The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive [...]
Posts from ‘August, 2009’
To be of use
Out on a limb
Changeable lizard, Pulau Ubin [see more]
Egg masses
Many orange blobs with two black eyes in a mussel shell. Fish eggs, looking like some characters out of Mario World.
Even Pericallia ricini eggs have urticating bristles!
Both images are micrographs – taken through a dissecting microscope.
Whirl of a week
Was 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 [...]
To judge a man
Why 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 [...]
"Smile!"
Dad 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 [...]
Back to Venus
Venus 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
Birds 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
NDP 2009
Putting 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 [...]
"Cannot tahan"
I 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 [...]
