Reunion

I went to my primary school reunion today, celebrating its 25th year. It was an occasion for pupils, past pupils, teachers, and committee members to come together and see all that the school has gone through. I have to say that much had changed during my time away from the school. It's definitely a lot smaller, of course, there are more buildings to cater for the increasing number of students, and rooms have been switched around. The one thing that hasn't changed, I felt, was the environment that made the school unique.

Speeches were done by the founding principal, the current principal and a few others. A time capsule, which was buried back in 1980, was dug up for all to see what was inside. It contained newspaper clippings, childrens writings, toys, and even a bottle of wine. I'd be happy to open it up to drink; good year that! One of the former pupils read out what he put in the time capsule, which happened to be funny and moving, amazing what he wrote as a kid back in the day.

Afterwards group photos were taken of everyone who attended. All the teachers remembered me, not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Unfortunately only one person from my year attended, the rest were mainly older folk who attended before me. However, it was a good time to catch up with people who were a part of my life as a kid, and I was happy to have attended this occasion.

Greenpeace vs. Dad's Army

Saturday morning, Renae's brother-in-law, Morné, and myself travelled deep into Riverhead forest for paintball. Morné's colleague from work, Ben, organised the whole event, and soon we had 22 guys and girls eagerly waiting to get into the forest for some jungle warfare. After a random process, two teams of 11 were formed: Greenpeace, which was my team, and Dad's Army, which was lead by Ben.

So we were all shown the obligatory safety demonstration, went into the forest, and soon enough we were straight into it. It was decided that a few of us would head through the middle and the rest up the flanks, just like in a game of chess. The first half saw rush attacks and stout defense as neither side was able to capture the enemy flag from the base.

But in the second half, it was Dad's Army who were hugging trees as Greenpeace stormed into their camp and stole their flag. With many brave souls sacrificing their lives to get the flag, it was up to me to grab the flag and run 300 metres back to base through forest, mud and bush, and to victory. The sound of the horn indicated that Dad's Army had been defeated.

Overall it was an enjoyable time and a time to remember.

Pride and Prejudice

I went to see this adaptation of Jane Austen's novel at the movies tonight with Renae, and Renae's sister and brother-in-law. And while it wasn't as good as the BBC mini-series version, overall I was pleased with the movie. Normally I'd complain that a movie is too long (e.g. Alexander, what a flop, can't believe I wasted my money!), but in this case I have to complain that the movie was too short! It was only 127 minutes. Perhaps it's because I'm accustomed to watching the 6-hour BBC mini-series version of Pride and Prejudice.

And the 6-hour version is really worth watching! The 19th century costumes, the crystalline dialogue, the endearing characters, the humour, the culture, and the English scenary are absolutely stunning. Kept me entertained throughout! Jennifer Ehle, who plays heroine Lizzy Bennet in the 6-hour version, really played the part well, and she is such a hottie too!

So if you don't have the patience to watch it for 6-hours on end, do check out the condensed version starring Keira Knightley. Keira is the more popular actress, but I prefered Jennifer's portrayal of Lizzy Bennet. It also contains the 19th century costumes, the crystalline dialogue, the endearing characters, the humour, the culture, and the English scenary, although in much smaller doses. Of course, because they have to fit the whole story in a 2-hour movie, it moves quite fast and you don't get to see everything that the 6-hour version offers.

Overall, a great movie and one I'd recommend hands down. Just avoid movies that are guaranteed to be bad, like Into the Blue and Doom; Pride and Prejudice is money well spent. If you don't want to watch the movie, at least read the novel. Try it, you might enjoy it!

Benefits

So we just had a company-wide meeting today in the neighbouring cafe, which took around 2 hours. Of course, the most interesting thing that transpired was the HR manager mentioning company benefits!

Here are a list of things that he mentioned:

• Health insurance
• Gym membership
• Wellness programmes
• Nutrition programmes
• Massages
• Cheap lunches and coffees, ranging from $2 to $5
• Fuel discounts and electronic goods discounts
• $1000 for those who successfully recommend new staff members
• etc, etc

I already have the gym membership and I always bring lunches from home and rarely drink coffees. But what really made me salivate was the fuel discounts and electronic goods discounts. Now that's a benefit.

And to top it all off, a special salary review is expected to take place next month, on top of the normal ones that happen at the start of every year..... Fantabulous

Your computer belongs to me now!

Here's a neat trick that apparently has been around for ages. Open up Microsoft Word (any version will do; I have Office 2003 installed on my computer).

Type =rand() and press Enter.

The mind boggles.........

New Wardrobe

My indoor cricket team finally got team shirts! James, the skipper of the Dirty Hackers, and now Chief Purchasing Officer due to an injury which would sideline him from all forms of cricket for 6 months, invested in the team's attire. They had a value of $4.99 per shirt from holding company, The Warehouse.

This is a timely investment as teams with no team shirts were docked 20 runs of their total, which is the difference between a win and a loss (we've been on the receiving end too many times due to no team shirts). While the return on investment isn't apparent yet, hopefully having a team shirt will yield healthy returns, a.k.a. more frequent wins.

Virtuoso? Yeah right!

I usually visit the local elderly resthome on Saturdays. Today a music teacher couple that I know (Bob teaches violin/guitar and Gail teaches piano) brought a few of their young music students along to perform for the elderly. Now I accompany one of Bob's violin students on the piano, so really I had to turn up. A couple of days beforehand, Bob asked me if I could accompany his violin student, as well as play a solo piece, to which I obliged.

For the piece, it was a toss-up between Chopin's Grande Valse Brilliante, with its virtuosic sparkle and witty appoggiaturas, or Chopin's Raindrop Prelude with its regular rhythms imitating drops of water falling on the roof in the night.

On the day there was a young guitar student, two young pianists, the violinist and me. They played their items and they were really well done. Finally it was my turn to make a fool of myself, as Bob placed me second to last on the list. Snap decision, I chose the Valse. It was more difficult than the Raindrop but I thought the elderly would like something uplifting. So I went for it. And I made a few mistakes, wrong notes here and there. Sure the appoggiaturas weren't witty enough, and it was far from virtuosic. But I thought I did okay. Despite the Valse needing more polish, I was pretty happy with it.

Looked like the elderly really enjoyed listening to all the kids playing their stuff so that was great to see.

Stronger?

I dread Friday gym sessions, because that's when Al the mean taskmaster is supervising the circuits. Lo and behold he was there pushing people very very hard. Near the end of the circuit he approached me and watched my form on the bicep curls, carefully, concentrating. Just when I was getting tired he asked me how many. I replied 15. He doubled the weight and told me to do two more and hold for 10 seconds, to which I struggled. Then he told me to do press-ups straight away! This time instead of doing three like last Friday, I managed 13! Al asked whether I was reaching failure (he meant momentary muscular failure, the point when muscles will fail after extreme effort). I nodded weakly. Al seemed satisfied with my efforts and marked my exercise card accordingly. I know he made a mental note that, come next Friday, he will push me even harder.