Good luck for Promos!

It's that time of the year again so good luck to all those taking Promos! Anyway don't think any of my kids will see this since nobody mentioned about my blog but haha at least my thoughts are with them ya?

So many things to update (no thanks to my procrastination over the months but I really am very tired with work and the thought of sitting in front of the com typing a blog post just seemed daunting for some reason) and I've kinda forgotten some stuff so I'll just try to have a quick recap.

Firstly, had dinner at Marina Square's Suki-Ya last night with Jonathan, ZT and his brother. It's a buffet and it was pretty reasonably priced and the meat texture was really good, esp the beef so the boys whacked quite a lot of those. They were all furiously eating away and ordering many boxes of meat (total count was 25) amidst all the crapping, thanks to Jon and his numerous non-sense (the fruit fly and Apple laptop was so funny and of course the various Confuscius lines still cracks me up even though I heard some of them in the past), as well as some in-depth discussion about resonance structures haha (lol, I still can't believe Jonathan went to photoshop the structures in the tutorial and did all that editing instead of just drawing them =p).

Thinking about school the past couple of months since term 2, which I didn't update much also and this is my summary:

H1 Arts Class - generally a very nice bunch of students who do their work and some are so conscientious that I see them almost every week for consultations (even more than my H2 students!) which is assuring considering that it's H1 so sometimes people don't pay as much attention even though it does count quite significantly to A Levels also. But of course you'll usually have slackers and I have about 2 in the class. Kinda frustrating at times but nowadays I try to chill and see if evolution will come into play at the end of the day. There's only so much you can do for the kids and if they don't appreciate it then so be it lor. Anyway sometimes they don't even want to be in JC so no point getting upset over this kind of stuff.

10S417 - my CG and I always appreciate it that submission of work is often v. timely (usually at least 90% submission on deadlines and 100% by next day if they forgot). Surprisingly I am actually quite frank with them about certain things and I shared with them about my past relationship during our Chrystal lesson on resilience cos that really was the most impactful thing in my life. I can't say I'm close to everyone in the class or even with many of them but I shall make a greater effort to bond with them and will speak to each of them after the Promos to see how they can improve themselves next year and also hopefully get to know more about them.

Thinking back, things were kinda slow the first few months I guess, even for lessons but there's more rapport now and the recent catch-phrases like being "systematic" have helped to make things a little funny. Speaking of being funny, I have to admit that it's quite rare for me to spontaneously come up with crappy jokes and usually I actually have to plan to say something funny and read up a bit of stuff or take notes from the funny stuff that I heard from other people.

While the class is still pretty much divided into their cliques, at least I feel that there's more unity in doing stuff and less awkwardness in working together? I could be wrong but at least that's what I'm hoping! Over the months I've also been hoping to get the class bonded and initiating the celebration of our class day on April 17th (and following up with 14th July after someone suggested) to chill, have pizza and do some activities together like playing games and I was trying to teach them about how different people learn by using this thing from Big Bang Theory that Jonathan, DS and Liju taught me last time and which was used during a recent course that I attended.

Other class activities we had included (1) Learning Journey to Marina Barrage in May, which was also a very fun time and it's actually a very nice place to go to - very peaceful and the garden at the top is a nice place to take pictures (we did jump shots!) and just chill. They also played a prank on me during the walk through the gallery as they tried to scare me by screaming from behind a screen (frankly I was a bit "chua dio") and then there was this video that the kids were making fun of and it really was super cheeky of them haha. Oh the journey to Marina Barrage was also very funny as we played games on the train and also we were showing each other photos from primary school (e.g. their EZ-link card and my IC) and had a good laugh! (2) Teacher's Day competition within the class which was super funny - we were divided into Team Lau and Team Non-Lau (trust my student to come up with such a funny name) and went about doing various activities like finding various items, including taking a picture with Ms Lai, uploading a video onto FB to wish me Happy Teacher's Day and many other funny stuff. Quite enjoyable I must say! We even had time to play around with whipped cream and honestly if I didn't feel comfortable with them I wouldn't have done that with them. Not many would've seen things the way I did but whatever, I think I still know my kids best!

All in all, they are a really nice bunch of kids who are appreciative and I was pleasantly surprised at some of the things they said to me and I am thankful also to be teaching them. =)

10S103 - have had many hilarious lessons with them over the months, thanks to some really crappy boys who say the funniest stuff and have the funniest facial expressions around. For example I had lunch with some of them at Elias Mall Mac's during the Sep holidays before consultation and when I ordered this Double McSpicy meal, one of them said, "Is that a challenge for us?" Then ALL of them bought the same thing, lol. Someone was also saying that he had a lot of respect for me then when I was eating ketchup he joked, "Is that ketchup? Mr Lau, I've lost some of my respect for you!" Super funny sia.

Anyway, thanks to them I also responded with some of my own funny facial expressions and rebutt their crap during class. Always thankful to have such people around to make lessons more fun cos on my own I'm not the very funny kind of person. Some also like to ask for hints for exams and some are very observant about cuff-links - so much so that they commented in their Teacher's Day message haha. But I've noticed that some of them have been really struggling to cope with 4H2 - can see them falling asleep in class, doing poorly for tests - which if someone like me can observe then it must be pretty obvious!

Lectures - Lectured H2 Chem Eqm during the Jun Holidays and H2 Ionic Eqm (on A-B Titrations again) and Intro to Org Chem in T3 and it was pretty funny, esp the 2 lectures on eqm. Was in LT5 for Chem Eqm and had to crack jokes esp for the double period lecture and entertained with some bits of singing from "Down", "Irreplaceable", "Only You" that was linked to what I was doing.

In LT4 for Ionic Eqm and needed to excite the crowd esp. for such a difficult topic and difficult section so I started off with a bang with this "Algae Ball" thingie which was a kinda cute toy and the catch I made this time was that whoever catches the ball gets to call someone to answer the question so there's an incentive to taking it since it's like an immunity idol in Survivor. Came up with a series of funny points as I moved around the LT getting various people to answer questions and making fun of some of their comments while trying to clear up some misconceptions. The ultimate funniest line was this one that I've thought about long ago but was waiting for the right moment to unleash - "You need to raise your standards! The only things you have raised are my eyebrows!" Apparently many people rem that line very well and found it really funny, so much so that they write in their messages to me haha. I'm glad they found it funny! Then towards the end of the lecture when the first bell rang, I heard someone from the front saying, "Yes!" so I said, "Who's that who said yes?" Then some of the people in front started arrowing 2 people and I questioned them and I jokingly said to one of them, "I'm not sure who said it but it's probably you. It's just your face!" much to the amusement of the LT and some of the person's classmates. Also made some references to Paul the Octopus in my lecture slides when I asked a Yes/No question to entertain them since its so popular!

School events - (1) after taking a break from performing during our Teacher's Day concert last year, I was back in action on request from my fellow Council TAs and it was quite stressful cos I only managed to come up with my Chemistry song by the early hours of the morning on the day itself. Had been too tired to think but in the end I was really pleased with myself with a Chem version of "Apologise" based on Chem Eqm and Ionic Eqm, which was what I chose since those were the topics I lectured so the kids could better relate to them. From what I heard, the kids had a really good laugh as I always hope for when I write such songs, even though the start was kinda screwed up cos I didn't have time to rehearse with the councillors and I haven't had time to remember all the lyrics, so much so that I asked them to restart the whole thing. Thanks to Jonathan who helped me to lower the key of the song though I think I went back to singing in original key later on cos I tend to forget my pitching. Need to practice more next time! I find that nowadays my performances are all quite rushed and I don't have much time to practice so I tend to forget my lyrics more often and also that makes me too focused on recalling the lyrics and hence lack focus on the pitching part.

(2) YOG Ceremony - had to go back to school on Aug 10th for some lessons as well as attend this ceremony where they lit the torch and ran around our school track. We had this teacher-student match also for captain's ball (for the ladies) and soccer (8 v 8 for the guys). It was certainly a very draining match and the heat was utterly unbearable as we played at close to 2pm. My 103 kids were making fun of me during our warm-ups and later on I was kidding with some of them that I substituted myself out after half-time so that I can keep myself fresh for the last few minutes of the game since I am their secret weapon (like the guy in Slam Dunk) lol.

Anyway, we had a bright start and came close with a very good chance in the first minute. But soon the boys were in control and we found ourselves having to defend quite a bit to contain them and did so, going 0-0 into the break. In the second half, we struck when surprisingly nobody was marking our striker who stuck it into the net and we then spent the rest of the time just hoofing the ball out and defending for our lives as the kids really piled on the pressure. It didn't help that we only had 2 subs and they had a full team of subs so we were really shacked out at the end but held on to win 1-0 much to our surprise haha.

(3) I Love MJC Week (Jul 19 to 23) - Our latest new event that we started this year and I was one of the teachers in charge. It was an interesting idea that was meant to tie in with the celebration of College Day as well as the opening of our Youth Sports Academy for Wushu and Heritage Centre.

We worked with the kids in coming out with I Love MJC T-shirts (similar to the iconic I Love NY t-shirts), badges (which was designed by 1 of the councillors and I really liked the designs), daily trivia about MJC, events board to express their love for MJC and a competition to showcase their love for MJC which I had a cameo appearance as I brought to them "A Better Tomorrow" which I first composed for 2006 Teacher's Day but this time with some really nice slides (thanks to my councillor Michelle!) to show the lyrics and with the pictures linked to the lyrics. =)

(4) Artphoria (May) - we had our Chemistry Brothers' performance during the common lunch which was quite nostalgic cos my bro has left the service to do trading so it was our very last performance together. Thinking back from our first collaboration in 2008 Teacher's Day, I really enjoyed working with him on all these performances cos he's so good with his guitar, is so sporting about doing stuff and is a really nice guy. We all miss him but I'm sure we'll keep in touch, as we have done recently. =)

K, that's it for now! Nights! =)