The dust has settled for about a week already since the last Chem paper and finally I've more or less tidied up the remaining loose ends at work. All that remains for the near future is to settle the admin before passing over my IGC duties to the new teachers (some of you may have known by now that I've joined the Students' Council) and also the proposal for the Board Games Elective that I'm co-conducting for the Chrystal Programme next year.
As for my other department duties, I'll leave it till I'm done with my reservist (7th to 15th) before I start preparing. Kinda looking forward to some of the things, esp maybe revamping the teaching of H1 Chem and coming up with some interesting problems for PBL. Gonna relook at all the chem textbooks that I've borrowed the last few years and dig up some interesting pics/facts and also hopefully gain some insights into how to better teach certain topics. Then I can finally clear these books from my room/desk and do some proper spring cleaning for 2010!
Most recent updates - Bought a new computer system ($1.5k) on Mon (thanks Jon again for helping me out!) which I collected on Tue so haven't really had time to test it out yet and also a new ORIGINAL computer game (Dragon Age: Origins - Collector's Edition)($79.9) just ytd which sadly has given me a lot of headache installing (Data Error - CRC with a certain rar file; even installing DirectX gave me problem cos they couldn't verify the file - any brilliant souls out there who knows anything?) and apparently there are plenty of people in the world facing the same problem. Looks like a really brilliant game based on the reviews (which is why I bought it in the first place) and reading the manual already makes me wanna dive into the game immediately so hopefully this matter can be resolved soon!
Term 3 Updates - Teacher's Day Celebrations and Dinner - Missed this out the last time cos it was the last day of Term 3. Had a great day and for once I did NOT have to be stressed about performing for Teacher's Day since I wasn't asked this time round - not that I had time to prepare a new song anyway haha. The J2 turnout was a lot smaller than what we had for my previous batch so not many gifts this time round compared to previous years but thanks to all those who turned up and those who took the time and effort to make/buy gifts and write cards and smses!
Really, for all teachers, it's being appreciated by your students that makes what we do worthwhile. Even though sometimes results don't always go our way, even though sometimes we go crazy at the mistakes we see, as long as we try our best within our limits and the kids understand and appreciate it, I guess that's probably all we can ask for. You look at any teacher's workspace and you'll see the things that students give them over the years cos it's all these things and words of encouragement that keep us going. =)
The staff dinner was another fun night, theme being Olympics and this time we didn't really plan on what to wear, just more or less some random sporty gear. The Maths dept was very well organised and all of them came dressed as a soccer team (complete with manager and coach!) and I was rooting for them to win the best-dressed team, which they did, not surprisingly. =)
During the theory contest on Olympics, our table made it to the 3rd/4th placing against a group of Econs teachers but anyway it was settled by a game of Wii bowling which was hilarious cos the Econs rep started first and the Econs teachers cheered after every ball and we also did the same when it was our rep's turn, just that we were louder and more vigorous. When it became obvious that we were gonna win, I told the whole group that after our rep throws the last ball we're going to run up to him and mob him, which we did, much to the laughter of the crowd and we were so high we even carried him from the centre of the ballroom to the exit. The emcee called us the crazy chemists and he prob has a point. But it was a lot of good clean fun! =)
Sep Hols - Fairly busy period of intense consultations, which was quite tiring but it's good to clear up their doubts though sometimes the questions I hear scares me... Also met one of my fans (so claimed by a student) from another JC in school during consultation with some students that were not from my class. Super funny sia... =p
Met up with my army pals also at one of my friend's place (a rich guy) at Telok Kurau and we played Wii for the first time in my life and it was super fun! Raving Rabbids, WWF, and Mario Kart were so fun to play!
Term 4 Updates - Week 1 and 2 Prelims and a busy period of marking (and remarking for us). Sep 14th was a disastrous day - worst in my life! Bad things just happened one after another and it was certainly a day to forget though there were many lessons learnt. Dunno what happened to me also that day - not thinking properly.
Week 1 - Saw a vaguely familiar face in the GO and I was wondering if the person was an ex-student so I asked her and she said she was from TJC. Then I realised I saw her when I invigilated at TJC last year and the amazing thing was that I still remembered her name, which prob stunned her (not the first time that people have been stunned by me knowing their names =P). Anyway, I remembered quite a few other people from that group which I invigilated cos I invigilated them a couple of other times also and I think they found me quite funny so they kinda remembered me also.
Week 2 (Mon) - Met up with WS, Hazel and Sufen for lunch and LAN (L4D with plenty of screaming, again =P) then proceeded to my colleague's wedding. Ever since one of my colleague's wedding in May where she showed a cartoon production of their love story, 2 of my colleagues have also hired the same company to do the same thing but there's always something new since they have different love stories and it's cute and funny so still got lots of entertainment value.
Week 4 (Tue) - Met up with ZAM and XL to celebrate ZY's birthday at Hei Sushi. As usual, I just paid for the food but also included tickets for AQ's concert also as part of the package haha while XL gave her something v practical for her studies in Australia and the girls gave her something special for her eyes only. =P
Week 5 (Wed) - Had our final chem lecture where we gave out stuff to each of our chem reps and also said our final words to the cohort. Also gave them a sneak preview of a new chem song I created and asked them to turn up for the mock paper if they wanted to hear the full version of it. =P
Had our Inter-JC Staff soccer tournament on Wed and we obtained our best ever results in all these years, which was what I hinted in my previous post when I said we had much better players this time round. Anyway, we made it to the Quarter-Finals! Considering we never won a match in 2006 and 2007 (we didn't participate in 2008), this was much much better, though we rode our luck at times also. There was a lot more team spirit and finally we had a pretty solid keeper (who is actually very keen to be a keeper), solid defenders and people who have stamina to chase and defend. And we actually had enough players for almost 2 teams of 7!
Anyway, we drew with IJC 0-0 in our first match, beat CJC 1-0 in our second, beat JJC 1-0 in our third and lost VJC 1-0 in our fourth to end up second in our group by the closest of margins (we edged out JJC after having the same no. of points, goals scored and goals conceded but went through due to the better head-to-head result). Although our goals were gifted to us, it would've been harsh for us to not qualify cos we held our own against VJC, which was clearly the team to be feared, and threw our bodies to block their shots. We almost held out for the point that we needed to be sure of qualifying only to see a last-second corner falling to their player at the back post who ran in unmarked to score so it would've been really cruel if we went out. We lost to ACJC 1-0 in the QF and I supposed they deserved it though it was really due to their 1 star player who was all over the place and shooting like nobody's business. All in all a very enjoyable performance though I managed to pick up a serious injury to my hand thanks to a clearance from my own player haha. Crap!
(Thu) - Made test-tubes and cards for my students together with some of the other teachers and it was a pretty fun experience, but very time-consuming and tiring also, especially when you are handicapped. But preparing the solutions, quotes, and putting in the glitter and stuff was nice. Really a big thanks to my colleague who helped me out big-time cos of my hand and also to ZY who helped out with the cards in the evening. There can certainly be improvements to the process so that it won't be so time-consuming in the future =)
(Fri) - Farewell Assembly and it was finally time for our performance which we spent a fair bit of time rehearsing (more than usual cos a lot of people involved). Took me some time to come up with the lyrics also but I was pleased with the final product cos I felt it was meaningful though on the emo side at times but I thought the rap part was quite funny haha. Thanks to everyone who had participated in coming up with the performance, including our slideshow producers =)
Anyway, apart from our performance, we had Econs and Physics before us and they each made a video which I think was quite funny (we didn't get to see cos we were backstage preparing). Maths did another fabulous job again, following on their innovative rap last year, this time they made a spoof of Wondergirls' "Nobody" and you prob have been on Mars the last couple of weeks if you've never seen or even heard of it. Apparently it was even featured on 8 days! Finally, a performance by THE "F.A.T." (Fabulously Attractive Teachers) was cool and cute also. Prob one of the best farewell assemblies I've seen - certainly better than the 1st one I attended in 2007. =)
After the performance, I went to the various classes to give out their cards and to wish them well. Lots of photo-taking as you would expect on this day, (if you're reading this and you have photos with me in it - please email me!!!) even with fans from other classes, LOL, though I think my Chem Bro may have more fans than me =p
Hopefully all of them liked the test-tubes and cards that were made for them cos I thought through which quotes were most suitable for each of them based on their character and performance and also tried to figure out which colours they would prefer. =)
Week 6 (Fri) - Chem Mock Paper and as promised, I delivered my latest Chem Single "Alkanes, Alkenes, Arenes" based on Jay Chou's "Pu Gong Ying De Yue Ding" (I initially mixed up the title of the song haha). Enjoyed the song myself and hopefully the kids did!
Went to see the musical side of AQ together with the others at VCH and it was a pretty decent performance I would say. At least I enjoyed it but for me, the Meiden band has always been the benchmark for a really entertaining and solid performance.
Week 7 (Fri) - Went to celebrate MY's and XL's birthday at Modesto (we initially wanted to go Hard Rock Cafe but it was too crowded). Food was just so-so for me so I don't think I'll be going back there anytime soon.
(Sun) - Met up with quite a few of the ex-IGC kids for lunch and gaming and Jonathan was in his element with some of the crappiest jokes yet (I still can't forget the "shimali" one =P). Proceeded to Settler's for some gaming and I feel they need up the standard of the facilitators there seriously. Some of the games they recommended were not fun and they didn't know how to teach the complicated ones that we wanted to play. But at least we managed to have a good game of "Dominion", which we really enjoyed.
Week 8 (Tue) - Had our Science Retreat and it was actually a pretty fruitful one, contrary to what I had feared initially. Learnt a couple of things through the sharing with other departments that we may be able to adopt next time. Would be good to see how to restrategise our teaching. Some of us went for bowling later on as part of our chosen activity and it was very fun, probably more so since I won both games amongst our chem people haha. =P
(Fri) - Played soccer with other teachers and students as part of our plan to incorporate more soccer training sessions. Had a fun game until I sustained a bizarre injury when I turned and slipped on the wet grass, spraining my foot (which still hasn't fully recovered after almost a month).
(Sat) - Went for my chem bro's wedding and I liked the wedding souvenir which was a pack of playing cards with cute wedding design. During the dinner there was a funny occasion where the waiter tried to serve us scallops on our plates using 2 spoons but the scallop kept slipping out of the spoons and in the end he sent 2 scallops flying onto the table so we told him we would do it ourselves. Later on, we observed how the other waiters did it and at an adjacent table, one of the waiters used a spoon and fork and had no problems at all. Then we commented that it was a good story to tell the students next time cos sometimes if you do something by the wrong method, no matter how hard you try, you cannot succeed. No concept!!! Haha, that's what you get at a table full of teachers. Went to karaoke after that, which was quite a spontaneous thing cos somebody just suggested on the day itself and we were all on. Had a great time and the lighting made the room feel like a disco, which was just right for us hahaha =p
K, it's getting late, there's just too many things to update (that's what happen when you don't blog for more than 3 months!) and I gotta wake up in a couple of hours time for OGL camp so that's it for now. Update again on Sun when I'm back home! =)
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Term 3 Updates
Finally back to update my blog!
Week 1 - Start of MYE and most fun event was dinner at Aburiya, a Japanese eating joint at Robertson Quay. Nice little place where we had good food! Had a lot of beef, plus some foie gras, scallop and other delicacies as we marked the opening of Term 3 with our "kai1 gong1 yan4". Super shiok food (which set each of us back by about $70) and some of them were drinking and it was super funny especially the part where someone claimed to drive an auto car when the person actually drives a manual car haha.
Week 2 - Still MYE. Dinner at Yum Cha with the SRP group and good to see XL back from Italy. Bought us some stuff from there and the funniest part was when we were walking along some stalls and AQ pointed out that the items bought there looked like the ones XL bought from Italy. The type of items are the same lah cos I guess touristy stuff and souvenirs are quite similar but of course the printed stuff were different but it was still pretty funny. =) Oh, and I cracked a rare inside joke regarding MY haha. =P
Week 3 and 4 - Not good weeks cos I was sick both weeks. Week 2 Sun I thought my throat felt kinda funny but didn't think much of it. Week 3 Mon suddenly started to lose my voice after tut and lecture. Was pretty bad and on MC till Wed. Back on Thur and I was joking with the lecture group that they must have made me sick cos Mon I was going through the corrections with them.
Week 3 SRP and ZAM presented me with a very nice scrap book as a belated birthday present (though they actually gave me something else on my actual birthday already) which got me laughing at some of the things they did and wrote. But it was sweet and thoughtful lah and I always appreciate handmade stuff. ;)
Week 4 - Tue started to get sick again while I was lecturing my SPA group and I barely managed to teach in the afternoon cos I practically couldn't talk so I typed out all my instructions and wrote out the questions that I wanted to ask during tutorial. It was quite funny I guess also for my 08S114 students cos it was one of the quietest lesson I ever had. Not the most effective lesson I guess but made the most I could given the circumstance. MC on Wed.
College Day and I went to support ZAM and also see who else turned up cos I only know a few people from the cohort, mainly my CCA kids. Good food as usual =)
Week 5 - Wed was easily the funniest day in the term. I wore the same outfit as I did in Japan when we went to DisneySea, the new pair of spectacles that I bought during the Jun holidays, and I parted my hair in the opposite way from my usual style so I looked v. v. different. The first thing when I walked into school I already spoke to some students who were laughing when they saw me and said my dressing was v unusual.
When I went into the Staff room, I drew a few more remarks from my colleagues and they also said I looked v different. When I saw my two bosses they both went "Wah!" Super funny cos they said they were wondering who this person was cos I looked so different, haha.
Then first period tutorial the moment I walked into F3-5, all the 08S416 kids were laughing away when they saw me. But some of them quite smart, can guess that my outfit was from Japan. Basically the whole day, I think all the JC2 Chem kids were all very amused also cos when I was talking to them in the LT I think they looked like they want to burst out laughing. LOL. Anyway, it's good that I have the ability to make people laugh right? =P Then I received an sms that said that I looked like a present cos it seemed like I was all dressed up haha.
Fri - met up with with some of my ex-AISS kids like WS, Hazel and Merlyn. Had dinner at Billy Bomber's at Central and it was good to be able to catch up with them cos it was months since we last met up. A pity that more couldn't be there though. Nevertheless we had a lot of fun chatting and after dinner we, very surprisingly, went to play L4D at Selegie and it was hilarious esp when the girls were screaming away at various high points of the game. =P
Sat - MTPS and it was a looong day of meeting parents and chatting with them though it was quite funny also when we see how some of the kids really look like their parents.
Week 6 - Wed finally got to play soccer during our staff elective cos it's so hard to get enough people to play, for various reasons. Started off well but took a hard knock on my shin/calf area (which caused me to limp the next 2 days) and the lack of fitness took its toll as we lost to the fitter team but finally I see some new blood that could make a difference to the team if we decide to play in the interschool tournament again at the end of the year.
Fri - dinner at Kazu to celebrate the long weekend and a much needed break from work. Again, fabulous Japanese food that was well worth the money (about $70) and this time I was made to drink some wine, which really didn't go down well with me (think I'm seriously allergic to it).
Sat - morning SRP again with BK breakfast then went back to rest before our karaoke session at night which was quite wild haha. Everytime when there was a fast song we would all stand up together and sing and dance along lol. Absolutely hilarious. Then during the final part after the system didn't allow us to choose any more songs I started to sing National Day song and somebody else joined in then we jumped up and started a medley of National Day songs (Stand Up for Singapore, We are Singapore, and others). =P Supper just outside the karaoke place was good also and I love to eat the Ah Balling from this particular Beach Road stall which apparently is quite famous.
Week 7-8 - Can't rem much, save for my little investment into the food industry with ZAM (inside joke). =P
Week 9 - not in a particularly good mood this week I think, not too sure why. Maybe it's cos I was in a bad mood after marking, maybe it's stress-induced, or maybe lack of sleep. Probably a combination of everything I guess. Anyway, I had 2 uncharacteristic outbursts where I lost my cool which probably kinda scared the people who were around. But it's over already and I've spoken to the people involved so I guess things should be ok. Just glad that the term is more or less over!!!
Got my gift from 08S114 on Friday for Teacher's Day and they got me some health supplements haha. That was thoughtful of them though the way the were saying when then asked me to open the gift I thought there was something cheeky going on haha. Thank you for the gift! =)
Random funniest moments in class -
(1) During SPA session, somebody said, "I bet the answer is something ridiculous like, "Add water and the flowers will boom right?" LOLOL. It was so ridiculous that everyone who heard that all burst out laughing.
(2) I was asking for the students' marks for Paper 2 that we went through and somebody had a relatively high score so somebody else said, "Let's sing a song!" LOLOL. Again another out of the blue statement.
(3) Somebody suggested using a large-scale use of hydrogen for filling of balloons, which was v funny for 2 reasons (a) H2 is combustible so it should NOT be used to fill balloons (I was joking that must be the reason why the balloons in class were bursting) - btw helium should be used instead (b) Filling balloons wouldn't be large-scale
(4) I was asking the class how many people were absent, then they said 4 so I calculated and said, hmmm, that's 28.5714% of the class that's absent, much to their amazement and amusement. Then I shared with them a useless bit of trivia regarding repeating decimal that I learnt from primary school. I told them,
1/7 = 0.142857
2/7 = 0.285714
3/7 = 0.428571
and so on. Then I joked with them something like, "You mean you all don't know? I learnt this during primary school! What were you all doing in primary school?" =P
(5) I was going around the class to check whether they did their work then for one of my students I said it's ok cos I know she will do her work then she joked, "Wah Mr Lau, you're letting down your guard ah?" LOLOL. I burst out laughing (in my usual funny way when I am very amused) and so did the class when they heard me laugh.
(6) Again while checking work somebody was trying to (jokingly) prevent me from checking and then we ended up in a bit of a tussle when I tried to grab the TYS. Funny...
Can't really remember anything else so far but I'll update if I do! Time to rest and celebrate Teacher's Day! =)
Week 1 - Start of MYE and most fun event was dinner at Aburiya, a Japanese eating joint at Robertson Quay. Nice little place where we had good food! Had a lot of beef, plus some foie gras, scallop and other delicacies as we marked the opening of Term 3 with our "kai1 gong1 yan4". Super shiok food (which set each of us back by about $70) and some of them were drinking and it was super funny especially the part where someone claimed to drive an auto car when the person actually drives a manual car haha.
Week 2 - Still MYE. Dinner at Yum Cha with the SRP group and good to see XL back from Italy. Bought us some stuff from there and the funniest part was when we were walking along some stalls and AQ pointed out that the items bought there looked like the ones XL bought from Italy. The type of items are the same lah cos I guess touristy stuff and souvenirs are quite similar but of course the printed stuff were different but it was still pretty funny. =) Oh, and I cracked a rare inside joke regarding MY haha. =P
Week 3 and 4 - Not good weeks cos I was sick both weeks. Week 2 Sun I thought my throat felt kinda funny but didn't think much of it. Week 3 Mon suddenly started to lose my voice after tut and lecture. Was pretty bad and on MC till Wed. Back on Thur and I was joking with the lecture group that they must have made me sick cos Mon I was going through the corrections with them.
Week 3 SRP and ZAM presented me with a very nice scrap book as a belated birthday present (though they actually gave me something else on my actual birthday already) which got me laughing at some of the things they did and wrote. But it was sweet and thoughtful lah and I always appreciate handmade stuff. ;)
Week 4 - Tue started to get sick again while I was lecturing my SPA group and I barely managed to teach in the afternoon cos I practically couldn't talk so I typed out all my instructions and wrote out the questions that I wanted to ask during tutorial. It was quite funny I guess also for my 08S114 students cos it was one of the quietest lesson I ever had. Not the most effective lesson I guess but made the most I could given the circumstance. MC on Wed.
College Day and I went to support ZAM and also see who else turned up cos I only know a few people from the cohort, mainly my CCA kids. Good food as usual =)
Week 5 - Wed was easily the funniest day in the term. I wore the same outfit as I did in Japan when we went to DisneySea, the new pair of spectacles that I bought during the Jun holidays, and I parted my hair in the opposite way from my usual style so I looked v. v. different. The first thing when I walked into school I already spoke to some students who were laughing when they saw me and said my dressing was v unusual.
When I went into the Staff room, I drew a few more remarks from my colleagues and they also said I looked v different. When I saw my two bosses they both went "Wah!" Super funny cos they said they were wondering who this person was cos I looked so different, haha.
Then first period tutorial the moment I walked into F3-5, all the 08S416 kids were laughing away when they saw me. But some of them quite smart, can guess that my outfit was from Japan. Basically the whole day, I think all the JC2 Chem kids were all very amused also cos when I was talking to them in the LT I think they looked like they want to burst out laughing. LOL. Anyway, it's good that I have the ability to make people laugh right? =P Then I received an sms that said that I looked like a present cos it seemed like I was all dressed up haha.
Fri - met up with with some of my ex-AISS kids like WS, Hazel and Merlyn. Had dinner at Billy Bomber's at Central and it was good to be able to catch up with them cos it was months since we last met up. A pity that more couldn't be there though. Nevertheless we had a lot of fun chatting and after dinner we, very surprisingly, went to play L4D at Selegie and it was hilarious esp when the girls were screaming away at various high points of the game. =P
Sat - MTPS and it was a looong day of meeting parents and chatting with them though it was quite funny also when we see how some of the kids really look like their parents.
Week 6 - Wed finally got to play soccer during our staff elective cos it's so hard to get enough people to play, for various reasons. Started off well but took a hard knock on my shin/calf area (which caused me to limp the next 2 days) and the lack of fitness took its toll as we lost to the fitter team but finally I see some new blood that could make a difference to the team if we decide to play in the interschool tournament again at the end of the year.
Fri - dinner at Kazu to celebrate the long weekend and a much needed break from work. Again, fabulous Japanese food that was well worth the money (about $70) and this time I was made to drink some wine, which really didn't go down well with me (think I'm seriously allergic to it).
Sat - morning SRP again with BK breakfast then went back to rest before our karaoke session at night which was quite wild haha. Everytime when there was a fast song we would all stand up together and sing and dance along lol. Absolutely hilarious. Then during the final part after the system didn't allow us to choose any more songs I started to sing National Day song and somebody else joined in then we jumped up and started a medley of National Day songs (Stand Up for Singapore, We are Singapore, and others). =P Supper just outside the karaoke place was good also and I love to eat the Ah Balling from this particular Beach Road stall which apparently is quite famous.
Week 7-8 - Can't rem much, save for my little investment into the food industry with ZAM (inside joke). =P
Week 9 - not in a particularly good mood this week I think, not too sure why. Maybe it's cos I was in a bad mood after marking, maybe it's stress-induced, or maybe lack of sleep. Probably a combination of everything I guess. Anyway, I had 2 uncharacteristic outbursts where I lost my cool which probably kinda scared the people who were around. But it's over already and I've spoken to the people involved so I guess things should be ok. Just glad that the term is more or less over!!!
Got my gift from 08S114 on Friday for Teacher's Day and they got me some health supplements haha. That was thoughtful of them though the way the were saying when then asked me to open the gift I thought there was something cheeky going on haha. Thank you for the gift! =)
Random funniest moments in class -
(1) During SPA session, somebody said, "I bet the answer is something ridiculous like, "Add water and the flowers will boom right?" LOLOL. It was so ridiculous that everyone who heard that all burst out laughing.
(2) I was asking for the students' marks for Paper 2 that we went through and somebody had a relatively high score so somebody else said, "Let's sing a song!" LOLOL. Again another out of the blue statement.
(3) Somebody suggested using a large-scale use of hydrogen for filling of balloons, which was v funny for 2 reasons (a) H2 is combustible so it should NOT be used to fill balloons (I was joking that must be the reason why the balloons in class were bursting) - btw helium should be used instead (b) Filling balloons wouldn't be large-scale
(4) I was asking the class how many people were absent, then they said 4 so I calculated and said, hmmm, that's 28.5714% of the class that's absent, much to their amazement and amusement. Then I shared with them a useless bit of trivia regarding repeating decimal that I learnt from primary school. I told them,
1/7 = 0.142857
2/7 = 0.285714
3/7 = 0.428571
and so on. Then I joked with them something like, "You mean you all don't know? I learnt this during primary school! What were you all doing in primary school?" =P
(5) I was going around the class to check whether they did their work then for one of my students I said it's ok cos I know she will do her work then she joked, "Wah Mr Lau, you're letting down your guard ah?" LOLOL. I burst out laughing (in my usual funny way when I am very amused) and so did the class when they heard me laugh.
(6) Again while checking work somebody was trying to (jokingly) prevent me from checking and then we ended up in a bit of a tussle when I tried to grab the TYS. Funny...
Can't really remember anything else so far but I'll update if I do! Time to rest and celebrate Teacher's Day! =)
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Imperfection is good!
Went for gym yesterday and felt great after some working out! Though I'm aching now but that's a sign that those muscles are being put to some use!
Anyway, I thought about life and I think a problem with me is that too often I try to be too perfectionistic in doing things, which has been brought up to me before. I have issues with letting go cos I usually believe I'm best at doing certain things and from what I recall in uni life and NIE, that means that usually during group projects, I usually end up doing a lot of stuff, esp the final editing because I want to be the one in control of the product to be submitted. So what I probably need to do is to chill a bit and see what I can try to let go. Don't keep trying to do everything swee swee when there are many things to take care of... That should help to relieve stress on myself also...
Speaking of which maybe I should also not keep re-reading my post as I type to save time. Perhaps it's because I have obsessive compulsive disorder? Haha. I think I do man. I check like so many things during certain routines that I think if people knew, they would laugh at me... =p
Anyway, on an extremely random note, I was recalling some things that happened during recent times and during the arcade session last week, I was reminded why I should stay away from basketballs, permanently, lol.
My H1N1 duties so far are actually pretty ok, thankfully. I probably got the longer end of the straw and it's actually not such a complicated thing for our health screening team. At least for most of us, we more or less know when we start and end. Personally I think the contact tracing has it toughest cos once they are activated they need to start contacting people - a thankless task which could take hours to finish.
Looking through Term 3's work in greater detail, I think it will actually be manageable? Hope so cos though my mind is willing, my flesh is weak haha. Been feeling tired for months, except the 2 weeks when I went on holiday and then rested at home. Already feeling tired again even though the last 2 days were short days so hopefully I have the energy to sustain myself for this term. 9 weeks! Just last for 9 weeks and it's study break!!! Gambatte!
Ok, shall stop here. I feel like I'm rambling cos my topics for each paragraph seems like so no link lah but yes I shall not be a perfectionist! Learn to let go! Next post at end of the month! ALL THE BEST FOR CHEMISTRY TOMORROW! You can do it!!! =D
Anyway, I thought about life and I think a problem with me is that too often I try to be too perfectionistic in doing things, which has been brought up to me before. I have issues with letting go cos I usually believe I'm best at doing certain things and from what I recall in uni life and NIE, that means that usually during group projects, I usually end up doing a lot of stuff, esp the final editing because I want to be the one in control of the product to be submitted. So what I probably need to do is to chill a bit and see what I can try to let go. Don't keep trying to do everything swee swee when there are many things to take care of... That should help to relieve stress on myself also...
Speaking of which maybe I should also not keep re-reading my post as I type to save time. Perhaps it's because I have obsessive compulsive disorder? Haha. I think I do man. I check like so many things during certain routines that I think if people knew, they would laugh at me... =p
Anyway, on an extremely random note, I was recalling some things that happened during recent times and during the arcade session last week, I was reminded why I should stay away from basketballs, permanently, lol.
My H1N1 duties so far are actually pretty ok, thankfully. I probably got the longer end of the straw and it's actually not such a complicated thing for our health screening team. At least for most of us, we more or less know when we start and end. Personally I think the contact tracing has it toughest cos once they are activated they need to start contacting people - a thankless task which could take hours to finish.
Looking through Term 3's work in greater detail, I think it will actually be manageable? Hope so cos though my mind is willing, my flesh is weak haha. Been feeling tired for months, except the 2 weeks when I went on holiday and then rested at home. Already feeling tired again even though the last 2 days were short days so hopefully I have the energy to sustain myself for this term. 9 weeks! Just last for 9 weeks and it's study break!!! Gambatte!
Ok, shall stop here. I feel like I'm rambling cos my topics for each paragraph seems like so no link lah but yes I shall not be a perfectionist! Learn to let go! Next post at end of the month! ALL THE BEST FOR CHEMISTRY TOMORROW! You can do it!!! =D
Monday, June 29, 2009
Back to School... Good luck for MYE!
Term 3 officially starts in a few hours’ time and somehow I'm not exactly looking forward to it, esp with the thought of having all the H1N1 duties to be done. Just read an interesting article cos I went to do some research having spent some time thinking about my life and I think I am probably experiencing burnout based on the causes and the symptoms described in the article.
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/burnout_signs_symptoms.htm
But I realise that I'm already trying to turn things around (based on the suggestions on how to recover from burnout) like taking a break from work (not totally but not working as hard as I've been the last few years), trying to socialise more and I guess eventually I'll sit down to take stock of what's really important to me. Anyway, looking to seriously take a break from work after the A-Levels. Maybe even consider taking no-pay leave if I feel the need to completely stay away from work and just go on a long holiday!
Anyway, the last 2 weeks have been pretty good I guess. Stayed at home most of the time for that 1 week since I touched down in Singapore except last Fri to celebrate my birthday with people whom I would never have expected to know at the start of the year haha. Strange at what fate has in store for you and I'm thankful to them for sparing some time for me to go eat and shop! Thanks also to everyone who wished me a happy birthday via SMS and Facebook and also for 08S114 for inviting me to the Jun babies celebration! =)
As for last week, began to slowly turn up the gears again preparing for the new term as well as attending meeting on H1N1 as well as our Chrystal Workshop which I thought was very interesting during the talk by a psychologist. I've always been fascinated by psychology and interested in knowing how people think and why they think in certain ways. I should go read up more during my free time. Anyway that's why I'm a fan of "Criminal Minds" - a brilliant show imho related to behaviour of criminals, especially the episode I watched last Thur titled "Mastermind" - very gripping!
Took some time out also for some shopping and food as well as to get some things done, some gaming and pool with friends before I get caught up with work again.
Before Term 3 starts, I guess I should update on some of the funnier incidents that I can still remember in Term 2 looong ago before I totally forget them in my life.
08S114 - (1) Mentioned during a tutorial that they need to turn around fast after the MBT to reemphasize what our principal said to them and somebody very amusingly literally started turning around fast. (2) Before a tutorial, they asked me to look at a set of equations related to money, time, work, and chemistry which concluded that chemistry = evil cos they said they paid much more for chem than other subjects but I explained that it's just because they're paying for quite a few things earlier cos we compiled some stuff. Quite cute though haha. (3) During an electrochemistry tutorial, somebody answered my question on shift in equilibrium position by singing "to the left, to the left", which apparently was from Beyonce Knowles' "Irreplaceable" but I didn't know that so I got suanned by some of them who asked if I only know chemistry songs haha. Anyway, I went to check out the song and used in back on them in the next tutorial to show I wasn't that sua ku haha. (4) Last tutorial of Term 2 after our school holiday was on Group II/VII and I don't know why but I was super high, which was good cos inorganic chem can be rather dry so at least I kept them entertained.
08S201 - (1) Caught someone stoning and staring outside the window and I said, "Why are you looking outside? The good stuff is right here in front of you!" LOL. (2) Suanned some students after a test by saying that they need to reflect on their performance cos they lost to somebody in the class.
08S416 - (1) Talked to some of them about my expectations for the class and said that I need to squeeze A's out of them by hook or by crook (2) Somebody did starjumps suddenly in front of my face after tutorial! Funny sia. (3) I don't understand why sometimes people feel like telling me the reason for people going to the toilet. Just tell me that they need to go and I'll leave it at that. =p
08S202 - Took them for relief one of those days and had time to do my trick of looking at the class photos 10 min before the lesson and memorising their names before stunning them in class matching their names to them haha. I always love to see those incredulous looks on their faces lol. I do enjoy occasionally relieving for others (if I'm not swamped with too much work) just to have a change of environment and people...
Lectures - (1) electrochemistry - had 2 rather last-minute substitutions to teach a topic that I never really liked (and so do most chem teachers from what I know). But I guess I learnt a lot more after the entire experience though I didn't really have time to actually go through everything beforehand and I'm sure it showed up to some people. Cracked the lamest joke I've ever done before though - about my last-minute substitution and not being a FRS, ES, or NS. Must be hanging around too many lame people!
(2) transition elements - 2 double period during the Jun holidays and quite entertaining to teach esp the 1st session and here are some of the funnier moments (at least imho)
(i) I was talking at the start that the lecture series would take about 4 periods and somehow some of the people in front looked at me with huge eyes and shocked expression and I explained that it was over 2 double periods and they heaved a sigh of relief haha. Funny leh they all... Anyway I told them I would die before them if it was 4 periods straight. =p
(ii) explanation of atomic radius and I.E. - intonation changes for "slightly" and "drastically" repeated for comedic effect (and to help them rem the difference between transition and main group elements)
(iii) question on full electronic configuration of Ti - asked a student to answer, who used the shorter notation ([Ar]3d24s2) and I joked " the question asked for the full electronic configuration so don't be a fool"
(iv) towards the end of the 1st session I suddenly had problems talking, probably cos my throat was too dry after about 1.5 hours of talking and I tried to cough it away and continue talking but the sounds that came out were really weird and got the students laughing. Then I asked for some water and got a water bottle from a student in front and started to squirt some water into my mouth. When I got back onto the mike, my voice was suddenly very clear again, much to the amusement of the students who were laughing. Then I said something like they should drink more water cos it's good for health haha.
(v) apparently one of the power switches wasn't turned on so during the last 5 min, my laptop suddenly switched off, much to the cheering of some of the students but I manage to quickly figure out what went wrong and when I went back to teach I said with a grin, "Let's carry on. Sorry to disappoint you all" Got them laughing again. They seem to laugh at every little thing haha.
(vi) second session - explanation of heterogeneous catalysis was funny when I started relating the process to match-making and relationships haha.
Speaking of match-making, I dunno why but over the last few months there seems to be a lot of talk linking me with various people, or so my sources have led me to believe. All the stories seem pretty amusing to me though and sometimes I wonder if they are too oversensitive or think too much lol. Anyway, having gone through various experiences and seeing the people around me, I think I'm pretty particular about who I'll be with and unless I feel absolutely certain about someone I'd rather stay single to avoid all the heartache and stress.
Final random funny things - (1) One of the Wed apparently my dressing was like a cowboy cos I drew a lot of comments from people who said I looked like one and some of my students were amused at the look (2) On another Wed apparently my dressing was nice cos some people said so haha! Felt good! Didn't expect though cos I didn't think too much of it but it gave me some idea on the kind of clothes I should buy...
Ok, time to sleep! Bring on Term 3! All the best to everyone who are taking the MYE! =)
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/burnout_signs_symptoms.htm
But I realise that I'm already trying to turn things around (based on the suggestions on how to recover from burnout) like taking a break from work (not totally but not working as hard as I've been the last few years), trying to socialise more and I guess eventually I'll sit down to take stock of what's really important to me. Anyway, looking to seriously take a break from work after the A-Levels. Maybe even consider taking no-pay leave if I feel the need to completely stay away from work and just go on a long holiday!
Anyway, the last 2 weeks have been pretty good I guess. Stayed at home most of the time for that 1 week since I touched down in Singapore except last Fri to celebrate my birthday with people whom I would never have expected to know at the start of the year haha. Strange at what fate has in store for you and I'm thankful to them for sparing some time for me to go eat and shop! Thanks also to everyone who wished me a happy birthday via SMS and Facebook and also for 08S114 for inviting me to the Jun babies celebration! =)
As for last week, began to slowly turn up the gears again preparing for the new term as well as attending meeting on H1N1 as well as our Chrystal Workshop which I thought was very interesting during the talk by a psychologist. I've always been fascinated by psychology and interested in knowing how people think and why they think in certain ways. I should go read up more during my free time. Anyway that's why I'm a fan of "Criminal Minds" - a brilliant show imho related to behaviour of criminals, especially the episode I watched last Thur titled "Mastermind" - very gripping!
Took some time out also for some shopping and food as well as to get some things done, some gaming and pool with friends before I get caught up with work again.
Before Term 3 starts, I guess I should update on some of the funnier incidents that I can still remember in Term 2 looong ago before I totally forget them in my life.
08S114 - (1) Mentioned during a tutorial that they need to turn around fast after the MBT to reemphasize what our principal said to them and somebody very amusingly literally started turning around fast. (2) Before a tutorial, they asked me to look at a set of equations related to money, time, work, and chemistry which concluded that chemistry = evil cos they said they paid much more for chem than other subjects but I explained that it's just because they're paying for quite a few things earlier cos we compiled some stuff. Quite cute though haha. (3) During an electrochemistry tutorial, somebody answered my question on shift in equilibrium position by singing "to the left, to the left", which apparently was from Beyonce Knowles' "Irreplaceable" but I didn't know that so I got suanned by some of them who asked if I only know chemistry songs haha. Anyway, I went to check out the song and used in back on them in the next tutorial to show I wasn't that sua ku haha. (4) Last tutorial of Term 2 after our school holiday was on Group II/VII and I don't know why but I was super high, which was good cos inorganic chem can be rather dry so at least I kept them entertained.
08S201 - (1) Caught someone stoning and staring outside the window and I said, "Why are you looking outside? The good stuff is right here in front of you!" LOL. (2) Suanned some students after a test by saying that they need to reflect on their performance cos they lost to somebody in the class.
08S416 - (1) Talked to some of them about my expectations for the class and said that I need to squeeze A's out of them by hook or by crook (2) Somebody did starjumps suddenly in front of my face after tutorial! Funny sia. (3) I don't understand why sometimes people feel like telling me the reason for people going to the toilet. Just tell me that they need to go and I'll leave it at that. =p
08S202 - Took them for relief one of those days and had time to do my trick of looking at the class photos 10 min before the lesson and memorising their names before stunning them in class matching their names to them haha. I always love to see those incredulous looks on their faces lol. I do enjoy occasionally relieving for others (if I'm not swamped with too much work) just to have a change of environment and people...
Lectures - (1) electrochemistry - had 2 rather last-minute substitutions to teach a topic that I never really liked (and so do most chem teachers from what I know). But I guess I learnt a lot more after the entire experience though I didn't really have time to actually go through everything beforehand and I'm sure it showed up to some people. Cracked the lamest joke I've ever done before though - about my last-minute substitution and not being a FRS, ES, or NS. Must be hanging around too many lame people!
(2) transition elements - 2 double period during the Jun holidays and quite entertaining to teach esp the 1st session and here are some of the funnier moments (at least imho)
(i) I was talking at the start that the lecture series would take about 4 periods and somehow some of the people in front looked at me with huge eyes and shocked expression and I explained that it was over 2 double periods and they heaved a sigh of relief haha. Funny leh they all... Anyway I told them I would die before them if it was 4 periods straight. =p
(ii) explanation of atomic radius and I.E. - intonation changes for "slightly" and "drastically" repeated for comedic effect (and to help them rem the difference between transition and main group elements)
(iii) question on full electronic configuration of Ti - asked a student to answer, who used the shorter notation ([Ar]3d24s2) and I joked " the question asked for the full electronic configuration so don't be a fool"
(iv) towards the end of the 1st session I suddenly had problems talking, probably cos my throat was too dry after about 1.5 hours of talking and I tried to cough it away and continue talking but the sounds that came out were really weird and got the students laughing. Then I asked for some water and got a water bottle from a student in front and started to squirt some water into my mouth. When I got back onto the mike, my voice was suddenly very clear again, much to the amusement of the students who were laughing. Then I said something like they should drink more water cos it's good for health haha.
(v) apparently one of the power switches wasn't turned on so during the last 5 min, my laptop suddenly switched off, much to the cheering of some of the students but I manage to quickly figure out what went wrong and when I went back to teach I said with a grin, "Let's carry on. Sorry to disappoint you all" Got them laughing again. They seem to laugh at every little thing haha.
(vi) second session - explanation of heterogeneous catalysis was funny when I started relating the process to match-making and relationships haha.
Speaking of match-making, I dunno why but over the last few months there seems to be a lot of talk linking me with various people, or so my sources have led me to believe. All the stories seem pretty amusing to me though and sometimes I wonder if they are too oversensitive or think too much lol. Anyway, having gone through various experiences and seeing the people around me, I think I'm pretty particular about who I'll be with and unless I feel absolutely certain about someone I'd rather stay single to avoid all the heartache and stress.
Final random funny things - (1) One of the Wed apparently my dressing was like a cowboy cos I drew a lot of comments from people who said I looked like one and some of my students were amused at the look (2) On another Wed apparently my dressing was nice cos some people said so haha! Felt good! Didn't expect though cos I didn't think too much of it but it gave me some idea on the kind of clothes I should buy...
Ok, time to sleep! Bring on Term 3! All the best to everyone who are taking the MYE! =)
Friday, June 19, 2009
Back from Japan!
Actually, it's been a few days since I've been back (on Mon), but have been slacking away big time and taking a break to chill out. Generally it was a very enjoyable trip and it was kinda different cos often I felt like I was the caretaker cos of the company I was with, lol, but dunno why it felt kinda nice also and I miss the feeling...
Day 1 - Reached early at the airport (with my new haircut the day before) and had breakfast at Mac's before boarding the plane, which was exceptionally empty to my surprise. There were hardly anybody and we were free to move to other seats, and so I eventually shifted myself to a window seat, which was nice!
Anyway, the flight was pretty non-eventful though we met a really pretty and friendly airstewardess (apparently her name was Angeline) who spoke to us and helped us to take photos. Asked her for some help regarding the transport in Japan and she helped us to ask a Japanese airstewardess for info - good service! After we got off the plane, the group kept talking about her and made fun of me and the seat belt story that was made up was very amusing.
After alighting we had to fill in some forms due to the H1N1 virus before taking the Skyliner (tip: buy the Skyliner ticket and 2-day Metro pass package!) to Ueno again. Dinner at the yakiniku place again though this time it didn't seem as nice as the last time, think cos of the cooking and maybe the weather - somebody said that when the weather is very cold (as it was last March) the food tastes better though I'm not sure how much truth there is to that!
Then we headed to Tawaramachi towards our hotel - Toukaisou Hotel - a simple place but quite comfy and pretty cheap also (considering that accommodation in Japan is generally pretty expensive). The room is small but that's fine since you don't spend much time in there anyway - recommended if you're on a tight budget!
Day 2 - Walked to the popular Sensoji temple in Asakusa which I visited last year and it was so empty maybe cos it was still early. Went to Harajuku and spent a bit more time along the shopping street this time. Had crepes at this shop called Angel's Heart and it was nice! Then walked towards Shibuya before finally heading back and having ramen for dinner at a cosy place run by a friendly old man.
Day 3 - Went to DisneySea and it was definitely the most enjoyable day of the trip! Haven't had sooooo much fun for a really long time and I think the last time I entered a theme park like that was in 1995 when I went to Brisbane, Australia. Took a lot of pictures and videos and there were relatively few people there. Many people had told me beforehand that they can only take about 3-4 rides there cos they have to queue for hours but we barely had to wait for most of the rides so we managed to go on almost all of them and even managed to catch some other shows! The longest wait was only 10 min and for many rides it was just walk-in - cool!
Let me do a review now of the rides/shows that we took/watched for the benefit of those who plan to go DisneySea next time. I shall go in order of the themed ports (there are 7 in total)
(i) Mediterranean Harbour - BraviSEAmo (10/10) - the grand finale of the night (at 8.05pm) where there's a performance at the harbour complete with dazzling water and fire display and fireworks! Must watch!
(ii) American Waterfront - Tower of Terror (10/10) - Our first ride and we went in with completely no expectations. In fact somebody even said her friends said it was nothing much so we didn't think anything of it. The introduction was in Japanese also, so we didn't really understand what was going on though the image disappearing was impressive and surprised us. But the most surprising was the elevator ride itself. It SERIOUSLY caught us by surprise. I don't want to have any spoilers here - all I will say is, "MUST GO ON THIS RIDE!!!" (but not for very young kids) Anyway it was quite funny cos I was laughing away during the ride though my heart was beating very fast. Think it's just my way of laughing off the fear instead of just screaming (though I did scream on another ride hahaha)
DisneySea Electric Railway (8/10) - A nice ride to get to Port Discovery (another themed port) with a good view as well as saving some walking if you're tired!
DisneySea Transit Steamer Line (8/10) - We took it during the evening and the view was good! The route only took us to the Lost River Delta (another themed port) and we wanted to continue taking it to Mediterranean Harbour but sad to say we had to get off the steamer...
Big Band Beat (10/10) - Very slick performance with a very solid mini-band (really enjoyed listening and watching them move and swing their instruments around - excellent showmanship!), as well as singing and dancing which were very well choreographed (also includes Disney characters such as Mickey, Minnie and Donald). During the finale, Mickey was even playing the drums - how cool is that! Thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm glad we managed to rush back to catch the last performance of the day cos I chased them to walk quickly to the Electric Railway to catch the train then run into the performance theatre. But our efforts were worth it! Again, MUST WATCH!!!
(iii) Port Discovery - Aquatopia (7/10) - A relaxing ride and what fascinated me most was the automated system because on first sight I thought it looked like some peddle-boat kinda thing but all the boats are actually controlled by the computer and they move on fixed tracks (which you can see if you look down carefully enough) and at certain spots you'll be spinned around. Quite interesting!
StormRider (5/10) - Expectations were high after Tower of Terror and the queue was relatively long from what we saw so we expected more but it was just a simulator. The graphics and in-house stuff (e.g. spraying of water) was nice but overall it was just so-so for me.
(iv) Mysterious Island - 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (5/10) - Took a vessel that went underwater and basically it was a short tour. So-so for me also.
(v) Mermaid Lagoon - Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster (6/10) - a simple ride which I think would be just nice for young kids cos got some excitement and the vehicle is quite cute but for me it was decent. Fun but not adrenaline pumping.
Scuttle's Scooters - (2/10) - Eh, it's nice for kids, cos it's cute, that's all. Other than that, it's like your normal merry-go-round?
Jumping Jellyfish - (4/10) - Basically just go up-and-down. A kiddy ride.
Blowfish Balloon Race - (4/10) - Again another cute ride.
(vi) Lost River Delta - Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull (8/10) - Nice fast-paced ride with a lot of sharp twists and turns as they promised. I like the video just before entering the ride - it's quite cool!
Raging Spirits (10/10) - Rollercoaster which brings you up till you can have a very beautiful view of the entire Disneysea resort before the drop. Hard-core adrenaline junkies will think this is still chicken-feet though cos actually the drop height is not really high but I'm not a HCAJ so this was just nice for me - enough to get my pulses racing. MUST TAKE THIS RIDE!!!
Mystic Rhythms (7/10) - An interesting performance which was kinda like Stomp? Not too sure but there was a lot of music and dancing to the rhythm (not the jazzy type though as in Big Band Beat) which was supposed to tell a story within a rainforest. The finale smoke effect was way cool!
We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant (Miguel's El Dorado Cantina) which had a live performance called Musica Mexicana (not really v original is it?) by 3 guys who sang some Latin songs and strummed their guitars.
(vii) Arabian Coast - Sindbad's Storybook Voyage (4/10) - Would be much better if you could understand Japanese and if you watched Sindbad before, both of which I don't/didn't.
Caravan Carousel (4/10) - It's a nice building with nice figurines to sit on, but in the end it's still a carousel. Nothing spectacular but nevertheless it was my first time!
We also took some pictures with Disney Characters at various places, such as Cruella (from 101 Dalmatians) at the American Waterfront, Panchito Pistoles (from some old Disney cartoon) at the Lost River Delta, Aladdin and Princess Jasmine (who was very pretty and really look like she was straight out from the cartoon!) at Arabian Coast and Prince Eric and Max the Dog (from The Little Mermaid).
Ok, that more or less wraps up my review of DisneySea. Basically very fun and I enjoyed looking at the map and bringing them around. My only regrets were I lost my ticket after entering, not bringing my extra XD card hence I couldn't finish recording BraviSEAmo and not buying more from the Disney store. Anyway if it's crowded when you're there you know what are the rides to go for!
Day 4 - Had breakfast near our hotel and shopped around the area before we went to Ginza and bought a Burberry Bag as well as tonnes of clothes from Uniqlo!!! Then went to Akihabara for dinner at Yamachan again (very yummy chicken wings!) before walking around and we went into a shop selling really ancient TV game sets (such as Sega Saturn, Super Famicom). Was very tempted to buy but I had too many other things to buy and bring back plus I wanted to check out what games I really want to play and what I could actually download and play on the computer so that I don't end up buying something unnecessary. Went to the Uniqlo there also where my group played the role of fashion consultants and started to get me to wear a variety of clothes to give me a fashion makeover. It was really funny for all of us!
Day 5 - Went to Tsukiji for lunch and met up with my colleague's Japanese friend there. Had a good and very filling meal and for the first time I saw a really big piece of tuna meat which we could scrape ourselves to eat. Then we went to Jiyugaoka and had high tea at St. Christopher's Cafe, which was really pretty ex (as in not really worth it) and for those tai-tai sort of people. Interesting experience though! Somehow I seem to have eaten too much and I was feeling very bloated in the night, so much so that I didn't feel too great and for once the group had to take care of me instead haha.
Day 6 - our final day and we shopped around our hotel before going to Ameyoko Street for some final shopping. Bought 2 pairs of shoes and 2 shirts at pretty cheap prices ($30 for each pair of shoes, $7.50 per shirt) so I was quite pleased with my buys, chosen by my fashion consultants again. Was so tiring lugging our luggage from the hotel to the train station!
The flight back was very entertaining - not least because we saw Angeline again! The group like went crazy and they were sooo excited to see her cos it was sooo coincidental having been on the same flight to and from Japan. I watched "Gran Turino" and "Dostana" on the plane and both were quite nice, esp the "Dostana" which was actually a Hindi comedy about 2 guys pretending to be gays (one of them won the Best Actor award) but it was really funny!
Overall view - an excellent shopping trip with 2 new pairs of shoes, 15 pieces of clothing and a very memorable trip to DisneySea. Enjoyed all the moments spent together, our chit-chat at the hotel's rooftop and calling of names. Quite hilarious at times. Kinda miss the times already haha. Ok, time to sleep!
Day 1 - Reached early at the airport (with my new haircut the day before) and had breakfast at Mac's before boarding the plane, which was exceptionally empty to my surprise. There were hardly anybody and we were free to move to other seats, and so I eventually shifted myself to a window seat, which was nice!
Anyway, the flight was pretty non-eventful though we met a really pretty and friendly airstewardess (apparently her name was Angeline) who spoke to us and helped us to take photos. Asked her for some help regarding the transport in Japan and she helped us to ask a Japanese airstewardess for info - good service! After we got off the plane, the group kept talking about her and made fun of me and the seat belt story that was made up was very amusing.
After alighting we had to fill in some forms due to the H1N1 virus before taking the Skyliner (tip: buy the Skyliner ticket and 2-day Metro pass package!) to Ueno again. Dinner at the yakiniku place again though this time it didn't seem as nice as the last time, think cos of the cooking and maybe the weather - somebody said that when the weather is very cold (as it was last March) the food tastes better though I'm not sure how much truth there is to that!
Then we headed to Tawaramachi towards our hotel - Toukaisou Hotel - a simple place but quite comfy and pretty cheap also (considering that accommodation in Japan is generally pretty expensive). The room is small but that's fine since you don't spend much time in there anyway - recommended if you're on a tight budget!
Day 2 - Walked to the popular Sensoji temple in Asakusa which I visited last year and it was so empty maybe cos it was still early. Went to Harajuku and spent a bit more time along the shopping street this time. Had crepes at this shop called Angel's Heart and it was nice! Then walked towards Shibuya before finally heading back and having ramen for dinner at a cosy place run by a friendly old man.
Day 3 - Went to DisneySea and it was definitely the most enjoyable day of the trip! Haven't had sooooo much fun for a really long time and I think the last time I entered a theme park like that was in 1995 when I went to Brisbane, Australia. Took a lot of pictures and videos and there were relatively few people there. Many people had told me beforehand that they can only take about 3-4 rides there cos they have to queue for hours but we barely had to wait for most of the rides so we managed to go on almost all of them and even managed to catch some other shows! The longest wait was only 10 min and for many rides it was just walk-in - cool!
Let me do a review now of the rides/shows that we took/watched for the benefit of those who plan to go DisneySea next time. I shall go in order of the themed ports (there are 7 in total)
(i) Mediterranean Harbour - BraviSEAmo (10/10) - the grand finale of the night (at 8.05pm) where there's a performance at the harbour complete with dazzling water and fire display and fireworks! Must watch!
(ii) American Waterfront - Tower of Terror (10/10) - Our first ride and we went in with completely no expectations. In fact somebody even said her friends said it was nothing much so we didn't think anything of it. The introduction was in Japanese also, so we didn't really understand what was going on though the image disappearing was impressive and surprised us. But the most surprising was the elevator ride itself. It SERIOUSLY caught us by surprise. I don't want to have any spoilers here - all I will say is, "MUST GO ON THIS RIDE!!!" (but not for very young kids) Anyway it was quite funny cos I was laughing away during the ride though my heart was beating very fast. Think it's just my way of laughing off the fear instead of just screaming (though I did scream on another ride hahaha)
DisneySea Electric Railway (8/10) - A nice ride to get to Port Discovery (another themed port) with a good view as well as saving some walking if you're tired!
DisneySea Transit Steamer Line (8/10) - We took it during the evening and the view was good! The route only took us to the Lost River Delta (another themed port) and we wanted to continue taking it to Mediterranean Harbour but sad to say we had to get off the steamer...
Big Band Beat (10/10) - Very slick performance with a very solid mini-band (really enjoyed listening and watching them move and swing their instruments around - excellent showmanship!), as well as singing and dancing which were very well choreographed (also includes Disney characters such as Mickey, Minnie and Donald). During the finale, Mickey was even playing the drums - how cool is that! Thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm glad we managed to rush back to catch the last performance of the day cos I chased them to walk quickly to the Electric Railway to catch the train then run into the performance theatre. But our efforts were worth it! Again, MUST WATCH!!!
(iii) Port Discovery - Aquatopia (7/10) - A relaxing ride and what fascinated me most was the automated system because on first sight I thought it looked like some peddle-boat kinda thing but all the boats are actually controlled by the computer and they move on fixed tracks (which you can see if you look down carefully enough) and at certain spots you'll be spinned around. Quite interesting!
StormRider (5/10) - Expectations were high after Tower of Terror and the queue was relatively long from what we saw so we expected more but it was just a simulator. The graphics and in-house stuff (e.g. spraying of water) was nice but overall it was just so-so for me.
(iv) Mysterious Island - 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (5/10) - Took a vessel that went underwater and basically it was a short tour. So-so for me also.
(v) Mermaid Lagoon - Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster (6/10) - a simple ride which I think would be just nice for young kids cos got some excitement and the vehicle is quite cute but for me it was decent. Fun but not adrenaline pumping.
Scuttle's Scooters - (2/10) - Eh, it's nice for kids, cos it's cute, that's all. Other than that, it's like your normal merry-go-round?
Jumping Jellyfish - (4/10) - Basically just go up-and-down. A kiddy ride.
Blowfish Balloon Race - (4/10) - Again another cute ride.
(vi) Lost River Delta - Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull (8/10) - Nice fast-paced ride with a lot of sharp twists and turns as they promised. I like the video just before entering the ride - it's quite cool!
Raging Spirits (10/10) - Rollercoaster which brings you up till you can have a very beautiful view of the entire Disneysea resort before the drop. Hard-core adrenaline junkies will think this is still chicken-feet though cos actually the drop height is not really high but I'm not a HCAJ so this was just nice for me - enough to get my pulses racing. MUST TAKE THIS RIDE!!!
Mystic Rhythms (7/10) - An interesting performance which was kinda like Stomp? Not too sure but there was a lot of music and dancing to the rhythm (not the jazzy type though as in Big Band Beat) which was supposed to tell a story within a rainforest. The finale smoke effect was way cool!
We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant (Miguel's El Dorado Cantina) which had a live performance called Musica Mexicana (not really v original is it?) by 3 guys who sang some Latin songs and strummed their guitars.
(vii) Arabian Coast - Sindbad's Storybook Voyage (4/10) - Would be much better if you could understand Japanese and if you watched Sindbad before, both of which I don't/didn't.
Caravan Carousel (4/10) - It's a nice building with nice figurines to sit on, but in the end it's still a carousel. Nothing spectacular but nevertheless it was my first time!
We also took some pictures with Disney Characters at various places, such as Cruella (from 101 Dalmatians) at the American Waterfront, Panchito Pistoles (from some old Disney cartoon) at the Lost River Delta, Aladdin and Princess Jasmine (who was very pretty and really look like she was straight out from the cartoon!) at Arabian Coast and Prince Eric and Max the Dog (from The Little Mermaid).
Ok, that more or less wraps up my review of DisneySea. Basically very fun and I enjoyed looking at the map and bringing them around. My only regrets were I lost my ticket after entering, not bringing my extra XD card hence I couldn't finish recording BraviSEAmo and not buying more from the Disney store. Anyway if it's crowded when you're there you know what are the rides to go for!
Day 4 - Had breakfast near our hotel and shopped around the area before we went to Ginza and bought a Burberry Bag as well as tonnes of clothes from Uniqlo!!! Then went to Akihabara for dinner at Yamachan again (very yummy chicken wings!) before walking around and we went into a shop selling really ancient TV game sets (such as Sega Saturn, Super Famicom). Was very tempted to buy but I had too many other things to buy and bring back plus I wanted to check out what games I really want to play and what I could actually download and play on the computer so that I don't end up buying something unnecessary. Went to the Uniqlo there also where my group played the role of fashion consultants and started to get me to wear a variety of clothes to give me a fashion makeover. It was really funny for all of us!
Day 5 - Went to Tsukiji for lunch and met up with my colleague's Japanese friend there. Had a good and very filling meal and for the first time I saw a really big piece of tuna meat which we could scrape ourselves to eat. Then we went to Jiyugaoka and had high tea at St. Christopher's Cafe, which was really pretty ex (as in not really worth it) and for those tai-tai sort of people. Interesting experience though! Somehow I seem to have eaten too much and I was feeling very bloated in the night, so much so that I didn't feel too great and for once the group had to take care of me instead haha.
Day 6 - our final day and we shopped around our hotel before going to Ameyoko Street for some final shopping. Bought 2 pairs of shoes and 2 shirts at pretty cheap prices ($30 for each pair of shoes, $7.50 per shirt) so I was quite pleased with my buys, chosen by my fashion consultants again. Was so tiring lugging our luggage from the hotel to the train station!
The flight back was very entertaining - not least because we saw Angeline again! The group like went crazy and they were sooo excited to see her cos it was sooo coincidental having been on the same flight to and from Japan. I watched "Gran Turino" and "Dostana" on the plane and both were quite nice, esp the "Dostana" which was actually a Hindi comedy about 2 guys pretending to be gays (one of them won the Best Actor award) but it was really funny!
Overall view - an excellent shopping trip with 2 new pairs of shoes, 15 pieces of clothing and a very memorable trip to DisneySea. Enjoyed all the moments spent together, our chit-chat at the hotel's rooftop and calling of names. Quite hilarious at times. Kinda miss the times already haha. Ok, time to sleep!
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Almost the holidays!
Finally updating after a VERY VERY long break. So many things I think I shall go through them starting from the more recent events
(1) Karaoke on 4th Jun – More or less the usual gang and it was pretty cheap to me (about $12 with free flow of drinks for 5 hours) and towards the last hour it was quite crazy cos we starting singing a lot of retro songs with dancing, swaying of hands, using make-shift mikes (such as an umbrella) cos everyone wanted to sing and taking a lot of extremely funny pictures and videos of the performances. A good thing that the staff didn’t walk in or else they’ll think we’re crazy hahaha.
(2) “Unpacked” on 3rd Jun – Went down to the National Library to support my army friend’s exhibition cos he’s finishing his studies in Industrial Design and his faculty had a 4-day exhibition showing the works of the final year students as well as some of the juniors. It was interesting to see the various products and apparently they even designed abstract things such as experiences (e.g. during gaming, learning music, etc.) rather than just concrete things such as the actual products (ranging from just about everything such as tea-cup sets, foldable tables, floating stationery – one of my personal favourites cos I found it so fascinating)
(3) Wedding on 28th May – Attended a colleague’s wedding at Amara Hotel and it was a nice event, the highlight for most of us being the cartoon video created that showed the love story of the couple. It was extremely cute and very funny! Very very unique I must say. Point to note (if it ever comes to my turn)
(4) IGC CIP with Park View Primary and Colosseum on 27th May – CIP was quite fun, though not surprising since we did it with them before though we’ll probably shake-up some things to improve the next time come Term 3. The Staff Race was as usual competitive, with everybody wanting to win, strategizing and warming up haha. Anyway our Callisto team won this year and I’ve had the pleasure of running with a good team. There was never any doubt we would win when I knew the lineup and I told our captain we’re going to win it. So finally some form of redemption after the disappointing 2nd place last year which kept playing in my mind (Used to have a t-shirt that says “Second sucks!”).
(5) Soccer Finals between MJC and VJC on 25th May – a heart-breaking loss (3-2) with a late goal. After going 1-0 down and 2-1 up, it was a dramatic finish (and us hitting the post just before the final whistle). Missed the 1st 2 goals because we left TM late after a nice lunch at Crystal Jade and there were some very nicely taken goals in the match including a direct free-kick (apparently we missed another goal from a free kick – both were MJC’s goals). An interesting incident that left many people talking about it (and even discussing online) was when one of the VJC players made an inappropriate gesture towards the MJC students after VJC equalized 2-2. It wasn’t obscene but it certainly was poor sportsmanship and their coach immediately pulled him over to rebuke him and apologized to the MJC teachers.
(6) Wedding on 23rd May – Attended my army buddy’s wedding at Ritz Carlton Hotel and it was pretty posh I must say (6-star hotel) though the service wasn’t really great. My friend commented that he used to work there as a waiter before and it’s common for hotels to employ part-time students for such events due to the lack of manpower. Apparently he even spilled something and knocked somebody’s head when he turned. Quite funny…
Anyway, as my army buddy gave his speech, he started thanking a lot of his past teachers (he’s a teacher also) and it was a pretty long speech (about 15 min I figure…). Also had a live band, which was nice I guess but sometimes unappreciated because a lot of people are talking most of the time. Bumped into Roy (not the Lau) of all people hahaha. Small World!
(7) Marking course from 18th to 20th May – Attended a marking workshop conducted by 2 examiners from Cambridge and it was pretty interesting for everyone to find out some of things and how they marked. Saw some sample marking schemes and scripts and most of the people tried to bombard them with a lot of questions. Good thing was that Teacher’s Network is much closer to my home than MJC so it was a good break I guess haha.
(8) Chemistry Brothers Lunchtime Concert on 23rd Apr – Didn’t have time to prepare and in truth I wish we hadn’t agreed to perform but in the end we manage to spend about an hour the day before to rehearse two songs (“Stand By Me” and “A Better Tomorrow – JC2 Version”).
The first song was because the 3 of us (we included a guest performer) were in the car on the way to our Chemistry CIP last week then we suddenly thought of the song and started singing together in the car acapella and it was pretty fun!
The second song was because I wanted something motivating after the March Block Tests and many people were getting tired in school so I modified my lyrics from 2006 to suit the context. Only managed to finish it the morning itself so again I had to refer to the screen for part of the lyrics during the performance. It was quite funny cos I didn’t have time to do the Powerpoint so I just used Journal and somebody commented that it was like tutorial cos I got somebody to help me reveal the lyrics as I sang and there was miscommunication because it was totally unplanned.
We had another song (on organic chemistry) which I didn’t manage to get musical accompaniment due to technical difficulties so I ended up singing it myself.
Overall it was pretty entertaining I guess and the students seem to have enjoyed it – at least we hope they did! Thanks very much to everyone who came down to support!!! =)
(9) Chemistry CIP on 17th Apr – Our first department CIP and we went to the All-Saints Home in Tampines. Very interesting and good bonding experience for all of us and gave us some food for thought about future preparation also because there were certain issues like the games that were prepared not being feasible because of the physical disabilities which we had underestimated. The singing session was extremely funny at least when I performed with a friend cos we were both pretty dramatic and I had some cheesy actions also as we sang some retro hits such as Yu Tian’s “Rong Shu Xia” and Liu Wen Zheng’s “San Yue Li De Xiao Yu”. =P
Went to Tampines One’s Say Cheese after and our conclusion was that it cannot make it. Some predicted it to close within 3 months because of the poor service (they were slow to serve and forgot some things here and there) and also the pricing and quality of the food wasn’t really worth it.
Ok, that’s it for now. Back to work! Will try to update on school the last few months before I fly off on Tuesday morning. =)
(1) Karaoke on 4th Jun – More or less the usual gang and it was pretty cheap to me (about $12 with free flow of drinks for 5 hours) and towards the last hour it was quite crazy cos we starting singing a lot of retro songs with dancing, swaying of hands, using make-shift mikes (such as an umbrella) cos everyone wanted to sing and taking a lot of extremely funny pictures and videos of the performances. A good thing that the staff didn’t walk in or else they’ll think we’re crazy hahaha.
(2) “Unpacked” on 3rd Jun – Went down to the National Library to support my army friend’s exhibition cos he’s finishing his studies in Industrial Design and his faculty had a 4-day exhibition showing the works of the final year students as well as some of the juniors. It was interesting to see the various products and apparently they even designed abstract things such as experiences (e.g. during gaming, learning music, etc.) rather than just concrete things such as the actual products (ranging from just about everything such as tea-cup sets, foldable tables, floating stationery – one of my personal favourites cos I found it so fascinating)
(3) Wedding on 28th May – Attended a colleague’s wedding at Amara Hotel and it was a nice event, the highlight for most of us being the cartoon video created that showed the love story of the couple. It was extremely cute and very funny! Very very unique I must say. Point to note (if it ever comes to my turn)
(4) IGC CIP with Park View Primary and Colosseum on 27th May – CIP was quite fun, though not surprising since we did it with them before though we’ll probably shake-up some things to improve the next time come Term 3. The Staff Race was as usual competitive, with everybody wanting to win, strategizing and warming up haha. Anyway our Callisto team won this year and I’ve had the pleasure of running with a good team. There was never any doubt we would win when I knew the lineup and I told our captain we’re going to win it. So finally some form of redemption after the disappointing 2nd place last year which kept playing in my mind (Used to have a t-shirt that says “Second sucks!”).
(5) Soccer Finals between MJC and VJC on 25th May – a heart-breaking loss (3-2) with a late goal. After going 1-0 down and 2-1 up, it was a dramatic finish (and us hitting the post just before the final whistle). Missed the 1st 2 goals because we left TM late after a nice lunch at Crystal Jade and there were some very nicely taken goals in the match including a direct free-kick (apparently we missed another goal from a free kick – both were MJC’s goals). An interesting incident that left many people talking about it (and even discussing online) was when one of the VJC players made an inappropriate gesture towards the MJC students after VJC equalized 2-2. It wasn’t obscene but it certainly was poor sportsmanship and their coach immediately pulled him over to rebuke him and apologized to the MJC teachers.
(6) Wedding on 23rd May – Attended my army buddy’s wedding at Ritz Carlton Hotel and it was pretty posh I must say (6-star hotel) though the service wasn’t really great. My friend commented that he used to work there as a waiter before and it’s common for hotels to employ part-time students for such events due to the lack of manpower. Apparently he even spilled something and knocked somebody’s head when he turned. Quite funny…
Anyway, as my army buddy gave his speech, he started thanking a lot of his past teachers (he’s a teacher also) and it was a pretty long speech (about 15 min I figure…). Also had a live band, which was nice I guess but sometimes unappreciated because a lot of people are talking most of the time. Bumped into Roy (not the Lau) of all people hahaha. Small World!
(7) Marking course from 18th to 20th May – Attended a marking workshop conducted by 2 examiners from Cambridge and it was pretty interesting for everyone to find out some of things and how they marked. Saw some sample marking schemes and scripts and most of the people tried to bombard them with a lot of questions. Good thing was that Teacher’s Network is much closer to my home than MJC so it was a good break I guess haha.
(8) Chemistry Brothers Lunchtime Concert on 23rd Apr – Didn’t have time to prepare and in truth I wish we hadn’t agreed to perform but in the end we manage to spend about an hour the day before to rehearse two songs (“Stand By Me” and “A Better Tomorrow – JC2 Version”).
The first song was because the 3 of us (we included a guest performer) were in the car on the way to our Chemistry CIP last week then we suddenly thought of the song and started singing together in the car acapella and it was pretty fun!
The second song was because I wanted something motivating after the March Block Tests and many people were getting tired in school so I modified my lyrics from 2006 to suit the context. Only managed to finish it the morning itself so again I had to refer to the screen for part of the lyrics during the performance. It was quite funny cos I didn’t have time to do the Powerpoint so I just used Journal and somebody commented that it was like tutorial cos I got somebody to help me reveal the lyrics as I sang and there was miscommunication because it was totally unplanned.
We had another song (on organic chemistry) which I didn’t manage to get musical accompaniment due to technical difficulties so I ended up singing it myself.
Overall it was pretty entertaining I guess and the students seem to have enjoyed it – at least we hope they did! Thanks very much to everyone who came down to support!!! =)
(9) Chemistry CIP on 17th Apr – Our first department CIP and we went to the All-Saints Home in Tampines. Very interesting and good bonding experience for all of us and gave us some food for thought about future preparation also because there were certain issues like the games that were prepared not being feasible because of the physical disabilities which we had underestimated. The singing session was extremely funny at least when I performed with a friend cos we were both pretty dramatic and I had some cheesy actions also as we sang some retro hits such as Yu Tian’s “Rong Shu Xia” and Liu Wen Zheng’s “San Yue Li De Xiao Yu”. =P
Went to Tampines One’s Say Cheese after and our conclusion was that it cannot make it. Some predicted it to close within 3 months because of the poor service (they were slow to serve and forgot some things here and there) and also the pricing and quality of the food wasn’t really worth it.
Ok, that’s it for now. Back to work! Will try to update on school the last few months before I fly off on Tuesday morning. =)
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Sad life.
I have many things to say, yet I can't find the time to say them.
Life has become such a pain, yet I still have to persevere, if not for myself, then for others.
I'm tired of this kind of life I'm living, guess it's time for me to move on.
But for now I have to carry on and try to remain strong.
How poetic of me. Updates when I can find time.
Chemistry Brothers concert during JC2 lunchtime this Thu (23rd Apr) at 2pm. Come down and support us! =)
Life has become such a pain, yet I still have to persevere, if not for myself, then for others.
I'm tired of this kind of life I'm living, guess it's time for me to move on.
But for now I have to carry on and try to remain strong.
How poetic of me. Updates when I can find time.
Chemistry Brothers concert during JC2 lunchtime this Thu (23rd Apr) at 2pm. Come down and support us! =)
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Term 2 Weeks 1 and 2
Very drained in recent weeks so I'm looking forward to the shorter week this week, which hopefully I can get more rest.
Week 1 - March Block Tests
Mon - Settled last minute admin matters such as invigilation schedule for Tue's exam then realised there was one typo that was unchanged in the MCQ paper and in the end I got some of our team to help out in the exam store to manually change the error cos it was easier than to print an errata page and slipping it with the MCQ paper on the day itself.
It was super funny cos some of them joked that they got tricked into helping out. Anyway we assigned one "flipper" to flip the pages to the correct one so that we could just focus on changing the error. Then there was only one chair in the room so we were joking who should take the seat. I said the flipper shouldn't take it cos he's only flipping , which is not taxing whereas we need to sit so that we could write more quickly then the flipper said it is taxing and he still needs to bend to flip the papers. Somebody commented that we were having fun during painful times ("ku zhong zuo le") haha.
Towards the end, there was this moment where I had about 3 more scripts left then the flipper asked if there was any more scripts to flip and I said I had 3 and he joked, "3 only? You can flip them yourself!" And I said something like, "Aiyah, help lah, I'm harnessing the power of the team!" And he joked, "You're like squeezing every drop out of us!" All of us were laughing a lot. Anyway, we have good team dynamics so we all know we're just joking with each other. =)
Went down to Parkway Parade in the evening cos I decided it was time to get a haircut and if I didn't go today then I would not be able to find time this term, which looks like the case at the moment.
Tue - Chem MBT and as the students walked into the hall, some of them complained to me about the glaring sunlight and I joked, "Like that then can free radical sub mah!" Anyway, I never understood why students are still reading as they enter the exam venue. It will usually only stress you out and it's unlikely that the little bit that you read will come out. By exam time it should be the consolidation stage as you recall what you learnt, keep yourself fresh and get mentally prepared for the paper.
Quite funny at the end of the exam when I carried all the section A answers, which was a huge pile, cos I didn't want to make another trip then chionged my way out of the centre of the hall, much to the amusement of the students, esp those from my classes who were sitting in the middle rows.
Had a quick lunch with the team then it was 5 hours of intensive marking session from 12.15pm onwards followed by scanning of MCQ answers...
Thu - Corrections session and I was only afforded a little bit of time at the end to go through a few parts of a question and I chided LT4, esp. the students who haven't really seem to tried hard enough to understand the concepts and remember the common mistakes to avoid (e.g. phenols don't react with carboxylic acids) cos when I mark the mechanisms I came across a lot of basic mistakes which showed they didn't understand anything (e.g. producing electrophile NO2-, don't know when there's a dipole or charge, arrows pointing from e- poor to e- rich regions, don't know where the arrow starts from or ends at) then I told them the Robin Hood analogy I told my classes when I teach and they laughed and I got them to promise me that they will never make the mistake of drawing the arrows wrongly. Hopefully they stick to their promise...
Fri - Some of us ordered Mac's for lunch and there was a super funny moment cos 2 of the team was at the H1 lecture corrections so we called X and told X to ask Y (at a convenient time) whether Y wanted to have Mac's or not. It turned out that while waiting for the students to write down the corrections, X approached Y to point out a typo in the answers, then after Y told the students about it, X wanted to carry on to ask about the ordering of food but Y had the microphone in between them so X covered the microphone and asked Y with a serious face, "Eh, you want to order Mac's or not?" LOLOL. Super funny and I can imagine the scene... =P
Sat - SRP again and while waiting for it to finish I was marking some of the scripts cos I was too busy with various admin matters during the week (e.g. doing the corrections slides) to finish earlier. In fact I had only marked about half the cohort up to that point of time! Anyway, the tutors said I looked better after I got my hair cut and suggested to style my hair, which I did in the staff room, much to their laughter when they saw me after the 2nd session.
Took a break from work when I went out with the SRP tutors to Changi Airport for lunch at Popeye's! My first time eating there and the food was pretty good. I liked the chicken and mash potato! Somehow they talked about forming a band and they even came up with various possible band names beforehand, such as "SRP" (how original is that? LOL), "The Attitude Trios" (LOLOL again), and Y & H (supposed to stand for Young & Hip). Then they asked, "Mr Lau, you want to join our band?" Hahaha, super funny question. Anyway, I said maybe and then we could form the SRP Quartet, which led me to think of another possible name for the band - "SRPQ"! Super crappy man.
Anyway, after lunch we went for a short walk around the airport to look at the planes taking off and took the skytrain from T1 to T3 to walk about the new terminal and one of them asked if I wanted to join them on a Taiwan trip in June, which I agreed, so long as it doesn't clash with anything else, such as the originally planned trip to Hong Kong with my colleagues. Somebody said we could take the pics for our band album there, hahahaha.
Went back to school after the lunch break to mark again and carried about 10 classes worth of scripts home, thankfully with the help of a colleague who drove and stays near Boon Keng so I got a lift. Had dinner, rested a while and I conked out at 11pm, and woke up at almost 10am the next day before spending practically the whole of Sun marking the MBT papers.
Week 2
MBT results for myself were disappointing and I expected much more, esp. after all that I've given last term. There were a mix of mainly negative emotions apart from disappointment, such as worry (for those who seem to have tried but still can't achieve decent enough results yet), anger (for those who obviously have not studied hard enough cos I know they can do much better), and stress.
SPA lessons were very tiring cos it was the first session so going through all the criterion, tables, etc. took me about an hour plus. Here and there there were some funny moments such as the students laughing at my drawing of boiling tubes and delivery tube and some toilet jokes about the observations (pungent gas evolved). =p
Wed - April's Fools Day and I didn't have any lessons so nobody really had a chance to play jokes on me. But anyway it was a very bad day for me on a personal note cos of 2 occasions when I got chided. Though I was kinda at fault, but I felt a great sense of injustice regarding how the blame got to me. But ok lah, it's over and kinda cleared things up so I shall just try and forget about it.
Kinda flared up during my CCA cos the kids were so laidback even though I was trying to get them started on things and I scolded them, esp. the EXCO who should have more initiative in helping me out.
Fri - Had our celebratory dinner for the Science Dept at Eatzi at Eastpoint Mall and it was quite nice!
Sat - First half of SRP ended and I got the students to do some surveys and the tutors were super funny cos I told the students that they could comment on their tutors if they wished to so some of the survey slips had nice comments then they were guessing which of them were referring to which tutors. Had lunch with the tutors at White Sand's Lerk Thai and the food was ok lah but the illustrations were really deceiving cos the portions were smaller than they looked, though it was still filling for me...
Sun - Yet another weekend seems to have passed too quickly for me and I think it's v bad for my health cos my sleeping hours are v irregular and I feel tired practically everyday. Hope things get better soon... Back to work!
Week 1 - March Block Tests
Mon - Settled last minute admin matters such as invigilation schedule for Tue's exam then realised there was one typo that was unchanged in the MCQ paper and in the end I got some of our team to help out in the exam store to manually change the error cos it was easier than to print an errata page and slipping it with the MCQ paper on the day itself.
It was super funny cos some of them joked that they got tricked into helping out. Anyway we assigned one "flipper" to flip the pages to the correct one so that we could just focus on changing the error. Then there was only one chair in the room so we were joking who should take the seat. I said the flipper shouldn't take it cos he's only flipping , which is not taxing whereas we need to sit so that we could write more quickly then the flipper said it is taxing and he still needs to bend to flip the papers. Somebody commented that we were having fun during painful times ("ku zhong zuo le") haha.
Towards the end, there was this moment where I had about 3 more scripts left then the flipper asked if there was any more scripts to flip and I said I had 3 and he joked, "3 only? You can flip them yourself!" And I said something like, "Aiyah, help lah, I'm harnessing the power of the team!" And he joked, "You're like squeezing every drop out of us!" All of us were laughing a lot. Anyway, we have good team dynamics so we all know we're just joking with each other. =)
Went down to Parkway Parade in the evening cos I decided it was time to get a haircut and if I didn't go today then I would not be able to find time this term, which looks like the case at the moment.
Tue - Chem MBT and as the students walked into the hall, some of them complained to me about the glaring sunlight and I joked, "Like that then can free radical sub mah!" Anyway, I never understood why students are still reading as they enter the exam venue. It will usually only stress you out and it's unlikely that the little bit that you read will come out. By exam time it should be the consolidation stage as you recall what you learnt, keep yourself fresh and get mentally prepared for the paper.
Quite funny at the end of the exam when I carried all the section A answers, which was a huge pile, cos I didn't want to make another trip then chionged my way out of the centre of the hall, much to the amusement of the students, esp those from my classes who were sitting in the middle rows.
Had a quick lunch with the team then it was 5 hours of intensive marking session from 12.15pm onwards followed by scanning of MCQ answers...
Thu - Corrections session and I was only afforded a little bit of time at the end to go through a few parts of a question and I chided LT4, esp. the students who haven't really seem to tried hard enough to understand the concepts and remember the common mistakes to avoid (e.g. phenols don't react with carboxylic acids) cos when I mark the mechanisms I came across a lot of basic mistakes which showed they didn't understand anything (e.g. producing electrophile NO2-, don't know when there's a dipole or charge, arrows pointing from e- poor to e- rich regions, don't know where the arrow starts from or ends at) then I told them the Robin Hood analogy I told my classes when I teach and they laughed and I got them to promise me that they will never make the mistake of drawing the arrows wrongly. Hopefully they stick to their promise...
Fri - Some of us ordered Mac's for lunch and there was a super funny moment cos 2 of the team was at the H1 lecture corrections so we called X and told X to ask Y (at a convenient time) whether Y wanted to have Mac's or not. It turned out that while waiting for the students to write down the corrections, X approached Y to point out a typo in the answers, then after Y told the students about it, X wanted to carry on to ask about the ordering of food but Y had the microphone in between them so X covered the microphone and asked Y with a serious face, "Eh, you want to order Mac's or not?" LOLOL. Super funny and I can imagine the scene... =P
Sat - SRP again and while waiting for it to finish I was marking some of the scripts cos I was too busy with various admin matters during the week (e.g. doing the corrections slides) to finish earlier. In fact I had only marked about half the cohort up to that point of time! Anyway, the tutors said I looked better after I got my hair cut and suggested to style my hair, which I did in the staff room, much to their laughter when they saw me after the 2nd session.
Took a break from work when I went out with the SRP tutors to Changi Airport for lunch at Popeye's! My first time eating there and the food was pretty good. I liked the chicken and mash potato! Somehow they talked about forming a band and they even came up with various possible band names beforehand, such as "SRP" (how original is that? LOL), "The Attitude Trios" (LOLOL again), and Y & H (supposed to stand for Young & Hip). Then they asked, "Mr Lau, you want to join our band?" Hahaha, super funny question. Anyway, I said maybe and then we could form the SRP Quartet, which led me to think of another possible name for the band - "SRPQ"! Super crappy man.
Anyway, after lunch we went for a short walk around the airport to look at the planes taking off and took the skytrain from T1 to T3 to walk about the new terminal and one of them asked if I wanted to join them on a Taiwan trip in June, which I agreed, so long as it doesn't clash with anything else, such as the originally planned trip to Hong Kong with my colleagues. Somebody said we could take the pics for our band album there, hahahaha.
Went back to school after the lunch break to mark again and carried about 10 classes worth of scripts home, thankfully with the help of a colleague who drove and stays near Boon Keng so I got a lift. Had dinner, rested a while and I conked out at 11pm, and woke up at almost 10am the next day before spending practically the whole of Sun marking the MBT papers.
Week 2
MBT results for myself were disappointing and I expected much more, esp. after all that I've given last term. There were a mix of mainly negative emotions apart from disappointment, such as worry (for those who seem to have tried but still can't achieve decent enough results yet), anger (for those who obviously have not studied hard enough cos I know they can do much better), and stress.
SPA lessons were very tiring cos it was the first session so going through all the criterion, tables, etc. took me about an hour plus. Here and there there were some funny moments such as the students laughing at my drawing of boiling tubes and delivery tube and some toilet jokes about the observations (pungent gas evolved). =p
Wed - April's Fools Day and I didn't have any lessons so nobody really had a chance to play jokes on me. But anyway it was a very bad day for me on a personal note cos of 2 occasions when I got chided. Though I was kinda at fault, but I felt a great sense of injustice regarding how the blame got to me. But ok lah, it's over and kinda cleared things up so I shall just try and forget about it.
Kinda flared up during my CCA cos the kids were so laidback even though I was trying to get them started on things and I scolded them, esp. the EXCO who should have more initiative in helping me out.
Fri - Had our celebratory dinner for the Science Dept at Eatzi at Eastpoint Mall and it was quite nice!
Sat - First half of SRP ended and I got the students to do some surveys and the tutors were super funny cos I told the students that they could comment on their tutors if they wished to so some of the survey slips had nice comments then they were guessing which of them were referring to which tutors. Had lunch with the tutors at White Sand's Lerk Thai and the food was ok lah but the illustrations were really deceiving cos the portions were smaller than they looked, though it was still filling for me...
Sun - Yet another weekend seems to have passed too quickly for me and I think it's v bad for my health cos my sleeping hours are v irregular and I feel tired practically everyday. Hope things get better soon... Back to work!
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Term 1 Weeks 8-9, March “Holidays”
Delayed my post quite a bit cos I’ve been too tired – people might think I should have more time given that it’s the March holidays but in truth it really hasn’t been a relaxing time also.
Forgot to mention in my last post about a funny incident (at least for those who were around) during a meal in school when somebody commented that Citibank shares dropped below $1 and I said something like, “Does that mean that I don’t have to pay my credit card bills to Citibank?” Then someone said, “Ah, are you one of the growing number of people reported in the papers who are above 30 and don’t pay their credit card bills on time?” Then I said, “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not. I’m under 30.” =P
Week 8 Wed – Forgot to mention about my salsa dancing lesson in the morning. It was much, much better than the previous week! Kinda surprising cos I actually didn’t manage to find time to practice though I did run through the steps in my mind sometimes as I was commuting between home and school. But it did help cos I could remember the sequence so it was much smoother and my movements were also not as robotic as the previous session haha. Not too sure if I will continue to learn this in the future but at least I think I know enough to do some self-learning next time… =)
Thu – Helped to do relief for 08S112 and it was quite a chop-chop affair and quite a funny lesson. They were pretty enthusiastic especially after I laid out my plans for the lesson cos I told them if they can answer all my questions fast enough I could let them off earlier (their lesson was supposed to be from 3.25 to 5pm). I could empathize with them cos it’s very tiring to stay in school for lessons all the way till 5pm every week. Nevertheless, I didn’t rush through and they were quite prompt when I asked each one a question. For my final question I told them it was the grand finale and they started to cheer when we completed the task on hand.
Fri – Release of A Level results and it was my first time being at the forefront cos I’m in the Exam Committee and I was in charge of preparing the slides for my principal so I was in the room waiting for the data to come in so that I could collate the relevant information.
Anyway it was quite fun and exciting to get first-hand info and my duty was fairly relaxing lah I would say – took me about 2 to 3 hours to finish. Was also interesting to see all the data and see which subjects did well and who the top students were. Another interesting thing was how to package the presentation to accentuate the good points to make the results look even better. If I’m still doing this next year I think it’ll be pretty nervous for me as I wonder how my students would do and also worry about those who didn’t do well.
During the staff meeting, my principal asked me to make some changes for the slides and after that quite a few of my colleagues came to ka jiao me and ask me if the slides have been changed cos before that they didn’t realize I’m the one doing the slides.
Anyway, during the actual release of the results in the hall apparently it was quite funny for all the JC2s seated in the LTs watching the live telecast of the event cos some of my students commented that I looked very funny walking up and down in the hall while waiting for the event to start and that my expression looked very serious and glum as the top students (those with distinctions in 3H2 and 4H2 subjects) were being called up to get their results slip from the principal. Hmmm, maybe I was just too focused on the task of passing the results slip to the principal while clicking on the slides so that’s why. But I was clapping pretty enthusiastically for some of those whom I knew that were collecting their results!
After that, went for dinner at Lavender Food Court with some of my colleagues, and the wanton mee there recommended by one of them was pretty tasty though not filling. We talked for a few hours about stuff including sharing our thoughts on teaching chemistry at MJC. Quite a fun outing, especially for a foodie like me who loves to eat!
Sat – Wore my bright pink funky monkey t-shirt which drew laughter from some of the students and somebody said it was a gay colour while a few said that I looked cute hahahaha. Anyway, apparently the SRP tutors came across the chemistry brothers’ performance last Teacher’s Day but they said they couldn’t hear clearly from the Youtube video so they asked me to do a live rendition. It so happened that some councilors were preparing their mentees for the upcoming council rallies and one of them had a guitar so I sang as the student played the song.
After that we went to have lunch at the Manhattan Fish Market at White Sands as well as to discuss about next week’s worksheet and talk crap, such as their ambitions and we joked about them wanting to be the face of the police force on Crimewatch! =P
Was very tired when I got home so I took a nap before beginning to do some stuff for my students such as organic chem. summaries and on Sunday.
Week 9 Mon – organic chem. test and the results of the entire cohort is a cause for concern. Could see slight improvements in some of my STF students but at the same time there were other cases of students unable to keep up with the workload and struggled in the test. I don’t know if it’s cos there’s 1 less week during the term due to the new calendar so the students have problems internalizing the content but hopefully they would’ve studied properly by the March Block Test.
Wed – during tutorial with 08S114, I spoke to them about some who may wish to consider switching to H1 chemistry if they were certain they don’t need H2 chemistry in the university (e.g. if they plan to go into Arts and Social Sciences) because some seem to have serious problems coping with 4H2 subjects and on a practical note, I gave them an overview on how the points system into university works because seriously those weak in H2 chem. would most likely do much better in H1 chem. (because it’s much easier and also the quality of competition is weaker) and could spend more time on their other H2 subjects which would benefit them. I also told them about what they didn’t have to learn for H1 chemistry (which is very much less than H2) and I think some were giving serious thoughts. Somebody even joked, “Mr Lau, then what do they do during H1 lessons? COMPASS ah?”
As I was going through the corrections for their test, I commented that a concept in the test was similar to that found in their carboxylic acids tutorial question 10 that was recently covered during lecture and somebody (X) made a comment which started a dialogue that went something like:
X: “Mr Lau, do you like remember every single question in the tutorials?”
Me: “Ya, usually cos I think through thoroughly before teaching.”
X: “You should have been a lawyer lah! That’s where the money is!”
Me: “Haha, why? Because I have a very good memory? Then I can quote all the case studies and other stuff right? But law is like so boring!” (Class laughs)
Me: “Eh why are you all laughing? I love to teach chemistry what, that’s my passion!”
Hahaha, it was an interesting interlude during the tutorial. =)
CCA and we had our guests again. Played “Rattlesnake” again and I managed to squeeze the 10th magnet onto the board – a new record! Haha, I jumped and whooped for joy after that, much to the amusement of the other kids in the room. Good to relieve stress! =)
Sat – SRP and STF and I wore my other funky monkey T-shirt that I bought from the same shop in Malaysia. STF session was quite funny and some of the kids were envious when I said I was going to Plaza Singapura to meet some of my ex-students for lunch cos somebody said that the place is full of high-end food (which I disagreed) and they asked if I was going to Crystal Jade, which I said I might depending on the rest.
Anyway, I went out with Jonathan, who is back on home leave for 2 weeks, and Leon and Samuel and cos I left school late they had lunch already by the time I was there and I ended up eating at LJS first and laughing to myself as I thought about what my students said (though we did go to Crystal Jade for dinner and some catching up as Jonathan shared some unglam photos and stories from Brunei). Went to play Left 4 Dead since there was exactly 4 of us and it was fun! Haven’t found time to play games for so long!
March “Holidays” – the good thing was I didn’t have to wake up as early on most days; the bad thing was I found myself working everyday to some extent and back in school almost everyday to clear up work, meet students for consultations and preparing organic chem. summaries, quizzes, and other practice questions and answers. It’s been very tiring but hopefully the conscientious students who came to find me and others who tried the questions faithfully on their own will find themselves improving soon.
Thursday’s session was very funny. Only 2 students from 08S114 turned up, 0 from 08S201 and about 10 from 08S416 so those from 08S416 said that they are so hardworking that they turned up in comparison to the other classes haha. V. cute bunch of students lah I must admit and I don’t think I can fault them in their efforts though I hope they can really pick up the thinking skills from me and learn to understand and hence remember the content so that they can do reasonably well at the A levels.
Earlier in the morning I bought a chicken burger from the canteen which had the patty held by a hot dog bun type of bread so it looked quite ridiculous with the meat jutting out and my 08S114 students also laughed at it. Somehow I ended up talking to them about the Chinese exams also and they talked about how the invigilators are so irritating and making a lot of noise as they walk and I joked that they should’ve made their feelings known by making a “tsk” sound loudly haha.
During lunch with some of the 08S416 kids, we were laughing at some of the things like which CCA I was in during my secondary and JC days and how somebody reads my blog selectively and misinterpreted what I had said here.
Wed – Had lunch at Vivocity with some of the ex- and current MJC chem. teachers and we went to “The Chicken Rice Shop”, but we didn’t find the food all that great so that’s a thumbs-down for me. The conversation was super funny though as somebody joked about the things that the very senior teachers can get away with and some of us shared our strategies to deal with certain things.
Sat – met up with a bigger group of ex-students this time and had lunch at Ajisen at PS (again), where De Sheng treated us (thanks again!) cos he felt rich after coming back from his NS trip to Thailand and it was quite funny cos apparently he went there to “shoot airplanes on the video screens” and we were thinking the point of going for overseas training is so that they can do something more realistic lol. Anyway, apparently part of our taxpayers’ money is going towards funding some really nonsense stuff in the SAF based on what all of them were saying, which is quite interesting to hear…
After lunch it was time for some intensive LAN gaming at Selegie (again) and it was super funny when we played Left 4 Dead with 2 teams competing against each other cos there were a lot of screaming and cheering. Too bad it’s gonna be quite a few months again I think before we have time for such stuff cos term time is just too packed for me to find time for entertainment activities during my weekends, sad to say.
Ok, time to clear up my work before school resumes tomorrow. All the best to those taking the March Block Test! =)
Forgot to mention in my last post about a funny incident (at least for those who were around) during a meal in school when somebody commented that Citibank shares dropped below $1 and I said something like, “Does that mean that I don’t have to pay my credit card bills to Citibank?” Then someone said, “Ah, are you one of the growing number of people reported in the papers who are above 30 and don’t pay their credit card bills on time?” Then I said, “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not. I’m under 30.” =P
Week 8 Wed – Forgot to mention about my salsa dancing lesson in the morning. It was much, much better than the previous week! Kinda surprising cos I actually didn’t manage to find time to practice though I did run through the steps in my mind sometimes as I was commuting between home and school. But it did help cos I could remember the sequence so it was much smoother and my movements were also not as robotic as the previous session haha. Not too sure if I will continue to learn this in the future but at least I think I know enough to do some self-learning next time… =)
Thu – Helped to do relief for 08S112 and it was quite a chop-chop affair and quite a funny lesson. They were pretty enthusiastic especially after I laid out my plans for the lesson cos I told them if they can answer all my questions fast enough I could let them off earlier (their lesson was supposed to be from 3.25 to 5pm). I could empathize with them cos it’s very tiring to stay in school for lessons all the way till 5pm every week. Nevertheless, I didn’t rush through and they were quite prompt when I asked each one a question. For my final question I told them it was the grand finale and they started to cheer when we completed the task on hand.
Fri – Release of A Level results and it was my first time being at the forefront cos I’m in the Exam Committee and I was in charge of preparing the slides for my principal so I was in the room waiting for the data to come in so that I could collate the relevant information.
Anyway it was quite fun and exciting to get first-hand info and my duty was fairly relaxing lah I would say – took me about 2 to 3 hours to finish. Was also interesting to see all the data and see which subjects did well and who the top students were. Another interesting thing was how to package the presentation to accentuate the good points to make the results look even better. If I’m still doing this next year I think it’ll be pretty nervous for me as I wonder how my students would do and also worry about those who didn’t do well.
During the staff meeting, my principal asked me to make some changes for the slides and after that quite a few of my colleagues came to ka jiao me and ask me if the slides have been changed cos before that they didn’t realize I’m the one doing the slides.
Anyway, during the actual release of the results in the hall apparently it was quite funny for all the JC2s seated in the LTs watching the live telecast of the event cos some of my students commented that I looked very funny walking up and down in the hall while waiting for the event to start and that my expression looked very serious and glum as the top students (those with distinctions in 3H2 and 4H2 subjects) were being called up to get their results slip from the principal. Hmmm, maybe I was just too focused on the task of passing the results slip to the principal while clicking on the slides so that’s why. But I was clapping pretty enthusiastically for some of those whom I knew that were collecting their results!
After that, went for dinner at Lavender Food Court with some of my colleagues, and the wanton mee there recommended by one of them was pretty tasty though not filling. We talked for a few hours about stuff including sharing our thoughts on teaching chemistry at MJC. Quite a fun outing, especially for a foodie like me who loves to eat!
Sat – Wore my bright pink funky monkey t-shirt which drew laughter from some of the students and somebody said it was a gay colour while a few said that I looked cute hahahaha. Anyway, apparently the SRP tutors came across the chemistry brothers’ performance last Teacher’s Day but they said they couldn’t hear clearly from the Youtube video so they asked me to do a live rendition. It so happened that some councilors were preparing their mentees for the upcoming council rallies and one of them had a guitar so I sang as the student played the song.
After that we went to have lunch at the Manhattan Fish Market at White Sands as well as to discuss about next week’s worksheet and talk crap, such as their ambitions and we joked about them wanting to be the face of the police force on Crimewatch! =P
Was very tired when I got home so I took a nap before beginning to do some stuff for my students such as organic chem. summaries and on Sunday.
Week 9 Mon – organic chem. test and the results of the entire cohort is a cause for concern. Could see slight improvements in some of my STF students but at the same time there were other cases of students unable to keep up with the workload and struggled in the test. I don’t know if it’s cos there’s 1 less week during the term due to the new calendar so the students have problems internalizing the content but hopefully they would’ve studied properly by the March Block Test.
Wed – during tutorial with 08S114, I spoke to them about some who may wish to consider switching to H1 chemistry if they were certain they don’t need H2 chemistry in the university (e.g. if they plan to go into Arts and Social Sciences) because some seem to have serious problems coping with 4H2 subjects and on a practical note, I gave them an overview on how the points system into university works because seriously those weak in H2 chem. would most likely do much better in H1 chem. (because it’s much easier and also the quality of competition is weaker) and could spend more time on their other H2 subjects which would benefit them. I also told them about what they didn’t have to learn for H1 chemistry (which is very much less than H2) and I think some were giving serious thoughts. Somebody even joked, “Mr Lau, then what do they do during H1 lessons? COMPASS ah?”
As I was going through the corrections for their test, I commented that a concept in the test was similar to that found in their carboxylic acids tutorial question 10 that was recently covered during lecture and somebody (X) made a comment which started a dialogue that went something like:
X: “Mr Lau, do you like remember every single question in the tutorials?”
Me: “Ya, usually cos I think through thoroughly before teaching.”
X: “You should have been a lawyer lah! That’s where the money is!”
Me: “Haha, why? Because I have a very good memory? Then I can quote all the case studies and other stuff right? But law is like so boring!” (Class laughs)
Me: “Eh why are you all laughing? I love to teach chemistry what, that’s my passion!”
Hahaha, it was an interesting interlude during the tutorial. =)
CCA and we had our guests again. Played “Rattlesnake” again and I managed to squeeze the 10th magnet onto the board – a new record! Haha, I jumped and whooped for joy after that, much to the amusement of the other kids in the room. Good to relieve stress! =)
Sat – SRP and STF and I wore my other funky monkey T-shirt that I bought from the same shop in Malaysia. STF session was quite funny and some of the kids were envious when I said I was going to Plaza Singapura to meet some of my ex-students for lunch cos somebody said that the place is full of high-end food (which I disagreed) and they asked if I was going to Crystal Jade, which I said I might depending on the rest.
Anyway, I went out with Jonathan, who is back on home leave for 2 weeks, and Leon and Samuel and cos I left school late they had lunch already by the time I was there and I ended up eating at LJS first and laughing to myself as I thought about what my students said (though we did go to Crystal Jade for dinner and some catching up as Jonathan shared some unglam photos and stories from Brunei). Went to play Left 4 Dead since there was exactly 4 of us and it was fun! Haven’t found time to play games for so long!
March “Holidays” – the good thing was I didn’t have to wake up as early on most days; the bad thing was I found myself working everyday to some extent and back in school almost everyday to clear up work, meet students for consultations and preparing organic chem. summaries, quizzes, and other practice questions and answers. It’s been very tiring but hopefully the conscientious students who came to find me and others who tried the questions faithfully on their own will find themselves improving soon.
Thursday’s session was very funny. Only 2 students from 08S114 turned up, 0 from 08S201 and about 10 from 08S416 so those from 08S416 said that they are so hardworking that they turned up in comparison to the other classes haha. V. cute bunch of students lah I must admit and I don’t think I can fault them in their efforts though I hope they can really pick up the thinking skills from me and learn to understand and hence remember the content so that they can do reasonably well at the A levels.
Earlier in the morning I bought a chicken burger from the canteen which had the patty held by a hot dog bun type of bread so it looked quite ridiculous with the meat jutting out and my 08S114 students also laughed at it. Somehow I ended up talking to them about the Chinese exams also and they talked about how the invigilators are so irritating and making a lot of noise as they walk and I joked that they should’ve made their feelings known by making a “tsk” sound loudly haha.
During lunch with some of the 08S416 kids, we were laughing at some of the things like which CCA I was in during my secondary and JC days and how somebody reads my blog selectively and misinterpreted what I had said here.
Wed – Had lunch at Vivocity with some of the ex- and current MJC chem. teachers and we went to “The Chicken Rice Shop”, but we didn’t find the food all that great so that’s a thumbs-down for me. The conversation was super funny though as somebody joked about the things that the very senior teachers can get away with and some of us shared our strategies to deal with certain things.
Sat – met up with a bigger group of ex-students this time and had lunch at Ajisen at PS (again), where De Sheng treated us (thanks again!) cos he felt rich after coming back from his NS trip to Thailand and it was quite funny cos apparently he went there to “shoot airplanes on the video screens” and we were thinking the point of going for overseas training is so that they can do something more realistic lol. Anyway, apparently part of our taxpayers’ money is going towards funding some really nonsense stuff in the SAF based on what all of them were saying, which is quite interesting to hear…
After lunch it was time for some intensive LAN gaming at Selegie (again) and it was super funny when we played Left 4 Dead with 2 teams competing against each other cos there were a lot of screaming and cheering. Too bad it’s gonna be quite a few months again I think before we have time for such stuff cos term time is just too packed for me to find time for entertainment activities during my weekends, sad to say.
Ok, time to clear up my work before school resumes tomorrow. All the best to those taking the March Block Test! =)
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Term 1 Weeks 7-8
Just some stuff about Week 6 to update before Weeks 7-8:
(1) The chinese toilets used to be called, for the females, ting1 yu3 xuan1 (roughly translated to "a sheltered place where one can listen to the rain"), and for the males, guan1 pu4 ting2 (roughly translated to "a pavillion where one can see the waterfalls". LOL so classy and poetic right?
(2) On the way back to the staff room, I saw some of my 08S114 students from afar along the corridor who were talking to themselves and laughing then one of them said, "Mr Lau, your pants are unzipped!" I was kinda shocked and looked down and realised they played a joke on me. Didn't expect that cos they are the guai1 type of students - see how trusting I am? LOL. Then one of them went to tell the class about the incident and apparently it was made funnier cos I was still walking very fast (as usual) while checking so the student was demonstrating hahaha.
(3) There was a super lame joke when Lionel said he wanted to pass some papers to Denise and his action was to put the pile of papers on his knees. =P
(4) Helped relief 08S417 and it was quite funny cos I was teaching the start of Hydroxy Compounds tutorial then after explaining some questions at the end of the tutorial someone asked a shockingly basic question and I gave the student a "jaw drop look" and asked, "Are you sure you don't know?" She seemed to realise her mistake after that and the rest were laughing cos apparently my expression was very funny. Also heard this v. lame chem. joke which roughly goes, "Which animal will make you feel like coughing after it coughs?" (answer at the end of this post)
Week 7 (Mon) - Returned the students their test papers which was worrying and I was also very upset during tutorials because a lot of students couldn't remember the basics like reagents, conditions, and type of reactions despite having gone through them before but I told them I would be taking actions to rectify the situation and informed those who would meet me over the next 2 weeks to go through some basic memory work before the next test.
During the little bit of time left during lecture I was explaining about the concept of a stronger base having a weaker conjugate acid and I gave a funny analogy about me being single and available so if I find a partner I wouldn't want to let her go easily so for the case of ethylamine, because the lone pair on the N atom is more available due to the electron-donating ethyl group (I used a pun that the lone pair is sooo lonely and available), after accepting a proton the conjugate acid would be weaker (compared to the conjugate acid of a weaker base) because it would not want to donate the proton (at least not easily).
While having consultation at the canteen after school, one of my students tried to scare me by approaching me from the side but I already saw him from the corner of my eye so I wasn't shocked when he pounced on me and shouted "Cher!" I just calmly suanned him, "That wasn't scary. I think marking your test paper was more scary." =P
Tue - Announced to the LT about the test results and congratulated the top students in LT4. Then during the lecture I proceeded with my roving mike, doing it myself as I bounced around getting people to answer questions. I asked one of the top 10 students a question (what is a test specific to phenols) but surprisingly the student didn't know despite my hint that this is NOT a COMPLEX problem (the answer was using aqueous neutral FeCl3 solution which gives a violet complex) although quite a few others in the LT got my hint. Couldn't remember any particularly funny moment but the lecture was smooth and clear at least in my humble opinion.
Wed - Busy with preparation of my SRP worksheet that I only spent a little bit of time at my CCA and nowadays I've been leaving my EXCO to handle the students because I'm too absorbed in my other work and also to give them more responsibilities.
After CCA I had dinner with 2 of the SRP tutors (both girls) at the White Sands food court to discuss about the SRP worksheet for the coming weekend under the watchful and prying eyes of two groups of students who happened to sit at the tables right beside us haha. I know they will almost certainly gossip about us but there's nothing going on really. =)
Anyway, they were quite funny lah and they asked me to send an sms to this number which turns out to be from the STB. I was very doubtful at first and asked what it is for and they joked that it's to support them for some event then finally I gave in and just sent the SMS and apparently there were offers to get free tickets on weekend of Feb for certain places such as the Zoo and the Singapore Flyer and they suggested that all of us including the other tutor go take the Flyer and cancel the SRP session. So full of nonsense lol. =p
Thu - Stayed back late to discuss about the MBT and bumped into my good friend and ex-IGC mate who came back to school with her kids who I've not seen for months. Had a good chat and later on we were joined by "The Three Musketeers" (my own name that I give to this special trio haha) who were busy playing with the baby boy while I relaxed on the massage chair.
They were v funny and were gossiping about all kinds of stuff like who are their hottest/fav teachers, the fashion style of teachers (that someone looked quite lao2 tu3 with short-sleeved shirts, someone wore weird colours and someone wore creased clothes) and if you believe them, I'm supposed to be involved in some scandal lol. So funny listening to what they had to say.
Fri - Stayed back with my special task force, STF, (my nickname for those who are to stay back with me to do extra work) of about 20 students and I thought it was quite fruitful to get them to buckle down and to some solid studying cos I can explain to them individually when I mark their work on what to take note of and how to remember better certain things so hopefully that will help them lah.
Also helped out my ex-CG 08S114 to carry chairs cos they only had a few girls to help carry 25 chairs from E2-5 to the canteen (only 3 guys in the 1 class and 2 had CCA while one was doing work in my STF) and I carried 10.75 chairs (0.75 cos one of them brought 3 chairs 3/4 of the way hahaha), which was a good workout haha. =)
Sat - SRP + STF and it was again quite enjoyable to sit down with my STF from 08S416 to study with them and also chat about some stuff in life. That's one of the things I enjoy most about teaching, which is helping people to learn things and also interacting with the students. If only there was no admin work, that would be perfect!
Week 8 (Mon) - Tutorials were more enjoyable because at least when I ask questions more people can tell me the correct answers esp those in the STF who remember what they learnt and sometimes I would get quite animated and go "Yeah! That's the way!" with some funny action cos I was happy that they at least remember basic things and didn't waste our efforts and hopefully they can retain what they memorised for a long time.
Somebody in 08S114 asked if they were the supposed STF because I only gave them that nickname when I emailed the classes over the weekend and she was amused by it. Somebody also asked another student, "Why are you in the STF?" and the student replied, "Because I'm special!" Haha, they're all very cute!
Tue - Had STF session with some of the 08S114 kids and it was pretty funny and there was one moment when I dropped my pen and made some funny sounds, much to their amusement haha.
Wed - During 08S114 tutorial some of the STF students were again quite fast at giving the answers and I said something like, "See, the STF people are not bad now!" Then one of them said, "Yeah! Let's have more! When's the next session?" So funny sia...
Spent a little bit more time this week during CCA because I was finally able to spare more time and there were some honorary guests from "The Three Musketeers" this week who livened up the session cos I played Rattlesnake with them and it was super duper funny sia when we suanned each other and there was a fantastic moment when I managed to fit the 8th magnet onto the board! Some of the games were quite tense and very enjoyable. Also played Blokus with them and they were using geography terms to describe their strategy which was super amusing.
Ok, will update the rest of Week 8 later this week due to time constraints but before I leave here's the answer to the v. lame chem. joke - "Horse" Because "ma3 cough ni3 cough" (horse cough you cough) - a pun on the chemist "Markovnikov". =P
(1) The chinese toilets used to be called, for the females, ting1 yu3 xuan1 (roughly translated to "a sheltered place where one can listen to the rain"), and for the males, guan1 pu4 ting2 (roughly translated to "a pavillion where one can see the waterfalls". LOL so classy and poetic right?
(2) On the way back to the staff room, I saw some of my 08S114 students from afar along the corridor who were talking to themselves and laughing then one of them said, "Mr Lau, your pants are unzipped!" I was kinda shocked and looked down and realised they played a joke on me. Didn't expect that cos they are the guai1 type of students - see how trusting I am? LOL. Then one of them went to tell the class about the incident and apparently it was made funnier cos I was still walking very fast (as usual) while checking so the student was demonstrating hahaha.
(3) There was a super lame joke when Lionel said he wanted to pass some papers to Denise and his action was to put the pile of papers on his knees. =P
(4) Helped relief 08S417 and it was quite funny cos I was teaching the start of Hydroxy Compounds tutorial then after explaining some questions at the end of the tutorial someone asked a shockingly basic question and I gave the student a "jaw drop look" and asked, "Are you sure you don't know?" She seemed to realise her mistake after that and the rest were laughing cos apparently my expression was very funny. Also heard this v. lame chem. joke which roughly goes, "Which animal will make you feel like coughing after it coughs?" (answer at the end of this post)
Week 7 (Mon) - Returned the students their test papers which was worrying and I was also very upset during tutorials because a lot of students couldn't remember the basics like reagents, conditions, and type of reactions despite having gone through them before but I told them I would be taking actions to rectify the situation and informed those who would meet me over the next 2 weeks to go through some basic memory work before the next test.
During the little bit of time left during lecture I was explaining about the concept of a stronger base having a weaker conjugate acid and I gave a funny analogy about me being single and available so if I find a partner I wouldn't want to let her go easily so for the case of ethylamine, because the lone pair on the N atom is more available due to the electron-donating ethyl group (I used a pun that the lone pair is sooo lonely and available), after accepting a proton the conjugate acid would be weaker (compared to the conjugate acid of a weaker base) because it would not want to donate the proton (at least not easily).
While having consultation at the canteen after school, one of my students tried to scare me by approaching me from the side but I already saw him from the corner of my eye so I wasn't shocked when he pounced on me and shouted "Cher!" I just calmly suanned him, "That wasn't scary. I think marking your test paper was more scary." =P
Tue - Announced to the LT about the test results and congratulated the top students in LT4. Then during the lecture I proceeded with my roving mike, doing it myself as I bounced around getting people to answer questions. I asked one of the top 10 students a question (what is a test specific to phenols) but surprisingly the student didn't know despite my hint that this is NOT a COMPLEX problem (the answer was using aqueous neutral FeCl3 solution which gives a violet complex) although quite a few others in the LT got my hint. Couldn't remember any particularly funny moment but the lecture was smooth and clear at least in my humble opinion.
Wed - Busy with preparation of my SRP worksheet that I only spent a little bit of time at my CCA and nowadays I've been leaving my EXCO to handle the students because I'm too absorbed in my other work and also to give them more responsibilities.
After CCA I had dinner with 2 of the SRP tutors (both girls) at the White Sands food court to discuss about the SRP worksheet for the coming weekend under the watchful and prying eyes of two groups of students who happened to sit at the tables right beside us haha. I know they will almost certainly gossip about us but there's nothing going on really. =)
Anyway, they were quite funny lah and they asked me to send an sms to this number which turns out to be from the STB. I was very doubtful at first and asked what it is for and they joked that it's to support them for some event then finally I gave in and just sent the SMS and apparently there were offers to get free tickets on weekend of Feb for certain places such as the Zoo and the Singapore Flyer and they suggested that all of us including the other tutor go take the Flyer and cancel the SRP session. So full of nonsense lol. =p
Thu - Stayed back late to discuss about the MBT and bumped into my good friend and ex-IGC mate who came back to school with her kids who I've not seen for months. Had a good chat and later on we were joined by "The Three Musketeers" (my own name that I give to this special trio haha) who were busy playing with the baby boy while I relaxed on the massage chair.
They were v funny and were gossiping about all kinds of stuff like who are their hottest/fav teachers, the fashion style of teachers (that someone looked quite lao2 tu3 with short-sleeved shirts, someone wore weird colours and someone wore creased clothes) and if you believe them, I'm supposed to be involved in some scandal lol. So funny listening to what they had to say.
Fri - Stayed back with my special task force, STF, (my nickname for those who are to stay back with me to do extra work) of about 20 students and I thought it was quite fruitful to get them to buckle down and to some solid studying cos I can explain to them individually when I mark their work on what to take note of and how to remember better certain things so hopefully that will help them lah.
Also helped out my ex-CG 08S114 to carry chairs cos they only had a few girls to help carry 25 chairs from E2-5 to the canteen (only 3 guys in the 1 class and 2 had CCA while one was doing work in my STF) and I carried 10.75 chairs (0.75 cos one of them brought 3 chairs 3/4 of the way hahaha), which was a good workout haha. =)
Sat - SRP + STF and it was again quite enjoyable to sit down with my STF from 08S416 to study with them and also chat about some stuff in life. That's one of the things I enjoy most about teaching, which is helping people to learn things and also interacting with the students. If only there was no admin work, that would be perfect!
Week 8 (Mon) - Tutorials were more enjoyable because at least when I ask questions more people can tell me the correct answers esp those in the STF who remember what they learnt and sometimes I would get quite animated and go "Yeah! That's the way!" with some funny action cos I was happy that they at least remember basic things and didn't waste our efforts and hopefully they can retain what they memorised for a long time.
Somebody in 08S114 asked if they were the supposed STF because I only gave them that nickname when I emailed the classes over the weekend and she was amused by it. Somebody also asked another student, "Why are you in the STF?" and the student replied, "Because I'm special!" Haha, they're all very cute!
Tue - Had STF session with some of the 08S114 kids and it was pretty funny and there was one moment when I dropped my pen and made some funny sounds, much to their amusement haha.
Wed - During 08S114 tutorial some of the STF students were again quite fast at giving the answers and I said something like, "See, the STF people are not bad now!" Then one of them said, "Yeah! Let's have more! When's the next session?" So funny sia...
Spent a little bit more time this week during CCA because I was finally able to spare more time and there were some honorary guests from "The Three Musketeers" this week who livened up the session cos I played Rattlesnake with them and it was super duper funny sia when we suanned each other and there was a fantastic moment when I managed to fit the 8th magnet onto the board! Some of the games were quite tense and very enjoyable. Also played Blokus with them and they were using geography terms to describe their strategy which was super amusing.
Ok, will update the rest of Week 8 later this week due to time constraints but before I leave here's the answer to the v. lame chem. joke - "Horse" Because "ma3 cough ni3 cough" (horse cough you cough) - a pun on the chemist "Markovnikov". =P
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Thoughts on Relationships; Term 1 Week 6 – Hell Week
Have been swamped with work since going back to school after reservist, hence this very late post. Anyway, I didn’t think many people are reading my blog (since I hardly get tagged) so I also wasn’t very motivated to blog until some of my students told me ytd that apparently I have quite a few followers haha so I thought I’d take a break from my work to blog now.
Valentines’ Day (Sat) – Went back to school to oversee the SRP before going back home to do work, so that puts paid to any rumours that I was out dating haha. Kinda sad maybe to some people but I wasn’t feeling down cos right now I don’t feel the need to be involved in a relationship. I guess my life experiences and future plans have made it such that there’s a barrier to me entering a relationship (high Ea haha).
Firstly, a relationship can be very draining in many ways especially emotionally. Even just liking a person without being in a relationship can already be tiring cos you’re thinking of the person constantly and wondering about what’s happening to her. I also don’t like to be judged by my partner and the people around her and feel compelled to do things that I may not be comfortable with. Example – I’m happy with teaching and comfortable with myself and life as it is so I don’t want somebody to pressure me and compare me to others that that I’m not earning enough or I don’t look as good, etc .
Secondly, there are a lot of things that I want to focus on over the next few years – improving on teaching (more chem. songs and games!), learning new things to improve myself (e.g. dancing), creating an online album on Youtube, etc. So I don’t want to be too tied down or pressured to settling down and having kids
Feb 15th - Total Defence Day. Busy marking stuff and preparing for tutorials. Had a nice 6km jog-sprint-stroll in the evening for an hour's worth of workout to burn off some fats!
Feb 16th (Mon) - Chem lecture test so busy marking again with all the SPA stuff, and test. Got so upset marking the test that I couldn't really enjoy my "Just For Laughs Gags", which is one of the funniest shows I've ever seen cos they are just so creative in their gags (I really loved the one where one whole group of actors mimicked the actions of the victims sitting right in front of them and also another one where the group pretended that the victims really disappeared after a magician's "disappearing" trick) but sometimes I wonder - don't the people on streets recognise these people after some time???
Feb 17th (Tue) - straight back to lecture with my chem. bro helping out with my roving mike, this time on Nitrogen Compounds. A couple of funny moments:
(1) Got someone to answer a question and he said "We feel the answer is..." So I joked back something like, "Oh, so nowadays it's a collaborative effort huh?"
(2) Got someone to draw an example of hydrogen bonding and he asked for a doughnut after that (cos I bought him one after he answered a question during Arenes lecture) and I joked back, "Cannot have doughnuts everyday, it's quite fattening you know!"
(3) Was starting on "Preparation of Amines" then I suanned some people, "Ok, let's look at some reactions that produce amines. The good news is we’ve gone through some of these reactions before in lectures and tutorials. The bad news is some of you don’t realize we’ve gone through these reactions before." =p
(4) While going through ammonolysis of halogenoalkanes, I said, "We went through 2 types of reagents/conditions before when I lectured Halogen Derivatives but there's one that's more important." Then I asked a student to tell me what he remembered, and he said "concentrated aqueous NH3". And I replied, "Ok, that's one, but what's the other one? That's the important one!" And after a few others tried unsuccessfully (some also saying conc. aq NH3) finally someone said the correct answer (excess gaseous NH3, heat at high pressure), to which I said, "Yes, finally! That's the important one!" Then somebody in front of me asked, "So what's the other one?" LOL...
(5) Towards the end of the lecture, there was a bit of time left for a question so I asked a girl to answer and I said something like, "Come on, we went through this before. Hurry up man! Oops, girl!"
Feb 18th (Wed) - Went for my elective, which was salsa dancing! I went earlier to see if I could catch up a bit on what I missed out over the 2 weeks but they were teaching too many things so I found it kinda hard to follow. The way the dance tutors teach is like I've learnt the moves before sia, expecting me to move my hands, arms, and hips like them, so I just got them to do it slowly and not follow the rest since I'm not familiar with the routine they are teaching at all and not even learnt the basics yet.
I must say I was pretty stiff in my movements haha and it didn't help that I never learnt salsa in my life before this. I needed to slow down and think through all the steps and internalise but during the 1.5 hours I had quite a lot to learn. It was kinda fun but also frustrating cos there was too much content. Nevertheless I made it a point to write down the routine after that so that I could do my own learning. And as I walked about the office I also tried to practice the basic steps and I think some of the staff were bemused by my actions hahaha.
Someone told me that I was missed during my reservist period and that I'm a good teacher - so sweet right? Haha, it definitely made my day!
During 08S201 tutorial in the lab, my laptop suddenly hung (again, as it often does nowadays) then again the cheeky boys would make some funny comments and asked me to end my lesson earlier since it was nearing the end of the lesson. Then I joked, "What break? It's ok, I don't need the laptop to teach! Everything is up here! (As I said that, I gave them a look and pointed to my brain)" Then I carried on with my lesson haha. Good thing I was at the synthesis question so I just focused on teaching how to devise the synthetic route so there wasn't much that needed to be written.
During CCA, I was talking to the new JC1s about our plans and I had pictures of our 2006/07 Games Convention and at one of the photos somebody asked, "Mr Lau, is that you? You look like a student!" I said, "Ya, you mean I don't look like a student now meh?" Students: "Ya." Me: "Cos I have to teach you all lah, that's why! Anyway, some people still say I look like a student, but not as much as last time lah!" =p
Feb 19th (Thu) - Busy trying to finish up the draft of the Block Test invigilation duties (as part of my duties in the Exam Committee) in the morning then had lecture after that. Wasn't entertaining to me cos the concept (basicity) was more abstract and new so need students to focus more on that. I tend to joke more at the things that are being revised and/or not so conceptually taxing so that students don't get bored. Gotta learn to balance between being serious and funny also for student's benefit!
Feb 20th (Fri) - During SPA with 08S114, I was chionging around the lab to mark their SPA work at a super fast pace, much to their amusement and amazement cos I memorised the answers after marking another class' work. It was Jonathan's birthday and they brought me 2 pieces of cake cos I had a meeting during their recess so I couldn't be there for the celebrations - so sweet of them! Haha, it was a good thing cos I didn't have time for breakfast and the cake was mango flavoured - my fav! =)
Feb 21st (Sat) - MJC Road Race. Wasn't planning to run actually cos lacking sleep recently plus lack of training plus the fact that only the top 5 get extra points for the house plus some of us planned to go out for brunch after that so didn't see a point to run. I even had a late breakfast since I planned to walk but then I saw some students along the way to the starting point who told me to jia you and they seemed disappointed when I told them I didn't plan to run cos I was feeling v. tired so in the end I just ran and at least I never stopped and the pace was pretty ok. On the way back, came across Miranda house and some were encouraging me and joking to tell me to focus, to which I pointed to my brain to signal that I have the mental strength to go all the way though I don't know what they may have interpreted of that haha.
Oh, and there was something super funny in the morning. I was supposed to meet my friends (A and B, both guys) to go there together but I was late so I called one of them (B) to tell them to go off first. Later on when I saw them A told me this funny incident. Apparently, when I called B, A heard the ringtone, which was the phrase "How do I live without you?", to which A gave B a dodgy look. Anyway, it turns out that the song was B's standard ringtone for everyone (and not a customised ringtone), but the story was hilarious. =P
Anyway, back to the race, I was talking to the others about how when I first came to MJC and took part in my first road race, I came in 9th and I told myself I would work towards getting into the top 5 but somehow once I started teaching I never found much time to exercise so instead I find myself slipping in recent years. Then my chem. bro suggested we go train together then next year we'll be amongst those going onto the stage instead. Haha, it was a good suggestion actually and I was quite excited about the idea but last week I was too busy and tired to run again so we postponed the plans haha. Hopefully this week I can find some time... Would be good training for IPPT as well!
During the prize presentation, I went up to 08S416 cos they were standing almost in front of our teachers' tent then I joked with them, "So how? Have you all studied for SPA?" Then I pretended to jog and recall what they learnt during SPA, much to their amusement.
After the prize presentation we went to E-Hub for food and ended up at this place called "Fig and Olive" which serves some Mediterranean cuisine but quite a few of us felt that the food and service was quite poor. My exotic-sounding dish seemed more like a hyped-up version of nasi-bryani to me and there were also complaints about the "melted" cheese which was more solid than liquid and the bread, which needed a saw rather than a knife.
Anyway, the company was good as usual and there was one super funny part when A said he liked using the massage chair in the staff lounge because he liked being vibrated then B tapped A rapidly on his shoulder and asked, "How? Does it feel good?" LOL, super crappy!
Went home to take a nap then marked test papers again before going out to meet some of them for karaoke at Crystabelle. Tried to sing some other songs instead cos I wanted to try new stuff but there were still some of the usual songs being sung by others, which actually to me were being sung too often so for me it was a little boring during some songs. But the good thing is that there's never a need to pay for concerts cos we have our own Jay Chou / Wang Li Hong / Jacky Cheung / Stephanie Sun / Tanya Chua! Yes, there are talented singers in our Chem Dept alone!
After that we went out for supper at this Rochor Beancurd place and the beancurd was really nice! Talked about a lot of stuff, heard a couple of lame jokes and the funniest part was the Chinese stuff I learnt from some of them. A joked about some censored stuff then B said, "yuan lai ni you zhe xie wo4 cuo4 de xiang fa" (so actually you have such unclean thoughts) and we were like, "Wah, wo4 cuo4! What does it mean?" Apparently some of them knew also, so only the jiak kantang people like me and a few others didn't understand. Then later on somebody mentioned about reading those "wei3 xie4" (crass, uncouth) type of comics and we were like, "Wah, wei3 xie4! What does it mean?" Later on we kept trying to use the terms where possible and we joked that we will be hearing a lot of these terms in school next week haha. There was something super duper funny about what they used to call Chinese toilets also but I can't remember. Will ask and write in my next post!
Feb 22nd (Sun) - Marking again plus setting block test plus catching up on sleep cos I seriously lacked sleep during the last week. Only watched "Let's Dance" and I really love that show cos I love dancing (at least the thought of it) and my favourite is this group called "Hei Jiao" cos they are like really cool with their hip-hop/breakdance and their routines are pretty innovative and well-choreographed and their movements are very synchronised.
Ok, it's back to work for me (vet block test, set common test, prepare SRP worksheet + answers, prepare for tutorials and lecturing for mass tutorial, marking holiday assignment and extra work for my "special task force") - hope to find some time to post about Week 7 soon! =)
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