March 2002

Levelling Out - 3/1/2002

Giving out the O level results was quite a novel experience. For once I wasn't at the receiving end of the anticipation, having gotten the results pretty early in the morning. However, I didn't really get a chance to watch the kids as they got the grades either. Managed to mess up on putting out the slips (apologies to kimberly whose slip I conveniently placed in the guys' pile) and things got jumbled here and there. But the act of giving out to individuals these little slips of paper upon which so much depends does I think aptly summarise the amount of time, energy, tears and joy put in.

From a larger perspective I suppose these things don't count that much. From a very pragmatic point of view, you only need grades that are good enough to keep you in the JC that you're already in. The same hold for entry into certain Univs, they'll take you once you've got a certain minimum grade. I remember how relaxed I was for the As because I knew that I was going to the Arts Fac at NUS no matter what and only needed Cs. But realities like these do not change the fact of feeling that you've achieved something. I look back with a certain pride at the near straight line that runs down my O level slip. I am proud of the "3 As, a B and A1 for GP" (notice the convenient leaving out of the AO chinese grade ...) And these things always leave an impression. Even now when I'm shopping for work I always know that there's an edge when people look at these results. However vague they are as an assembled jig-saw of ability, they still leave an impression. Perhaps it's at that level that these results should stay - as vague impression.

But when we think we've developed the analysis of results down to a science, that's when we gain the false idea that we are able to accurately paint a picture of an individual's ability through results. The silliness in many of these methods is apparent. For example, there's that horrid MSG thing. When I was in school, MSG was only found in Japanese instant noodles ... now it's the core of our educational system. What is laughable is how seriously we take these numbers. we plan whole school targets and goals around achieving MSG targets. What is flawed is the reductive manner that MSG is employed to represent a certain average level of achievement. Rather than regard grades in context, they become defining and calculated symbols of ability and success. Take for example what the Old Man tried to point out. He suggested that there were classes that contribute positively to the school's results and those that did not. His gauge? Whether or not the class MSG was higher or lower than the school's MSG for each subject. Obviously there are going to be classes where the MSG is lower than the average, because that's precisely how the MSG tool was developed! So by a sleight of logic, it appears entirely reasonable to argue that classes contribute more or less to a school, and it appears entirely sound as MSG are numerical and calculatable. And in the same way every individual can work out his worth via the contribution he made to the school's MSG. 6 points? Good, contributed because L1R5 is 10."only obsessives can remember exactly how much". 15 points? No good, because its so far off our goals.

What I am sure of is that at the individual level, our measurement of achievement and success has to be grounded in a clear picture of who we are and what we are meant to do in life. I sometimes get these tremendous bouts of inferiority precisely because I was schooled to think that a rank, a grade or a medal is what defines self. It's easy to pay lip-service to the fact that these things really don't matter. We all do it, even the staunchest proponents of the system. But it's in those moments of self-doubt I guess, that I often find the proper perspective and strangely enough, that broadened perspective gives me the confidence and courage to believe in myself and to try for even more challenging goals.

In my Lifetime - 3/1/2002

To celebrate Number 100 - a line from every one preceding ...

In my beginning I encrypt my end
If I remain that long - I'll be a souvenir, a point of discussion, an etching on the canteen table - "Mr Lim Sucks".
Of course I know they will do well and of course I know they need some time off - but I can't stand it when they sit there as if you haven't existed for them for the last year or so ... it's so we're in our own world ...
... why did HuiYi say "Really ah, Mr Lim?"
whose enthusiasm for learning and experience would otherwise be limited (ahem ... forgive the pun on the name)
"Is cyberspace a thing within the world or is it the other way around? Which contains the other, and how can you tell for sure?"
get caught in strange obsessions and anxieties about death - but in very hilarious and quirky ways.
Pronunciation: 'mä-d&-"rAt
A schizophrenia of sorts. To be both examiner and teacher, marker and moderator.
All the kids were like brains dripping out of their heads, GEP kids and like they already knew each other since they were 10
Writing in a Diary is supposed to be a solipsistic activity. You write for youself.
I called you my enigma once
To try to get a reaction
You wore the name like you wear a coat
Hanging it on your shoulders
He's downstairs now sneaking around underneath the sofa - and he's called Marmaduke.
how many of US who are making these expectations are actually qualified to have these expectations
Anyway - bought a cool card from Tango Mango and will try to write her at the old address.
What is probed is the churning of the electric fan, the spinning of its plastic case.
I DID NOT behave ON CUE
Become immune to what everyone thinks and take MC on 26th Oct?
Daytime rain is obvious and can be spoken of in terms of incovenience or the immediate comfort it brings.
O Kopi siew tai tjee pway!
Then in a moment of inspiration I started thinking body parts. Managed to do a pretty decent hand but had to perfect photocopying my face.
And today, I think I uncovered another moment of fondness, of a different sort.
Right. Men aged Fifty-One.
"Limit" was chosen because it's the only word that can be formed by inserted a single vowel into my initials.
"So now I'm married to two people"
Beautiful line because it is precisely that - one line - like the "tendrils" spoken of, the line stretches from movement and motion - "driving along" - into an abstract space of sunlight (yes, light is not a thing but a field, an abstract space) causing the vision of the horizon to unfold.
Perhaps it has begun to rain. Perhaps somewhere else, not here in the west. Because the earth is even more thirsty, elsewhere.
Thought: "The unreflected life is not worth living" -Socrates.
"The life reflected upon, may be unliveable" - ...


My Life in Time - 3/1/2002

So - 1. wear your shoes to school
I write of returns, not to legislate my past for it is irredemably gone, but to find a thread that runs true.
She's declared herself a "free-lance editor/writer" which means she doesn't want to be tied down doing regular/proper/"i-have-to-fill-in-forms"/keep to schedule kind of work.
Mobile Phone Mobile Phone
Ringing all the way
O what fun it is to spoil
Somebody else's day ... hey ...
obsessions are
merely material
must work much
more harder so that
we can maintain our
results
our
kind of hipness sets in
I was a model soldier for 8 months America, coffee and haikus
. The formal idea comes late in the poem:
But all that you've left behind -
0632 - Mr C maintains his record of being the first person to say hello to me everyday.
2015 - will leave to pick Ms Tan up from ballet then dinner ...
look like they're going to stand any moment
And the great SIN - WHY DON'T KIDS STAND UP FOR OLDER PEOPLE
Chia Thye Poh
The ultimate pragmatist - a "democracy" founded on secret arrests ...
Have been accepted by Leceister for an MA in Linguistics.
People just like to keep rubbish as if they're going to reuse it.
emotionally blackmailed by the most unlikely of people Can start with a clean sheet My Tai chi shoes were not made for standing but for balancing and circulating Qi. The paper for JC was quite unexpected. a dense opaque pond.I deserve a break. we've been on our own and now it's time to say goodbye. I only remember walking down Barker Road late in the night, milk than has been churned up seagulls have turned into albatrosses across So how does one write a "formidable wall of words?" But there I only find the contradictions of sea sky and sand, of depths, surfaces and infiniteness.The "walks" at Cradle Mountain were not quite walks in that sense Just finished a Delany book - Stars in my pocket like grains of sand complaining to his Mom about how the boys will bully him etc and it's revealed only in the last line that he's the Principal. make it significant. Have already sent 4 people out of class for speaking mandarin suddeness of her face flashes across my mind's "mr lim mr lim (some habits die hard ... ) then they're ready for some thinking about WORDS WORDS WORDS. sigh ... need to read D&G again ... I am the word that was written. When men grew old, their backs grew thin and snapped. Grasping for peanuts. One size fits all. Some people are of the opinion that fatness should not be discouraged. for Alvin Tan Peng Hong All it takes is a Bang and a Whimper
to make things right again
Crossing thick needles iron thick with
supple thread
But hey - it's lower sec Lit - prefer to wear my shoes everyday. It's myopia is almost facist - you must love your superiors and working environment unquestioningly in order to be a good teacher. Rubbish. Here, I sit, back against the sun
Across you stare
straining toward the sun
For three hours.13. This is the story of the last line
Does it matter if it doesn't rhyme?I will break the biscotti with care in search of more fresh fish. Did however have to run to several places to look for it ... Was quite pleased in the end when I say it in a nice furniture shop at Suntec. How Quantum Theory is related to Form Filling If I could live for simple things I would. Not much by way of titillation "I dunno whether I'm writing to you or if I'm talking to myself" So the possibilities of paper just bought two CDs. Too bad the adoption policies. and that I'm a lousy teacher cause feed ideas to the reserves Your attention and action is much appreciated. For I was born
In the Year of the Skunk."Literature is not so much a product of what Literature is about but really is due to the way we Literature is practised. MSG.

The point? Reading is the act of writing first, bearing in mind what is on the page and then constructing hisotries, meanings, feelings and schemings. The book is the intersection of what is read and what is written - in that order perhaps.

Obsessions - 3/5/2002

Placing grades for all to see on the Concourse because the grades belong to me. I pound my chest like King Kong and dare all who come by to challenge me. I am the most important person in my life. I am the mentor of many Kings. I produced unending strings of bureaucrats and techo-brats -

I'm so sorry we screwed it for everyone. I'm not here to make excuses, just a quiet appeal that everyone tries to speak English normally. I know that's being optimistic being in a linguistic 3rd world where even our pidgin isn't developed beyond faddish usage. But I'm not here to make excuses I can only say we will work a more rigourous programme.

They used to blame the background. But they are now all English speaking. They used to blame the teachers who spoke in muti-glossaiac rage. They used to blame ... who can they blame now?

Me! Me! I thump my chest in glee. Blame me.

Please remember to learn your language by doing your corrections. In real life, you never get to say something twice, so arm yourself with a green pen because this is your only chance to DO corrections. Let's forget about the fact that we learn through error and that running away from error sets up a mindset of fear.

I no longer teach english - I teach 1120/1 and 1120/2. The rest is irrelevant, only a blimp. Some of us love success. I only wonder about it occassionally. Who is going to be blamed? Surely I play a part.

So you can if you wish be more rigourous, you can if you wish teach the skills and equip them more thoroughly for that distinction in 1120. You can boast about how in the space of 2 years some can remarkably improve. You can. But I can't.

You see, I believe that it's easy to gear a child to achieve a distinction. Just need to teach 4 skills and one tense. Tweak the machine for the optimum results. But - after that - what?

"And so they picked up their badges that said "A1" and muttered, pleased with themselves. The badges seemed so insignificant in this new light. Around them, piles and piles of discarded badges lay. But they did not understand. One of them even suggested that they scavange for old badges, just so their collection looked more complete. But after awhile they tired from the back-breaking activity. Their new badges, they pinned the badges prominently on their collars, as if these would work a charm. But still, they felt the ache of labour weaken their bodies. They were puzzled. Why did they not have any thoughts that thrilled them the way they used to be thrilled? When would that spark of inspiration come? They stared a little while at their badges and decided to stay camped in that place for the night, until they got a thought or inspiration. Somehow, they did not know what to do in this moment of silence."







Of Stuffed Shelves and Spaces - 3/9/2002







I write of shelves burgeoning with books. Appearing like the end of a movie set when all the props become discards, the shelves are here crammed with books that nobody wants to read anymore. Once they were important books: on history, mystery, magic and law. But now they're just waiting to be reduced to pulp. The pretext of this shop? A second-hand last chance for these books to again open up their secrets to the willing listener. The odds of survival are slim.

Once we're out of here I'll show you what we really mean. Once we''ve put on our clothes and dressed up pretty I'll let the sunlight bath you again with it's effervescence.

But you'll prefer the dark I suspect.

We grow yellow skinned, dry taut skin stretched across untoned flesh. We click the corners of our mouths to remind ourselves that beyond the cave is water. Thirst consumes us.

In the parable of the cave, Plato demonstrated that manacled men must make manoevres mustering mind and muscle to manufacture a mission for truth. Don't look at the shadows dancing on the walls - turn out and face the sun. Rise to greet the sun, shining in the East. I remember that Hymn so strangely sung a tribute to Christ in the Orient.

More books: Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie - noses and minds find a special place the body is not dissociated from the psyche no matter what is claimed. Shipment of books from small second hand store - wonderful - many Delany Titles for the Hols.

Pleased with several of the answers they have given for the poem. Am gratified to know that the right question elicits intelligence.

Book: what i was working on but have not touched for a long while

I've been walking in a dream. My feet touch the ground and silver shards of light spin as each footprint leaves an evaporating mist of energy. Or is it the kicking of the dust, mere debris of the land? From within the thonged sandals I find my toes curling up as each stride takes me closer to the house far off. What may be in that house? Will I be allowed to stop there? I have no time for thought in a dream and the dream stays with me pushing me endlessly toward a vague goal. Now gliding by are the birds that grow in the sun. Like unwavering spots they hang waiting for me to fall. They skirt the bright margins of the horizon whenever I look up, threatening to obliviate my sense of direction. When I was small they told me to look to the bright horizon whenever I felt like falling, to look for the place when the haze of earth for a moment catches the sky in its grip. And then, they said, I would have a mental picture of how step preceding must unbalance step proceeding a picture of earth falling into sky, walking walking.

I cast my hands up to my brow, squinting hard to make sense of the mingling dust and brightness. My feet are dirty from the hard road and the dream does not compensate for physical tiredness. I feel a blister breaking out on my imaginary sole. I suspect people with real feet are not half as aware of the physical imperfections these simulators insist on making clear. Today, I've walked fifteen miles already and it is only noon. The muscles of my back, tuned for twitching and not this physical exertion, cannot make sense of this physical activity. I wish to stop for rest but the dream, prods me on. In it I cannot find the right combinations that will allow me to sit or even stoop. One leg plods in front of the other, the next moment a result of the last's nuances. When will the final step be taken and when will my curled toes be allowed to browse the surrounding gravel instead of merely skimming the surface, touching the pebbles and knocking into the wire-like weeds? The dark-winged birds circle the margin of the sun.

The last time I remember walking in a dream was after the Games at Minith. Then, after missing my bout against the One from ¬Ö. I was disqualified from the neural transports that are the only way we ever travel. I had to hook up to one of these Dream Weavers and find my way back, bodily in a dream. It took me some time before I could even walk. But then, the rapture of the dream caught me up and for several miles I found myself running over the cobble stone streets of Old Prague. Then, my feet were in regular rubber trainers and the beat of the electro-pop from the 21st century had been wired through my head piece. I bobbed as I wove in and out of the old district. Down Charles' bride with it's statues corroded beyond recognition. Black rock granite stares. I beat time to the grafitti which asked the passer by to give peace a chance, I waved at the shopkeepers putting up the antiques, the woven baskets filled with irises played like flutes overhead. The beat drove me deep into the dream. And in exchange, I got home quickly. Cobble stones are bad for running on. That time I had to exchange my trainers for a new pair of synthetic shoes. But my first dream was indeed one worth remembering. If you cannot run in life with your limbs outstretched, and limp from wheeled-machined to standing implement, the dream is a freedom to be cherished.

But this dream. Ah this dream. The fifteen miles are not the problem. I can understand it when the dream simulates physical exhaustion such that my bones wreak havoc with my muscles, pulling lone dead flesh in directions so contrary that I no longer am able to detect any particular spot form which the pain is coming. The ache is dull, a general throbbing that mocks my atrophied muscles. While the toes curl up I know they really aren't cause I don't have toes. It's these simulators that are so devastating. Ordinarily the toes would come in handy, for some half bodied freak like me to do things ordinary people could. To feel their way in the dark, to test the temperature of running water. But you do that in small bits. In minute portions. You don't walk home in a dream with neural simulators. Unless you're screwed like me.



a dream in the key of delany











What am I doing - 3/13/2002







am in school now and am supposed to be 1. compiling IPW name lists 2. writing next term's Scheme for EL 3. Preparing next term's materials for EL 4. Marking the 6 stacks I have left ...

What am I really doing - mooching around and looking for storyboards from Gladiator and the Matrix - which I think will make an interesting lesson - but do we have the time ...

Beautiful Mind begins tommorrow - I'm a sucker for these mad genius films ... math somemore ... even more of a sucker for things I don't quite understand ... Ah well ... math for the lay man is quite interesting ...







Yay! - 3/15/2002







Managed to do mega marking today. Especially pleased cause I did it (one class worth) while attending a workshop on basic counselling. It's a first for me as 1. I had to pay attention, 2. participate in the group discussions 3. make inane conversation to help relieve the boredom of the people around me too and 4 . mark all at the same time. Was thankful that the instructor was this SNAG that was really in love with the sound of his own voice and didn't make a fuss about me marking under his nose. At least I was honest about it and didn't try to take cover as I marked.

So this is a new achievement - first it was marking in staff meeting, then it was marking in a moving bus, then it was marking while drinking coffee and chatting and now it's marking while attending a compulsory course. Maybe the next level should be marking while the kids are writing the piece - that would surely collapse the distinctions.

Have only 20 odd scripts to go - woopee do ... but then still have a pile of work apart from that - ah well ...

A Beautiful MInd is a wonderful show about eccentricity and all that it hides. Give nmy interest in the Schizoid experience part of the free flowing point of undifferentiated being (related in part to the body without organs) the movie was a wonderful protrayal of how the media (ie the text) can be used to effectively mimic paranoia. There are moments in the movie where the audience is transformed into a paranoid / schizoid - an effect of not knowing where reality is posited. However, this being mainstream, the track isn't followed very far and the reader becomes firmly placed in the "real" world of the movie very quickly. It isn't so much an examination of what is real. Rather it is the

creation of a LONGING FOR that schizoid - paranoid existence, precisely because in that moment is the crypto-deciphering brilliance of John Nash, the charm of his Lit Major roomate and the mystery of the Parcher (?) guy.

Essentially, his brilliance with Game Theory is hardly elaborated upon by the movie's moment into the paranoia but his "natural ability" to break codes is.

So the movie flows from screen to eye machine to thought machine to mind machine. Links, breakages, siezures, insulin shocks, befuddlement act to move the Body into consensual participation of paranoia.









get a life - 3/18/2002







get a wife don't bother about marriage strife cause in the end it's only them that dare to wear their feelings in their hair that end up where the birds don't care about gravity and other assorted matters.

pull a mat with a hat out of the magic pack and shuffle a hand of poker cards cut a deck of star-crossed smiles over and over again. wink with only one eye not blink, wink and wee willy wonkee went wondering where wild women wish warily, wearily without wound washing water. Faster you must fly with fingers waeving these words across the plastic keys not the ivory bees but the often helpless chians of associative meaning. If I turned blind and could no longer feel the way words buzz on my retina and deaf so I could not hear the way pictures flash in my broken ears would you still wait for me? I believe I've seen you with pink stripes orange pink stripes with shoulders that run from here to the end of the room. Shiny shoulders, the kind of strange observation that a man makes when he sits next to a woman. Shiny shoulders the kind of bony structures that stand up from the arms and oddly join themselves to the clavicle. Is there an obstacle to observation if ten years later your shoulders have lost their sheen? Would it mean I cannot love you anymore because the exfoliation hasn't gone on as planned? And the taut skin that wraps like a foil a laminate over your bones, would that be wrinkly and unattractive. Now it's shiny shoulders but then what's to say what tomrrow will bring. They tell me that hair is dandruff free and silky long smooth, perfumed. I say hair is crinkly and mossy a verdant growth that permeates the flesh. They say that shoulders are smooth silky sheene I say they are rough from carrying backpacks the whole of their school going life.

But who do I muse about?

Once in a bus sitting and facing the space where those unfortunate enough to satnd have to stand, sitting on one of those seats that do not face forward but face the opposing window, on one of those bench like seats, I glimpsed a strange sight indeed. I was reading a book, a most absorbing labyrinth of a book when, a belly popped up in front of me. A feminine belly it was, not exactly beefy but fattish. A belly not meant to be seen but a belly popping up from beneath a knit top too short. When you stretch up to hold those handles, bellies pop out from under clothes. And it was a hairy feminine belly. Shocked, I read my book, burrowing deeper into the labyrinth. It wasn't a furry fuzzy belly. It was a twiny twisty thick hair belly. Then again maybe it was the fabric from the knitted sweater, unravelling itself and masquerading as belly hair.

Beware! hairy bellies out there Beware!
Your knitted tops are flashing bare your belly hair
Beware! hairy bellies out there Beware!







in response to school policy - 3/19/2002







I think I teach in one of the few schools in the world that has a policy that tries to contain human emotion and expression of affection or fondness. Being a supportive, enthusiastic and loyal (yah right) member of the teaching staff I have no objections to the implementation or enforcement of such a policy. If people think that emotions are that easily controlled and policed, they are indeed the products of a highly efficent political programme that has led to the confidence that as long as a phenomenon is defined as a problem, it can be solved. But the inscription of a "philosphy of the problematic" cannot be naively accepted though a highly politicised campaign against it has never been successfully mounted and philosophical ramblings hardly make a dent on prevailing definitions. But I digress. One of the myths of our modern city state that was founded on a well-timed expression of grief at its birth is the fact that any kind of emotion that is detrimental to the greater good is in fact an emotion that is illicit and one that should not be pursued. Emotion then, is always kept sub-servient to pragmatic ends. First these were political and now they have become increasingly economic. Sadly, we are oblivious to the fact that the fabric emotional detachment is, as a consequence, being silently woven and indeed it is this non-involvement, this non-attachment and this non-emotiveness that allows distances to be kept and ironically allows a strange social fabric to be held together. Indeed, we are willing to carry on this abolishment of genuine emotion to extremes. We police relationships, police activity in argument, police avenues for the expression of genuine emotion.

In the meantime I suspect that emotion called love (and its varients: infatuation, lust, desire, fantasy) has a life that struggles for autonomy. Yes there is love divine that we surrender ourselves to. But really, can a micropolis like a school, control love?

A thought worth pursuing. If an institution is able to dictate the emotional life of its populace, it will suceed in large part, in controlling the energies, talents and resources of that populace. So we tell our students that being involved in a relationship with the opposite sex is outlawed. If you are caught in that relationship, you will have to break up or one of you has to give up the right to membership of this community called the school. A law spoken is sometimes more powerful than a law enforced. To boast of the ability to control love, when indeed those that fall in love claim that they often do so unwittingly, is nothing short of claiming the ability to direct and control the freedom and will of an individual.

Now, here's where it becomes interesting. From an adult perspective, we have certain conceptions of what a relationship entails: marriage, the future, children, holidays, stress, taxes. And we apply this measure of a relationship: Do you believe that he can support you in the future, assuming that is the be all and end all of all relationships. This however may be a misapplication of a concept. Love for a 16 year old has possibilities and thrills that a person of marriageable age can never access.

Instead, a 16 year old may get into a relationship for "all the wrong reasons". Popularity, perfect physique, peer influence, physical desire, poetry and the need to be loved (instead of the desire to give love) may number among them. But this is precisely why the stated reasons for dictating the emotions of 16 year olds fall apart. These lines of desire, no matter how ill-informed, transient, irresponsible they be, cannot be met by the logical arguments of an adult who sees love as responsibility. The failure of any policy is in its conception and this policy is doomed to fail (in fact its design makes it fail) precisely because it was developed to deal with a phenomenon that does not actually exist. The powers that be assume that 16 year olds are attempting a version of love that comes with it disasterous consequences if indeed that relationship does not work out. 16 year old love, while unique in its immaturity and impulsiveness, is also unique in that its tragidies are really, rather comic (in the literary - often redemptive - sense of the word, not the sitcom sense). Misintepretation allows for the failure to appear even more noble because then the policy appears to have tried and appears to be rational and justifiable, on the basis of the policy's own internal logic and assumptions.

The cynics amongst us can then argue that it IS the intention for the policy to fail. We merely need a structure to appear to deal with the perceived problem so we have a school policy to deal with emotion. Never mind that the policy does not deal with the lines of desire. A statu(t)e just needs to look good. And statues often strike fear in the hearts of the uninitiated.

What then? Lines of desire: socially constructed unconscious formations? Or genuine outgrowths of individual lack? In either case, to re-direct lines of desire is the issue. To trace the lines of desire is the issue. To describe lines of desire that do not seem to have an origin or destiny, but lines that merge and converge over a vast shifting network of more lines, erupting on occasion, but more often just existing as arteries, that is the issue.

Describe desire. Listen. Cry. Offer a shoulder. Be there. Be with. Be human.







Excellent - 3/22/2002







Am really sleepy and tired and hungry and everything ... But will write a bit 1. didn't sleep last night cause had to do IPW proposals allocation which was a good thing cause then it meant that I was so sleepy today when I was supposed to scold those that hadn't handed in the form that I ended up not having the energy to scold them.

3. We won. Twice. Both teams won tonight making it a first in this year's debates. Proud of both teams who worked very hard for this debate and did so with very little help. It is a pity that debates aren't taken very seriously in school but it was wonderful to watch both teams execute the game plan. Both teams performed well today and I really hope that they will keep on debating at this level and with this kind of passion. I know they often feel that the odds are stacked against them but I must say there is quite a dedicated group that is behind them all the way. And they distinguished themselves tonight with some style and humour - wonderful. So it's on to the Quarters for one of them and what that may bring ...

4. Sigh - need to keep marking. Have Functionals to finish (ok - haven't even started before the next load of stuff comes) Need to go to school tommorrow and make up more work that will cause complaint from both teachers and kids alike ... is there no end ?

5. Anyway. Will try to watch ALI this weekend. Excellent.







At the end of the day - 3/26/2002







fingers crawl across the well-worn keyboard
striking out words meant to appear on a page
and instead of feeling the rest that should evelope,
at the end of the day
you feel misunderstood, frustrated and alone.

Silence is mere poetic fantasy
with the ever constant whirring fan
disembodied voices descend parquet stairs
squeaking loosened wood against cement.

At the end of the day you wish you stood up
for something more important than your silence
you wish you spoke up
instead you sat on the wooden benches
imprisoned by the rigid rows of bars and rules
and had let the beating of your heart
become words that might have offended
might have disgusted might have
somehow (how?) been true to a higher
vision of yourself.

At the end of the day you
contend with the speculations
"what might have been"
hearing the voices that point fingers
repeat themselves in your head.

At the end of the day
you find refuge in excuses
and bad timing
in "Self-restraint" and "caution"
But what are these,
at the end of the day?