Read some stuff on Yahoo and 2 articles caught my attention:
(1) 2 PJC girls committed suicide - one of them was apparently too stressed over her MYE results and was fearful of meeting the VP and it's tragic to hear of such cases because there's so much in life to do and it's not like it's the end of the world if you don't do well in your studies. There's much to look forward to in life! There were already like 900+ comments when I looked at it a few hours ago and clearly education is a hot topic in Singapore.
In May there was a report regarding the work-life balance of teachers and that also drew thousands of responses from teachers who could empathise with each other and people who have left the education service due to the poor work-life balance and I definitely agree with it. Of course part of it is self-inflicted but personally I do feel that our education system is very stressful for everyone involved and there may not be any easy way out. We do need to try and stay competitive with other countries and human resource is our only resource so I think this situation is difficult to change. What is more impt I think is prob to teach people to be more resilient and learn to handle stress since stress is commonplace, even when you go to work, so the mentality of kids shouldn't just be that studies is everything and that studies should not be a cause of unbearable stress.
(2) You must be really oblivious to what's going on in the world if you still have not heard about Paul the Octopus, who has guessed correctly 6/6 times the results of Germany in World Cup 2010. It seems like now everybody wants a piece of the action and I just saw on the news today about Mani the Parakeet and just about every animal having psychic powers. Seriously, given that there are probably billions of animals out there, there is always the possibility that some animals will get the result correctly and 6/6 from 50% guesses means that the probability is 1/64 which is not exactly spectacular... Sometimes I think people just want to sensationalise things...
Went out for dinner on Fri with my friends at Turkish Cuisine at Suntec and had a pretty decent meal (King's Kebap) though I found the taste of the mashed potato a little bit exotic and not quite my cup of tea. I like the aryan though, which is a yogurt drink with nectar (I chose peach) and the best part of dinner for me was the kunefe, a sweet made up of very fine vermicelli-like pastry. It was faaaaaantastic! Eating this will really bring a smile to your face cos it's soooo tasty and the texture feels really good so definitely you must try this (though initially when we ordered it I thought it was kinda ex)!
Then we went to The Atrium at Pan-Pacific to have some drinks and towards the end we started this interesting game to guess each other's 2 things that they cannot stand and it gave me a lot of food for thought as well as insights to my friends because it made me realise even more how oblivious I can be to my surroundings and how observant some people can be.
It seems strange that given my intellectual capacity I found it so difficult to think about such things but as one of them aptly put it, I'm like the processor without the sensor. I can think quickly in a logical manner and am good in the intellectual areas like math but I'm quite bad at observing the environment and the people e.g. some of them pay attention to the things people eat, wear, and say but I don't really make an attempt to rem what they like and dislike. It's certainly a wake-up call and I shall try to be a bit more aware of my surroundings in future and also try to make more effort to learn more about others and remember them!
T3 W2 - wore this "DON'T GIVE UP" t-shirt on Wed which I bought in Penang cos I thought it would be quite funny and also to encourage the kids cos I gave them back their MYE papers to check and some of the kids in the morning were joking about it cos they kinda understood the meaning. Some of my friends were also amused and felt it's something we should wear during invigilation =p
10S103 underperformed for the MYE and when I broke the news to them that we're shifting from LT5 to LT4 cos we're not in the top 10 they were groaning about it and some of them seem to be in disbelief and some seem ashamed cos we're the only 1 series moving out and some seem concerned about the lecturers in LT4 (though I have no idea why) but I believe they're going to fight back and as one of them said, "Tell the class taking over us to watch out!" I gotta make sure we kick * from now on, esp for Promos as we fight our way back! Some wanted to take the retest meant for the bottom 100+ students as they wanted to test themselves and as I walked out of school that evening, some of them were doing the chem eqm tut questions that they had problems earlier cos apparently they were "disturbed" by the results so they wanted to get cracking on chem, which was good to see, so I'm hopeful that we will get back on track soon. =)
Ok, that's all for now as I get back to work before watching the 3rd/4th playoff later!
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Shacked out...
Just had dinner and feeling really tired now cos I slept less than an hour last night after piaing through the night but I can't sleep cos it's bad for health - all the food I eat will be converted to fats and it's likely to cause acid-reflux also... Anyway, spent last night marking papers, collating data and analysing results and I can't believe it took me that long - so draining!
Today's the start of school again and it's back to another v hectic term as I try to clear the pile of work that is lying around since I've been away on my 2-week course. Was crapping a bit with some of the 10S103 kids in the lecture cos somebody was exclaiming, "Mr Lau! Lucky we still have you! You know all our teachers have changed!" So I replied something like, "So in this world of change, I'm the one constant in your life." then later on I said some mushy stuff like I'll always be there for them no matter what hahaha. =P
Busy preparing to go through the H1/H2 corrections today and doing admin work like stapling the various exam stuff together, counting the marks and keying into the system - one of the most boring stuff to do! Had a chat with some of the H1 kids during tutorial regarding the exams and it's hard to believe that they found it so difficult even though it was quite prepped towards them already I felt. I know, people will think, "Teachers always find the exams easy" and while I don't deny that teachers sometimes do say that, I do believe I'm quite fair and unbiased in my judgment. I should probably show my ex-students and get some feedback from them and I'm thinking of getting my weaker H2 students to do the paper to give me a better idea also of their standard.
Anyway it's time to rethink again and see how to help the kids. Probably need to get specific feedback and see what they want/need. Already have been busy cutting and refining the notes to make them more understandable and provided them detailed explanations as well as remind them about the things to be careful of but still there seems to be difficulty. If anybody could recall the most useful thing that teachers did to help them in their studies, please share them with me, thanks! =)
Ending on a extremely random note, I wonder why there are so many jewellery shops in Little India. I was passing by on the bus recently and in about 15 seconds of travel I counted 15 jewellery shops just on 1 side of the street. It's insane! Anyway, back to work before I get a good night's rest. Shacked out! =s
Today's the start of school again and it's back to another v hectic term as I try to clear the pile of work that is lying around since I've been away on my 2-week course. Was crapping a bit with some of the 10S103 kids in the lecture cos somebody was exclaiming, "Mr Lau! Lucky we still have you! You know all our teachers have changed!" So I replied something like, "So in this world of change, I'm the one constant in your life." then later on I said some mushy stuff like I'll always be there for them no matter what hahaha. =P
Busy preparing to go through the H1/H2 corrections today and doing admin work like stapling the various exam stuff together, counting the marks and keying into the system - one of the most boring stuff to do! Had a chat with some of the H1 kids during tutorial regarding the exams and it's hard to believe that they found it so difficult even though it was quite prepped towards them already I felt. I know, people will think, "Teachers always find the exams easy" and while I don't deny that teachers sometimes do say that, I do believe I'm quite fair and unbiased in my judgment. I should probably show my ex-students and get some feedback from them and I'm thinking of getting my weaker H2 students to do the paper to give me a better idea also of their standard.
Anyway it's time to rethink again and see how to help the kids. Probably need to get specific feedback and see what they want/need. Already have been busy cutting and refining the notes to make them more understandable and provided them detailed explanations as well as remind them about the things to be careful of but still there seems to be difficulty. If anybody could recall the most useful thing that teachers did to help them in their studies, please share them with me, thanks! =)
Ending on a extremely random note, I wonder why there are so many jewellery shops in Little India. I was passing by on the bus recently and in about 15 seconds of travel I counted 15 jewellery shops just on 1 side of the street. It's insane! Anyway, back to work before I get a good night's rest. Shacked out! =s
Monday, July 5, 2010
Universal Studios; Back to school soon
Been busy today catching up on work after having a restful weekend and finally I'm about to go back to school after 2 weeks of course. Feeling out-of-touch with a lot of stuff and there are like so many things that needs to be done for the coming weeks it's kinda stressful. Just gotta be focused and keep trying to clear as many things as I can!
Went to Universal Studios ytd and it was quite fun though it paled in comparison to the DisneySea trip last year. For one, apparently it is the smallest theme park in the world and I could sense it within the first few minutes as we walked around cos we reached one zone to another zone pretty quickly, unlike in DisneySea which was HUGE. Also, there were hardly any must see kinda thing... Anyway so here's a review of the attractions that I tried out based in the various zones:
(1) New York - Lights, Camera, Action! (6/10) It's a special effects show hosted by Steven Spielberg and it's pretty decent but unspectacular. Considering that it was supposed to simulate a major hurricane I was expecting strong winds and more water being splashed around. Kinda strange to walk out of a hurricane all dry... =P
(2) Hollywood - Pantages Hollywood Theater (7/10) A rock-n-roll musical with monsters such as Dracula and Frankenstein and there was some singing and dancing going on (it's a musical after all). Didn't exactly rock my socks though but it was decent...
(3) Sci-fi City - didn't actually take any rides cos some of the group weren't keen on the Accelerator which was the only ride there since Battlestar Galactica is still closed (it looks really awesome and scary though) so just took some pics with the random characters walking around there.
(4) Ancient Egypt - Revenge of the Mummy (8/10) Reminded me of the Indiana Jones ride I took in DisneySea cos it was the same vehicle and the idea was quite similar but the ride was shorter than what I expected, which was a little disappointing but this was prob one of the best rides that is pretty thrilling and throughout the day it seemed like there were hardly any queue for it, maybe cos it wasn't so kid-friendly, so one can actually take it again if you like!
(5) The Lost World - Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure (7/10) A wet ride which is quite fun cos quite a bit of turning and moving about in fast-moving waters. Waited for almost an hour for the ride though, very popular attraction. Perhaps the disappointing thing was the anti-climax at the end where we expected more from the drop but it was too short. A bit higher and it would've been much, much better. Prepare to get wet though unless you are seated somewhere relatively safe (tip: left side top 2 seats) or you bought a poncho (which is not worth it in my opinion and also not environmentally friendly)
Canopy-Flyer (7/10) - Another popular attraction which may take quite some time to queue (we took near the end of the day so only needed to wait for about 30 min unlike early on where the waiting time was supposedly >1 hour). Fairly thrilling but a pretty short ride which gives you a bird's-eye view of the zone. Keep your legs inside though cos for a moment we felt that our legs were gonna hit the trees so kinda scary.
Dino-Soarin (3/10) - really more of a kiddy ride than for adults. But you can control the height of the dino by pressing this button which was kinda cool I guess.
WaterWorld (9/10) - probably one of the best attractions with a lot of interaction with the crowd before the show began and there's a lot of cool stuff in the show. Had a technical problem halfway through the show but nevertheless it was a great show to watch.
(6) Far Far Away - Shrek 4-D Adventure (7/10) Quite a nice simulation and expect moving chairs, squirting water and there's one best part which I won't reveal =)
Enchanted Airways (6/10) A mini roller coaster that was fairly thrilling though the ride was quite short.
(7) Madagascar - King Julien's Beach Party-Go-Round (2/10) A carousel with the cute characters from Madagascar. Really more for the kids but we had time to spare cos we were waiting for some other stuff and there was hardly any queue time so we just went for it.
That's it for my review - a pretty short trip and we didn't really have to rush to catch everything that we wanted to do unlike in DisneySea. Don't need to buy the fast pass also cos it's $68 for the weekend which is not worth it cos there aren't that many rides and there weren't that many people also (even though all the tickets were sold out).
After that we went out for dinner in search of hawker food cos ZY just came back from Australia and missed our local fare and we went to 2 popular hawker centres which were both closed for cleaning before ending up at the hawker centre at Old Airport Road which had pretty yummy food. All in all a pretty fun day! =)
K, back to work for me... Tragic!
Went to Universal Studios ytd and it was quite fun though it paled in comparison to the DisneySea trip last year. For one, apparently it is the smallest theme park in the world and I could sense it within the first few minutes as we walked around cos we reached one zone to another zone pretty quickly, unlike in DisneySea which was HUGE. Also, there were hardly any must see kinda thing... Anyway so here's a review of the attractions that I tried out based in the various zones:
(1) New York - Lights, Camera, Action! (6/10) It's a special effects show hosted by Steven Spielberg and it's pretty decent but unspectacular. Considering that it was supposed to simulate a major hurricane I was expecting strong winds and more water being splashed around. Kinda strange to walk out of a hurricane all dry... =P
(2) Hollywood - Pantages Hollywood Theater (7/10) A rock-n-roll musical with monsters such as Dracula and Frankenstein and there was some singing and dancing going on (it's a musical after all). Didn't exactly rock my socks though but it was decent...
(3) Sci-fi City - didn't actually take any rides cos some of the group weren't keen on the Accelerator which was the only ride there since Battlestar Galactica is still closed (it looks really awesome and scary though) so just took some pics with the random characters walking around there.
(4) Ancient Egypt - Revenge of the Mummy (8/10) Reminded me of the Indiana Jones ride I took in DisneySea cos it was the same vehicle and the idea was quite similar but the ride was shorter than what I expected, which was a little disappointing but this was prob one of the best rides that is pretty thrilling and throughout the day it seemed like there were hardly any queue for it, maybe cos it wasn't so kid-friendly, so one can actually take it again if you like!
(5) The Lost World - Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure (7/10) A wet ride which is quite fun cos quite a bit of turning and moving about in fast-moving waters. Waited for almost an hour for the ride though, very popular attraction. Perhaps the disappointing thing was the anti-climax at the end where we expected more from the drop but it was too short. A bit higher and it would've been much, much better. Prepare to get wet though unless you are seated somewhere relatively safe (tip: left side top 2 seats) or you bought a poncho (which is not worth it in my opinion and also not environmentally friendly)
Canopy-Flyer (7/10) - Another popular attraction which may take quite some time to queue (we took near the end of the day so only needed to wait for about 30 min unlike early on where the waiting time was supposedly >1 hour). Fairly thrilling but a pretty short ride which gives you a bird's-eye view of the zone. Keep your legs inside though cos for a moment we felt that our legs were gonna hit the trees so kinda scary.
Dino-Soarin (3/10) - really more of a kiddy ride than for adults. But you can control the height of the dino by pressing this button which was kinda cool I guess.
WaterWorld (9/10) - probably one of the best attractions with a lot of interaction with the crowd before the show began and there's a lot of cool stuff in the show. Had a technical problem halfway through the show but nevertheless it was a great show to watch.
(6) Far Far Away - Shrek 4-D Adventure (7/10) Quite a nice simulation and expect moving chairs, squirting water and there's one best part which I won't reveal =)
Enchanted Airways (6/10) A mini roller coaster that was fairly thrilling though the ride was quite short.
(7) Madagascar - King Julien's Beach Party-Go-Round (2/10) A carousel with the cute characters from Madagascar. Really more for the kids but we had time to spare cos we were waiting for some other stuff and there was hardly any queue time so we just went for it.
That's it for my review - a pretty short trip and we didn't really have to rush to catch everything that we wanted to do unlike in DisneySea. Don't need to buy the fast pass also cos it's $68 for the weekend which is not worth it cos there aren't that many rides and there weren't that many people also (even though all the tickets were sold out).
After that we went out for dinner in search of hawker food cos ZY just came back from Australia and missed our local fare and we went to 2 popular hawker centres which were both closed for cleaning before ending up at the hawker centre at Old Airport Road which had pretty yummy food. All in all a pretty fun day! =)
K, back to work for me... Tragic!
Friday, July 2, 2010
Toy Story 3; Course updates for Tue to Thu
Just watched Toy Story 3 last night with the crappy boys (Jon and co.) and it was really enjoyable! Laughed for at least 50% of the movie I think (1 h 45 min show) and I recommend everyone to watch it - MUST WATCH! So funny and prob the best movie I've ever watched =D
Liju was sooo funny cos he was complaining that he couldn't get his popcorn (which was the reason why we went to Cathay from PS) and DS was sharing with me that apparently I'm a legend cos he met some ex-MJC students taking the same course as him in poly and the first they asked him was if they knew me. Hahaha, so strange but flattering... =P
Dinner was funny also cos I was giving them some rebus puzzles that I came up with during the day and I was quite impressed with myself that I could think of such crappy but intellectual stuff. =P Got some feedback from them also on some things to improve on and I shall compile them so that I can use as them to entertain the kids before lessons start =)
Course updates - Tue and Wed were really enjoyable cos our trainer (Francis Tan) was really, really good. Had a lot of interesting experiences to share and he was really good at teaching and distilling out the learning points from all the activities he planned and whatever we did he always had something to teach us that we could apply to our work and workplace environment - excellent facilitator who is passionate about his work (he's about 60+!) and keen to teach us also outside of the course hours.
We started out on Tue doing some simple activities (like folding your arms and separating into groups those that fold left over right and those that fold right over left) to warm up and for him to introduce some terms like preferences, choice, norms, compliance, commitment, etc. so that it was easier for him to get across his points later on. Then he taught us some self-awareness stuff based on this Harrison profile test which we did some time back before the course started cos we were given our reports which showed us our strengths/weaknesses/preferences in many different areas. Then in the afternoon there was this really interesting activity regarding planning and there was one part where we had to all close our eyes and line up in a particular order which was not made known to us earlier. Later on we realised we had to line up according to birthday and birthdates and initially we tried to do some form of communication (we were not allowed to talk) by clapping and got some movement but eventually we all failed. That got us to do a fair bit of thinking regarding our planning and communication...
On Wed morning we started off with some warm-up exercises that he used to energise us and at the same time link it to the development of our dynamic and gentle traits by linking them to the complementary muscle groups used in the exercises (e.g. biceps and triceps). Also linked to
accommodation to others and stretching ourselves when working with others. We also ended up doing something that I learnt from Jon, LJ and DS that came from Big Bang Theory and I was quite thankful that I learnt that crappy stuff from them! It basically involves putting your two hands together and twisting them with the middle fingers pointing at opposite sides. Was so interesting watching others do and see how the trainer tried to get us to teach the others in various ways - quite inspired to do something similar for my kids during Chrystal next term esp when reflecting on the MYE =D
Then we did an activity that involved grabbing, negotiating and managing and it was funny to observe how the different people played their roles though I already had some ideas about some of the learning points. The people were so engrossed in their roles and the negotiation process was hilarious. I was aghast though when I heard from him that some other groups (as in other corporations) were so fixated on certain aspects such as grabbing resources that even though a lady put her body on top of the resources, some people still tried to grab them from under her body. That's TOO competitive!!!
We also had another very fun activity after lunch which involved passing balls to each other with certain criterion written on them that dictated how we were supposed to do it and he taught us about target setting, restructuring of teams and processes and other stuff which I thought was a fun game that could be used for class bonding and orientation.
The most interesting thing was that, as someone pointed out, we were very engaged and had a lot of fun even though the games were very simple but mainly I believe it's because of the learning points that the trainer could extract out of us so hopefully I can use some of those activities to teach the kids also... =)
Today marked the last day of my course and we went to UPS to look at how things were done there and it was quite interesting to learn how much earnings per share was compared to Fedex and DHL, whom I (and prob many people) had the impression were "bigger" companies but apparently UPS trounced them hands-down. Quite interesting to learn some of their processes which could be linked back to education but it was all v. rushed and the tour of part of the warehouse didn't really connect with what we were doing in education.
Back at SMU and we ended up preparing for the group presentations and thankfully we already chose 3 very good presenters so that I didn't have to feel stressed. Never liked to present except for chemistry and teaching stuff that I feel more at home with... So anyway that's the end of my course and overall it was an eye-opener to a lot of government stuff and I'm here I've gained a wider perspective of things which hopefully I can apply in my future work. Gonna rest now - very tired esp after only 4 hours sleep last night and I may be going out to watch soccer later...
Liju was sooo funny cos he was complaining that he couldn't get his popcorn (which was the reason why we went to Cathay from PS) and DS was sharing with me that apparently I'm a legend cos he met some ex-MJC students taking the same course as him in poly and the first they asked him was if they knew me. Hahaha, so strange but flattering... =P
Dinner was funny also cos I was giving them some rebus puzzles that I came up with during the day and I was quite impressed with myself that I could think of such crappy but intellectual stuff. =P Got some feedback from them also on some things to improve on and I shall compile them so that I can use as them to entertain the kids before lessons start =)
Course updates - Tue and Wed were really enjoyable cos our trainer (Francis Tan) was really, really good. Had a lot of interesting experiences to share and he was really good at teaching and distilling out the learning points from all the activities he planned and whatever we did he always had something to teach us that we could apply to our work and workplace environment - excellent facilitator who is passionate about his work (he's about 60+!) and keen to teach us also outside of the course hours.
We started out on Tue doing some simple activities (like folding your arms and separating into groups those that fold left over right and those that fold right over left) to warm up and for him to introduce some terms like preferences, choice, norms, compliance, commitment, etc. so that it was easier for him to get across his points later on. Then he taught us some self-awareness stuff based on this Harrison profile test which we did some time back before the course started cos we were given our reports which showed us our strengths/weaknesses/preferences in many different areas. Then in the afternoon there was this really interesting activity regarding planning and there was one part where we had to all close our eyes and line up in a particular order which was not made known to us earlier. Later on we realised we had to line up according to birthday and birthdates and initially we tried to do some form of communication (we were not allowed to talk) by clapping and got some movement but eventually we all failed. That got us to do a fair bit of thinking regarding our planning and communication...
On Wed morning we started off with some warm-up exercises that he used to energise us and at the same time link it to the development of our dynamic and gentle traits by linking them to the complementary muscle groups used in the exercises (e.g. biceps and triceps). Also linked to
accommodation to others and stretching ourselves when working with others. We also ended up doing something that I learnt from Jon, LJ and DS that came from Big Bang Theory and I was quite thankful that I learnt that crappy stuff from them! It basically involves putting your two hands together and twisting them with the middle fingers pointing at opposite sides. Was so interesting watching others do and see how the trainer tried to get us to teach the others in various ways - quite inspired to do something similar for my kids during Chrystal next term esp when reflecting on the MYE =D
Then we did an activity that involved grabbing, negotiating and managing and it was funny to observe how the different people played their roles though I already had some ideas about some of the learning points. The people were so engrossed in their roles and the negotiation process was hilarious. I was aghast though when I heard from him that some other groups (as in other corporations) were so fixated on certain aspects such as grabbing resources that even though a lady put her body on top of the resources, some people still tried to grab them from under her body. That's TOO competitive!!!
We also had another very fun activity after lunch which involved passing balls to each other with certain criterion written on them that dictated how we were supposed to do it and he taught us about target setting, restructuring of teams and processes and other stuff which I thought was a fun game that could be used for class bonding and orientation.
The most interesting thing was that, as someone pointed out, we were very engaged and had a lot of fun even though the games were very simple but mainly I believe it's because of the learning points that the trainer could extract out of us so hopefully I can use some of those activities to teach the kids also... =)
Today marked the last day of my course and we went to UPS to look at how things were done there and it was quite interesting to learn how much earnings per share was compared to Fedex and DHL, whom I (and prob many people) had the impression were "bigger" companies but apparently UPS trounced them hands-down. Quite interesting to learn some of their processes which could be linked back to education but it was all v. rushed and the tour of part of the warehouse didn't really connect with what we were doing in education.
Back at SMU and we ended up preparing for the group presentations and thankfully we already chose 3 very good presenters so that I didn't have to feel stressed. Never liked to present except for chemistry and teaching stuff that I feel more at home with... So anyway that's the end of my course and overall it was an eye-opener to a lot of government stuff and I'm here I've gained a wider perspective of things which hopefully I can apply in my future work. Gonna rest now - very tired esp after only 4 hours sleep last night and I may be going out to watch soccer later...
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