Sat 27 May

Today is the day of exasperation by SBS. I waited more than 15 min for bus number 14 to get to Holy Grace Presbyterian Church for my friend's wedding, and after that, I waited more than 20 min for the same bus number 14 to take me to Bedok. Bleah. Adding salt to injury is the fact that there were no cabs in sight, so even if I was willing to spend the money, I was still stuck. Talk about poor location...

The church wedding itself was quite nice. My friend Clayton actually sang a song for the bride's march-in, and he sounded pretty good. This came as a surprise more because I have never heard him sing before, prior to this occasion. The interesting thing I noted was that the bride didn't cry at the parents' appreciation part. So far, a vast majority of the brides would cry at that point in time of the weddings I've attended, so this woman is exceptionally composed.

Sun 28 May

I had a brief cell group before service. This week's devotional is postponed to next week instead because I had something else more important that I shared with my boys. I bumped into a student I took for practical after service, and I think she was more shocked to see me than I was.

Later, I headed down to Citylink with my gf and her cell group girls. We were supposed to attend the birthday celebration of my gf's fellow cell member, Mel (who was the one who wanted to go to Citylink), but we detoured momentarily. After she spent a long time choosing a present to buy for her friend, we resumed our lengthy journey to the west. It turned out that it was originally meant to be Mel's grandmother's birthday celebration, but coincidentally her grandmother's birthday (based on lunar calender) coincided with hers, hence they were celebrating together. Still, it felt kinda odd that we were there...but the food was good. Heh.

Mon 29 May

I went back to school today. Not a favourable start to the holidays, if you ask me. I went back to discuss something with a colleague, who requested my help to design a poster for her, and to do a make-up lesson with my chemistry class. In between, I squeezed out time to settle some administrative work, and while I was at the Admin Manager's office, I bumped into a colleague who upon seeing me recalled that I conducted a Flash course for the teachers before, and mentioned something about needing my help. Sometimes, it really doesn't pay to be too talented.

I accompanied my gf to Tecman after my day in school was over, and we stopped by Rockymaster opposite Bras Basah complex on the way. We had mushroom and chicken pie, and it was excellent! The pastry was crispy and tasty, and the fillings were delicious and had generous portions of ingredients. The mango frost drink was nice as well. I'm sure I will visit again for the sake of the pie.

Term 2 has finally wound down to a close. For the past 2 days, I've been attending a Problem-Based Learning course from 9 to 5, and it was tiring. Frankly, I think it's refreshing to be a student again once in a while, to change perspectives momentarily. It is also quite fortunate that the course facilitators from Temasek Polytechnic were quite good, and managed to engage me most of the time. I think the culprit that made me lose focus was the after-effects of a heavy meal for breaks.

I went to City Hall just now with my gf, and a couple of colleagues. We originally planned on going to the Sakae Sushi at Capitol building, right opposite St Andrew's Cathedral, but when we got there, we realized that the restaurant was no longer there. Still determined to eat Japanese food, we checked out the restaurant Hito (吉多) that has taken the place of Sakae Sushi. My gf ordered katsudon, which was delicious. The egg gravy was tasty, and the meat was tender. I ordered this chicken and mushroom pot thing (can't remember the jap name for it), which was also very nice. It's a little like claypot rice, except that it's a metal pot and not a clay one, with less burnt rice. However, the rice somehow acquires the taste of chicken, and I'm guessing the oil seeped out of the chicken in the heat and soaked the rice beneath it. I think what I ordered was pretty good too. My colleagues ordered char siew ramen, which was average though, with noodles that look different from the ramen we commonly see. The four of us shared a paper steamboat (mushroom), which was excellent as well. The best part about it was that the restaurant's prices are affordable (we paid an average of $9 to $10 per person), and there was no service charge nor GST! Considering the location of the place, I think it's quite a rare thing not to charge those.

Later on, we went to Raffles City to shop around a bit. There was an interesting Lego exhibition, and I couldn't resist taking a shot of this, even though I don't watch soccer at all:
















The resolution is not sharp enough, since it was taken with my handphone, but anyway, that stadium is constructed of Lego bricks of course, and all those 'people' in the picture are countless Lego human figures. I suppose this is an appropriate herald for the world cup...

I've also updated metamorphosis with last Sun's devotional with my boys. Finally, the sabbath has arrived, even though I still need to return to school some of the days during the holidays, and attend courses.

Things are finally winding down a bit now that it's the last week of school for this term. I went to help out a little in an elective my math colleagues are teaching, so I helped set up a 'gambling den' where the students explore the probability of the sicbo. Apparently what I've always thought to be 大小 (big or small), played with 3 dice, actually has an official name sicbo in the casinos. I suppose my ignorance stems from the fact that I've not checked out a casino before, except the one on the Superstar Virgo I went a few years ago. That was pretty fun...I think the IP kids really enjoyed it. Hopefully they manage to do their probability calculations properly and realize the house always wins.

Yesterday I caught Over the Hedge, the animation by Dreamworks. It is one short cartoon, coming up to under 1 hr 15 min. The storyline is a simple and family-friendly one. Raccoon offends bear when he loses the bear's stash of food. Bear threatens to kill raccoon if he doesn't get it all back. Raccoon decides to steal food from humans. Raccoon manipulates and deceives bunch of animals to help him. Raccoon develops a conscience along the way, and you can probably predict the rest. What makes the show a hit would be the zany characters, and in fact, the humans in the animation seem to be the really crazy ones, and yet you can imagine someone out here being exactly like what is portrayed. Compared to all the blockbusters coming out right now, this animation is probably dwarfed, but it's worth a watch if you want a good laugh. Maybe not $9.50 though.

I just finished the anime Monster. It has now taken over as the most engrossing anime I've watched thus far. There are anime titles that I enjoy, but this one is just plain absorbing. Despite this term being hectic, I compromised sleep time (what's new though?) in order to catch some episodes each day if possible. 74 episodes of seamless continuity of storyline. It is amazing how the characters throughout the story who, at first sight, appear to be unrelated to the main story, but later show to have a crucial link to the storyline. It is one dark anime though, that delves into the darkness of humanity. Despite the title, the movie is not about a real monster; in fact, there is nothing supernatural whatsoever in this animation. The anime talks about the monster within the human heart, and revolves around the results of brainwashing and human experimentation. I love the fact that every single little thing is neatly tied up by the last episodes, leaving no loose ends whatsoever. The anime is supposedly based on a graphic novel, so I assume the graphic novel should be really good too. I especially like the dramatic irony when the same incident that started the whole descent into darkness is repeated near the end, only that it becomes a saving grace that dispels the darkness. Spectacular! Monster now ranks among my top favourite anime titles.

It's college day today. I was in school by 8.30 am (on a Saturday, no less), which was about an hour ahead of most others, because of AVC being on duty. Everything went well, except for one part where my crew played the IP open house video clip instead of the corporate video clip. My IT head was frantic. My heart skipped a beat when they played the wrong clip, and straight away, I recognized the music to be different from that in the corporate video. We had to let the video run its full course, as cutting it halfway would be even worse. Later on after the performances, my crew then played the correct one. The glitch was a culmination of many little things that went wrong, which added up to an almost major disaster.

I only ate a bit of the food at the reception, because I was going around looking for my ex-students. One boy I taught got the sportsman of the year award, and a few others got academic awards. It is a satisfying feeling to see them do well. One surprise was when one student, who had always engrossed himself in council work, told me that he had applied for Teaching Award, and plans to become a teacher. I wonder if he'd become a colleague of mine years down the road. Then I can finally know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that. Heh.

After everything is over, my gf and I headed down to Marina Square. Originally, we planned to catch The Da Vinci Code there, but when we got there, the tickets were selling fast for every show up to midnight! We gave up on the idea, and checked out Kbox, which proved to remind me of Seoul Garden the last time round - the cost was supposed to be $13.50+++, which would turn out to be $19+ per person eventually. Another 40+% increase in price. Someone should seriously put a big warning sign on anything price tag with "+++". We chanced upon Xinhui and Wei Lian from Jue Dui Superstar singing a duet in the main square, which I reckon to be publicity for the opening of the fully renovated and expanded Marina Square.

I then had a bright idea, and we walked all the way to Shaw Towers, where I was sure would have tickets for the movie. I was proven right, although we had to endure a long, long queue (which I had never seen before at Shaw Towers certainly). We had a couple of hours to spare, so we went to check out a newly opened place - Icon at Bugis Point, directly opposite Bugis Junction, next to the Strudel place. It is quite a small building actually, but it has many shops in it. The 7th floor (top floor) is a big cafe, and storeys 2 to 6 have retail outlets. Although the shop spaces are very small, the clothes there are quite different from what is commonly available in shopping centres. Apparently, the designs come in from Hong Kong and Korea. I found a nice t-shirt, and my gf found a dress. The prices are moderate - definitely not as cheap as I was expecting from looking at the small building - but considering the interesting variety there, I think it is a cool new shopping place to check out if you're a girl. For guys, unfortunately, there is only about 1 shop on average per floor that has male apparel.

I wasn't particularly impressed by The Da Vinci Code, to be honest, all religious issues aside. Sure, it was an intelligent plot, based on a well-conceived conspiracy theory, but I probably enjoyed National Treasure more, considering the similarity of approach for both movies. I think there was too little action overall, and perhaps even too much dialogue. However, one thing I am glad for is that the whole premise of the conspiracy theory sounds extremely flimsy carried in the movie. I think it's just a Hollywood thing - any movie coming out from Hollywood claiming to be based on a true story would often fail to seem so. Since this is a movie based on a book written by an author that claimed it to be factual (despite major historical loopholes), I think many discerning viewers would not take it very seriously...or at least, I sure hope not. I think I actually already enjoyed it more than I should since I had not read the book prior to this, which would have served to dampen the plot twists and puzzles. I think there's solid acting from Tom Hanks and Ian McKellen, and the movie is well-paced, but it just doesn't fully engage me. Still, it is definitely blockbuster material.

Indeed, the days are filled with little things that cropped up. In the morning, I went down with my IT head to VS hostel, because apparently our students in the hostel could not access our school website. I was tasked to go along to help troubleshoot and gain exposure, so my IT head says. When we went there, we noted that the network there is really slow, as our students had complained, and after some investigation, we narrowed things down to a few possibilities. We went up to the apartment of one of our colleagues to check on the LAN point, and I was surprised to find that the apartment was actually pretty big. It had three bedrooms, and the living room is much bigger than those of the typical claustrophobia-inducing new flats. Free accomodation, in exchange for added responsibilities such as making rounds, organizing events, and sending sick hostelites to hospital, or similar emergencies. It's a little difficult to judge whether it is a good deal, actually.

Sigh. The Gomez saga (I'm referring to an incident that happened in school, which I mentioned briefly a few days ago) continues. At first, as of last week, we thought things had been resolved. Now the 'Gomez' involved is deliberately making more trouble for us. If only we had a cctv too, in the chemistry lab...

I just came back from TJC's Modern Dance club's bi-annual production, and it was spectacular. I think year by year, the standards of the performing arts groups are increasing. Sure, not every dancer is brilliant, but overall, I can see that a lot of effort must have gone in for rehearsals and choreography. All in all, I am suitably impressed. I should count myself fortunate then that I was helping the teacher-in-charge edit the poster and programme booklet in exchange for a pair of free tickets. Heh.

I'd thought things would have wound down somewhat these last 2 weeks of the term, but I was wrong.

Many little things cropped up that required my attention. From getting new projectors to helping out in doing a presentation for this Sat's College Day, rehearsals to adminstrative tasks, the nitty gritty had effectively sapped up a sizable amount of time. The only consolation is that my lectures for this term are over and done with, and the next lectures I will be giving will be after the June holidays. Now, I'm really looking forward to the holidays. This term has been hectic in its own way, which somehow had caught me unawares.

The last couple of days I've been spending time with my gf. The poor girl got gastric flu, so I went over to her place to keep her company. I find it oddly interesting that I have never heard of gastric flu till the recent few years, or at least, not in such alarming frequency. These days, I hear about colleagues, friends, students, and etc, who are down with gastric flu fairly often. I wonder if it's some mutated strain of flu in the past few years...anyway, I think there is a flu bug going around the staff room yet again. Last week I was struck by it as well, but thank God I recovered on my own without needing to see a doctor. Frankly, I didn't think I could have afforded to take MC anyway - now that is how hectic this term feels like.

Today, I was pulled into a meeting with some Japanese delegates from a huge educational corporation by my HOD. Apparently they are interested in how we teach our integrated programme, so my HOD was presenting to them, and I just added my two cents' worth in the Q&A interaction. I went to the meeting all prepared to apply what little Japanese I know to greet them, but it turned out that their English standard was fair. The only lady among them teaches English in fact, and the rest were at least proficient, albeit heavily accented. At the end of the session, they sealed my impression of the Japanese being a polite people in the way they thanked us profusely. I find it an ironic discovery that Japan, which I view to be a land of cutting-edge technology, is conservative in their teaching approaches, and has not tapped into the use of IT. I was quite surprised to find that we had, in fact, something to offer, so I guess our education system is moving into a new frontier indeed.

Sun 14 May

I went to the morning adult service, which is something I haven't done since I was in the army. Ever since youth service was started, I have not visited the adult service at all. The place is more packed, and I felt out of place, being the only one jumping around in a 100m radius. I had cell group with my boys after that, and I shared the same rhema word I shared with my own g12 brothers last Thu, but it elicited weak responses. Sometimes, it is frustrating to be leading kids; I have no idea whether anything I taught them really sank in.

In the afternoon, I headed down to my gf's grandmother's place. It is an interesting tradition indeed, that her mother's side relatives celebrate mothers' day altogether. So there was a buffet lunch, and all her aunts were there as well. It was very festive indeed. Among my relatives, mothers' day has always been celebrated by each family individually, so this is a new concept to me.

In the evening, my gf and I took my mum to Suntec's Crystal Jade La Mian and Xiao Long Bao (what a long name to type!) for dinner. Tada~ My wonderful mum~

















I was blinking when the camera took that shot, but this photo had the best shot of my mum for the night, so I shall sacrifice myself. Heh. I enjoyed the food, especially this dish that had prawns fried in salted egg yolk. We then went to Carrefour to do some grocery shopping, since we were going to take a cab home anyway, so might as well buy some of the heavier stuff. I discovered an interesting brand of liquor while I was there though - "Teacher's", but I can't remember if it was rum or what. The worst part of the day was waiting for a cab. The queue was monstrously long, which was bad enough, but there were hardly any empty cabs coming to the taxi stand after a while. We waited for about 45 min, which to me was a disgustingly big waste of time, before we threw in the towel and called for a cab. I still have the conspiracy theory (which a couple of cab drivers verified actually) that some of the cabs collaborate and hide somewhere, forcing desperate passengers to call for a cab before showing up to get an extra $2.50. Bleah. I could feel myself growing older as I waited there.

Mon 15 May

Today was an eventful day in school. In order not to incriminate anyone publicly, I can only say that some of my colleagues and I encountered our own little Gomez saga, which wasted a lot of our time to uncover the truth.

In the evening, I went to catch M.I.III with my gf. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we had a change of plan and ended up catching the movie at Princess, the independent cinema in Bedok, for the sake of convenience. I've always thought the sound system was alright, and the screen was of a decent size, but I don't like watching movies there for one reason, no matter how convenient it is for me to go there from TJC - the patrons. Because of the heartland location, I think many parents lug their kids along, and kids, by nature, do not necessarily know when to keep quiet. Today's encounter was with a seemingly bored and curious kid who talked pretty audibly. I don't see also why people do not have the basic etiquette of switching off their handphones or putting them to silent mode. I believe that these same people whose handphones went off in their loud ringtones would not do the same had they been in some GV cinema or something.

I think M.I.III is a well-done sequel. I liked the first M.I. movie for its plot; I disliked the second M.I. movie for a weak plot and too much ridiculous action. M.I.III has a good pace, a decent storyline, a cool villain, and believable action. I don't understand why some of my friends say that the stunts made them go "Yeah, right"...quite apparently these folks must not have caught M.I.II, which takes the cake for having those kind of stunts. The way that M.I.III was filmed made the action very much in-your-face and gave it a sense of realism, which is a feat in itself. Anyway, the movie is called Mission Impossible, so naturally, the action should reflect impossibility right?

A couple of random thoughts...

Weird thefts

I think in the recent couple of years, there have been many weird thefts that have taken place right here in Singapore. I can understand why people would steal, for instance, handphones, but so far, I've heard of drain grills, pork, and just today, incense brazers. Considering how the news harp on the decreasing unemployment, it seems to me the desperate people are getting really desperate. Drain grills are sold for maybe scrap metal, pork I suppose can be sold to restaurants and markets, but used incense brazers? I'm pretty sure they aren't made of gold or something. I am more shocked that there are people that are not the least bit superstitious in order to try that.

What is the world coming to...?

Terminator in the making

Check these out:




















The 'girl' on the left, for your information, is Actroid, an android released in 2003, Japan. On the right is eveR-1, an android released this year in Korea. So far, the scientists have not been able to give it full limb movement, so they are able to have hand gestures and movements, and some facial expressions, and head movements. According to the news, eveR-1 has a vocabulary of 400 words, and is able to respond to some extent to people. I am pretty sure I will be able to see the full development of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in my lifetime. As technology progresses, I'm sure it won't take another decade to produce an android capable of speech, and most movements the human body is able to make. The anime Ghost in the Shell suddenly doesn't seem that distant a science fiction reality anymore.

I am also pretty sure that after the scientists have a field day celebrating their success in making AI for the glory of scientific advancement, some enterprising people will definitely make these androids into high-priced sex dolls. Just look at how technology has been warped along the recent years especially. The advent of the internet proved one thing - the only dotcoms that survived that dotcom bubble that had burst were mostly pornographic. Otherwise, they were probably related to gambling. The moment 3G was made available to the masses overseas, it hit the news that the technology was used to stream porn (in some countries...can't offhand remember though). Just look at the simple camera phone, and already voyeurs are using the technology for their own ends (I overheard a couple of army mates casually discussing how they effectively 'utilized' their handphones). If not so, then why are both androids made to look like pretty women as far as possible? At the same time, I'm sure the military would be the next to move in to develop this further. They have already made small robots to go into dangerous areas to carry out specific missions, so why not take it a level further?

I tell you, the end of the world is coming. Maybe I've watched too much Terminator/Matrix/Ghost in the Shell.

Wed 10 May

Another day packed almost end-to-end because of the practicals. Adding salt to injury was a technical rehearsal for college day, which, as far as I can see, did not amount to anything much for the AVC. Frankly, I still don't know why I had to stay back those couple of hours doing nothing except waiting with my students in the control room to settle perhaps a grand total of 2 instructions. Diem perdidi.

Thu 11 May

Another day lengthened by the practicals. After that, I went home to catch a quick nap, then rushed down to J's place for cell group, followed by a mahjong session. Recently, I've really understood how hard it is to be a good spiritual father, especially when you want the rhema word of God, and you really need to seek the Lord hard. On a more positive note, you also know that there is greater impact. I will upload this week's devotional on my metamorphosis site as well.

We played till about 3 am, because JH had to work the next day in the late morning. It was a little disappointing, in the sense that I was expecting to play through the night. It didn't help that I lost money, although it was only a measly 60 cents. Fortunately JH was kind enough to send us all home, stopping by King Albert Park's MacDonald's drive-through for us to grab some late night munching.

Fri 12 May

Today just seemed to suck, for some reason, where it felt like everything went wrong. The original plan was to meet my cousins for dinner, but another cousin JH suggested mahjong, so we all agreed. JH and his wife were at Causeway Point watching a movie, so I headed north slightly earlier to accompany HJ (hmmm...today's abbreviated names revolve largely around 'J' and 'H') to shop. I managed to find two shirts and two pairs of pants that I like, fortunately. I actually bumped into 3 friends throughout the evening...I couldn't quite believe it, of course. Even in the north, I can bump into people I know. Argh. When all the cousins arrived in succession, we waited for an hour to get a seat in Ding Tai Fung. I was not particularly impressed with the food last time, and I still am not; the main reason we went was because JH hadn't tried the food before and wanted to sample it.

After that, we headed down to JH's place for our mahjong session. My cousin KX was the big winner for the night, with many uncannily lucky wins that we couldn't really believe it. I was fortunate to have lost only $3.10 compared to the other two. What ended the day on a bad note for me was that we stopped playing at around 12.30 am. Again, somehow I expected it to be later, and I think added to yesterday's shortened session, this felt like a double whammy.

Herein lies the sucky part - JH's place is in Jurong West. I had to ask myself 'how much do I really value kinship?' because it does rankle me that I had to take a $20 cab ride home. I have an unconventional thinking system which thinks that if I were to stay out past midnight, and have to foot the midnight charge, then I ought to stay out as late as I can, else the midnight charge seems like it isn't worth it. But this isn't what really bothers me. What bothers me is that out of the whole lot of them, I am the only one who stays (relatively) east; the rest of them all stay in the far west/northwest. It bothers me that almost everytime we hang out, I spend about an hour travelling to the west/northwest/north(for today), and takes a $20 cab ride home or spend another hour going back, when there are one or two among them who drive, and could easily fetch everyone home without much of a detour had we gone somewhere near central. Note to self: next time when I move to a bigger place, I must have my own mahjong table, so that sometimes people can come over to my place to play instead.

The ironic thing is that it bothers me more that this issue bothers me in the first place, that somewhere inside me, I feel that in thinking this way, I'm being calculative.

Added to some other issues that cropped up in the day, I feel residually gloomy, which is rarely a mood I feel. I think it's the past few long packed days that snowballed to this effect.

Sigh. -_-

Beauty is found in such simple things...

DAYBREAK

Sponge clouds outlined with vermillion glaze
Lavender sky painted with long golden rays—
An eye of fire marks the break of day!

I forgot to mention one important point that made yesterday such a long day - I was down with flu. As of today, I still haven't recovered. Sadly enough, I do not intend to get a MC since my class is so behind time that I can't afford to lose tomorrow. I still find it hard to accept the fact that due to all the holidays, election, and etc, my J1 class will lose a whopping 10 out of 30 periods for this term. I'm sure when the ministry implemented the maxim of Teach Less Learn More, they didn't have this in mind.

Author's note: The following is a silly joke, written out of boredom by a man stuck at home due to flu.

I had devised a strategy to run for elections in about ten years' time. From next year onwards, I will take over as CIP coordinator, thereby planning many charitable works in the vicinity of the school in Bedok area, and actively participate as well. I will join in the LEO club teachers-in-charge team, and volunteer to plan the annual Old Clothes Collection event, and join in to help collect from door-to-door, making sure that I will speak to the residents. Over the ten years, I must make sure that I cover as many blocks as possible, to maximise exposure. I will not change my specs for a decade so that there's a higher chance of recall when they see me running as a candidate. By then I will have at least 6 batches of graduated students who will recognize me, and there is a high likelihood that they live in Bedok area. Then after a decade I will contest East Coast GRC, or whichever GRC the Bedok area falls into. Bwahahaha. Maybe I should start wearing all-white more often too.

Thu 4 May

I spent an afternoon waiting for my gf so that I could spend the evening with her. The good thing is that I managed to clear a lot of work in the meantime. Heh.

Fri 5 May

It was a short day in school today because it was the eve of polling day, and all the schools needed to clear up early. I had originally planned to end my last class early so that I could make it back to my assigned polling station (the community centre near my place) on time. However, a colleague suggested sharing cab back, since he lives in the vicinity, so I ended my class at 12.50 as it was supposed to, leaving me 1 hr and 10 min to reach home. That ought to be enough, right?

Wrong. I was there waiting for a cab for half an hour. In the meantime, we moved around different roads and all, covering about 4 bus stops' worth of distance. And we still had to call for a cab. The most ironic and frustrating thing to know was that if I had taken a bus home, I would have been home earlier. The coup de grace was that there was a jam along Geylang stretch, which my colleague needed to pass through to reach his polling station. Argh.

I ended up with no time to eat lunch, reaching the place at 2.10 pm, 10 min late. I bought a bun along the way to fill my stomach momentarily, and got to work. We had to set up the polling station by 5 pm, and hand over to the police. I was quite pleased to be working with the folks on my team. Generally, we were cohesive, and we managed to get the setup done very early. In fact, a few of us went around, and foresaw possible problems on polling day, and set up counteractive measures (which proved useful). On the other hand, our neighbours, who shared the same multipurpose hall for their polling places, mostly stood around with arms folded, or were sitting around slacking. We were done, and ready to leave, and we were held up only because our neighbours kept wanting certain changes to the arrangements, and upsetting our side. Their team had 1.5 times more people, and they got less work done. In fact, our smaller team helped set up a barricade of 12 table-tennis tables (set vertically, of course) which was meant to be shared. Eventually, we still left earlier, after their team saw something we set up, and copied us later.

Bleah. As I stated in the previous post, I can't stand inefficiency.

Sat 6 May

At last, the tough day has arrived. We arrived at the polling station at 6.15 am, only to find our things moved somewhat. No prize to guess who was guilty. We started setting up everything, and by 7.45 am we were waiting for the onslaught. My station served the immediate area I am staying in, consisting largely of elderly citizens. Therefore, being the aunties and uncles they are, they arrived exceptionally early. We had unending voter traffic from 8 am when we opened the gates to almost 11 am. I was standing almost the whole time, and in a place without much ventilation. Being the kind who perspires easily, I was there, legs aching and sweat soaked. Worse still, because my area had many elderly citizens, we were helping to push wheelchairs, or assisting those who had difficulty walking. It was another lesson of humility and joy to be serving them, and despite fatigue, I found it easy to smile today, especially since most of them seem appreciative of what we were doing. I think we only had a couple of nasty people who made trouble for us out of the whole day, which was very, very fortunate.

I went to buy chicken rice home to eat, changed my shirt and made it back within half an hour - the good thing of having the polling station more or less downstairs of my place. This time round, I was rotating shift with someone else, and finally got to sit. I was issuing ballot papers, and saw many of my neighbours, who actually thought I volunteered to help. Later in the afternoon I took a 45 min break to go home, rest a while, and shower. By late afternoon, the traffic dwindled to a trickle. The good thing about old folks is that they wake up quite early, and are kiasu enough to come down early, which saved us a lot of trouble by late evening. I took a dinner break for half an hour, and returned for the final hour, which saw very few people. And the amazing thing was that for my side, more than 90% of the voters had voted! It appears to me that the old folks were definitely more concerned about elections than the younger generation perhaps.

By 8 pm, we started packing up. I was assigned to be the leader of the team, and I think I did a good job of planning ahead. I had delegated tasks during the course of the day, and by 8.15 pm, we had packed up almost everything except for one table still being used. Our neighbours, with less equipment than us, were still halfway done, with many people using 'eye power' by the side. Originally the community centre OM wanted to do an inventory check after everyone was done, so my team had to wait around for our neighbours, who were still standing around doing nothing much. After a while, he realized the situation (I believe), and decided to check our inventory first. My team left at 8.30 pm, with our neighbours still stranded there. Good teamwork goes a long, long way. I still can't stand the sight of inefficiency - fortunately, my time was not wasted by them, else I would have gone over to help, (and made caustic comments about it, of course) just so that I could go home earlier. Bleah.

14 hrs and 15 min, subtracting 1 hr and 45 min of break, leaves 12.5 hours of work today. Now this was a looooooong day indeed.

The unique moment 01:02:03 04.05.06 has just passed! (1.02 am, and 3 seconds, 4th May 2006, by the way).

The next unique moment to look out for is probably 06:06:06 06.06.06.

Mon 1 May

A quiet day spent without any labour, the way it ought to be.

Tue 2 May

It's back to school after a long weekend. I had to attend an election briefing, so I released my TA class early, to their apparent delight of course. I rushed down to MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) auditorium in time, impressed by the extremely tight security at the place. There's the whole metal detector and x-ray thing as found in the airport...I guess they have to make sure the security is airtight - if anything happens in that place, it would be a horrible loss of face I'm sure. The highlight of the day was that I bumped into my blood brudder there, seated just a row ahead of me, and we were both grimacing away as the briefing proceeded.

They showed two informative videos about how to set up the polling station, and the various roles of the Presiding Officers on the day itself. What made us grimace were the little things. For instance, at one point when the video was demonstrating how to set up the enquiry point, they actually showed the table, chair, and telephone, and then labelled "telephone" beneath it. Wow...I never knew what a telephone looked like in these past 28 years of my life! Gee, it looks like that? -_-

During the FAQ session, someone asked about dress code for the day, and the speaker replied, "Maybe not long sleeve shirt...short sleeve shirt should be ok, and pants - what you would normally wear to work." One smart aleck (whom I recognize but can't remember why I would know him) stood up and asked, "But my working attire is t-shirt and shorts. Are you sure I wear that?" Quite evidently a PE teacher. Come on, let's all give a chorus of 'duh' for him please. Apparently the first part of the speaker's reply was completely lost on him. It's people like that who make such briefings look like a waste of time, and possibly lower the public standing of the teaching profession.

After the briefing, we had to break out into our respective groupings by polling places. My group took a horribly long time to end the session because some of the people in my group were complaining about a great many things, mainly about individual roles and schedules, and pointing out some mistakes the ARO (guy in charge) made with this-and-that. Essentially they were fault-finding without contributing solutions. I got pretty irritated after a while (I can't stand people who only know how to complain, but do not offer suggestions to improve the situation), and interrupted them all, drafting up a role allocation with shift schedule within a minute. The ARO was visibly grateful and impressed, and I think if I had not stepped up to interrupt the stupid exchange, I would be stuck there for another half an hour at least.

I cannot stand inefficiency. Bleah.

When that ordeal was over, I went to Novena Square with blood brudder Yuren for a drink and quick catching-up. It is interesting to note that we had to catch up under such circumstances. It seems like working people who are attached generally have little free time left for others, even if it's a friend for 23 years. Sad but true.

Wed 3 May

I think today is the day when enough students get on my nerves. One of the classes I am taking for practical only had half the class late by 10 min and more, and it is evident that the lateness was simply because they strolled to the class. The other half of the class had the same previous lesson and managed to reach within 5 min. I ticked them off anyway. Students nowadays move like slugs...so much so that I am impressed whenever I see a student who walks either with a sense of purpose or urgency. It's as if the whole school has a speed limit of 0.3 m per second pasted all over.

On my bus-ride home I caught two students behaving intimately in public in TJC school uniform. I ticked them off too, and demanded the names and cg, but I think the guy lied. Here begins my criminal investigation...if I find that his information is fake, he'd better not let me see him anywhere within the school campus. The intimate behaviour deserved a warning; lying to me deserves far, far worse.

I was surrogate spiritual father to my cell group today since he's away on his honeymoon. I delivered a mini-sermon in FCBC-ish style, and I think it is the rhema word of God for the cell, since it unearthed many sentiments and triggered reflections in the rest. After cell group, we went for a quick supper off Holland Village. I'm looking forward to our mahjong session next week...I would surely need to unwind by Thursday since I'm taking a total of 8 extra hours of lessons next week. Argh.

Some quick thoughts I've been having: does anyone else notice that lately, thunder peals have been sounding like fireworks? It used to be some low, long, dull sound, but now there's usually crackling, as if many little explosions went off. Odd. Is something happening to our atmosphere? While reading the newspapers today, what struck me most was not the Gomez saga or the various electoral issues, but this little article that warned about global warming. I think the chemical engineer in me is still pretty active to be more concerned about such things. The report says that the greenhouse gases keep going up in count, and the Tibetian glaciers are melting. Suddenly, scenes of The Day After Tomorrow flashed past my mind.

Maybe the end of the world is coming? Heh.