I am taking some classes for a boating license here in Singapore. It won't be of much use to me - if I DO pass the test - since I am not staying that much longer but it is fun. Our instructor is an ex-Navy Captain. He was excellent in trying to get us to remember stuff.

- "well, one way to remember parts of the boat, is to transfer it onto other things that you can easily relate to. So for instance, if you walk around in Singapore, you could say: - her stern' great. Oh, and her masthead isn't bad either."

There was recently articles in the newspaper about an accident, supposedly caused by a Navy vessel in the Singapore waters. He commented that only a few years ago, no one would have heard about it. No military case would be cited in a civil court of Justice. Now even the newspaper talk about it.

In this class, I met the Director of the Regional Training Institute of the IMF. I obviously immediately got his card, had a little chat about the Euro Zone, the slow movements of the Chinese RMB and the general state of affairs in the world - then offered to facilitate a discussion with our Transnational Professor. He accepted.
I took the card back to the professor, who gladly accepted it since his guest from this year (we had someone from the IMF speak in our last session) is moving onto another country. I hope that this gets me top mark in class participation.