyrics demonstrate.
The glory of the Lord swept from above
And I felt cloaked as though by tapestry;
Soon I was overwhelmed by majesty,
And spellbound by the power of His love.
Words eluded me—I stood touched and awed,
And I could only utter “Thank You, Lord”.

I went to check out the Hill Street fried kway teow today for lunch. It's one of the hawker legends that Makansutra handpicked recently. The wait for the food was quite long, and I'm not sure if it's because of the number of people ordering, or just the speed at which the guy fries the kway teow. I think it's good, but I don't see anything worth raving about in particular. In fact, I'm still more of a loyal supporter of the fried kway teow at the hawker centre downstairs. So I guess maybe the hawker legend title really has something to do with the history of the hawker as well, rather than just tastiness of the food.

I left school fairly early when I could, to catch a quick nap before going down to Indoor Stadium. Tonight there was Festival of Praise! I had an early dinner, and went off to meet Elaine. Even at about 6.15 pm, the queue was absurdly long. It snaked from the barricades at the entrance all the way to the back, down the staircase, and spills into the sidewalk, stretching almost to the back of the stadium, towards stadium green. It was also a hot and humid day, and I was dehydrating there and then in the queue. After an interminable wait, we finally got into the place. Fortunately, Elaine had a few friends who had gone in already, and we were able to get ourselves some pretty good seats. When I got there, I realized I was already acquainted with one of her friends, but in any case, I was so blessed...hehe...I sat with Elaine and her three female friends, all lovely ladies in their own right. I bumped into a senior of mine in both TJC and chem eng, who I didn't know was from City Harvest. We caught up a bit, both surprised that each other is a Christian in the first place.

I then realized that my church has stopped being involved in Festival of Praise for a while already. In fact, some of the events we were previously involved in we had stopped participation too. Probably it's because we are running so many of our own events that resources are tied. Anyway, the stadium was packed with people. I mean, there were people seated behind the stage! That was how full it is. No wonder I couldn't squeeze up onto bus 16 earlier. Twice! I took a snapshot of the stadium in an attempt to capture how filled to the brim it was.

The bands for this year's FOP are...Hillsongs and Delirious! They totally rock! I was wondering at first if I would know the songs they were going to sing, but after they started, I realized that my church largely sings Hillsongs' praise and worship songs anyway...almost all were very familiar songs. The presence of the Lord was awesome today. Right into the first song, I was trembling all over as the weight of His presence filled the place. Delirious had their first performance in Singapore here today. It's a really cool band. I like the lead singer too. Stylish, but looks a bit like Owen Wilson, which isn't exactly a compliment. Rev Colin Dye is the preacher for these three nights of FOP, and the message he preached today about apostolic faith was pretty powerful. All I know is from the moment worship began till the end of today's session, I received inspiration for so many new sonnets that I haven't been able to process what I ought to write till now. Originally I was not exactly keen on coming, and squeezing in the queue with crowd and all, but I am really, really glad I went. Maybe the sentiments would come out better conveyed in the subsequent poems...if I can even get the ideas sorted out in my head first in order to write them.

After the session ended, I joined Elaine and her friends for supper. I wasn't hungry initially until someone mentioned soya beancurd, and my stomach suddenly caught up with the fact that the last time it processed food was during my early dinner, and then protested. One other guy went with us, and my friend Meiqi also came along. A bunch of hungry people. After some changes of plans, we eventually ended up at this Mongkok Dim Sum place at Geylang, which served not bad dim sum. Ah no. Supper again. But never mind...I should have jumped and danced around enough during the FOP to burn off some excess fat, so this supper shouldn't hurt.

I think.

Something that Pastor Eugene shared on Wed from the book of Haggai stuck in my head, which is the verse from Haggai 2:23 mentioning 'signet ring'. So out came this sonnet. Heh.

A MAN’S WORTH

What is the measure of a man's true worth?
The standards of this world do not define
What is eternal or precious in God's mind—
I need not store up treasures of this earth
For they do not determine dignity;
Salvation's price no wealth can ever afford,
And my life was worth the Son of God
To come and sacrifice Himself for me.
God chose to make me like His signet ring,
And what a mighty status He bestowed!
The mere identity of sonship brings
A certain stature that I dearly know—
Co-heir with Christ, the Lord of everything—
What more credentials would I need to show?

It's Sherry's birthday today! We got her a birthday cake, and gave her a little surprise in her cubicle. The 'official' photographer hasn't sent me the pictures, so cannot share the happy moments here on the blog yet. Anyway it's moments like these that makes me feel that the third-floor staffroom is full of warmth.

I overate for lunch again. This time it's a plate of chicken rice and a bowl of niang dou fu, complete with noodles. I cleaned both out, and wasn't really full. Good thing the fruit stall in school ran out of fruits, else I'd really have grossly over-eaten. I bumped into an ex-classmate from TJC at the market opposite the school. He's working at Singapore Computer Systems, and the office is just a few min's walk from TJC. The other day, Sherry bumped into her old friend, who turned out to be working at SCS as well. Hmm. I wonder who else I know is working there. It's the 'it's a small world after all' feeling again. This ex-classmate asked me a lot about teaching, because he is also considering joining the profession! But not yet. Hmmm...now I know why people are saying that it feels like the whole world is joining teaching.

I went to help out the Integrated Studies for the through-train kids, which was Traditional Chinese Medicine today. There is really a big difference between the through-train kids and the older students. The kids were really bustling with energy throughout, and the cheeky boys I took to the hydrophonics farm a few months back were there too. They are a really cute and fun bunch, and as a teacher, I had fun watching them do silly things in the lab. It is very entertaining indeed. They are sporting enough to joke around with a bit.

My sports class asked me to go to their class barbecue next Tue during National Day. My first reaction was an incredulous one. So near to the prelims already, and they can still plan something like this? Hahaha. I suppose they also need to unwind a bit. I'm inclined to join them, but I wonder if my mum will kick up a fuss about me going out so often, and on National Day when she expects me to watch NDP with her. They are a really funny bunch too. They keep asking me to bring my girlfriend to the barbecue, whereupon I told them I don't have one. Then they asked me to bring my date there, and I told them I'm not dating anyone. They just plainly refused to believe what I said. Apparently the concept of platonic friendships is alien to them. They tried to tease me about it, but in the end, they kenna suan-ed by me till they were at a loss for words, and one student commented, "Cher, you should be a lawyer instead lah. Everytime you turn what we say against us one." Bwahaha. If they want to suan me, they'd better go train a few decades first. But I like them...an earnest and cheerful group of kids. And I have high expectations of them.

In the evening, it was pool session time with J, Bao and shups! I think today J played somewhat off-form, which meant that he was still good, but just not quite deadly. I think the rest of us played very well today, and the nett result of the team games was that our wins were very close in number. Fortunately, we left while I was leading! Bwahaha...I joined Bao and shups! for supper - Bak Chor Mee at block 85, Bedok North. It's rather near to TJC in fact, but I almost never go there to eat. Probably because I've been heading home for dinner in recent months. We met up with some of Bao's church friends there, and I must say, I don't quite follow the things they talk about throughout the supper. Essentially I came to one conclusion. Bao and them talk the same way, and have the same brand of humour. I can clearly see why they hang out together. I had a bowl of noodles, plus a couple of chicken wings, and some sticks of satay.

I feel fat today.

Hmm...sometimes inspiration hits me like a bomb. Especially when I am giving a test/exercise, and I didn't bring any work to do, and sit there talking to God with scrap paper in the vicinity.

TO FINISH STRONG

I have known God for over eight years now—
A moment brief compared to the time ahead.
The path beyond seems staggeringly laid;
The road behind marks where I’d fallen down.
How do I go the distance, last the race,
Emerge as silver seven times refined?
In every step I take I must remind
Myself that it is only by His grace.
A marathon without a finish line
This life appears, one fiercely tough and long,
To reach at journey’s end the prize that’s mine—
A crown of victors that to me belongs;
The present progress matters less I find
When now I merely aim to finish strong.

Poem number 41! Um...God, I not greedy. Another 59 more, can or not? =p

I gave a test today to one class, and a girl who couldn't handle the stress went home before the test. She had previously caved in to the pressure before the June common test, and didn't take nearly all the papers. We'd thought she was recovering, but apparently today it hit her again. I am very worried for her. I have another student who is actually pretty smart. He is able to do his tutorials, and other questions under normal circumstances, but put him in timed conditions for a test or exam, he blanks out entirely. I am equally worried for him. Talking to other colleagues made me realize that they are not that uncommon. I remember back in my time as a student, anyone seeing the counsellor for stress-related problems almost had a stigma pasted on him, because it is so exceedingly rare. Today, it is so different. There are many cases of students who buckle under the pressure just in my college alone. Students who hand up blank scripts, or walk out of exam halls, and etc.

How are they going to take the 'A' level exams? They've come too long a way to throw in the towel right now. I mean, if a student is weak in his studies, that I know I can help with. With enough individual coaching, the student may be able to pass, or even do well. But I find that I am totally limited in capacity to help students with psychological problems. Human capacity, that is. It's one area I almost feel helpless. But I can pray, and if God gives me the boldness and the opportunity, I'll pray over them if they allow me to. I believe that can make a difference. That aside, I also don't wish to be the tutor whose student breaks the 100% pass standard in the past few years.

I hung around in Bedok after school a while, with thanks to Sherry who kept me company a couple of hours, to pass the time before going down to the Youthnet leaders' meeting. I'm still processing what pastor shared, so I don't know what to make of it yet. Except that I'm excited about the church's move to Expo. We will fill up the 7000 seats! Sooner or later...

Argh! I had planned to bring my colleagues and my boys, with their friends, to the Spookshow my church is staging on 27th Aug. Guess what? The presidential election falls on that day, and I am involved in it, because I had been arrowed by the government as a civil servant to be one of the many Presiding Officers required at the voting site. What's the odds of that?? Hopefully I can find someone to trade tickets with. Sigh. Else I'll be kissing $20 away. The sadder thing is that I wanted so much to be with my boys, and we took such a long time to decide on a date and time so that we could all (almost all) go together. Hmm maybe there'll be some miracle, and I won't be involved in the presidential election...just maybe...

Another little sonnet, from reflection during quiet time...

DAVID AND GOLIATH

Were I in David's shoes and faced Goliath,
I doubt I'd have his same tenacity;
Life's problems come in fierce intensity,
And I often buckle in the riot.
Youth is no excuse for cowardice—
A shepherd boy came forth while soldiers quavered;
David stood firm while the others wavered,
Knowing God would give him victory.
I want to live by faith and not by sight,
And on the Lord be totally reliant,
To depend entirely on His might,
And in the face of trouble stand defiant,
To not lose heart or hope, all things despite,
And cast the lethal stone that slays a giant.

I had a rude shock in the morning while I was eating breakfast. A small lizard leapt from my coffee table into my shorts! Good thing my reflexes were fast enough and swept it away in time, but I got up too fast and knocked my knee into the glass of the coffee table. Eeeeeeeooooouch.

Today is another long remedial day. I had a tutorial, followed by remedials with two classes, and a private remedial with a small handful of students, and then a further Q and A with one student. I was talking for close to 4 hours straight! Argh. My whole water bottle was emptied, and in the span of 4 hours I popped 3 strepsils (extra strong!) to soothe my recovering sore throat. Severe overdose there. Eek. I am glad for one thing at least - almost all of my remedial students are coming into the remedial class having done the questions assigned. It's a really good sign. And one of my weakest students, who has been consistently failing every chemistry test, has finally passed the latest class test! I am so proud of her. I guess after her SYF is over, she has been able to focus at last. I see the goodness in SYF and all, but frankly, the weak students just get swept up by rehearsals, competitions and performances that they seriously compromise their studies.

The student who I met up individually today was also telling me about her commitment to the St John's in her secondary school, which she was so involved in last year as alumni that she basically neglected her studies that whole year. On one hand, I recognize that she is in dire straits now because of the choices she made, and she is paying the price for taking her studies too lightly. On the other hand, I still feel compassion for her, despite that, because all I see now is a student in desperate need. I cannot turn a blind eye and just shrug it off saying, 'She deserves it and should have seen it coming' as another colleague commented. Yet the agony of being a teacher perhaps is when you try your best to help, and can't see the light at the end of the tunnel for your student. I think unconsciously, I have taken on some of the emotional burdens that the students carry, and my heart will probably be in the same exam hall with them during the 'A's.

Herein lies the contradiction again. On one hand, I still see the fact that studies are paramount, but in the light of these 2 students being involved in SYF and St John's respectively, I am unable to convince myself that they made the wrong choice. If you ask me, I think the students ought to have a life outside of just academia. I am sure that what these students have been involved in have given them fulfilment, and to some extent, molded their characters in ways that staying home doing tutorials surely cannot. Of course, the repercussions to deal with are real, but I doubt I'm in any position to judge whether their choice was silly or not. I just hope they really pull through in the end.

Another one!

Looking Glass

In growth of spiritual maturity,
I know I ought resemble Jesus more,
Yet still I see the same man from before
Within the mirror staring back at me.
I see not His compassion in my eyes,
Nor His enflaming passion light my face;
I cannot feel my footsteps match His pace,
Nor heartbeat echo God's own in reprise.
When can I leave all my old self behind
And be a new creation full redeemed,
To have my thoughts a mirror of God's mind,
My life a clear reflection of His dream,
That one day through the looking glass I find
I am unable to see myself but Him?

Hmm...when the Holy Spirit moves and inspires, He really does a thorough job.

JIGSAW

I'm always contemplating the big picture
And how I fit in God's grand scheme of things—
I look for traces of His signature
In life's events, and purposes distinct,
Yet it is never fully clear enough,
Like an unfinished jigsaw, not quite pieced
Together—but it's with such a rough
Idea precisely we by faith can live.
I think too much, and seek to know too much,
And often wonder what God has in store,
But faith is simpler actually than such,
And calls for mere obedience, nothing more.
I realize now I only need to be
The little piece of jigsaw that is me.

I just woke up from a nap, and from a really vivid dream...maybe nightmare. I dreamt that I was teaching my happy class, and they were so problematic and recalcitrant that I blasted them with a huge scolding and stormed out of class. I woke up from it immediately breathing heavily and feeling heated from the anger. Talk about vivid. This is more like livid though. Of course, in reality my happy class is not like that lah. Heh.

Hmm...just realized I haven't been writing poetry as of late. Maybe I hadn't been very inspired. It is interesting to note that I wrote this while in class, when the students were taking a test. Apparently, inspiration can strike at any moment and location. Ah well. I wonder if I will write enough poems about God to publish...another small dream to see to pass perhaps.

FULL CIRCLE

Every now and then, I come full circle
And find myself still face to face with God;
Once more the question, "Who is truly Lord?"
Returns to haunt me, and my greatest hurdle
Was never faith, but the issue of surrender—
Those areas of my life I don't relinquish;
Relying on my own strength, I extinguish
Obedience that has kept my spirit tender.
Jesus said to lay my burdens down
At His feet, and He will give me rest,
Yet still I toil and strive to work my best,
And struggle much to cast away my crowns.
How do I hope to liberate this soul
When I never did give up control?