At 62.5cm, this paradise tree snake still had almost double its body length to grow. A victim of grass-cutting, it was found right outside the office and brought in by a colleague. I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon injecting and fixing it in formalin. It will join the ranks of my spirited collection as the first preserved reptile. To some, this might appear shoddy work I know, but I’ll learn…

One of my bosses was none too pleased, since I left a great stink of a rotting snake in his room – it used to be the wet lab, and in a way, it still is – when I first uncovered the lid of the container in which the snake was kept overnight. I made sure to make up for it and my unofficial activity by putting in extra hours of work time!

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, hair let down, hair bunned up, ponytailed, contact lenses, spectacles, etc. etc.

Been round to Sungei Buloh, MacRitchie TreeTop Walk, Pulau Ubin and Chek Jawa, Singapore Quarry and Dairy Farm Nature Park, National University Hospital, KK Hospital – and somewhere in between was squeezed the main reason for everything in the first place: the three-day Asean Biodiversity Conference which my office co-organised.

I was attached to the keynote speaker – who flew in from Harvard – for the duration of his stay in Singapore. A man of great conviction, perception and knowledge, and youth, I might add, he is perhaps one of the most impressive personalities I have met across the continents so far. I have learnt much from our chats, and from listening in to the exchange of ideas he has had with the numerous dignitaries and who’s who we’ve met. Not only about his pet topic biodiversity and human health (the preface to his book can be found online), but just about anything under the sky: politics, philosophy, America and the world, culture, music, education, science, healthcare, architecture, economics, national identity.

Again I am inspired to write about what has been conversed but I have been reluctant to fend off this certain shyness about analytical writing in the public domain, on a personal blog…

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.

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 of course we know there’s much, much more to it…) without the science, so I’ll just write about what has been bugging me this week.

I don’t need Jiminy Cricket to sing me song about what’s right or wrong, or how I should be feeling bad. I am feeling bad.

In the process of assisting in the preparation of an upcoming major regional biodiversity conference, I have been churning out more waste paper, one-sided printouts, unused colour copies, than I have done so during the entire year so far. Not just paper… but other resources too. Sigh – that quest for quality, precision, perfection. It is difficult to enforce personal pro-environmental attitudes when situational influences impose constraints. Still, we try. Or those of us who really care enough, do.

A reminder from the wise talking cricket: “Conscience is that still, small voice that people won’t listen to. That’s just the trouble with the world today.”

Perhaps we could all be Jiminys. Perhaps our voices (reinforced by suitably disapproving looks (Fig. 1)) would lend weight to consciences, and perhaps people would then listen…

Fig 1. Man demonstrating a Suitably Disapproving Look

I’m gonna scavenge the office for any bits of unclean paper and plastic tomorrow. I’m gonna make sure that the recycling bins remain generously fed. I’m gonna…

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 I exchange quizzical looks.

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.”

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 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”.

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?!!”)

Oh, actually, I’m not quite done yet.

Another pet peeve, an SOP for written communication especially prevalent in the civil service…

1. I was on the line with a NatWest banking manager just now. British accent and all… very refreshing.
2. 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.
3. “The people speak a funny English,” he said.
4. I laughed.
5. Thank you.

It’s kind of redunculous that they’ve completely dug up the roads running through the front porch and driveway of our office. Impassable, unwalkable, for there’s no road left. Heck, there’s no ground left. It’s like a waterless moat. Or a ladderless trench. The only way to get to work these days is to slip through a gap in the hoarding into what feels like a construction site, briskwalk down a newly-paved fire engine access road (don’t really like having Bangladeshi workers watching me from both sides…), and leave the path to traverse this unlevelled grass patch to the right of the house. Then there’s a choice of either going in through the backdoor, or through the front after hopping over the four-language DANGER — KEEP OUT signboard thoughtfully placed a few steps away from the mini-abyss that separates the adjacent narrow concrete flooring from what’s left of our front steps.

I can imagine giving directions to our office: “When you see the side of a colonial house with with pots of plants and many booties hanging on the grilles – that’s us! PS. It is not advisable to come during or after a rain; umbrellas aren’t sufficient – you will need WelliesPhua Chu Kang boots. PPS. Heels are not recommended, no matter the weather. PPPS. Please bring torch if leaving after dark.”

Now… let’s zoom into the office, where my colleagues and I have embarked on a late-night regime, as is usually the case during preparation for conferences. We can get quite, quite busy. Call me a masochist, but… I like.

Quote of the day: “I miss running around like a headless chicken and talking to big people.”

Summoned to the Fish’s desk with a “come to my table NOW!!! big spider”, I fetched an empty specimen tube and hopped across the hallway into the other room. I was expecting one of those huge jumpers, which constitute most of the S.O.S. cases around here. When I saw this one from afar, I promptly sprang back into my room to exchange the container for a bigger one.

It was a biggish, brownish spidey. Fat, furry spidey.

A mygalomorph!

Unlike the other large, brown, hairy spiders which are often mistaken by the layperson as tarantulas, this is the real deal, a spider from the family Theraphosidae. (The task of further classification – Phlogiellus sp.? Selenocosmia sp.? – is best left to the experts.)

She was crouched on the ground with her legs curled up against her body. Hardly active; lethargic, even, and unresponsive to the touch. It seemed, and as was the case, that her hours were numbered. A pity, for she was a beautiful creature, a sight sought after by many in the country, a representation of the celebrated yet little-known denizens of our wilder areas, living their lives in burrows, their biology still shrouded in mystery.

Never has the synonym for pigs been made this unpopular. For days now, it’s (alright, to be fair, it and ‘flu’ are an item so they both appear together) been gracing our news pages, FaceBook statuses, Twitter updates, and email warnings. Whenever anyone sneezes, someone would go, “Oh no! Swine flu!” Although that term is technically incorrect, and as the alternative ‘Mexican flu’ holds slightly politically-insensitive connotations, I think I shall stick to ‘H1N1′.

I try to take care to sneeze (or sniff, cough, snort, clear my throat, scratch my nose, or be seen with a tissue in my hands for any purpose other than wiping my mouth at the dinner table) less at home lest my dad launches into his drink-more-water-sleep-more-take-care-of-your-health rhetoric. Can’t blame him though, since I’ve been looking the part of a zombie for most of this week and if given the chance I’d happily take to swine-like tendencies in the mornings.

Viral worries aside, the days are becoming rather increasingly more productive. My probation’s ended (whoa, what a six months it’s been!), and my list of responsibilities and projects is just about getting longer although the paycheck hasn’t gotten any fatter. But ahh… complaints are the last thing on my mind. Not everyone is as fortunate to have something as close as this to a dream job.

Labour Day weekend coming up. Or what they also call ‘May Day’, which I can’t say without picturing some person or vessel in imminent danger and distress. The powered pleasure craft driving course does things to you, including making you want to call out “starboard, clear!” when doing a u-turn in a car…

Even while on solid ground, I still feel as if I’m riding on gentle waves. Clocked up about 12 hours out at sea during the past three days – either at the helm (working towards a powerboat driving licence), getting my bum numbed on the crewseats, or trying to track and shoot terns with the ‘nuclear missile’ (it was an overkill).

Unfortunately, it was blue skies and scorching sun during the days of the practical lessons (I’ve tanned significantly), and grey sullen weather during the tern-shoot. I’ll definitely be back; yesterday was but a trial run!

Black-naped terns