Mon - Our final day of CCIS training in the morning before the Individual Vocation Proficiency Test in the afternoon, which was quite a joke really but I shan't go into details here. Spent my free time reading the TYS for fun and also in preparation for tutorial and getting inspiration for the block test, much to the amusement of some of my platoon mates.
Tue - Navigation Exercise where we went out to Lim Chu Kang area for a stroll in the jungle. We were supposed to go to various checkpoints and perform various tasks, kinda like our MMM during orientation. Except that instead of young kids you get mature men, instead of a concrete jungle you have a real jungle, instead of playing games you get serious tasks, and you don't have people cheering at every little thing that gives them bonus points. Ok, maybe it's not really like MMM...
Anyway most of the things we needed to do involved setting up of antennas which I've never done before in my NS days cos before disruption I was dealing with ancient WWII equipment in my camp and even during my few weeks in School of Signals (10 years ago) I also don't remember setting up much antennas and we mainly dealt with radio sets. After disruption I only recapped some stuff on radio for our 1 overseas exercise in Taiwan so I was quite blur during the Nav Ex but I tried to learn as much as I could and I think I managed to pick up and remember most of the stuff so next time I think I can do it! Got a little bit of sunburn cos the weather was scorching hot and we walked around for hours in the sun but I guess it was good to get a bit of Vitamin D!
Wed/Thu - Deployment Exercise where we went to Ama Keng. It only involved our own signal company so it was still quite relaxed, esp. for our CCIS team since we only had to set up our laptops and server and we had help with that and also we took turns to man the 1 remote set placed with us.
There were swarms of mosquitoes in the training shed we were in, no kidding! We stared up at the lights and you they were buzzing with mosquitoes. Occasionally somebody would hit the laptop screen and there would be dead mosquitoes on the screen. Quite disgusting really but anyway think they were all males cos somebody said only the females suck blood and they were also moving very slowly, enough for some of the guys to swipe their hand and grab them in their palms.
Went back to camp in the morning and we got out by early afternoon thankfully so that we could go home and get a good rest!
Fri - Settled some admin stuff and waited around (as usual) before we had our lunch and then it was out-processing time!
So today marks the end of my 1st In-Camp Training and overall it has been a pretty good experience and a good break from work since it allows me to take my time and slow down my pace of life. No brisk walking from place to place. Instead, I sauntered around the camp most of the time with my platoon mates as there was no rush to complete anything. =)
There were also some random funny moments such as the cookhouse where either someone has some serious spelling problems or has a great sense of humour cos on our drinks container we had drinks labeled as "Lai Ci" and "Mangga"... K, back to my TV show and getting ready to go back to school tmr to get some things done!
Friday, February 13, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Have You Looked At Your Shoes Lately?
Random thought about my life: During the week I've had plenty of time to reflect on life and 2 little incidents in recent times got me thinking about some things that happened long ago...
Some of you might have read about the sole of my Teva sandals coming off in an earlier post. Recently, I realised that one of my shoes has a hole in it when I randomly just took a look at it. These incidents got me thinking that I often don't pay much attention to my footwear and that I expected them to remain in good condition even though I subject them to much abuse due to my (often) fast-paced walking and also walking through rough terrain when travelling between my home to my bus-stop.
However, the danger when you make such an assumption is that you become complacent about the situation and you don't realise that gradually you are causing things to fall apart but you're not doing anything about it until one fine day everything just breaks down and suddenly you realise, "If only I had paid more attention. If only I knew what was going on. If only I had done things earlier to salvage the situation."
If you haven't got my drift yet, this post really is about a wake-up call to us to think about our relationships with the people around us, esp. those whom we treasure. It could be your family members, your significant other half, your close friends. Have you thought about the things you have said or done that could've hurt them and yet you didn't realise it? Amidst the hustle and bustle of our hectic lives, it would be nice to just sit down once in a while to reflect on our actions and their impact on others...
Some of you might have read about the sole of my Teva sandals coming off in an earlier post. Recently, I realised that one of my shoes has a hole in it when I randomly just took a look at it. These incidents got me thinking that I often don't pay much attention to my footwear and that I expected them to remain in good condition even though I subject them to much abuse due to my (often) fast-paced walking and also walking through rough terrain when travelling between my home to my bus-stop.
However, the danger when you make such an assumption is that you become complacent about the situation and you don't realise that gradually you are causing things to fall apart but you're not doing anything about it until one fine day everything just breaks down and suddenly you realise, "If only I had paid more attention. If only I knew what was going on. If only I had done things earlier to salvage the situation."
If you haven't got my drift yet, this post really is about a wake-up call to us to think about our relationships with the people around us, esp. those whom we treasure. It could be your family members, your significant other half, your close friends. Have you thought about the things you have said or done that could've hurt them and yet you didn't realise it? Amidst the hustle and bustle of our hectic lives, it would be nice to just sit down once in a while to reflect on our actions and their impact on others...
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Reservist Week 1
Generally a pretty slack week I would admit.
Mon - Lugged all my barang barang (Fullpack, SBO, Helmet) and went to take 985 which brought me to Teck Whye Avenue before walking into Stagmont Camp. Reached early at about 7am though the reporting time was 7.30am and found out that we could stay out, which was nice to hear cos I expected to have to stay in.
I was assigned to be in this CCIS (Command & Control Information Systems) platoon, which was a small group (11 of us) and almost all of us were new to this (no prior training during our NS time cos CCIS is fairly new) so it was good that there were no cliques in our platoon. We have people who are, if I didn't hear or remember wrongly, working with NOL, Sembawang Shipyard, ST Electronics, a teacher in Rulang Primary, a boss of a cleaning company, a worker in a cryogenics company, amongst others.
Anyway, it was mainly a whole day of waiting (typical SAF) and boring briefings about ICT - including safety, NS Pay matters, objective setting, etc.
Tue - CCIS Training from 8am to 3.30pm and one thing I really like about CCIS Training is that we're always in the computer labs so we don't need to wear helmet / SBO, which the other signal platoons need to do when they go to the training shacks for training. Anyway, the trainers in Signal Institute could really do with some lessons from NIE cos they can't really teach. They may know their stuff but they normally just rattle on and there are a lot of terms/acronyms we never heard before and they think we know. Then when showing how to use some of the programs they also often go too fast and I can't follow cos I'm searching for the program/link which greatly irritated me cos I'll be lost after a while and too many computer terms really made it hard for me to catch up. It really makes you appreciate the difference between a good and bad teacher!
Had our 4km cohesion route march in the afternoon with FBO and we had to draw arms, something I really dislike. Anyway, apparently this route march is going to be held for every single high-key ICT with the objective of changing the mindset of the reservists from civilian life to a military life.
Wed - CCIS Training from 8am to 5pm and it was seriously v. slack. I think we spent more time on canteen break, lunch, and other stuff rather than the actual lessons themselves which were generally quite short and simple. Then our trainer also likes to talk a lot of stuff (which the others said he was bullshitting a lot of the time) like the economy and his future business plans cos he's going to ORD in 7 months.
Saw an ex-student (Andrew from 06S401) who was going to Taiwan the next day and apparently he's having a v. enjoyable life in Stagmont Camp (read his tag haha). =P
Thu - IPPT in the morning and I think I managed to get Incentive award (which would be great to help me offset the treat I owe my colleagues) though the 2.4km run always drains me out. A bit more regular training and I can get Silver, I'm pretty sure of that. CCIS Training from 11am to 5pm, nothing special but learning how to draw stuff on the maps and graphics system which will be part of the test for next Mon's test.
The canteen uncle showed us some sleight of the hand tricks with rubber bands and coins to entertain us (and the rest were joking I could bring back to school to entertain the kids though I've not tried them out myself) and there were interesting conversations as the boss of the cleaner company shared some juicy insights of what goes on in the movie theatres and something he encountered in the showflat of where "The Wedding Game" was filmed. Not convenient to talk about it here so I shall decline to go into the details... =)
Saw another ex-MJC student (Kenneth Lim from IGC) who is in 8SIB and ORD-ing soon (in March). =)
Fri - NE Package Trip which was quite interesting actually and the best part was we start late, end early and can wear civilian clothes. Met at Clementi MRT and had breakfast before we boarded the bus and the tour operators (from Singapore History Consultants) talked us through the places we were going to visit (Mount Faber, Labrador Park, and Bukit Chandu Museum) and we started with a nice early morning stroll up to Faber Point where it was v. breezy and you could have a pretty good view of the surroundings there.
Next stop was Labrador Park where we could explore the casemate (a protective area for the guns) for free (entry price for adults supposed to be $8.60) and it was air-conditioned. Quite an interesting place cos they had real tunnels and rubble and a lot of old artifacts. We also learnt about some of the myths such as our guns not pointing in the right direction when the Japs attacked. The person said actually they managed to turn the guns but due to the trajectory of the guns and the type of ammo (which were not suitable for shooting people, but more for taking down ships), they were not effective.
They then drove past Alexandra Hospital (my birthplace!) where apparently there was a massacre that took place there, sad to say, when the Japs defied the Geneva Convention and attached the hospital and killed practically everyone there.
Final stop was the Bukit Chandu Museum where we learnt about the Last Stand and how the Malay Regiment fought bravely against the Japanese to their death despite being outnumbered heavily. They never surrendered and even the officers captured chose death before dishonour as they refused to take off their uniforms or even their ranks and were thus executed.
We finished at about 1.40pm after which the bus took some of us to Vivocity which I thought would be interesting cos I was pretty sure our MMM would involve students having to travel there and I was hoping to see some familiar faces and surprise them by visiting them. True enough, shortly after getting off the bus I saw Alvin (an ex-student) who was sitting outside one of the entrances and found out the location of the other groups so I started to walk around in search of them. Disappointingly enough, I didn't see anyone from my classes as the station masters though there were a few familiar faces such as Selena (another ex-student and who kept saying that I was slack cos I was out at Vivocity haha) and Wen Eng.
Had a quick lunch at Superdog before jalaning a bit around the area since I rarely go there. Chanced upon a big group of people just outside a Vivocity entrance and apparently it was cos an OG was trying to get bonus points out of some of the teachers there. Saw some ex-student councillors (Jasmine from 06S101 and Iris from 06S403, my ex-H1 student) there as well and one of the OGLs was asking for help with the surnames of 2 of the teachers there. I managed to help with 1 but the other 1 I didn't realise she was addressed differently cos she was married so I got the surname wrongly (based on the edumail name) haha.
So all in all a pretty relaxing week in camp but next week will be quite xian cos there's a navigation exercise and deployment ex (overnight) so cannot be so relaxed already. Ah well, it's been a good and restful week so I'm thankful for that. Time to get some work done over the weekend cos otherwise I'll drown when I go back to school on 16th! Will post tomorrow morning!
Mon - Lugged all my barang barang (Fullpack, SBO, Helmet) and went to take 985 which brought me to Teck Whye Avenue before walking into Stagmont Camp. Reached early at about 7am though the reporting time was 7.30am and found out that we could stay out, which was nice to hear cos I expected to have to stay in.
I was assigned to be in this CCIS (Command & Control Information Systems) platoon, which was a small group (11 of us) and almost all of us were new to this (no prior training during our NS time cos CCIS is fairly new) so it was good that there were no cliques in our platoon. We have people who are, if I didn't hear or remember wrongly, working with NOL, Sembawang Shipyard, ST Electronics, a teacher in Rulang Primary, a boss of a cleaning company, a worker in a cryogenics company, amongst others.
Anyway, it was mainly a whole day of waiting (typical SAF) and boring briefings about ICT - including safety, NS Pay matters, objective setting, etc.
Tue - CCIS Training from 8am to 3.30pm and one thing I really like about CCIS Training is that we're always in the computer labs so we don't need to wear helmet / SBO, which the other signal platoons need to do when they go to the training shacks for training. Anyway, the trainers in Signal Institute could really do with some lessons from NIE cos they can't really teach. They may know their stuff but they normally just rattle on and there are a lot of terms/acronyms we never heard before and they think we know. Then when showing how to use some of the programs they also often go too fast and I can't follow cos I'm searching for the program/link which greatly irritated me cos I'll be lost after a while and too many computer terms really made it hard for me to catch up. It really makes you appreciate the difference between a good and bad teacher!
Had our 4km cohesion route march in the afternoon with FBO and we had to draw arms, something I really dislike. Anyway, apparently this route march is going to be held for every single high-key ICT with the objective of changing the mindset of the reservists from civilian life to a military life.
Wed - CCIS Training from 8am to 5pm and it was seriously v. slack. I think we spent more time on canteen break, lunch, and other stuff rather than the actual lessons themselves which were generally quite short and simple. Then our trainer also likes to talk a lot of stuff (which the others said he was bullshitting a lot of the time) like the economy and his future business plans cos he's going to ORD in 7 months.
Saw an ex-student (Andrew from 06S401) who was going to Taiwan the next day and apparently he's having a v. enjoyable life in Stagmont Camp (read his tag haha). =P
Thu - IPPT in the morning and I think I managed to get Incentive award (which would be great to help me offset the treat I owe my colleagues) though the 2.4km run always drains me out. A bit more regular training and I can get Silver, I'm pretty sure of that. CCIS Training from 11am to 5pm, nothing special but learning how to draw stuff on the maps and graphics system which will be part of the test for next Mon's test.
The canteen uncle showed us some sleight of the hand tricks with rubber bands and coins to entertain us (and the rest were joking I could bring back to school to entertain the kids though I've not tried them out myself) and there were interesting conversations as the boss of the cleaner company shared some juicy insights of what goes on in the movie theatres and something he encountered in the showflat of where "The Wedding Game" was filmed. Not convenient to talk about it here so I shall decline to go into the details... =)
Saw another ex-MJC student (Kenneth Lim from IGC) who is in 8SIB and ORD-ing soon (in March). =)
Fri - NE Package Trip which was quite interesting actually and the best part was we start late, end early and can wear civilian clothes. Met at Clementi MRT and had breakfast before we boarded the bus and the tour operators (from Singapore History Consultants) talked us through the places we were going to visit (Mount Faber, Labrador Park, and Bukit Chandu Museum) and we started with a nice early morning stroll up to Faber Point where it was v. breezy and you could have a pretty good view of the surroundings there.
Next stop was Labrador Park where we could explore the casemate (a protective area for the guns) for free (entry price for adults supposed to be $8.60) and it was air-conditioned. Quite an interesting place cos they had real tunnels and rubble and a lot of old artifacts. We also learnt about some of the myths such as our guns not pointing in the right direction when the Japs attacked. The person said actually they managed to turn the guns but due to the trajectory of the guns and the type of ammo (which were not suitable for shooting people, but more for taking down ships), they were not effective.
They then drove past Alexandra Hospital (my birthplace!) where apparently there was a massacre that took place there, sad to say, when the Japs defied the Geneva Convention and attached the hospital and killed practically everyone there.
Final stop was the Bukit Chandu Museum where we learnt about the Last Stand and how the Malay Regiment fought bravely against the Japanese to their death despite being outnumbered heavily. They never surrendered and even the officers captured chose death before dishonour as they refused to take off their uniforms or even their ranks and were thus executed.
We finished at about 1.40pm after which the bus took some of us to Vivocity which I thought would be interesting cos I was pretty sure our MMM would involve students having to travel there and I was hoping to see some familiar faces and surprise them by visiting them. True enough, shortly after getting off the bus I saw Alvin (an ex-student) who was sitting outside one of the entrances and found out the location of the other groups so I started to walk around in search of them. Disappointingly enough, I didn't see anyone from my classes as the station masters though there were a few familiar faces such as Selena (another ex-student and who kept saying that I was slack cos I was out at Vivocity haha) and Wen Eng.
Had a quick lunch at Superdog before jalaning a bit around the area since I rarely go there. Chanced upon a big group of people just outside a Vivocity entrance and apparently it was cos an OG was trying to get bonus points out of some of the teachers there. Saw some ex-student councillors (Jasmine from 06S101 and Iris from 06S403, my ex-H1 student) there as well and one of the OGLs was asking for help with the surnames of 2 of the teachers there. I managed to help with 1 but the other 1 I didn't realise she was addressed differently cos she was married so I got the surname wrongly (based on the edumail name) haha.
So all in all a pretty relaxing week in camp but next week will be quite xian cos there's a navigation exercise and deployment ex (overnight) so cannot be so relaxed already. Ah well, it's been a good and restful week so I'm thankful for that. Time to get some work done over the weekend cos otherwise I'll drown when I go back to school on 16th! Will post tomorrow morning!
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Term 1 Week 3
A short week in school due to CNY but that's not to say it was a relaxing week.
Chu Yi - Did some work in the morning and spring cleaning in the afternoon as I looked through my university stuff and decided that it was time for some of the things to go. I believe I do have a mild case of "compulsive hoarding", something I read about in the papers recently which is, according to Wikipedia, a disorder whereby people acquire and fail to use or discard a large number of seemingly useless possessions that causes significant clutter and impairment to basic living activities such as mobility, cooking, cleaning, showering or sleeping.
My parents are both guilty of this and I believe this could be something inherited, which is why my house (and my workplace) is in quite a mess, despite me being someone who prefers neatness. I just need some time I guess to do my archiving of stuff and clearing up. As I look through my room I've got plenty of teaching materials from NIE that I might consider throwing cos they are based on my other teaching subject (English Language) which I doubt I will ever teach since I don't plan to go to secondary school but somehow in my brain something is telling me you never know when you might need it and you're gonna regret it if you ever need it. That's probably the reason why compulsive hoarders behave this way - they try to rationalise why they should keep something, rather than why they would really be better off throwing away something.
Anyway, I managed to rationalise with myself why I SHOULD THROW some of my university stuff away with some pretty strong arguments. Example: "Luke, these notes are from 2000-2001. For goodness sake, we're in 2009 and almost into the next decade, no one will ever need these!" That seemed pretty convincing to me so out went my notes on Calculus, Linear Algebra, Patterns in English, Grammar, Phonology, HR Matters, amongst other stuff (haven't look through my Chem stuff yet cos I doubt I'll throw them). I only kept 3 English tests/assignments where my tutor had positive comments and a help sheet in Linear Algebra as I marvelled at myself for squeezing a large amount of info (1 sem's work) into my 1 piece of A4 size paper.
Went to my grandma's place in the afternoon and watched "Around the World in 80 Days", some Jackie Chan show which was pretty funny before going to my aunt's place. Was quite bored cos they were playing poker / black jack and I'm not into those. I'm only into mahjong because I believe there's a greater element of skill involved and I have the ability to save myself if I defend properly unlike in poker / black jack whereby you're screwed if the cards screw you up. Went to my father's side in the evening and disappointingly enough, there was to be no mahjong game cos my uncle had moved into a smaller flat and there wasn't space to put up a mahjong table when most of the people were around so it was kinda boring for me again.
Chu Er - After I woke up in the late morning, I spent practically my entire day until 1am clearing up almost all the items on my list as mentioned in my previous post in addition to some other things I forgot to write down. While I felt some sense of achievement after clearing each item, I also couldn't help but feel a little aggrieved at the disproportionate amount of workload and the fact that I spent my holiday doing work. Sometimes though I wonder if the situation is exarcebated by my perfectionistic streak cos I want every set of notes, tutorial answers, quiz, worksheet, etc. that is produced to be of the best quality so much of my time is being used up in doing this.
In any case, I've given feedback to my boss who, to be fair is also busy with a lot of things and is concerned about our well-being, has taken some actions so I believe things will be more balanced out in future. After all I may be the coordinator of the team but it's not a 2 or 3-man team and furthermore most of the team are experienced enough to be given greater responsibilities. But anyway I'm pretty confident that by my third cycle life will be easier as I would have went through most of the things personally to try and ensure they are the most accurate and also the teachers would be even more experienced. Anyway, if anybody wants to teach JC Chem, I do suggest you join us because you will be well taken care of in terms of the mentoring you'll get and the quality of the teaching materials we are creating. =)
Wed - Back to school and a v. long contact time because the whole of Feb is for Staff Electives so there's no staff meeting. I got my 1st choice - Social Dancing - though I'll miss the first 2 sessions due to reservist so I hope I can catch up during my last 2 sessions! Looking forward to that - as long as it's NOT line dancing! =p
Did my salesman-like thingie during the SPA demo and Aiyan joked that I was acting cute and I told the class I didn't need to cos I already am hahaha. =P
CCA was ok. Did some bridge training with some of the kids while the rest seemed to be immersed in the new version of Risk, which took like 3+ hours and they didn't even finish the game! Still very far off from having a decent chance to win at CJC bridge tournament though I'm just aiming to make it to the quarterfinals because RJC and HCI tend to spam a lot of teams who make it to the QF (though actually to me many of them are actually amateurs also) . I always get the same problems with students who play floating bridge who don't have the guts to bid to system sometimes, hence missing out on games/slams. That's why I hate training bridge players who are converting from floating bridge cos they often just try to bid to the lowest, at least at the start. But ok lah, at least there were some instances of them jumping straight to game at the right occasions so there's some hope. Need a lot more training though cos they kept referring to the notes when they play and still evaluate their hands wrongly. I miss playing competitive bridge though, esp. when it's so impressive during the complicated bidding sequence to describe almost exactly your entire hand. It's a far cry from the crude system the kids are using now but there's no choice since that's the simplest to teach.
Thu - During 08S416 tutorial I was joking with the class about my reservist stint and I was thinking of doing makeup lesson on that day since I marked their Arenes tutorial so I know what are the things I need to comment on. I asked if they preferred me to do go through with them (but need to do makeup) or my relief tutors to do it with them and they preferred the latter so I joked, "You all cut me deep man."
Talked to 08S114 during their common lunch cos I was adminstering my Alkenes retest in an adjacent classroom and they seem to have a lot of gossip haha and talking about some of the teachers and I wondered aloud if I was also subjected to such gossips...
Xue Li and Zheng Xiang were also there and Xue Li took a random pic of me as I posed for the camera haha. We talked about me preferring to lecture in LT4 cos the crowd there is more receptive to jokes, unlike in LT5 where the atmosphere was more tense and my jokes fell flat on the crowd during the one time when I lectured there. I also wanted to listen to some lame chem jokes by Nina cos some of them said she had during lecture but apparently I heard from her before already, though I forgot 1 of them. Must go compile all these so that I can entertain students next time! =p
Fri - Had lab with 08S114 and it was fairly fun. I had my breakfast outside the lab after I got them to start on the experiment and while I kept a watchful eye on them, some of them seemed envious that I was eating out there.
Had our chem dept birthday celebrations for Jan and it was a pretty chop chop affair cos everyone seemed to be in a rush and I was trying to finish up whatever I had to do before I leave for reservist. Stayed till about 7.30+pm for the 1st time this year and I hope I don't have to do many of those like I did in 2007 when I was in JC2. V. tiring and bad for health cos I only eat dinner at 9pm.
Sat - Went back to school to do my marking of lab manuals and looking through the submitted tutorials and many of the councillors (back to prepare for orientation) were surprised to see me though I explained that I needed to go back to clear my work before I leave for reservist. The others probably thought I was crazy to be back in school doing work on a Sat...
Anyway, spent about 3+ hours marking the 3 stacks of manuals and looking through the tutorials before I departed for Century Square for lunch at Billy Bomber's and did some shopping at TM cos I got a $10 voucher from some competition my team won during Staff Well-being day which was expiring on that day.
Alright, time for some spring-cleaning and rationalising before reservist starts tmr! Updates next weekend!
Chu Yi - Did some work in the morning and spring cleaning in the afternoon as I looked through my university stuff and decided that it was time for some of the things to go. I believe I do have a mild case of "compulsive hoarding", something I read about in the papers recently which is, according to Wikipedia, a disorder whereby people acquire and fail to use or discard a large number of seemingly useless possessions that causes significant clutter and impairment to basic living activities such as mobility, cooking, cleaning, showering or sleeping.
My parents are both guilty of this and I believe this could be something inherited, which is why my house (and my workplace) is in quite a mess, despite me being someone who prefers neatness. I just need some time I guess to do my archiving of stuff and clearing up. As I look through my room I've got plenty of teaching materials from NIE that I might consider throwing cos they are based on my other teaching subject (English Language) which I doubt I will ever teach since I don't plan to go to secondary school but somehow in my brain something is telling me you never know when you might need it and you're gonna regret it if you ever need it. That's probably the reason why compulsive hoarders behave this way - they try to rationalise why they should keep something, rather than why they would really be better off throwing away something.
Anyway, I managed to rationalise with myself why I SHOULD THROW some of my university stuff away with some pretty strong arguments. Example: "Luke, these notes are from 2000-2001. For goodness sake, we're in 2009 and almost into the next decade, no one will ever need these!" That seemed pretty convincing to me so out went my notes on Calculus, Linear Algebra, Patterns in English, Grammar, Phonology, HR Matters, amongst other stuff (haven't look through my Chem stuff yet cos I doubt I'll throw them). I only kept 3 English tests/assignments where my tutor had positive comments and a help sheet in Linear Algebra as I marvelled at myself for squeezing a large amount of info (1 sem's work) into my 1 piece of A4 size paper.
Went to my grandma's place in the afternoon and watched "Around the World in 80 Days", some Jackie Chan show which was pretty funny before going to my aunt's place. Was quite bored cos they were playing poker / black jack and I'm not into those. I'm only into mahjong because I believe there's a greater element of skill involved and I have the ability to save myself if I defend properly unlike in poker / black jack whereby you're screwed if the cards screw you up. Went to my father's side in the evening and disappointingly enough, there was to be no mahjong game cos my uncle had moved into a smaller flat and there wasn't space to put up a mahjong table when most of the people were around so it was kinda boring for me again.
Chu Er - After I woke up in the late morning, I spent practically my entire day until 1am clearing up almost all the items on my list as mentioned in my previous post in addition to some other things I forgot to write down. While I felt some sense of achievement after clearing each item, I also couldn't help but feel a little aggrieved at the disproportionate amount of workload and the fact that I spent my holiday doing work. Sometimes though I wonder if the situation is exarcebated by my perfectionistic streak cos I want every set of notes, tutorial answers, quiz, worksheet, etc. that is produced to be of the best quality so much of my time is being used up in doing this.
In any case, I've given feedback to my boss who, to be fair is also busy with a lot of things and is concerned about our well-being, has taken some actions so I believe things will be more balanced out in future. After all I may be the coordinator of the team but it's not a 2 or 3-man team and furthermore most of the team are experienced enough to be given greater responsibilities. But anyway I'm pretty confident that by my third cycle life will be easier as I would have went through most of the things personally to try and ensure they are the most accurate and also the teachers would be even more experienced. Anyway, if anybody wants to teach JC Chem, I do suggest you join us because you will be well taken care of in terms of the mentoring you'll get and the quality of the teaching materials we are creating. =)
Wed - Back to school and a v. long contact time because the whole of Feb is for Staff Electives so there's no staff meeting. I got my 1st choice - Social Dancing - though I'll miss the first 2 sessions due to reservist so I hope I can catch up during my last 2 sessions! Looking forward to that - as long as it's NOT line dancing! =p
Did my salesman-like thingie during the SPA demo and Aiyan joked that I was acting cute and I told the class I didn't need to cos I already am hahaha. =P
CCA was ok. Did some bridge training with some of the kids while the rest seemed to be immersed in the new version of Risk, which took like 3+ hours and they didn't even finish the game! Still very far off from having a decent chance to win at CJC bridge tournament though I'm just aiming to make it to the quarterfinals because RJC and HCI tend to spam a lot of teams who make it to the QF (though actually to me many of them are actually amateurs also) . I always get the same problems with students who play floating bridge who don't have the guts to bid to system sometimes, hence missing out on games/slams. That's why I hate training bridge players who are converting from floating bridge cos they often just try to bid to the lowest, at least at the start. But ok lah, at least there were some instances of them jumping straight to game at the right occasions so there's some hope. Need a lot more training though cos they kept referring to the notes when they play and still evaluate their hands wrongly. I miss playing competitive bridge though, esp. when it's so impressive during the complicated bidding sequence to describe almost exactly your entire hand. It's a far cry from the crude system the kids are using now but there's no choice since that's the simplest to teach.
Thu - During 08S416 tutorial I was joking with the class about my reservist stint and I was thinking of doing makeup lesson on that day since I marked their Arenes tutorial so I know what are the things I need to comment on. I asked if they preferred me to do go through with them (but need to do makeup) or my relief tutors to do it with them and they preferred the latter so I joked, "You all cut me deep man."
Talked to 08S114 during their common lunch cos I was adminstering my Alkenes retest in an adjacent classroom and they seem to have a lot of gossip haha and talking about some of the teachers and I wondered aloud if I was also subjected to such gossips...
Xue Li and Zheng Xiang were also there and Xue Li took a random pic of me as I posed for the camera haha. We talked about me preferring to lecture in LT4 cos the crowd there is more receptive to jokes, unlike in LT5 where the atmosphere was more tense and my jokes fell flat on the crowd during the one time when I lectured there. I also wanted to listen to some lame chem jokes by Nina cos some of them said she had during lecture but apparently I heard from her before already, though I forgot 1 of them. Must go compile all these so that I can entertain students next time! =p
Fri - Had lab with 08S114 and it was fairly fun. I had my breakfast outside the lab after I got them to start on the experiment and while I kept a watchful eye on them, some of them seemed envious that I was eating out there.
Had our chem dept birthday celebrations for Jan and it was a pretty chop chop affair cos everyone seemed to be in a rush and I was trying to finish up whatever I had to do before I leave for reservist. Stayed till about 7.30+pm for the 1st time this year and I hope I don't have to do many of those like I did in 2007 when I was in JC2. V. tiring and bad for health cos I only eat dinner at 9pm.
Sat - Went back to school to do my marking of lab manuals and looking through the submitted tutorials and many of the councillors (back to prepare for orientation) were surprised to see me though I explained that I needed to go back to clear my work before I leave for reservist. The others probably thought I was crazy to be back in school doing work on a Sat...
Anyway, spent about 3+ hours marking the 3 stacks of manuals and looking through the tutorials before I departed for Century Square for lunch at Billy Bomber's and did some shopping at TM cos I got a $10 voucher from some competition my team won during Staff Well-being day which was expiring on that day.
Alright, time for some spring-cleaning and rationalising before reservist starts tmr! Updates next weekend!
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