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Frisbee Sundays
This will be one of the most enduring memories of our time in Singapore – fortnightly Sunday afternoon Frisbee. Although I personally dislike field games, it was something that some young adults from our church including my spouse started doing, and it just became an institution (the reason for alternating weekends is that some of…
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Flying to London
I’m going to the UK fo the first time. It’s the haj for postcolonials. We’re somewhere over the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, an expanse of sharply striped gray and brown mountains themselves in long parallel rows. In my part of the world, it’s credible only on an abstract, intellectual level that mountains are…
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Day 0: Tune Hotel
Enilit and I checked into the Tune Hotel near the LCCT (Low-Cost Carrier Terminal) and we found out just how budget it is (for an airport hotel). The room is pretty much a queen-size bed with barely enough floor space to walk around it to get to the bathroom. I’m not eve sure an obese…
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Berkemban
When enilit and I left for our Redang trip two weeks ago, we bought cheap printed (but fairly nice) “batik” sarungs in the market in Kuala Terengganu, which ended up being really convenient for the beach. Mary, who had a man’s plaid sarung “because it’s bigger”, demonstrated how we could drape them over our heads…
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Newspaper Rage II
How about just “Moronic”. We get it, your mummy-daddy or your elite JC or whatever made you study Western literature. This is assholic writing. The author goes on to talk about how Finland has done education its own way and been successful, completely failing to note that Finland’s egalitarian system is poles apart from Singapore’s…
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ISEAS forum on shark fin industry
The record below is an UNEDITED ROUGH TRANSCRIPT typed on a mobile device. I have decided to sacrifice formatting for faithfulness in recording as fast as I can possibly type – it was transcribed “on the fly” and not from a recording. My personal comments are either bolded or in parentheses. I later found out…
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Ice fishing
“Sere” isn’t a word one would use often in my country, but it well descibes my husband’s: withered, dry, just after the solstice of an unusually snowless winter that leaves the brown grass naked. Even though it has been mild enough this year that a few clumps of vivid green grass remain along Milwaukee’s Root…
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Why PAGE is wrong
Written to a family friend who forwarded PAGE’s latest email bulletin. Someone very close to me did his/her undergrad thesis on PPSMI. I am not at liberty to share it but I understand it was highly praised by people who know what they’re talking about. As far as I can tell (my brain goes blank…
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The Budget and Its Shadow
Talk by Teh Chi Chang (REFSA, Research for social advancement based in KL). Background from financial industry. Book: “Budget: How the Government is spending our money” pub last year. 1st year tt Pakatan has come out w Shadow Budget,previously only DAP Income: bottom 40% avg rm1500/mo Majority 80% rm2500/mo >1/3 of household heads employed in…
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Nature Society of Singapore 2011 conference
Again, on-the-fly unedited notes. Papers atthis conf will be published in 2012. Woke up late cos moved hse yest anddidnt want to pry selfout of bed.. came in ard noon, Prof Cheong Loong Fah speakingon insect conservation. Saproxylic = feed on dead wood. Precarious existence bc depend on stochastic events, ie treefall. Many extinctor gg…