Sunday, June 22, 2014

Random Things to Note, Lest I Forget

Met up with Rufus for brunch today at Holland Village. He brought along a friend, Boon Guan, whose name seemed familiar but whose face I couldn't place. No matter, we had a great brunch together at Breko. By the end of brunch I wanted to run off and rest my horribly winded lungs - we had talked so much that I felt like I couldn't speak anymore. I suppose that's one way to determine great meal partners.

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Last week we had a lesson on protecting the high seas. It was bits of climate change, pollution and overfishing all rolled up together in a ball of bad things. I decided to concentrate more on overfishing, because I didn't recall it being taught very much in school at all. All the bits I knew about Bad Fishing Styles and overfishing came from outside reading, so it wasn't till I pieced all my information together when I was planning my lesson that I finally realised how dire the whole situation is. As it is before that, I had already refused to touch pomfret because I know they're horribly overfished, but still kept chomping away on tuna and shark's fin.

Anyway, I had heard about dynamite fishing before, and set about trying to find some clips. Everytime I think of dynamite fishing, I cannot help but laugh blithely, because despite how incredibly destructive it is to the environment (which makes most people sober), the act itself seems to me so ridiculously over the top and overly aggressive that I cannot help but laugh. Bombing fish! That's like throwing a grenade to catch a rabbit. It's the stuff of movies like Naked Gun. Except it's real life, which makes it even funnier and sad at the same time, and so makes me laugh even more.

I ended up typing "dynamite fishing" into youtube (as you do), and realised that the first result given was possibly one of the most funniest things I have ever seen in my life. It wasn't until I watched it for the first time with audio with my students that I realised some parts of the clip has been dubbed over for comedic effect, which made the video even better.

It reminds me of Exploding Whale, which I saw a few years ago and absolutely loved:


Perhaps it's just because it's the perfect combination of things that makes me laugh: death, explosions, and black humour (though, what does this say about me as a person?)

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Today after dinner with my grandparents, they sent us back home. They took a different route from my parents and we ended up driving home via Old Holland Road. The last time my grandfather had been driving me along Old Holland Road was when I was still a student in MGS, probably circa 2006. He kept mentioning how he used to drive me, asking me if I remembered, and chuckling to himself. Then just as we turned the corner to enter Greenleaf Road, he asked me if I remembered how the wall of the house at the corner had collapsed, closing the road temporarily. I was quite amazed because it was EXACTLY what I was recalling just moments before, and made me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside. Ah, shared memories of other people's misfortune. 

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