Hurricanes Victory

We won today's game against Team Taz 8-3. The results aren't out on the website yet, but should be there soon. So we're no longer at rock bottom of the table after today. Might I just take the opportunity to draw your attention to the goal I scored in our first game against Skools Floorball.

I haven't been "courted" (fielded) much recently, which is disappointing. I guess I'll just have to impress the coach more during trainings. Today's game was at Tampines, the court is longer but narrower, and a long, long way from home. Bought a chaptek from the shop at Tampines Sports Hall.

NUS Nemesis has recently gone on a giant-killing spree, beating Motorola Red Flamingoes and Nhac Tre No 1. One of our star players, Magnus, is flying back to Sweden tomorrow. Our next game will be that much tougher.

Updated my "teaching sciences" website with some stuff. Stumbled upon a rather interesting clip of a computer recognizing sketches.

Oh, and if anyone is concerned, my finger is now noticeably less swollen, though it is still a little puffy and hurts a little.

Lyrics

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance

Hope You Dance, Lee Ann Womack

If God had a name, what would it be
And would you call it to his face
If you were faced with him in all his glory
What would you ask if you had just one question

One Of Us, Joan Osborne

If I had just one question, I would probably ask, "how do I stop suffering in this world", but it would not be complete without enquiring if I should even try. Yet, "how to" is an infinitely more useful question than "should I".

The Weekend Before I'm a Teacher

Sprained my finger yesterday when I carelessly hit away a basketball that was not quite in my reach. It's pretty swollen now, but can still play floorball. Had a few games of Captain's Ball with my maths classmates in NIE before we head out for our practicum.

I was trying to provide a link to a site about Captain's Ball butbut couldn't really find one. The game is basically like netball, except that the "net" is someone on your team standing on a chair to catch the ball for the team to score.

Handed in my Physics Test Construction Assignment today. Got my bike repaired, replaced the inner tube of the rear wheel that had leaked. Saw some students from Juying at the marketplace as I waited for my bike, filling me with anxiety and dread.

How am I going to connect with these students? I've been to America and back, but still I've really only interacted with the more overachieving crowd.

Cycled over to the school to have a look, didn't quite go in because there was a sign advising visitors to sign in with the general office first. The school is tucked away in a little corner of Jurong, next to Juying Primary, which is next to a military installation (that seems to be undergoing construction). It seems that the school field is "shared", there were signs pointing the way but I didn't quite pursue it as I was on my bike, and the path was rather makeshift.

So I start my practicum there on Monday. Exciting and scary. Need to spend the weekend doing some administrative preparation for it. Got a floorball game at Tampines Sports Hall on Sunday. Is there any point saying that we need to win this game? But we do. We haven't won a single game yet.

Attending this talk on Mental Wellness Through Resilience (PDF) tomorrow. The PDF file seems a little malformed on my computer though, with a bold swathe of grey running down the left side from the IMH logo right through to the HPB logo.

NIE Supervision Coordinator

My NIE Supervisor for my practicum is Associate Professor Kwek Leong Chuan. Seems like quite an interesting guy, has research interests in quantum information science.

Will be contacting him on Monday (tomorrow). Will also be contacting the Principal of Juying Secondary.

Have a floorball game against Skools Innebandy in a few hours. The results of the games played so far are less than spectacular for NTU Hurricane. Will we pull off a miracle with our Swedish Hurricane back in town?

In other news, a fellow teacher trainee at NIE and an advocate for GNU-style freedom has found his way to this blog. He had a letter in the Straits Times forum on 1 April 2006, about the Singapore Government adopting the OpenDocument Format (ODF).

Interesting, because I was actually working in MINDEF when it made the switch to OpenOffice.org, and got to see the ground-level implementation process and the reactions of staff when this change was forced upon them.

Interesting, because I once had a letter in the forum too.

Won't it be lovely if Microsoft one day becomes compliant with open standards?

We Didn't Start the Fire

Translated into the Singaporean context very deftly by Hossan Leong.

The video file is pretty big, but worth it. Unless you don't have broadband, in which case I don't even think it worth your while coming to my blog.

Theory and Practice

Woody dreamt that he was dribbling a floorball across the court. It was a pretty muddled, distorted dream.
Here's a photo of my floorball stick, with free background elements thrown in for the composition.
I planned to finish 3 pieces of work today. At this point I'll be happy if I finish one. In which case I had better get cracking.

Singapore Biennale 2006

I'm quite tickled by the quote at the end of this article:

"Everyone thinks that Singapore is a very clean place," one local says. "But that's not true. We just employ a lot of cleaners."

NIE Practicum

The school postings for the practicum are out. As noted by yjblog, there's some incompatible JavaScript on the practicum website. Can either disable JavaScript when viewing the site, or use a script with GreaseMonkey on Firefox/IceWeasel to show all the "hidden blocks".

Anyway, I guess the more pertinent matter is my school posting. I've been posted to Juying Secondary School, which is about as far as NTU is from my place. Will visit the school one of these days to take a look, since it's NIE e-Learning Week 2007 anyway.
One important thing would be to find out if there is a vegetarian stall at the canteen. If you're interested, you can read the school report, which is actually a speech given by the Principal, Mr Abdul Harris Sumardi, in 2006. There's also a quick 1-page school write-up.

Blame it on the Weatherman

This is last year's news, but I'll get it off my chest anyhow.

The rain has been really bad in December and early January, with several flooding episodes in Singapore.

Our flight back from Penang on 17 Dec 2006 was unable to land due to bad weather and turned back to Kuala Lumpur International Airport, where we awaited word from Changi Airport and watched the aircraft refuel.

I've never had such an experience before, not even when flying into and out of Newark Airport when it was snowing.

The perverse insistence of the rain has also cancelled several tennis sessions, though of course nowadays I don't play tennis because the floorball season is so demanding. And the rain seems to have increased the number of mosquitoes around.

Anyway, we had quite a fun, eventful trip in Malaysia, what with the drama of the return flight, and her dad's rental car hit by an unknown vehicle while parked outside the house.

We stayed a while in Ipoh, and watched quite a bit of HBO and National Geographic in the hotel room. Rain takes out the satellite TV signal; was watching the supernatural thriller Fallen and there were just a few minutes left when suddenly the screen blanked.

The rain these days has been insane.