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To be of use
» talfryn.net
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Out on a limb
» talfryn.net
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Whirl of a week
» talfryn.netWas manning the visitor services counter for GardenTech over last weekend and on Monday…
Meetings at work on Tuesday, followed by talks at NUS, part of the DBS 60th anniversary lecture series…
Went back home to find that my Pericallia ricini moth adults had copulated and laid huge batches of eggs…
Attended on Wednesday a sharing and discussion session with a researcher from UC Berkeley on the arboreal acrobatics of one of my favourite animals - the geckos…
Marine macrofouling buoy survey in the ports on Thursday morning, and brought my visiting cousin (the youngest of them at ten years’ old) to the Science Centre in the afternoon…
Mahler at night…
Scouts Centenary comm meeting on Friday night immediately after work…
Buloh guided walk and mangrove reforestation with the Scouts on Sat morning…
A recce around Buloh and another meeting in the afternoon…
The Japanese Association’s Natsu Matsuri (summer festival) later that evening…
The Ministry of Parrot’s Parrot Parade today at Sungei Tengah…
And all of sudden I’ve found myself the caretaker of a few hundred newly-hatched Pericallia ricini caterpillars…
And the proud new owner of a handsome, three-month old Ornate Lorikeet!
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To judge a man
» talfryn.netWhy do you judge a man when he is all wrapped up like a parcel? He is only letting us see only such attributes as do not belong to him while hiding the only ones which enable us to judge his real worth… You must judge him not by his finery but by his own self… Measure his height with his stilts off: let him lay aside his wealth and his decorations and show us himself in his shimmy. Is his body functioning properly? Is it quick and healthy? What sort of soul does he have? Is his soul a beautiful one, able, happily endowed with all her functions? Are her riches her won or are they borrowed? Has luck had nothing to do with it? Is she calm, unruffled and contented? That is what we need to know; that is what the immense distances between us men should be judged by.
~ Montaigne, The Complete Essays (1587-88)
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“Smile!â€
» talfryn.netDad with toddler in arms walks over.
I do the usual “Hello, welcome to XXX!” and hand them a brochure.
The dad whispers something into the child’s ear.
The child reaches out and grabs the brochure.
Dad whispers something else.
Child says to me, “Hello.”
I respond in kind, “Hello!”
Dad whispers again.
Child goes, “Bye bye.”
I wave, “Bye bye!”
They walk off.
Colleague and I exchange quizzical looks.
* * * * *
Can’t do sales. And visitor services. At the end of a 6-hour shift, I just feel like slipping into some forgotten cave somewhere to recuperate. It takes me a few minutes to ‘learn the ropes’ and get myself up to speed with the events of the day, one hour to stumble around and make myself look like an idiot by turning to one of the ‘regulars’ whenever a difficult question is posed by a visitor, a couple of hours to work my Extroversion out of its shell, an hour for it to reach its peak performance period, the one hour during which I’d start to sound like a pro, and then after that, fatigue sets in and the ambient furniture music (Kevin Kern, I recognised it as) (that one CD has been on re-loop the whole day) lures a tired brain into auto-pilot. Funny thing is, I do enjoy it when the E has taken charge…* * * * *
The Butterfly Garden was one of the more popular attractions, with visitors forming queues outside its entrance for a ‘tour’ in the aviary-style gardens that wouldn’t last past 10 minutes. Many were enthralled by the flying beauties, and there were all manner of poses with all models of camera-phones and cameras in there. My sis happened to be one of the visitors, and one of the Butterfly Garden staff attempted to enthuse some interest by asking her “do you know how caterpillars become butterflies?”.At this point, I should mention that my sister is perhaps one of the most scientifically-adept youngsters of her age I have ever known, and has manage to not only sit through a rather technical talk by fly expert Patrick Grootaert but also formed a few educated questions and comments during the process. The topic of lepidopteran metamorphosis thus, would be to her as elementary as which alphabet comes before ‘B’.
From what I heard (from my parents, who recounted the story), my sis gave the poor staff a blank ‘duh’ look and her answer, loaded with sarcasm: “By magic.”
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Back to Venus
» talfryn.netVenus Drive this morning was wet… wet… wet… yet we continued shooting through the rain. A number of good catches and sightings, including two very beautiful bearded Dracos.
Black-bearded gliding lizard (Draco melanopogon)
Coeliccia octogesima (?) with blue markings resembling telephone handsets
Dolichopodid, long-legged fly (Subfamily Neurigoninae) -
Flight
» talfryn.netBirds in flight, claims the architect Vincenzo Volentieri, are not between places, they carry their places with them. We never wonder where they live: they are at home in the sky, in flight. Flight is their way of being in the world.
~ Geoff Dyer
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NDP 2009
» talfryn.netPutting my thoughts on NDP aside, I shall here pay tribute to the men and women who made NDP happen - it is a tremendous feat involving clockwork precision, manpower and logistics, planning and resource management, perseverance and sweat, plus many, many KFC drumsticks and bento boxes (and lots of wasted plastic and styrofoam). Having gone through two days of rehearsals with the contingents, I have come to understand a little better the sacrifices they have to make to pull it through. Yesterday under the heat of the afternoon sun, no less than five members of each of the Uniformed Groups had to be carried away on stretchers from the parade square, and even one of the contingent commanders had to be replaced. (The scene of the Colour Party in the first photo below was just a drill, thank goodness!)
Saluting at the playing of the National Anthem and saying the Pledge (haven’t done that for almost 10 years!) elicit an odd sense of programmed response and calm detachment.
Oh well, but who cares. The fireworks was awesome.
(Again, more photos on FB and Flickr.)
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“Cannot tahanâ€
» talfryn.netI went ‘fishing’ during two extremely boring and redundant 3-hour-long briefings today. Don’t mind me. I’m sure my bosses share the same sentiments, having been forced to sit through the same.
If there’s anything that turns me off and makes me squirm in my seat, it’s poor English. Or heavy Singlish, in what should be a professional setting. Mis-pronunciation of words, grammatical inaccuracies, punctuation errors, missing Ss…
‘Ambulance’ becomes ‘Ambulen’
‘Lamp post’ becomes ‘Lampo’
‘Dollars and cents’ become ‘Dollars and cen’I clench my jaws and breathe out sighs, and hope that the next presenter(s) would bring less pain to the ears. But nooo… it’s mediocere mesolectal English at best.
We were advised to read the FAQ guidelines so that we could “familiarise with your[our]selves”, and go to “bied early” to “rechar energy”.
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One more thing, also cringe-worthy.
Has anyone else noticed - and is bothered by - the increasing overuse and misuse of the word ‘actually’? Everything these days, it seems, is apparently not what we expected.
“The soup-of-the-day is actually cream of mushroom.”
“We will actually put up signs at the pick-up point.”
“If you click this button, it will actually bring you to this page.”
“Those who actually work outdoors, will actually have to come in earlier.”
(And the little voice in my head would reek of sarcasm: “Nooo kidding… Wow, really?!!”)
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Oh, actually, I’m not quite done yet.
Another pet peeve, an SOP for written communication especially prevalent in the civil service…
- I was on the line with a NatWest banking manager just now. British accent and all… very refreshing.
- When he learnt I was calling from Singapore, he told me that he had visited the island just last year during Christmas, and had found it to be a lovely, modern city.
- “The people speak a funny English,” he said.
- I laughed.
- Thank you.
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Crossroads
» talfryn.netWhat price, for the liberty of choice?
What price, of the liability of choice?
What cost, of a wrong choice?
Would we be better off without choices; 是ç¦ä¸æ˜¯ç¥¸ 是祸躲ä¸è¿‡?
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Patriotic zeal and resistant indifference
» talfryn.netLeong (2001), in Consuming the Nation: National Day Parades in Singapore, explores the background, organisation and aim of the National Day parades of Singapore, discussing their impact on participants and members of the public:
The National Day parade is packaged and marketed for the largest possible number of Singaporeans. Although the costs of the parade run up to a hefty sum, the expected returns are obviously not economic, but socio-psychological. Given the accounting mentality of state élites, who expect monetary or tangible returns for every public expenditure and who take great pains to avoid any budgetary deficit, the commodification of National Day is calculated with intangible gains in mind: identification with the nation, pride and loyalty to the country, a sense of what it means to be ‘Singaporean’.
In sum, the militarization of National Day parades renders the parade a
ritual of power and hierarchy, dramatizes the state’s monopoly of force, personifies the nation by underscoring values of order, discipline and regimentation, and reassures the populace in the face of anxiety.
(More photos on FB and Flickr.)
