Sungei Buloh Wetlands, Singapore. Malaysia in the distance.

The other day my good friend Siva tweeted that since I felt liberated after renaming my blog I should post a few items about my life in Singapore. Well, this is my first post in that series. I have lifted much of the text for this post from a page created about this event. Just noticed that I typed in the wrong date! It was January 3rd and not January 1st, 2003.

As many of you have figured out my wife Shao Ping and I spent a number of years in Singapore. During that time one of the things I was partially involved in was the creation of a CD-ROM about mangroves and the Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve in Singapore. That was how I met Siva. He was one of our subject matter experts. Incidentally, Siva was blogging before most of us were born. All his and his students’ blogs can be found here.  Siva and I have been the best of friends ever since we met.

I went to Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve on the 3rd January, 2003. It was late in the afternoon and the weather was closing in somewhat. It was a good thing to go however. I was taking time off work from the eLearning job. I had worked over Christmas and the New Year and life was closing in. I needed a break otherwise I felt I would surely break.

Sungei Buloh is a great place to go in order to unwind. Especially on week days if you can make it. You can recharge your batteries, so to speak. It would be neat to work there, I think. I have formed good friendships at Buloh.

Have you ever seen the rain?

Anyway, during that afternoon the heavens opened up and I watched the downpour from the boardwalk. It was actually quite cool, at least for Singapore. I took a lot of photographs. The rain fell down and the mud lazily danced as each drop met its maker. The greys painted the world in Sungei Buloh that afternoon.

Thank God I was there to witness it. Infinitely better than slaving away in an office where working 60 or more hours a week was considered admirable and critically essential for a pay rise or promotion. I was there for another three more months after that. I then relaxed for about three months. Did a few odd consultations and was lecturing part time at the NIE. Spent a few weeks in Australia. That was a long time ~ 3 months. Recharged my life. I then moved on to the CED at NTU. That was a good move. I will be back at NTU later this week. I cannot keep away.

Several weeks back, after driving home from my sister’s home in Cowra, my wife and I decided to stop at Mount Keira and take some photographs of the storm clouds out to sea. As we stood there taking in the view a storm blew in from the north. It was just before sunset and a specatcular rainbow formed. It was one of those rainbows that was clearly defined and quite bright. Managed to capture a couple of photographs before the rain reached the lookout. That is the Pacific Ocean in the distance. The city of Wollongong is also visible.

More photographs of Mount Keira over at the “Adventurers’ Club”:

Mount Keira Gallery
Mount Keira Adventure

How did I create this post? I took the photograph with a Nikon D70 and uploaded the image to the MacBook using a USB2.0 card reader. I backed up the original image and opened the duplicate in Adobe Photoshop Elements.  I used the Clone Stamp Tool to remove some imperfections in the image. My camera needs a clean. I adjusted the levels [Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Levels…] to bring out more colour, particularly in the sea. I resized the image to a width of 400 pixels and a dpi of 72dpi for display in this blog. I saved it as a jpeg using the Save for web… option in Elements. I then uploaded that saved image to my host using CyberDuck. Of course the blog post was created using Wordpress.

Shao Ping, Lucia and I drove across to the Nan Tien Temple this afternoon. Shao Ping will be conducting some Mandarin lessons at the temple commencing July. We checked out the projection facilities.

We then took Lucia for a tour around the temple. We have been there many times. It is the largest Buddhist temple in the southern hemisphere. I have photographed the temple before and the images are included in this gallery. The weather was brilliant today. Deep blue sky airbrushed with wondrous cirrus clouds.

How did I create this post? The photographs were taken with a Nikon D-70, uploaded to the MacBook with USB 2.0 card reader and processed with Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0. I resized each image to a width of 400 pixels and a resolution of 72dpi. I adjusted the levels for some of the images to highlight the light and shade. Sometimes digital images seem a little ‘flat’ and playing with the levels can alleviate that lack of ‘depth’. These processes are debscribed in a guide, step by step. Available in word or pdf format. Download the images referred to in the guide from this page.

Sunset, Tioman Island, Malaysia, 2001.

Watershed ~ a critical point that marks a division or a change of course; a turning point; a period of time that marks a turning point in a course of action.

Well, I think that we are in the midst of a turning point or a change of course in terms of education so I have decided to give my blog a new name ~ Watershed.

I have been pondering this name change for a while.

The term watershed has been a part of my vocabulary since I read The Sleepwalkers by Arthur Koestler about 30 years ago. In this seminal tome Koestler gives an account of mankind’s changing view of the universe and cosmology. He applied the term watershed to that period of the scientific revolution when Kepler and Galileo forever changed our view of the universe.

Dusk, Albion Park, NSW. 2006.

This afternoon my colleague, Wayne, and I were chatting in the car on the way home. Wayne mentioned that he had read that if we look far enough into the universe we should eventually be able to see the back of our head as the universe folds back on itself, apparently. I mentioned I would like to be around if instantenous interstellar travel was ever invented. A few of the places I would like to visit are depicted below.

The Andromeda Galaxy. Photography by DJMcGrady. Some rights reserved.

The Horsehead Nebula and Flame. Photography by DJMcGrady. Some rights reserved.

The Great Nebula In Orion. Photography by DJMcGrady. Some rights reserved.

Of course, things would look a little different given that the light visible in these photographs may have taken hundreds or thousands of light years to reach Earth.

Thinking about the universe reminded me of the relative insignifcance of the planet Earth. Then the thought crossed my mind that its most civilised inhabitants are quite strange. The human race has missed the point. If we were truly an intelligent species would we be working five or more days a week for most of our lives? Would an intelligent species establish a society that is directly contributing to the demise of its planet via climate degradation? Would an intelligent species war with itself?

Global Warming. Mind Map prepared by Learning Fundamentals.

Then, thinking about global warming, mass extinctions of plant and animal species, peak oil, melting ice-caps and so on I wonder what will the current generation of students inherit after we shake off our mortal coils? Some of the more recent predictions regarding the health of this planet are rather dire. The planet is not in good shape.

How long will the human race be around for? Will we ever reach the stars? Will the human race see out the next 1000 years? The next 100 years?

Just one of those afternoons…

Tags: Photography

Can my friends in the United States please confirm the following for me ~ Are backyard clotheslines really banned in some states or cities? Is it simply a local council edict or recommendation? I was amused to read about this in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning.

I wonder if there are similar regulations in some of the newer gated communities and elitist suburbs of Australia? Anyone know? When I lived in an apartment here in Australia residents were not allowed to hang out washing on their balcony as it would make the building look ugly. I was on the top floor so I could get away with it. Only visitors could see that I was breaking the strata rules of the estate [The body corporate of this estate annoyed me. One year I collected as many proxy votes as I possibly could from absent landlords. At the annual general meeting I voted myself in as President and Treasurer of the estate’s body corporate organisation and simply voted against a number of the more contentious and costly proposals. The busy-body clique that used to ‘run the show’ were not amused.]

In the article, Getting pegged for letting it all hang out,  Ian Munro, reporting from Connecticut, writes how it is illegal to have a clothesline in one’s backyard in some parts of the United States. Attempts to have clotheslines legalised have failed as some residents are fearful that property values will drop.

Mr Munro writes that “Electric clothes dryers represent about 6 per cent of domestic power consumption, according to official estimates, and while the world searches for responses to global warming, Mrs Vocke points to her backyard, wind and solar power.” This brought home to me the usefulness and intrinsic value of the old backyard clothesline.

A quick bit of research revealed that clotheslines are clearly not illegal across all of the USA. This colourful site, Mrs Clothesline ~ A Celebration of Clothesline Culture, features a gallery of clotheslines with titles such as Shadow Line, Pretty in Pink and Midnight Love.

Clotheslines are a feature of the backyard here in Australia. Some of you may be familiar with the Hills rotary clothes hoist, invented right here in Australia. We used to hang from these as kids while a friend or sibling spun you around at high speed. It was a great way to demonstrate centrifugal force and also gravity for the smaller children. Are you reading this Dan? [Centrifugal force is not a real force apparently. I learnt something new today.]

Our rotary clothesline, sans clothes, with a kookaburra on the lookout.

Well, the anti-clotheslines brigade in other parts of the world would need to get used to the backyards of Australia if they ever moved here and I wonder how they would cope with the clotheslines of Singapore and Hong Kong? The clothing poles that project from beneath the kitchen windows or laundry areas of the high rise residential buildings cannot be missed.

Laundry drying, Singapore.
Photograph by OtoPhoto. Some rights reserved.

HDB flats with clotheslines, Singapore.
Photograph by ton2fig. Some rights reserved.

HDB block, Singapore. Some rights reserved.

The clotheslines in Singapore helped to break up the lines or form of the buildings and always added colour to the environment. Quite often they were the first indication of a change in the weather as the first hints of a breeze caused the sheets to flutter to and fro. It was always fascinating to watch nearly all of them disappear from view as the rain clouds approached.

I am not too sure what is the point of this blog post. Shao Ping and I hang out and collect the washing together. We also rush out to save it when a storm blows in. Do you have any interesting or colourful clothesline images from around the world?

During the last couple of trips to Singapore I have managed to photograph a few places I had visited while I lived in Singapore and as a result a few before & after opportunities have presented themselves. Singapore is constantly changing, constantly.

Sometimes the past is preserved. At other times the past disappears.  Let me share three simple examples.

1. The corner of Club Street and Ann Siang Road

Before

Visit site: The Pasir Ris Mercury

After

Visit gallery.

2. Kampong Glam

Before

Visit gallery.

After

Visit gallery.

3. Sultan Gate ~ Abandoned property

Before

Visit gallery.

After

Visit gallery.

During the last couple of days I have sorted through photographs taken during my last two trips to Singapore in February and April of this year. I still have a few photographs to organise. I have created a number of new galleries and added them to the galleries of my main web site.

April 2008 ~ Singapore

Kampong Glam and Arab Street with Alan and Westley.
Workshop at Singapore Airlines Training Centre.
Hwa Chong Institution Workshop and Presentation.
Macintosh Meet-up with the team from Me@n.
Nanyang Technological University ~ Read-Write Web Workshops and Presentation.

February 2008 ~ Singapore

Friends and Food ~ eating out with Tom Reeves, Westley Field, Siva, Airani, Anand, Vivien and Sheryl.
Good To Great 2008 Teaching and Learning Seminar, Nanyang Technological University.
Hougang Primary School.
Hougang Primary School Podcasting Workshops.
Chinatown.
Views of Singapore from the Peninsular Hotel. Day and night.
Changi International Airport ~ The new T3 Terminal.
First flights on the Singapore Airlines Airbus A380.

There were a number of other catch-ups with friends and culinary delights that I am going to blog about specifically in the near future, so please stay posted.

During the course of this week in Singapore I have experienced some rather impressive thunderstorms and downpours. I captured a few of the moments on my trusty little camera while walking around Nanyang Technological University where I have been conducting a series of workshops and a presentation.

The rain is pelting down

The drains are pushed to the max

Drenching rains and running drains