a bunch of jiapalang

or rather, a bunch of misc stuff.

note to Slayer: Auditions for Singapore Idol are in Jun, u keen? :) No sight of your MOAM yet, and the DVDs you asked for, but they're released a compilation of pop songs with -1 tracks, for the budding Idol-wannabe. Can check it out when you're back in Spore. J8's also going through major renovation, as in addition of more shopping floors, so can expect more shops when you get back.

firstly, a link to some stunning sidewalk art. I received these pix in an email from Sylveracyd, and Slayer and they're really good! [slayer: Why you fwded me an email which Sylver already sent to me is beyond me] Taken from the right angle, the pictures look amazingly lifelike. [plus the laptop one looks like my laptop. :p]

Sidewalk art

secondly, this was taken in the room of one of my P4 tuit kid's:



Slayer, meet one of Singapore's youngest Claymates :p

thirdly, guess what?

A urinal in the ladies' toilet. Who'd've thunk? And no, I wasn't crazy enough to sneak into the men's toilets. Can anyone guess what this urinal is for?

Now the longer entries....

Kill Bill......Finally

And with Vol 2 comes a sense of closure, finally, on the Kill Bill movies. Caught this movie on a Thurs, cos kena play out by a friend of mine. Supposed to watch with me and then end up going with other people. Grrrr......

So what's different about this from Vol. 1? Well, more on the stories behind the characters, and less of the... cheesy blood splattering. Hee. At this point of time the Bride has only 2 people left to kill, so there is the bitchfight between her and Elle Driver [Darryl Hannah] and then Bill. Frankly the fight between her and Bill is a bit disappointing, compared to the Elle one. They exchange a few blows, she presses some of the vital points on his system, and he falls down dead. Hm.

In this movie, more emphasis is placed on the characters, and finally we understand a bit more of the character of the Bride, her relationship with Bill, and all the other emotional stuff that was lacking in the first movie. Kinda balances out the 2 movies in a way I guess.

If you knew a bit of what went on in the first movie, you would be able to catch what's going on in this one, so even if you haven't watched Vol. 1, you should be able to follow the action. Just that you'll see less blood and action in this one. :p Watch out for the funny bits, like when with Pai Mei [Gordon Liu] suddenly talks in Cantonese and calls the Bride an American dog or something to that effect.

Spare the Rod...

A rejoinder to all those who have ever asked me why I never signed up with NIE to become a teacher. [merlin, are you seeing this? :p]

Preserve the dignity of teachers

This pretty much ties in with the scandal over the resigning of the Nan Chiau principal. Seriously, I don't see why on earth he has to resign over a little thing like this, and I don't see what's the big fuss about him hitting that girl. Goodness sake, it was a soft cover book lor. There's no lasting physical damage to the girl, apart from her dignity, and a repeat offender like the girl sometimes is just asking for it sooner or later.

Why do some parents want to pamper their kids to such an extent? Is it guilt, for not spending enough time with them? Is it over-protectiveness? A lack of faith in the resilience of children? Did the complainant in the Nan Chiau case think that whacking the girl with a book would inflict untold irreversible damage on the girl's psyche, and is in fact complaining because of the future psychiatric costs the family would have to foot for her future therapy?

Come on lah. Some of these kids are hardier than some adults. Last time when blading at Bishan Park with Quet and my dad, we saw a bunch of kids chasing each other on blades, [as naturally kids would do] and crashing into one another several times. Sooner or later, there was a multiple pile up on the skating area, where a few kids were piled up on top of one another and other kids decided to join in the piling by crashing into the pile. Then what did they all do after that? Get up, dust themselves off, and continue laughing and chasing each other, gleefully ignoring their parents' scoldings.

If some buffalo like my dad crashed into another adult like that, I'd probably start worrying about hip fractures.

Could that be the cause of overprotectiveness? Strangely enough, adults are in some ways physically weaker and less resilient than children, because adults' bones have stopped growing, and the body systems have started to slow down. Because we as adults grow weaker, we tend to be more careful when we walk [or blade] around. So then this tendency for safety extends to our kids, although we're the ones that need more protection!

How strange parents are huh? They want kids to experience life, but only after putting on knee, elbow, wrist guards, chest guards, helmuts and all the other chiapalang. By the time we deem our kids ready to go, they can hardly waddle out the door after all that weight. This is what we want to teach our kids? No wonder we're having problems with creative thinking and all that. We don't allow our kids to explore, we don't allow them to learn life's lessons, we don't allow them to live. And we push them to get paper after paper, thinking that that's the only guarantee of success for our kids.

When can we say that we have truly lived?