What a difference a year makes

One year ago, I got home from my office retreat to find a small, orange kitten had joined the family. Yes, it has been one year since Orlando first made his way up our front driveway, past our front door and into our home, where he has remained ever since. My attempts to get him adopted were thwarted by my mother who refused to let him go.

So we kept Orlando. We fed him his 3 meals a day and he got to sleep in comfortable baskets or on the sofa rather than on the streets.

Today, the small, feeble little kitten with the distended stomach and furless belly has become a handsome boy with gorgeous orange fur. The haunted look in his eyes has gone, and he no longer eats as though every meal is his last. He is a sturdy cat, bigger than his two "uncles" and has started displaying alpha-male tendencies, chasing them and bullying them. He can be a little imperious and demanding, raising his little voice whenever he wants his food or a door opened for him.

But he retains still many cute little tricks from his kittenhood, like rushing up the stairs with you, to stop on the step just in front of you and hold his head up for a pat. He has a signature "flop" - which starts with rubbing his head on your foot, followed by a sideways forward roll his body and ending up with his body resting on both your feet. Is that cute or what.

So for all those people who are wondering whether they can cope with adopting one more stray cat - wonder no more. This is one good deed which really carries its own reward.

Singapore Biennale

The Singapore Biennale was first held in 2006. I was in the US at the time and so could not check it out. This time round, I decided to make the effort to visit the Biennale. So I took half-day leave and went to two of the venues - City Hall and the South Bank Development, taking in one exhibit at Raffles City en route.

I rather enjoyed the City Hall exhibits. My favourite - the great Google map of Singapore which covered the floor of the City Hall Chamber. It did not seem to be very exciting or innovative in the first instance but I was surprised at my own reaction to it. I felt really compelled to find my home and workplace and to stick a little label on the map. Unfortunately someone stuck a label on top of my house (they shd hv given out smaller labels). So it was a little frustrating. But what was also quite compelling was to watch other people's reactions/response to the map. Some just walked in and out. Others spent a long time pouring over the map, locating the buildings they knew. (I took a little video, available here - unfortunately the timing wasn't too good so there were not many people in the room.) A few other exhibits can be seen on my flickr site. There were a number of videos in the exhibition which sort of inspired me to take a few videos too. For many of the installation art pieces in the exhibition, it is important to walk around the exhibit and take it in from various angles. So the videos were trying to imitate the human eye's experience looking at the artwork. Does that sound like an attempt at art too, or just a little bit pretentious...

I rather liked the South Bank Development building. This was where the former Singapore Volunteer Corps was headquartered. It is a large, sprawling site with a few buildings on it, built in art deco style. My colleague had tied up with a friend of his, who is a volunteer guide, to give a little tour of the building so I met him and the little group he had gathered, to go through the exhibits.

It was good that we had a guide, as I didn't feel that the exhibits were as compelling and interesting as those in City Hall and so it was useful to have someone to raise points of interest, and engage the group in discussion. Of course, it was the notorious sugar sculpture Sweet September that everyone had to see. But the symbolism of the piece had been brought up so many times in the press that by the time I saw it, it had lost a little of its interest and novelty for me. Not to mention that it had decomposed considerably and was a little smelly downwind. I rather preferred instead some of the other exhibits - the charcoaled rooms, with black & white videos of the elements of the old South Bank building (creating a certain sense of nostalgia for days gone by), and the series of gorgeous photos of a man who wished for the moon, found it and didn't know what to do with it.

Ah yes - a profitable afternoon/evening.

Wannabe Jane

Over the past few months, I have been reading Jane Austen paraliterature. i.e. books inspired by the writings of Jane Austen, in particular, "Pride and Prejudice". How did this start? Of course, it is my mother's fault. She bought my cousin a birthday present, "Mr Darcy's Diary" by Maya Slater. Of course neither of us could resist reading it first. (Incidentally my gift was a spa treatment.) In the past, I do recall reading sequels such as Joan Aiken's "Mansfield Revisited" and Emma Tennant's "Pemberley" (recall this was really bad). But not much else.

I have now realised that over the past few years, in particular after the screening of the landmark BBC production of "Pride and Prejudice", Jane's characters and stories have inspired many writers to pick up the story where she left off. Specifically, most of these writers seem to be inspired by Colin Firth in a wet shirt. There's of course, the one and only "Bridget Jones' Diary". But to be fair, despite the name of the leading man, and the similarities to P&P plot lines, Bridget is her own woman and we love her, just as she is :-)

After reading through a few of these Jane Wannabe books, I thought I'd better start keeping track. By and large, they fall into a few categories:

• The alternate perspective: Principally, Darcy's. There're not one but two entitled "Mr Darcy's Diary". The first I read, by Maya Slater, portrays Darcy as a Regency Rake. Hmmm. I don't think so! But I liked the second, by Amanda Grange. It sounds like Darcy's voice throughout, and she expands on the action at critical points quite well, especially Darcy's search for Wickham and Lydia in London. She also expands the story a little at the end to include a Christmas at Pemberley. I just got a little tired of the word "satirical" especially in relation to Caroline Bingley - her "satirical" comment, look, etc. Another book in this category is Janet Aylmer's "Darcy's Story". That one reproduces massive chunks of dialogue from the original book (boring!), and doesn't really expand very much on the original story. Granted, there is some effort to expand on the relationship between Darcy and Georgiana in particular - but it's just not enough.


• The Sequel - ok I admit I can't remember what happened in the Joan Aiken and Emma Tennant sequels mentioned earlier. Maybe a re-read is necessary. But I did read the Mother of All Sequels, Sybil Brinton's "Old Friends and New Fancies", written in 1913, and which aims to provide a sequel to all the Jane Austen books! I admit that it is a major task and she gets kudos for effort. But at the end, there were too many threads to weave together, too many characters to follow-through on - at the end of it, I find I really don't care two hoots. What I did enjoy, however, were Elizabeth Aston's charming novels on the next generation of Darcys. I'm not too sure whether these are properly called "sequels" as they are self-contained stories in their own right. I've only read two - "The True Darcy Spirit", and "The Second Mrs Darcy". The characters have some connection to Mr and Mrs Fitzwilliam Darcy, eg their daughters, Darcy's cousins, cousin's wife etc but the notable exceptions are Elizabeth and Mr Darcy who are only mentioned and never actually appear in the books! The novels don't try to be written in the style of Jane Austen - indeed, Aston owes a far greater debt to Georgette Heyer in coming up with these Regency romances. Which still makes them fun and highly enjoyable!


• The Modern Jane - Finally, modern chicklit meets Jane Austen. Mr Darcy throws a long shadow into the lives of modern gals who dream of meeting him in their daily lives. So these American misses (I suppose this is so that they can appeal to the US market) fly over the Atlantic to find the England of Jane Austen. In "Austenland" by Shannon Hale, American girl goes off to a stately home in England for a month's "theme vacation", where all the guests pretend they are living in the days of Jane Austen. "Mr Darcy and Me", by Alexandra Potter, is about an American on a guided tour of Jane Austen's England where she realises that the Mr Darcy she fantasises about can't match up to the real life reporter who joined the tour trying to work out what's so great about this Darcy chap. The BBC production is featured in both books, with special mention of the lake scene. Neither book is that great - eg the plots are a little predictable but I did derive some moderate enjoyment from these books (particularly Mr Darcy and Me) because they did not pretend to be anything other than chick lit. Neither of the main female characters can hold a candle to Bridget, though.

The ultimate test - most of these books were borrowed from the library. Which would I actually want to buy and keep on my bookshelf? Hmmm... tough one there. I think only Amanda Grange's Darcy's Diary passes that test and maybe I could consider an Elizabeth Aston book.

Now to move on to the novels inspired by the other JA books!

The Cat is Under the Chair

Last Sunday, I went to Pulau Rempang, Indonesia. Rempang is one of the Riau islands in Indonesia. My aunt has been coordinating a regular group of volunteers to go to Rempang once a fortnight for about 2 hours to teach English to primary school students. This was the first time I had gone with the group.


The group convened at 7am+ at the Harbourfront ferry terminal. We took the ferry to Batam, and then a bus took us overland to Rempang. Batam is connected to the neighbouring islands by a series of bridges and it is about an hour from Batam to the mission on Rempang. The two islands are quite different. Batam's economy is manufacturing-dominated; there is a modern shopping mall on Batam (just next to the ferry terminal). The mall has a huge hypermart, a number of food outlets (including an A&W!) and many other shops. It is full of Singaporeans buying cheap groceries and donuts from J Co. (We spent some time there on the way back.)


Rempang, on the other hand, is an agricultural community. Houses are further apart, and are simple wooden and attap structures. On either side of the road, there are fields, but these are also spread out. Not much other development in sight. But the highway through the island is good.

The mission is just off the highway. It is a large compound, dominated by the chapel on one side and the school on the other. There are six classes, from Pr 1 to 6. According to my aunt, it is a popular school on the island, with students coming from all over the island and even from Batam. A few children walk to school, some take the bus, but a number stay on the school premises as their families live too far away for them to walk and as there are not enough buses to cater to the group. The compound itself is well maintained. But there is no running water or electricity. So, the life here is not so easy.

We broke into groups and went for our classes. It is a little too much like rote learning, I think. The children are able to recite the sentences after the volunteer reads them out but later on, when we go through the exercise I realise some of them did not understand. The exercise is one of sentence completion (eg, the cat is __________). We went through once orally with them and after that, they were supposed to write out the answers on their own. But when we went round checking on their progress, I found that whilst some are able to complete the work, others can't really spell and a few have problems getting started. But for those who completed the paper, I just stamped a star on. They really liked that!

During the break and after the session, I took some photos. The children loved to pose. In fact, unless I stand far away and zoom in on the scene, I can't take a candid shot at all! I think about our Singapore kids, their comfortable lives, the cosseting they get from their careful parents. It is such a contrast with these kids here. The boys here play marbles - once a common childhood game in Singapore but I suspect most young boys won't even possess marbles any more. But at least these boys are playing with each other and not with a computer.

Whilst waiting for the group to reconvene, we watched some of the children sing and dance. Here's a short video of some of the boys in action:

After the session, we went back to Batam to take the ferry back to Singapore. One hour out by ferry, another by bus, and another 2 hours to get back. Excludes waiting time at either end and the drive to and from Harbourfront. We got home at 7pm, so it was a 12 hour effort to give a 2 hour lesson. I am impressed by the volunteers who actually do this fortnightly!

Some other photos of the trip can be found on my flickr page.

Table Tennis - Olympics Team Finals

Last Sunday our women's team played the Chinese for a Gold Medal. Well, we did not win and many did not expect us to. But unfortunately Li Jiawei said before the game that she did not expect to win and many people then felt that she was not showing fighting spirit. What will make people happy? Why penalise Jiawei for forgetting how to be politically correct? The newspaper article also commented that she showed more fight during her semi-final match with Zhang Yining in the women's singles. Well, what does one expect? She had not got any medal yet!


I'm quite proud of our table tennis team, so much so that I made a video of the match off my tv. Fortunately, at a point they were doing well. Here is my little video:

Go girls! London 2012!

Oh, Frabjous Day!

It is not every day that Singapore gets an Olympic medal, so I thought I would commemorate it. Well done to our table tennis women's team of Li Jiawei, Wang Yuegu, and Fang Tianwei. They have done us proud.

Watching the Olympics, I realised that for many events, it is about consistent excellence. Take the men's gymnastics individual medal, for example. Yang Wei performed consistently well across all apparatus and took the Gold, predictably. But the gentleman who took the Bronze won because he did a great vault, and was consistent throughout the rest of his performances without making mistakes. He was more surprised than anyone else when those ranked above him put a foot wrong or fell off the apparatus, leaving him in third place.

On the subject of gymnastics, I really am very cross with the Starhub folk. They didn't show the repeat telecast of the female gymnastics individual medal! Instead they show women's football, volleyball and beach volleyball. Goodness me. The next day, the papers feature the performance of the female gymnasts and don't give any newsprint to the other three events. Of course pride of place and the most amount of coverage goes to our table tennis gals! Well done again to them!

Finally, I found a number of Olympic atheletes have started blogging. It is quite interesting to browse through them. Here's the link.

p.s. The photo is of the logo on my Beijing Olympics t-shirt, given to me by my classmate who works in the Sports Bureau in one of the Chinese provinces.

Poetry Exercise No. 13: Heroic Verse

Heroic verse is pretty straightforward. Rhyming couplets aabbccdd in good old iambic pentameter. I'd skipped this particular exercise earlier as I wasn't particularly inspired. We were supposed to write about a chap trying to explain away possession of cannabis but it didn't interest me. But now the alternative is to write a sestina, which is a pretty formidable prospect. And so, back to the heroic verse. The inspiration, however, comes from the story of St Benezet, the guy who built a bridge in a little town called Avignon...

Pleased to meet you. They call me Benezet.
Just a shepherd, no one special you’d say.
I was watching my sheep by Avignon
(the town to be made famous through a song)
When I heard God’s voice speak to me, “Go down”,
He said, “And tell the people of that town
Build a bridge across that river, so a
Traveller can safely cross that river
To rest his head within the town”, and then
He added, “I’m right behind you, dear Ben.”
So I picked up my crook, and found someone
To care for my sheep till my task was done.
Then down I walked to Avignon to see
How I could complete my task. Just to be
In this great town was indeed a delight
A change from looking after sheep all night
But I knew I could not forget my task
So I went down to the bishop to ask
If he could build a bridge 'cross the river
For God wanted it done, that much was clear
But he and the townspeople laughed at me
(They all thought that I was being funny)
But I was determined, and persisted
"Build God that bridge!" I firmly insisted.
They didn't believe me (which was quite rude)
And so they asked me, "Young man, if you could
Carry that little stone just a short way
We'll build that bridge for you, starting today!"
So I looked at the stone and had a shock
Their little stone was a mighty great rock!
So I called on God, and asked for his aid
"You said you'd help me out, dear Lord" I prayed
Then I gave that big rock a shove and heave
Those townpeople didn't know what to believe
For God heard my prayer and lent me a hand
With his help I carried that rock to the
River and threw it in. I said, "Look here"
To the townspeople, "Fulfil your promise."
They looked at each other and mumbled "Yes".
So a bridge now spans that river, and hey!
Guess what - they now call me, "St Benezet".