viii

If Alan Resnais made highly structured and architectonic masterpieces, the other crest of the "new wave" of French film in the 1950s is represented by an almost diametrically opposed spirit. Play, freedom, joy, the apparent lack of continuity and direction, are elements that combine to make films such as Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Godard's Breathless such wonderful experiments in film.

Both are about society's marginalised - a troubled adolescent and an aimless drifter/conman - and both find pleasure in filming the little mundane situations that characterise ordinary existence. Taking out the garbage, running through traffic, struggling to light a cigarette, lazing around in bed. All these moments come together in a patchwork of experience. The camera sometimes lingers on a scene for an extremely long time, capturing conversations and encounters in a single take. We see the awkwardness of characters negotiating cramped spaces, without the cinematic convensions of continuity editing cut or the neatness of framing characters economically within the space. Characters move off the screen but the camera lingers on the empty bed, the deserted stairs, the abandoned window, hoping that our protagonists will return, so that it can resume its voyeuristic appraisal of what it means to be human, at the fringes of societal convention.

And what chracterisation and acting. The irrepressible character Antoine Daniol, who Truffaut felt was such a wonderful creation that he consistenly returned him throughout his film making career. The strange combination of a suave, reckless but increasingly alientated and desperate French con-man with a hesitant American student speaking stilted French, Godard's early recognition of a post-war clash of cultures. The conversations seem trivial but the unexpected erruption of emotional response to the most mundane comments are a priceless insight into the way we value what others have to say to us - even if we're on the run wanted by the authorities.

And what tragedy. Where the draw of new experience or the beguiling presence of someone so enchanting means you will risk getting caught to both escape and return to danger, in order to love.

vii

"Excuse me, didn’t we meet at that party last year?"
The worst of pickup lines perhaps, but the premise of Last Year At Marienbad, another Alan Resnais film. Nothing happens in it. A man tries to convince a lady that they met the previous year at a lavish mansion resort. She cannot remember. Throughout the 2 hours, he gnaws at her, feeding her, repeatedly bits of memory, describing what she was wearing, how her hands were palced, the statues that they stood under. All this shot in gorgeously arranged black and white, where the actors are props and the props – the interiors, wooden furniture, ornate paneling, baroque ceilings, unending corridors, lush carpets, polished surfaces, miles of mirrors, unopened doors and a impossibly symmetric garden - are explored incessantly. The tension arises from whether or not we remember correctly or accurately scenes that are shown over and over, not repeated ad naseum but layered textures of images that seem so similar that we ask, "Haven't we been here before?"
The actors are props. Many scenes have the cast frozen, standing statue-like but never statuesque as the protagonist find the moment, enact their little tete a tetes. A glass drops, shatters. Nobody moves but the waiter, and the camera stays on him for the excruciating length of time that it takes for him to pick up every piece. The shots vary – up close then a jump cut from high in the rafters – the mundane becomes pregnant with tension as the rest of the world stops.
The third character. The lady’s lover or husband? "Let me show you a game that I never lose." "If you never lose it is not a game." "I can lose – but I never will." The running action motif, that simple game where sticks, cards, tokens are placed in a rows then eliminated, the loser being the one forced to pick the last one. Played over and over with a variety of opponents, in different spaces – always a climax – will he lose? "I never will" he fires a gun – at her? In the bedroom. But she is left, standing and unsure at the end of that impossible garden that casts no shadows, wondering if her memory, which has come to believe she did once love, serves her well.

v

v - 2/6/2004






my feet hurt. i've got corns. i can think of several reasons why.

1.  didn't wear proper shoes during the dec hols and lounged around in flip flops too much. now that i need to wear proper shoes everyday - my feet used to them and are thus rebelling. 

2.  I'm fat.

3.  I'm thirty this year.

of course the last two reasons are just standard replied for everything that isn't quite pleasant for this year.  And yes I just realised that the kids I'm teaching this year are born in the year of the tiger as well - making them a whole zodiac cycle younger.  Wow - what was I doing when they were born? 

Avoiding having to do assessment books for the PSLE.  Raising money for the ACS building fund.  Riding on the 154 trying to convince one of my best friends not to betray us all and go to RI.  Playing tennis a lot.  you know - i really can't remember that much.  Maybe I'll fair better if I just stick to today.

ah - yes did my part for the PAP.  sent out 100 leaflets to the kids for them to sign up with the feedback unit.  I even had a nicely placed quote at the end of my instructions to the CT Reps about playing an active part in building the kind of society we want.  I don't suppose anyone will bother with the leaflets.  Of course with my legendary administrative incompetence, I parcelled all the leaflets out and stapled them into groups for distribution, only to find that I had about 40 left over.  I'll probably have to dump them because if they sit on my desk too long someone will think that I've been sitting on work ... 

I realised also that I'm an amazing procrastinator.  I looked at a kid in class and knew that I had to ask him for work that he owed me.  But I didn't.  Saw him later again - and remembered again - and didn't.  What's going on?  Some sort of strange assurance that consciousness is all?  Or do I predict, on some level, that he's going to say that he's not done the work and I'll have to ask him why and enact that whole ritual ....

I got a great idea for pple who don't bring their reading stuff for reading.  Came to mind during one of those periods today.  It's what the Head of Lit used to do to his students who didn't prepare for Lit tutorial at good ol NUS ... I'm looking forward to springing it ...

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

*smiles* Sounds Diabolical, can't wait to see what punishment you bring down on the unsuspecting...wait...AHHHHH I forgot my homework...lol Good luck with your students and your corns for that matter. [Buggyone]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wish MY teacher wrote an online diary. Sometimes we forget our teachers have lives i guess. I forget that all the time till I read your stuff. [Contusion.]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Could I borrow the Full Metal Jacket show? :)

Hope your feet get better soon.



- The Callous, Cynical Bastard

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

hmm. Open book pop-quiz? :-) [Tempest Blue]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

have you been showing FMJ to 'dem kids again?? *tsk tsk* i wish you proscrastinated more when you taught us, that way i wouldn't have had to decline politely each time ;)



wotcher gonna do? make them write a story?



-fey

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

oh yes, roar roar... haha...

oh dear, what evil ideas have E.Lit teachers at NUS been putting into mr lim's head? must be rather nasty... =S

^_^ [moi~]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

had a corn last year. dug it out with a penknife. very painful - not recommended.,

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

vi

Hiroshima Mon Amour is as pretentious viewing for a Saturday afternoon as any film gets. A late 1950s French film shot in black and white that depicts an intensely erotic two-day affair between a French actress and a Japanese architect, that takes place in Hiroshima fifteen years after the bomb with flashbacks to German occupied France, is bound to draw accusations of being over-determined and too artificially self-conscious. But it works. The haunting music score and the beautifully composed shots of people lounging in empty, deserted spaces, grappling with the past makes for delicious viewing.
The opening montage sequence – the bodies of the lovers wrapped up with each other against shots of Hiroshima after the bomb – is a powerful reminder that the personal always partakes of social and political memory. As the film proceeds, the female protagonist, a french actress Elle, relates the affair she had in WW2 with a German soldier – "I was barely 18 and he was 23" – and the subsequent ostracism that she suffers at the hands of her parents and the community. The flashbacks of the beautifully spartan French countryside – "In France the Loire is known for its beauty" – stand as an effective contrast to a Hiroshima that twinkles late into the night. It is a Hiroshima that wants to forget the past and rebuild itself, but remains "haunted by the day of ten thousand suns". In a bar the couple sit, as the Hiroshima night sky is dominated by a replica of the Effiel Tower. A strange meshing of cultures, a strange thwarting of the ability to forget.
And they speak to no one else. Even when they talk to each other – he asking the questions, she painfully remembering – they seem to barely notice the presence of the other. In a particularly memorable scene at the train station, they sit on a bench with an old lady between them. In a rare moment of naturalism, the old lady asks the architect, "Is she from France?" and the camera lingers on a brief exchange where he explains that they are in love but very sad that they must leave each other with the coming of the morning. And on cue, the camera pans to the other end of the bench, to find that Elle has left. The intensity of the affair must not be spoken of. To do so exorcises the emotions that haunt it, that make it so destructively appealing.
It’s one of those movies that make you wonder about those little moments you’ve spent noticing someone else and wondering where their past resides and how the past has led them to this point. Get it and watch it – it’s in the Esplanade.

Jan 2004

iv - 1/29/2004






Actually - I've cancelled this entry like twice.  Because I'm looking for a "decent melody" - essentially - the plot is this.  I want to complain about how school is all about everything except teaching and learning.  That minimal effort can be put into the classroom, as long as you wayang in all the other important facets of school life.  The College is celebrating its don't know what anniversary - so all our efforts have to be channelled in that direction.  Thank god for people that are more "on"/ obedient than me - they can go celebrate all they want and cook up a storm - I'll just tag along and do whatever crap they want - actually an important principle in these matters - for stuff like that - less is more ... who is gonna care who celebrated what after the event.

Of course there's the moral issue about the amount of money that is going to be spent on the celebrations.  But 10 yeas in ACS - every year donating money for some cause or other - has taught me that pple will go to all sorts of lengths to raise money - even if its for a silly book that glorifies the achievements of a school - even if it's for a silly plaque to hang on the wall - there are lots of rich pple out there folks - who are willing to buy their little piece of gratitude from schools that have a reputation to sell.

On a more sickening note - I'm supposed to help with some MP attachment programme.  This is like an eternal joke played out over and over again.  Suck at Mandarin - get posted to SAP school. Don't like grammar drills - end up teaching English.  Vote for opposition - now need to arrange programme for students to be attached to "political leaders" (most of whom I might add have never stood for election and have never won the popular vote).  Even better - I get to play clerk - to make all the bloody arrangements so the creme de la creme can saunter in to "shadow" the "political leaders", and learn about the delicate issues that shape our "plural society".  At least I don't have to go down to any meetings - but I still have to talk to these pple assoc pple about arrangements.  Ok - it hasn't been that bad so far - I've talked to one and she said she would settle the programme.  Whatever.  I think the kids should just go for it and be completely mercenary - it looks good on their profile.

On a brighter note - I've been quite a computer nerd this last month in school - been designing a computer quiz that'll knock the socks off the kids (hopefully).  It's all about western art - a little on music.  Was nice to look at all of those pictures again and to read about the stuff.  I actually think that one gets more into this kind of stuff when there's a reason for you to - I mean I never thought twice about visual art - or at least art history - until I was in JC - and that had a lot to do with studying Hist Paper 5.  Anyway - one of the most awe inspiring times - was at the end of J1- we went to St. Petersburg - and visited the Hermitage - brilliant - Peter Paul Rubens.  That's a man who knows the attraction of the body, or corpulance.  So - that got the interest going.  I still like Baroque and Renaissance painters - but really am more in the abstraction of the 20th C - Matisse esp.  Actually it's a damn poseur thing - must like that which is esoteric.  Whaterever.

On an even brighter note - I've done reasonably well for all the exams that I killed brain cells studying for in Dec!  I got 760 (99%) for the Verbal (ok slightly embarassing cause I teach english - it was the reading compre I tell you ...) and 800 (92%) for the Math  (that's one for the Arts crowd!) in the GRE General test.  I also got 6/6 (95%) for the writing.  My proudest score was for the Lit GRE - 730 (98%) - not bad for three bloody hours of 230 MCQs ... - of course the scores really don't mean a thing if a uni thinks that you studied in Singapore and therefore suck anyway - but let me just savour the moment?

One for the road -

 

Henri Matisse Jazz "Icarus"

:)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Right on! (I am a teacher also!) [bent twig]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Those are some insane scores... I feel very su now...

congrats in any case! Would love to try out your quiz, but it doesn't seem to be suited for me in anyway at all. [Grandioso]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

hahaha... mr lim... ur ranting damn funny.. :) [AnGeL^6587]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aloha. U're a good teacher, really. Sorry that class couldn't be any better.



- The Cynical, Callous Bastard :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

mr lim, congrats!! woah... they sound like astronomical results to me... =P

i simply adore magritte's works!! heez...

yeah, this anniversary thingy's really getting on ppl's nerves nowadays... just cos someone's got the dough, others have to do the work... oh well... =S

^_^ [moi~]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

=) [public_prosecutor]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

love the picture, impressive scores. -fey

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

wow that's super high scores u got...congrats!



*mutterx...clever scheme,,,grabbing the "future elites" and brainwashin em to be pro-pap...blast em...* [psst]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

eh donate to my card leh. maybe they'll name the fire extinguisher after you. you know the "lim meng teck fire extinguisher"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

eek. the amount of crap admin work i see my mum doing just to get a decent period of teaching in... i totally sympathise with you...



~mi'er

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 2003

i - 12/12/2003






The Quest motif is the journey of Summer, of the Romance, of the optimistic and the return to the harmonious.  The archetypical quest - the Odyssey.  The Biblical quest - Moses' flight from Egypt then return and subsequent leading of the children of Israel out.  Quests revolve around individuals, so even the social event that was the flight from Egypt is seen through a heroic figure leading an often hard-headed people.  The quest means obstacles, which must be overcome by either violence or guile.  Odysseus is the archetype of the wily survivor whose cunning gets him home.  Moses - gets it right most of the time - but when wisdom was called for - "speak to the rock" - he resorted to violence and struck it - the bitter waters and desire unfulfilled.  The quest is a movement through levels of existence and experience.  In Frye's notion of things - there are four levels -

the highest - the unchanging heavenlies

the next - and Edenic original state or promised land

and third - our world - fallen and chaotic

and beneath that - the subterranean world of hell

To view one's in these terms - sheer hubris.

Another kind of quest - I've just sent off my applications to the US unis - an epic experience indeed in terms of commitment, obstacles (it's amazing how long people take to respond to your requests for documents) and conquests - and tomorrow I take my last GRE exam - the end of one kind of quest - hopefully engenders the seeds of another ...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good luck! [Grandioso]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------





ii - 12/13/2003






I took the GRE Lit Test today.  It was tiring and because of my usual exam anxieties I didn't sleep a wink the night before but I don't think that had an effect on my performance.  It was harder than the practice that ETS supplies with some options being rather close. 

Interestingly, at the test center, there were hardly any Singaporeans.  The chap in front of my was from the PRC - he was doing Math.  The Guys beside me and behind me were also both fom the PRC - they were doing Chem.  The Row of Guys to my right were from Taiwan - they were doing Physics.  Some other chaps from India in my row were doing the Math test too.  I think there were about 25 of us in the room and not more than 8 of us were Singaporean.  These were mainly doing Bio and Psyche.  Oh yes - as the lady at the reception counter pointed out - "English Lit?  Oh yes - you're the only one."  Story of my Life I guess.

The invigilator was exceedingly irrirating and kept trying to crack jokes before the paper.  I don't think anyone in the room appreciated his rather weak attempts at humour.  He was also rather silly about coming in and out of the room.  He should have just shut the door and left us.  But he kept coming in and going out, opening the door and closing it.  Highly distracting.  However, I must say that he was conscientious about getting us to fill in the form correctly: one of the chaps from India was taking ages with it - I don't think he understood the instructions on the sheet very well - but it doesn't matter if you're a math genius does it - and this added to the tension that everyone was feeling (this plus the fact that come chaps had come for the exam without pencils ... and had to borrow ...)

Half and hour into the paper and my bladder started to urge me to pay the loo a visit.  But I persevered and didn't go until after the paper - two and half hours later.  If I get bladder trouble or tract infection, I'll blame it on my keeness to do an exam properly.

Of interest - there were some playful questions on the paper - such as:

noting that the word "diurnal" puns on the word "urn" thus plays with the notion of being buried ...  noting that the word "embarkation" is another pun that links the action in the poem to the myth of Daphne being pursued by the god Apollo and being changed into a tree - an ironic pun because to "embark" is to go on a trip whereas Daphne's flight was stopped when she became a tree (but of course this enabled her to flee Apollo - another kind of flight) ... see http://www.crawfordmanor.com/daphne.html 

For those interested and very bored - check out the sample test - it's like playing one very long trivia quiz!

ftp://ftp.ets.org/pub/gre/007626.pdf

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

That whole chunk - I couldn't understand anything... Urgh... You're one of a kind, truly...

Hey, any interesting reads to recommend? I'm so bored these days I think I'm slipping into non-existence. Stuff that's preferably palatable and quite accessible to a layman like myself... while retaining some sort of interest. Haha... or is that mutually exclusive?

[Grandioso]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for the recommendations! Truth is, I don't quite know yet... I can only tell once I get my results back. It's really russian roulette to me. And preferably local, since I'm not a really adventurous person... but I'll just have to wait and see... [Grandioso]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

29 blinks by the green man is one of the reasons why i still visit your blog. good luck with the GREs, i couldn't open it cos i didn't have acrobat reader :\ oh well, take care now! - fey

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

i hate gp and teaching isn't exactly what i want to do. But i don't doubt that teaching at a jc would be more fun, though i still haven't reconciled myself with the fact that i've left jc. ah well.

=)

[cellistic]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------





Frivolity - 12/16/2003

see - I told you Karl Marx was still alive and well -

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

hahaha...i'm speechless~

-Jac [Shores]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

*chuckles* good ol' mr lim... tee-hee~ [AnGeL^6587]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

A friend of mine compared the guy to a photo of Charles Manson. :P

[inner me]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

haha. good one! [public_prosecutor]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------





iii - 12/18/2003






Been on a reading binge after the exams and applications and essays that I've had to do.  Finished all 917 pages of quicksilver last week - waiting for April next year for another 900 pages of verbosity - to find ou the fate of calculus -

Reading a biography on Elizabeth I - quite dry but nice bits about court intrigue and some very moralistic writing.  Another book - by Christopher Hill - on radical religious movements during the English Revolution in the middle of the 17th C.  nice details about how martyrs were put to death - yup - they roasted ppl until their intestines were falling out - but made sure they weren't quite dead yet.  And yes - if you recanted (ie embraced Catholicism instead of sticking to heresy) you were mercifully dealt with being stoned to death or buried alive instead of being burnt ...  Another historical book - Trevelyn's Social History of England - some nice details about monastries and the corruption that took place in Henry VIII's england.

As for sci-fi - I finished a Philip K Dick (minority report, do androids dream of electric sheep?) book called "The Man in the High Castle".  It's a "what if book".  What if Japan and Germany won world war two.  Quite a revisionist intepretation of things - of course the perspectives are filtered through characters who have their own prejudices.  Most ppl think that the Jap government is highly benign vs the cold efficency of Nazi Germany.  Anyway - the "clever" bit about the book - is that there's a banned book in the story (the author of the banned book is the man in the high castle) which is itself a sci-fi and proposes a what if - what if Britain and the US had won the war ... Quite enthralling because it plays out  different factions within the Nazi regime - struggling for power (btw Hitler's been committed to an asylum now, in about the early 1960s) ...

Got the books - amongst others at the brilliant penguin warehouse sale - :)

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I picked up Quicksilver, though it's kinda driving me nuts - I don't quite grasp what's going on, at least in the first few chapters...

Hmm will read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown first... haha... lighter stuff... fascinating, though - like the Da Vinci Code, another cool book by Dan Brown! [Grandioso]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

i know they have warehouse sales for clothes and creative's disastrous attempt at puns (i.e. prodikeys) but books? and penguin, at that?



why don't you tell me about such things?! :P -fey

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

'cos if i didn't tell him he also wouldn't know.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

i'm on pg 400smth of quicksilver ;)

yes, how come you didn't put out a notice or something about the penguin sale? [lassitude]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

argh... what penguin warehouse sale? only managed to catch the library fair this hols... =S

^_^ [moi~]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

November 2003

You know - 11/5/2003






the end of a day that's been run off routinely sounds like a note held too long, one that puffs right at the end, struggling to pitch precisely but faltering ever so slightly.

Nothing neat comes out after reaching in too deeply - running off in all directions I guess - before I catch up with myself.  I'm looking here there everywhere - and standing on the margins/ a sidewalk existence, not quite stepping onto the road, watching - more likely fearing the rush of the on-coming cars.  I wait for the Green Man.  I've waited for him all my life you know.  I've got a whole bull-shit philosophy about the Green Man and only crossing when he pops out and starts his digital count down.  You know, way back when I was in sec. school and the AYE wasn't too developed yet and there was a traffic light across the slip road from the expressway, turning into clementi avenue 6, I could swear that the Green Man would blink for the longest time.  So that coming in from the MRT station and walking home I could watch the Green Man appear, buy an ice cream from the Mama Shoppe and still make it across the road.  29 times I believe that Green Man blinked.  Now it's just a damn long overhead bridge and I'm too lazy to walk in from the MRT anyway.  But I've been running home in the rain - as if that compares to the insistence and the deliberation of planning your route so you have a snack in hand earphones and a book while walking walking home.

I don't mind running in the rain once in the while.  Perhaps it beats standing in the rain and waiting for the Green Man.

 by Henri Matisse ... There's something to be said about that bold stroke of green coming straight down the middle of her face, becoming her nose, the foreground dividing what lies in the back into RED and GREEN-

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Haha that's quite amusing... I don't notice, since most roads are the same to me with or without the green man appearing... [Grandioso]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

=D [public_prosecutor]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

provoking thoughts.. =)) [i||uXioN]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------





In a while - 11/23/2003






I've been studying.  Yes yes mock me if you will but it's hard work after not doing it for a long time.  Took a month to prepare for my GREs - which are a souped up version of the SATs - which are required for Grad School in the US.  The interesting thing about the exam is that it's a CAT - Computer Adaptive Test.  That means that the questions adapt to your responses.  Which means that if you're doing "well" the questoins get tougher and tougher (the system is set up so that you can't skip - you need to just guess if you don't know and move on).  Anyway - it was a real polishing up for the math - after so long - could hear the rusty math gears in my head creak when I tried to solve problems - obviously making matters worse is the fact that the GRE is made up of tricky math ... 

Am NOW studying for the GRE Lit exam (which is pretty much like a bloody triva quiz) - 230 MCQ questions on Lit.  And it isn't even about your ability to be CHIM and to understand complex passages - it's more like "here's two lines of poetry" - who wrote it?  Or "What was the year the poem was written in ..." or "what does it in the poem refer to?"  And you can't always tell from the style cause the answers are very similar - they'll like have Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and Shelley all as answer choices ... so you have to know ...  it's a real humbling experience to try the test - after years to reading and reading about reading, there's still so much I don't know - still so much to know!

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

gd luck~ [É÷÷\]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can lah, your literature is manly.

As for the math, I understand. And so does the rest of our faculty.

Good luck! [Grandioso]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, °∞Do I dare?°± and, °∞Do I dare?°±



[anonymousnoises.blogspot.com]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

all e best! [psst]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

haha

all the best mr lim! hope you're happy and healthy [public_prosecutor]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

November 2003

You know - 11/5/2003






the end of a day that's been run off routinely sounds like a note held too long, one that puffs right at the end, struggling to pitch precisely but faltering ever so slightly.

Nothing neat comes out after reaching in too deeply - running off in all directions I guess - before I catch up with myself.  I'm looking here there everywhere - and standing on the margins/ a sidewalk existence, not quite stepping onto the road, watching - more likely fearing the rush of the on-coming cars.  I wait for the Green Man.  I've waited for him all my life you know.  I've got a whole bull-shit philosophy about the Green Man and only crossing when he pops out and starts his digital count down.  You know, way back when I was in sec. school and the AYE wasn't too developed yet and there was a traffic light across the slip road from the expressway, turning into clementi avenue 6, I could swear that the Green Man would blink for the longest time.  So that coming in from the MRT station and walking home I could watch the Green Man appear, buy an ice cream from the Mama Shoppe and still make it across the road.  29 times I believe that Green Man blinked.  Now it's just a damn long overhead bridge and I'm too lazy to walk in from the MRT anyway.  But I've been running home in the rain - as if that compares to the insistence and the deliberation of planning your route so you have a snack in hand earphones and a book while walking walking home.

I don't mind running in the rain once in the while.  Perhaps it beats standing in the rain and waiting for the Green Man.

 by Henri Matisse ... There's something to be said about that bold stroke of green coming straight down the middle of her face, becoming her nose, the foreground dividing what lies in the back into RED and GREEN-

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Haha that's quite amusing... I don't notice, since most roads are the same to me with or without the green man appearing... [Grandioso]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

=D [public_prosecutor]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

provoking thoughts.. =)) [i||uXioN]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------





In a while - 11/23/2003






I've been studying.  Yes yes mock me if you will but it's hard work after not doing it for a long time.  Took a month to prepare for my GREs - which are a souped up version of the SATs - which are required for Grad School in the US.  The interesting thing about the exam is that it's a CAT - Computer Adaptive Test.  That means that the questions adapt to your responses.  Which means that if you're doing "well" the questoins get tougher and tougher (the system is set up so that you can't skip - you need to just guess if you don't know and move on).  Anyway - it was a real polishing up for the math - after so long - could hear the rusty math gears in my head creak when I tried to solve problems - obviously making matters worse is the fact that the GRE is made up of tricky math ... 

Am NOW studying for the GRE Lit exam (which is pretty much like a bloody triva quiz) - 230 MCQ questions on Lit.  And it isn't even about your ability to be CHIM and to understand complex passages - it's more like "here's two lines of poetry" - who wrote it?  Or "What was the year the poem was written in ..." or "what does it in the poem refer to?"  And you can't always tell from the style cause the answers are very similar - they'll like have Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and Shelley all as answer choices ... so you have to know ...  it's a real humbling experience to try the test - after years to reading and reading about reading, there's still so much I don't know - still so much to know!

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

gd luck~ [É÷÷\]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can lah, your literature is manly.

As for the math, I understand. And so does the rest of our faculty.

Good luck! [Grandioso]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, °∞Do I dare?°± and, °∞Do I dare?°±



[anonymousnoises.blogspot.com]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

all e best! [psst]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

haha

all the best mr lim! hope you're happy and healthy [public_prosecutor]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

October 2003

Having not been - 10/13/2003






Very active in writing on these pages lately - I am pleasantly surpurised by this strange new look - it's as if text is not enough - or is not distant enough from thought and now must be accompanied by font and colour.  But of course, one does not need to participate in all that - though the ability to insert images on these pages should be a useful function.  Of course forgive me for being absolutely clueless about these things.  i'd like to think that the primary function of text is to convey that complex relationship between our thoughts and the world.

Been busy with the end of the year.  I'm coming to the end of sort of a four-year cycle with teaching, having seen sec3 through to J2.  I guess that's a pretty interesting kind of rhythmn to follow.  The next kind of cycle that I want to try is doing sec one all the way to year 6 - there are some opportunities for that now - in our "varied educational landscape".  And I want to teach in a single sex school.  But till then, I'll be content to play along and smile pleasantly at this wondrous concoction called the educational system. 

Ok - really wanted to make sure my OD was still alive ...

Don't laugh at the bald man - he was much smarter than many brains put together and working in the same direction - and much more knowledgeable.

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

so ...who's that bald manz??? [j.O.n. E≤]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

haha, yah. who's he? [AnGeL^6587]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

It really was an interesting 4 year ride with you. [eagle eye]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

that website says he's "Michel Foucault" (although i think Michel is a typo :P isit?) yeah mr lim yer entries r inspiring... -shaoxuan

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

no mistake. michel foucault - french philosopher. -fey





---------------------------------------------------------------------------





FouCault - 10/17/2003






The bald man - probably the most dazzling philospher of his generation.  At least the most radical in terms of renewing (or challenging) how the social studies are approached.  His methods / approaches / theories apply to a wide range of disciplines - from history, literature, sociology, psychology -

Quick thoughts on foucault -

The author is dead -

deny "common sense" - look instead for the "constructedness" of systems - that appear natural - speech, routines, classifications - are the manifestation of power relations - of power seeking to systemise, to "naturalise" inequalities.

Crime - reform is a meaner more subtle form of subjugation.  The Law, a tyranny not only of the body but enjoining the mind and the soul to be subservient to a politics that erases its traces by defining criminal and outlaw through the structures of language.

Madness - the shadowland of sanity is hardened - made distinct - drawn apart - with the overlaps occulded.  Therapy - manacles over the being -

The individual - don't privilege it.  Don't believe you exist primarily as yourself - but examine the forces that constitute your being.  If there is to be freedom to be found - the consciousness of the how we are contructed is a semblance of freedom.

THeory is practice.  Theory that ceases / is not relevant does not even enter into the world.

Discourse - dug / found - rooted in historicity.  A fascination with how structures imbue themselves with reflexivity and order.  The historicity of truth is part of its being - situated truth makes plainer where the appropirations exist -

"The indignity of speaking for others"

"soemthing essential is taking place : ... the tracking down of all varieties of facism, from the enormous ones that surround and crush us to the petty ones that constitute the tyrannical bitterness of our everyday lives".

Who sings for those who once knew the Spirit?

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sounds interesting... but to be honest I've never heard of him... have any specifics to share? Might pick it up in my free time, harhar... [Grandioso]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

never heard of him as well.. but it does interest me though [enfant terrible]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

=) [public_prosecutor]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

ok let's see.. not so nice to talk bout my prelims results online since it's like nothin to be proud abt.. CCC.. oh well slosh of sangrai came abt coz i ws looking for s words! ya know how hard it was to find a 's' drink? if not slosh den wat? haha i'd love to have dinner wif the rest of the class man.. and if u're free, can ya pls help us wif a cool gathering before mingde goes into ns? [i||uXioN]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------





Depression - 10/27/2003






Part two - but there ain;t no part one cause it didn't get saved cause I was too slow in typing it all down and it got timed out - I must say that save for the occasional burst of rage I am coping with all these dying ones around me quite well.  Dying ones around me - they like to sing the songs of death like they were melodies made for the voices that had nothing better to hum.  My lips are sealed about your thirty something angst might as well get it now before you kill yourself at sixty.  how the world goes revolves and turns on its back like a walking snail slugging across the race track then crack goes its shell and all its goo splats - a memory on the road.  I pick up snails once in a while - I avoid stepping on them most of the time.  Am I or you snailing in the wrong race, out of place while we dance the misstep - and walk out of synch - slug along really - in the dance of time?

 What I had for breakfast ...

good ya?

geddit?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

hey mr lim! hope u're doing fine at hcjc =) [Alt^John2]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

ewww. [AnGeL^6587]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

you're not satan...and you don't have kids

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

morbid.. but i like..



sprinkle salt on the snail and watch it shrivel in the hot morning sun, a more peaceful and less dirty way of removing from this world [enfant terrible]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's a little... disturbing...

Type out your entry in word first before pasting it over... a lesson I learnt a long time ago after countless bouts of rage and unmentionable curses... [Grandioso]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Am I or you snailing in the wrong race, out of place while we dance the misstep - and walk out of synch - slug along really - in the dance of time?



I often ask myself that too. Maybe that sprinter on the track will by chance launch a swift kick that will send that snail sailing across the length of the track. What a way to feel the wind upon its face, huh. :-p

[Tempest Blue]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------





Quick as quick can be ... - 10/30/2003






If, you've wondered about how words and poetry could be fused with the lean tautness of science and math, I would highly recommend that you read Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson.  One of the few things that I read that actually got reviewed by Life! (2 days ago) - well sort of reviewed - it's a glorious read - and halfway into the book (I'm at page 451) with most of my evenings with the book propped on my chest (it's a heavy book so I can't lug it around and read it on the bus ...) I think that anyone who is interested in the way knowledge gets constructured, coverted, contested and circulated should dip into the adventure.

It's sort of a geek's book I suppose, tracing the famous dispute between Lebiniz and Newton (about who REALLY discovered calculus) in a most tangential (you're suppose to snigger)fashion.  Favourite bit so far - Newton conducting experiments as an undergrad at Trinity, Cambridge, sticking a stick into his eye and using thus manipulating the curvature of his lens and taking measurements ... I suppose science practicals used be be much more imaginative ...

Check it out ...

http://www.nealstephenson.com/

Oh - plus for some unfathomable reason, the first edition hard covers are going at 27 buckeroos (20 % off the cover price of 33 ) at Kino.  which is really strange cause the paperback costs 44 bucks ... another reason to get the book ...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting! I guess I'll go dig up tuesday's Life! section and see what it really is about.



I didn't understand what you meant at first about

"I will move into a mode of abstraction - where observations are merely reflected thought" until I read a few of your other entries. Such 'cheemalogical' abstraction!



Very interesting Diary indeed!:-)



~random noter [Tempest Blue]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ah okay I'll be sure to pick that up as well - couldn't find the Foucault book you recommended at either Kino or Borders, so I picked up another one of his instead. Of course with exams coming up haven't read much - but so far, it's very... confusing, haha. [Grandioso]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------





Bloody COmputer - 10/31/2003






In an age of maximum security where everyone thinks that their info is important or precious - you have passwords to get for the slightest function.  Passwords used to be the secrets of chlidren's games, parts of myth and fairy tales (rumpelstiltskin... yes i stand corrected forgive the desperate spelling) - unreal.  But the reality of passwords have taken on a whole new bloody inconvenient real world irritating impediment to my efficency as a human being.

I'm rather a sluggard when it comes to admin work but I try my best.  I fill in the forms that are NECESSARY which means a good many I don't bother to fill in - shoot that reminds me I need to fill in the ACTUAL attendance file - and I haven't done that since June cause I keep my records separately ... shoot - looks like I need to go back to school TML - shoot ... anyway this week I managed to log myself out of TWO MOE systems because I can't remember my bloody password

Actually - I've got a system that makes my life straightforward.  Just Have One Password.  All my stuff is governed by One PassWord.  And I really don't care if people can Hack into my MOE systems and like give themselves 25 CCA points ... But the trouble begins with systems that refuse to allow me to USE my password over and over and insist on me changing it.  Some systems even complain that adding a single digit at the end of the password isn't enough.  So - I change these passwords into strange variations of the original and get screwed.  Of course I write them down ... SOMEWHERE - but when you need to access your info immediately - or need to update something and get LOGGED OUT it's damn irritating.  Plus I read somewhere that it actually costs something like 100 buckeroos to reset the password ... really?  And the best thing is this message that one gets - You've been Logged out of the system - contact your systems administrator.  I actually tried FINDING OUT who the systems administrator is/was - to no avail.  So I shot off random e-mails - I suppose that's what keeps some people busy ... no wonder I appear slack ... cause I ...

Anyway - I'm passwordless - but at least I have a name ... and have recalled a bit of a poem ... relating to a sort of passage - and passwords I suppose ...

Who is stronger than hope?  Death.Who is stronger than the will?  Death.Stronger than love?Death.Stronger than life? Death.But who is stronger than death?                                            Me, evidently,Pass, Crow.

from Examination at the Womb Door by Ted hughes

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Haha that's the first time I've seen you use mild swears... Cool thing about the fairy tales, never did notice... [Grandioso]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

rumpelstiltskin? =)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

ryn: thx for the link. I'll go check it out in borders soon. Haven't figured out from the review what genre the book falls under,(historical fiction?) though i suspect its the kind that resists any kind of generic classification.



I have 3-4 levels of security p/w . crucial ones that involve $$( banking, phone, ISP), impt ones e.g ICQ & email, and couple of generic ones for fun & games related [Tempest Blue]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

[i||uXioN]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

u noe wad...

i have the same problem...

ttx y i have two close frenx who can memorise my atm pin, among other stuff...who cares if it's not safe....i dun have enough money anyway. [psst]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

=) i guess we'll have to live with it. so much for the 'IT = convenience' equation huh... [public_prosecutor]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

actually they do have only ONE password these days. it's called GDS or something. but i've lost mine since ACSI doesnt use MOE systems very much. :)



---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ah - but the breeliance of MOE is that the Global DS password is used for "ALL" systems except ... pac@gov, traisi and cockpit - damn "smart" right...? [limitlim]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

well, how about 2 passwords and alternating between the two? :) [::orange::]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

haha, sth similar happened to me yesterday too... forgotten my pin coz i remembered it by sequence, not the numbers...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

FouCault

The bald man - probably the most dazzling philospher of his generation. At least the most radical in terms of renewing (or challenging) how the social studies are approached. His methods / approaches / theories apply to a wide range of disciplines - from history, literature, sociology, psychology -


Quick thoughts on foucault -


The author is dead -


deny "common sense" - look instead for the "constructedness" of systems - that appear natural - speech, routines, classifications - are the manifestation of power relations - of power seeking to systemise, to "naturalise" inequalities.


Crime - reform is a meaner more subtle form of subjugation. The Law, a tyranny not only of the body but enjoining the mind and the soul to be subservient to a politics that erases its traces by defining criminal and outlaw through the structures of language.


Madness - the shadowland of sanity is hardened - made distinct - drawn apart - with the overlaps occulded. Therapy - manacles over the being -


The individual - don't privilege it. Don't believe you exist primarily as yourself - but examine the forces that constitute your being. If there is to be freedom to be found - the consciousness of the how we are contructed is a semblance of freedom.


THeory is practice. Theory that ceases / is not relevant does not even enter into the world.


Discourse - dug / found - rooted in historicity. A fascination with how structures imbue themselves with reflexivity and order. The historicity of truth is part of its being - situated truth makes plainer where the appropirations exist -


"The indignity of speaking for others"


"soemthing essential is taking place : ... the tracking down of all varieties of facism, from the enormous ones that surround and crush us to the petty ones that constitute the tyrannical bitterness of our everyday lives".


Who sings for those who once knew the Spirit?