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!