Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

What to do ... what to do ...

Huh. When this happens in your class, what do you, in your capacity as an educator, do?

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A) Take the microphone and yell, "Wakey, wakey!"
B) Set off firecrackers.
C) Walk out in an indignant huff.
D) Leave quietly for your own well-deserved siesta.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

The winner writes history...

The Inglourious Basterds made a very good case for alternative history and underscores how serendipity could be the making or breaking of an event. It was interesting to watch a Hollywood movie with mostly European cast and largely in French or German. Being a Quentin Tarantino movie, it is only fair to expect comical violence, although not to the level of Kill Bill.

A fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Biar mati anak, jangan mati adat?

TRADITION
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I'm pretty sure there are better ways to get an adrenaline rush.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Wax and Dye

In May, I had the privilege of perusing an exhibition showcasing the best of Teng's work at the National Art Gallery. Datuk Chuah Thean Teng was a batik painter, a technique adapted from the Nusantara artform of applying wax blocking and vegetable dye to print fabrics. He was a superb craftsman who mastered a varity of media; from wood block prints, ink on paper, metalwork, pastel and poster colour.

His portraits of lush and voluptuous female figures, tinted in rich colours brought to mind the raw sensuality of Gauguin. The delicacy of his brush strokes and the dreamy feel of his landscape brings to mind Henri Matisse. his bold and fantastical abstracts earned him the apellate of the Picasso of batik. He documented life in the village; heavily featuring female figures from bare-breasted aborigine women to the modest and retiring tudung clad Malay girls. His paintings narrated of a lifestyle that is no more, articulating the linkage between nurturing family, land and humanity.

Just to share some of my illicit snapshots and thoughts. My last visit has shown that the NAG is more stringent about photography in the galleries; signages and guards abound.


Observe the little girl in this painting; her scowling demeanour and heavy lips lending her a rather sinister cast. The long suffering patience of the mother. Except for the hair, it could have been my mother and I when I was a bratty child (still am, sadly).


The perspective of this picture is both unexpected and charming, no? The shadows contrasting with the bright colours of her sarong and the manically cheery sky ... I don't know what it is but I like it. The sultry air is almost visceral.


This is the mural he made for the Faculty of Agriculture of University of Malaya in 1960.

R.I.P. Teng. You will be missed.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Kinda like the telephone game gone wrong.

I get a variation of this a lot from my mum.



Except that she would insist that I was somewhere doing something with her when actually? It was my sister.

I ... have no words.

More dangerous than carrying a double-oh tag?

James Bond? Michael Westen?

Pfft.

My job has been classified as one of the most dangerous (albeit on the scientific front) job ever by Wired.

Check it out here.

Thank God we don't have a communal lab coffee pot.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Rapping for Public Health

The world is anticipating the second wave of H1N1 to bitchslap us during the final quarter of 2009. How well prepared are you to face it? Do you know how to protect yourself? Do you know how to prepare your family?

If you want some pointers, watch this guy.



That was John D. Clarke, MD, FAAFP. Who says that all doctors are nerdy?

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Thanks a lot ...

You are a mathematical genius who was instrumental in breaking the codes used by your government's enemy to help win the second world war. Your brilliance helped pave the way of the modern theory of computation. How does your government repay you for your loyalty and service?

By chemically castrating you.

You can't get it up no more, humiliated by the witch hunt trial that ended your career by taking away the security clearance required to do your job and kill yourself at the age of 41.

Fifty five years later, the Government apologised. Gee, thanks, Mr Brown.

R.I.P. Alan Turing.