A poem may appear to mean very different things to different readers, and all of these meanings may be different from what the author thought he meant. For instance, the author may have been writing some peculiar personal experience, which he saw quite unrelated to anything outside; yet for the reader the poem may become the expression of a general situation, as well as of some private experience of his own. The reader's interpretation may differ from the author's and be equally valid-- it may even be better. There may be much more in a poem than the author was aware of. The different interpretations may all be partial formulations of one thing; the ambiguities may be due to the fact that the poem means more, not less, than ordinary speech can communicate.
T.S. Eliot
Sunday, March 30, 2008
What is poetry?
Thursday, March 27, 2008
My long days
I wake at 5:45am, get to school by 7am, leave school between 4 and 6:30pm, have dinner, start work at 8pm, fall asleep at 11:15pm, and the cycle begins again.
WHAT IN THE WORLD DID I SIGN UP FOR?
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
I'm a chao enthu newbie teacher
I have a bruise on my hip and my thigh from lugging an accordion up and down the overhead bridge, up and down the public bus, and up the stairs to class.
I tried to psych myself to walk like an air stewardness with a chic trolley luggage, but I kept getting stuck in the narrow doorways.
Monday, March 24, 2008
How to create an interactive whiteboard with the Wiimote
This is so cool! I wanna make one!
Thoughts on the Monday after Easter
The day after Easter, and I order a chunk of grilled chicken breast on top of my mee siam. Which makes me wonder: could I ever give up eating meat? If I can't, does that mean that I am a hypocrite who gives lip service to the cause of the poor squealing pigs being led to the slaughter? Is it possible to feel for the sorry pig and desire meat at the same time?
Are we all vegetarians in heaven?
Why do Mondays breed in me such difficult questions?
I am up to two cups of coffee. There is a 20-cents-per-cup cappuccino machine in my office that I've grown awfully fond of. I watched this TV show that showed that if you have grown used to coffee, it doesn't actually stimulate you as much as you'd like to believe. True, if you suddenly stop drinking coffee tomorrow, you'll have a splitting headache and your attention would drop, but in two weeks you would be as good as new. But I like coffee. The way I like meat.
Anyway, on a totally different track, some of my kids are so angelic. Sometimes when I stand in front of the class and look at (some of) their bright-eyed faces (ignoring the rest), I want to sit them down and talk to them like King Solomon: enjoy the days of your youth! Before your teeth fall out, your hair grows white and your heart heavy with sorrow. And I'm not even that old yet.
I enjoy telling my kids that I'm twice as old as them. Haha! I said today, "I'm twice your age and you don't know what a wiki is?" Heh. I'm a show-off teacher. :)
Sorry about the rambly post. I blame the back-to-back classes and the 20-cents-per-cup cappicino. (It only dispenses half a cup: a kid's portion.)
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!
I was in the living room singing and playing my guitar and my mother brought out from the kitchen
1. An orange
for the stone that was rolled away
She went back into the kitchen and came out 2 minutes later with
2. A bowl of hard boiled eggs
for the new life we have in Christ Jesus because he rose from the dead!
Finally on her last trip, she brought out
3. A bag of pears
for the fruit of the spirit that we have: love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control
Christ is risen!
Friday, March 21, 2008
A girl with a guitar
is that a scar on her face?
why is she green?
what is her name?
iamnotanartist2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
iGTD is hot!
I like Actiontastic. But ever since I encountered the ever-spinning wheel and lost my database, I haven't been able to get it to work for me, in spite of multiple re-installations.
Enter iGTD.
iGTD is hot stuff. I've had it for fifteen minutes and I like it already. I had been wanting to install it ever since I read popagandhi's quasi-review, but all the links to bargiel.home.pl led to a dead end. His servers must be overloaded or something. Get iGTD from the CNET site instead.
I've become somewhat of a needy geek. I need my GTD app to sync with my iCal; I need my GTD app to come with a quicksilver plugin. I'm very needy, but iGTD meets all my needs.
1. It syncs with iCal.
Similar to Actiontastic, contexts are synced as calendars in iCal, for example, @home, @mac, @errand, etc.
Syncing is scary business. You may lose everything trying. One of the things I appreciate in iGTD is that it backups my data before each sync. It also comes bundled with a plugin for iBackup.
Having said that, if you notice something wacky happening to your data in either iCal of iGTD, don't sync it again. Instead, you want to:
- backup the iGTD data file
- unregister the iGTD from Sync Services (Syncing tab):
- quit iGTD
- remove all iGTD data from iCal (important!)
- start iGTD and do a sync to iCal
Personally I wouldn't do step 5 unless I'm very sure it will work. I will look for the backup file (GTD.sql.startup.bkp) and restore it. Better, I will backup my iCal database before every sync.
2. Quicksilver is its buddy.
iGTD comes bundled with a quicksilver plugin. To add tasks, simply write:
@context [project] task !! #duedate
Where
!! - highest priority
!
?
?? - lowest priority
What more can a needy geek ask for?? Read More!
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
whoooosh...
It's a bird!
It's a plane!
It's my souped-up Mac!!
Haha. I'm so pleased. Bought a piece of 2GB Kingston DDR2 RAM for S$78 at Sim Lim.
It's quite easy to replace. These are the steps.
I love generic RAM. So does anyone want to buy my 512MB bonafide Apple RAM for say, S$15?
[On another somewhat relevant note, I am amused how uncharacteristically organised and disciplined I am when it comes to my computers. When I bought my macbook last year, I told myself that I would save the $304.50 and upgrade my RAM in a year's time, and gosh, I must have some internal clock or something, 'cos it has been a year and a month.]
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Tightrope over Hell
A taut line
stretched over the mad abyss.
Dark despair in shapes that shift
clamour at the heart.
Cold infects and preserves the dead,
squeezing out all thoughts of home.
