Dawnchaser

It strikes me how many coincidences happen in my lessons with my kids. I swear, I don't plan these things at all, but take these for example. Firstly, I give one of my classes a story from the Arthur C. Clarke short story collection that I own, and when we're doing Newspaper Writing, we examined the article on Clarke's death. Next, I think of showing the class George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck for a short introduction to News Ethics, and TIME Magazine obligingly publishes a feature on Clooney himself, which we used to investigate feature writing. In that article, Joel Stein mentions Charles Kuralt, a legendary chronicler of the American grassroots; and Charles Kuralt is mentioned in the latest and last comprehension exercise I'm doing with my Sec 2s. And on an unrelated note, I'm considering the merits of showing my Sec 3 class Band of Brothers to discuss leadership, and what would Mum bring back from school than the 10th anniversary publication put out by SAFTI MI.

The connections strike me because of their randomness. Draw what meaning you will from them, for whatever meaning I interpret from this will be the meaning I superimpose onto it, I am quite sure. For me to interpret this is actually for me to interpret my own motivations for such an interpretations. But I feel compelled to say at least this much: these just go towards highlighting the specialness of this period of teaching to me.

*

To my own surprise, I find myself on top of my marking. Batch after batch of scripts join the OUT pile satisfyingly, the most major of which is the set of expository essays for the CSE classes, topped off with its own marker's report and the full breakdown of marks. Doing the real legwork of the actual marking and grading is fulfilling in its own way, but when you finally come to the stage of compiling your statistics, then you know that you're really done. It's like putting the finishing touches on a long and detailed essay, except that you don't get it back once you submit it to your vetters.

Anyway, been marking comprehensions now that I've gotten all the essays out of the way, and I realise that I've actually become quite proficient at it (which, I have to add as a caveat, is not the same as being good at it). Once enough scripts are marked, I can memorise the answers and then the marking really begins in earnest, and I enter a sort of trance, with the answers running through my mind like a mantra. It also helps that this particular comprehension exercise is easier to mark, having more straightforward answers. And today, when I wrapped up today's quota of marking at the Soup Spoon at Raffles City, it struck me that I won't have the time to really capitalise on this new ability. And a part of me does feel that it's a pity to let something that had developed so far die out again, even if the development had taken place in spite of myself rather than due to any conscious effort.

It is also time to start thinking about the exit. Marks are to be compiled, results submitted, curricular materials straightened out and reports filed to facilitate the handover back to the real teachers. And, on another level, it is approaching the time to redefine the relationship with my kids on another level. It seems odd to me that I should find myself in the position of having old students, in the way that my past teachers treat me as an old student. It seems unnatural somehow, as if I were usurping an honour reserved for real teachers, who stick it out with their classes for years on end and see their charges not only through the end-of-year examinations, but also up till graduation. That is a different kind of commitment, and warrants the accolades that are its due. But then again, on another level, it would be odd to just be Daniel again. Just as my old teachers are still referred to by their last names even though they are my colleagues now, and just like my men from Army still don't call me by my first name, I think it would also be the case with my kids now. I begin to realise that there is something in being a teacher that you cannot put down even after you leave the profession. You build relationships based on a particular persona, a persona that you develop exclusively for the purpose and circumstances of the classroom, and to give up that persona is to threaten the fabric of the links that are founded upon it. And I continue to call Ms. Ong Ms. Ong because I value what was built previously in class, and to go on to a first-name basis would, to me, constitute an abandonment of at least a part of that previous establishment. And with respect to my kids, I don't want to lose what we've built; and I hope they don't want to lose what we've done over these months either.

And already, URA is beckoning. I've learned that old friends and acquaintances have been working there all this while, and when I join the organisation on the 12th, I won't be so totally adrift after all. It's a good thing and a bad thing; an anchor point enhances the feeling of security, but bears with it a risk of dependency. You may become so enamoured with the stability and the promise of familiarity that you neglect to use it as a starting point to expand your perspective and your experience. Nonetheless, I look forward to the change in environment, and the chance to finally get a sense of what I'm actually signing up for.

Come August, then, I'll have a nicely rounded out gap year experience. The last days of the Army, the copious travel, teaching, and even getting my feet wet in the actual substance of URA. Life has really started to get back up to speed, and in some ways has actually exceeded what has been the case before. The preparations are being completed; and as always, I am eager to really get started on the actual task of getting on with my life.

*

And today was the Combined Sports Meet for NYGH, TCHS, HCJC (out of nostalgia, I refuse to use the new official name for the school) and the International School. This is a sight that is only seen once a year, and I thought it best to snap it before I missed it. Anyway, all these photos being accumulated by my trusty phone will eventually, I think, make it into a consolidated album on Singapore, one that will be eminently mobile, and equally useful as a tool for introductions and as a salve for homesickness. But we will see...this idea will join the long queue of ideas for the remaining months before August.

Duskhunt

Struggled back onto schedule for my marking, and as a break, I took a long bike ride down to East Coast Park and waited for the sunset. At Bedok Jetty, there were dozens of people flicking fishing rods into the surrounding waters, and plucking the lines out of the water to reveal small fish, glittering silver as they thrashed on the cement, bewildered and dying in an environment that they must not have ever imagined before. But I don't find it possible myself to feel sorry for fish. In those eyes you don't see any glimmer of intelligence. The only thing is how their scales flash and gleam in the sunlight.

I returned to Bedok Jetty partly because it was a good ways from home, and thus let me have a long ride en route, through the park connectors and landed estates, past a military camp and under an expressway. Partly, though, it is also because here, at Bedok Jetty, I remember. Surrounded by nothing but water and sky, I remember struggling, bewildered and panicked, in a new environment that defied imagination. Here, I remember discovering possibilities that were simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying. Here on a terminus of land between the two unfamiliar realms of sea and sky, I glimpsed a promise and a threat; I got an inkling of the enormity of the choices that can face a person, and that you know only that one or both of these choices may entail a liberation or an obligation, but you cannot begin to guess which one is which.

*

Forgive me for waxing lyrical: I just have a feeling that I need to write something, a new story perhaps, but I lack the content to write on. I find that my circumstances now aren't so different from my Army life, in that the experiences that I am going through now are quite hard to relate to someone who hasn't gone through it before himself. Whenever I try, it comes off as sounding condescending or innately superior. I guess it's because I actually like my job very much, and I'm enjoying myself so much that other people either don't believe me, or think it's unfair.

See, even saying that much sounds condescending.

But I do agree that having it totalise my life is unhealthy. There must always be a certain distance that you can fall back on and from which you can maintain your sense of perspective. And today, going on the bike ride was a way to set my perspective straight again. The real world still exists outside, and there are things happening that are irrelevant to whether I finish marking or not. People walk their poodles, go for their weekend jogs, fish at the seaside, photograph sunsets and worry about the next week. And it is comforting to know that whatever I do has limited implications for the world at large. It keeps the paralysis of overwhelming responsibility at bay. Can you imagine if your work has the power to make or break someone's life? How would you be able to complete it?

So getting out, reconnecting, observing, losing oneself is a comfort in this way. It reassures me that the world will not end on my account, nor will it be saved because of me. And that prevents me from putting so much of myself into my work that I get lost in it. And, consequently, the part that I do not put into it makes the part that I do put into it more valuable, more appropriate and more focused, I think.

*

In a similar vein, warmest well-wishes to my people abroad on their impending examinations come with this suggestion: look up at the sky when you feel helpless and paralysed; whatever happens, the world will go on, and in this wide and wonderful world, you can always find a way to go on with it.

Totalisation

I seem to have entered a period of general disconnection from the real world, my days nowadays being filled to the brim with schoolwork. Lesson plans, comprehensions, essays and grades form the vocabulary of my days, and I'm sorry to say that my red pen has outstripped my pencil as the implement that I'm seen most frequently with nowadays. Add to this the fact that my parents are educationalists, and the people I hang out with these days are teaching next door in the junior college, and you have what Joel has aptly termed a totalising experience.

After church today, on the road homeward, when my brother was talking about scholarships and possible majors, I suddenly realised that I had no more stomach for this kind of discussion. At this time, when the future is supposed to stretch ahead gloriously into the unknown, I find my days narrowing and narrowing until it's only a matter of how many scripts I can finish marking, how many people will still owe me homework the next day, and how long I can keep talking before I lose my voice.

I had not intended for it to become like this. I daresay it's only because it's not only approaching the end of the term, but also because it's approaching the end of my tenure, and I want to hand over a clean sheet. So I find myself obliged to work double-time to neaten everything up. But only a few days ago I was still busy being impressed by the calibre of conversation I was getting out of my classes. Teachers should never work themselves into a situation in which the paperwork becomes more crucial than the people who produce it, but as the week ended, it felt like I was sliding inexorably into this state.

And so it was with considerable relief that I finally finished two batches of marking on Friday, and, bringing with me a pile of essays to mark over the weekend, left school with the usual gang for another TGiF outing. Made a return last night to the Yard, and lingered over two and a half pints apiece watching the conversation meander across our consciousnesses. This is the situation, I think, when you're working; you work hard all week so that you can steal a few hours back from your responsibilities to get together with friends who are not your colleagues, and these outings become a bulwark of normal life that keeps you from drifting away and drowning in the seas of professional obligations.

But this island of normalcy, this vital reference point from which you can accurately take bearings on the situation you are in, is more like a sandbank that shifts and erodes and reforms, and sometimes it is swamped by the surrounding waters. And lately, with work encroaching on all sides, I find myself losing my sense of perspective. Grades, papers, parties, walks across university campuses, the trappings of a life to come that I get through my people who are already doing it - all these don't strike me nowadays with their customary exoticism and interest. Over these weeks, I've neglected to keep in contact with my people overseas, and I hadn't really noticed the slow unravelling of contacts, how our experiences have slowly and imperceptibly drifted apart. But the dates have rolled on regardless, and now I realise that it's almost May, and my people will be returning soon - and who exactly will these people be, after almost yet another year of experiences that have diverged?

I begin to worry, then, that our stories have become so different that they can't be communicated to each other.

Prefinish

I was coming home yesterday after a late afternoon spent marking, with my head throbbing faintly with the entire answer key that I had inadvertently memorised after marking thirty-something comprehension scripts. The last time I felt this was during the run-up to the A Levels, when we had also put our brains through such punishing routines of memorisation and recollection. At times like this, I picture my brain (or at least the English part of it) being dunked into one of those smoking vats of liquid nitrogen, so overheated it is with information. And on the homeward bus, passing through Little India with the sun slanting behind us and blessing everything and everyone outside in gold, I wistfully thought about the Army and my time in 6SIR, when, if the meaning was not already simple, could be forced into neat compartments that would simplify it. Who would bemoan the loss of the potato's original shape after one passes the spud through a grater? Now, I deal in diversity, and my task really is to emphasise the difference and, more importantly, the harmony that can exist in the difference. But understand that once in a while I yearn for something that, if it isn't simple, is at least simplistic.

*

Anyway, approaching the end of my three-hour break from work - two of which was taken up by the homeward commute. Luckily, I like homeward commutes, or I fear I would have quit long ago on account of the time spent travelling everyday. But the slow rocking of the buses and the electric songs of the trains are comforting to me, and the feeling I get when the train passes Tanah Merah and arcs over a viaduct that thrusts it up till there is nothing but sky outside the windows - that feeling itself makes up for the day that had preceded it that had made that moment possible. It is, in a way, deepened by the stress and work that must precede it; the troubles of the day anoint this moment with meaning.

My marking load has increased now, even though I've been processing scripts at best speed for the better part of two weeks. Currently, I still have to finish marking 2 classes' comprehensions, grade 2 classes' feature articles and mark and grade 1 class of expository essays. And next week will oblige me to give all my classes one last comprehension exercise, before I can really say I've wrapped everything up. This regime is definitely unforgiving; it eats up so much time.

The worst drawback about the marking, though, is not so much the fatigue that comes from it as the foregone outings because of it. Ms. Ong is approaching her last day of teaching this week, and for the first time since her graduation she won't be a teacher, and she won't be employed. It's a big thing, and we had had vague plans to spend this week's afternoons whiling away time and the sum experiences of all these years with her (with the high probability of wetting our whistles to go along with it). But in an ironic twist, all of us have been swamped with work this week, and so this milestone hovers on the brink of slipping away unmarked. Hmph...unmarked indeed.

Anyway, some of the kids have started asking why I will be stopping on May 10th. I won't bother being coy about this: it feels really good to be appreciated like this. And I do think that after sixteen weeks we've built something that works well in class - possibly even in spite of what I've brought to class rather than because of it. And honestly, a part of me does want to continue this, for who would not want to keep up something that works and is worthwhile? But like I said before, the value of it lies in its temporality, and the amount of effort I'm putting into it now is because I know that there is a deadline that will not be broken. If I were to teach until the end of the year, I don't think I would be able to sustain the motivation. I would like to hope so, but I don't think it will be the case.

So, bringing my teaching stint to a dignified and clean end here would be in the best interests of all parties involved, I think. That is, of course, not to say that a complete cutoff of ties is called for; indeed, I will be interested to know where some of my kids will end up in the future, for there is a lot of good potential here. But accepting an end to this stint, acknowledging that my time is required elsewhere and facing this fact stoutly and appreciatively, is the way to go.

And I have had a good run, I think. There is a lot that I am grateful for; that, after all, it has proven to be enriching beyond my wildest expectations. But why am I talking in the past tense? The run is not yet over, and it is not quite time yet to start eulogising about this experience. But the end is in sight, and I am envisioning what form it will take, and I approach it not with dread or with eagerness, but with appreciation of its inevitability and a determination to make the most of what's left.

Photowriting

This week ended with a day that opened with a morning storm, the kind that lashes at windows and pummels rooftops. The kind that wakes you up irrevocably and unapologetically. It's probably meaningless to talk about differences in weather across an island as small as Singapore, but it has always seemed to me that, ever since I started schooling in the Bukit Timah area, thunderstorms in central Singapore have always seemed more awesome than elsewhere. Maybe it has something to do with the lack of tall buildings, thereby depriving you of any semblance of real shelter from the power of the storms that hit this area. Maybe it's not that the rain is heavier or the thunder louder, and it's just that there is less standing between one and the storm. At any rate, it feels more raw there. You feel more exposed. And it's thrilling.

Anyway, it's been a good end to a good week, I think, a week of good productivity and rewarding work. My Sec 2s are producing a series of advertisements for their class soccer teams, and I just started delving into The Air-Conditioned Nation with the Sec 3s. It feels good to be making progress now, and getting feedback from the boys that all this stuff is useful. So little stands between a worthwhile class and a waste of time; and it is reassuring to know that they are absorbing at least some of it. On the other hand, I keep telling them, though, that I'm not their teacher, that I'm not a real teacher. Partly it's to kill off any great expectations before they can take root, to preempt any hint of a disproportionate impression of my work and my self that I will not be able to, or willing to, live up to. But I also realise that it's partly for myself; I need to hear this, in order to keep my sense of perspective balanced. I get so close, sometimes, to thinking that I am actually doing this well. The moment I am convinced of that is the moment to quit, because from that point onwards I will begin to harm my kids more than I help them.

Also, for three afternoons last week, joined the team working with the CHS group for the TV debating show, The Arena. That's two of them up there debating in a conference room. A good shot, if you would permit me this one indulgence. The Arena, being a televised thing, with teams dressed up as punks and hooligans even, was never really a serious forum for bandying about ideas; certainly it has always given me the impression of being about style over substance (and thus, the arty-farty shot above). But I have to say that we did manage to discuss some solid concepts and ideas during our preparation sessions. It's one thing to meet because you feel you have to, and it makes you feel better to be doing something to give yourself the psychological comfort of action. But once we got beyond that, and started to pull away from the breathless flurry of actions to concentrate on getting some real action going intellectually, it really was quite fun to discuss ideas with them. In this school, people get overawed by talk too easily, and it was good to see others being able to look past the spiel to the substance.

So, later that night, popped down to the riverside again to find the old gang for dinner and (purportedly) drinks. Here's Circular Road at Boat Quay with the skyline in the background. In a split-second of déjà-vu, it struck me how much the view from this particular traffic island at the end of Circular Road reminds me of Campbell Street in Penang. Walking a bit further down, I came upon the view below, which reminded me even more of Penang. I call this one "Irony".

Anyway, walked quite a distance from Boat Quay to Far East Square, then, deciding that it was too expensive, we sojourned to SGX where JY introduced us to a great ramen place. And we finished off by going over to Lau Par Sat for a couple of jugs of Tiger (no, it doesn't taste better when drunk in a venue that's not an Officers' Mess). It occurs to me that this group of us may be beginning to be stuck in a routine, so that it becomes inconceivable for us to meet in circumstances that don't involve Fridays, dinners and, crucially, drinks. We may be beginning to indulge ourselves heavily in the company of one another, getting drunk on being in a group together rather than being engaged in the shades and nuances of the interactions. For I don't care what other say, but being sober has consistently given me better experiences across the full sensory, intellectual and spiritual range, than being inebriated. That being said, though, I'm not one to begrudge anyone his own little traditions; to be sure, we all need our personal routines to remain anchored and sane, even. And how many people can depend on company of such calibre every Friday night? That should just be appreciated in and of itself.

So, the next day, went down to Caldecott for the filming of the Arena show that pitted our team against RI's team (and I say "our" out of convenience, because it means about as much to me to say the Raffles side is "my" team). I had expected something much swankier, actually; the place that produces everything from Channel 8 drama serials to Channel NewsAsia documentaries is really quite run-down. And certainly, the set for the Arena appears much smaller in real life. When you can see all the duct tape and the jury-rigging behind the camera-perfect façade, it's like being told the truth about Santa Claus. Something mystical, fantastical even, is lost when you can appreciate that any system can have cracks in it. Is there any more poignant metaphor for the arbitrariness and fragility of this thing we call reality than the make-up lady patting away sweat and wrinkles with her trusty powder puff?

Anyway, we did not win the debate. I would not say that RI won the debate, and neither would I say that we lost, because I don't think the final outcome had that much to do with what either team put forward under the spotlight. In other words, I don't think either team was personally responsible for the final decision. If it were possible, I think it would have ended up in a tie. But because of the limits of the TV show, someone had to emerge victorious. Now, if we had lost because of a lack of preparation or an attitude that left something to be desired, then we should be rightly peeved and we should endure a cutting self-appraisal of the team itself, rather than the case we put forward. Equally, if RI had won due to transcendant insight and incisive intellect, then they should be rightly proud of themselves, and deserving of such lauding. But the fact is that the final scores were really too close to call, even in the final round. And in the same sense that winning a caucus by five percentage points doesn't send a resounding signal, the margin on Saturday was so close that to make a case for or against the character and quality of the debaters themselves (as opposed to their cases) would be ludicrous. At least, that's what I think.

But I do have something to admit; I did indulge in a bit of self-righteousness. I couldn't resist it. There is a distinct sense of vindictive pleasure in being cuttingly nice to people who would make themselves out to be your enemy. So in response to the frigidity and (yes, I dare say it) downright rudeness of one of the adults from the camp that would make themselves out to be our opponents (honestly, that kind of childishness belongs in the sitcom studios, not in a professional educator), we gave back good-natured applause, cheering, congratulations and good cheer. I have to say that the way we conducted ourselves was inspiring. It made me proud to be standing on that side of the audience. Proud enough to give RI a standing ovation when the results were announced. I think we played well, and we presented ourselves commendably, and the outcome is not as important as behaving in a civil manner that befits people who purport to be able to argue on a highly intellectual level.

Here's a thought for you: After the show, both teams were in the same changing room getting out of their costumes. I suggested that since we had already lost, and since we had wanted the experience of debating in the finals, then we shouldn't let the fact of our not being on the final ticket stand in our way. We should therefore help RI in their case: join forces and see what we can come up with. That way, we would be able to at least get the experience of constructing a case for one more motion. And to top it off, and make use of the television platform, we could still improve the standing of both schools. When RI wins, they would magnanimously offer CHS half of the prize money in a gesture of goodwill and appreciation for them having been worthy opponents. Then, while the viewers at home drop their jaws in amazement at this seemingly unprompted act of good sportsmanship, our teacher in charge would come up, shake the RI team's hands warmly, and then turn to the camera and declare that we totally appreciated the thought, but we could not accept one cent of the prize money, because RI deserved every penny of it. And, in the midst of island-wide amazement, both sides would take their leave of the Arena.

And what would come of this? Forum letters the next day praising our education system for the quality of people that it churns out nowadays. Phone calls to the principals from parents and alumni that are moved to tears. Maybe even a TV spot on that night's news. What could be the worst thing to happen? Even if no one believes it (and I think they'll believe it), the schools would just come out and say that it was a highly sophisticated and cynical comment on how society has grown too pragmatic and has lost touch with the finer side of people's characters. If we can't come across as magnanimous, then we'll just come across as insightful.

But of course, first RI and then CHS turned it down. It's an idea that contradicts too much the irrational and counter-productive sense of school nationalism that everyone seems to have these days. Even when it's clear that both stand to gain by cooperating, neither side would stand down from their guns because they've grown too comfortable with the feeling of being under seige from the other side. So much for our vaunted Win-Win philosophy.

Remind me one day to elaborate on an innovation I made on that philosophy. There is a possibility that isn't adequately considered, I think: the stand that I shall term the "I'll help you win and then you can't stop me from gaining too" stand.

Anyway - today was my family's Qing Ming day, and we went down to the Bishan columbarium right behind RJC for the yearly alcove-cleaning. While my younger cousins and siblings were burning the paper currency offerings, one word jumped into my head: Zimbabwe. At any rate, it also occurs to me that this will be the last time in four years that I will be attending Qing Ming. Here is yet another step that I have took to be closer to August. Here is another part of this life that I have left behind in my race to look forward.

And, even at this late stage, I am finding new things that are worth remembering. In all my years so far, I have not done the Tampines-Simei walk. So this morning, finding myself at the Tampines parish of the Holy Trinity, I decided to follow the train tracks home, and came across these views. Above, cars whizz by on the PIE under the train viaduct. That's Simei on the other side of the highway. Below, a view from the overhead bridge spanning the highway at the tessellation of apartment windows. And further down, a view of a block of flats I have never seen before, from a quaint little park I had never known existed, even though I live only two streets away.

I saw these thing today with the stark awareness that I don't know my own neighbourhood well enough to say a proper goodbye to it some August. It could conceivably be the case that I would know Morningside Heights better than Simei after four years. Here, at home, my orbit is so familiar and so narrow (I have walked the path between the train station and my house literally tens of thousands of times) that there is no urge to get out and see more. When I get to New York, I daresay the opposite will be true, and I will have to restrain myself from spending all my time exploring. And yet, even here in my home city, in my own neighbourhood, there are moments of wanderlust to be had, moments that rival any that can be encountered abroad. The only thing that's really different is that these home-located moments lack that certain glamour of Elsewhere.

Cloudflow

Walked onto the terraces yesterday morning to find this in the sky: a delta of cloud, a sky estuary. What invisible crosswinds and currents must have kissed it to make it wind and weave like this...

Anyway, on the way home yesterday, ran into Ronnie from the OCS days on the train. It was an unexpected encounter, and I was definitely caught off-guard. Half of my brain was trying to retrieve the name; irritatingly, I could only remember that his name started with an R. The other half was scrambling to call up the usual long-time-no-see routine to buy time.

It was one of those encounters that gradually slip out of control, spiralling into awkwardness. What started off as a jovial greeting became, after subsequent missteps, a disengaging maneouvre, with me counting down the stops left till Simei. And what really struck me was how it all happened so accidentally. One thing said in innocence was taken in the wrong spirit, and then a defensive feint was interpreted as aloofness, and pretty soon, you feel yourself shrinking away from the contact just as the other person's shoulders get drawn in just perceptibly, the other person's face tighten just slightly. And then you know that you're making the wrong impression, but you also understand that saying as much will only make you sound condescending and petty. And so here are two people bound up in social conventions, locked in a collision course, and looking out for the first chance to duck out of it.

Well - I daresay I am overdramatising it a bit. Certainly Ronnie is not that kind of petty character who will pass judgment on the basis of a single encounter. But I remember how we parted ways a year and a half ago, and how this new meeting will compare to the circumstances back then, and I cringe, afraid that I did not manage to do justice to what had come to pass before. How can I explain it, this desire - or instinct - to live up to your past? And how a gesture perceived with a slightly different shade of meaning can place everything in a new perspective, which calls into question the assumptions that our memories of the past are built on.

Maybe this will make a good story, this idea of a chance reunion going awry despite the best intentions of the parties involved, their actions thrown into the wrong light, refracted through all the experiences that they had separately gone through in the intervening time. Also, they get pulled divergently by their distinct futures. I guess this is what happens when we meet someone again, someone who has not been around to adapt to the changes in ourselves that have been gradually wrought over the years, and with whom we know we have no future commitments to. So without a common starting point and a common goal, all we have to work with are the social conventions that parse the present into ad hoc meaning, which, of course, will not be able to compare with what we remember.

*

And on another level, I do feel like I need to write something. Something substantial, beyond the comments on students' work, beyond the bi-diurnal ramblings on this journal. Something that will capture this feeling, this feeling in this week, in this month, when I just barely manage to live on the cusp of tomorrow, and still am called forward by the approach of August. This feeling will pass - there was never any doubt of that - but there is also an impression that it will, somehow, never happen again, and because of that, there is also a feeling that, somehow, this is something deserving of proper recording. Do you get what I'm saying?

Running Off the Map

Finished Peer Gynt a few days ago. Towards the end, the play really falls off the map. Peer started off by relating fantastical and purportedly fictional journeys to his mother, then travelled far and wide into the fantastical Middle East, before heading back to Norway only to fall into the fantastical realms of what I sumise must be death. He gets shipwrecked, and, while he bobs around in the tempestuous sea, he fights to stay afloat in the flotsam, even going so far as to fight other sailors off his piece of debris and sending them to their watery graves. The play takes a turn into another dimension decisively, when, in the middle of a debate over who should let go and allow the other to live, one of the survivors, a mysterious and unidentified figure, tells Peer not to worry: he will not die in the middle of Act 5.

The identity of this character will doubtlessly be interesting to consider, but at the time the unprovoked and unexpected shattering of the fourth wall grabbed my attention. After this, Peer wanders past a series of what I can only call tableaux, that present what I surmise to be alternative endings to his life. In the middle of a charred field through which a wildfire had raged, Peer meets the enigmatic Button Moulder, who claims to have been sent to collect Peer's soul for recycling (to use a modern word). As the reasoning went, Peer was regarded by the Maker as a defective product, having done all he could to avoid the purpose he had been made for (what that purpose actually is, I cannot venture to guess; this is Peer Gynt, not Moses). So, his soul would be melted down to join the pool of other rejects to form the raw material for new souls.

Peer revolts against the notion of this deep affront to his principle of life; after congratulating himself frequently throughout his life on managing to remain completely "himself", he balks (understandably, if not justifiably) at the notion of his self being mixed with other, less distinguished selves. So, rather than succumbing to this fate, he sets out to find evidence that he had been a distinct and unique personality that deserves to be preserved for all posterity. Failing this, he tries to find evidence of extreme sin on his part, starkly raising the question of whether it is perhaps better to be a notorious evil-doer than a nondescript lukewarm personality. And in an even more bizarre reversal, the devil himself refuses to take him to hell, judging Peer to be unworthy of damnation.

Despite all this, Peer manages to find solace in an unlikely place - though in hindsight it really seems pretty obvious, even clichéd. He stumbles onto the hut he had built in the forest in his youth, where he had left a girl he had promised to marry. Now an old lady, it turns out that she has been waiting for him to come back all along. She offers the protection of her love and, bizarrely, ends the play by singing a lullaby last sung by Peer's late mother before she passed away. Now, if we accept that Peer is actually dead or near death in the last Act, then Solveig (the girl) is thus only reunited with Peer in the afterlife - which has all the usual connotations of tragic cheated youth and unrequited love. But what I can't figure is her partial transmutation into his mother, a kind of Oedipus twist at the end. What is the point?

Nevertheless, the bewildering ending notwithstanding, Peer Gynt was a play that was fun to read. I reckon more footnotes and references would have been useful, but even in itself, the texture and detail of the imagined scenes are rich and cloying. I cannot imagine how the play could be staged practically, calling as it does for scenery as diverse as the Sphinx, a sinking ship and a burned forest. But as a work of literature, as a poem cut up into dramatic lines, as verse presented in script form, it is not bad, even though it is presented in translation from the original Norwegian. After finishing it, there is a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, the kind of satisfaction that comes from finishing a good piece of writing, a delight in the use of good language that is quite independent of what message the piece actually carries.

*

I look at the things that I have done over the past few days, and ask myself what I was motivated by. I would like to think that partly all this was rooted in a genuine desire to do something worthwhile, in a spirit of idealism, altruism and selflessness. But I cannot get past the fact that this impression is fashionable sort of self-image to have these days. Within this assessment is a certain degree of advertisement of myself to myself, I think. And I find that it is more truthful to attribute the works of mine own hands to a more selfish desire: a yearning to be remembered.

You wake up everyday, and every day is a fight against being forgotten. The French put it aptly: oublier - oblivion. There must be an etymological link there. In this fight, you try to leave as many artifacts as possible, so you can have proof that time has actually passed, and has actually passed productively. The ultimate aim is to leave an impression in that most unstable of mediums, the memories of other people.

Is there anything that is more powerful than shared memory?

Also, I guess, there is a certain desire to add your own small effort to the larger pattern of human existence, to lend your strength to a bigger cause and thereby give your own life a purpose that is distilled from the larger purpose of humanity. Okay, maybe not in such dramatic terms, but you get what I mean. To be part of something larger, to be part of a perpetuation of human growth; this is a desire borne of a hope that a part of your history will be preserved when it is invested in the human legacy.

And so, we leave a past, and we hope to leave a future too. These are our meagre weaponry arrayed against the voraciousness of time.

The top three irritating things encountered this weekend:

1. Females talking about NS as if they understand what it's like to be in it
2. People sending me an SMS to ask me to ask someone else something, rather than doing the logical thing and sending said person an SMS directly
3. People trying to guilt-trip me into an act of charity (especially those kids with the coupons to sell - whatever happened to good old flag days?)

Mmm...but that being said, I just had to get those off my chest. Indulge me in a little venting. But in actual fact, it has been quite a splendid weekend full of good food and good conversations. At this point in time, it would be sheer ingratitude to ask for more.

There's been a lot of talk of the future, of how going to university will open our minds up and blow our previous horizons sky high. Well - needless to say, I definitely hope that will actually come to pass, when August finally arrives. And don't get me wrong - it's fun to indulge in this kind of anticipatory projection, this make-believe exercise as you try to imagine the shape of something that you have no inkling of. But there is a difference, I am beginning to see, between idle speculation and concrete prediction, between speaking about the future from a position of unmitigated ignorance, and speaking about the future in terms of what you have experienced before. Lets put it in this way: there's a difference between anticipating the twist at the end of a hitherto unwatched movie, and reminding yourself to look out for the climax in a rewatching. And where I tend to speak in terms of what "might" happen, people who've already gone through it (or are currently going through it, for that matter) tend to speak in terms of what "will" happen. And that is somehow depressing - as if I am doomed to relive their lives, as if they are trying to relive their lives vicariously through me. There is an element of feeling cheated too, as if my future unknown experience is being hijacked from me, being colonised by the romanticisms and sentiments of another's memory. It's like having a movie ending spoilt for you, I guess.

What I like about the state I am in now is the total lack of expectations, in the sense that I have no bearing on the future experience at all, and so I can't even begin to imagine what it can be like, let alone what it should be like. All I have now are vague and idealised visions, as substantial and predictive as dreams. And this clean slate is good to cherish and to enjoy, because we are so rarely aware of our own ignorance and the possibilities that ignorance can open up to our imagination. And it is only natural that I am defensive of it against the encroachment of another's experience. I want - need - to think that what I will be going through is totally different and therefore special to myself.

Aaanyway, yesterday, over (well, actually, under the shadow of) a beer tower at Brewerkz, had a really enjoyable conversation with Llama, Ms. Ong, Joel, JY and Conan about Western supremacy and Orientalism in our mindsets, with reference to the skewing of information over the Tibet issue. Having substantive arguments like that, arguments that are based on ascertainable fact and a wide range of credible evidence, and involving people who are actually aware of the arguments and evidence and are therefore familiar enough with them to avoid arguing from a pulpit or in a vacuum, is rare enough these days. But yesterday, it was also a clever and witty conversation. It was serious and it was playful, substantive on an intellectual level but inconsequential on a personal level. A big part has to do with Llama and the way that he can swing to extremes without discomfiting you, the way that he can express an alien viewpoint and make it comprehensible. I need to learn that kind of expressiveness and openness, I think. It is a kind of compassionate sharpness, that can cut to the chase of the issue without cutting into the egos of the arguers. If only I could communicate like that...but usually I compromise on the former for fear of committing the latter.

You know, listening to Llama talk last night was like coming across an enlightenment moment in a good book. I am fortunate, too, in that my friends do suddenly throw up moments like that now and then, moments that effect paradigm shifts that totally redefine an argument and one's assessment of a set of circumstances. Here is where I get practice in flexing my perspectives, in this environment where no viewpoint is sacrosanct and subject to ruthless scrutiny and assessment, while our regard for each other is unquestionably protected from the same. It is refreshing, it is invigorating, when we talk thus.

And tonight, had dinner with my family and talked about school, the future and careers over dim sum at Jalan Besar. Education's a big thing at my place now, since my parents and myself are in it (and of course Marcus is in the system as a student), though, ironically, none of us are actually real teachers (I don't count myself as really teaching, because I don't think my kids need a real teacher in the sense that it is conceptualised in the Chinese High). Now, when we talk of an issue like student rights and school scandals, we have the rare privilege of having multiple perspectives, one from high-level management, one from the classroom and one from the student counsellor's office. It does give rise to the most interesting viewpoints, which are distilled out of and confirmed from these disparate experiences in the education system. But of course, it would be inopportune to talk about the details here.

On the way out of Jalan Besar on our way to drop Greg off at his camp, we drove through the crowded and clamorous streets of Little India, and I just wound down the window and stuck my phone out to snap some pictures. On the roadside, stalls had been set up selling spices, gourds, sides of meat and sundry items. The air was spiced with exhaust, Pakistani food and North Indian fare. Here, then, in the cramped side streets of Little India, as Ms. Ong has pointed out before, are the weekend past-times of a simpler sort. This is not to say that I don't enjoy it; on the contrary, I find that it's exhilarating, like coming across that moment of delight on my last night in Borneo in January again, this time in a strip of Singapore I had not encountered before. But I also have to say that my enjoyment of the situation is necessarily a bit fraudulent, because it looks quaint and delightful to me because I know that I am not compelled to enjoy this every weekend as my only viable form of recreation. The thing is not to delude yourself into thinking you sympathise with them, because doing so is something very dishonest to yourself and condescending to them, I think. Good-hearted though it may be, this claim of fellow-feeling cheapens the richness of the circumstances of something that you really cannot understand. So, I can't say that walking (or, actually, driving) through this crowd makes me feel for them; the most I can say is that it makes me want to feel for them, on some level.

And next wek, it's another week of frenzied lesson creation and marking. Am approaching the end of my compo-marking task, but have three classes worth of comprehension answers to deal with next week. After the pleasant surprises of the feature articles, marking the far less varied comprehensions will be quite a chore, I expect. But work demands its due attention. And on top of that, big things may be in the wind next week at school. We shall see what happens.

Remarkable Work

You know, sometimes it is really frustrating trying to argue with people who think they are open-minded enough, and have grown complacent in their positions. No matter how you try to perturb their mindsets, they unflinchingly stick to their guns. And the more concerted your efforts, the closer they draw their defences, until there come a point when defensiveness turns into condescension, and you know that there is no way to make an impression anymore.

I won't elaborate too much on the issue here - it is neither appropriate or useful. But I have to say this: in a school, the students' welfare and growth must be paramount. That is not to say that one has to pander to the kids; no, but it does mean that one must never take a decision that unjustly penalises them in some way. In a school, the students need more protection than the teachers, and teachers who think otherwise give the impression of having something to hide that could call into question their authority to teach. And if you ever need to choose between protecting the school's reputation and protecting the students' interests, then the only ethical choice is clearly to choose the latter. Systems are only as good as they are useful; when systems fail, they should be changed rather than defended. They are not inherently valuable. And I find that treating all that elaborate structure just like so much putty makes it so much easier to see not only the flaws in it, but also how to fix those flaws. But on the other hand, students are real people, and under no circumstances is a real person less valuable than an abstraction.

But anyway, there came a point when this blessed realisation broke over me; I don't need to put up with any of this. My perspective on the issue, whether it is justified or right or otherwise, is made possible because of my lack of long-term vested interest in the system. It's really liberating, and a bit sad, too, because I find that I can't fundamentally work up any sort of passion for the school as a system. It's a sadness on principle, that I have none of that vaunted "school spirit".

But in principle only. I still have work to do for my kids, and until May 10th, nothing's going to change that priority. Been marking the feature articles from my Sec 2s, and there is a lot of remarkable work there: top-notch structuring, style, humour and even irony, that most elusive of effects. I don't know to what extent my work with them was responsible for this; and I daresay I'm looking at their work through glasses tinted rose by my innate need for reassurance that all my work so far has not been for naught. For that is a fundamental fear, I think, a fear of not being able to make an impression, a fear that fundamentally drives everything from my urge to travel to this obsessive journalling. But that notwithstanding - the work I am marking now is really so surprisingly good that I think I will regret it when the last script is graded.

I think, partly, it is also because most of the features are written in very optimistic, hopeful terms. Reading these articles, you'd think everyone in class was a child prodigy, with solid work ethics, a charming personality, and a bright future ahead of them. Whether or not this is an accurate reflection is beside the point, though of course I sincerely hope so. The thing is the hope, the sincere admiration and respect for each other that comes through their writing, that makes my day, and makes all this effort worthwhile. Frankly, I feel distinctly humbled and privileged to even be part of this exercise, to be on the receiving end of all this real effort.

If only I could post some of the material online, just to show you where all this delight is coming from. But that would be in bad taste. And it would also be illegal. Oh well: its indescribability makes it all the more special. But at least, I hope, one day they will be able to fully appreciate the many ways in which their work is good, and even come to grasp the techniques that will allow them to reproduce on demand such moments of genius.

*

And, of course, as August draws nearer, that helps to put things in perspective too. The Class of 2012 is starting to constitute itself on Facebook, and on the official group there are people going delirious on the Wall. It's thrilling to be a part of this! And as August comes closer, I have to start considering the end of this delicious period of carefree anticipation. A part of me wonders wistfully, if it were possible to stay in this state of suspension forever, this state of looking forward wholeheartedly with no reservations whatsoever. But of course, part of the allure of the anticipation is precisely because it is temporary. And you know what they say will happen to all good things. The best thing to hope for, then, is for the next good thing to come along quick, before the rosy glow from the last one completely flickers and dies out.

A Good Day

Work has been piling up this week, as the machine of academia grinds back up to full speed. Have had to create lessons practically from scratch, because I find myself coming to the end of the resource file - with six weeks of school left to fill. Fortunately, though, I don't seem to be in as much of a vacuum as my poor college-side colleagues, who are mired in a GP department that, from their descriptions, contains nothing of value besides cartoonish caricatures for personalities. Well, they have that entertainment value; I, on the other hand, find myself inventing lesson plans and worksheets and assignments as I go along, with nought but a single worksheet from the resource file to guide me.

You can imagine how hard it is to extrapolate that flimsy sheet into something meaningful. And this, I reckon, is a side that students rarely see of their teachers. Definitely I always thought that teachers always came to class fully prepared and armed with materials, and could even be prepared in spite of themselves. Behind the blackboard, I envisioned reams upon reams of knowledge and training that would spontaneously give rise to lessons without any significant human intervention. If only my kids knew that I was coming up with this stuff as I go along; that, in fact, the things that I say only seem like reliable principles, if not gospel-like truth, because of the credibility I derive (rather fallaciously, I must add) from my role as their teacher. All is questionable, it is clear; but what use is it to reveal that questionability to them? They don't need a post-modern or existentialist crisis of faith, not at this juncture. They could, on the other hand, use some guidance. And all that I have to bank on to provide that guidance is a few extra years of experience. Which, even as I write this, strikes me as a ridiculously flimsy foundation on which to build a world-view and linguistic proficiency.

But happily this term's topic for my Sec 2s isn't wholly alien. Coming up with materials for a unit on persuasive writing, I find myself in a position that I never dreamed possible: I am drawing on what I learned during Project Work in JC1, when we did an examination on the persuasive elements in perfume advertising. Was searching through my old records yesterday, and found, to my consternation and amusement, that I had deleted my PW files. Paper, PowerPoint, research, results - all gone. At that point in time it seemed like a good idea - get rid of a blight against my academic principles (has mankind ever invented something as perfidious as the subject known as Project Work?), and free up some disk space to boot. Well - shows what I know, doesn't it?

Anyway - I find myself looking up old memorable adverts for case studies. Remember the "Mr. Bond" Visa advert? The one with Mr. Brosnan flying through (yes, through) Bangkok on a tuktuk? And the onetime ubiquitous Richard Geere "My brother is going on a journey" one. And the latest ones, including the Jackie Chan Olympic campaign and the M1 "Sin-gaa-poor? Is it a suburb?" one, which is a new classic! Additionally, also considering the rather brilliant (even if hopelessly fallacious) Chevron "Human Energy" ad. And was also looking at the 2012 Olympic City candidate ads - and I am forced to change my previous assessment, after more detailed examination, and conclude that the London ad is actually more substantial (and in that sense more useful in promoting that city) than the Paris one.

The Sec 3 class is on the verge of diving into an exposition unit using George's The Air-Conditioned Nation as a case study. Spent a lot of last week inventing material on how to write an essay, creating whole new structures and diagrams out of thin air. I daresay it all looks really professional, for something that I pulled out of nothingness on the insistence of necessity. Repackage it, and it'll pass off as a bestseller on the self-help shelves; goes to show how useful those authors really are. Tomorrow, will have to start on substantial analysis on the book itself, paying special attention, of course, to the argumentative techniques used in the book. After a few weeks on political philosophy, it's good to return to familiar territory. Rather than debating with our heads in the clouds, it's time to get back to the nitty-gritty of linguistics and style and technique.

*

And I'll tell you what makes all this effort worth it: it's when you give an assignment and receive works of art in return. Okay, maybe not works of art, but definitely works of pride and real effort. Set my Sec 2s a news-writing assignment last week, and they've produced (so far) pieces that are remarkably advanced and stylish linguistically. They may not be publishable (yet), but the way that they use linguistic devices and turn a phrase reveals a certain sophistication that is deeply heartening. It's already impressive to see well-formatted news-articles printed in full colour (one even had a self-created newspaper logo emblazoned on the pages, and another came in a handsome folder) that are so nice that I feel bad graffiti-ing them with my red ink. And when I read a good phrase, it deepens the delight and respect for their abilities, because it shows that their aesthetic sense and abilities go beyond the surface and even affect how they manipulate language.

Is this normal? I hope it is. Will it continue? I hope it does. Reports from elsewhere in the level, rumours during meetings and along corridors, and reflections from college-side colleagues indicate that mediocrity is the order of the day. Perhaps there is something to be said for the point that creativity dislikes any form of framework, even the minimal framework needed to produce a meaningful assessment system, and that structure suppresses invention. But I would rather hope that this is just what they have always been capable of, and that the unimpressive results that others speak of are not contagious and are in fact batch-specific. I would not presume to venture the extent of my role in this astonishing (to me) productivity. I hope that they are doing this in spite of me. Because that means that they'll be able to continue doing it even after I'm gone. And that, I think, is what everyone really wants at heart.

*

After I'm gone...

Corresponded with URA over applying for university housing and meal plans, and spent the evening looking through pictures of Columbia's hostels and dining halls instead of doing the marking that I need to do. I reckon I'll regret this tomorrow. But applying for accommodation and meal plans is thrilling! Looking at the pictures, examining the options, trying to anticipate what I will want out of an experience that I have absolutely no bearing on - that is exhilarating. It's like trying to find your location in a country that lacks a zero mile. You know the choice is important, that it will affect all that comes afterwards, but at the moment every choice seems the same to you. And so it is hard to commit to any direction. And the process drags on deliciously.

*

Incidentally, too, while in a Starbucks marking with Joel today, what should I hear but the soundtrack from Fellini's 8 ½ playing on the in-store PA system? It was magical, hearing the cascading lilting strings and the trumpet, reawakening images of a child in white suit, cape and hat leading a band of clowns around a ring set under a great scaffold holding up a face spaceship. It's still my favourite movie ever. And coming into contact with it unexpectedly today added to my already considerable happiness and contentment with the world in general. Yep, we come across days like this now and again, and when they happen you have to enjoy every last morsel of it, savour it all as much as you can before it slips away resolutely into the dark realms of sleep and memory.

Cairo Madhouse

After finding himself being declared the reincarnation of the Prophet by an Arabian nomadic tribe, and narrowly escaping marriage to who he thinks is the girl of his dreams, Peer Gynt is picked up by Dr. Begriffenfeldt, who is enraptured by Peer's expostulations on the nature of selfhood at the foot of the Sphinx. The latter turns out to be the head of the Cairo lunatic asylum, and declares the dumbfounded Peer Gynt Kaiser of the madhouse. Peer tries to leave, but the Doctor stops him.

BEGRIFFENFELDT (Holding him)
Are you crazy?

PEER
                            Not yet ---. Crazy? Heaven forbid!
(A commotion. The minister HUSSEIN forces his way through the crowd.)

HUSSEIN
They tell me a Kaiser has come to-day. (To PEER GYNT)
It is you?

PEER (In desperation)
                Yes, that is a settled thing!

HUSSEIN
Good. --- Then no doubt there are notes to be answered?

PEER (Tearing his hair)
Come on! Right you are, sir; --- the madder the better!

HUSSEIN
Will you do me the honour of taking a dip? (Bowing deeply)
I am a pen.

PEER (Bowing still deeper)
                Why then I am quite clearly
a rubbishy piece of imperial parchment.

HUSSEIN
My story, my lord, is concisely this:
they take me for a sand-box, and I am a pen.

PEER
My story, Sir Pen, is, to put it briefly:
I'm a blank sheet of paper that no one will write on.

HUSSEIN
No man understands in the least what I'm good for;
they all want to use me for scattering sand with!

PEER
I was in a woman's keeping a silver-clasped book; ---
it's one and the same misprint to be either mad or sane!

HUSSEIN
Just fancy, what an exhausting life:
to be a pen and never taste the edge of a knife!

PEER (With a high leap)
Just fancy, for a reindeer to leap from on high ---
to fall and fall --- and never feel the ground beneath your hoofs!

HUSSEIN
A knife! I am blunt; --- quick, mend me and slit me!
The world will go to ruin if they don't mend my point for me!

PEER
A pity for the world which, like other self-made things,
was reckoned by the Lord to be so excellently good.

BEGRIFFENFELDT
Here's a knife!

HUSSEIN (Seizing it)
Ah, how I shall lick up the ink now!
Oh, what rapture to cut oneself! (Cuts his throat)

BEGRIFFENFELDT (Stepping aside)
                                                        Pray do not sputter.

PEER (In increasing terror)
Hold him!

HUSSEIN
                Ay, hold me! That is the word!
Hold! Hold the pen! On the desk with the paper---! (Falls)
I'm outworn. The postscript - remember it, pray:
He lived and he died as a fate-guided pen!

PEER (Dizzily)
What shall I --- ! What am I? Thou mighty ---, hold fast!
I am all that thou wilt, --- I'm a Turk, I'm a sinner ---
a hill-troll ---; but help; ---there was something that burst! (Shrieks)
I cannot just hit on thy name at the moment; ---
oh, come to my aid, thou - all madmen's protector! (Sinks down insensible)

BEGRIFFENFELDT
(With a wreath of straw in his hand, gives a bound and sits astride of him)
Ha! See him in the mire enthronëd; ---
beside himself ---! To crown him now!
(Presses the wreath on PEER GYNT's head, and shouts:)
Long life, long life to Self-hood's Kaiser!

- from Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, IV.xiii

Road to Emmaus

Sunset on a rain-splashed road: summit of Siglap Hill. I took this one after church today. In the course of the mass, found out that my parish actually numbered 10,000 strong. I had already known that the parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour is the largest in Singapore, but imagine the scale of it: 10,000 parishioners! And every weekend, there are apparently 48 catechism classes (Sunday school, in other terms) with 1,500 students - and the church still has to turn away some prospective students. That's the equivalent of your average secondary school population. Of course, not all the students are at the church at the same time, but to have 1,500 names on the roster is still pretty impressive.

Of course, the number of parishioners really shouldn't have any fundamental impact on your personal faith, but it does make a difference whether you're among a handful of congregants during a mass, or whether the service is standing-room-only. Being among more people, you are less self-conscious, in the way that people would cheer much more when among likeminded fans than when watching a match alone on the telly. You don't feel so sheepish in expressing the intensity of your feelings.

Which, in itself, may be a good or bad thing. Take, for example, Yawp. Sat in for this performance-poetry event on Friday night with JY, and bumped into Wiggy, so at least the company was good. And in the same way, the performers took the fact of so many self-professed performance poets in the same place as license to do some pretty bizarre and, frankly, idiotic things. But it's something that I guess you can expect from an event that calls itself "Young Adult Writers Perform". For Young Adults, read: intensity borne from inexperience. And "writers" are rarely good at performing. And naming oneself after Beat Generation poem awakens pretentious ideas of tabacco, alcohol and dope fuelling half-conscious lyrical exhortations in a dim, smoky salon - a notion that is hopelessly idealistic in an environment where the most intoxicating substance available is hysterical laughter.

Some of the pieces were pretty awful. The younger performers were rather blatant with their themes, so their material was more like advertising than poetry. Older performers fumbled with material on love, lust and sex, even going far enough to demean and cheapen themselves, in the process making the audience (or me, at least) feel soiled. But all this clumsiness and exuberant preening was, I believe, all done in innocence, and one cannot begrudge young people for being young. The worst performance, I think, was from the renowned poet-judge they invited down. And I will venture to name him since I think his behaviour warrants such criticism. Cyril Wong may be a published poet, but the material he read last night still stood out for its childishness and simple-mindedness. Some of the words may have been nice (and some were pretty laughable - I know peers who I feel can write better), but if the ideas that lie behind them are unremarkable, what are nice words but ornaments and trinkets? And least of all, having your works published doesn't give you enough of a standing to demean other people's works. Criticise, yes, but don't condescend. This, I generalise hesitantly, may be the big problem with Singapore's writing scene as it exists now. It's filled with celebrities, rather than artists, holier-than-thou narcissists whose quirkiness is carefully cultivated for its PR value. Even his can't-be-bothered attitude with Yawp (which I honestly can't fault him for per se) struck me as scripted. And if you call yourself a poet, then it's clear that poor manners isn't a result of limited vocabulary, or of limited experience, but of a character trait.

That being said, though, I must also add that there were some surprising moments on Friday night. There was a piece using rush-hour MRT rides as a metaphor for proximity and alienation which had pretty good ideas (though "You decided to paint the rails/ With yourself" kind of shattered the mood in a big way); they justifiably won the top prize. The guest performers were good too. An entertaining parody of The Raven, a rapper who I thought was the best poet of the whole night ("My hands on your.../Hands, on your.../Hands, on your..."), and a guitarist-and-poet duet who did a great performance of a self-composed poem, Atomic Jesus (there's a term to remember). For four bucks, it wasn't catastrophic, I guess.

*

The next step is beginning. The admissions package from Columbia arrived today, and the welcome website for the class of 2012 was also launched a few days ago. So, finally, comes the time to choose accommodation and meal plans, and to apply for the student visa, and to settle terms with URA, and get myself pleasantly enmeshed in the administrative grunt-work to prepare for August. It is exhilarating, finally indulging in the process that I had put off for two years. Considering what my future room will look like. Thinking about what I will eat. Imagining who I will meet. Looking at pictures, reading descriptions, and trying to build an impression of the unimaginable future on these small details.

The next step is beginning. And it is already April!

Peer Gynt

PEER
I am, as I've already said,
exclusively a self-taught man.
Methodically naught I've learned;
but I have thought and speculated,
and done much desultory reading.
I started somewhat late in life,
and then, you know, it's rather hard
to plough ahead through page on page,
and take in all of everything.
I've done my history piecemeal;
I never have had time for more.
And, as one needs in days of trial
some certainty to place one's trust in,
I took religion intermittently.
That way it goes more smoothly down.
One should not read to swallow all,
but rather see what one has use for.
...
The essence of the art of daring,
the art of bravery in act,
is this: To stand with choice-free foot
amid the treacherous snares of life, -
to know for sure that other days
remain beyond the day of battle, -
to know that ever in the rear
a bridge for your retreat stands open.

- from Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, IV.i

I've read the first passage before, though I cannot think where. When I read it in my copy of the work (a worn but handsome hardcover that we bought in Australia - definitely also older than Singapore!) a breathless vertiginous feeling crept up over me, like when you step back from the brink of tumbling over a precipice. I can't perceive where I read this before; that lies at the bottom of a fathomless memory. But I can hear the echoes emanating upwards, and perhaps this is the voice of Time speaking in borrowed words.

But enough purple prose. Started reading Peer Gynt last Sunday, and I'm only halfway through it, but it's become clear to me that this work deserves its reputation at the top of the range of Ibsen's writing. Somehow or other, it's more accessible than the other Ibsen plays I've read - though the trend is for each play to appeal to me more than the last, so it could just be that I'm growing into them, or that they require an element of experience to fully reveal their meaning. But even though it's in meter (a feature that has put me off before), its themes and ideas are startlingly clear, not only surviving the translation into English, but positively thriving on the new linguistic landscape that it finds itself in (though, perhaps, that's as much to do with the translators as with the playwright).

At this point, the play seems like a fairy-tale; it certainly has the structural elements of a rags-to-riches story, the signature of a force of Fate or Luck that is particularly playful, and the imagery of fantastical realms and castles populated by fantastical creatures. There's even a lingering shadow of what seems like a moral. But all the characters are decidedly human, or "fallen", to (mis?)use a technical term. Still working on this idea, but roughly it's the notion of a human heart in a fantastical body, or perhaps a fantastical idea anchored (or weighed down) by a human heart.

And in Peer, too, you have that idea. I think he's a dreamer, but also a fantasist who's continually surprised at how many of his dreams keep coming true. Then there's the pragmatist in him, in the way that he is willing to compromise every belief and reason that he has to exploit the current situation, up to the point where all he has left is a way out of the situation at hand, an escape route in case things turn sour (I am reminded, here, of the gangster godfather in Michael Mann's Heat). So on the one hand Peer finds himself having his dreams come true in the most improbable ways, and on the other hand he can't bring himself to fully believe his luck, and skeptically keeps one toe on solid ground, even as he fantasises (drunkenly, dreamily, or wide awake).

And there's this scene, with him in the forest chopping down a tree and pretending he's a mighty warrior fighting a worthy opponent. Then, a farm boy comes up near him and chops his own finger off. Peer, watching from behind the felled trunk, is horrified at the thought that someone could have the willpower to commit himself to an irreversible decision like that. "Ay, think of it - wish it done - will it to boot, - but to do it!" he marvels. "No, that's past my understanding!" But the irony lies in the fact that this act of self-maiming was because the boy didn't want to be drafted into the King's army. So while Peer is busy playing at a pretend battle, this random boy actually takes a real decision - with irrevocable consequences - to avoid fighting a real battle. In this comparison are too many dichotomies and meanings to unravel now, I think - but it's moments like this that keep me flipping page after yellowed page.

Every morning, getting out of bed at 5.15am to make it to school on time is pretty dificult. It's even worse than in the Army, where I used to wake up at 6.30, wash up, change, and then go downstairs to my office and to a new day of work. But one thing never fails, not then and not now. Seeing the sky brighten always perks me up. When I was on missions in the field, there's nothing quite as heartening as watching the darkness slowly turn to indigo, and seeing the leaves of the canopy overhead being silhouetted against the dawn. After a cold night, you wake up wrapped up in your jacket and cocooned in your hammock staring up at the brightening sky; and, though you are in the middle of the jungle, though you have just passed a day of hard trekking and only have another day of hard trekking to look forward to, you almost feel - almost - that you are exactly where you need to be.

And so it is every morning, on the terraces on the hillside of the school, facing East, with the brass band playing the anthem and the flags being hoisted high. Every morning, waking up early is justified by the dawn sky. I realise that I'm very much partial to the times of transition; that is, sunrise and sunset. Watching the colours change is exhilarating; the patterns of light and dark change with the second, and everywhere around you new things to see appear endlessly. A sunrise is enthralment; and a sunset is enchantment.

*

Had a crisis of faith today during class. I planned to show my Sec 2s George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck, but the first screening was undone by poor audio quality in the classrooms, forcing me to rush the booking of an LT to transplant my class to. And anyway, the general sense is that these kids can't appreciate the movie fully. They didn't have the contextual knowledge, so at one point I was pausing the film after every scene to explain to them the significance of McCarthy and his antics in the context of 50s America. Also, they were put off by the black and white, I think.

So overall I'm not sure of the usefulness of the session at all. Was using the film as a starting point for a discussion on ethics in journalism for tomorrow, but a more fundamental purpose was to introduce them to a medium. I realise that, beyond teaching the technicalities of English, I am actually rather imperialistic in the way that I choose the materials for my lessons. I impose on them works that I think they should like, works that I feel will make them appreciate the fruits of the language in a way that is moulded after the way I appreciate them. So the pattern that started with Arthur C. Clarke, went through Roald Dahl, Jeanette Winterson, Paul Theroux, Pico Iyer, Sarah Turnbull and Jean-Paul Jeunet, and finally came to George Clooney - the pattern is meant to nudge them to become more sensitive and responsive consumers of the language.

But of course, at the end of the day these are still my tastes, and only one of an unimaginable range of paths to approach that particular end-state. And definitely some people will not like it - may not even understand enough of it to form an opinion on it. I realise that by introducing them to works that I myself only discovered in JC, I may be putting some of them off the genre by intimidating them too much. Intense beauty is still intense, and it is that immediacy that can be frightening, no matter how wonderful it may make me feel. But my hope is that I will at least be able to prod a few of them in the right direction - or rather, in the direction that I think is right because I took it. If one or two come away from all this with a widened appetite for English works, I tell myself, then it is enough. It is ideologically satisfying.

But what, then, of everyone else? How much can a teacher do when faced with a class of 30 different lives? How do you make a difference to each and every one? And to what extent should you try to do this? In between the divergent goals of making the biggest impact, and making the biggest impact on each person, where should your priorities as a teacher lie?

*

When I see sights like this, it strikes me how my kids in the high school seem more grown up than the people in the junior college. The Chinese High (for me, HCI is a pale substitute for the original name) is much more focused, much more directed. The junior college seems to me to be infused with a general sense of distraction; the energy is diffuse and insubstantial, and though they have lots of energy, the JC students splash it indiscriminately all over the place, for such innane tasks as painting banners for council elections. And from accounts from the JC side, my kids seem to have a much clearer idea of where they want to be in the future, and how they intend to get there. I guess it partly has to do with the narrow clarity of youth, how you think you can see the future because you have seen so little of the world in the time that you have been conscious so far.

*

And the future comes one step closer. My friends have been receiving replies from the universities that they applied to last year. It's a mixed bag; Joel, of course, has performed well, with a place in the Ivy League and a fighting chance to come to Columbia, even (heh, for better or worse!). Others' paths are not yet so clear-cut, and the waiting has effectively been extended another two months as they await the results of being put on a waiting list. And still others are suddenly facing the prospect of local study - an option that in itself is really not bad, but must seem as appetising as a blank brick wall when compared to the opportunities that some among our number are getting.

It's hard to reason this out. It's a fallacy that my place in Columbia should add an unintended edge of gloating to my postmodernist reasonings that Singapore is as good as many places for tertiary education, but the fact remains that it looks bad if I am saying it. How then, to approach the issue? We may choose to hide it away now, but come August, there will be a very definite deadline. And what then? The trick is to avoid feeling entitled to overseas opportunities - and thus to avoid feeling cheated if those same opportunities are unavailable.

And Kats should be in Tokyo by now, lugging his 120kg worth of baggage through the teeming streets (at least, that's the impression I get of the place) to his new digs in a suburban university. He is the third of our class to leave. Each departure is like a milestone, part of a countdown to August, magical August. That idea, I think, has some bearing on why this new wave of departures is so easy to accept. You see him walking through those glass doors of the Departures gate, and you visualise the opportunities spreading out before him, and him walking straight into them - but the bite of envy is taken off by the knowledge that it's only a matter of time before you take your own turn. And anyway, the friendships that are being displaced this time round are so solid. This is not to claim that the friends who left two years ago were any less close or loyal; but it's just that in the course of these last two years, what we've gone through, the changes that have been wrought in us, have served to solidify what we have managed to keep constant even more. It's a different type of dependability, elementally different, just like diamond and steel are hard for different reasons.