Tiong Bahru is an area of Singapore that I had not explored before. I had been to the shopping plaza adjacent to the MRT station but I had not explored some of the older areas of the town. I had often traveled past streets that I wished to wander around and during my last trip to Singapore I took the chance to pay a visit to Tiong Bahru.

I took a number of photographs as I walked around the estate. I walked along the following roads: Tiong Poh Road, Kim Cheng Street, Lim Liak Street and Tiong Bahru Road. It is one of the oldest housing estates in Singapore. Some of the buildings date back to the 1930s and feature a mix of art deco and Straits Settlements design. I quite like the estate. There are a few estates, like Tiong Bahru, that are like little ‘islands’ that are cut off from the hustle and bustle of Singapore. They include Bukit Purmei and the Eng Kong estate.

Go to Google Maps

This morning I received an email from Intute in the UK with the advice that they had listed the web site that I had created about my father’s experiences as a prisoner of war during the Second World War within their catalogue.

The listing is detailed with a synopsis and an excellent set of key words and key terms. I may use these terms in the meta tags of the site.

I am quite humbled by and proud of the addition of the site to Intute. Check out their blog.

Well, what happened today? Well, first of all I transferred some notes on my classroom’s whiteboard to my MacBook. I had quickly jotted down some notes down on the board yesterday while sharing some ideas with the class about various theories regarding the downfall of the Minoan Civilisation and a possible connection with the volcanic demise of Thera. There is debate regarding possible connections and the dating of the eruption on Thera. I was repeating the lesson to a second Year Eleven class later today.

My first class, with Year Ten History, focused on the Day of Mourning on the 26th January, 1938. That was the 150th anniversary of white settlement in Australia. William Cooper and William Ferguson organised the Day of Mourning, related publications and protests.

Following that lesson I taught a class about the conscription debate that took place in Australia during The First World War 1914-1918. Australia was supporting the efforts of Great Britain during the conflict. Voluntary enlistments were high during the first two years of the war but by 1916 numbers  were dropping off and the current Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, led the call for an amendment to our conscription laws so that men could be conscripted to fight overseas. The debate was highly emotional and split the nation in half. Two referendums were held and the No vote won on each occasion. The results were relatively close on each occasion. 

Following recess I taught a double period Year Eleven Ancient History class regarding the nature of, and evidence for, the relationship between the island of Thera, the Mionoan Civilisation on Crete and the Mycenaean Civilsation on the Greek mainland. I repeated that double period with a second Year Eleven group after lunch. I also interviewed a number of students regarding the current state of their historical investigations.

During lunch, grabbed some kites, went out to the oval and flew kites with some of the Year Seven students. A crowd of students turned up all wanting a turn. Years ago I used to build and fly kites with the students. I remember one day we had about 30 kites flying above the school. An old photograph from those days is included below.

The kite flyers, 1995.

It was quite windy today and we could only fly the smaller single and dual line kites. One kite was damaged when it hit the ground, hard. Repaired it when I arrived home. It was great to watch the kites flipping about in the wind today. The kids had a great time ~ running, launching kites, untangling lines, laughing, watching and clamouring for more. Students are fascinated with the kites. Such a simple ‘technology’ with which they love to play. Shall be flying the kites again tomorrow.

My favourite kite, Jurong East, Singapore, 2003.

I enjoy kite flying. It is a great way to de-stress. I take a few with me when I travel. I have a couple of soft kites that can be folder and rolled so small that they take up no more room than a pair of folded socks.

After reapiring the kite, scanned the Google Reader and cleared all the posts. Saved nineteen for later reading. Did note that a number of the NECC related blog posts reveal a little frustration with the numbers and ‘noise’ of edubloggers in some venues. Too many edubloggers in one place? Is that possible? Is this homophily in action? I feel that a conference full of edubloggers would be almost superfluous given their skills in connecting online already. I guess that is why there is an unconference but even that may have suffered due to homophily. Perhaps I am wrong. I am not there. Wish I was, admittedly.

I shall be catching up with some edubloggers in July hopefully. The last thing I wish to talk about is edublogging, twitter, education technology and the like. I simply wish to eat, drink, chat and converse about politics, people, IVF, weather, wine, beer, pets, house renovations, climate change, whatever. Get my drift? Whichever way the wind blows.

How did I create this post? I scanned the photograph on a HP Photosmart 2570 All-in-One device, rotated and resized it in Adobe Photoshop Elements, saved it as a jpeg using the Save for web… option in Elements, uploaded it to my host using CyberDuck. Of course the blog post was created using WordPress. I also linked to an image in my own gallery.

This is an aboriginal interpretation of Zorba The Greek. This performance always lifts my spirits. I am always happy to see anyone enjoying life and not taking themsleves too seriously. As the description on the YouTube page explains…

Frank Djirrimbilpilwuy from Milingimbi has been in the Indigenous Media Industry for many years and has been a long-standing member and supporter of the Top End Aboriginal Bush Broadcasting Association, TEABBA Radio. He has worked Independently in Music and Film for many years also. As the man behind the camera and release of the video, Frank is also representing the dance group who call themselves “The Chooky Dancers”.

Frank has said that he filmed the footage at this years Ramingining Festival on the 30th September 2007 and knew it would be “something special” as soon as he saw the boys rehearsing. “The crowd went wild as you can see in the video, and the classic song Zorba the Greek has now become a hit overnight in the communities and now it seems, everywhere else too.”

Have been doing a little work on the site about my dad, Francis Xavier Larkin Snr. Added some additional links and corrected a few others this week. Presently in the process of gathering together some students to work on a similar project.

Do you have relatives who also experienced the trials and tribulations of war? Would love to hear about them.