Ne vend-on pas une paire de moineaux pour un sou? Et pourtant, pas un seul d'entre eux ne tombe à terre sans le consentement de votre Père. ... N'ayez donc aucune crainte; car vous, vous avez plus de valeur que toute une volée de moineaux. (Matt 10:29,31)
After three weeks or so of holiday, at the start of which i was surprisingly, but nevertheless seriously thinking that i should not have made it so long (a thought that all but disappeared after a few days), i got back yesterday afternoon. It didn't take any longer than for me to approach the plane door and take the first step onto the aerobridge at Changi for me to realise "oh crap, that's it for beautiful, cool weather in which i can walk comfortably outdoors without the risk of profuse sweating", for the sweltering, moisture-saturated Singapore air easily crept through the centimetre-wide spacing between the plane body and the aerobridge canopy thingy that is supposed to wrap around the plane body (i'm sure there's a proper name for it). While i'm glad to be able to wear berms and uncovered footwear again, the idea of being back still ain't great, though admittedly i'd have expected more of a sinking feeling than what i have right now.
Knowing the sometime absentminded knucklehead that is me all too well, i had right from the start decided that i wouldn't be bringing my laptop along on this trip. If i did, chances are that it might be in the hands of some opportunistic train station vagrant (i once forgot about my laptop in the nus library, and left it at the info computers to go print something for a good five minutes, but thankfully then it was stilll there when i hurriedly rushed back to get it) or have sustained a serious body dent when i'd have accidentally let it slip from my hands onto the hard concrete floor.
This however meant that chronicling all that's happened during these past three weeks (not to mention doing more mundane things like checking email) became that much more of a difficult process, especially when coupled with the fact that, as i had mentioned earlier, my now almost three-and-a-half year old powershot started taking powerfully artful shots that were dramatically lightened and accented by weird horizontal lines, that became painfully apparent especially when i took pictures outdoors during the daytime (though i suppose i should be glad it was winter, so daylight hours were reduced, something that i otherwise found quite trying). In retrospect though, i kinda regret not bringing it along, given the remarkable number of places where i discovered you could get free wifi when i was there (actually this remarkable number is just two, but well that's still two more than i'd have expected..) In the end, when i had some down time waiting for planes in the airport and in the plane itself, i resorted to the old-fashioned method of just penning down some of my recollections on pieces of scrap paper, just in case i'd have forgotten about them later..
So now here i am armed with certain recollections and other assorted musings about the trip. I'm still not sure how to organise them, but i suppose they'll organise themselves (somewhat) as i go along. And anyways, this is primarily meant for me, that i might not forget (i am a student of history after all), so hopefully at least i'll be able to understand what i've put down here, and if anyone else does then all the better eh. Think putting everything together in one shot will be a tad too ambitious though, so we'll do this bit by bit, so just stay tuned...
There's been a heck of a lot that i'd want to put here about my trip, which is to end rather soon, particularly for memory's sake since my dear three-and-a-half-year-old camera decided to choose near the start of the trip to pull a fast one on me and refuse to take proper pictures when there is a significant amount (read: any) of sunlight involved. I'm not in the mood to do so though, i think cos there's just so many different things that have been going on that i'm not sure how to organise them. So maybe i'll leave that for when i get back. There goes any lingering aspiration of becoming a professional travel writer...
Itś been one week into the trip so far (and btw, if anything looks strange when i type it thatś because of foreign keyboard syndrome - thatś what you get when the language you normally use happens to be the one sans claws, umlauts, dashes and what have you...) and while i can´t say it has all gone smoothly, it still has nevertheless been a lot of fun (thereś been lots of other things too of course but for now well let fun be the operative word).
But i´m not here to talk about that. This is more to pen down some random thought that came to me as i was explaining to some of my cs hosts about Singapore, and in particular about the marina barrage and its function. And then it suddenly occurred to me - the construction of the barrage means that one of the sources of the comfort that Kit Chan gets while miles away from the islandis gone.
Ah too bad. Time for a new heartwarming national day song then...
While today i'm officially yet another year older (and on a more practical front, now unable to get youth prices on European rail passes), perhaps i can take solace in the fact that when i went to school yesterday for some staff program where after breakfast we'd be headed from school to the beach, the security guard stopped me and said that students are not allowed to wear sandals :p
The cca course ended a couple of days ago, and i must say, i'm surprised with how much i miss it (actually i only miss it a bit, but that bit is way more than i thought i would). Particularly, the four days and three nights at the camp were in fact quite enjoyable, and i did rather take to a lot of the activities that we had to do while we were there (well, at least most of them, i still care little, if at all, for sleeping in self-pitched tents - i.e. not those of the throw-on-the-ground-and-they-immediately-take-shape variety that you see by the dozens on any given weekend at ecp). After having a rather successful, if pain-causing go at various high rope elements (dragging your whole body across ten or so metres of rope suspended high up in the air does not spell much fun for the, ahem, how shall i put it, lower torso area) among other things, i must say that now i finally am beginning to understand why some students might actually want to join a uniformed group in the first place. Got to meet many others of a similar predicament (or shall i be the uber-optimist and instead label it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?) as me which was quite cool as well..
But that's come to rather an abrupt end and it's since been back to school. Actually, there's just one more day of the official school term left, and then i'm more or less done until the latter half of december (do i hear a woohoo?). My first day back at school today though has given me news that next year may be more tiring (or in optimist speak, constructively challenging) than i had originally thought that it might be. But well, the serial avoider in me shall conveniently overlook that for now, at least until i come back. And in the meantime, there's still an alarming amount of planning and prep that i should be doing before i fly on Tues morn, so excuse me while i (try to) get my act together...
Have spent the past week at the cca course, the exact name of which i'd better not divulge here, just in case. Suffice to say that it's not exactly my dream cca(come to think of it, in some ways at least before entering teaching it was my nightmare cca), and that the course continues for another week-and-a-half, the 'highlight', if i may call it that, being a four day three night camp at a place aptly named 'camp r*s*l**ce', a quality that will certainly be much drawn upon by many, if not all of the campers, during the duration of the camp.
The past week was not bad, actually, though the most compelling encouragement that i could pick up from the course conductors to the many involuntary teacher i/cs among the course participants did not get any better than "well, since you kena arrow, might as well make the most of it, right?", which is not exactly the most uplifting of reasonings. Perhaps an apt paraphrase of that reasoning would be that we all should just "bite the bullet". Or in the case of us, fire the bullet, which is what we did on Friday. I was actually rather pleased with myself since i found out that i'm actually not an entirely hopeless shot after all (as i thought was the case after army), though perhaps it would have something to di with the fact that the firing distance was about one tenths as long as what it was back then.
One major minus though is that the food generally is less than less than palatable (no typo there). I'd gladly consume army fresh rations on any given day or even combat rations for that matter over another meal at that place. However, as bad as the food is, the thing about me is that unless the stuff placed on the plate in front of me is especially inedible, i usually will eat it, just so as not to waste food, and as such i've had many a mild irritation on my tongue over the past few days because potentially offensive food (usually some kind of fish by-product) was swiftly plopped onto my plate before i could utter any "auntie, zhe(4) ge(4) bu(4) yao(4)".
I guess however, that i can at least still look forward to some of the activities on the course (which are actually quite interesting). Here's to better weather than the past drab and damp week..
Due to the pushing forward of the O level exams so that results can come out in time for JC to start soon enough, yesterday, even though it's still safely in October, marked the last day of school. The time when we actually had to wait for week ten of the fourth school term to end before officially marking the end of school and going off on our holidays are long passed.
Actually, they still have not passed, though that's now the case only for the teachers, and not for the students, some of which are already back in their home countries/are leaving for a holiday as i type this. There still are three weeks left until the de facto last day of school, and it is at least until then before the teachers are free as well. There aren't really anymore lessons, of course, but there are various things that we still have to do, although on the plus side, the hours for the next three weeks are only from 8:30 to 12:30.
But then again, that is not the case for me, as come Monday i'll be starting on some two-and-a-half week full-day cca-related course in Choa Chu Kang. Not as ulu as say nie, but probably much more tiring. And with far longer hours (including travelling) to boot. Unfortunately, since i stay where i stay (and so few others stay where i stay - it's more of a curse than a blessing to stay here, i tell you), it is all but impossible to find someone to tompang along with, so i'll have to stick with public transport (and join the 59 percent of other S'poreans who do the same - and btw if they want to promote the usage of public transport for a start the higher-ups could consider actually using it themselves on a regular/daily basis, rather than merely during those token staged photo opp trips that are excessively covered by the local media).
From my place however, to get to CCK there are two possible routes, either the more straightforward (but less straight) route of taking the red line all the way up through Woodlands, or the quicker but more cumbersome route of switching at city hall/outram park and then again at jurong east. There also are buses i can take, but given the overenthusiastic security measures taken in light of the APEC summit meetings, which means that many roads along my area will be affected by closures and what not (chalk one more up for the curse column) and so there may be more jams than usual.
Well, on the plus side, one thing i can do while on those tediously long train and bus rides is start finalizing plans for the holidays. Have finally booked tickets after lots of delay due to busyness with school stuff (and as a result missing out on a ticket that was $200 cheaper), though the only place i'm definitely going to is where my flight there lands. The choice of this place to fly into is more a matter of convenience, since it's more or less close to most of the places that i really want to go to, and since i was there briefly about nine-and-a-haf years ago. And the main thing that comes to mind that i can do there (get a slice ofSachertorte) is probably something i won't end up doing anyways..
The past two weeks or so have been a dizzying whirlwind of events for the family. Basically my grandfather (father's side) suffered a broken hip from a fall at home, which got him warded at CGH for a routine operation. Well, one thing led to another and his heart stopped just a few days before the scheduled operation. While he was revived, certain complications developed/saw a resurgence and six days later (this past Monday), he passed away fromaspiration pneumonia.
What we thank God for though, is that just after he took a turn for the worse, he made a conscious decision to finally accept Christ and get baptised, ninety-one years into his life, and just six days before passing away. While i was never close to him, the point that he was first admitted i realised that it could possibly be, to put it rather crudely, 'now or never' for him, so to speak, and so while my prayers for his salvation up till that point had been admittedly particularly sporadic at best, they became, well, far less sporadic.. And praise God, the prayers of us as a Christian family were answered by God in a wonderful, timely way, with us being blessed by many assurances that his decision to accept Christ was not one made in a period of deliriousness (a state which he frequently was in) but a conscious decision in a state of lucidity.
So when all's said and done, while definitely a death is a time to mourn, how wonderful that for us as Christians, it is also a time of rejoicing, for the person who dies is now in a better place, somewhere that I'm sure looking forward to going to. And although for many of us, it's not something that may seem to be coming anytime soon, i suppose that the example of my grandfather, who was stubbornly reluctant to accept Christ until just about the very end, shows that not now does not necessarily mean never eh :)
Haven't been doing much random and boliao rambling for a while, but since i actually spent a good part of today doing work (simply cos there's too much), i feel entitled to do this as the week draws to an end.
Especially with me sinking into what more or less constitutes a morning routine before work, and thus taking the same bus at the same time every weekday, i've been wondering if it's just me or is it that non-English speakers tend to be the noisy ones on buses. Or is it that there are just not many verbose English speakers who take buses (given socio-economic trends here, they would probably be more likely to be driving)? I've observed this countless times before, but now with me seeing the same people every day it has become that much more obvious to me. Particularly where aunties are concerned, the people who always end up disturbing my morning stoning-in-the-bus peace and quiet with their conversations that are scores of decibels too loud for 6-ish am in the morning invariably end up speaking in some Asian language, be it Mandarin, some other Chinese dialect, Malay, Tagalog, or whatever else. If they would keep their voice down, it wouldn't bother me so much. But they always seem to be blabbering at the top of their voices, at a volume level that i wish many of my English students would have when they have to do reading aloud. I'm not faulting them as much as i am myself for getting so easily annoyed, but i wonder nevertheless...
And i'm not proud to admit it, but i definitely cannot tahan the chinese (mandarin/other dialect) speakers the most, partly because they often are the loudest of the lot, but also cos of the language they speak being,old channel 8 shows aside, the bane of my childhood, with memories that still haunt me today.
But that being said, i realise that i really have a very low threshold for noise, be it chinese-related or otherwise. That's probably why i was super irritable over the F1 weekend, as the constant whirr of those darn f1 cars was simply excruciating, even though i got no nearer to the race site than my house. That was even though i resurrected my army earplugs for that very occasion. (Actually that's more to do with the timbre than the volume, i suppose, but it's noise pollution nevertheless.)
I couldn't even bear to be in the same house, let alone room, of a tv broadcasting the race, which is why i exempted myself from family dinner on sunday cos my father had explicitly stated his intention of catching the race on tv at my aunt's house. I can't for the life of me imagine why, since to me it's just a bunch of flat ugly cars that save for the on-air commentary are practically indifferentiable from one another zooming around a circuit for 61 rounds too many.. Anyways, think that next year i'll probably exile myself in some far-flung corner of the island come the race weekend so i can escape all the F1 (imho) nonsense.
And speaking of 'sports' i can do without, again i can't see the point behind this epl broadcast rights stuff that's been going on and that has sparked so many newspaper columns and writeups and what not. I of course, could not care any less for soccer, so how people can have a good five more set-top boxes that i do just for one sport is plain ridiculous in my book. As much as i enjoy watching tennis, i probably will never sign up to catch it on cable, unless they introduce some kinda pay-per-view system, as i see no point in paying so much just to catch way too much soccer plus token amounts of tennis save for when one of the four grand slams approaches.. Maybe now that starhub has lost the epl rights they will repackage things and allow for some form of soccer-free sports package, but come on, like that would ever happen.
Note to self: Book holiday tickets very soon. Oh, and decide where exactly you want to and can go while you're at it..
Unlike the past couple of nights, last night i had a relatively generous seven-ish hours of sleep.
Unfortunately, unlike the past couple of days, i ended up arriving in school late, because that extra two hours of sleep came after my usual wake-up time.
I must have somehow slept through my alarm, and in any case, how ironic that just a couple of weeks agothis was the title of a previous post here eh.
Actually, under normal circumstances, my parents, who usually wake up after i leave, would wonder why i would still be sleeping. But it so happens to be Children's Day, and they thought that i was sleeping in cos there was no school today. What perfect timing, eh?
Anyways, thankfully i managed to get in to school with as minimal fuss as possible, and the rest of the day went ok i guess.
Here's to more hours of sleep without putting myself in any jeopardy next time. Sheesh =p
While, as most people who read this would know, i don't really care much for most things Chinese, one exception is with regards to some of the old Channel 8 SBC shows. When i was in primary school especially, i'd watch them all the time. At one point in time, there was something called 'one plus one' (yi jia yi), with two shows back to back, but then later it changed to one seven o'clock and one nine o'clock show. And i've concluded that if i were not interested in these shows, i probably would have flunked my Chinese all the way through primary school to PSLE (and goodness knows how things may have turned out if that was to be the case, but as usual, that's another story)
Yeah so anyways, one of these shows was Crime and Passion - i'll always remember it for teaching me that oleander is a poisonous plant. That's cos Zoe Tay's character killed her hubby midway through the show by using oleander branches to skewer meat and serve him satay. Just as well, cos she pre-empted him trying to kill her by mixing insecticide into her salad dressing. Totally random, i know...
There was another show (among many others that i found) which i had almost forgotten about, but when the theme song started playing i realised i still more or less remembered it (music + lyrics - the latter not being much of a stretch since much of it is aiyoaiyoaiyaya). Thought it was quite cool that i could still remember so much of a song from 1991 though...
I must have rambled on here before about how staying right smack in town isn't all that it's made out to be. Inevitably, when someone finds out where i stay, it's usually followed by comments along the line of "wah, so lucky!" or "so you must be very rich!". Of course, i then would have to make it clear that either comment made is not true, at least not the way i see it.
It's usually easier to convince people that the latter is not true, after a quick explanation of the circumstances that have led the family to stay where we do stay. The former, however, is somewhat harder to brush aside. Unlike many others, i don't really see the value in living within such close proximity to the town center. So what if i can make my way to Ion by foot within twenty minutes? The hoards of people that i would encounter both along the way to and from there and in the place itself are way more than i am really comfortable with, and in any case, the chances of me making a purchase there are probably next to nothing (Certainly not from Louis Vuitton, or "elvee" as many a S'porean auntie would call it due to the fear of pronouncing it wrongly - and in their defence, well they usually do, kinda along the same lines as Hermès ends up rhyming with "perms").
And at least until the current agreement runs out (and i'd dare you to call me unpatriotic when i tell you that i'm hoping, not so secretly anymore, that it is not renewed - for me F1 as a whole is an unnecessary mass emission of carbon dioxide), every September the latest reason for me to lament staying where i do roars its way back into town. I of course i am referring to the darn S'pore Grand Prix. Staying where i stay and working where i work, it's become practically impossible for me to avoid being grossly inconvenienced by the road closures that i have involuntarily been made to accept in the name of the boost to the local economy and what not.
It's not too bad in the morning, since i leave for work at such an unearthly hour that there never is a jam along the diverted bus route, though it does add a good five more minutes to my bus travelling time, and disables the rather handy "time till the next bus arrives" digital info screen at my bus stop (i dunno what's its proper name, so it is hereby christened as such). When i've been taking the bus home this past week though, that's another story, as most of the possible buses that i can take use Nicoll Highway, which means there has been more than my fair share of being stuck in traffic (and btw, you have to appreciate the SBS Transit staff who have been stationed at key points along the temporary bus routes - i recognise one of the frequent bus inspector aunties among them; and the police too - both of these groups who probably would otherwise never come within an F1 car's exhaust's whiff of the race). On top of that, the high-pitched buzz from the cars is very audible from my place. I may stay on a hill, but i nevertheless get all the noise without a smidgeon of a view of the darn noisemakers themselves. The worst of both worlds, if you may...
So next time, don't offer your raves about where i stay. I'd prefer your condolences :p
So the 20 days of reservist came and went, with nothing much that i can talk about (cos well there was nothing much that went on) and i have to say that i thought it went quite well actually. At the least, Seletar Camp is quite a nice place. I'd take some pix to prove it but well of course that would not be allowed, so you've to take my word for it. For starters, managed to spot quite an impressive variety of local bird species there including moreLong-tailed Parakeetsthan i've ever seen anywhere else, even in Changi Village. I sure don't remember them from five years ago, though perhaps it was just that i was too blur then to notice.
(Actually, it's been eons (if at all) since i've remarked on anything to even remotely do with the SAF in a positive light so well maybe the proverbial toto/4D buyers should make a beeline for their nearest S'pore pools outlet.)
Unfortunately all this came to an end on Tuesday, and as expected, the first days back at school haven't exactly been in the same mould as the days back in Seletar. In fact, there has turned out to be even more things to do than i thought there were, and whatever excess sleep and rest i did manage to get in the past close to three weeks has been cancelled out within the past two days. And in the same way, whatever sense of refreshment and recharge there may have been is long gone.
But hey, it's not all bad. And there's the year-end holiday to look forward to. Once i finally decide where it'll be at, that is...
I had been decidedly coy and ambiguous in talking about reservist mattersfor two reasons. One was that i had little idea what i would be doing in the first place, given the general scarcity of information that i could get a hold of plus the fact that this was my first one anyways. The other was that it could potentially fall into the overused yet nevertheless still somewhat compellingly secretive if-i-told-you-what-i-did-i-would-have-to-kill-you category.
Well, after the first few days, i realized that there was no need to worry about the latter reason at least, simply cos i've not been doing anything, which means that there's nothing to accidentally divulge to anyone in the first place. Yes, all that initial last-minute bother and panic about what to bring and what i was missing after more than five years of blissful, military-free years of existence came to naught within a couple of minutes of booking back into camp, when it turned out that the highlight of the day was, well, nothing. And while of course there's some action injected into this close-to-three-week-long program from time to time (like ippt, which surprisingly enough i passed with minimal difficulties, and $100 to boot), it looks like i may be getting that break i was hoping for after all. A bit too much in fact - imagine that- now here am i yearning for more to do.
Good thing though is that i can totally get used to this kind of existence, and at least any initial trepidation on not knowing what the decade(s) ahead of reservist liability may have in store is now gone. Also good is that there's been a good number of people from long ago, many of whom i've not met in the aforementioned blissful span of more than five years, whom i've had opportunity to touch base (and kill time) with again. Of course, not all the cycles will feature such a schedule, so well i'd better enjoy them while they last eh..
It's been a rather busy few weeks and even more so because as i'll be away from work for just under three weeks from tomorrow (no, not for a vacation, not a typical one anyways), over the past week or so especially i've been dealing with a lot of work that has to be done before i go away, lest i come back to an avalanche of issues to deal with (though actually, either way, that will probably still be the case).
And in the midst of all this i must say that, for what it was worth, whatever initial euphoria there was at being liberated from the chains of nie has long since vanished. It has since been replaced by plenty of last-minute scrambling to settle what i should do for each upcoming lesson, more than one's rightful fair share of non-essential work to deal with, and, perhaps worst of all, class upon class of dissatisfied customers who are getting more and more comfortable with being openly unappreciative of the lessons i conduct.
Here, i have to say that the latter is far from being entirely unjustified. I must admit that a lot of my lessons nowadays, if they were to be used for assessment purposes, could not be saved by the wayang-est of wayangs. Yup. The dreaded chalk-and-talk, or to be entirely accurate, marker-and-talk. That's due, i'd like to think, to not being able to find enough time to prepare for a sustained period of quality lessons. Perhaps though, it may also have to do with mental fatigue - the rather novel ideas that used to come to me rather naturally are now buried somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, if they're even there anymore. And also that honestly, the students nowadays (oh i feel so old just typing that) are much harder to appease that those of not even more than just ten years ago. Many a time have my virtual hands throttled the virtual neck of many a student. But well, at least idealistically speaking, i did think i was better than that.
But anyways, whatever the cause, the fact remains, and come to think of it, as badly timed as this involuntary break from work is, on the other hand it's also perfectly timed, that is, of course, if there'll be sufficient time for me to escape, if not mentally, then at least physically, from work, and possibly achieve that most elusive of goals, recharge myself for the remaining school year (where much more awaits). Who would've thought eh..
