On Paper

Just completed some paperwork related to the provision of extra classes for the foreign scholars in my school. I regard this as the single worst job of my year, so I try to put it off to the last possible moment. Unfortunately it requires three full days to gather and complete all the documentation required by the Ministry of Education of this Far Place to account for all the money spent. And, even more unfortunately, I know that there will be further queries about the courses provided stretching into next year, because there always are. 

I suppose it's good to put rigorous procedures in place to ensure that money is well spent, but when you're undergoing the rigour you do wonder why so much paper needs to be generated to account for something that's essentially over and done with. And I'm doubtful that there's any real correlation between the quality of teaching and learning and the paper-blizzard whirling around it.

Not Exactly Inspiring

We're now packing to spend the end of this month and most of December in the UK. I can't honestly say I'm thrilled to be going to not-so-sunny Manchester at the back end of the year, though it will be good to see friends & family. Most of all I'm not exactly keen to have a close encounter with the messy election going wearily on, and what is likely to be its even messier aftermath. It's painful to think of the politics of the land of one's birth as faintly humiliating. Mind you, things could be worse. At least we're not going to the US of A.

Vulnerability

Got myself moving around a bit more today - but gingerly at best. Yesterday we were at Vivo City in the evening and today at Clementi Mall, both locations being crowded. I feel very vulnerable in such crowds when my back is aching. For some reason I'm wary of someone suddenly rushing by and bumping into me thinking of how painful that would be. An odd way to think since I've never been bumped into by anyone anywhere when shopping.

It's salutary to come to an awareness of how vulnerable those struggling with their health must feel all the time.

A Bit Of A Mess

Spent most of the day on the floor feeling sorry for myself. Couldn't really get comfortable enough to read, so watched a fair amount of telly, unusually for me. Finally saw the train wreck of an interview involving that most egregious of the Royals, Prince Andrew. The lifelong Republican in me rejoiced as he managed to embody all that is wrong with the system of privilege upon which the monarchy rests. If he'd have been heir to the throne it would surely have been game over for the Windsors. As it is, I'm hoping to see the end of the institution within my lifetime, and since he's still around in the background that'll surely be of some help.

Floored

Woke up with a bit of an ache in the left side of my left leg. In the course of the day the ache got steadily worse. Now I'm trying to cope with major discomfort in my back and the coping isn't going terribly well. A reminder of how little of a fan I am of pain. I intend to get back to lying on the floor, seeking some kind of ease, as soon as I've finished writing this. Ouch.

Out

Two deeply impressive naps today serve as evidence of just how tired I was left after the Japan jaunt. Did manage to fit in a trip to my back doc and some household cleaning so all was not lost.

Called

I'd spent the morning at work, despite nominally being on vacation, since my to-do list is of fairly epic proportions at the moment. Arriving at the masjid for Friday Prayers, my mind was still running over an email I needed to write. I can't honestly say that any of this felt like particularly burdensome: I didn't need to go back to my desk in the afternoon and I was vaguely enjoying thinking over the details of the email, feeling confident that I would be able to manage the tone I was looking for and keep the thing to just a few simple lines.

But as I sat waiting for proceedings to really get going, and the call to prayer abruptly commenced, I realised just how far my thoughts had drifted from the business of worship at hand. This was particularly the case since the azan was gorgeously melodic and wrenched me immediately to another place. In that moment I experienced a powerful sense of release, made strangely sharper by the fact I hadn't been in any way lost poorly in my thoughts.

It occurred to me that my ability to re-focus, as I found myself doing in that moment, has become stronger as I have grown older, possibly because my engagement in any line of thought has become less intense, even when the thoughts are serious, even troubling. Somehow I'm less invested in whatever is on my mind and more ready to surrender to the needs of the moment in terms of the kind of attention demanded. I'm not exactly sure that I'm finding it easier to let go, but I'm certainly more ready to follow when called.

Playing Around

On the flight out to Japan I watched the first 15 minutes or so of Once Upon A Time in Hollywood and thought it was very good. I would have watched more, but needed to sleep. So I had a pretty good idea in advance that I would thoroughly enjoy watching the movie in its entirety on the flight back, and I was not wrong. I did wonder whether the full 2 hours and 40 minutes of the film would hold my attention throughout, but in the event time flew by and I was disappointed when it was over.

The film combines inventive energy and an enjoyable playfulness without ever really taking itself too seriously. I'm informed that there's a level of controversy about the way Tarantino distorts his source material, especially with regard to the ending of the film, but I found no problem in accepting, indeed relishing, the director's imaginative take on the period.

In fact, the touchingly sympathetic portrayal of poor Sharon Tate - quite unexpected given most of the commentary on the dark events surrounding the Manson 'family' - was a triumph, justifying the whole enterprise.

A Little Learning

We're off to the Kyoto Imperial Palace and Arashiyama Bamboo Grove this morning, ahead of our return flight from Osaka. Gosh, we've kept ourselves busy out here. And most fruitfully so.

These trips are intended as ways for the students involved to extend their learning, and I suppose I'm here to assist in that process, but I seem to undergoing much the same kind of experience - indeed, learning both with and from them. Oh, and I think they're having fun as well. I know I am.

Spoilt For Choice

Now thinking of what movies to watch on the flight back on Wednesday. It's a hard life, eh?

Perspectives

Spent a fair bit of time travelling today, arriving in Kyoto in the evening. Now installed in a very big hotel room, in which it would be possible to swing two or even more cats, in contrast to my cramped quarters in Tokyo. Have been enjoying reading a number of haiku by my travelling companions, giving various illuminating perspectives on Mount Fuji.

Also read and enjoyed the August-October issue of the Mekong Review whilst sitting on the bus. I was reminded again of just how fascinating this entire region of the world is - and just how many struggles are playing out involving points of view so different from my own.

An Uneasy Calm

What to do after a day spent on and around Mount Fuji? Challenge oneself to write a haiku and listen to Jonathan Harvey's Bhakti. Not exactly in that order, and not exactly restful - but strangely calming.

Twisted

Despite keeping busy on our various jaunts around Tokyo and dealing with on-going work stuff in any spare moments in the evening, I've managed to make good progress in Lee Child's Tripwire. In fact, progress has been a bit too good since I think I'll finish the novel tomorrow and have got nothing else of a relaxing nature to replace it.

Mind you, having said that, I'm not at all sure that relaxing is the right word since it's the gripping nature of the plot that has hastened my reading by keeping me on edge. I think I've figured out what the final plot-twist is going to be, by the way, and this with a 100 pages or so to go. If so, it'll be a bit of a first for me and I'm keen to find out whether I'm right this time.

Not Entirely Perfect

Spent much of the day at Disneysea, Tokyo's equivalent to Disneyland. The place is extraordinary in its strenuous attempts to make everyone within happy by offering beautifully designed and crafted landscapes loudly shouting their various perfections. Sterile, of course, necessarily so. Promising paths on which to stray and get adventurously lost, but never allowing anyone to really do so.

But the human stuff trotting around remained stubbornly imperfect, not quite living up to their surroundings, and having a cheerfully foolish time. A real enjoyment was on hand just observing the mismatch. Never thought I'd find such a disney-fied experience charming, but I did.

Scaling Down

Now resident in Tokyo, in the smallest hotel room I've ever occupied. Not complaining though - fascinated rather by the design and cosiness by which I'm so closely embraced.

On A High

Found myself involved in something our PE teachers term 'High Elements' this morning. Thought I'd be whooshing elegantly through the air on a flying fox, but discovered I needed to climb rope ladders and walk across narrow bits of wood and the like whilst not looking down. Realised just how much effort it takes to try and look reasonably dignified when the old knees are knocking fearfully against each other. And how trying on the arm and leg muscles it is to clamber across bits of rope strung together. All this was supposed to be fun, by the way.

And, oddly enough, that's exactly what it turned out to be.

Transformational

In late 1981 I visited The Great Japan Exhibition: Art of the Edo Period 1600 - 1868, at the Royal Academy, having been invited to tag along with the Art Department at Rawmarsh Comprehensive who took a group of interested students along. It was an extraordinary experience for me and I've wondered if the same might have been true for some of the students who were there on that weekend.

I had no idea of the scale of the exhibition, for one thing. The Royal Academy is a big place and the multifarious works on display - not just painting but calligraphy, woodblocks, ceramics, textiles, weaponry, lacquer work, armour, sculpture - went on gloriously for ever. And the information provided was rich in its detail. I was keen to buy a copy of the official catalogue, a handsomely chunky volume in itself, but it was way too expensive for me. (Oddly enough, I came across a second hand copy of a misprinted version a few years later, which now resides on my bookshelf.)

But the main thing about the experience was something I didn't expect at all. I assumed I would find the art involved in some sense exotic, but this wasn't the case. I remember realising in the first room I went into that I felt more at home in the exhibition than I'd ever felt in any art gallery before. In the simplest of terms, I knew right away exactly why what I was looking at was beautiful, even if it manifested other qualities - of humour, of the grotesque, of the spiritual, of the homely.

In some way that unexpected sense of familiarity changed me and the way I looked at the world. I suppose I've been happily working through that transformation ever since.

Intensity Mode

It's just a short novel but Woman At Point Zero packs several lifetimes of pain into its pages. I've just read it again after an interval of some years and Nawal El Saadawi's evocation of the oppression of women in the Arab world embodied in the tale of her heroine Firdaus seemed if anything more deeply bitter this time around.

But I've certainly changed as a reader. The first time round I took the novel as offering an entirely accurate picture of the Egypt of its period, especially in its depiction of the brutality involved in the way women were treated. Now I'm that bit more aware of the criticisms of the novel as presenting a kind of orientalist version of Arab men, and I really don't know how far this criticism is valid - though I intend to try and dig deeper since I'll be teaching the text in 2021, and I think I owe the writer, the men and women she's depicting, and my students, the honour of an attempt to get as close to some kind of truth on this issue as I can, despite my limitations.

But I remain certain of the essential truth of the work. The wretched of the earth remain so and the truth of their suffering is an essential one.

Relaxation Mode

Started on my second Jack Reacher novel today and it's proving to be a blast. I'd intended Tripwire as my trashy read for the Japan jaunt lying ahead, but I'm in danger of finishing it before we set off, unless I stop myself reading on and do so now. I really should reread one of my guides to Japanese art instead, but I'm drifting into something of a relaxed mode - which is a case, I'm afraid, of getting ahead of myself, there being plenty not to get overly relaxed about.

But that's sort of the story of my life. Mind you, it's not as spectacularly unrelaxed as that of Jack Reacher.

Grossly Inappropriate

Noi and I took ourselves off to our old familiar stomping ground of Geylang this afternoon, partly to buy something at Joo Chiat Complex and mainly for the fun of it. Enjoying typically excellent kueh at the Mr Teh Tarik there was a bit of a high point, but the low point came soon after. We'd popped into the Fairprice in the complex since Noi needed some bits and pieces for various dishes in preparation when I became aware they were already playing Christmas songs to create what I assume they believe to be a suitable ambience for their shoppers. I checked the date. Yes, it was still 8 November.

(To add to the horror of it all, the song I recognised was that one about All I Want For Christmas Is You in the version done for the film Love Actually (I think) which in its particularly odd yuckiness I have come to regard as my least favourite yuletide number.)

Must consider when to give Dylan's Christmas In The Heart a spin to redress the balance, but that certainly won't be for a few weeks.

Sure Fire Winner

Gave way to all my acquisitive instincts recently to purchase a number of CDs and DVDs from those good people at amazon.com. The music of Richard Thompson featured heavily, which is justification for a mass purchase in itself. Amongst other treasures I got hold of the Great Man on a DVD with The Richard Thompson Band playing Live at Celtic Connections. Stellar playing all round (of course) but the version of Can't Win takes us to another, better universe. It features what is now, officially, my all time favourite guitar solo. Listen, and I guarantee it will become your own favourite, Gentle Reader.

Shocking News

Peter and I were chatting today, as we often do, about the latest news out of the US and the UK. And, as usual, we were expressing something close to astonishment at various events in something like the following terms: Can you remember anything even close to crazy stuff like this in the past? (The answer being a simple no, by the way.) We spent a fair amount of the conversation laughing loudly, and an equal portion expressing deep, bewildered concern.

Later in the day I happened to switch on the telly to catch someone I regard as a generally insightful, well-informed commentator on the higher levels of politicking in one of the nations involved, saying the following: ...the government launching a deliberate disinformation campaign against one of its highly respected career diplomats... The sentence went on, but I lost heart just listening to that fragment.

A mad world, my masters.

Under Maintenance

Am trying to get to the gym at two day intervals ahead of a trip to Japan next week. That'll be some compensation for the necessary enforced break whilst I'm in the Land of the Rising Sun. I've come to the conclusion that I'll never achieve the continuity that might lead to significant improvements in my level of fitness. But what I can do is ward off the body's decline for a little while. Any small mercies happily grasped these days.

A Bit More Learning

When I started reading Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy a little over a month ago, I was taken aback at just how much I didn't know about the scholarly tradition within Islam, especially in terms of how the whole system of Hadiths was developed in relation to the concept of the Sharia. Now approaching the end of Jonathan Brown's fine book I know a whole lot more, though still not enough to regard myself as anything more than a very mildly enlightened amateur in the field. But I feel that perhaps even more important than what I've come to understand of the work of the many scholars in this field, I've arrived at a much sounder grasp of the ways in which those of all faiths, or, more broadly, systems of belief, come to frame those beliefs against the world of facts, experience, truth, reality.

Professor Brown's work strikes me as embodying a quality of humane patience that I have come to see as central to Islam and relevant to any belief system that helps sheds light on the mystery and pain and wonder of it all. And it manages this in an entirely unpretentious fashion, though not shying away from some big philosophical ideas. Somehow it deals with them in a plain-speaking manner that looks easy but I suspect isn't.

One of the reviews quoted on the back cover rightly recommends Misquoting Muhammad to all who are interested in Islam in a general sense but I'd go beyond that and say anyone who's interested in the way we think and make sense of the world will find much of great insight to mull over in the book.

Completion

Went to the cemetery at Sungai Petai yesterday to visit the graves of Abah & Mak and then heard of the sudden death of Intan's mum just after midnight. We drove back a bit earlier than intended today to pay our respects. We'd visited her at her home about three weeks back after she'd been taken ill and Noi went to see her last week in hospital after she'd been readmitted. She was complaining of pain and her blood pressure was low so it was not an entire surprise to hear the sad news, but she was only in her middle sixties so there wasn't any of that sense of expectedness that follows a long illness & a life that feels completed.

Still Well

Bit disappointed at the World Cup Rugby result, but South Africa were brilliant throughout and the victory was well-deserved. Happy to see a fine team win, and to think of what that must mean for the players from the townships. Good to see Springboks of many colours still doing it the way of the old Springboks, with lots of class. 

All Very Well

Just back from a splendid eatery, Warung Hijau by name, on the road from Alor Gajah to Masjid Tanah. Epic portions of seafood mee goreng consumed, courtesy of Encik Rachid, and that was after we'd treated ourselves to epok epok and samosas on the journey up to Melaka. Young Aiman fairly demolished a massive plateful of seafood char kway teoh before assisting us with the mee goreng. Reminded me more than somewhat of the tribulations of trying to keep his elder brother, Ashraf, well fed when he visited us as a youngster many years ago. My goodness me, can those boys eat.

And it looks like I'm well set to watch the big Final tomorrow on the big screen next door. Life is good, eh?