It was just the right time for me to enjoy an entirely free, relaxed weekend, but that didn't happen. Saturday was a day of drama, following on from a Friday afternoon spent monitoring the work of our drama guys as they prepared for performance. And Sunday will conclude with another event, in which I am, thankfully, not unduly involved, but do need to be in attendance. Adding to these demands, the need to mark a set of essays on quite a challenging poem has knitted the days together and last night was marked by a heavy meal and the company of Yati, Nahar, Boon, Mei & Steve at an eatery at Arab Street.
As I said, I'd rather have been relaxing doing nothing (though I'll make an exception for the meal which was hardly a heavy-duty occasion) yet I can't honestly complain about how I've had to spend my time. Indeed, I've sort of enjoyed the whole thing in a tired-out manner. Any drama of an Independent nature is good drama in my experience, and watching young performers negotiate the hazards of going alfresco was particularly engaging, aside from the typical energy and commitment brought to bear on these occasions.
Even the marking had its moments. It's fascinating to witness intelligent students dealing intelligently with material that doesn't easily yield its secrets, yet remaining reluctant (at least from the scripts I've dealt with so far) to state the obvious: some poems are designed to be ambiguous and attempting to remove the ambiguities, the possibilities of many-sidedness of interpretation, reduces their power. From a pedagogical perspective, recognising the falling short is salutary; figuring out how to help readers move to the next level is where the action lies.
Anyway, I'm off soon for my Sunday evening entertainment. Not exactly how I'd have chosen to spend the evening, as I said earlier, but not a bad way to earn a living either.
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