- Ladies, choose your husband wisely. Especially if you are pretty (I'm not referring to Britney Spears, by the way), rich, or famous, or some combination of the three. The statistics of wholesome, healthy marriages for celebrities (which generally satisfy the three attributes) seem to be extraordinarily bad.
- No matter how forever-lasting the marriage may seem, never make any sex video. Just in case you end up being threatened with it some time down the road by a husband who turns out to be not what you think he is made out to be. Worse still, if it accidentally leaks out to other people, and you end up the next Tammy NYP.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Wed 29 Nov
I started the morning going to Sim Lim square with my colleague JL to get some last minute equipment for the audio-visual side before the accounts close for the year. After a futile search, we went to Parkway Parade instead, where we found what we needed at Harvey Norman. We then headed back to school where I managed to tie up some administrative loose ends. After a quick lunch, I headed down to Chinatown with my gf, SX and ZH to Partyworld.
It's been a while since I last went to sing karaoke, or at least, that was my impression. I still don't really like Partyworld for a couple of reasons. I don't like seeing that countdown timer showing me how much time I have left, even though I acknowledge the efficacy of the device, because I think it withdraws the human touch. The other reason is that there is always cigarettee smoke. Lately, I've been to the Shenton Way outlet twice, and today, the Chinatown outlet, but in all three sessions, the whole room will reek of smoke, even though no one in our room smokes. In that sense, I prefer Kbox, where, if not for the regulations, at least the crowd that goes that seems to have less smokers among them. Anyway, we had a good time. I tested out some new songs I've been listening to for the first time, and it turned out alright.
We had dinner at Smith Street, and I tried the Ngoh Hiang. It was not bad, but actually every time I eat there I'm relatively unimpressed. Maybe it's fantastic for the tourists, but I think the best of each variety of food is not really represented there. I think it's time to explore the various coffee shops on the sides.
After that, I headed down to cell group. A packed day indeed. Cell group today was more interesting because for the first time, my cell leader and his wife combined forces for the session, and my spiritual brothers and I had combined worship and prayer with my cell leader's wife's spiritual daughters. Sounds complicated, but it would be more precise than to just refer to them as sisters. For now, the ways the guys and the gals operate seem rather different, but I hope that as time goes by, I'll see more similarities than differences.
Thu 30 Nov
I met my gf in the late morning to go to Sentosa. There were these cable car tickets that were given to us for one of the staff functions a while back, but we missed the chance for the ride before the dinner at Mount Faber because of our Masters' course tutorial. Since the expiry date is today, we figured we might as well put it to use. She has been wanting to check out the 4D Magix show there. Anyway, on the bus to Sentosa, I noticed this funny sign.
It says "foods and drinks allowed in the bus". Actually there is a very big, underscored word "No" above it, but I think the driver stuck the sign too far up that anyone seated from the three row of seats or further behind will see exactly what is captured on camera. Dunno about you, but I find it amusing.
We headed down to Imbiah Lookout where the cinema is, and bought tickets. There's a printable coupon that nets a 25% discount, which brings the cost down to $12. Not exactly cheap for a 15 min experience, but I think it's worth experiencing. Here's a picture of me with a silly pose.
Tada. Imbiah Lookout. The show right now is Pirates. Not Pirates of the Caribbean, but just a short comedy featuring Leslie Nielson (of Naked Gun fame). With the special eyewear, the images appear to be right in front of you. It's amazing what a distortion of the eyes' perception of depth can achieve. It's technically physics in action with high-tech gizmos. The interesting effects that come with the movie are blasts of cold wind when the ship is sailing, chairs that rock, tilt, vibrate during different plot points, sharp blasts of air from below the chair at your legs when you are supposedly besieged by (the pincers of) crabs, and the best thing was that the chair in front of you will squirt water at your face at certain scenes involving splashing. I think what made the experience more interesting was this Caucasian lady who was cackling away from start to end of the show. And I do mean cackling - she could easily do the voiceover for anyone acting as a witch. There's also a lot of screaming from the ladies when there were bees and bats seemingly hovering very near the face.
After the show, we took the long overdue cable car ride back to Harbourfront. The view from being suspended off a cable in a metal cabin is pretty good. Snapping a shot through the windows doesn't do it justice though.
A self-taken photo of ourselves. Oops, didn't mean to advertise Canon projector for free though.
We headed down to Vivocity for some lunch and shopping. Alas, Kim Gary & Beyond Restaurant is still under renovations! Darn. I've been meaning to check that place out, and it still isn't done up yet. Man, I think they're waiting for the official 6th Dec Opening to be done. In the end, we settled for Long John Silver's. We bought jackets from I.P. Zone because there was a sale, and also that the place was cold, since we were going to watch a movie later. The place is about 95% open thereabouts, so there's quite a lot to walk around and see. What caught our attention was this place upstairs in the open air.
It's a big, shallow pool for kids to play in. I think it's a smart move. Kids probably love water, seeing how they can actually desire to get wet with dirty water at a fountain in Bugis Junction, so I think the developers for Vivocity thought that it would be better to let the kids look like they are having fun than being a nuisance. The water looks brown in the photo only because the floor tiles are brown, and not that it is dirty.
We watched Battle of Wits. The moment I had heard that the movie is adapted from a Japanese comic, I knew that the odds of the movie having a conventional happy ending was about 1 in 10. Anyway, the movie was pretty interesting. I'm a sucker for a few genres of movies, and the big-army-plus-cities-in-siege is something I like to watch, though the so-called brilliant strategies of guarding a city have been rehashed for millions of times. The nice parts of the show were the underlying message of 'war is bad' conveyed through the protagonist's questioning and philosophy, the principles that men are willing to die for, loyalty and fealty, and the ugliness of human nature. Two generals stand in parallel in the show, in my opinion - one sacrificed soldiers in order to defend his pride, and another sacrificed a prince and troops to advance his interests. There are the regular, expected political manipulations and betrayals, and the show is credibly interesting, except for the romance, which I thought was ridiculously out of place or not sufficiently developed to justify the existence of it in the movie.
I saw a trailer for an upcoming Korean horror movie called Cinderella (I think), based on cosmetic surgery gone cursed. Man, it's amazing what material horror movies can make use of these days. Off the top of my head, the movies have used the tv/videotape, phone call, sms, photographs, game, water, website, toilets/bathrooms/bathtubs/shower, sirens, little kids, sisters, stairs, spirals, wigs, shoes, candy, and now cosmetic surgery. When I say horror, I mean ghosts and the supernatural, and not the crazed-person-kills-everyone-except-lead-actor/actress genre which ranges from chainsaw massacres to innovative traps, a.k.a. Saw. What will they come up with next?
I started the morning going to Sim Lim square with my colleague JL to get some last minute equipment for the audio-visual side before the accounts close for the year. After a futile search, we went to Parkway Parade instead, where we found what we needed at Harvey Norman. We then headed back to school where I managed to tie up some administrative loose ends. After a quick lunch, I headed down to Chinatown with my gf, SX and ZH to Partyworld.
It's been a while since I last went to sing karaoke, or at least, that was my impression. I still don't really like Partyworld for a couple of reasons. I don't like seeing that countdown timer showing me how much time I have left, even though I acknowledge the efficacy of the device, because I think it withdraws the human touch. The other reason is that there is always cigarettee smoke. Lately, I've been to the Shenton Way outlet twice, and today, the Chinatown outlet, but in all three sessions, the whole room will reek of smoke, even though no one in our room smokes. In that sense, I prefer Kbox, where, if not for the regulations, at least the crowd that goes that seems to have less smokers among them. Anyway, we had a good time. I tested out some new songs I've been listening to for the first time, and it turned out alright.
We had dinner at Smith Street, and I tried the Ngoh Hiang. It was not bad, but actually every time I eat there I'm relatively unimpressed. Maybe it's fantastic for the tourists, but I think the best of each variety of food is not really represented there. I think it's time to explore the various coffee shops on the sides.
After that, I headed down to cell group. A packed day indeed. Cell group today was more interesting because for the first time, my cell leader and his wife combined forces for the session, and my spiritual brothers and I had combined worship and prayer with my cell leader's wife's spiritual daughters. Sounds complicated, but it would be more precise than to just refer to them as sisters. For now, the ways the guys and the gals operate seem rather different, but I hope that as time goes by, I'll see more similarities than differences.
Thu 30 Nov
I met my gf in the late morning to go to Sentosa. There were these cable car tickets that were given to us for one of the staff functions a while back, but we missed the chance for the ride before the dinner at Mount Faber because of our Masters' course tutorial. Since the expiry date is today, we figured we might as well put it to use. She has been wanting to check out the 4D Magix show there. Anyway, on the bus to Sentosa, I noticed this funny sign.
It says "foods and drinks allowed in the bus". Actually there is a very big, underscored word "No" above it, but I think the driver stuck the sign too far up that anyone seated from the three row of seats or further behind will see exactly what is captured on camera. Dunno about you, but I find it amusing.
We headed down to Imbiah Lookout where the cinema is, and bought tickets. There's a printable coupon that nets a 25% discount, which brings the cost down to $12. Not exactly cheap for a 15 min experience, but I think it's worth experiencing. Here's a picture of me with a silly pose.
Tada. Imbiah Lookout. The show right now is Pirates. Not Pirates of the Caribbean, but just a short comedy featuring Leslie Nielson (of Naked Gun fame). With the special eyewear, the images appear to be right in front of you. It's amazing what a distortion of the eyes' perception of depth can achieve. It's technically physics in action with high-tech gizmos. The interesting effects that come with the movie are blasts of cold wind when the ship is sailing, chairs that rock, tilt, vibrate during different plot points, sharp blasts of air from below the chair at your legs when you are supposedly besieged by (the pincers of) crabs, and the best thing was that the chair in front of you will squirt water at your face at certain scenes involving splashing. I think what made the experience more interesting was this Caucasian lady who was cackling away from start to end of the show. And I do mean cackling - she could easily do the voiceover for anyone acting as a witch. There's also a lot of screaming from the ladies when there were bees and bats seemingly hovering very near the face.
After the show, we took the long overdue cable car ride back to Harbourfront. The view from being suspended off a cable in a metal cabin is pretty good. Snapping a shot through the windows doesn't do it justice though.
A self-taken photo of ourselves. Oops, didn't mean to advertise Canon projector for free though.
We headed down to Vivocity for some lunch and shopping. Alas, Kim Gary & Beyond Restaurant is still under renovations! Darn. I've been meaning to check that place out, and it still isn't done up yet. Man, I think they're waiting for the official 6th Dec Opening to be done. In the end, we settled for Long John Silver's. We bought jackets from I.P. Zone because there was a sale, and also that the place was cold, since we were going to watch a movie later. The place is about 95% open thereabouts, so there's quite a lot to walk around and see. What caught our attention was this place upstairs in the open air.
It's a big, shallow pool for kids to play in. I think it's a smart move. Kids probably love water, seeing how they can actually desire to get wet with dirty water at a fountain in Bugis Junction, so I think the developers for Vivocity thought that it would be better to let the kids look like they are having fun than being a nuisance. The water looks brown in the photo only because the floor tiles are brown, and not that it is dirty.
We watched Battle of Wits. The moment I had heard that the movie is adapted from a Japanese comic, I knew that the odds of the movie having a conventional happy ending was about 1 in 10. Anyway, the movie was pretty interesting. I'm a sucker for a few genres of movies, and the big-army-plus-cities-in-siege is something I like to watch, though the so-called brilliant strategies of guarding a city have been rehashed for millions of times. The nice parts of the show were the underlying message of 'war is bad' conveyed through the protagonist's questioning and philosophy, the principles that men are willing to die for, loyalty and fealty, and the ugliness of human nature. Two generals stand in parallel in the show, in my opinion - one sacrificed soldiers in order to defend his pride, and another sacrificed a prince and troops to advance his interests. There are the regular, expected political manipulations and betrayals, and the show is credibly interesting, except for the romance, which I thought was ridiculously out of place or not sufficiently developed to justify the existence of it in the movie.
I saw a trailer for an upcoming Korean horror movie called Cinderella (I think), based on cosmetic surgery gone cursed. Man, it's amazing what material horror movies can make use of these days. Off the top of my head, the movies have used the tv/videotape, phone call, sms, photographs, game, water, website, toilets/bathrooms/bathtubs/shower, sirens, little kids, sisters, stairs, spirals, wigs, shoes, candy, and now cosmetic surgery. When I say horror, I mean ghosts and the supernatural, and not the crazed-person-kills-everyone-except-lead-actor/actress genre which ranges from chainsaw massacres to innovative traps, a.k.a. Saw. What will they come up with next?
posted by MadPoet : 11:32 PM Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Sun 26 Nov
Today's nursery duty went pretty well actually. There was a little girl who was crying when she came in, but my gf managed to establish a bond with her and the girl was stuck to her all the way through. She responded to me as well, so this was a big improvement from the unresponsive kids the last two weeks. We also had to go participate in the story narration segment, and act as Jesus' disciples. It was quite fun. Apparently, it is quite obvious when someone has prior experience in Touchkidz, because my spontaneity and the lady narrator's excellent handling of the kids were noticeable. Even though I was previously involved in teaching the older boys, the story telling part isn't that different in terms of play-acting.
After the duty, I went to check out the exhibitions with Junhao. We dropped by the Adidas warehouse sale, and we were horrified to see the singlet for last year's Standard Chartered marathon available for sale, for only $5! Suddenly all the effort and pain seems cheapened by the fact any Tom, Dick or Harry can just pop up, buy it and wear it. No pride sia. Anyway, I don't wear the singlet out, except sometimes to go downstairs to buy things. Since I'm not participating in this year's marathon, maybe I'll wait till next year to buy this year's singlet, and go to antagonize the rest of my cell group who is joining. Bwahaha. Actually, the irritating thing is that I think they recycled the singlet, because this year's singlets are the same as last year's 21 km singlet (except the year is updated to 2006), but last year at least had some differentiation between the 10 km, 21 km, and 42 km runners' singlets. So I guess people who want to proudly proclaim their achievements have to wear the medals around their necks when they go out. Hehe.
I also checked out the Popular books sale, which didn't have much. I think it was targetted more at the kids who are having holidays right now. I saw one of my students from AVC there working as a promoter. I also overheard her telling her colleague that I am her teacher, and the colleague exclaimed out very loudly in Mandarin, "He's a teacher?" To this day, I still take comments that imply that I don't look like a teacher as a compliment. Go figure. Anyway, I'm quite proud of her. Any student who bothers to take up holiday jobs for whatever reason is worthy of some respect, as long as they learn the value of money through working for it.
Mon 27 Nov
I headed down to Funan to check out new games. There were some new titles that just hit the stores, and what better time to get them and play them than now? I bought Splinter Cell - Double Agent. It's a tactical espionage action game - not the kind that goes around shooting everything on screen, but the kind that needs you to move around unnoticed, sneakily take out guards and all, and complete the mission. A spy rather than a soldier. I think I'm not that good at it though, and am still trying to get the hang of the controls. Yeah...something to occupy me now that I completed Enchant Arms. It's not that bad a game, but too linear. I miss the old games like Final Fantasy. Am I doomed to have to get a PS3 or something? Can Microsoft get more good RPG games for the Xbox 360 console? Sigh.
Tue 28 Nov
I noticed I have less to blog during the holidays. I'm either watching anime, playing games, or fiddling with web/graphic design when I'm at home. Technically, this is not a complaint, since it implies that I'm enjoying the long break. Alas, there are still some administative things left to do, like planning for next year, and settling budget issues, but I won't let them spoil my holidays. Bwahaha.
Today's nursery duty went pretty well actually. There was a little girl who was crying when she came in, but my gf managed to establish a bond with her and the girl was stuck to her all the way through. She responded to me as well, so this was a big improvement from the unresponsive kids the last two weeks. We also had to go participate in the story narration segment, and act as Jesus' disciples. It was quite fun. Apparently, it is quite obvious when someone has prior experience in Touchkidz, because my spontaneity and the lady narrator's excellent handling of the kids were noticeable. Even though I was previously involved in teaching the older boys, the story telling part isn't that different in terms of play-acting.
After the duty, I went to check out the exhibitions with Junhao. We dropped by the Adidas warehouse sale, and we were horrified to see the singlet for last year's Standard Chartered marathon available for sale, for only $5! Suddenly all the effort and pain seems cheapened by the fact any Tom, Dick or Harry can just pop up, buy it and wear it. No pride sia. Anyway, I don't wear the singlet out, except sometimes to go downstairs to buy things. Since I'm not participating in this year's marathon, maybe I'll wait till next year to buy this year's singlet, and go to antagonize the rest of my cell group who is joining. Bwahaha. Actually, the irritating thing is that I think they recycled the singlet, because this year's singlets are the same as last year's 21 km singlet (except the year is updated to 2006), but last year at least had some differentiation between the 10 km, 21 km, and 42 km runners' singlets. So I guess people who want to proudly proclaim their achievements have to wear the medals around their necks when they go out. Hehe.
I also checked out the Popular books sale, which didn't have much. I think it was targetted more at the kids who are having holidays right now. I saw one of my students from AVC there working as a promoter. I also overheard her telling her colleague that I am her teacher, and the colleague exclaimed out very loudly in Mandarin, "He's a teacher?" To this day, I still take comments that imply that I don't look like a teacher as a compliment. Go figure. Anyway, I'm quite proud of her. Any student who bothers to take up holiday jobs for whatever reason is worthy of some respect, as long as they learn the value of money through working for it.
Mon 27 Nov
I headed down to Funan to check out new games. There were some new titles that just hit the stores, and what better time to get them and play them than now? I bought Splinter Cell - Double Agent. It's a tactical espionage action game - not the kind that goes around shooting everything on screen, but the kind that needs you to move around unnoticed, sneakily take out guards and all, and complete the mission. A spy rather than a soldier. I think I'm not that good at it though, and am still trying to get the hang of the controls. Yeah...something to occupy me now that I completed Enchant Arms. It's not that bad a game, but too linear. I miss the old games like Final Fantasy. Am I doomed to have to get a PS3 or something? Can Microsoft get more good RPG games for the Xbox 360 console? Sigh.
Tue 28 Nov
I noticed I have less to blog during the holidays. I'm either watching anime, playing games, or fiddling with web/graphic design when I'm at home. Technically, this is not a complaint, since it implies that I'm enjoying the long break. Alas, there are still some administative things left to do, like planning for next year, and settling budget issues, but I won't let them spoil my holidays. Bwahaha.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Thu 23 Nov
I started on a new anime series Ergo Proxy. It is some futuristic thriller that seems reminiscent of Ghost in the Shell in terms of backdrop, and some common traits in terms of androids, and a virus that gives them human consciousness. In both cases, the femme fatale is a policewoman, but the similarities end there. It looks interesting and promising so far.
Also, I started off my gf on anime. I had let her sample Cowboy Bebop, but apparently she doesn't fancy the space cowboy genre. I tested with Twelve Kingdoms, and found a hit. Yeah. I believe that there must an anime title out there that will strike a chord for any person.
Fri 24 Nov
It's my mum's birthday today! I brought her to Soup Restaurant this time, a departure from Crystal Jade and Ding Tai Fung. My gf was with us, but we ordered a set dinner for 2, not knowing how big the portions are. Actually, neither my gf and I could eat much; she was down with diarrhoea and vomitting, while I was hit by diarrhoea. We both are wondering whether that little boy from nursery who had diarrhoea in his pants could have passed gastric flu to us, since we were both in close contact with him, and the leader who helped clean him up was also sick around the same time as us. This Sunday, we'll go see what our leader was stricken by, then we'll know for sure. Anyway, the set dinner for 2 seems a pretty heavy meal if it was really consumed by only 2 people. There was a plate of samsui chicken, a plate of bean sprouts with fish, a plate of beancurd in egg and tomato sauce, two bowls of ginseng chicken soup, and two bowls of dessert, plus the 'complimentary' plate of braised peanuts, and rice.
My mum liked the food, although she said that after eating at all three places, she couldn't decide if she liked anyone more than the others. A photo of my mum and I, and a satisfied look on her face.
Sat 25 Nov
I watched Happy Feet with my gf today. It's a little hard to describe the movie, but I'll try. Some spoilers ahead, so be forewarned. The movie starts off looking like a spoof/spinoff of the documentary March of the Penguins, with amusing narration, and musical arrangement. The whole movie is filled with music, and mostly pop songs at that, though I have to admit that the songs were neatly woven into the movie, especially in the mating scene, because as the female penguin (mother of the protagonist) sings her own song, the courting males each come in with a line from other songs, nicely blended in. So it starts off as a documentary/musical, then when the main character Mambo is born, it takes on a misfit-who-cannot-belong theme. So the next part of the show we see how Mambo doesn't fit in because he tapdances rather than sings (he cannot sing for nuts), and how he becomes increasingly outcasted.
There seems to be a romance building up with a female penguin Gloria, and then 3/4 of the way, the romance is abruptly suspended as Mambo goes adventuring, trying to investigate what happened to the fish in the sea. His journey leads him to encounter human beings, and in his reckless pursuit, he got caught and thrown into the zoo. Just when I thought the scriptwriters had driven themselves into a corner, Mambo tapdances in the zoo, attracting the attention of crowds, and eventually was returned to the Antartic, presumbably to locate the rest of the penguins, which I assume the humans believe to be able to tapdance also. The tapdancing was filmed, broadcasted, attracted international attention, and protests ensued. Eventually, all fishing operations in the Antartica were suspended due to activists, and the penguins live happily ever after, and the abruptly halted romance resumes.
Personally, I find a tapdancing penguin more believable than humans stopping fishing operations because of a tapdancing penguin.
In any case, the plot seems a bit bland, especially nearing the end, which seemed very contrived. However, it is extremely fun to watch, entertaining and hilarious, that you will be willing to forgive the plot. There are five penguins that Mambo befriends along the way, and they are extremely, ridiculously funny. What I didn't quite like was an unnecessary caricarture poke at Christianity in the dialogues using the conservative penguin elders. They actually used the term 'backsliding'? Utterly irrelevant. Still, it is a fun show to watch, and great to bring kids to, noting some minor sexual innuendo in the music and dialogue though. I reckon the soft toy merchandise that is bound to follow the movie will sell like hotcakes, considering how cute the baby penguins look on screen.
I started on a new anime series Ergo Proxy. It is some futuristic thriller that seems reminiscent of Ghost in the Shell in terms of backdrop, and some common traits in terms of androids, and a virus that gives them human consciousness. In both cases, the femme fatale is a policewoman, but the similarities end there. It looks interesting and promising so far.
Also, I started off my gf on anime. I had let her sample Cowboy Bebop, but apparently she doesn't fancy the space cowboy genre. I tested with Twelve Kingdoms, and found a hit. Yeah. I believe that there must an anime title out there that will strike a chord for any person.
Fri 24 Nov
It's my mum's birthday today! I brought her to Soup Restaurant this time, a departure from Crystal Jade and Ding Tai Fung. My gf was with us, but we ordered a set dinner for 2, not knowing how big the portions are. Actually, neither my gf and I could eat much; she was down with diarrhoea and vomitting, while I was hit by diarrhoea. We both are wondering whether that little boy from nursery who had diarrhoea in his pants could have passed gastric flu to us, since we were both in close contact with him, and the leader who helped clean him up was also sick around the same time as us. This Sunday, we'll go see what our leader was stricken by, then we'll know for sure. Anyway, the set dinner for 2 seems a pretty heavy meal if it was really consumed by only 2 people. There was a plate of samsui chicken, a plate of bean sprouts with fish, a plate of beancurd in egg and tomato sauce, two bowls of ginseng chicken soup, and two bowls of dessert, plus the 'complimentary' plate of braised peanuts, and rice.
My mum liked the food, although she said that after eating at all three places, she couldn't decide if she liked anyone more than the others. A photo of my mum and I, and a satisfied look on her face.
Sat 25 Nov
I watched Happy Feet with my gf today. It's a little hard to describe the movie, but I'll try. Some spoilers ahead, so be forewarned. The movie starts off looking like a spoof/spinoff of the documentary March of the Penguins, with amusing narration, and musical arrangement. The whole movie is filled with music, and mostly pop songs at that, though I have to admit that the songs were neatly woven into the movie, especially in the mating scene, because as the female penguin (mother of the protagonist) sings her own song, the courting males each come in with a line from other songs, nicely blended in. So it starts off as a documentary/musical, then when the main character Mambo is born, it takes on a misfit-who-cannot-belong theme. So the next part of the show we see how Mambo doesn't fit in because he tapdances rather than sings (he cannot sing for nuts), and how he becomes increasingly outcasted.
There seems to be a romance building up with a female penguin Gloria, and then 3/4 of the way, the romance is abruptly suspended as Mambo goes adventuring, trying to investigate what happened to the fish in the sea. His journey leads him to encounter human beings, and in his reckless pursuit, he got caught and thrown into the zoo. Just when I thought the scriptwriters had driven themselves into a corner, Mambo tapdances in the zoo, attracting the attention of crowds, and eventually was returned to the Antartic, presumbably to locate the rest of the penguins, which I assume the humans believe to be able to tapdance also. The tapdancing was filmed, broadcasted, attracted international attention, and protests ensued. Eventually, all fishing operations in the Antartica were suspended due to activists, and the penguins live happily ever after, and the abruptly halted romance resumes.
Personally, I find a tapdancing penguin more believable than humans stopping fishing operations because of a tapdancing penguin.
In any case, the plot seems a bit bland, especially nearing the end, which seemed very contrived. However, it is extremely fun to watch, entertaining and hilarious, that you will be willing to forgive the plot. There are five penguins that Mambo befriends along the way, and they are extremely, ridiculously funny. What I didn't quite like was an unnecessary caricarture poke at Christianity in the dialogues using the conservative penguin elders. They actually used the term 'backsliding'? Utterly irrelevant. Still, it is a fun show to watch, and great to bring kids to, noting some minor sexual innuendo in the music and dialogue though. I reckon the soft toy merchandise that is bound to follow the movie will sell like hotcakes, considering how cute the baby penguins look on screen.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Since Monday, it finally felt like it's the holidays. I didn't do much, other than watching movies on DVD, watching anime, playing Xbox 360, and the most productive thing I did I suppose would be updating my metamorphosis website with five devotionals that I have not uploaded for a while.
I just finished 26 episodes of the anime Zipang, and it is brilliant. The character drawings are not the typical big-eyed anime characters, but something more realistic and human. Though I still don't like it all that much, the anime makes up for it with detailed drawings of military warships and aircraft. The anime is centred around the Mirai, a modern day warship, that was transported back in time to 1942 by some freak weather abnormality and northern lights. Once there, they were in a precarious position, because though they were Japanese, their ship and uniforms were different, and they were thrust into the Second World War, so the Allied Forces would treat them as enemies too. The ship's XO (Executive Officer), Kadomatsu Yosuke, rescued a naval officer, Kusaka Takumi, in a plane wreck at sea, because he could not bear to let a man die before him, even though at the start, the ship's resolve was to not change history, and hence not take any action. Kusaka recovered on board the ship, and was shown the ship's library archives of history, which he had yet experienced. With that knowledge, Kusaka decided to come up with a strategy to avert the 3 million casualties that Japan would suffer from the war, including the ones who were killed by the atomic bombs.
The storyline is excellent. There are a lot of political manipulations, and many incidents, forcing the Mirai (appropriately named...I think in Kanji, Mirai is 未来) to be embroiled in the war, although their aim was to save lives, and avert casualties. The anime brings in many historical figures, battles, and events, and at one point, I was thinking to myself, if history is taught through such an entertaining medium, wouldn't it be spectacular? Rather than facing all those boring, droning history textbooks. My only gripe is that it is only half the story, I think. At episode 26, it seems to set the stage for the next story arc for Kadomatsu to pursue and stop Kusaka, so I reckon the whole series may end up 50+ episodes long. The battle scenes were well done, and exciting, and the show brought in the philosophical viewpoints of many important characters, speaking out against the war. At the start of the anime, it almost seemed like the anime was going to justify the Japanese invasion of Asia, but as the anime progresses, it is quite evident that what the anime was trying to convey was how wrong imperialism was, and how pointless a war like this turned out to be.
There is one central theme to the whole anime, which is the most interesting point: Can you bear the burden of knowing the future, and with that knowledge, what would you choose to do? Kusaka aims to create a new Japan, one that is not wrought from wars, but from economic prosperity and resources. Although this is the very reason Japan started the war, Kusaka believes that there is a better way to do it, after obtaining valuable information about the years after the war. His vision of a country is Zipang, which stems from a westerner's imagination of what Japan was, and hence the title. The characters were all immensely human, and their actions were realistic and believable. Every action that costed lives impacted the characters in huge ways, so it is not one of those shoot-em-down-without-remorse kinda anime. There is no real villain in this show, because both sides are portrayed fairly, with their own agenda. It's one of the few anime titles for a while that I would rate a 5-star!
I just finished 26 episodes of the anime Zipang, and it is brilliant. The character drawings are not the typical big-eyed anime characters, but something more realistic and human. Though I still don't like it all that much, the anime makes up for it with detailed drawings of military warships and aircraft. The anime is centred around the Mirai, a modern day warship, that was transported back in time to 1942 by some freak weather abnormality and northern lights. Once there, they were in a precarious position, because though they were Japanese, their ship and uniforms were different, and they were thrust into the Second World War, so the Allied Forces would treat them as enemies too. The ship's XO (Executive Officer), Kadomatsu Yosuke, rescued a naval officer, Kusaka Takumi, in a plane wreck at sea, because he could not bear to let a man die before him, even though at the start, the ship's resolve was to not change history, and hence not take any action. Kusaka recovered on board the ship, and was shown the ship's library archives of history, which he had yet experienced. With that knowledge, Kusaka decided to come up with a strategy to avert the 3 million casualties that Japan would suffer from the war, including the ones who were killed by the atomic bombs.
The storyline is excellent. There are a lot of political manipulations, and many incidents, forcing the Mirai (appropriately named...I think in Kanji, Mirai is 未来) to be embroiled in the war, although their aim was to save lives, and avert casualties. The anime brings in many historical figures, battles, and events, and at one point, I was thinking to myself, if history is taught through such an entertaining medium, wouldn't it be spectacular? Rather than facing all those boring, droning history textbooks. My only gripe is that it is only half the story, I think. At episode 26, it seems to set the stage for the next story arc for Kadomatsu to pursue and stop Kusaka, so I reckon the whole series may end up 50+ episodes long. The battle scenes were well done, and exciting, and the show brought in the philosophical viewpoints of many important characters, speaking out against the war. At the start of the anime, it almost seemed like the anime was going to justify the Japanese invasion of Asia, but as the anime progresses, it is quite evident that what the anime was trying to convey was how wrong imperialism was, and how pointless a war like this turned out to be.
There is one central theme to the whole anime, which is the most interesting point: Can you bear the burden of knowing the future, and with that knowledge, what would you choose to do? Kusaka aims to create a new Japan, one that is not wrought from wars, but from economic prosperity and resources. Although this is the very reason Japan started the war, Kusaka believes that there is a better way to do it, after obtaining valuable information about the years after the war. His vision of a country is Zipang, which stems from a westerner's imagination of what Japan was, and hence the title. The characters were all immensely human, and their actions were realistic and believable. Every action that costed lives impacted the characters in huge ways, so it is not one of those shoot-em-down-without-remorse kinda anime. There is no real villain in this show, because both sides are portrayed fairly, with their own agenda. It's one of the few anime titles for a while that I would rate a 5-star!
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Sat Nov 18
Today I got to emcee for a wedding dinner a second time, but this time with my gf as my partner. The last time I did it for my cousin's wedding, I had to singlehandedly speak in English and translate to Mandarin. I think it sounds a lot smoother with a partner to cover the other language. The wedding dinner was at Hotel Rendezvous, and we reached earlier for dry runs. I was quite hungry by the time the dry runs were done, so we went out to the Coffee Club right outside to eat a little something. I think the chicken pie that I ordered was fantastic! A bit expensive though.
The whole evening went rather smoothly, without hiccups. The most interesting thing was that when the groom popped the champagne, it flew forward towards the crowd, ricocheted off the ceiling and flew back at me, bounced off the rostrum and just past my forehead. I actually had to move my head to avoid the projectile. I happened to see a church acquaintance there doing banquet waitressing too, and she looked embarrassed, for some reason. The food at the hotel was not bad, but not spectacular, though I think the service was very good, especially from the wedding coordinator on the hotel side.
After the dinner, my gf and I were trying to get a cab to no avail at the hotel's taxi stand. We moved out to the main road, but it was just as bad, since the cabs were coming down from town area on a Saturday night, and were all busy. I prayed a short prayer, and a lady alighted right in front of us! So we got our cab. The cab moved a bit, and stopped at the next traffic light, and we looked out the window, and on our right was a van, with the big words on the side door "Jesus Loves You". Yep, I get the point.
Sun Nov 19
It was a shitty morning. Literally. One of the boys in the nursery had diarrhoea right in his pants, and it all came out, disgusting light brown in colour, down his legs. At first when he just came to the room, he was fine and talking. After a while, he started to be unresponsive, looking a bit pale and odd. I kept asking him if he was alright but he didn't reply, so I couldn't even figure out what was wrong with him. Anyway, according to the leaders there, something like that had never happened before except a case where a boy puked. The stench was so bad, especially since it was an air-conditioned room and enclosed, that a few people gagged. We opened the doors and sprayed air-freshening spray and all, but it didn't work well. The leader of the room valiantly dumped tissue on the mess, and cleaned the boy as much as she could while someone else contacted the parents of the boy. In the meantime, I went hunting for the cleaners, and in the end found the overall pastor in charge of Touch Kidz, who managed to locate facilities to handle it. It's my second week here only, and it is so happening already. Gee.
I went to the food fest at hall 9 with Junhao, because we both had to buy food for our girlfriends who were having cell group together. I remember the previous food fest was fairly recent, because there were mooncakes sold then. This time round it is renamed as some Pacific food fest thing, but it's just a disguise, because I think 80% of the stalls are exactly the same as the previous food fest, down to the approximate location. We bought quite a lot of food, and went back to Hall 9 to eat. Actually, I think this kind of stuff is more for tourists who want to try all kinds of foods. I see so many locals crowding out the place, and I wonder if there's anything sold there worth eating. I probably can find better food at some coffee shop or hawker centre somewhere else.
Service was interesting. At the start of the worship, the worship leader suddenly did something unusual, and led us to sing "Jesus Loves Me This I Know" because his daughter loves the song. At the closing of the service, Ps Eugene told everyone to say to each other "God loves you", and he changed his mind to make it "God really loves you". Considering Thursday, yesterday and today, I think God's really trying to make a point. Yep, God really loves me.
In the evening, I went down to Scout HQ, where my cousin, who is still volunteering to lead scouts at 28 years old, had a buffet dinner for relatives and friends. It's his baby's first month celebration! I think I have never seen my uncle and aunt beaming as happily as today. I guess the feeling of finally seeing a grandchild must be fantastic. I think it would be something similar if I get to see my spiritual grandchildren being birthed in Christ too. Many people brought presents, so I saw a huge heap of gifts, mostly in Kiddy Palace and Toys R Us bags. Hmm...frankly, I think an ang pow is better, just in case there are repeats in the gifts. Anyway, I think I have never seen my cousin beaming so happily before either.
Today I got to emcee for a wedding dinner a second time, but this time with my gf as my partner. The last time I did it for my cousin's wedding, I had to singlehandedly speak in English and translate to Mandarin. I think it sounds a lot smoother with a partner to cover the other language. The wedding dinner was at Hotel Rendezvous, and we reached earlier for dry runs. I was quite hungry by the time the dry runs were done, so we went out to the Coffee Club right outside to eat a little something. I think the chicken pie that I ordered was fantastic! A bit expensive though.
The whole evening went rather smoothly, without hiccups. The most interesting thing was that when the groom popped the champagne, it flew forward towards the crowd, ricocheted off the ceiling and flew back at me, bounced off the rostrum and just past my forehead. I actually had to move my head to avoid the projectile. I happened to see a church acquaintance there doing banquet waitressing too, and she looked embarrassed, for some reason. The food at the hotel was not bad, but not spectacular, though I think the service was very good, especially from the wedding coordinator on the hotel side.
After the dinner, my gf and I were trying to get a cab to no avail at the hotel's taxi stand. We moved out to the main road, but it was just as bad, since the cabs were coming down from town area on a Saturday night, and were all busy. I prayed a short prayer, and a lady alighted right in front of us! So we got our cab. The cab moved a bit, and stopped at the next traffic light, and we looked out the window, and on our right was a van, with the big words on the side door "Jesus Loves You". Yep, I get the point.
Sun Nov 19
It was a shitty morning. Literally. One of the boys in the nursery had diarrhoea right in his pants, and it all came out, disgusting light brown in colour, down his legs. At first when he just came to the room, he was fine and talking. After a while, he started to be unresponsive, looking a bit pale and odd. I kept asking him if he was alright but he didn't reply, so I couldn't even figure out what was wrong with him. Anyway, according to the leaders there, something like that had never happened before except a case where a boy puked. The stench was so bad, especially since it was an air-conditioned room and enclosed, that a few people gagged. We opened the doors and sprayed air-freshening spray and all, but it didn't work well. The leader of the room valiantly dumped tissue on the mess, and cleaned the boy as much as she could while someone else contacted the parents of the boy. In the meantime, I went hunting for the cleaners, and in the end found the overall pastor in charge of Touch Kidz, who managed to locate facilities to handle it. It's my second week here only, and it is so happening already. Gee.
I went to the food fest at hall 9 with Junhao, because we both had to buy food for our girlfriends who were having cell group together. I remember the previous food fest was fairly recent, because there were mooncakes sold then. This time round it is renamed as some Pacific food fest thing, but it's just a disguise, because I think 80% of the stalls are exactly the same as the previous food fest, down to the approximate location. We bought quite a lot of food, and went back to Hall 9 to eat. Actually, I think this kind of stuff is more for tourists who want to try all kinds of foods. I see so many locals crowding out the place, and I wonder if there's anything sold there worth eating. I probably can find better food at some coffee shop or hawker centre somewhere else.
Service was interesting. At the start of the worship, the worship leader suddenly did something unusual, and led us to sing "Jesus Loves Me This I Know" because his daughter loves the song. At the closing of the service, Ps Eugene told everyone to say to each other "God loves you", and he changed his mind to make it "God really loves you". Considering Thursday, yesterday and today, I think God's really trying to make a point. Yep, God really loves me.
In the evening, I went down to Scout HQ, where my cousin, who is still volunteering to lead scouts at 28 years old, had a buffet dinner for relatives and friends. It's his baby's first month celebration! I think I have never seen my uncle and aunt beaming as happily as today. I guess the feeling of finally seeing a grandchild must be fantastic. I think it would be something similar if I get to see my spiritual grandchildren being birthed in Christ too. Many people brought presents, so I saw a huge heap of gifts, mostly in Kiddy Palace and Toys R Us bags. Hmm...frankly, I think an ang pow is better, just in case there are repeats in the gifts. Anyway, I think I have never seen my cousin beaming so happily before either.
Friday, November 17, 2006
I spent the whole day with my gf today to celebrate our first year anniversary! It felt like it has been a long time, but in actual fact, it has only been a year. We started with a lunch at Al Dente Trattoria at the Esplanade. There's a 1 for 1 lunch promotion at the place for $28.90, inclusive of a buffet spread for appetizers and desserts. My original idea to go there was due to the fact that I received a privilege card from Citibank which gives me a 50% discount for the ala carte items if I'm dining with one other person. The lunch promotion seemed pretty good so we went for that instead, and I forgot that my colleague recommended the oven-baked pizza, which was not in the lunch promotion menu. Another thing he recommended was the tiramisu, which he said was excellent, but by the time we were done with the meal, we were too full for it. The food was not bad, but not superb either. My gf's ovenbaked fish tasted a little too tough, and my carbonara had sauce that was too thick for my preference. But we will return to try the tiramisu and pizza someday.
We wandered down to Marina Square and found good seats for Casino Royale still. One good thing about the holidays is that there's hardly any crowd to fight with during the afternoons for movies. Personally, I think this is the best Bond movie for a long, long time. The recent Bond movies had become more and more ridiculous, banking on special effects, and incredible gadgets and machinery. And James Bond appeared to be more of a superhero/superhuman than a secret agent. Casino Royale, in a way, is James Bond the Beginning (I realized that recently, movie producers must have thought sequels suck, so they all began making prequels...like Texas Chainsaw Massacre the Beginning), and it cuts out all the over-the-top special effects and gagdets, and relies on good, human action, which mostly looks well-executed and quite believable. The plot is rather elaborate, with interesting developments and a couple of twists, although I saw them coming way before. Daniel Craig makes a rather good Bond, with his intense eyes, but I think I've gotten used to a sauve and more slim-built Pierce Brosnan Bond. It's a Bond movie that does justice to the 007 franchise, I believe, and finally we see a Bond girl with some brains in the show.
We went shopping for a while, and my gf managed to find a dress for the next wedding dinner we have to emcee for. Soon. We sidetracked to Suntec momentarily to Crystal Jade where we had porridge because I was hungry, and we made our way to Clarke Quay. We were going to watch Crazy Horse Cabaret at 8 pm! More surprisingly, it was her idea and not mine. There is a UOB promotion for a 1 for 1 ticket for Crazy Horse, and she figured that maybe they weren't doing well, hence the promotion, and therefore we should catch it before the show gets pulled out of Singapore. Considering that it was Friday night, I counted about maybe 50 people in the audience, filling up only at most a sixth or a fifth of the place. Not a good sign at all.
The show itself was pretty interesting. It consists of many separate short items that last the duration of the song used for the item, lasting for a total of about 1 hr and 20 min, with a 15 min break inbetween. The dancers were extremely polished in movement, and were almost perfectly in sync. The use of lights is really innovative, and though I wouldn't go as far to say that the lights conceal the sensitive areas (which the introductory report in Straits Times did), the lights does take the focus away from them, although in some of the items, there wasn't any concealment at all. The set itself was interesting. There were two conveyor belts on stage, and three turntables on the floor, all of which are not visible from our viewpoint, and the dance items used these to great effect. For instance, in the first item, where they dressed as Russian guards, there was a constant 'flow' of dancers from left to right on the belt, where they stood still and saluted, and it felt like one of those classic arcade shooting games with moving targets. The best effect of the night, I would say, was one where there was a green laser light from the top, and there was smoke rising from the stage floor, and it created an effect where you can see the smoke lit in green swirling around. The main thing is this - the whole show is so tastefully done that it appears extremely polished and classy, rather than erotic or even pornographic.
We wandered down to Marina Square and found good seats for Casino Royale still. One good thing about the holidays is that there's hardly any crowd to fight with during the afternoons for movies. Personally, I think this is the best Bond movie for a long, long time. The recent Bond movies had become more and more ridiculous, banking on special effects, and incredible gadgets and machinery. And James Bond appeared to be more of a superhero/superhuman than a secret agent. Casino Royale, in a way, is James Bond the Beginning (I realized that recently, movie producers must have thought sequels suck, so they all began making prequels...like Texas Chainsaw Massacre the Beginning), and it cuts out all the over-the-top special effects and gagdets, and relies on good, human action, which mostly looks well-executed and quite believable. The plot is rather elaborate, with interesting developments and a couple of twists, although I saw them coming way before. Daniel Craig makes a rather good Bond, with his intense eyes, but I think I've gotten used to a sauve and more slim-built Pierce Brosnan Bond. It's a Bond movie that does justice to the 007 franchise, I believe, and finally we see a Bond girl with some brains in the show.
We went shopping for a while, and my gf managed to find a dress for the next wedding dinner we have to emcee for. Soon. We sidetracked to Suntec momentarily to Crystal Jade where we had porridge because I was hungry, and we made our way to Clarke Quay. We were going to watch Crazy Horse Cabaret at 8 pm! More surprisingly, it was her idea and not mine. There is a UOB promotion for a 1 for 1 ticket for Crazy Horse, and she figured that maybe they weren't doing well, hence the promotion, and therefore we should catch it before the show gets pulled out of Singapore. Considering that it was Friday night, I counted about maybe 50 people in the audience, filling up only at most a sixth or a fifth of the place. Not a good sign at all.
The show itself was pretty interesting. It consists of many separate short items that last the duration of the song used for the item, lasting for a total of about 1 hr and 20 min, with a 15 min break inbetween. The dancers were extremely polished in movement, and were almost perfectly in sync. The use of lights is really innovative, and though I wouldn't go as far to say that the lights conceal the sensitive areas (which the introductory report in Straits Times did), the lights does take the focus away from them, although in some of the items, there wasn't any concealment at all. The set itself was interesting. There were two conveyor belts on stage, and three turntables on the floor, all of which are not visible from our viewpoint, and the dance items used these to great effect. For instance, in the first item, where they dressed as Russian guards, there was a constant 'flow' of dancers from left to right on the belt, where they stood still and saluted, and it felt like one of those classic arcade shooting games with moving targets. The best effect of the night, I would say, was one where there was a green laser light from the top, and there was smoke rising from the stage floor, and it created an effect where you can see the smoke lit in green swirling around. The main thing is this - the whole show is so tastefully done that it appears extremely polished and classy, rather than erotic or even pornographic.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Wed 15 Nov
I headed down to school, got a ride from my colleague, and we went down to HDB hub again. Today we went down to add presence to the place. But of course, we deliberately went later so that the big shots would have already left. We just wanted to take a look at how our HOD does all the demos. After that, I went home to rest a while, and headed down to cell group. Today's cell group lasted somewhat longer, because we eventually were voicing out some serious concerns, and sharing deep thoughts. I think the transparency is a good sign that we are getting to know one another even deeper.
Thu 16 Nov
I remember thinking yesterday that it didn't look so bad - the crowd was just filtering in from time to time. How mistaken I was. I forgot that today the exhibition is officially open to the public, and yesterday was just open to those in the civil service sector. My gf and I reached at 9.20 am, but things weren't ready till about 10 am. They couldn't find the keys to our booth's cupboards, the power was off and there was no network connection. And it was just the TJC booth. Great.
The morning started not too cheerfully. The earliest visitors were students, and they had an awfully bored and 'I shouldn't be here' look on their faces. Looking at the handouts they were carrying, which is some worksheet they have to fill, it's easy to conclude that they are the volunteered folks. Throughout the day, there were people who came, mistaking our displayed fish tank to be some product, and we had to explain that it is a teaching tool. The best part of doing this was intriguing the little kids with all the scientific setups, and they mostly go 'wow' or that you can see the curiosity written all over their faces. I wish we could see a lot more of that in our classrooms.
The only 'renumeration' I have is a $5 meal coupon for lunch and dinner, and we had a choice of different fast food restaurants. Considering that adds up to $10, and I was standing there presenting for about 11 hours, excluding the 10-min meal breaks and various toilet breaks, that works out to be a grand total of approximately a pay of ninety cents per hour! Talk about cheap labour. I think I really stood for 11 hours thereabouts, and talked for at least 8 hours, if I add all the talking time together. Yes, it was that busy most of the time. Now my heels are killing me. I even had to stop halfway, go over to Baleno and buy new socks just so that my feet would feel better. I was perspiring almost the whole day because it was a lot warmer than yesterday, and the ventilator was shifted further down.
We were the only MOE school represented there, not counting ITE and Republic Polytechnic, and I feel like we were doing an open house programme. Essentially we cannot introduce the new ways of teaching without referring to our Integrated Programme which is using it, and in doing so, we are, inadvertently advertising. But what the heck. Since we are arrowed to be in the exhibition, we might as well do something good with it.
Despite the fatigue, and I haven't felt so exhausted in a long time, and the headache that plagued me from 5 pm onwards (which I later found to be a 37.5 degrees celsius fever after measuring my temperature), I was really encouraged by a couple of things. Some colleagues dropped by to visit, and that was really a morale booster. They may not realize it, but the sight of friendly, familiar faces really brings encouragement when you are beastly tired. It's especially warm, considering that they all stay in the east, so it was a special trip down to Toa Payoh to lend support. Nearer the end of the day, there was a continuous influx of people, who were curious and supportive. At about 8 pm, they came, and I was giving them demos of liquid nitrogen amongst other things, and the next thing I know, it was time to pack up at 9.30 pm. An interested and engaged crowd really makes it worth the effort. But most importantly, a girl by the name of Veronica, whom my gf and I only met today, and chatted with a little bit, actually offered us a lift in her car home, and the reason she gave was that she could imagine how tired we must be being there for 12 hours because she came in the afternoon, and she couldn't take it already, and so she offered us a ride back. Such compassion and kindness from essentially a total stranger. I feel touched beyond description. In fact, the only thing I could think of was a chinese idiom 雪中送炭. I have never seen a more appropriate moment for this. (It means to send coal amidst the snow, referring to helping someone with the right thing at the time of dire need.) She stays near my gf actually, so I took the ride to Bedok, and my gf's dad happened to start his shift later than usual, so he offered me a ride home in his cab.
God really, really loves me~
I headed down to school, got a ride from my colleague, and we went down to HDB hub again. Today we went down to add presence to the place. But of course, we deliberately went later so that the big shots would have already left. We just wanted to take a look at how our HOD does all the demos. After that, I went home to rest a while, and headed down to cell group. Today's cell group lasted somewhat longer, because we eventually were voicing out some serious concerns, and sharing deep thoughts. I think the transparency is a good sign that we are getting to know one another even deeper.
Thu 16 Nov
I remember thinking yesterday that it didn't look so bad - the crowd was just filtering in from time to time. How mistaken I was. I forgot that today the exhibition is officially open to the public, and yesterday was just open to those in the civil service sector. My gf and I reached at 9.20 am, but things weren't ready till about 10 am. They couldn't find the keys to our booth's cupboards, the power was off and there was no network connection. And it was just the TJC booth. Great.
The morning started not too cheerfully. The earliest visitors were students, and they had an awfully bored and 'I shouldn't be here' look on their faces. Looking at the handouts they were carrying, which is some worksheet they have to fill, it's easy to conclude that they are the volunteered folks. Throughout the day, there were people who came, mistaking our displayed fish tank to be some product, and we had to explain that it is a teaching tool. The best part of doing this was intriguing the little kids with all the scientific setups, and they mostly go 'wow' or that you can see the curiosity written all over their faces. I wish we could see a lot more of that in our classrooms.
The only 'renumeration' I have is a $5 meal coupon for lunch and dinner, and we had a choice of different fast food restaurants. Considering that adds up to $10, and I was standing there presenting for about 11 hours, excluding the 10-min meal breaks and various toilet breaks, that works out to be a grand total of approximately a pay of ninety cents per hour! Talk about cheap labour. I think I really stood for 11 hours thereabouts, and talked for at least 8 hours, if I add all the talking time together. Yes, it was that busy most of the time. Now my heels are killing me. I even had to stop halfway, go over to Baleno and buy new socks just so that my feet would feel better. I was perspiring almost the whole day because it was a lot warmer than yesterday, and the ventilator was shifted further down.
We were the only MOE school represented there, not counting ITE and Republic Polytechnic, and I feel like we were doing an open house programme. Essentially we cannot introduce the new ways of teaching without referring to our Integrated Programme which is using it, and in doing so, we are, inadvertently advertising. But what the heck. Since we are arrowed to be in the exhibition, we might as well do something good with it.
Despite the fatigue, and I haven't felt so exhausted in a long time, and the headache that plagued me from 5 pm onwards (which I later found to be a 37.5 degrees celsius fever after measuring my temperature), I was really encouraged by a couple of things. Some colleagues dropped by to visit, and that was really a morale booster. They may not realize it, but the sight of friendly, familiar faces really brings encouragement when you are beastly tired. It's especially warm, considering that they all stay in the east, so it was a special trip down to Toa Payoh to lend support. Nearer the end of the day, there was a continuous influx of people, who were curious and supportive. At about 8 pm, they came, and I was giving them demos of liquid nitrogen amongst other things, and the next thing I know, it was time to pack up at 9.30 pm. An interested and engaged crowd really makes it worth the effort. But most importantly, a girl by the name of Veronica, whom my gf and I only met today, and chatted with a little bit, actually offered us a lift in her car home, and the reason she gave was that she could imagine how tired we must be being there for 12 hours because she came in the afternoon, and she couldn't take it already, and so she offered us a ride back. Such compassion and kindness from essentially a total stranger. I feel touched beyond description. In fact, the only thing I could think of was a chinese idiom 雪中送炭. I have never seen a more appropriate moment for this. (It means to send coal amidst the snow, referring to helping someone with the right thing at the time of dire need.) She stays near my gf actually, so I took the ride to Bedok, and my gf's dad happened to start his shift later than usual, so he offered me a ride home in his cab.
God really, really loves me~
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
I stayed at home most of yesterday, typing tutors' comments for my subject classes, and playing Enchant Arms. Anyway, I don't understand the necessity of the administrative work. Hardly anyone I know refers to these comments, except the last ones at the end of Year 2, for the sake of writing testimonials. And I usually write a bit more, so I wonder what I am doing it for. I only went out for a short while to shop with my gf. She was looking for dresses for upcoming weddings of her good friends, so I went along to give my critical assessments.
Today I went back to school to help transport the necessary equipment to HDB hub. Before that happened though, I kenna arrowed to transport some PCs back to the lab we took them from. Fortunately I found myself some willing students to help me, else I don't know how I'll manage on my own. We brought down some of the equipment that we use to teach our integrated programme over to HDB hub, where there will be a civil service exhibition for the next few days. My HOD insisted that she tried to deflect the arrow that was doomed to hit us all, but to no avail, so we got implicated. I'll be on duty on Thursday, whole day from 9.30 am (reporting) to 10 pm (closing). I think this is more shiong than normal teaching days. If there are people coming throughout, I may be presenting continuously for 12 hours! And it is a non-enclosed open area, with ventilators around. I am sure I am going to perspire to death.
Anyway, I was reading about Britney Spears in the news. Originally, when she started out, I thought some of her songs weren't too bad. But when she started hitting the news with her weird marriage and annulment, I switched off. Next thing I know, she married Kevin Federline, and I was wondering how long this one would last. She was quoted on the papers saying something I thought was quite poignant, and it was something like she felt that it was sad that there were people hoping or waiting for the marriage to fail. Even though I didn't hope that it would fail, I simply assume it would, and on hindsight, that was still somewhat mean-spirited. In any case, the recent development has left a feeling of disgust, and I find Britney Spears in a sympathetic plight. In fact, I think Kevin Federline has disgraced all of men, though I'm sure that there are (and know of some) similar jerks out there. He was the one who was caught having an affair (and Britney Spears had two children with him!), and on filing for divorce, he ended up with settlements (dunno whether it's called alimony in this case) which, if I'm not wrong, gives him a monthly payout. He is appealing for more money, and if that's not shameless enough, he now threatens to sell a 4-hour sex tape of the first weeks of their marriage to the highest bidder. Reputedly, it is supposedly worth some 20+ million SGD! I think people on the street, if they see him, should throw rotten eggs/tomatoes at the scumbag named Kevin Federline.
Learning points of this:
Today I went back to school to help transport the necessary equipment to HDB hub. Before that happened though, I kenna arrowed to transport some PCs back to the lab we took them from. Fortunately I found myself some willing students to help me, else I don't know how I'll manage on my own. We brought down some of the equipment that we use to teach our integrated programme over to HDB hub, where there will be a civil service exhibition for the next few days. My HOD insisted that she tried to deflect the arrow that was doomed to hit us all, but to no avail, so we got implicated. I'll be on duty on Thursday, whole day from 9.30 am (reporting) to 10 pm (closing). I think this is more shiong than normal teaching days. If there are people coming throughout, I may be presenting continuously for 12 hours! And it is a non-enclosed open area, with ventilators around. I am sure I am going to perspire to death.
Anyway, I was reading about Britney Spears in the news. Originally, when she started out, I thought some of her songs weren't too bad. But when she started hitting the news with her weird marriage and annulment, I switched off. Next thing I know, she married Kevin Federline, and I was wondering how long this one would last. She was quoted on the papers saying something I thought was quite poignant, and it was something like she felt that it was sad that there were people hoping or waiting for the marriage to fail. Even though I didn't hope that it would fail, I simply assume it would, and on hindsight, that was still somewhat mean-spirited. In any case, the recent development has left a feeling of disgust, and I find Britney Spears in a sympathetic plight. In fact, I think Kevin Federline has disgraced all of men, though I'm sure that there are (and know of some) similar jerks out there. He was the one who was caught having an affair (and Britney Spears had two children with him!), and on filing for divorce, he ended up with settlements (dunno whether it's called alimony in this case) which, if I'm not wrong, gives him a monthly payout. He is appealing for more money, and if that's not shameless enough, he now threatens to sell a 4-hour sex tape of the first weeks of their marriage to the highest bidder. Reputedly, it is supposedly worth some 20+ million SGD! I think people on the street, if they see him, should throw rotten eggs/tomatoes at the scumbag named Kevin Federline.
Learning points of this:
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Fri 10 Nov
I started watching the anime Zipang, about this Japanese naval ship that was mysteriously transported back in time to 1942, and found themselves right smack in World War II. Knowing that their technology far exceeds that of the time, they have to decide if they are going to participate in the war. I don't like the way the characters are drawn in the anime, but the storyline is engaging, and it looks like a lot of research went into the actual details of the naval ships, submarines, helicopters, military structure and etc. It is also the first anime to ever mention Singapore in it, and it's not just a passing mention; in one of the episodes, the characters actually make a trip into Singapore. Cool.
I met J for pool in the evening, but it was too short a session to be satisfying. It felt like I took half a session just to brush off the rustiness and regain a bit of the old form. I ought to play more often. I actually left my IC behind at the pool parlour, and only remembered right at the lift landing at my block, so I had to make a trip back. The fortunate thing was that my gf ended cell group early and wanted to meet, so the timing was perfect, and it wasn't a wasted trip back to just collect my IC.
Sat 11 Nov
I went to attend my NUS classmates' wedding (plural because both the bride and groom were from my class) at Four Seasons Hotel. The food was not bad, but not fantastic, but then again, it was a lunch buffet. It has been about 2 years since I had last seen some of my classmates, and I realized that most of them were still the same. They talk the same, look the same, except maybe put on some weight around the middle (ok, maybe some put on quite a lot more weight), but in general, everybody seem frozen in time. It was a nice time of catching up.
Later in the afternoon, I kept my gf company for a short while at City Hall as she was waiting for her friend to arrive so that they could all go have a girls' night out at karaoke, and then I went off to Funan to secure a copy of an exciting looking game for XBox 360 - Gears of War. It's a military style first person shooter of human against aliens. It's gruesome and bloody, but heck, the graphics look awesome. It is supposed to be the Halo of 2006, until 2007 when Halo 3 is released, which will then become the Gears of War of 2007?
Incidentally, my gf requested that I mention here on the blog her complaint to serve as a warning - the KBox at Marina Square has poor service. She discovered a sweet still in its wrapper in her drink, hidden among cocktail fruits, and called the manager over. Instead of apologizing, or suggesting that he investigates what happened, he said that the staff are very careful and stringently check the drinks and food before serving them, and that it is not their fault, indirectly implying that the sweet was planted or dropped in by my gf, since no one else could have handled the drink. Anyway, when the girls were paying up later, they mixed up the credit cards and returned the wrong one to her friend. So much for the staff being very careful. If I were there when the manager denied all blame or fault, I would have given him hell. I'm not an evil customer, nor do I like to make things difficult for service staff, since I worked retail before, but I think as a manager, if he does not even have basic PR skills, then he doesn't deserve the post.
Sun 12 Nov
I went for David club in the early morning for first service, moving around much like a zombie. I had to wake up at 7.10 am, which is not exactly late, but given the fact that for the last week or so, I have been sleeping at the unearthly hours of 3 to 4 am, 7.10 am has become my body system's zone of deep sleep. Hence, the extreme tiredness. I was helping out to look after the 3 year old kids, and boy, were they fun. The amusing thing was that the boys that I ended up looking after were highly uncompliant. When they were supposed to be doing colouring, they were drawing all sorts of other things instead. During the worship session where they were supposed to do all the cutesy actions for the songs, they were just running around, doing other actions, and one was trying to jump on my back. Hmm, looking at them reminds me of my own classes - the quiet and attentive ones all sat in front, and the rest were sitting further behind trying to do their own things. Argh. I already can see what kind of students they will grow up to be...hahaha.
I had dinner at Bi Feng Tang (避风塘) at Century Square. I've walked past the place several times, but hadn't gone in before to try the food. It looked somewhat like a Crystal Jade or Ding Tai Fung, with similar offerings of la mian, porridge, and signature dishes. It is slightly cheaper than its counterparts though. I ordered la mian in pork and peanut sauce, which is similar to the taste of dan dan noodles, only better. What I didn't expect was that it was spicy, but the air-conditioning kept me from perspiring too much. The gravy was fragrant with the smell and taste of peanuts, and was slightly sour, so with the spicy edge to it, it was able to whet the appetite. My gf ordered a bowl of plain noodles and a bowl of dumpling soup to go with it. According to her, the dumplings at Crystal Jade are superior. I can't comment on that because I don't usually eat the dumplings when I'm at Crystal Jade, but I think the ones at Bi Feng Tang were pretty good already. We also ordered mixed meat dish, specifically roasted pork and duck. The roasted pork was excellent, definitely comparable to what Crystal Jade has to offer, and the roasted duck is very tasty, except for just one outlier piece that tasted tough. Our total bill came up to about $25, which I estimate would be maybe $2 to $3 cheaper than Crystal Jade. (I didn't compare much with Ding Tai Fung's dishes because I don't regard it highly at all.)
I finally have a bit of time to start playing Enchant Arms on the XBox 360. At last, another RPG game on the console. The XBox has so few decent RPGs that I am still so tempted to go get a Playstation. Only tempted though, because I'm not willing to part with so much money to get a piece of metal that I wouldn't touch till the major holidays. Either it would be a waste of money, or if I get hooked on the many games I would love to play, then it would become a waste of time.
I started watching the anime Zipang, about this Japanese naval ship that was mysteriously transported back in time to 1942, and found themselves right smack in World War II. Knowing that their technology far exceeds that of the time, they have to decide if they are going to participate in the war. I don't like the way the characters are drawn in the anime, but the storyline is engaging, and it looks like a lot of research went into the actual details of the naval ships, submarines, helicopters, military structure and etc. It is also the first anime to ever mention Singapore in it, and it's not just a passing mention; in one of the episodes, the characters actually make a trip into Singapore. Cool.
I met J for pool in the evening, but it was too short a session to be satisfying. It felt like I took half a session just to brush off the rustiness and regain a bit of the old form. I ought to play more often. I actually left my IC behind at the pool parlour, and only remembered right at the lift landing at my block, so I had to make a trip back. The fortunate thing was that my gf ended cell group early and wanted to meet, so the timing was perfect, and it wasn't a wasted trip back to just collect my IC.
Sat 11 Nov
I went to attend my NUS classmates' wedding (plural because both the bride and groom were from my class) at Four Seasons Hotel. The food was not bad, but not fantastic, but then again, it was a lunch buffet. It has been about 2 years since I had last seen some of my classmates, and I realized that most of them were still the same. They talk the same, look the same, except maybe put on some weight around the middle (ok, maybe some put on quite a lot more weight), but in general, everybody seem frozen in time. It was a nice time of catching up.
Later in the afternoon, I kept my gf company for a short while at City Hall as she was waiting for her friend to arrive so that they could all go have a girls' night out at karaoke, and then I went off to Funan to secure a copy of an exciting looking game for XBox 360 - Gears of War. It's a military style first person shooter of human against aliens. It's gruesome and bloody, but heck, the graphics look awesome. It is supposed to be the Halo of 2006, until 2007 when Halo 3 is released, which will then become the Gears of War of 2007?
Incidentally, my gf requested that I mention here on the blog her complaint to serve as a warning - the KBox at Marina Square has poor service. She discovered a sweet still in its wrapper in her drink, hidden among cocktail fruits, and called the manager over. Instead of apologizing, or suggesting that he investigates what happened, he said that the staff are very careful and stringently check the drinks and food before serving them, and that it is not their fault, indirectly implying that the sweet was planted or dropped in by my gf, since no one else could have handled the drink. Anyway, when the girls were paying up later, they mixed up the credit cards and returned the wrong one to her friend. So much for the staff being very careful. If I were there when the manager denied all blame or fault, I would have given him hell. I'm not an evil customer, nor do I like to make things difficult for service staff, since I worked retail before, but I think as a manager, if he does not even have basic PR skills, then he doesn't deserve the post.
Sun 12 Nov
I went for David club in the early morning for first service, moving around much like a zombie. I had to wake up at 7.10 am, which is not exactly late, but given the fact that for the last week or so, I have been sleeping at the unearthly hours of 3 to 4 am, 7.10 am has become my body system's zone of deep sleep. Hence, the extreme tiredness. I was helping out to look after the 3 year old kids, and boy, were they fun. The amusing thing was that the boys that I ended up looking after were highly uncompliant. When they were supposed to be doing colouring, they were drawing all sorts of other things instead. During the worship session where they were supposed to do all the cutesy actions for the songs, they were just running around, doing other actions, and one was trying to jump on my back. Hmm, looking at them reminds me of my own classes - the quiet and attentive ones all sat in front, and the rest were sitting further behind trying to do their own things. Argh. I already can see what kind of students they will grow up to be...hahaha.
I had dinner at Bi Feng Tang (避风塘) at Century Square. I've walked past the place several times, but hadn't gone in before to try the food. It looked somewhat like a Crystal Jade or Ding Tai Fung, with similar offerings of la mian, porridge, and signature dishes. It is slightly cheaper than its counterparts though. I ordered la mian in pork and peanut sauce, which is similar to the taste of dan dan noodles, only better. What I didn't expect was that it was spicy, but the air-conditioning kept me from perspiring too much. The gravy was fragrant with the smell and taste of peanuts, and was slightly sour, so with the spicy edge to it, it was able to whet the appetite. My gf ordered a bowl of plain noodles and a bowl of dumpling soup to go with it. According to her, the dumplings at Crystal Jade are superior. I can't comment on that because I don't usually eat the dumplings when I'm at Crystal Jade, but I think the ones at Bi Feng Tang were pretty good already. We also ordered mixed meat dish, specifically roasted pork and duck. The roasted pork was excellent, definitely comparable to what Crystal Jade has to offer, and the roasted duck is very tasty, except for just one outlier piece that tasted tough. Our total bill came up to about $25, which I estimate would be maybe $2 to $3 cheaper than Crystal Jade. (I didn't compare much with Ding Tai Fung's dishes because I don't regard it highly at all.)
I finally have a bit of time to start playing Enchant Arms on the XBox 360. At last, another RPG game on the console. The XBox has so few decent RPGs that I am still so tempted to go get a Playstation. Only tempted though, because I'm not willing to part with so much money to get a piece of metal that I wouldn't touch till the major holidays. Either it would be a waste of money, or if I get hooked on the many games I would love to play, then it would become a waste of time.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
I didn't intend to blog today originally, but I decided I have to, because I had encountered the worst laksa so far in my life. It came from a little cafe named Old Days Kopitiam inside Downtown East. I was quite hungry, and thought I would give the shops on the side a shot, and ordered the laksa. When it came, the look of it was disappointing already. The gravy was creamish white in colour, looking very much like the fried fish noodle kind of soup with some evaporated milk in it, with blobs of red chilli oil floating on it. It failed on first impression, but I thought I would try it before passing judgment.
It tasted more or less the way it looks - it's like boiled water with chilli oil thrown in. The taste is totally bland except for an overdose of chilli. It's just hot, and nothing else. There wasn't even the taste of coconut milk, or prawn paste. I think the person who cooked it probably doesn't even know what constitutes laksa gravy. Because it is so bland, the thick vermicelli in it is tasteless. Worse still, the fish cake tastes flat, almost stale in fact. The beancurd, being soaked completely in the tasteless but spicy gravy, has nothing going for it. The only thing that tasted normal was the hum, whose taste was fortunately untainted by the gravy, so that was the only thing I grabbed all and ate all. My principle is that I don't like to waste food, and will usually try to finish what I ordered, but this one is just bad, bad, bad.
I don't know if the other dishes are decent, but I sure am avoiding that shop from now on. There. Be forewarned.
It tasted more or less the way it looks - it's like boiled water with chilli oil thrown in. The taste is totally bland except for an overdose of chilli. It's just hot, and nothing else. There wasn't even the taste of coconut milk, or prawn paste. I think the person who cooked it probably doesn't even know what constitutes laksa gravy. Because it is so bland, the thick vermicelli in it is tasteless. Worse still, the fish cake tastes flat, almost stale in fact. The beancurd, being soaked completely in the tasteless but spicy gravy, has nothing going for it. The only thing that tasted normal was the hum, whose taste was fortunately untainted by the gravy, so that was the only thing I grabbed all and ate all. My principle is that I don't like to waste food, and will usually try to finish what I ordered, but this one is just bad, bad, bad.
I don't know if the other dishes are decent, but I sure am avoiding that shop from now on. There. Be forewarned.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Tue 7 Nov
I went back to school today to meet with my moderator. After some discussion and checking through my reports, I went to key in my marks. Nobody knew whether the system was up so early, so I was the guinea pig. The system was really as unstable as it was reputed to be. I was logged out for unknown reason twice, in a span of 5 min each. And I was the only one trying to key in marks. From TJC at least. So on Fri, when everyone is supposed to key in the marks, I think the server traffic will be congested and exasperating. I am the Monster Marker. Bwahaha. Other than one colleague, the rest aren't close to finishing yet.
I hung around in school to settle some administration, SPA marking, and so on, and in the evening, pop by my gf's place for dinner. I bought a DVD trilogy set of Back to the Future to let my gf catch up on the good things she had missed before. I know it's a really old set of movies, but frankly, I think they don't make many movies these days with as solid and tightly-woven plot as they used to.
Wed 8 Nov
I finished another anime series! I managed to squeeze out time in the last 5 days since I finished watching Gundam MS Igloo to watch the 26-episode Star Ocean EX. The anime is based on an old Playstation One game Star Ocean: The Second Story (if you are curious, the first Star Ocean is an older Super Famicon game), which was among the earliest RPG games I owned on PS one and completed. Hence my review of the anime is inherently biased because I really liked the game then, and watching the anime evokes heavy nostalgia.
The anime followed the game's plot very closely, only skipping unnecessary combat, and shortening all the boss fights in the game to squeeze in more dialogue and characterization. It begins onboard a space ship that lands on a planet Mirokinia to investigate it. The protagonist, Claude C. Kenni, defied orders and went to investigate a coffin-like object, which turned out to be a teleporting device, that sends him to a distant planet Expel. He meets another main character Rena and saves her, only to have her mistake him as the Legendary Warrior, who, according to prophecy, will appear to save Expel in time of catastrophe. Claude soon realizes that this planet does not have the advanced technology that he knows, but instead, there are people who can use magic. And he really did appear in a time of catastrophe. A meteor had landed on a city, and caused natural disasters, but more importantly, monsters started appearing everywhere. Claude somehow got caught up in this, and goes to investigate the Sorcery Globe, meeting and making friends and comrades along the way, and eventually solves the mystery of what happened at Mirokinia, what is happening on Expel, and also Rena's origins.
It is a good anime - the character designs are good, the plot itself is interesting too, and there is an appropriate amount of comic relief at the right moments. I think for those who have not played the game before, the anime would still be very engaging. The only problem is that this series is based entire on the contents of the first disc of the game, which means that even though in the anime, there is a satisfying conclusion, it actually ends with clear indication of a continuation of the story, to another planet. The unfortunate thing is that the anime sequel had been cancelled for some reason, and was converted to some drama thing.
Ah well. Onto the next anime~
I went back to school today to meet with my moderator. After some discussion and checking through my reports, I went to key in my marks. Nobody knew whether the system was up so early, so I was the guinea pig. The system was really as unstable as it was reputed to be. I was logged out for unknown reason twice, in a span of 5 min each. And I was the only one trying to key in marks. From TJC at least. So on Fri, when everyone is supposed to key in the marks, I think the server traffic will be congested and exasperating. I am the Monster Marker. Bwahaha. Other than one colleague, the rest aren't close to finishing yet.
I hung around in school to settle some administration, SPA marking, and so on, and in the evening, pop by my gf's place for dinner. I bought a DVD trilogy set of Back to the Future to let my gf catch up on the good things she had missed before. I know it's a really old set of movies, but frankly, I think they don't make many movies these days with as solid and tightly-woven plot as they used to.
Wed 8 Nov
I finished another anime series! I managed to squeeze out time in the last 5 days since I finished watching Gundam MS Igloo to watch the 26-episode Star Ocean EX. The anime is based on an old Playstation One game Star Ocean: The Second Story (if you are curious, the first Star Ocean is an older Super Famicon game), which was among the earliest RPG games I owned on PS one and completed. Hence my review of the anime is inherently biased because I really liked the game then, and watching the anime evokes heavy nostalgia.
The anime followed the game's plot very closely, only skipping unnecessary combat, and shortening all the boss fights in the game to squeeze in more dialogue and characterization. It begins onboard a space ship that lands on a planet Mirokinia to investigate it. The protagonist, Claude C. Kenni, defied orders and went to investigate a coffin-like object, which turned out to be a teleporting device, that sends him to a distant planet Expel. He meets another main character Rena and saves her, only to have her mistake him as the Legendary Warrior, who, according to prophecy, will appear to save Expel in time of catastrophe. Claude soon realizes that this planet does not have the advanced technology that he knows, but instead, there are people who can use magic. And he really did appear in a time of catastrophe. A meteor had landed on a city, and caused natural disasters, but more importantly, monsters started appearing everywhere. Claude somehow got caught up in this, and goes to investigate the Sorcery Globe, meeting and making friends and comrades along the way, and eventually solves the mystery of what happened at Mirokinia, what is happening on Expel, and also Rena's origins.
It is a good anime - the character designs are good, the plot itself is interesting too, and there is an appropriate amount of comic relief at the right moments. I think for those who have not played the game before, the anime would still be very engaging. The only problem is that this series is based entire on the contents of the first disc of the game, which means that even though in the anime, there is a satisfying conclusion, it actually ends with clear indication of a continuation of the story, to another planet. The unfortunate thing is that the anime sequel had been cancelled for some reason, and was converted to some drama thing.
Ah well. Onto the next anime~
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Sun 5 Nov
Today we had a cluster phototaking with our new cluster t-shirt. I didn't realize how big our cluster was till we gathered to take the photos. I designed the t-shirt last Dec, if I remember correctly, and due to many logistical issues, it only was launched yesterday in our tribe event at West Coast Park, and unfortunately I could not attend it. So in fact, I didn't know what the t-shirt looks like because a more unique dry-fit t-shirt base was chosen, and I didn't realize that there were people wearing the t-shirt on the train to Expo till I saw the pattern I designed on the front of the tee.
Mon 6 Nov
There was a sendoff dinner at Brazil Churrascaria at Sixth Avenue for my HOD who is moving on to MOE HQ. It's an interesting place that serves Brazilian cuisine buffet style. There is a central salad bar, and the waiters will come to each table with a huge slab of meat on a blade skewer, and check if you want it. If you want it, he will slice it off right there onto your plate. I think I had so much meat just now I need urgent detoxification. Essentially they served beef, lamb, chicken, ham, and fish. Beef they served topside (I assume the name says where it comes from), hump (I have no idea cows have humps...does that make them camels...?), and some garlic thingy. Chicken they served the normal chunks, one was wrapped with bacon, and they served chicken liver (which tasted softer and finer than pig's liver), and chicken heart, which was a lot smaller than I would have guessed. The meat is generally grilled well, and most of the time, the meat is succulent and juicy. They served grilled pineapple on the skewer too, and I figured it was probably to aid digestion, and restore appetite. The salad bar was pretty interesting too, with lots of things I have not seen before, notably, palm tree shoots. The only thing is that the price is $38 for dinner, which works out to be about $44 after service charge, GST and CESS. I think even though the food tastes good and all, I wouldn't want to pay that much for it. I would feel (like a true blue Singaporean) that I need to eat a whole cow to make it worth the price, and inadvertently torture my stomach.
After dinner, we went across the road to eat ice cream at Venezia. I realize that different people have different 'philosophies'. My HOD states that her stomach has two compartments, one for dessert, and one for meat. A friend once stated that dessert is compressible. I tend to think that the stomach is expandible, but my current 'philosophy' is that the dessert can always fill the gaps inbetween the meat in the stomach. Heh.
I just did a IQ test that my gf sent me. I think it is just one aspect of the IQ test, because it deals only with pattern recognition, but anyway, I got 133 out of 140, somewhere between 'high' and 'mensa level'. From the graph, it looks like I'm in the top 5 percentile of the population (the area denoted red part represents the number of people with IQ lower than mine), which is 250000 according to the website. The test is at http://www.iqtest.dk/main.swf by the way, if you wanna try it.
Sob. I'm not Mensa level.
Today we had a cluster phototaking with our new cluster t-shirt. I didn't realize how big our cluster was till we gathered to take the photos. I designed the t-shirt last Dec, if I remember correctly, and due to many logistical issues, it only was launched yesterday in our tribe event at West Coast Park, and unfortunately I could not attend it. So in fact, I didn't know what the t-shirt looks like because a more unique dry-fit t-shirt base was chosen, and I didn't realize that there were people wearing the t-shirt on the train to Expo till I saw the pattern I designed on the front of the tee.
Mon 6 Nov
There was a sendoff dinner at Brazil Churrascaria at Sixth Avenue for my HOD who is moving on to MOE HQ. It's an interesting place that serves Brazilian cuisine buffet style. There is a central salad bar, and the waiters will come to each table with a huge slab of meat on a blade skewer, and check if you want it. If you want it, he will slice it off right there onto your plate. I think I had so much meat just now I need urgent detoxification. Essentially they served beef, lamb, chicken, ham, and fish. Beef they served topside (I assume the name says where it comes from), hump (I have no idea cows have humps...does that make them camels...?), and some garlic thingy. Chicken they served the normal chunks, one was wrapped with bacon, and they served chicken liver (which tasted softer and finer than pig's liver), and chicken heart, which was a lot smaller than I would have guessed. The meat is generally grilled well, and most of the time, the meat is succulent and juicy. They served grilled pineapple on the skewer too, and I figured it was probably to aid digestion, and restore appetite. The salad bar was pretty interesting too, with lots of things I have not seen before, notably, palm tree shoots. The only thing is that the price is $38 for dinner, which works out to be about $44 after service charge, GST and CESS. I think even though the food tastes good and all, I wouldn't want to pay that much for it. I would feel (like a true blue Singaporean) that I need to eat a whole cow to make it worth the price, and inadvertently torture my stomach.
After dinner, we went across the road to eat ice cream at Venezia. I realize that different people have different 'philosophies'. My HOD states that her stomach has two compartments, one for dessert, and one for meat. A friend once stated that dessert is compressible. I tend to think that the stomach is expandible, but my current 'philosophy' is that the dessert can always fill the gaps inbetween the meat in the stomach. Heh.
I just did a IQ test that my gf sent me. I think it is just one aspect of the IQ test, because it deals only with pattern recognition, but anyway, I got 133 out of 140, somewhere between 'high' and 'mensa level'. From the graph, it looks like I'm in the top 5 percentile of the population (the area denoted red part represents the number of people with IQ lower than mine), which is 250000 according to the website. The test is at http://www.iqtest.dk/main.swf by the way, if you wanna try it.
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Sob. I'm not Mensa level.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Thu 2 Nov
I started the morning with more PW marking. Now I had marked 5 yesterday, so I figured if I can mark 7 today, and 9 tomorrow (hey, arithmetic progression!), I'll be done with all 21 reports by Friday! Woohoo. Although inbetween I left to conduct an Olympiad session, I managed to keep to my target by 5.30 pm in the evening. My chief moderator said that most probably she would suggest that I be a marker next year, and then become a moderator the following year. Argh. Worse! Now it's a 4 year commitment when I should have been free from any year-end duties last year? The colleague I took over the duty from owes me big time. And I mean big.
After the marking, I went straight to Buona Vista to meet one of my boys, and one who had left the cell already. Another boy in my cell was at NUH keeping his mum company, and we were going to meet him, and then pray for the mum. We had dinner at the Kopitiam there (by the way, is there any hospital foodcourt that serves above average food? Haven't found one yet), and then went to the ward to pray over her.
Fri 3 Nov
Today I am free from distractions. No Olympiad, no admin tasks - nothing. I marked for 3.5 hours straight, went out for a quick lunch, and went on for another 4 hours, and I completed my 9 reports. Best of all, the reports I passed to my moderators were all cleared. Basically, I'm done with the marking, and only need to go back a day to key in the marks next week. The actual deadline for marking is next Fri, so essentially I have completed in 3 days what others have planned 8 days to do. I love being me. Of course, that has attracted some ire from my colleagues, but I think they were just kidding. Hmm...I hope they were just kidding.
After finishing the 6 episodes of Gundam MS Igloo, I retract some of my earlier negative statements about it. To be fair, the characters were somewhat distinct enough from one another, and the animation was already pretty solid. It is not comparable to the quality of Final Fantasy Advent Children, but it is at least of the standard of Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within, and in a way, although the characters still move a bit stiffly, maybe it is acceptable because they are all military personnel. I would have preferred it to be old school animation of course, but that aside, it is the plot that is interesting.
MS Igloo keeps to the conflict of a space colony (in this series, it's Zeon) and the Earth Federation, and the Earth Federation has always been the side which has the Gundam mobile suits, which is the same overarching plot of almost every Gundam series, but unlike its predecessors, this one focuses entirely on the side of Zeon, and Gundam mobile suits were seen only on occasion. It is actually a very poignant series, in the sense that the plot is fairly heavy, and in every episode, a newly-introduced character would die valiantly, sacrificing himself for the sake of completing a mission, protecting the main ship, or to complete a test. The central character is Oliver May, an engineering lieutenant of the team 603, whose primary task is to evaluate newly manufactured weapons of war. What I find refreshing is that the anime did a fine job of making the headquarters, i.e. the government, entirely disconnected from what is going on in the frontlines, in the sense that its instructions seem to disregard the value of the soldiers out there. In fact, in one episode, the anime captures the underhand means of propaganda very well, and shows the ugliness of war. All in all, an enjoyable anime, though not fantastic. I wonder which one on my list I'll watch next...
Sat 4 Nov
My gf and I went to meet a couple of friends for dinner. Originally, we wanted to go to Esplanade to eat, but as we walked through Citilink and passed by New York, New York, I was curious. I've always wanted to check that place out, so I figured we might as well eat there. I love the place, and I'll definitely go back again. The place is very spacious, and the seats are high-backed and comfortable. The tables there accomodate varying numbers of customers, and I think a bigger table seats 9 comfortably. What was surprising was the efficiency. Although there were many customers, our order came within a few minutes. Even when we asked for tartar sauce and mayonnaise, the waiter came back within a couple of minutes.
What I was impressed with though was the food. My gf ordered a smoked salmon sandwich which was quite good, but the spaghetti mushroom alfredo with pork chop I ordered was superb. In all honesty, I haven't eaten a pork chop as well grilled and delicious as this one so far. The spaghetti and sauce was pretty good too, and that was surprising, considering that the place offers a whole variety of food, much like Cafe Cartel, only better. The coolest thing about the place is that there is a candy floss machine there, where you can get free candy floss if you are a customer (or even make it yourself), and I saw the manager offering it to those in the queue too. Neat. I think what caught my attention the first time I walked by were the big swirls of candy floss, so it's a simple, cheap but effective form of attention-grabbing advertisement.
After the dinner, we went to play pool for a while, and then photohunt. I think I'm getting a bit rusty in both. I haven't played pool with J for close to a month or more perhaps...it's been so long I can't even remember when I last played. Same goes for photohunt. I'm still pretty sharp, but not as quick as I used to be. Heh.
I started the morning with more PW marking. Now I had marked 5 yesterday, so I figured if I can mark 7 today, and 9 tomorrow (hey, arithmetic progression!), I'll be done with all 21 reports by Friday! Woohoo. Although inbetween I left to conduct an Olympiad session, I managed to keep to my target by 5.30 pm in the evening. My chief moderator said that most probably she would suggest that I be a marker next year, and then become a moderator the following year. Argh. Worse! Now it's a 4 year commitment when I should have been free from any year-end duties last year? The colleague I took over the duty from owes me big time. And I mean big.
After the marking, I went straight to Buona Vista to meet one of my boys, and one who had left the cell already. Another boy in my cell was at NUH keeping his mum company, and we were going to meet him, and then pray for the mum. We had dinner at the Kopitiam there (by the way, is there any hospital foodcourt that serves above average food? Haven't found one yet), and then went to the ward to pray over her.
Fri 3 Nov
Today I am free from distractions. No Olympiad, no admin tasks - nothing. I marked for 3.5 hours straight, went out for a quick lunch, and went on for another 4 hours, and I completed my 9 reports. Best of all, the reports I passed to my moderators were all cleared. Basically, I'm done with the marking, and only need to go back a day to key in the marks next week. The actual deadline for marking is next Fri, so essentially I have completed in 3 days what others have planned 8 days to do. I love being me. Of course, that has attracted some ire from my colleagues, but I think they were just kidding. Hmm...I hope they were just kidding.
After finishing the 6 episodes of Gundam MS Igloo, I retract some of my earlier negative statements about it. To be fair, the characters were somewhat distinct enough from one another, and the animation was already pretty solid. It is not comparable to the quality of Final Fantasy Advent Children, but it is at least of the standard of Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within, and in a way, although the characters still move a bit stiffly, maybe it is acceptable because they are all military personnel. I would have preferred it to be old school animation of course, but that aside, it is the plot that is interesting.
MS Igloo keeps to the conflict of a space colony (in this series, it's Zeon) and the Earth Federation, and the Earth Federation has always been the side which has the Gundam mobile suits, which is the same overarching plot of almost every Gundam series, but unlike its predecessors, this one focuses entirely on the side of Zeon, and Gundam mobile suits were seen only on occasion. It is actually a very poignant series, in the sense that the plot is fairly heavy, and in every episode, a newly-introduced character would die valiantly, sacrificing himself for the sake of completing a mission, protecting the main ship, or to complete a test. The central character is Oliver May, an engineering lieutenant of the team 603, whose primary task is to evaluate newly manufactured weapons of war. What I find refreshing is that the anime did a fine job of making the headquarters, i.e. the government, entirely disconnected from what is going on in the frontlines, in the sense that its instructions seem to disregard the value of the soldiers out there. In fact, in one episode, the anime captures the underhand means of propaganda very well, and shows the ugliness of war. All in all, an enjoyable anime, though not fantastic. I wonder which one on my list I'll watch next...
Sat 4 Nov
My gf and I went to meet a couple of friends for dinner. Originally, we wanted to go to Esplanade to eat, but as we walked through Citilink and passed by New York, New York, I was curious. I've always wanted to check that place out, so I figured we might as well eat there. I love the place, and I'll definitely go back again. The place is very spacious, and the seats are high-backed and comfortable. The tables there accomodate varying numbers of customers, and I think a bigger table seats 9 comfortably. What was surprising was the efficiency. Although there were many customers, our order came within a few minutes. Even when we asked for tartar sauce and mayonnaise, the waiter came back within a couple of minutes.
What I was impressed with though was the food. My gf ordered a smoked salmon sandwich which was quite good, but the spaghetti mushroom alfredo with pork chop I ordered was superb. In all honesty, I haven't eaten a pork chop as well grilled and delicious as this one so far. The spaghetti and sauce was pretty good too, and that was surprising, considering that the place offers a whole variety of food, much like Cafe Cartel, only better. The coolest thing about the place is that there is a candy floss machine there, where you can get free candy floss if you are a customer (or even make it yourself), and I saw the manager offering it to those in the queue too. Neat. I think what caught my attention the first time I walked by were the big swirls of candy floss, so it's a simple, cheap but effective form of attention-grabbing advertisement.
After the dinner, we went to play pool for a while, and then photohunt. I think I'm getting a bit rusty in both. I haven't played pool with J for close to a month or more perhaps...it's been so long I can't even remember when I last played. Same goes for photohunt. I'm still pretty sharp, but not as quick as I used to be. Heh.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Tue 31 Oct
I went back to school to give out result slips, and to finish up the Olympiad notes. Fortunately, I managed to clear it all by lunchtime, so I went out with my gf. We went shopping from Citilink to Suntec, then to Marina Square. We both managed to find quite a few items we like, so we spent quite a fair bit today. I think maybe we have been repressed; we haven't been free enough to properly go shopping for at least a month, since my in-camp training, followed by bizarre illness, and subsequent busyness. I bought a total of 3 tee-shirts and a shirt. Heh.
Eventually we ended up at the Makansutra place next to DXO and Esplanade. This time round, we decided to try something different, so I ordered the oyster omelette, and ngoh hiang. The oyster omelette was a bit more expensive than at hawker centres, starting from $5 onwards. The egg part is crispy, and tastes good without being too salty. The oysters in it were pretty fresh-tasting, and I saw the hawker fry it separately before adding it to the egg part, which gave the oyster better flavour. The ngoh hiang was not bad as well. The basic set has a plate of beehoon (which tasted too salty), one sotong you tiao (which was crispy and has the right proportion of the meat and the dough), one fish ball (so-so), one ngoh hiang (which tasted pretty good, considering I don't like eating that because of some smell from the spices), and the biscuit thing with a prawn in it (crispy!), and it costs only $3.80, which I thought could actually be cheaper than other stalls, just that you can't change the items in it. The only gripe I have is the ultra-dilute barley drink, which, as my gf puts it, tastes lousier than plain water.
Wed 1 Nov
It's Written Report marking time! I started work at a lazy pace, and still managed to mark 5 reports today while leaving early. In fact, I was shoo-ed away by my colleagues who couldn't quite stand the rate I mark. The best thing was that there was no major dispute between my moderator and myself about my scoring, so I suppose I'm fine. The Project Work co-ordinator asked me if I wanted to be promoted to become a moderator next year, and I was this close to calling her crazy. I mean, I didn't even want to be here in the first place, and I'm only here again this year because I didn't know that this was a 2-year cycle commitment when I took over the duty from my colleague last year so that she could peacefully get married. To be a moderator means that I have to sit through the whole marking period; right now, I can just mark in my usual efficient speed, and disappear after a few days. As if marking SPA is not enough torture as it is. Argh.
After I wrapped up today's marking, I rushed home to catch a short nap and grab dinner, and went for a church leader's meeting. That dragged on to 10.25 pm, and I thought I could still reach home by 11 pm perhaps, but I had the amazing experience of sitting at the bus stop for 29 minutes, watching at least 2 of every other (SBS) bus pass me by before 961 arrived. I also note that in the whole duration, only one 855 passed by, which meant that the frequency of the SBS buses were almost one per ten minutes. Considering that almost everytime I have to wait more than 10 min for 197 to go to Bukit Merah, and everytime I don't need to take 197, it's the first bus that arrives at the bus stop (my gf has been witness to this phenomenon many times to know that I'm not kidding), I can only conclude that bus 197 really doesn't like me.
I suddenly had inspiration to write a biblically-based fictional novel. The entire plot idea just popped right into my head, and I started planning the chapters already. I haven't been writing prose for quite a while, so this might be an over-ambitious project to undertake. Originally, I wanted to do it as a graphic novel, but I think I can't draw comics/manga well - I mean, I can draw well and all, but not from imagination though. I am feeling quite excited about this, since I've always liked to give myself some big project to do every long holiday break to stimulate my brain cells more. I think I'll get the story going first, and maybe collaborate with a friend of mine who draws comics pretty well. Maybe I'll end up with something else to try to publish other than my poetry.
Hmmm. I am really not a typical science teacher.
I went back to school to give out result slips, and to finish up the Olympiad notes. Fortunately, I managed to clear it all by lunchtime, so I went out with my gf. We went shopping from Citilink to Suntec, then to Marina Square. We both managed to find quite a few items we like, so we spent quite a fair bit today. I think maybe we have been repressed; we haven't been free enough to properly go shopping for at least a month, since my in-camp training, followed by bizarre illness, and subsequent busyness. I bought a total of 3 tee-shirts and a shirt. Heh.
Eventually we ended up at the Makansutra place next to DXO and Esplanade. This time round, we decided to try something different, so I ordered the oyster omelette, and ngoh hiang. The oyster omelette was a bit more expensive than at hawker centres, starting from $5 onwards. The egg part is crispy, and tastes good without being too salty. The oysters in it were pretty fresh-tasting, and I saw the hawker fry it separately before adding it to the egg part, which gave the oyster better flavour. The ngoh hiang was not bad as well. The basic set has a plate of beehoon (which tasted too salty), one sotong you tiao (which was crispy and has the right proportion of the meat and the dough), one fish ball (so-so), one ngoh hiang (which tasted pretty good, considering I don't like eating that because of some smell from the spices), and the biscuit thing with a prawn in it (crispy!), and it costs only $3.80, which I thought could actually be cheaper than other stalls, just that you can't change the items in it. The only gripe I have is the ultra-dilute barley drink, which, as my gf puts it, tastes lousier than plain water.
Wed 1 Nov
It's Written Report marking time! I started work at a lazy pace, and still managed to mark 5 reports today while leaving early. In fact, I was shoo-ed away by my colleagues who couldn't quite stand the rate I mark. The best thing was that there was no major dispute between my moderator and myself about my scoring, so I suppose I'm fine. The Project Work co-ordinator asked me if I wanted to be promoted to become a moderator next year, and I was this close to calling her crazy. I mean, I didn't even want to be here in the first place, and I'm only here again this year because I didn't know that this was a 2-year cycle commitment when I took over the duty from my colleague last year so that she could peacefully get married. To be a moderator means that I have to sit through the whole marking period; right now, I can just mark in my usual efficient speed, and disappear after a few days. As if marking SPA is not enough torture as it is. Argh.
After I wrapped up today's marking, I rushed home to catch a short nap and grab dinner, and went for a church leader's meeting. That dragged on to 10.25 pm, and I thought I could still reach home by 11 pm perhaps, but I had the amazing experience of sitting at the bus stop for 29 minutes, watching at least 2 of every other (SBS) bus pass me by before 961 arrived. I also note that in the whole duration, only one 855 passed by, which meant that the frequency of the SBS buses were almost one per ten minutes. Considering that almost everytime I have to wait more than 10 min for 197 to go to Bukit Merah, and everytime I don't need to take 197, it's the first bus that arrives at the bus stop (my gf has been witness to this phenomenon many times to know that I'm not kidding), I can only conclude that bus 197 really doesn't like me.
I suddenly had inspiration to write a biblically-based fictional novel. The entire plot idea just popped right into my head, and I started planning the chapters already. I haven't been writing prose for quite a while, so this might be an over-ambitious project to undertake. Originally, I wanted to do it as a graphic novel, but I think I can't draw comics/manga well - I mean, I can draw well and all, but not from imagination though. I am feeling quite excited about this, since I've always liked to give myself some big project to do every long holiday break to stimulate my brain cells more. I think I'll get the story going first, and maybe collaborate with a friend of mine who draws comics pretty well. Maybe I'll end up with something else to try to publish other than my poetry.
Hmmm. I am really not a typical science teacher.
