The realisation that I have been becoming a less confident person, in some aspects, is not entirely new. It is more evidently felt when I am engaging people, or set myself on some new task – assignments that may not be altogether alien to my experience. It is an unpleasant realisation, made worse knowing that [...]
Posts from ‘October, 2009’
Riveries
For most of us, our bright promise will always fall short of being actualised… It will remain no more than a hope carried over from childhood, or a dream entertained as we drive along a motorway and feel our plans hovering above the horizon. Extraordinary resilience, intelligence and good fortune are needed to redraw the [...]
Adrenaline thoroughly drained
It’s been a heck of a week and more. My portfolio during this period could not have been any more varied: graphics designer, photographer, PR manager, personal assistant, driver, tour guide, nature guide. Appearances ranged from field trip garb, business executive look (Mom has been tremendously pleased), hiking boots, heels, flats, shorts, skirts, business jackets, [...]
Nutty kiasuism
An encounter at a petrol kiosk yesterday marked the near-end of my liaison officer-ing stint.
I was waiting in line at the cashier’s when the lady in front of me, upon hearing of a promotion for peanut cereal bars, asked the sales assistant to hold off swiping her credit card. She stood by the side and [...]
On hold
It feels as if our normal lives have been put on hiatus since the previous week. It is finally here, and we’re keeping the show running, fuelled by reserves of adrenaline.
Woods
She looked up from the book and said, ‘What?’ and I said it again: ‘Only the mockingbird sings at the edge of the woods.’
She pursed her lips. ‘It’s like the words I just read, isn’t it? It makes you feel something and you don’t know what it is.’
~ Walter Tevis, Mockingbird
B.A.D.
It’s Blog Action Day today. I’m not going to talk about climate change per se, since I’ve recently been accused of writing ‘too much like a scientist’ (no, not on my blog… never on my blog, I hope) and I can’t really talk about climate change (you know, CO2, atmospheric gases and all that. But [...]
Naughty c00kies
While troubleshooting my recent GChat connectivity woes, I was examining and scrutinising every little corner of my FireFox browser. Gradually I came to notice that while surfing my blog pages, mysterious calls to ‘dg.specificclick.net’ were being made.
First reaction was: spyware!!
I Googled it, and traced it back to… Sitemeter, a popular statistics tracking service that I [...]
Biodiversity volunteering and participatory monitoring
Excerpt from Lawrence, A. (2005) Reluctant citizens? The disjuncture between participatory biological monitoring and participatory environmental governance. Paper presented at the International Sociology Conference “Environment, Knowledge and Democracy” 6-7 July 2005. Faculte des Sciences de Luminy, Marseilles. Full paper available here.
On the one hand, participants are longing for the opportunity, indeed the ‘excuse’, to observe [...]
Nighty arty farty
Buloh on Tuesday night; took some SP students out on a night survey. The mozzies there are evolving towards the likes of the Semakau-esque Commando breed, and in numbers greater than I’ve ever experienced before. Just the thought of them makes me shiver. Today was no better – no rain, nor wind, nor sun would [...]
