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This morning I actually taught a middle school lesson as I wanted to for the first time. It was to a class of one, a "troublesome student" who doesn't want to study with the rest of her class. In my mind she's one of the smartest first years I've met; she's already figured out that the school system is largely a load of crap. The trouble wasn't that she thought this way-- many students slack off in class, fall asleep, or otherwise just tune out. But she actually said something about it, and she quietly maintains her position despite a lot of pressure from above. For this reason she's been put into a separate room by herself, because while she still comes to school I guess nobody really knows what to do with her. Another English teacher at the school described her as "haughty, with a superiority complex". She's a true independent thinker in a sea of drones.

The vice principal, figuring she's a lost cause and at least I couldn't do any harm, asked if I wanted to go in and talk to her this morning. I didn't speak a word of Japanese. Like any student I've met here she was nervous and afraid to make mistakes, but her pronunciation was actually pretty good. Using only hand gestures I got her to start thinking in English, just for a moment. The moment of clarity struck when I got her to not just repeat "My book, your book" but to use them correctly in context. After that I had her write her name on her textbook (which she hadn't opened or used yet) and taught her how to write uppercase and lowercase letters on a sheet of primer paper.

About halfway through the lowercase letters, after the vice principal had left the room, she stopped and made a remark in Japanese that she hated studying. I chuckled and agreed that studying was annoying, and asked her what her long term goals were. We talked for a bit about short term and long term goals, and I mentioned that in order to reach her long term goals, in the short term she would need to learn certain things in school and use those as stepping stones. I told her about my long term goals in teaching her English: speaking, listening, reading, and writing, and while I think she grasped the necessity of learning to write the alphabet, she also said that she has trouble keeping both her long term goals and short term goals in mind. We finished up quickly, and I told her that tomorrow we'd practice speaking some more.

I think that motivation is going to be the toughest part. Since she doesn't want to study, I think the best tactic is to couch things in a manner that isn't normal studying. Speaking and listening should be easy, but writing is going to be tough; I'm going to avoid directly using the textbook. I'm going to try to put into practice all the things I've wanted to-- speaking practice, using the language in context, phonics, getting her to think on her feet.... If I expect a lot I should get a lot. For the first time in awhile, I feel challenged.

You know, sometimes there are moments in the staffroom when you're sitting around and there's no students to interact with and everyone is doing their best to look busy so the boss doesn't yell at them. It's moments like these that are just ripe for a good prank.

I've been recording my voice for a set of video tutorials and at one point in the middle I paused, sneezed loudly into the headset microphone, and then continued. I cut it out of the tutorial of course, but that same isolated sneeze was too perfect to just discard. I added about 7 seconds of silence to the beginning and saved it as an audio file. Then I walked over to one of the "public" staffroom computers and set that sound to pretty much every built-in Windows sound. I unmuted the volume control, fixed the speakers (which had been plugged into the wrong jack) and turned up the volume. I then walked back to my desk.

What I didn't expect was for some automated program to trigger the "exclamation" sound on its own about every hour or so. Every so often the computer would emit a quite convincing sneeze, at which point everyone looked around, and assumed it was someone else. It worked so well because the sound was so brief that nobody could tell where it was coming from. After several hours of this someone walked over and started using the computer, and the trap was sprung. A short while after a program was opened, the computer would sneeze. When a program was closed, the computer would wait and then sneeze. The sound was distant enough from the triggering event that nobody figured out they were associated, and in fact the poor sap using the computer was having a tough time convincing everyone else he wasn't actually sneezing. Eventually they figured out it was coming from the computer. As the murmuring in the staffroom grew and the resident computer expert fiddled through menus trying to figure out where the sound was coming from, the desktop went through a sort of digital hay fever; every 7 seconds a sneeze was heard. Finally a rather bright English teacher turned off the speakers, and the joke was played out.

Much better than taping aluminum foil to a cubicle.

A rather nasty bug has been found in Flash which allows a malicious website to run arbitrary code-- for all intents and purposes what this means is the site owner can take complete control over your computer. I won't explain botnets here, but typically computer taken over in this fashion function normally to the person using them but are also twisted to send out massive amounts of spam to both email hosts and to comment forms on sites like this one, host web sites used in online fraud (phishing), run hacking operations, and run extortion rings based on distributed attacks which can take down pretty much any website. This is done without the computer owner's consent or knowledge. Pretty much every piece of spam you get is from one of these compromised systems. And we all hate spam, don't we?

If you're a responsible computer owner, you should make sure your browser and operating system are patched up, but usually the Flash player is neglected in these upgrades. (Flash is used to display videos on YouTube, ad content on websites, and interactive stuff like online games.) You can check here if your Flash player is up to date, and if the version is less than what's listed on the chart you should download and install the latest version immediately.

Mike and Wendy were out today for their friends' wedding, so I had much of the day to myself. Yesterday I had developed a nasty blister on my foot, so I wanted to do something that wouldn't aggravate things: cycling. I borrowed a bicycle and after grabbing a bite to eat (roti prata again) I rode to Lakeside park and followed the path south. Everything was really green, the sun was shining, and it was generally a great day to be on a bicycle.

After passing the bridge to Chinese Garden, I saw a statue of a very very large lizard in the middle of the path. When I looked again, I realized it was an actual lizard, about 4 feet long from tip to tail. It was, in fact, a Malayan Water Monitor lizard, which is in the same genus as the famed Komodo dragon. I took a couple snapshots from range, none of which turned out that great, and as I moved to get a closer look he scurried off into the brush. Note that this was a public park, not a zoo... and there was a free-ranging giant lizard.

As I came back around on the loop and entered the Chinese garden to take photos, it started to rain heavily. By the time I made it back to the flat I was totally soaked. I wanted to go out and grab some more food but it rained until about 5pm, when I went out to grab some Mee Goreng (red spicy noodles) from the market, and finished it off with a lychee drink (with the fruits still in it). I thought the day was wrapping up, but then Wendy's brother came home around 7 and invited me out to eat. Not one to turn down a good meal, we went back to the market where he ordered a couple beers and a stingray. Yes, you read that correctly. I ate stingray, topped with spicy red chili sauce. It was delicious. Then for dessert he treated me to Singapore's version of flavored ice, which had sweet red beans in the bottom and tropical fruitstuffs and condensed milk poured liberally over the top.

It didn't stop there. As he's a bit of a night owl, he invited me for a midnight bike ride through the city to one of his favorite eateries. At this moment my stomach was about to burst, but he told me it would take at least an hour to get there and we'd work up an appetite getting there. He was right. Strangely enough, this seems to be a tradition. Since the buses and trains stop after midnight, and cars are so obscenely expensive (we're talking 10 grand to get a PERMIT to buy a vehicle), a lot of people jog or walk or bike there. When we arrived after 1am, the place was completely thronged. We had enough space to grab some mutton curry and some roti prata (I swear that's becoming a staple food for me, but it's so good) and admire all the fancy cars and motorbikes the rich kids had parked out front. We biked back home, and got back around 3:30am.

Yesterday I mentioned hawker centers, and after experiencing more of Singapore, I think I should explain a bit more about how these places are set up. They're a little bit grungy, very down-to-earth, and definitely something every tourist here should visit.

Typically the hawker centers are a place to get excellent cheap food. Typical stuff there costs between 2 and 3 Singapore dollars for a meal (a US dollar is about 1.40 Sing right now). Each stall has a rolling shutter in the front, and certain places only open up for breakfast or lunch, or are closed on specific days. Each shop sells a specialty food or drink, and there are often many stalls selling a food which is similar but not identical; locals will tell you they have a favorite shop which is better than the others. All of the vendors seem to speak Singlish, a sort of mishmash of Malay and Chinese and English that I haven't managed to decipher yet.

As each place has a specialty you buy the special thing from that stall and get other things from other stalls. On my arrival we had roti prata from one stall and beverages from two others. It's sort of a mix and match deal. Some others have special deals: this morning I had something called "kaya toast" with "kopi" (sweetened strong coffee) which came together in a set. It still cost about 2 dollars, and tasted great.

The markets are tied together in one building with a single roof over it for shade, but it's open to the air. There are benches and tables set up where you can sit down and enjoy your food with friends. As each shop serves a specialty dish, the food is prepared expertly and with lots of personal attention; if your lifestyle depends on making a good curry, you'll make a good curry!

Woke up bright and late this morning around 9am, and walked across the street with my hosts for breakfast at one of the "hawker markets". The place looks like an old-fashioned open-air street market, but every stall serves food. It has the feel of a similar market in Malaysia or Hong Kong. I get the feeling that people have been eating like this for centuries. We had roti prata with a mild curry-- roti prata is a flatbread that is somewhere between a tortilla and Indian naan. We also split three drinks: a soy drink that tasted like nothing I've ever had before, a black "grass jelly" drink, and the juices from a fresh coconut.

We lazed about for a few hours planning a trip to Malaysia, and then went out to do some shopping, eating a kind of Chinese uber-jerky called "bakkwa" and grabbing a bite to eat in the mall's food court. I had laksa, a kind of curry noodle. If you haven't figured it out yet, I love curry.

Many hours later found us in front of the Raffles Hotel, fanciest joint in all Singapore. We went up to the 2nd floor into the appropriately-named Long Bar where I enjoyed the eponymous Singapore Sling before meeting up with a pair of M&W's friends who are engaged. They and their family took us to a dim sum restaurant somewhere and we gorged ourselves. Got home about 11pm and now I'm just getting around to writing about it. It's 2am, I'm tired, and I'm going to bed. More later.

Well, I'm sitting at Mike and Wendy's apartment after a day of flight and wandering, zero problems on the flight here. I had a nice aisle seat on that row in the front with extra legroom, and of course the ANA flight staff was courteous as always. I was in a bit of a rush packing Monday evening; I had expected to leave on Wednesday morning but due to some poor planning on my part I couldn't leave Wednesday morning and still make the flight. I had to spend the night at Ian's place (thanks Ian!) and pack my bags in a hurry. Notable events: Narita security made me discard my tiny 3 oz tube of toothpaste because it "wasn't in a plastic ziploc bag" but didn't seem to notice the large cologne bottle in my carryon. Their loss.

I took my time at the airport. The flight arrived around 5pm, and I meandered about buying duty free gifts for friends (erm I mean for private consumption of course). I made it to the train station and bought a ticket (special RFID cards which require a small deposit) and upon my initial failure to get it working, a kind gentleman showed me how to hold it a bit further from the reader to get it to read properly. Mike and Wendy were at a wedding rehearsal so I had to wander about and kill time. It was a bit difficult with a bag in tow but I found a calzone restaurant in the basement of Raffles Plaza and had a quick dinner. I made my phone call and it turned out they finished the rehearsal early, so I waited in the Starbucks with a latte.

At that moment I noticed that the weather here is a constant summer. It's a pleasant feeling after months of freezing cold in my apartment.

The clerk at the Starbucks was extremely friendly. You know how most people take your order and then that's it? This guy actually started chatting, which was actually pretty cool. You know, like, "Where are you from?" and things like that. I also noticed that people on the subways aren't afraid to smile when I look and smile at them. It was quite refreshing after being in a country where nobody looks each other in the eye for fear of offending each other.

My first impressions: Singapore is a very modern and metropolitan city. The mix of Malay and Chinese and Indian means that everybody has to figure out a way to get along, and amazingly they all manage to do so. The food courts serve every type of food, despite the fact that the Muslims from Malaysia don't eat pork, and the Indians from India don't eat beef, and the Chinese will eat pretty much anything... and yet it all works out, and they manage to not kill each other. It's fantastic. The people I've met have been largely friendly, people talk on subways (and I listen in... Wendy says I behave like a native Singaporean). I haven't tried all the foods yet but I'm lined up to be fully impressed.

I brought my little camera that I had on the first Japan trip, no fancy SLR for me this time, but I'll have some photos for your watering eyes as soon as I take some.