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! =)