I missed updating my facebook update at 11:11pm yesterday by half an hour; else I could do a “1111 at 1111″…geez… will have to wait 10 months 10 days for 111111 at 1111.

There were some really hungry monkeys on it. Not a coconut left on the trees and all the dustbins had heavy chains to lock down the lids.

They were so hungry that they ate strepsils.

They were so hungry that they became angry.

When you chased them they chased you back (because they could call your bluff having sniffed out your fear or perhaps they were schooled in game theory).

——

A luminous orb arrayed in pale grey organza hung alone in the sky. If ever there was Galadriel…

The horizon was broken by moving clusters of lights from which occasional bellows serenaded the night, harmonising with the tireless lapping waves.

Waves so near that you wonder if you might wake up a mermaid or in a whale.

The expanse of night canvas invited melodies, throwing a bucket into the well of your heart to draw out…worship…for me it was worship.

The richness of life — at once simple and complex, perplexing and uplifting, terrifying and beautiful.

Some advocate doing enough literature review to have a good idea of relevant work carried out by others before the end of first year.

It makes sense except that there is no end to reading especially when you do even know what exactly you are doing. And what you read is not as memorable when it is just for information as compared to for immediate application.

I came across this helpful advice from “Doing Qualitative Research” by David Silverman, which gave me some assurance that I am not too off (I hope I am not finding excuse for not doing a more comprehensive lit review).

Anyway, relevant extracts from book:
- Completing the li survey in yr 1 and writing it up can mean a lot of wasted effort — until you have done your data analysis, you do not know what stuff will be relevant.
- …lit review…delay getting down to the data analysis on which you will be judged…
- …One book will surely have a list of further ‘crucial’ references…whether they have the willpower to stop reading…
These considerations mean that the bulk of your reading is usually best done in and around your data collection and analysis.

I read “Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes” by Robert M. Emerson over the weekend as I was preparing myself for my first-ever classroom observation tomorrow. Never done it before, never seen anyone do it, neither have I attended any classes; but I have spoken to a helpful expert who recommended this book to me.

So it’s really going to be a learn-by-doing. Apprehensive and excited, I was charging the battery of my video-cam and various when I was notified that I could not start tomorrow for some reason. An anticlimax for sure.

But well, I have to get used to this. Many things are not within control when it comes to classroom research.

Come to think of it, many things are not within control in life in general.

Past 10pm. My sis would advise against any vigorous activity between 10pm to 2am as that is the time when the body rests. I am not sure if that is true but it is a convenient excuse for me to stop…

Before I go, I welcome comments from anyone who happens to be in the same novice-in-classroom-research boat as me as well as advice, etc.

I have a topic to write about now so maybe I can finally be less random. It’s about my grad studies.

I just enrolled in the university less than 12 hours ago. The youthful vibe was so palpable in the compound. After all, I was at the sports and recreation area. I love it – brings back fond memories of my junior college days especially.

Going back to school after so long, I am not very confident. So why am I doing this? I do surprise myself. It’s some kind of impulse that I can’t quite explain. It’s THAT circuit that lights up at the instant of decision.

So I am going for an orientation talk on Friday, meet my sup and select the modules. I have a lot to get up to speed on and I think my case could be a outlier given some rather more different circumstances.

And I need to sort out my formal and informal work front. Several possible permutations. Now which one… generally, decisions should not be made based on fear, like fear of lack. There was a point where I was seriously concerned about my livelihood. O you lacking in faith.

I wonder how this will pan out. Here, I am a spectator and the lead actor, but not necessarily the scriptwriter. Looking back, getting to this stage has been a journey too. The meanders and iterations. This would continue as it is research. It is fun and exciting but a tat scary too. Performance anxiety? That sometimes bugs me. Doubts, they come. But having walked with the Lord for so many years, I have learned a thing or two about keeping these pesky emotions, which have their origins in negative thinking, at bay.

So what inspired word do I bring today? Guess what? I am too sleepy after all, so I think I will indeed have my beauty sleep and save the words for another day. It’s 1.05 am after all…

With the technology we have today, we can seriously outsource our brain, or at least certain functions. There’s a cool new search engine wolframalpha. Check it out. So there’s a trend here: computers/machines are getting smarter while we are… Will we reach singularity (a term coined by computer scientist and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge about machines with greater than human intelligence)? Ok, I haven’t read that book yet so I can’t quite comment here. Don’t know what’s the definition of intelligence in his book.

Well, will leave that to another day. Less than more hour to the end of another weekend and I have not done all that I meant to..never seem to have enough time. And there’s this book shop Class as Soulcraft: An inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford that looks like an interesting read as well as Thio Li-ann’s Mind the Gap – Contending for Righteousness in an Age of Lawlessness that I am reading now and…and…