Round one over

So, the deed's done last Saturday, and we're officially married!

Both of us felt rather embarrassed about the whole experience in general, but I'm happy that the ceremony was a short one. It was like one big party instead of our wedding, with both of us gathering together so many dear friends. I was just busy trying to go all around and entertain everyone that eating was the last thing on my mind.

It was great to see you guys, hope you enjoyed it!

Will post up good photos of the whole thing when my photographer's done with it, can't wait!

Conferences, symposiums, workshops...

Have been attending quite a lot of these things in the last 3 months, and most was it are a waste of time.

What's wrong with these people man? Organisers make them mega-events and so many teachers waste manhours to attend it. Alas, most of the time the content is sorely lacking.

Many presenters seem to use the opportunity as a platform to up their own credentials, and give some inane speech with information that anyone could have googled if they so wanted. Others take it as a chance to showcase their school's/organisation's innovative practices. No one, however, is interested to divulge trade secrets and explain the 'how', instead of simply telling the 'what'.

And right at this moment I'm stuck at a workshop which started promisingly but lost the plot along the way with a presenter who spent too much time on the obvious and the unnecessary.

Really, most of these people in MOE HQ will be crucified if their lesson was assessed. Is their terrible presentations the reason why they choose to come to HQ?

Arqh! I have no patience to listen to incompetent people..

New paddle!

I had to replace my playboat paddle cos the old 'shotover' aluminium shaft-plastic bladed paddle is going to expire soon. The shaft had numerous scars on it showing fatigue, streaks of silver fibres are exposed on the plastic blades due to constant degradation by UV rays, and one side of the blade is shaky and leaking water into the shaft.

So I was looking for another cheap plastic paddle, and found it during the last course when I used this one that SCF had. It's a 2 piece paddle, with a reasonably stiff blade (for plastic at least), can set zero blade offset angle, and best of all, it's only $84. On the other hand, it's 200cm long, a little too long for a playboater. I bought it nonetheless, and wanted to cut it down - yet another kayaking technical project!


First, I marked the length that I am going to cut, and measured the distance from the end of shaft to the holes. Noting the position of the zero offset fitting hole, I used a 8mm drill bit and made another exactly 6cm away from the position that I'm cutting the excess off. Thank goodness the sawing created reasonable straight and clean edges, or else I'll be filing it away like a madman.


After filing off what I can, I can see the pin at the right position but it is obstructed from popping up from the hole fully. I can either 1) file off the end a little more or 2) file the hole wider. Cautiously I proceeded with step 1 first, and went on to widen the hole just a little once I'm absolutely sure that the pin and hole position are alighned.


Final result - a perfect fit! It is very snug and tight, and doesn't not really have freeplay around it. I like it this way, but will ask JB to see if that's the way it should be. Going to try it out immediately later today! Kallang, here I come!

School teachers Vs Tuition teachers

I always wonder if tuition teachers have an symbiotic or exclusive relationship with school teachers. Do school teachers need this spinoff industry?

My advice to my kids are that if they listen attentively during class time and ask any questions they need after classes, they should be able to get all that was taught. The only problem is that most kids never bother to ask when they do not understand classroom content, whether in or after the class. So they rely on their tuition teacher to help them.

It seems to be that over time, most students who receive tuition (and that's almost all students nowadays!) will tune out classroom teaching, thinknig that they can ask whatever they want back at home, or that there's no point learning in class when they'll hear the same things being repeated back home.

So this situation makes the tuition teachers indispensable for those who are already using them, and I don't think it's healthy at all. It's good to receive personal attention as I do know the classroom can be a crappy place to learn in sometimes, but then it's not really necessary unless the kid is really struggling to catch up with his/her peers, or the parents want to hothouse them.

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And today while doing invigilation, I was considering how interesting it might be if I take on a tuition kid for English and Literature, and teach the kid English the way I taught myself - the reading method. Just get the kid to read and read, go through vocab, talk about the content, test for understanding, expressing response in different ways etc.

I'm a product of this style of intuitive learning, and I still believe that that is the best way to go about learning a language in a relatively painless way. Is it worthwhile to try out this experiment?

Deep water soloing

Here's possibly the world's biggest climber (perhaps in terms of reputation) doing a deep water solo (climbing without ropes and falling into the water if you get detached from the wall) in Spain, Mallorca, part of the footage from his new DVD 'King Lines'.



I think the videography is in many ways as amazing as the climb itself. Lots of questions -

• How did the videographer get up there for the above-head footage of him? The rock is a sea arch standing alone in the sea, if they didn't climb up there first, they were dropped in by helicopter?
• If they did us helicopters, would they need to rappel down to the underside of the cliff to film him in action?
  
• When he did his dyno, how did they get that action from several camera angles? Does the side view shows that someone was on the main land filming across the sea?
  
• If he's the first person to send it, how come there's chalk marks on all the holds?
• He'll need a new chalk bag after every attempt isn't it? Doesnb't that limit the number of attempts he can do each day? (And that's provided they can make it dry for the next day).
  

Picking up the violin again

This is my dream - to play any of Bach's pieces for unaccompanied violin

I'm going to use my study room or the spare room as my music room. Get a music stand, some music to start practicing (the suzuki volumes, and some simple etudes), and a tuner. Catch up on some of the familiar pieces and work those fingers a little with finger-twisting exercises. I hope I'll soon come to the point when I know I can't go on on my own anymore, and maybe then I'll take lessons. Maybe I can target grade 8 exams in 5 years time.

I can't let my brain rot anymore - I haven't been learning anything new for ages!

Old things

I am in the midst of clearing my belongings in my room to be transported to the house. Steadily, the cupboards regurgitated books both new and old, which has not seen the light of day for ages. Whole boxes of CDs, school notes, photographs, and miscellaneous gifts were packed, needing many many trips to get to its destination.

I can really just sit there and reminiscence about the old days looking at them. I thought of how I started my CD collections (with Chopin's Nocturnes and Boston Pops recordings), reread my schoolday writings (I can't believe I wrote that well in Secondary school!), as well as the cheem stuff that I read in my NUS literature modules.

I look at the handicrafts that I made and I remember my secondary school days, a really nice period of my life when I just play the days away without a care (and somehow passed). There's a few JC photos of my CT teacher whom I fondly remembered, and I recall the relationships that I had with the few people I was close to then.

All in all, I think I have wonderful memories even though I'm just another ordinary guy on the street. Though there will be a lot of significant people in my past who I do not see much of nowadays, they will always be fondly remembered, and always welcomed back into my life even for the briefest moment if I get to see them again.

My gear attic!

Haha finally I got a proper room for my gear!

Bad news is, it doesn't really look like it's big enough. Another Ikea storage shelf will come in and the balls etc will be thrown there. I want to clear the space in the wardrobe so I can store all my technical wear (splash jacket, hard and soft shell outer wear, rain gear, neoprene suit etc) hanging inside. All my small pieces of miscellaneous gear are floating around in the drawer though, but at least it is consolidated together.

And the clothes rack at the side, and maybe an ironing board or ladder will share this space in the future too, shucks. There's a few cans of paint left over from the paint job, don't know how long I should hold on to them too, and where I should store them meanwhile.

View of the room from outside the door, with the bike right in front of the window, nice!

Think I should put some adventure photos of mine around the room!

New badminton shoes!

As part of some obscure Chinese tradition, Karen's parents have to buy me a belt and a pair of shoes, and I went over to Queensway to shop for it today. I hardly wear my running shoes, my trail running shoes are excellent for teaching in the field, and I guess the pair of shoes that is gonna wear out soon will be my badminton shoes, hence the choice.

I had worn 2 pairs of Mizuno court shoes before, the first one cheap but quite ok though it doesn't exactly have a tight feel, the current pair more expensive but actually less fitting and feel clunky. This 'Wave Lightning 5' costs $135, but feels really agile and good! I can't wait to try it out tomorrow, and hope it makes my footwork better!

This is really the year of presents; getting married brings all sorts of gifts to you from your relatives. Kinda shows you their love I guess, and it makes me feel guilty for not giving them more of my time.