Happy Halloween, students!!!

I know, it's dampening that we do not celebrate Halloween in Singapore. Anyhow, this is an amusing picture, a scenario which you students may not get to experience till you are older. Enjoy. Hehs.

A word a day.

gloaming \GLOH-ming\, noun:
Twilight; dusk.

The children squealed and waved and smiled, their teeth flashing white in the gloaming.-- Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life

It was the gloaming, when a man cannot make out if the nebulous figure he glimpses in the shadows is angel or demon, when the face of evening is stained by red clouds and wounded by lights.-- Homero Aridjis, 1492: The Life and Times of Juan Cabezon of Castile (translated by Betty Ferber)

Arrived at the village station on a wintry evening, when the gloaming is punctuated by the cheery household lamps, shining here and there like golden stars, through the leafless trees.-- Margaret Sangster

A word a day.

hubris \HYOO-bruhs\, noun:
Overbearing pride or presumption.

During his long tenure in the financial world, Friedman has watched dozens of his competitors' businesses killed by hubris born of success rather than by unsound business decisions or adverse market conditions.-- Lisa Endlich, Goldman Sachs: The Culture of Success

This is the actor's hubris, to imagine the world possessed of a single, avid eye fixed solely and always on him.-- John Banville, Eclipse

With dizzying hubris, Shelley elevated the vocation of the poet above that of priest and statesman.-- Peter Gay, Pleasure Wars

A word a day.

bivouac \BIV-wak, BIV-uh-wak\, noun:

1. An encampment for the night, usually under little or no shelter.2. To encamp for the night, usually under little or no shelter.

Rob had made his emergency bivouac just below the South Summit.-- David Breashears, "Death on the mountain", The Observer, March 30, 2003

They were stopped by savage winds and forced to bivouac 153 m below the day's goal.-- Erik Weihenmayer, "Men of the Mountain", Time Pacific, February 4, 2002

A Word a Day.

execrable \EK-sih-kruh-buhl\, adjective:

1. Deserving to be execrated; detestable; abominable.
2. Extremely bad; of very poor quality; very inferior.

His human-rights record was abysmal. His relations with Washington were adversarial. He rivaled Zimbabwe's execrable Robert Mugabe for the title "Africa's Saddam."
-- James S. Robbins, "The Liberian Opportunity", National Review, July 8, 2003

For while agents and editors often misunderstand their market and sometimes reject good or even great works, they do prevent a vast quantity of truly execrable writing from being published.
-- Laura Miller, "Slush, slush, sweet Stephen", Salon, July 25, 2000

Any theatergoer who has ever felt the urge to murder an actor for an execrable performance should get a kick out of two backstage mysteries that do the deed with a nice theatrical flourish.
-- Marilyn Stasio, review of The Gold Gamble, by Herbert Resnicow and Death Mask, by Jane Dentinger, New York Times, October 30, 1988

The decision to level the ancient cathedral is described candidly by one latter-day authoritative guidebook as having demonstrated "execrable taste."
-- Dick Grogan, "Pillars speak out to save cathedral", Irish Times, June 11, 1997