My HOD ambushed me before I went for lunch, and asked me if I mind covering the duty of one colleague to mark written reports for P.Dub, the slang we use for Project Work. Actually that colleague has complained about this major 'arrow' the other day, because the period of marking coincides with the week before her wedding. She is guessing that she must have offended some high-ups, but I think it's probably due to an oversight. At that point she was talking about it, I thought of offering my help to start with, but in the end, I didn't because I foresee that all the thru-train programme planning for next year will be right smack in that period, and I still have my freelance project to consider. Ironically, after all that I thought through, in the end, I still decided to help my friend with the project, for friendship's sake. The money is pittance, relative to the effort required. So when my HOD asked me, I recalled my initial sense of compassion for my colleague, and agreed. Another bad deal there: invigilating 'A' levels at least has some monetary renumeration; marking this has no benefits whatsoever, and it involves ploughing through thick (and I mean thick!) files of students' group work, which, having glanced through some examples last year, would be quite challenging (read: poor grammar, vocabulary and experession) to read, and much worse to grade.

So November would be, ironically, a busier time than school term for me. However, I shall embrace the challenge of juggling a few major assignments and see how I'll survive it. After all, if anyone can pull it off, it has to be me. Bwahaha. I sure hope I don't have to eat my words come November. Eeek.

I had to go through two questions I marked for prelim essay section during the chemistry lecture. The original plan was to complete going through 4 questions (mine were the last two) by today. So SF went first, and took a comfortable 10 min, since one period is 45 min, and after subtracting the time students take to crawl in, that leaves us with about 10 min per question. Then the next tutor went up, went on. And on. And on...She nagged and taught her way through a whopping 22 min on one question! As she went on, SF and I were looking at each other, laughing exasperatedly and shaking our heads as she went along. When it was my turn, I covered two questions like a bullet train in 8 min. Argh. I kinda knew this was bound to happen when I found out who was going on stage before me...

I just finished watching Full Metal Panic Fumoffu! It's a comedic continuation of Full Metal Panic, using the characters from the actual series. It's been a long time since an anime which is meant to be funny has made me laugh out loud. Granted, you would probably need to have watched the original series to enjoy this more, because the characters' personalities carry over from the actual series. Essentially, most of the fun comes from the main character Sagara Sousuke, a teenage soldier who has fought in wars since he was a kid out of necessity. He is absolutely dense, completely militarized, and carries around an arsenal of nifty equipment. To get a sense of the humour involved, here's a sample scenario: schoolmate girl likes Sagara, and puts a love letter in his shoe locker. Sagara comes in next morning, and notices a strand of hair on the ground, and that his locker has been tempered with. He immediately suspects the most rational and plausible explanation (in his warped perspective) that an enemy means him harm. So he sets up explosives, and detonates the locker. On examining the debris, he finds the love letter, that has most of it burnt off. He reads whatever words left behind, and interprets 'watching you from afar' as words of a sniper surveying him, among other things. Unfortunately it is a mere 11 episodes, but it was hilarious throughout. When I need cheering up next time, I'll be sure to rewatch this.

I had only one tutorial lesson today, which was spent going through the prelim MCQ answers. Thereafter, it was more admin work to do. I suppose as the work-year is drawing to a close rather soon, all the reports have to be completed, and so it's a mad rush to tidy up all the little loose ends here and there. Jon drove today, so for lunch, he gave Lena, Sherry and I a ride to the food centre opposite Bedok camp. I only ate there once since its renovation, which was the last day of my RT, and it actually felt a little nostalgic. Apparently RT wasn't that excruciating an experience after all. After returning, I was literally counting the hours as they slowly pass. Along with a whole bunch of chem colleagues, I signed up for this wine appreciation course in the evening, so I was just waiting for it to start.

Wine appreciation course in school! How cool is that? Free liquor on a weekday. The course was held at the Scope, which is a place used for exhibitions in the school, and I was rather impressed with the quality of the works that the students put up for this year. Adding some nice music, the whole ambience was actually pretty good. Overall, we tested four wines - two white, and two red. Unfortunately I can only remember that the second one was a chardonnay, and the third one was a shiraz. Anyway, the names themselves were not the most crucial. The interesting things I learnt today, be it for wine appreciation or mere trivia:

1. Preliminary checks are on colour and clarity of the wine, followed by the smell. A simple way is to tilt the glass at a 45 degrees angle so that the aroma can fill the top of the glass.
2. Swirl the wine, so that the aroma is released when the wine is aerated.
3. Most of the taste is not really in the taste of the wine itself, but the aroma, which gives a large part of the flavour. So a person having a blocked nose will not be able to get a good feel of the flavour.
4. There's a chart of descriptors to describe taste and smell, which largely employ common fruit names, such as lemon, peach, apricot, and etc. Sometimes there can be a steely or mineral taste. Other interesting terms would be fig, oak, spicy, and even coffee!
5. Really sweet wines (sometimes described with term 'honey') can be made by concentrating the juice in the grapes, which can happen two ways. The first way is to have ice or frost on the skin of the grape, which leeches out more water from the pulpy parts. The second way is to use a certain (white) fungus which naturally grows on the skin of the grapes, that sucks out the water.

For dinner, Sherry and I went down to Crystal Jade at Bugis; remaining colleagues had other plans already. We travelled there with another colleague, who met up with her sister for dinner. The amusing thing was that the sister speaks in the same way as my colleague. If I blindfolded myself, and either of them spoke, I may not be able to tell the difference. Of course, based on voice alone, there is a subtle difference in pitch, but the tone and style of speech is virtually identical. Evidently sisters. Quoting my colleague responding to my observation: "I didn't know I sound bitchy." Her sister didn't catch that snide remark though. I tried some fried noodle with beef rib thing, which serves to be the first dish that I don't like from Crystal Jade. It doesn't taste terrible, but it doesn't taste as good as I would naturally expect of the food from them.

Today is a long day. It started with a good dose of exercise, with a voluntary walk/run for staff. Apparently it's for some fitness thing, so I decided to walk. To get gold award for running is ridiculous - 9.45 min and under! Goodness, that's NSF combat standard! The two years in army I could easily go under that timing; right now, it's a way different story. So I walked. I think I clinched gold for walking. Yay! That would be a $100 incentive, coming in much, much later, but it will be at a good time, because I would need it to subsidize the angbao money for the numerous wedding dinners! Eeks.

I had a short break to wash up, and had three consecutive periods with my three classes. Today was the first time they are seeing their prelim papers, and it was a mad rush of trying to squeeze marks out of the scripts. I tried my best to motivate them and give a pep talk, and they did listen intently, but I couldn't gauge if there was any real impact. I must get them through this final lap. It is their moment of reckoning for this phase in their lives. These were followed by a lecture, and by then, I was tired and famished. Lunch was a rushed affair, and it was back to...more admin. I had a few minutes to squeeze in some critical data entry, which turned out to be too late still. Admittedly, I had never used the system before, and since my predecessors in AVC all left, leaving me, a freshie, to fumble my way around, I ought to have allocated more time for it. Then I had to attend the staff conference, in which we had to do this Forbes survey thing that had a gazillion questions (actually, only 92...but come on! It's 92!!!) to fill. After settling that, there was, you guessed it, more admin work! By the time I was done and ready to leave school, it was 4+ pm. Late, according to my usual routine.

I rushed home to change, and went out for a cell dinner. Actually, today's cell had only Adrian, Collin and me, and we went down to Gelare cafe at Plaza Singapura to have a long talk. On a side note, Gelare's ice cream cone is ridiculously long!
















Check it out! The olympic torch of ice cream! That's my cell leader Adrian. Only upon uploading do I realize the big pimple on his forehead. Weirdly though, I did not notice it the few hours we were talking. Although there were only three of us, we had a really heart-to-heart talk, and thrashed out certain issues that surfaced. At one moment, it almost felt tense, because we were sharing about things that were really hard to say without hurting feelings or causing guilt, but I guess in the end we walked away with a better understanding of one another. It's one of those more momentous days indeed.

Tada! Presenting my rendition of Enki. Cute right? The baby comes in at a whopping 4 kg! Ok I admit I don't know much about babies, and I'm just guessing from the reactions of many women that 4 kg is heavy for a newborn. Do correct me if I'm wrong...

















It's yet another day of administrative work. These are the kind of days that bore me to death. An interesting point in the day was when Prof Loh Teck Peng came to give a talk on the new School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences in NTU. Actually, it was a mess before the talk. Apparently, my AV tech was given a timetable without our venue booking of the auditorium. It was only by a mere afterthought that I went to find him, only to discover the discrepancy. We headed down to the General Office, and there was a big ruckus kicked up. My AV tech was pissed about it, and asked the OM. The OM claims he doesn't know about it, and the head of timetabling committee was there, and she showed me that her document says LTs 1 and 2. I had to call my level head, who said that he already discussed with our HOD, and she gave the go-ahead to change the venue. I later found out that my level head, abbreviated as SF, told the OM yesterday that we would use the auditorium today. After my previous (bad) encounter with the OM, I think I can safely trust my level head's side of the story. The frustrating thing was that everyone seemed pissed, and I seemed to be bearing the brunt of it since I was there, so I had to PR my way out of the mess. Bleah.

Before the talk started, SF and I were chatting with the professor. I found out that the prof was SF's lecturer when he was in NUS (long time ago)! I also heard that this prof was the top organic synthesist while he was in NUS. Looking at his super long list of credentials, ranging from his PhDs, doctorates and list of published papers, and his young age of 40+, I was very, very impressed. There's a pretty good reason why NTU poached this guy from NUS to start a new faculty. Of course, there were complicated reasons for the push factor, which he openly shared with us, but in any case, he sounded extremely passionate about the current work. On a side note, his first degree was in chemical engineering like me, and likewise, he was complaining about being 'swindled' due to a lack of information (that it didn't have much to do with chemistry). Yet another kindred spirit!

As usual, the students were noisy and inattentive, and after the talk, SF and I were profusely apologizing about it, to which the prof replied that this was not the worse he had faced. Actually, we were more confused by their lack of interest than anything else. When we talked about it later, SF and I agreed on one thing: all the mention of research projects Prof Loh and his team of staff were working on, from anti-cancer agents to drug synthesis, made us want to go back to school and do research. I think the students didn't know that such a prolific person was talking to them in the first place, and that they still do not realize that all the projects that Prof Loh mentioned are really on the forefront of scientific development. Just hearing what is going on behind the scenes in the research lab is intriguingly exciting. If I were a year 2 JC student sitting among them listening to the talk, I would have asked to sign up for the course and requested to be on his research project team, even as a kah kia (henchman?). Ok, I admit there's still a nerd part in me lurking around somewhere.

After lunch, SF, ZH, and I were playing this dice bluff game for entertainment. The stake was that the loser had to treat coffee. SF lost to both of us, and so we went over for coffee. Another colleague joined us, and I think this is the first time I hung out with this bunch of guys. Naturally, the conversation topic revolved around...soccer, and later on, sidetracked to gambling/betting. There is a good reason why I prefer to hang out with female company. Argh. Soccer bores me to tears. Of course, there are women who talk about soccer too (offhand, I can think of shups! already), but usually, I don't see soccer being the central focus of an entire hour-long conversation for them. Anyway, although I can sit in and listen (I think I have the patience to stomach any boring conversational topic actually), I will just turn on the sponge mode and absorb information, with obviously nothing to contribute at all on my part. The only point I started talking was when we were talking about gambling, and naturally, the Integrated Resort. SF was saying that the companies that tendered for the casino all requested that the government lift the $100 entrance fee, because they did some research and all to justify that without the local market to support it, depending on mainly tourists will make them go bust in no time. Frankly, looking at how much the government appears to want the boost in revenue, I foresee that the monetary deterrent may eventually go. Technically, it is easy to go around it anyway. A $100 entrance fee, but inclusive of hotel stay. Or meals. Or some other perks to offset the cost. Sigh.

On a side note, I just found a quote that is related to my post last Thu about girls being suckers for bad boys.

'All girls are attracted to bad guys. If you are not bad, then you are not sexy. My husband was the worst boyfriend. That's why he's there now.'

- Monica Bellucci on husband Vincent Cassel

What more can I say? It's Monica Bellucci, the babe in Matrix Reloaded (most vivid memory still). I rest my case. God, please tell me there are some clear-minded women out there, right? Right??

I spent the whole morning rushing some S-paper marking, which I have less of a burden than my colleagues because few attempted my question somehow, doing some admin stuff (yuck yuck), and drawing a portrait of Enki! Enki's the newborn of my colleague Joyce, who is now happily on maternity leave. I think this can be considered my first 'commissioned' piece. So far my penwork has always been done on the spur of the moment when inspired, not when tasked. This is the first time someone requested me to draw something and I agree to it. Evan wanted to give her something unique, hence I was brought into the picture. I forgot to take a picture of my latest piece and upload it here for posterity's sake...I'll do it tomorrow. The reaction of every female colleague thus far when they saw the drawing is "So cuuuuute." It must be some maternal instinct thing. Or social conditioning into gender roles.

Mrs Tag, another colleague, was talking to me after I showed her the drawing. So far, she pops by my cubicle once in a while and ask me if I have any latest work, and so I made it a point to show her. I just found out today that she went to take a two-year part-time course in NAFA to study art. She was telling me about her tutors there, and classmates, and was encouraging me to work towards putting up an exhibition. She said that I would need to find someone experienced in the art field to be my patron of sorts, and draw me into the arts circle, and maybe someday I can become famous. It is an interesting notion, and thus far, I have not entertained such ideas of grandeur. My only short-term goal currently is to get my poetry published, which I have said a gazillion times, but am still sitting on it. I'm bitten by the procrastinator bug. Maybe one fine day I'll dream of being a famous artist - but not yet.

In the evening I went to Marina Square with Sherry. The original plan was to go to Ai Qin Hai, this bubble tea place that hires almost-pro singers to sing mandarin pop songs, on dedication usually. We tried to jio other colleagues, but all don't want to give face (actually, they had valid reasons for busyness, so forgivable). We were heading for the place when we realized we were too early, so we backtracked, intending to go shop around a little. On the escalator up, we saw K Box, and she said she wanted to check out what are the packages available for Monday nights. She was supposed to have imposed a self-ban on KTV for some time, but apparently, some women can really change their minds quickly and suddenly. In the end, we decided to spend the same amount of money we would have spent at Ai Qin Hai to listen to others sing on K Box, where we can listen to each other sing! We got a room that had a big glass window through which we can see the people go by, and passers-by can see us singing. Later on there's a shot of the room with a window, and Sherry demonstrating her excellent vocals.

One good thing about going KTV on a Monday night: there are so few customers that they didn't even bother to chase us out. The room was supposed to last till 10 pm, but till 11.30 pm, no one came to hurry us at all, and it's only because we didn't want to leave too late that we packed up and left by ourselves. I realize an uncanny trend though. Every time my throat is in tip-top condition, and I'm trying to find people to go KTV, I always can't find any kakis. And when I do end up going, it's always at some stage of sore throat. Today was the beginning of a sore throat, so it wasn't too bad I suppose. I couldn't hit some of the usual notes though. Ah well...practice makes perfect!

A shot of Marina Square beyond the room...cool concept.

I have returned from yet another wedding dinner, and there are still more to come. At first, there was hardly anyone I knew there, and I was the only one from my table who was punctual. Then I saw a church friend, who entertained me a moment. I later bumped into two secondary school classmates, one of whom is the bride's colleague, and the other is the groom's colleague. Small, small world (Singapore, to be precise) indeed.

The groom is an ex JC friend of mine, the one I blogged about earlier who has since returned to my church. We were from the same department committee, and we had all thought that today was going to be a mini reunion. It turned out though that a few who said they would be coming didn't turn up in the end, so there were just four of us. Still, it was a good time of catching up. I suppose I'd see them again in the upcoming wedding. I realize that guys are fighting a losing battle. So far, I think every guy I haven't met in a long time has either put on weight (often times, a lot of weight), or stay the same. I haven't seen any guy who has lost weight. Ah well, I should just throw in the towel and happily grow fat then. Statistics look daunting. Haha.

The video montages today were done by some professional company, and I must say, after attending dunno how many weddings in the recent couple of years, there is a huge difference in quality. Of course, that is a rhetorical comment to make, but I wonder how much it costs to engage such services. I still harbour the notion of doing everything myself, although looking at my friends who are getting married I do realize that there would not be enough time to do anything yourself if you are getting married soon. They all look swamped by a thousand and one things to prepare. I watched the amusing video of the sabotage in the morning by the 'sisters' of the bride. So far there seems to be a few standard torture devices employed, and anyone getting married should go and do a bit of research in preparation I suspect. I was joking with a friend that maybe next time, the groom should secretly make a duplicate key to the bride's house, so if the 'sisters' go overboard, he'll just open the door himself. Alternatively, it would be really spectacularly dramatic if he rappels in through the kitchen window (maybe after throwing in a tear gas grenade). Ok ok, my imagination goes weirdly wild when I become bored.

I received yet another bride-and-groom fridge magnet today. Seriously I wonder why hotels give this out as a table gift. The first time I saw it, I thought it was a sweet present. Then I thought to myself there's no way I would put it up anywhere. I mean, why would I put up a souvenir that shows a bride and groom? It's not my wedding, and though I would feel happy for my friends, I don't think I would need to remind myself by sticking magnets on a fridge that they are married or something. I know people who collect magnet souvenirs of countries they visited and stick them on the fridge, so unless I want to display how many weddings I have attended, I think it's a totally useless item. I say, stick to chocolate or something.

I am blogging at this hour because I just came back from clubbing. Originally, Elaine, Steph and I wanted to check out Club Momo at Central Mall today, but Elaine pulled out due to overwhelming busyness. I had thought our plans would be indefinitely postponed, but out of nowhere in the morning, Meiqi messaged me to tell me she's going with her friends to Devil's Bar, asking me to join her. I happily pulled J, Steph and Collin along, so we did go clubbing after all. I intended to meet Steph earlier, so I headed down to Borders first. The moment I got onto the escalator leading to Borders, I thought the girl in front of me looks curiously similar to my student. Not to my surprise, it really was a girl I teach. She looked shocked to see me, and the first thing she asked was, "Mr Low, have you finished marking the prelim papers?" I pre-empted her next question so I replied her I already finished marking, and that she passed, so she did not have to worry. Poor kids - out having fun, but still having the weight of worry about their exam results.

Meiqi brought a horde of friends down, so it was a big group that was there eventually. Devil's Bar was a happening place. At least people packed the dance floor after the soccer match ended (flashback to DXO, which had nobody dancing on a weekend...tragic!). The cover charge was $20 for guys, and only came with 1 drink, which I thought was rather steep. Girls have it at $12. Looks like clubbing is one of the few industries out to make men's money, and not the women's. The drinks were quite dilute to me, and fortunately one of Meiqi's friends opened a bottle of Henessy. He mixed up some bourbon coke, and unabashedly, I drank a good portion of the drinks. I couldn't get a high at all though, surprisingly, considering that I seldom go clubbing nowadays, and I assumed my resistance to alcohol would have dropped. Apparently not.

Surprise, surprise. Attack of the wolf packs again. There were two packs today. Their modus operandi has become disgustingly obvious by now, and it seems to be the same tactic in any club. The wolf pack leader spots his prey, usually a solitary girl with male friends who don't seem to be the boyfriend, or more popularly, a group of girls without any males at all. Then they cut in behind the prey, pretending to be moving through, or looking for a place to dance. After that, they take root behind the prey, and the wolf pack slowly spreads itself and surrounds the prey. Either they try to get fresh with the girls by getting touchy, or they outright accost them to ask them to dance together/give their name or number. I saw a couple of guys fall flat on their face though. They came through, and one guy reached out his hand as if wanting a handshake (and intro, naturally), but the girls ignored him. One interesting observation though: the wolf pack leader is usually good looking or hunky. In fact, he looks like the kind of guy that wouldn't need to resort to such tactics, because there are probably girls who are admirers of him. Weird.

Ah, but tonight, I saw voluntary prey. There was one girl who was dancing close to almost any guy who was willing. Ok dancing close was putting it diplomatically; sluttily was a lot closer to the truth. That girl appeared to thoroughly enjoy the attention, especially when totally surrounded by one wolf pack. She didn't look like she was on a high, or drunk, at all. So while I look with disdain at the wolves, I recognize that there are girls who do outrightly ask for it. That girl actually had three female friends who were looking out for her. One pulled her away when a guy was obviously taking advantage of her. They disappeared for a while actually, and then she came back alone, and resumed being grasped. Another friend came by several times to interpose herself between that girl and some guy who was getting waaay too close, but the moment that friend left, it continued. I had thought that their continuous efforts were quite admirable actually, but that girl obviously had other things on her mind. The secular world is scary. It seems quite easy to pick up a total stranger, which I saw an acquaintance accomplish, if the girl is actually quite willing (read: loose). Apparently, all it takes is some eye contact. In fact, at one point, that girl was dancing near me, and I happened to make eye contact, and she smiled at me. I backed a step, and then looked everywhere else instead. Not my cup of tea; I'm only there for the company, and to dance the night away.

Thanks to everyone who tagged their words of encouragement. I really appreciate it! The Eternal Optimist has returned to blog again.

I shall start with the more cheerful thing. God gave me an interesting word of knowledge during the alpha course earlier this evening. This is the second session I've accompanied Sherry to, and today's topic was on the bible. Before the Nicky Gumbel video came on, the host for today announced that he was going to give out bibles to some of the course participants. His assistant brought out a stack of 6 bibles, and immediately God said to me, "The last book is Sherry's." I told Sherry exactly what God said, but did not explain to her that it was a word of knowledge yet. So the host took each book, flipped open the cover to read the name, and gave each of them out. By the time he reached the 6th book, he opened the cover, frowned, and passed it back to another assistant. At that point, I went, "God! You dua me ah??" in my head.

Then the assistant passed the guy another stack of 6 bibles. Then I thought, "Huh? Don't tell me it's the last book of this stack?" So Sherry and I waited for him to give them out, and the last bible went to...someone else. I was going, "God, cannot be lah!!!" I was soooo certain I heard Him accurately. Then the other assistant passed him the book he frowned at earlier, and he read out "Sherry." So cool hor? It was the last book of the first stack when God spoke to me, and I was so sure it's that particular book. And it was, but somehow it ended up being the last book given out. So God's word was doubly correct! I spent some time to explain to her the thing about word of knowledge, but she seemed kind of skeptical. Heh. Anyway, I felt that God wanted to tell her that she's special, and I told her so. Sometimes I think God is particular sweet to the girls - a legitimate biasedness, I might add.

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing. Why am I nice to people? Maybe I get a kick out of having people owe me favours. Yeah, that must be it. I can't bring myself to believe that I am otherwise capable of altruism. Why do I sometimes go out of my way to help people, do them favours and all, sometimes for people I hardly even know? I realize it is one sickening feeling to receive a phone call from someone I haven't heard from for a long time, and feeling glad that he or she is contacting me, only to find that that person just wants to ask me for info, or ask for a favour, or ask me to buy insurance, or, a more recent case, ask me to sign for a credit card. It's another thing to be taken for granted. A sincere word of thanks can go a long, long way, especially considering that my primary language of (receiving) love is word of affirmation. On the contrary, a hurtful or discouraging word, especially when it comes from people I care more about, can shatter me, albeit momentarily.

Maybe it's a bane to be nice. What goes around doesn't always come around, when it's a good thing. On a related note, a dear friend once theorized that I'm not able to find a girlfriend because

1. Girls seem to be suckers for bad boys anyway. Nice guys bite the dust.
2. Why would a girl want to consider me for a boyfriend when I would treat her so nice even as a friend? No further investment needed, maximum benefits still.
3. Why would a girl want to consider me, knowing that I would probably treat other girls nicely too? Insecurity + jealousy = bad, bad deal.

Bleah. I can feel that I'm under a spiritual attack, but I can't help venting. It is one of those moments where I doubt why I choose to be who and what I am.

Ok, now on to the usual sometimes-repressed cheerful posts. From today onwards, my colleagues and I have a dedicated 'chauffeur' to school in the morning. It started a couple of weeks back when I took this cab, and the driver, this friendly Malay chap by the name of Rosli, saw me messaging on my handphone, realized that my phone model is the same as his, and asked me questions on some bluetooth thing. So I explained to him how he could rectify his problem, and that was it. I realized that the fare for that trip was lower than usual, but didn't otherwise take special note of it. Then some days later, I happen to flag down his cab again. Now, the circumstance is unusual because there are actually many cabs going by my place, so the odds of me taking the same cab isn't that high. So I asked him about the bluetooth thing, and apparently, he managed to settle it and all. That day's fare was also low, and my cab buddy Lisa commented that he drives rather fast, and suggested we get him to pick us up everyday. That was after we got off from the cab, so I replied her that if I flag down his cab again, I'll ask him. So lo and behold, yesterday, the moment I stepped onto the pavement and looked out onto the road, he drove by, saw me, and waved hello. So there, we got our driver. This is once again testament to my knack for bumping into people.

I made a slip-up today. My AV technician was on leave in the morning, and he did tell me to help him set up laptop and sound system for this lecture in the morning while he was gone. The lecturer himself also came by to remind me yesterday. Somehow, I still forgot, and happily went off voluntarily to scan the MCQ answer sheets of the whole cohort for marking, with the help of one colleague. Suddenly I got a phone call five minutes into the period, and the flustered lecturer asking me to help him set up. I rushed down, and hastily set up everything in five minutes, which is not bad at all, considering I'm by myself, and rusty at it. Fortunately the guy wasn't angry with me, or anything, and I profusely apologized. This one is really due to my negligence. Sigh.

I spent the later part of the morning composing more lantern puzzles, typing them out this time, and trying to solve some puzzles on the internet with ZH. After trying the latest batch, we recognize how shallow our chinese and literary knowledge is, and stand utterly defeated and demoralized- especially those puzzles that are so beautifully crafted and meaningful. We have a long, long way to go. Guessing single words is so much easier than guessing proverbs.

After an early dinner, I met shups! for the movie Hinokio. It's this Jap movie about a boy who hides himself at home to recuperate from a leg injury, and attends school by controlling this human-sized robot to go on his behalf, and he interacts with the world through the robot. A while into the movie, and you will realize that the boy has a fractured relationship with his father, and a shy fear of the outside world. He escapes by engrossing himself in some online game, which bears particular significance (portrayed as almost occultic in the perspective of the kids, but can be construed as mere coincidences as well) in the plot of the movie, and he refuses to meet anyone face to face, and insist they communicate with the robot instead. What follows is a story of friendship, a young and innocent love, reconciliation with the father, and a boy's eventual departure from the shell he'd built around himself. It is a really sweet and heartwarming movie, and entirely wholesome! Nothing violent, nothing sexual. Family-oriented entertainment. Considering what is available in the cinemas now, this movie should be one of the more worthwhile movies to watch.

Right after the show ended, we made our way to meet J, who jio-ed us for pool. We only played a short two hours though. I started off excellent, then deteriorated badly, and only picked up again near the end. My playing is too easily affected by my mood, and anything upsetting will utterly ruin the game for me. But I know I'm getting better at placing, slight as the improvement may be, and that's good enough for now. Heh.

I love the prelims period. A momentary winding down, once the marking is settled. Today the chemistry paper has officially ended with the last MCQ paper, which I volunteered to send for computerized marking. I decided to be a blessing to people in my workplace, so I've volunteered to feed the MCQ marking machine again, and this is the third time already. I must make myself useful lah...colleagues always think I'm very free, because I pop by friends' cubicles too often apparently.

I came up with sixteen lantern puzzles to let ZH play and critique! So far, he likes most of them, edited a couple of them, and completely revamped another couple of them. I feel satisfied that my chinese isn't that bad after all! Hehe. I think I'm semi-maths department personnel already, because 1) I sit right smack in the maths department, among the older, experienced teachers 2) I hang around with them playing lantern puzzles (no one else other than the maths department does this kind of offbeat thing in the staffroom) 3) I look like I teach maths...till today, I still have colleagues who think I teach maths, especially Lena who has made that mistake at least 3 times till now, even after correction. Maybe I look calculative? Heh.

I'm doing this not because I'm that free (although momentarily I am), but more because I like to workout my brain intensively once in a while. I was actually solving some maths prelim paper questions to oil my brain cells a bit! I cannot do brainless menial tasks too much, else I'll feel like my brain has rotted. So this is good mental exercise for me! Once I revise the lantern puzzles, maybe I'll post them here for fun.

Today was a relaxed day at school. The main productive thing I did was to compile my students' marks for the essay and structured section, and did up an sophisticated excel spreadsheet to properly analyze the results once the MCQ comes in tomorrow. So far their results look terrible for the essay section, but the structured section seems to be a saving grace for many, and I think in general, there should at least be some improvement overall compared to the previous June common test. It's only the few students who are still scoring very jialat results that I'm worried about. I'm still trying to brainstorm some revision package that can yank them out from the grave. Quite a few students saw me today with my goatee and moustache, and asked me about it, to which I joked that it's all because the more I marked, the more devastated I became, and therefore I look like this now. The joke is that some of them seemed to believe me. -_-

I spent a good amount of time with my colleague ZH who went to China with me earlier on guessing deng1 mi2 (lantern puzzles). Fwah, what a test of my chinese! Admittedly, ZH is far better in chinese than me, but not bad lah, I still can hold my ground and guess a good number that he missed. After all these years, I still can remember some chinese...which surprises me. I thought with the lack of usage, I would have forgotten most of it. Now my brain is still running in cheena mode. Interestingly I thought up a few puzzles myself! I'll go test them on ZH and see whether he finds them of good standard. Bwahaha.

I actually went out for lunch with a different group today. I was having lunch with a couple of art teachers. SK, who teaches art, happened to drop by my cubicle in the morning and chatted with me. We realized that he, being in his room far far away in no-man's-land, seldom eats lunch with any of us. So we decided to eat lunch together today. He has been visiting my church weekly, following a common friend of ours, and he's thinking of joining a cell group, although he is not a Christian yet. Cool huh? While we were having lunch, my principal dropped by the hawker centre for coffee and joined my table. She found my specs interesting! Haha, but I'm happier about something else: I have been leaving a goatee, and she only noticed the specs. I think I can get away with my unshaven look liao. Some colleagues and I were searching the MOE intranet trying to find anything on the official dress code, but to no avail. We were all debating whether we can leave moustache/goatee/beard that's not because of religious reasons, but if the head honcho of the school doesn't say a word, I'll take it that it's permissible. Bwahaha.

In the evening, I met Sherry, and we went down to Esplanade. There was a musical in the open area by Changkat Primary School (Emperor's New Clothes, I think), and the kids were so cute. I tried to take pictures with my handphone, but there were too many people standing around watching, so I couldn't get a good shot. We ended up going to this Spanish restaurant, ViaMar, and we had the calamari that Sherry strongly recommended. The calamari consisted of deep fried baby squids, rather than the cut-into-rings kind, and with the citrus mayonnaise, it tasted fantastic. The only thing is that the prices are quite high, but I think the food is very good, so I think I'll come back and try a main course some other day. It has pretty good ambience too, with nice decor, and a bar next door to the restaurant, which seems like a nice place to chill. Both the restaurant and the bar serves liquor (beer, house pours and wines), so it might be a good place to hang out for a drink when I don't feel like visiting a pub/club.

Argh. It can soooo frustrating waiting for a cab at my place. Actually, there are many empty cabs that pass by, but I often can't get a cab because

1. The cabs just don't stop and pass me by. Does anyone know the reason why empty cabs which are not on call, or changing shift, will just ignore a person flagging it down furiously?
2. There is a high number of buses and coaches that pass by the road. Sometimes it's an SBS or SMRT bus, sometimes it's a schoolbus, and other times, it's a coach that is going to u-turn in front to Golden Mile complex. Why do the buses hinder my flagging of the cab? Sometimes the bus comes out from the bus stop, and cannot turn out because of the incoming vehicles along the lane, very often the empty cabs I'm waiting for. So the bus cannot turn out, it blocks me, and I can't flag my cab. Double whammy.
3. Irritating old folks or schoolkids intercept me. They pop out of nowhere at the bus stop, and just walk a few metres down ahead of me, and flag the incoming cabs. This has happened far too many times for me to innocently believe that they did not see me. Come on, it's the same kids there in the morning, and it's the same me there every morning. Where is the ethics of waiting? Bleah. Kids nowadays. No manners.

I finished my second round of marking, on behalf of my level head! Bwahaha. It took me 2 hrs to comb through 26 classes, mark and total up the marks for the question. I am a machine! Which is why I'm blogging at this particular moment. I think I shall use my free time to try to devise some marvellous last-minute revision that will save them from the pits of academic hell. I believe in miracles~

I just finished watching FLCL (Fooly Cooly a.k.a. Furi Kuri), and man, it's gotta be one of the most bizarre anime I've ever watched. I thought Serial Experiments Lain was weird stuff, but at least that one I can still grasp the rough flow of storyline. FLCL is just one madhat adventure. An alien girl shows up on a Vespa, knocks down the lead character Nao, and whacks him with her guitar. He grows a weird cuboid bump on his head, and one fine day, a giant robotic hand and another robot with a TV for a head comes out of that bump and does battle. Over the next episodes, more weird machines pop out of Nao's head. The TV-head robot swallows Nao quite literally, turns red, and becomes more powerful to fight all the enemy machines. In the background is an organization that is trying to flatten planets for its own agenda. Flatten is literal; the tool of destruction is a giant iron (as in the iron used for ironing clothes). It is actually rather entertaining, despite how crappy the storyline sounds, in a uber-bizarre way. If I can summarize it, it feels like utter discordant anime chaos thrown into a blender, and out comes the madness that is FLCL.

I think my mind is still reeling from the madness. I shall hit the bed earlier tonight.

I was waiting to meet Huijun in the afternoon, so I decided to catalogue my anime collection in an excel file. There were quite a few friends who asked me what anime titles I have when we discussed exchanging anime series, and I always replied that it's not quite possible to list them all. So I decided to do up an excel file once and for all, which will also serve to monitor who has borrowed what anime series from me. Now I realize that I actually have a total of 92 anime titles in my collection, out of which 17 are downloaded, which works out to be about 82% original. A fairly healthy percentage I think. Compared to a couple of friends I know, at least, who should hit around 0%. Hahaha...

We went down to the new National Library Board building that recently opened! She needed to do some research, so I tagged along to lend a helping hand. It's a pretty cool place. Here's a shot of my cousin wandering off by herself.















Here's a shot of the shelves and the light coming from the broad-paned windows. I realize I like to take perspective pictures. I think I would have enjoyed interior design actually. Hehe...
















Here's another shot of the place. An interesting thing is that the lighting in the panels on the top of the shelves randomly change colour.

















After that, we went shopping a little. I feel so constrained though. After making my pair of cool specs (now Huijun is the third person who says they look like goggles), I'm now officially broke, so I can't bring myself to splurge on clothes. Next month will be better! Actually, hmmm...counting the upcoming wedding dinners to attend, and a chem department treat that I'm involved in, next month won't be much better. Argh.

I've just finished watching the anime DNA2, and it's one heck of a nostalgic journey down memory lane. I still remember the comic book version that came out when I was in secondary school was one of the earliest comics I collected. In fact, those five books (the series is that short) are still sitting neatly at the back of my cupboard shelf. The anime follows the comic book almost exactly, but took out some less important scenes. It has a pretty interesting storyline that is a overblown take on genetics, but the animation looks dated. It must have been quite an old production, since the manga was out like more than a decade ago. The story follows a DNA operator Karin from the future who returns to the past to alter the DNA of this guy Junta, so that he doesn't go on to become Mega-Playboy (yeah, sounds ridiculous), who has powerful DNA that totally devastates women and makes them fall in love with him, some years down the road and impregnate 100 women, producing sons who will do the same thing he does, because in the future, there is severe overpopulation and it becomes a death sentence to have more than one child. But Karin goofs up her job, and the rest of the series shows how she tries to rectify the situation. The whole reason why I like the manga last time was that it had an interesting conspiracy twist right at the end, which wraps up the story quite beautifully, so the same goes for the anime, I guess.

Now I'll start on this short 6-episode anime FLCL (Fooly Cooly), which is bizarrely offbeat.

I met one of my boys before cell group to have a chat. He initiated it, so I was quite glad. He was sharing about his problems in school, and at home, so now I have a better understanding of him. I think it's a little different from how my cell leader relates to us, because he still can relatively see us as peers. My boys are only P6 and sec1, and no matter how savvy I am in all the in-things and trends, there's still a certain gap that I cannot bridge. Then again, it gives me better authority to speak to them as a spiritual parent rather than a friend.

I couldn't focus during service. This is an unforeseen side-effect of having an excellent memory. I can remember my pastors' sermons roughly, and I realized that since last week, he is preaching through one series of sermons I heard before a couple of years back. Of course, there is nothing wrong in this, since there are always new converts joining the church and they have yet to hear them, or that there are old Christians who never were paying attention so they don't realize the sermons have been preached before, or that the pastor now updates the sermons with some new content and examples (mostly old though...I still remember! Argh!). But I just can't bring myself to take notes as I usually would, thinking that I already have it stored in my cupboard somewhere. This is not a good attitude to have...I'm expecting a scolding from God about this soon. Eeks.

After service, Adrian, my cell leader (henceforth denoted by AdrianC, since there are so many Adrians around), J and I went down to play a short hour of pool. AdrianC needs practice. A lot of practice. He has gotten rusty. Come to think of it, it's been a while since Collin joined us as well. It is interesting how things in my cell group has changed as of late. I remember feeling grateful about the new life God breathed into the cell, but ever since then, a couple of brothers have turned delinquent. On the other hand, there are some new additions as well, so I'm curious to see how things develop from here.

I just came back from pool with J. I think I was already pretty accurate today, even with the placing largely, but still, I lost to him two thirds of the time at least. Man, how much more must I improve to just be on par with the guy?

I must train much harder.

I had invigilation in the morning for the structured paper. A brief look around suggests that the students won't find it as easy as we thought they would. Ah well. Again, I seized the opportunity to write another sonnet. Apparently, boredom, with some events acting as triggers, serves as a fairly good muse too. Once the papers came in, it was a mad rush of marking again. Some of us went out to East Coast (Lagoon) to eat lunch as a mini-getaway from all that madness, before we get ourselves buried in marking again.

I actually managed to get all my assigned marking (a total of 4 marks worth only, actually) done in 4 hours! It's a lot of rapid flipping through 32 classes, dried skin on fingertips, papercuts and all, but the job is done. Done! Since God made me so darn efficient I decided to be a blessing, so I volunteered to mark another part which my level head is supposed to mark, because he is furthest behind time right now. I will squeeze a good meal out of the guy for this though. Bwahaha.

A cursory glance at my classes' scripts proves disheartening. On my bus ride back, I am mentally drafting my next inspirational wake-up-call speech. It's the final lap for them, and if I must, I will pull/push/drag/kick/throw them across the finishing line. No time to waste, no chance to lose.

Yes, finally something I've watched worth spoofing and making a fool of myself by putting my face on it! Tada~The latest...um...avatar. Now where's my huge mean sword lying around?

Thanks to my fellow anime crazed fan of a colleague Jon, who has reported downloaded the whole movie in one sitting of 6 hrs at a rate of about 60 kb/s on bittorrent (exceedingly rare on our lower end cable connections), I've finally caught the movie I've been waiting for all this while!















If you call yourself a Final Fantasy (FF) fan, especially of FFVII, you are going to love this absolutely. The storyline is essentially a continuation of the storyline of the FFVII game, but instead of having SD (super-deformed...the big head small body kind) characters, you have Cloud Strife looking like this:














and Tifa looking like this:






















Can you believe the definition of the cinematic graphics??? It's like Final Fantasy the (crappy) movie - The Spirits Within, but maybe ten times better? At least the hands of the characters in Advent Children don't look like this formless fat thing in the movie that hit our cinemas a few years back. The ridiculous thing is why in the world aren't they bringing Advent Children to the local cinema? I'm sure there are tons of FF fans out there.

The fighting scenes were breathtakingly solid! The storyline is not spectacular, but at least more consistent with the FF genre than FF - The Spirits Within. But hey, if you have animation of this quality, who cares about the storyline? I'm just gawking at the graphics all the way. And this was my motivation for rushing through my marking, so that I can come home today in peace and watch it! Bwahaha.

Yeah yeah, I am a geek.

I finished marking my question in the essay section by noon! Woohoo~ I was frantically searching for one last missing class the whole time, and when I found it, I realized I had already marked it, but had forgotten to note it down. Now I shall reward myself with a nice long nap, before the structured section comes in tomorrow morning. Looking at the essay sections of the classes I teach, I think I better do some prayer-walking during invigilation...

Today was dedicated to marking! Other than a brief pause to sit-in a lesson with the thru-train kids to observe my level head facilitate a group discussion, I was just marking and marking all the way. Yes, I am back at my efficient self. After the 3 classes I marked yesterday, I marked another 15 classes just in school alone. My neck is stiff, my right hand is tired, and I used up one new red pen. I brought back another 3 classes to mark, which will leave a comfortable 11 classes for tomorrow. Hehe.

I had lunch with Evan and Lena, and we discussed our little outing today. We decided to go to Yakun to grab a quick bite of toast in the afternoon, and maybe even play pool a short while. Evan went for her facial, I went back to my marking, and Lena went to a meeting (bottle-neck!). After the meeting was over, and I was done with my 15th class today, we took a cab down to Parkway Parade (PP) for some kaya toast. I had a very full lunch, so I decided not to have the set meals, and I offered to eat the half-boiled eggs for them. They bought 2 sets, so I ate 4 eggs. Wah, super unhealthy...but so shiok! Bwahaha. We then went up to Classic Pool for a short pool session. Evan has come under my 'tutelage' for now, and the two of them aren't that bad...at least, definitely not beginners starting from scratch. I'm guessing that next time if we want a short getaway from work, we might do this again. Evan left early though, so Lena and I went off to PP to shop around a short while. Then we ended up here:

















This is a snapshot of the Pacific Coffee Company at the MPH in PP. We went there to do more marking! I think this is the first time I do my marking outside of school and home, and it's an interesting experience. At least, I don't remember doing marking with some company at all. I actually finished two classes there! My conclusion though is that I need a big table to throw my scripts all over to be really comfortable, so cafes don't quite fit the bill. Ah, but the armchairs were soooooo comfortable.

Back to marking. Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to mark I go~

What an awfully long and draggy day today was. I was supposed to be on standby for invigilation of the General Paper in the morning. So there I was, waiting in the exams room, seeing the chief invigilator mark the attendance of the tutors. Then it boils down to two invigilators still missing in action. She made a call, and found one of them to be on course! So I kenna. Kinda last minute, with ten minutes to the start of the paper! I rushed up to the room, and distributed everything like a bullet train, and managed to start the paper 5 min early still! The irritating things are that 1) a teacher who's going on course should know about it very early, and she didn't inform the chief invigilator, who could have made alternative arrangements 2) I'm the only chemistry teacher on duty, standby as it might be, but for GP, there are many invigilators involved, and there's a high probability the standby teacher will kenna. Why is the latter reason irritating? Not because I'm on standby and so unfortunately have to do the duty, but that I have my own chemistry paper to invigilate in the afternoon!!! And in between these two papers, my students are, of course, coming to look for me for consultation! Bleah. They trying to kill me is it? I need to eat leh.

The General Paper essay questions were fairly easy...ok, most of them, at least. I was so tempted to write an essay myself out of boredom, but in the end, I wrote a sonnet instead. However, I won't publish it on the blog because the person the sonnet is written about and for may be reading this. Heh...sensitive lah. Anyway at the start I was so rushed, and I was zombified from a lack of sleep, that I kept misreading the clock by an hour. When we started it was 7.55 am, and I kept saying 8.55 am. The students had to laughingly correct me a few times. Argh. Wake up Kian Seh wake up!

My chem colleagues went on a nice lunch trip to Laguna Park to eat some very nice beef noodles, when I was the only poor soul from the department doing invigilation. One colleague was nice enough to message me to ask me if I want her to pack food back for me though, but I declined. Originally, I'd meant to attend to my students first, but by the end of the GP exam, I was famished. I hunted for a colleague to eat a quick lunch with, then came back to help my students.

The chemistry exam started with another mad rush, because there were so many things to distribute in the hall. 5 items, including 20 pieces of writing paper! 10 essays in 2hrs 40 min, which I think beats even humanities subjects handsdown in rigour. Our power-saving Operations Manager had the aircons shut off after the end of the GP exam, so it was hot and stuffy when we rushed in to start distributing everything, and I was sweating myself silly. After we requested the aircons be switched on, the workers came and switched on alternate air-conditioners. We didn't realize this until we started the paper, I was still perspiring profusely, and students raised their hands requesting that we lower the temperature because it was too darn hot. I hunted down the controller and went to switch on all the aircon sets. I know electricity is expensive lah, but this is ridiculous! The questions in the chem paper become progressively difficult, so it's interesting to see the confidence in each student slowly turn to frustration along the way. Still, it wasn't a killer paper, so I think the majority should be able to get a boost in confidence. Especially after the massacre in the recent June Common Test.

I was supposed to play a short game of pool with Evan and Lena this evening, but due to Lena's 'shotgun date' (quoting Lena herself, 'shotgun'= last minute), we decided to postpone it. Evan and I still went for dinner anyway, and we ended up at Crystal Jade Kitchen at Parkway Parade. I didn't originally intend to spend so much, but ended up about $20 per head. Ouch. But the food is sooooo gooooood. Especially after a long and boring day, good food is one heck of a Godsend. To top it off, we had the absolutely fabulous durian ice cream from Scoopz! Food therapy works wonders.

So instead of recreation, here I am, having brought home 3 classes to mark, and I shall be buried in marking for the next few days. Buried 6 feet under stacks of desperate, frenzied and indecipherable writing.

Today reminds me totally of army - rush to wait, and wait to rush. Right in the morning during assembly, I was summoned to help carry stuff to the hall for invigilation. The first paper of the prelims is...mathematics! Nope, I do not teach maths. I am just one of the 'selected' few (two actually) from the chem department who kenna. I haven't checked in detail, so I'm assuming other colleagues will get arrowed to help invigilate other papers on other days. One of my poor students require extra time for the exams because she had some complications after a severe drug allergy, one of which is similar to arthritis. The poor girl has difficulty (and pain) writing! Then, when the paper started, I realized one of my other students has not returned from the toilet yet. In the end, we had to dispatch a female colleague to go to the girls' toilet to look for her. It turned out that she had major stomach upset. Sigh. Looks like my prayer not powerful enough. I decided to keep all my students in prayer for the prelims, but even more so for the 'A' levels. I'm sure God will take special care of them. Hopefully they will all do very well, so that it is obvious God is with me in this (since He called me to teaching anyway). Hehe. Spiritual blackmail, ala Moses' style.

During invigilation breaks I was still running to and fro, trying to print the question papers for the MCQ paper. The non-teaching staff guy in charge of the printing room wasn't very accomodating to my colleague and I. We were hoping to print this afternoon, and he shot us a "Wah, then you expect me to stay past 3 for you ah? I no need to go home ah?" We wanted to squeeze into some spare short slots that are available but he kept brushing us off. It is particularly frustrating because this fella was on course last week during holidays, and on the days he wasn't on course, he was on leave. Right before the prelim exams! He jolly well knows that this couple of weeks are the prelims, and that the whole world of staff will be coming down to print, most of whom are prepared to come back during the holidays to print, and he vanished conveniently during the time when the tutors are most available. I realized one thing for sure: the non-teaching (male) staff who are exceedingly efficient in their work all have one hell of a badass attitude. The women are all nice people. My view of my own gender just sunk one more level.

I received a lot of feedback about my new pair of specs the whole of these few days, ranging from church friends, old friends, colleagues to students. It all can be summarized into:

1. Cool/funky/stylo (majority, yay!)
2. Unique/interesting/never see this kinda frame before (slight majority, some of whom refrain from commenting whether it's nice or not, therefore the above-mentioned words are strictly neutral)
3. Looks a bit like chemistry goggles (3 individuals)
4. Takes a bit of getting used to (2 individuals)

Yes, I'm happy with the purchase. Phase 1 change of image successful. Phase 2 will be much later, when I'm teaching long enough in the school so that it's safe enough to do some silly or radical things. Hehe.

I had a late lunch, and I was taking my own sweet time, because I was free at about noon, and a student requested for consultation after 4 pm. Silly old me, not realizing that the chemistry paper tomorrow is in the afternoon and not first thing in the morning, readily agreed, thinking it's an emergency life-or-death rescue mission (actually, my student also thought it's in the morning, so forgivable). I drifted around the staffroom, chatting with many people, prodding my level head to start assigning who-marks-what-questions for the whole exam while we were free. Come 4 pm, there was no news. I waited till 4.15 pm before I messaged her, and there was no reply. Then it struck me that she might still be having exams, so I checked. Yes, the econs paper ends at 4.15 pm, which means that by the time the students are dismissed it's about 4.30 pm. By the time she came, it's about 4.40 pm already. And she asked me things she did not understand about the prelim papers from all over. When she was done, it was only 5.00 pm. Not that I'm not happy that I can leave early, but it felt kinda...anticlimax. I hung around and waited some 3 hours for her, and that was all? Of course adding salt to the wound is realizing I could have just met her tomorrow noon. It was a truly 'duh' moment.

The only thing that salvaged it was that J jio-ed me for pool in the evening! I decided not to go home first, since there was hardly any time to rest, and we went to Lai Lai restaurant at Liang Seah street. The stewed beef noodles was very, very good! It's their most popular dish, with good reason. But it ain't cheap. I took the smallest bowl (due to my late heavy chicken rice+laksa lunch), and it costed $6.80. The good thing is that I like it more than the Crystal Jade La Mian and Xiao Long Bao stewed beef noodles! To be honest though, even with a late lunch, the smallest bowl did little to sate my hunger. We played pool for a couple of hours, and again, I lost most of the games. All things considered, I think today my shots were quite accurate in general, but the placing, argh, the placing!

Today is September 11th. Four years ago on this very day, quite a few major events took place. The first is the most well-known terrorist attack of the century, where hijacked planes brought the twin towers tumbling down, and a shocked nation arose. The next two events are not international news fodder, of course. I got attached on the very day of the twin towers collapse, but of course, that relationship has ended. And the last event is CRuSH birthday! The whole project CRuSH began on that very day as well. I had not been involved from the onset, and came in some 2+ years ago. There was a CRuSH birthday party just now, and I was invited.

The project has really come a long, long way. I've taken a short hiatus this year, having run out of drive for the forums. I can only type the same replies to the same topics that many times before I get sick of them. I thought I'd take this year off, and focus on other things. Maybe let my mind be renewed, and hopefully, when I return, I would be able to bring in fresh perspectives into discussions. In the meantime, the influence of the project has reached many students, in many schools, and just now while the pastors were sharing about the latest developments into cybergaming, and possibly blogging, I was feeling excited. I think I still am in touch enough to be involved in this arena of God's work, and it's a heartening feeling.

Whatever my life can offer, may the Lord use it for His purposes.

I just finished watching the anime series s.CRY.ed. It's one of those anime series which is neither bad nor good. There's a lot of action, many fight scenes, but in general, the storyline is just plain. The only interesting thing is that the two main characters start off hating each other to bits, but they are in fact very similar in personality, and in the end, they end up being good friends. Good friends that still fight each other though. Beyond that, there's nothing spectacular about it. Ah well, on to the next anime: DNA2! It's a real classic I've gotten hold of, and the manga was out since my sec sch days. The animation style sure reflects how old the anime is, but still, it has an entertaining storyline.

Only now that I've become a cell leader for the last couple of years do I finally realize how difficult it is to parent spiritually. I do have quite a nice bunch of boys under me, who are fairly committed, except for moments when exams seem to take higher priority. Right now, I'm still trying to follow up on the boy who received Christ at the Spookshow recently, but it's kind of hard when the mother disallows him from being involved till his PSLE is over. At this age, the parents have overwhelming say in their lives, and I do not have the position to come against it. I'm still trying to see if I can meet him occasionally at least, maybe not in cell group settings. Out of my initial group from Sunday school, one boy has strayed. I just had a very trying phone call with him, and in trying to encourage him to come to cell group and service amidst trying to find out the reason why he is reluctant to come, he just squirms away from answering anything directly. There were times when I asked him something directly, and he just plainly kept quiet, refusing to answer. I'd thought I'm a patient person, but even in my capacity, I was bordering on irritation from his evasiveness. How do I try to spiritually parent someone who refuses to be parented? The spiritual answer is to pray, which I am, but I just wonder if there is something direct and proactive I can do to help.

Then, as I'm typing this, the mother of that boy called me, and confided in me some things about what is happening in their home. At least, now I have a clearer picture of what is happening, although I would still hope that my boy would tell me directly, rather than I find out from his mother. Hmmm...now it seems though that things have gotten so much more complicated. It's times like this when I feel absolutely powerless to do anything, if not for God. Pray. I can only pray.

I was just following the news on the second gruesome murder in three months. It's yet another dismemberment case, where the arms and legs and head of a woman had just been found in trash bags at the park behind Orchard MRT station yesterday, and I think the torso had been found today. The victim apparently is a Philippino maid, and the suspect seems to be another maid. Chilling stuff to hear about, especially with the previous case being so recent. Human nature in itself is truly ugly indeed.

My JC department comm (DC)-mate got married today, and I just came back from her wedding dinner. I barely kept in touch with her actually, the last time we met being either last year or the year before that. It's interesting that after her wedding, two weeks later would be the wedding dinner of another fellow DC-mate, and another two weeks later would be one more. It's almost like the whole lot of them decided to get married this year. I expect a hole in my pocket soon. Ouch. Anyway, there was a surreal moment where Mishal (the bride of today's wedding) came by for phototaking, and she said to me, "Thanks for coming...buddy!" The word 'buddy' seemed to resound in my head, and it surfaced so many memories that I'd somehow forgotten. I suddenly remembered the long talks we used to have, especially when she was still in my church, a cell leader in the TJC ministry, and I was there helping out. I remembered the time when she was in uni, and broke up with her boyfriend, and I was there to support her almost the whole time. We used to be very good friends, until a point in time when she left the church. After that, I don't know exactly how we lost contact, but we did. So when she said 'buddy', I felt nostalgic, surprised and pained all at the same time. Before I left, I told her that after her honeymoon, we really should meet and catch up on old times. It's been really long since we last had a decent chat together.

I think my colleague's right - I am a sentimental person. There are times though, when I think it's an Archille's heel, more than anything else. It's so hard to let go of friendships, relationships, everything.

A friend offered to drive me back, and while I was on the car, my sec sch friend, Sophia, messaged me, asking if I'm outside playing pool. Although I wasn't, that sms hinted that she wanted to play, actually, so I gave her a call. It turned out that she just left a wedding dinner as well, and was itching to play pool, and we were relatively near each other. So I had a last minute change of plans, and we went for a few games. I think this must be the only time I was so well-dressed playing pool. Most of the time, I'm in three-quarts and slippers; today, I actually went in shirt and pants. The counter girl, who knows me by face, seemed mildly amused to see my attire. But wearing a long-sleeved shirt is really cumbersome when it comes to using the cue. I think I still prefer my t-shirt and three-quarts...

I collected my new specs today! Since I was headed for school anyway, I went to Bedok interchange area to get them, and I'm so happy I made them. Bwahaha. A handful of colleagues happened to be around as well, and I had lunch with Lena, who intercepted me before I reached school. Actually, I went back in order to finish some administrative tasks, but in the end, I decided not to bother and bring everything home to do instead, since I arranged to meet a friend later. Typing comments that go into testimonials for students can be such a tedious thing, especially when the student hardly left any impression, good or bad, on you.

I met a friend to go shopping with her, since she has commissioned me to be her fashion consultant. We searched high and low, and she tried on many pieces of apparel, but she still couldn't find something that she really wanted. She is apparently quite a meticulous and particular shopper. Anyway, I brought her to Rabbit Brand Restaurant at Lucky Plaza, courtesy of Sherry's recommendation the last time, for dinner, and she found the food pretty good too. This time round, I know the portion won't be enough for me, so other than a plate of braised nuts, I ordered two dinner sets for myself. Two! And it only made me full, not overloaded. Goodness. I do have a monstrous appetite as my friend exclaimed (in horror). After dinner, we went back for more shopping, and I must say, despite all the hoohah going on in newspapers and all about poor service here in Singapore, I think today I've seen enough salespeople with good attitudes, especially this saleslady at this new brand, Latte, in Taka shopping centre itself, who was extremely helpful, even after my friend told her that she's not buying what she tried on. So there's definitely good examples amidst all the often-quoted bad ones.

After the shopping centres were closed, we went to sit outside Taka, and idly watched the lion dance competition taking place at Taka square. We hung around to talk about quite a lot of things, and I realized she's got a pretty tough life too. Ah well...I don't recall having many friends born with a silver spoon in their mouths actually...

I went to attend this NEC Edu-IT seminar in the morning, by invitation of this guy who I liaised with to see a demo on projectors. It's essentially a talk to showcase the latest technology they have, but in any case, I find it interesting to know what's the state-of-the-art technology available right now, whether the school can afford it or not. My only conclusion is that innovation has no limits. It would be fascinating to see some of the applications they are promoting rolled out in schools here...a whole new dimension online to explore. In any case, the refreshments at Hotel Intercontinental is very good, and I got a free caricarture of myself. Apparently NEC hired two caricarture artists to randomly draw the guests' pictures, and I suppose I have a weird side-profile to capture.

In the evening I met up with an old friend for dinner. She brought me to this place somewhere in Little India, and I think the name is Bluz Cafe, but I'm not 100% sure. The fish and chips there was superb. I had a full main course plus a cheesecake for dessert, and it came up to about $12 only. We had a good time catching up, and this week is really meet-up-with-old-friends week for me. In fact, she was so nice to me that she brought me along to meet 3 of her ex-colleagues, all female, with the deliberate intention of introducing young, single and available women to me. I appreciate her sweet gesture, but at this point in time, the only thing I'm sure of is that I'm still not 100% clear on what I am looking for, and so I'd better consult God carefully on this. We went to Settlers' Cafe, this place off Clarke Quay, which has many, many unique board and card games I have never seen before, but you need to pay to play the games, or at least order certain combos that gives you free flow of games (to me also unheard of). We had a fun time, especially playing Taboo (I must save up some spare cash to buy that game...it's so fun!), and some other wacky games there. It's a nice place to hang out in bigger groups, I guess, although not cheap to do so.

I am pleasantly surprised to find out I still can get home from City Hall area by bus past midnight, even on a weekday. I have two last buses that passes by the area at 0038 am thereabouts! I just love staying where I am. Anyway, there was this man who was having a major argument with his girlfriend over the handphone. I wouldn't want to eavesdrop, but this guy was practically shouting into the phone most of the time in a quiet bus. At a moment he was more calm, he said this golden line, "Everything needs time to work out. You plant a seed, you don't expect a tree tomorrow. You think what, Jack and the beanstalk?" At one point where he suddenly shouted something out loud, I seriously thought that the bus swirved a little due to a startled bus driver.

I went out to meet an ex-colleague in the evening earlier on. Lots of things to catch up on, I realize, since there seems to be only time to meet up in the holidays for both of us. She was telling me about some of the weird stuff that had been happening to her since the last time we met, including being stalked by a stranger and harrassed by a mentally-ill woman. Amusing and disturbing at the same time, I guess. She has decided to 'employ' my services as fashion consultant, so I'll be helping her change her wardrobe of clothes soon to something more vibrant. Hehe.

I love school holidays - always a time to catch up with old friends I don't get a chance to meet up so often usually.

I have been following the news in the last few days with great concern. Around the world, there seems to be a trail of destruction and disaster, and I am concerned. But I am more affected by the fact that not many people seem to be aware, or bothered by it.

I find it a dramatic contrast considering the fairly recent tsunami disaster that devastated many parts of Asia had evoked so many reactions and the compassion of people all over the world, and here in Singapore too, but now that hurricane Katrina has ripped through New Orleans and left a trail of destruction of as large a magnitude, nobody around me seems to be talking about it at all. When the tsunami hit, the news was all over the incident. So were the public at large. But now, there seems to be minimal reporting on it. Is it merely because America is that far away? Or is it because the countries hit by the tsunami were poorer, and made the plight seem more pathetic, and people think that America can surely take care of herself, being the superpower that she is. I wonder even if Bush-haters around the world, after the war he started, would even gloat at the outcome of the disaster. Why are the deaths of ten thousand people in the USA invoking such weak response from us, relative to the tens of thousands who perished in the earthquake and tsunami? Was it because we could actually feel the tremor where we are, hence we felt closer to the disaster? I am asking all these merely because I realize that I am emotionally less affected than in that period of time the tsunami hit, and it bothers me.

The situation in New Orleans, to me, is as scary as that left by the tsunami. The devastation, lost of homes and property, drowning, deaths...all are mortifying to hear about. About one quarter of the police force is still unaccounted for, whether they have left the force, died in the disaster, or abandon their jobs to go search for relatives who may be dead or alive, and also, so far, two police officers have committed suicide after trauma. The short period immediately following the hurricane was filled with lawlessness and anarchy. Thousands of people were holed up in the Superdome for some time, hiding from the hurricane. Corpses floating by. The moment I tried to imagine the scene, it just feels like apocalypse right here, right now. In fact, I think it's only a matter of time Hollywood makes some blockbuster out of this, and maybe the tsunami disaster, since all these have the feel of those end-of-the-world movies Hollywood likes to make.

There are reportedly 5 major airplane crashes in August alone, I think, with the one in Medan being the worst, now with a death toll of 150. It is genuinely frightening how powerless we are as human beings, and how death can strike in the most varied of forms. No matter how technologically advanced man becomes, the brute force of nature can just wipe all of that out in an instant. I can only pray that the rescue and recovery efforts continue successfully.

I finally met up with my blood brudders Yuren and Kwek today. Since our tradition is to celebrate birthdays together, and since there is a lull from May to Nov without any blood brudder birthday, I figured it's about time we met up. We went to Kwek's condo at Simei for a dip in the pool, in a bid to get a tan. We soaked in the pool for a couple of hours before the sky turned gray, and we went back to the house to hide from the short and sudden storm. We had a good talk, and it has come to my turn to be the recipient of concern as to the fact I'm the last blood brudder still single and available. Argh.

I headed down to Bedok to make a brand new pair of specs, accompanied by Sherry. My eyesight has actually improved! My degree dropped by about 50, though not a lot, is now under 800 for the worse eye. Woohoo~ I shall continue to spend enormous amounts of time in front of the computer till late in the night, since such behaviour has not worsened my eyesight, but has helped it recover. Direct correlation, right? Hahaha. It costs a small bomb to make, but it's uber cool...doesn't look like what a teacher should be wearing, but hey, I'm never one to fit conventions. Not for dress sense in school, at least. I was in a celebrative mood, though I don't know why, and so I went to Bee Cheng Hiang and bought some bak kwa. I originally wanted to buy some when I got a part of my bonus in July, but it slipped my mind. So when I passed by the shop just now, I suddenly remembered, and since I had withdrawn some extra cash, I went ahead and bought a few hundred grams. Sigh...money left in the wallet never stays there for very long. -_-

On my way home, I got a call from a long-lost JC friend. Apparently, he is getting married, and he found me through a mutual friend who is getting married this Fri and has invited both of us. Interestingly, when I first became a Christian, this friend, John, went with me to FCBC. We both joined the church, but I stayed; he left after a while. The interesting thing is that he has now returned to my church, although under a different network and pastor, and is now discipled by my first cell leader JX! What a small, small world indeed.

I went K Lunch with Huijun today at Orchard Cineleisure. I was trying out many songs I have not sung at ktv before, and despite a minor cough, my voice sounded quite alright today. At least, I only went off-key at the parts I know my voice surely cannot reach. Hehe. I will slowly expand my repertoire of ktv tracks...

After that we went shopping. I was looking to spend the $150 vouchers I won at the staff dinner, and seriously, it was all gone pretty fast, pretty easily. I wanted to get a new pair of leather shoes to replace my current pair, which has developed tears at the heels. Although water doesn't really get in and all, but I think I'd better get a new pair ready in case this one breaks down. I found a nice pair of Hush Puppies, and after discount, it was about a hundred bucks. Ouch. Although I was using vouchers, I still felt the pinch. So expensive still!!! There goes 2/3 of my prize money in one purchase. The next thing I needed to get was a new wallet to replace my current one, which also has shown wear and tear, and is fraying at the sides. I bought a nice Pierre Cardin wallet, which took up another seventy bucks after discount. Fwah. I bought two items, and used up my vouchers, plus I have to top up with twenty plus dollars. I don't like that, considering my inherent bargain-hunting nature. I just hope these two things are more durable than their predecessors. Heh.

I'd received a letter from SAF telling me to report to Kranji camp last Sat for an IPPT briefing. Then because of the election (that didn't happen), it was postponed to today. I checked with some army friends and to my surprise, no one else seemed to be called up for this briefing, and one friend commented that last year he got a letter like that too, and it was for an IPPT test. I woke up way too early today, because I originally wanted to take a train to Choa Chu Kang, but then it finally struck me: why torture myself? For goodness' sake, I'm earning money now. So I took a cab down to camp instead. It turned out to be an IPPT test, and I overheard another NSman kicking up a huge fuss to the administrators at the registration counter that if it's going to be an IPPT test, then they jolly well write that in the letter instead of 'briefing'. It's almost like the SAF is lying to make us come down for it. Almost. I finally realized what the problem is. My NS unit commanding officer is too siao onz, so for our unit at least, if a guy hasn't booked an IPPT test date throughout the year up till about 3 months before his birthday, the unit will call him back to take the test. I spent $12.50 on a cab today to find out that from now on, I'll go book a test date really early, so that at least I can take the test at my leisure. I still failed; it's still the same old problem with chin-ups.

Since I'm at complaining, this is the month that I have grown to abhor. I have little issue with superstitions and beliefs of others, and to me this seventh month thing is more a tradition descended from myth and folklore than having religious significance. Whoever created this tradition obviously didn't know of the greenhouse gases, the green movement of recycling paper, and the carcinogens that may be released through combustion - if he were still alive today, I vote for capital punishment for all the harm that has been done thus far. Even though I think it's a misguided belief, and that it is a huge wastage of paper and pollution, I have little problem with my neighbours burning joss paper and all. That is, until they start burning massive quantities right along the corridor, nearer to my house rather than theirs. I mean, when I came home from camp and walked into my room, I think it looked worse than Kuala Lumpur in the recent haze. The air was thick and smoky, and there was ash all over my living room. In fact, there was a heap of ash built up right at the threshold of my door, scattered by the wind. Of course, my next door neighbours were hit as bad, but I think they aren't home right now. From somebody else's indiscriminate and selfish behaviour, we are the ones having to wash up the corridor in front of our houses, and clean up our living rooms.

Come on, those urns are placed downstairs for a good reason. You want to make the dead feel happy, fine, but at least you should consider if you are making the living really pissed in the process.

It's another long day of consultation after consultation. Overall, it feels like intensive tuition throughout the day, and I feel that I was more busy than before during normal teaching. I was basically attending to my students since 9 am straight to 2.30 with a 45-min lunch break inbetween, talking virtually non-stop. There was a hiccup with my AVC for one of the AV requests which I wasn't happy with, and I will probably have a bone to pick with one of the exco members when school reopens.

I hung around in school for phototaking with my AVC people, and after that, Sherry and I went to have an extensive 'tour' of Bedok interchange. Actually, our colleague Mrs Chua invited her to this alpha course in her church, Bethesda (Bedok and Tampines), which is something geared towards introducing Christianity to prebelievers, in a not-so-preachy manner. However, for some reason, I was roped in to accompany them there. Originally, there were supposed to be a few more colleagues, but one by one backed out, so in the end, only the original group of us went. Overall, I think it was quite good, and after the whole thing finished, Sherry and I hung out at a coffee shop to talk some more about religion in general. I hope I was of some help to her understanding of the faith...

Weilian won Jue Dui Superstar! Although I didn't follow the whole show, and only watched the auditions in full, ever since the auditions, I kinda supported him, if only for the sake that he is blind. It is not a sympathy thing, as people tend to attribute as the reason for his success thus far. I believe God is fair. What He takes away, he compensates in other areas. So I see Weilian as an icon, in which success in a contest like that can be achieved even if you aren't spectacular looking or even handicapped. If he didn't win, I would have thought that oh, it's back to the same old routine of packaging, image and branding. Sure, the girl would have made a more appealing idol, but I think Weilian's win makes a resounding statement overall. It can be something very inspiring in a world where almost everything is judged by the superficial.

How appropriate to be inspired to write a poem for teachers' day on teachers' day, thanks to Rev Eugene's message in the conference today, which gave me the title of the poem - "A High Call". I had written another poem some months back (and blogged it too), which saw print in Contact, a MOE publication for teachers, issue 9, but it was written with a more secular perspective of teaching in mind. I reposted it here, right after today's new poem, to remind myself of the spiritual difference therein.

A HIGH CALL

The call to teaching is a lofty call
That rests within the heart and Will of God,
And my divine assignment, with rewards
Beyond what eyes of flesh can see at all.
The very classroom is my sacred ground,
In which my speech and actions edify
Young minds, and strengthen hearts, and testify
To God's love, that should through my life abound.
I may not comprehend the full effect
Of what I say upon my students' lives
But I shall trust that seeds I've sown would thrive
And in their hearts take root, thus I expect
I'd say the words that at some moments key
Would change the courses of their destinies.

TEACH

The existence of our human lives
Is brief and transient, thus the greater need
For purpose worthier than material greed
To govern the ambitions for which we strive.
I teach, because each time a generation
Passes through my hands, I see effects
Of my life's influence, and know I affect
The people who would someday shape the nation.
In time, my impact will amount to much,
In molding men and women who would be
The pillars of tomorrow, and as such,
This then becomes my lasting legacy -
To start a ripple in each life I touch
That spreads as waves down future history.

God said something to me at the Christian Teachers' Conference that moved me so much it brought tears to my eyes. Apart from what was shared, taught and preached, God specially gave me some words of affirmation,

"The seeds you have sown in every student will not be taken away, and someday, you will see with your own eyes the fruits of your labour."

Awesome, isn't it, to have such assurance from God? I've always been sure of my calling, and know my purpose in teaching, but sometimes, I do wonder if I've made enough impact in my students' lives. For some I know I have, from the little things they write in the cards for teachers' day. I felt that faith was stirred up in my heart after the conference, and I hope my two colleagues who came, Jon and Lena, were as blessed through it as I was.

Anyway, I decided not to take up the freelance graphic design project after all. After some clarifications, I realized that what is required of me is somewhat menial, and I can't bring myself to do something that is, for lack of better words, simply not challenging. So, in a sense, the lack of mental stimulation makes the price offered not quite worth the hassle.