Toa Payoh South TMC as Toastmaster of the Day, 13th November 2019

On the 10^th July, I visited Toa Payoh South CC Toastmasters Club, as Toastmaster of the Day.  This was my 115^th club visit, on the 135^th day of the Toastmaster Year.

The table topics master was Anthony Leong.  The timer was Emily Xin Qian.  The ah counter was Lye Rong Fang.

Anthony Leong explained the context of Thanksgiving, which is a form of harvest festival.  It is a commemoration of the previous year’s harvest, and to give thanks for the bounty.  In that same vein, it has been expanded in modern society to give thanks for the “harvest” of our social and professional lives in the previous year.

Yamuna gave an impassionate speech about the necessity for schools to prepare children for careers in a rapidly changing economy.  Considering the needs of he fourth industrial revolution, she feels that curriculum has not kept up with this rapid change.  It is one of the great challenges for all stakeholders in the education sector.  She gave a stark demonstration of education, and policy directives, and expounded on the limitations of the system.  She put forth possible solutions based on the experience in India.

Vasanthi Jagannathan Ravi roleplayed as a media representative of an investment bank, at a press conference.  The subject was the misconduct of an investment banker, and how the bank assured the public that it would be addressing this.  This was her take on an event that was in the news.

Joanne Sweti d’Souza attempted a humorous speech about her crushes.  She spoke about the men she fell for, the men who fell for her, and her courtship for her arranged marriage.

The evaluators were Gerald Ong Wen Shun, Sivanesan K. Murugayan, Paulus Gunadi, and Arinjay Bansal.

Best Speaker: Vasanthi Jagannathan Ravi;

Best Evaluator: Arinjay Bansal; and

Best Table Topics Speaker: Myself.

Hades’ Dog

In Greek mythology, Cerberus is the two-headed guard dog of Hades, Lord of the Underworld and the realm of the dead.  The name “Cerberus” comes from the Indo-European word, “Karberos”, which evolved into the Greek, “Kerberos”.  “Karberos” means “spotted”.  In summary, Hades called his dog, “Spot”.

The Artist's Eye

I wrote this poem for my wife, Zafirah Jeffrey, six years ago, when we first got married.

It takes an Artist’s Eye to Draw some lines,

And Turn them into something treasured.

It takes a Master’s Touch to Turn those designs

Into something thus valued unmeasured.

To Shape it thus in that crucible of Love,

To Give it light with that Breath of Life,

To have a Plan Laid out from Above,

When time was ripe, you became my wife.

Your hope in my heart, an enchantment stirred

Of Divine Love and worldly leisure.

Your name on my tongue, the sweetest word,

A key to the Garden of annihilated Pleasure.

The choicest moments were in your arms,

Lost in the embrace of an ocean of ecstasy.

The hint of a smile, the surest of charms,

A remembered road to our destiny.

Imagined Then

This poem was originally written in 1997.  That was a challenging time, when I was younger, less certain, foolishly naive.  And then we live, we get stronger, harder, certain.

Have you ever imagined then?

Have you ever thought perhaps?

The world is just a lie upon

Which hopes wither away mayhaps;

Though given life, false life;

We only want to sleep forever.

Because it cuts deeper than a knife;

The pain of knowing never.

Though I breathe in the present;

I live only in the past.

Though I speak of the absent;

I am absent here alas.

If I could only sleep forever,

I seek this pain would be gone.

Perhaps the words seem so clever.

But the heart behind it is long gone.

And I would dream my lonely dream.

And say my impossible prayer.

And call forlornly though it seems

I forgot to cry so long, not a tear.

And why would it matter to think

That there is a future to hope for.

When it will all be dust in a blink,

There is no heaven at my door.

Only lies and images and a mirage;

Of what was, and was supposed to be.

A flower of hope fallen to the barrage

Of cold certainty from a stormy sea;

Of bitter tears and broken hearts,

And shattered dreams and fallen stars;

Of dark despair so dark in parts.

That there will never be once more

Another flower of hope to bloom again.

Another heart to burn once more.

Another self for another pain.

Andromache Queen

This poem was written in 2010, and is essentially unfinished.  It is about the fall of Troy, and Dardania to the Mykene Greeks, the story of Homer’s Iliad.  The survivors of Troy, led by Helikaon, the last prince of Troy, went on an epic journey west, the “islands” in the mists - Italy.  There, they founded the settlements of the seven hills, which eventually united to form the city of Rome.

Centuries later, it was the Roman empire that conquered the Hellenistic world, and ruled the lands they came from in legend, and the lands of the descendants of those who once sacked the land of their ancestors.  History is a circle.

Andromache Queen, Andromache Queen.

Helikaon speaks from lands unseen.

Troy had fallen, Dardadia dead.

Agamemnon killed, the Mykene unled.

Dying is bliss,

The living is hell

For what we miss,

The dead cannot tell

When hope is lost,

Just come across.

And once you enter,

The pain does not matter

Not anymore.

Not ever more.

We all have a time appointed.

We all have a role anointed.

We are all led to believe eventually;

The pain will stop, physically, emotionally.

But it does not. It could not.

It is a faithless lie.

No soul is given greater than it can bear,

Such a burden, the bottom of the stair.

That when you fall, it will not be to Tartarus.

That fates measure hope against utterers

Of patience and faith and sinners and saints.

But Epiales whispers, and despair taints.

The days are bleak, the nights insane.

One day you are Arkilles, one day Hektor.

One day a saint, one day a sinner.

And every day, faith becomes fainter.

A distant memory.

We have decided after much thought,

For too long the battle has been fought.

That every time one starts to believe and hope,

The sun has risen, they start to cope.

The dawn has broken, the birds about.

The Night is theirs; the stars shine out.

It was all false, it was a mirage.

That in the end, merely a facade.

It was all a faithless lie.

Esquiline tired, Palatine cannot go on.

Aventine wants to sleep forever gone.

And never wake up in earthly bounds.

Capitoline not arise when Remus sounds.

Quirinal tried hard; Viminal can attest.

But in the end, even Caelian Hill failed the Test.

But sleep, and wait and await,

When centuries past, and a new fate,

Those seven hills arose as Rome,

And empire, an imperial throne.

That did go east, to Epirus,

And Makedon, and Thebes,

And take the lands of the Mykene,

So, history repeats, unbeknownst, Mykene.