Ok, just had a hectic week starting with Odyssey 2010, our JC1 orientation programme! Spent a lot of time during the first day collecting O-Pack funds, counting money and doing all the accounts but I enjoyed doing the paper work for it since I do my own personal accounting so it's my strength. I think most of the other TAs would've baulked at doing it haha. But well, we each have our own strengths and contribute in different ways to Council so that's the good thing having more people who can do a variety of things =)
Oh, the opening for orientation was really fun! Haha, since the theme was based on pirates (like Pirates of the Caribbean), the Councillors and House Comm members actually created a "ship" using a large trolley that was intricately designed and Capt Lai (aka Ms Lai) was accompanied by her crew of pirates who battled their way through another group of rival pirates. It ended up with Ms Lai smashing a glass bottle to signify the start of orientation (a bit like the christening of a ship). All in all a pretty entertaining opening!
Anyway, the rest of the day was on Pirating 101, which was a mixture of team games in school. Seemed like the kids were enjoying themselves! As for me, I was busy with my IP stuff so I didn't really go around much to look at all the games. Went off in the evening to get my hair cut and I was quite pleased with it. I think I shall be sticking to this hairstylist that my friend recommended (at Tamp St 44) cos she's quite friendly about giving tips about hair care and surprisingly she actually recognised me even though the last time I had my hair cut by her was about 4 months ago!
Tue - Had our traditional MMM and I was posted to Seng Kang with another teacher (an Aussie) and it was quite fun walking around the stations and watching the OGLs playing. We would've liked to play but sadly there weren't a lot of team games that we could compete in so we just stuck to monitoring the stations. So practically my whole day was spent on admin stuff plus MMM and by the time I got back to school it was almost 6pm and there were some serious casualties that the Council had to take care of. Thankfully they were all fine after being seen by the doctors.
After that I was helping out with orientation admin again until about 8pm and there were various people entering the GO trying to appeal for various stuff so I helped to direct them to the appropriate people. Haha, even met Hui Shan's brother, which was so coincidental.
Wed - Wet & Wild games in the morning and it was quite fun. I was very unhappy regarding my area not being cleared up by the OGLs after they were done and I had a good mind to scold them while I was cleaning up for them but somehow in the end I let them off cos I didn't want to go and track down the people responsible for it since they cleared up the rest of the mess after I told the councillor in charge to gather them.
Went out for a very quick dinner at Sakae Sushi with some of my friends and the food really sucked! I've been there a couple of times in the last few months cos I like to eat sushi and there ain't any other place that sells Jap food near our school and it wasn't too bad but this time it was horrible. Mainly it was cos of their new dish - this teriyaki ika (squid) which tasted bad and the texture was horrible also. As my friend pointed out, they prob just defrosted it put the sauce on it. It was waaaaay worse than the one I had a Ajiman with Jon and LJ last time. =(
Finale of orientation was a blast! And it was great to see so many familiar faces coming back to MJC and catching up with them. I even saw councillors from my first batch (2006), i.e. the 4th SC), such as Hwei Ting, Christopher, and Eugene. A lot of the 6's also came back, prob more than 10 I think, and we even had to ask some of them to help us be the guest judge for the event cos some of the TAs were occupied with casualties (again) and I was the only one left.
The performances by the OGs were by and large quite lame to me but then again orientation performances were never renowned to be great since they're all last minute stuff. The dances by the OGLs were quite enjoyable to watch though and some of them were pretty well synchronised and you could tell some of them had formal dance training from the moves and their form.
Oh, and there was some segment where the various houses decorated a certain space based on the pirate theme and Atlas did an awesome job with its ship, complete with a hull, pirate on top of the wall (the long one in the assembly plaza) with a patch and telescope, cannon with confetti booming out. They even paid tribute to the various houses and to us they were the clear winners. Speaking of which, looks like I'll be in Atlas this year since my CG is under Atlas. Hopefully we'll have a good team for Colosseum this year! =)
Anyway, I spent most of the night chatting to various ex-students which was quite enjoyable and kinda strange since I don't normally talk much. But I suppose it was cos I talk to a variety of people for short periods so there are plenty of things to talk about.
The whole thing ended at about 10pm, after all the performances, dancing and cheering and by the time we cleared up everything it was almost midnight. Cabbed home and conked out soon after reaching home. What a draining event indeed! And I'm one of the ICs in charge next year so I better start preparing during the Jun holidays. Source around for possible themes, games, etc. Should be fun! =)
Thur - start of the temp timetable and there were plenty of talks in the morning as I got about taking attendence for 10S417. For the 3rd time in a row, I'm teaching a 4-series class. And for the 2nd time in a row, I'm CT for a class which takes Chem and Bio (though at H1 level) and has only 3 guys lol. Strange! Hopefully they'll be at least as nice as 08S114, which was a very sweet class and I really enjoyed seeing them everyday and talking to them about life and studies. Keeping my fingers crossed!
Fri - Showtime for H1! Lecture was ok, though I didn't cover as much as I wanted to maybe cos I spent too much time on expectations? I never liked doing this kind of thing but it's just something that has to be done.
Anyway I was thinking how to make the lecture series more interesting cos it's a long series (about 5 periods) so you need to have a bit of stuff here and there to engage the kids - maybe some stories, real-life applications, video, and stuff - and while I did incorporate some of these, I wanted more also so in the end, in the spirit of CNY, I told them that I would be the Cai Shen Ye and at appropriate junctures I would hit them with some deep thinking questions to which I would give out money for good answers. =p
Gave them a past year MCQ that was quite conceptual and I thought it was effective to get them thinking right from the start so that they know H1 Chem is not so easy. It made things more interesting I think though hopefully they will not rely on such extrinsic motivation in future hahaha. =p
Sat - Went for my cousin's wedding lunch at Park Royal hotel and it was quite interesting cos they got some magician/illusionist to perform though only for a short while, maybe about 5 min and he carried out a series of basic tricks that were fairly impressive I suppose but they're those that are commonly done.
Went home to rest before getting a ride from my friend to go to Caroline's birthday BBQ at Pasir Ris Park. Thought I'd try to surprise her cos I felt it wouldn't be so nice that I missed both her invitations so I went down though I had to rush off like about 45 min later to go for my mom's side family reunion dinner at Lor Chuan, which was very far away!
Sun - Went to the gym and it was a fairly relaxing session compared to the last few weeks. Came back to rest and sad to say I've been nua-ing for most of the day since coming back. Have a lot of things happening in the next few weeks - dinner with ZAM, Council TAs dinner, reunion dinner, Chem gathering, Reach Day + Chem CIP and dinner, Chrystal Elective on Board Games, Science Fiesta. And that's not even considering the work from IP and Council so I better make full use of the rest of the temp timetable and CNY holidays to increase my pace of work! =)
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