defeated, dejected and depleted
Thursday, August 30, 2007, 04:21 p.m. #1385
Tomorrow's Teacher's Day celebration is going to be the worst EVER.
After a series of marking of Physics prelim papers for the past two weeks, I just got more and more depressed. For Paper 2, half of my better class failed, and the other class had only 7 passers. Most of the students scored borderline-passing marks for Paper 1 (MCQ) too. Was hoping that Paper 5 (Practical) would pull up their marks, but no... Paper 5 was just over, and I just finished marking their scripts. While I have done numerous practicals with them, often staying back after school and coming back during holidays to conduct lab sessions, many of the students still did not have the basic stuff which should be written in their answers (Physics practical can be quite procedural - if their table and graph are presented well, the students can still score quite well even when their experimental data is gibberish). In the students' answers, I saw "fantastic" graphs which curved in fanciful ways when they should be straight best-fit lines, despite how I have told these students a million times how tables and graphs should look like, giving them checklists of how to draw good tables and graphs, going through and practising with them so many times that even a 10-year-old would have been able to recite the essential points to me by then.
At the end of all that marking, I really felt like crying - and I meant that literally - to the extent that I chased away all my colleagues when they came near to attempt to chat. I was afraid that I might burst into tears when I look up to see them. I never felt so deeply disappointed with my students before. What disturbs me the most is, whether they even CARE that people are disappointed with them? What can I do when the students are not putting in any visible effort on their part? I don't remember getting so upset with my students for my previous graduating batch, and this current batch is supposed to be better in terms of their PSLE grades (so the school is expecting them to perform better in 'O's)!
I just feel... defeated, dejected and depleted. Tomorrow when these Sec 4 students pass me a Teachers' Day card (well, if they might not even bother to), the actual thing that I'd want to do, is to tear the card and throw it at their faces - a thank-you card would really be a mockery to me! As cliched as this may sound, the best Teachers' Day present that I truly want from them is their results, which they failed to deliver. I hope I'll be able to forget all this and be calm enough tomorrow to smile to my students. It's supposed to be a happy occasion.
881
Saturday, August 25, 2007, 04:31 p.m. #1384
要不是上星期无聊的 Technical Mob ，我上个周六便与爸妈去看《881》了。结果我无趣地背了 Full Pack 回营报到，小两口撇下了我看戏去了，爸更因为太喜欢而买下了他生平的第一张电影原声带，并让我听到了伍家辉的“一人一半”：多么简单、干净、纯朴，令我回想到从前“舞榭歌台”时期的歌曲，那样真挚、动人。
终于看了《881》。确实有点感动。但令我感动的不是故事情节（其实故事有点零落——但故事本来便不是这出戏的焦点），而是戏里五光十色的绚丽风彩、一首首牵动人心的歌曲、戏里福建口语造成的共鸣、以及荒诞胡闹背后那种不需要符合逻辑、放胆追寻梦想的至死不渝。一直十分喜欢陈子谦的电影，因为在里头可以看到独属新加坡的元素、幽默。看到电影院里许多人带着年老的爸爸、妈妈、公公、婆婆一起来看戏，更为闹哄哄的《881》增添了不少亲切、窝心的气氛。
脑里仍萦绕着：一人一半，感情不散——
the shameless turning point
Friday, August 24, 2007, 07:31 p.m. #1383
Was shamelessly impressed by my own violin-playing just now - and I'm thankful that this is just in time for my exam, which is just a few weeks away - one month ago my exam pieces were still in a mess and I thought I'd never make it. Somehow everything fell into place just now when I was practising - the bowing, the tone, the musical feel... I was totally immersed in my own music - even for my usually lacklustre "Grazioso" (Leduc)! My "Allegro Moderato" (Fibich) was so sizzling hot, and my "Blues #1" (Lee Burswold) was simply so... blue... Was it the work of Du Diable? Or the Pirastro Obligato strings which I started using three weeks ago (the gold E string looks damn chio by the way)? Or the L'Opera Jade rosin which I only began using one week ago? Or maybe it's just the wonderfully magical me? *Feel free to puke*
Couldn't stop playing just now, afraid that the magic would be gone - that always happens - such magical moments always come and go, and I always end up playing horribly during violin lessons. But just now was just exceptionally phenomenal - it felt like a turning point for me...
All right. Time to fly back from la-la land.
i, actor
Friday, August 24, 2007, 10:40 a.m. #1382
Forgot to write about this, which happened weeks ago... I was an actor for a day when I brought a class of students to Pulau Semakau Landfill. A short movie had to be made to showcase the vibrant enrichment programmes in our school, and the movie is going to be shown in MOE conferences. One of the boys and I were selected to be the two main leads of that "movie". There's a storyline, and there're a few emotional moments. One part even required the boy and me to hold hands to show the closeness of our teacher-student relationship, and it was quite awkward for us. Ha ha.
We got our scripts in the morning and had only a few hours to memorise and practise our lines. Then we we went for the shooting in the afternoon. That's when I realised I'm terrible in remembering lines - I can memorise facts, but I simply can't memorise big chunks of paragraphs of dialogues. Most of these lines had to be accurate, word for word, in order for the audience to understand the programmes well. So, one of the teachers had to stand beside the camera to show me the script on a clipboard, and I had to act natural while reading from it.
Don't know how everything turned out. I haven't watched the final, edited movie yet - but my friend who edited the movie said it was good, and the principal liked it. It was fun being an actor - but I don't think I'll ever want to go through the process of remembering lines again... =)
cutesy sounds from sonic hell
Thursday, August 23, 2007, 04:15 p.m. #1381
Don't you just hate those baby ringtones? Oh well, maybe you happen to like them, but I'm definitely not a fan. I have a colleague who has all these ringtones, and she leaves her handphone in the staff room when she goes off to teach, with the ringtone volume set to its maximum. So, whenever someone calls her, these baby ringtones will replay endlessly like a siren in the staff room, and those silly laughters will irritate the living hell out of me, especially when the caller is a persistent one who keeps on trying to call through... She also has these ringtones that mimic the cartoon character Crayon Shin saying some dumb lines ending with the equally dense "hohohohoho-hohohohoho" laughter - the recurring act-cute voice of that child sound-actor (to be fair, that could be an adult too *shudder*) can raise my annoyance level to the max in an instant.
It's okay if we like some things, but we can't assume everyone has the same tastes and there's certainly no need to force these things down other people's throats (or in this case, ears) - although I still can't fathom how anyone could possibly fancy such nerve-wrecking sounds from Sonic Hell.
the young dick
Wednesday, August 22, 2007, 08:51 p.m. #1380
Sis and I were trying to find a photograph of me in primary or secondary school uniform (for the purpose of a school event) when we found this on an album cover:
My sis exclaimed, "How come so many fruits on his head huh?"
unearthly stories
Tuesday, August 21, 2007, 09:34 p.m. #1379
It's the seventh month on the lunar calendar, and strange things have been happening lately.
My form class girls complained about a strong smell of blood that comes and goes in class. The same girls also said that they saw a white lady figure on the ceiling when they looked into the classroom from outside.
Weird things are happening in the staff room too. My workstation is near the toilet, and I'll often hear the handdryer in the male toilet turn itself on when nobody's inside. There was once when I went in and hammered at it to try to stop it (the primitive way of fixing malfunctioning appliances) but it continued blasting loudly. Then when I gave up and took a leak beside it, it stopped. My colleague also said that the handdryer startled him when it suddenly went on by itself while he was in the toilet. This could simply be a case of a spoilt handdryer, but all of us love a couple of supernatural stories every now and then, eh?
anticipating the destruction
Tuesday, August 21, 2007, 07:11 p.m. #1378
Can't wait for the release of Annie Lennox's "Songs of Mass Destruction"! Check out her music video for "Dark Road" on Amazon.com!
sonatas
Monday, August 20, 2007, 08:32 p.m. #1377
Nab is my ex-student whose birthday is one day after mine. When I heard her play the piano during a school event last year, I was so impressed by her emotive expressions that I made her promise to play a piece for me one day. She promised to play for me on my next birthday, on the condition that I play a piece on the violin for her too. Whenever we met along the corridors, we'd remind each other about the "promise". Last Friday, on her birthday (a day after mine), we finally met up in the music room, and she played two of her favorite Korean drama pieces, including that very popular theme from "Winter Sonata". In return, I played the same piece on the violin, and we took videos of each other playing our instruments. (Incidentally "Winter Sonata" would probably be the last piece I played on this violin - I passed the violin to JJ that same night as she's keen on buying it.) Now that we have fulfilled our promise, we won't need to "remind" each other anymore. 达成了承诺，竟然有点怅然若失。
Last Tuesday was my lunar birthday. I wake up at 5.30 a.m. every morning, and Mum woke up earlier than me to cook a large bowl of mee sua with two hard-boiled eggs for my breakfast (mee sua is usually translated as vermicelli but I always don't think it describes the mee sua very accurately) - the mee sua and eggs are supposed to mean good luck and longevity. Dad contributed a salted chicken to add to the dinner dishes - a normal dish to most people, but a "delicacy" which he buys only on rare celebratory occasions since I was young. 简单的便菜，充满了浓浓的暖意。
Sweet pieces of memory which I'd always treasure...
technical mob
Saturday, August 18, 2007, 11:09 p.m. #1376
Met up with JJ, Zew and Kel at Wisma Ichiban Boshi yesterday to celebrate our belated birthdays. Enjoyed the company thoroughly and had a hearty chat.
Technical mob recall today. Had to report back in camp in the afternoon in full battle order. Waited there for several hours before we're released. Seriously, do we really need to practise "going back to camp"? If they want to make sure that the automated notification system works, isn't it sufficient for us to send back an acknowledgement upon activation? Why did we need to cancel our day plans, physically report back to camp, and then spend hours waiting for nothing? All of us will surely report back in camp in time (nobody wants to be charged) - I sincerely don't think we need to be tested on this in such a primitive way. We still know where our camp is and how to make our way there, and we still know how to wear our uniform and tie our bootlaces, because we go back for reservist every year - maybe such mob recalls are more applicable to people who don't regularly report for reservist? :/
birthday
Thursday, August 16, 2007, 05:39 p.m. #1375
When I walked towards my form class today, seeing that the doors and windows were closed and the lights were off, I knew they must have been up to something. Risking the possibility of a pail of flour falling on my head, I bravely opened the door, and I was immediately greeted with a very loud "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR TAN" and a nice, big cake on the teacher's desk. The first (rather spoilsport) thought which ran through my head was, "Right, this period is gone. Shall have to rush in the next lesson."
What followed were a string of birthday songs in three languages, a mini-celebration (which I had to ask them to lower the volume several times as other neighboring classes were having lessons) and lots of photo-taking. Thought the kids had been really sweet and thorough - the "surprise party" was totally unexpected, and the kids collected money among themselves a month ago to prepare for this. They also remembered to get bottled drinks, paper towels and disposable utensils (I usually have to scramble for utensils in the office for such occasions), and cleared up the mess on their own after the celebration. Quite proud of their "organisational skills" and discipline, for a secondary one class. =)
Anyway, got a range of presents from colleagues and students, from lovely hand-drawn cards to a simple, heartwarming bottle of chrysanthemum tea. Liked every single one of them. (WT gave me a used teabag and some half-eaten chocolates. -_-''')
Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday messages through sms and email too! =)
cam eras
Sunday, August 12, 2007, 12:33 a.m. #1374
Indeed. During my "era", my family used to be really careful with using the camera - one roll of film might be used for years, and we'd always "save" some film in the camera just in case an important event pops up - which is why I don't have many childhood photos, and there's one whole part of my life (between one to five years old) which was not documented at all in pictures. As a result, that period of my life is a blank to me - I just can't recall many things that happened then. Even for those few things that I can barely remember, they are mostly blurry, and I'm uncertain whether they really took place or they're just fragments of my childhood fantasies.
That probably explains why I love to snap pictures so much now when digital photography has taken over - I'll easily take hundreds of pictures at one go. Can't afford to let any more precious moments slip by.
oldgames mania
Saturday, August 11, 2007, 02:36 p.m. #1373
Just received my first birthday present from Eriko...
Pictionary!!! Woohoo!!! A great addition to my recently-acquired collection of good old-fashioned games!
the end's not near, it's here
Friday, August 10, 2007, 11:30 p.m. #1372
Just finished watching the DVDs of the fourth and final season of "The O.C.". And it got me to recall what made the series so enjoyable four years ago.
The first season was phenomenal - funny, clever, tight scriptwriting, great soundtracks by independent songwriters... The second season started off in a fuddled mess but it got better towards the end. The third season was an utter bore, living up to people's misunderstood expectations as a cheesy teenage melodrama. The fourth season, thankfully, regained the Seth-Summer wit and well-crafted scripts of the first season, and gave the series its well-deserved end. Didn't like the unnecessary Frank-Bullit thread and the simplistic and almost slipshod treatment of characters like Julie, but I guess with the rush to end the series, some sacrifices had to be made. There were several memorable moments ("The Chrismukk-huh?") and instances of scriptwriting brilliance, especially in the last few episodes. The penultimate episode "The Night Moves" was heart-stopping, and the entire series came to a full circle in the final episode "The End's Not Near, It's Here". Quite glad that the series ended this way - it might have gotten messy again if it'd dragged on.
Still, nothing beats the first season - and I'm sure I'll be watching it for the third time soon. =)
the segregating congregations
Thursday, August 9, 2007, 09:50 a.m. #1371
National Day celebration in school yesterday. Not very memorable. But it's the after-school activities which I enjoyed. Had a feast with the usual gang at Miramar Hotel (with the addition of new blood, James and JJ), then sang at Suntec KBox, and ended the day with a much-awaited long chat. It's good to be able to talk to close colleagues again, after such a long time - we haven't met up for a meal since May. It's quite ironic, when we haven't really talked to each other for months, although most of us are in the same department. We have been so busy in school, and even during meetings, when we have to sit in clusters, we cannot sit with people of the same department, and there has got to be a mix of gender and race. According to the management, we have to do this in order to set a good example for our kids, to illustrate the need for diversity and facilitate interactions between different people so that we do not just mix with people whom we're comfortable with. Since students are always seated and grouped to reflect this mix in the classroom, we should also be grouped in this way.
And I think that just doesn't make much sense. In the class, while teachers try to arrange the seating arrangement such that a boy will always sit with a girl, and a Chinese will always sit with a Malay, to encourage inter-gender, inter-racial interactions (unless there are not enough people of a certain group), all of us know that the REAL reason for the mix is so that students do not talk to each other as much during lessons. Girls, if seated together, will gossip to no end; and boys, if seated together, will become rowdy in no time; people of the same race, if seated together, will start chatting in their mother tongue.
But the management enforces this "mix" rule during staff meetings "to promote interactions with other departments, and people of diffent gender and race". Teachers end up not talking much within the group, and even when we interact, it's just the hi-bye, let's-just-finish-the-task-at-hand kind of interactions, and we gradually become strangers with the teachers of the same department. During school hours, we are so busy that we don't even see each other in the staff room (our free periods are different), then during meetings, we cannot even share our thoughts with our closer friends... Wouldn't working with people of the same department (sharing the same goals and subject) be more productive and meaningful? By adopting this practice, are we progressing? Or are we regressing? It's probably good for students to have the mix in class - after all their social circle may still be quite small and they need to cultivate this habit of acceptance of different people from young - but we teachers are already adults, if we didn't appreciate diversity we probably wouldn't have survived for so long in Singapore, and it's not as if we avoid communicating with "different people" in our daily work - forcing us together in groups only makes us feel more uncomfortable and further emphasizes that fact that we're "different". Do we have to follow these rules that students follow in order to be "good" role models? Do we have to start wearing uniforms, and do female teachers have to tie up their hair? Do teachers have to line up in two lines before we move to the meeting room, to show that discipline and order are important? Where do we draw the line?
I always hear this, "Sometimes we may not be happy with certain policies, but we should always be mindful of the original intents behind them." And I wonder, what if the intent is not achieved? Isn't it time to move on to something else which may serve the purpose better? Do we still have to follow through with something that doesn't work, just because it has a "meaningful intent"?
This probably only happens in the education sector, where everything has to be oh-so-politically-correct.
schizophrenia
Tuesday, August 7, 2007, 01:56 p.m. #1370
Have always been complaining about the loads of admininstrative things which teachers have to do. This time, I shall talk about something which most people think teachers do most of the time - marking.
Spent several days marking theory tests, practical tests and mock exam papers last week. Now I really appreciate the teachers who used to set tests for me, because it is an extremely draining process to set a test, get it printed, find a timeslot to conduct the test, and lastly (and the most laborious part), mark it. Sitting for the test requires about an hour, but marking the test papers for one class easily takes up several hours. I took 4 hours to mark the mock exam papers for each Sec 4 class. Last week, I had 14 sets of test papers to mark - some of them are still unmarked. And I haven't even counted the piles of homework that still reside in my pigeonhole.
Worse of all, sometimes after hours of marking, when the classes are not performing, I'll be terribly affected - which was the case this time, when the Sec 4 classes did horribly for their mock exam - and the prelims are just two weeks away. I felt a mix of anger, disappointment and lethargy, and I told myself I have to impress this on my students when I give out the papers, and hopefully wake them up with a dramatic and inspirational speech. For the first class that I went to, I spoke to them for one period, telling them how disappointing they have been and questioning them whether they have done their part as students. Some of them (I found out later) felt really guilty and remorseful for not studying - most of the remorse will be shortlived anyway, according to experience - but I hope that at least a few of them got the message and would get down to some real actions to improve themselves.
The thing is, scolding can be very tiring. By the time I went into the later classes, when I had to repeat the previous "drama", the effect was not as impactful already, when some of these classes actually deserved more of that "drama". And I am not using the word "drama" because it is fake. To express the disappointment which I felt last week when I already feel okay now can be quite difficult - usually I'll recover from such low feelings really fast as I don't want to torture myself with negative feelings for too long. So, sometimes, to a certain extent, part of such "drama" may be acted out, in order to portray the real feelings which I felt some time ago. And sometimes within a day, I'll need to "act out" several different roles in various classes. Am becoming schizophrenic already.
I should take up some drama or stamina courses.
Thursday, August 30, 2007, 04:21 p.m. #1385
Tomorrow's Teacher's Day celebration is going to be the worst EVER.
After a series of marking of Physics prelim papers for the past two weeks, I just got more and more depressed. For Paper 2, half of my better class failed, and the other class had only 7 passers. Most of the students scored borderline-passing marks for Paper 1 (MCQ) too. Was hoping that Paper 5 (Practical) would pull up their marks, but no... Paper 5 was just over, and I just finished marking their scripts. While I have done numerous practicals with them, often staying back after school and coming back during holidays to conduct lab sessions, many of the students still did not have the basic stuff which should be written in their answers (Physics practical can be quite procedural - if their table and graph are presented well, the students can still score quite well even when their experimental data is gibberish). In the students' answers, I saw "fantastic" graphs which curved in fanciful ways when they should be straight best-fit lines, despite how I have told these students a million times how tables and graphs should look like, giving them checklists of how to draw good tables and graphs, going through and practising with them so many times that even a 10-year-old would have been able to recite the essential points to me by then.
At the end of all that marking, I really felt like crying - and I meant that literally - to the extent that I chased away all my colleagues when they came near to attempt to chat. I was afraid that I might burst into tears when I look up to see them. I never felt so deeply disappointed with my students before. What disturbs me the most is, whether they even CARE that people are disappointed with them? What can I do when the students are not putting in any visible effort on their part? I don't remember getting so upset with my students for my previous graduating batch, and this current batch is supposed to be better in terms of their PSLE grades (so the school is expecting them to perform better in 'O's)!
I just feel... defeated, dejected and depleted. Tomorrow when these Sec 4 students pass me a Teachers' Day card (well, if they might not even bother to), the actual thing that I'd want to do, is to tear the card and throw it at their faces - a thank-you card would really be a mockery to me! As cliched as this may sound, the best Teachers' Day present that I truly want from them is their results, which they failed to deliver. I hope I'll be able to forget all this and be calm enough tomorrow to smile to my students. It's supposed to be a happy occasion.
881
Saturday, August 25, 2007, 04:31 p.m. #1384
要不是上星期无聊的 Technical Mob ，我上个周六便与爸妈去看《881》了。结果我无趣地背了 Full Pack 回营报到，小两口撇下了我看戏去了，爸更因为太喜欢而买下了他生平的第一张电影原声带，并让我听到了伍家辉的“一人一半”：多么简单、干净、纯朴，令我回想到从前“舞榭歌台”时期的歌曲，那样真挚、动人。
终于看了《881》。确实有点感动。但令我感动的不是故事情节（其实故事有点零落——但故事本来便不是这出戏的焦点），而是戏里五光十色的绚丽风彩、一首首牵动人心的歌曲、戏里福建口语造成的共鸣、以及荒诞胡闹背后那种不需要符合逻辑、放胆追寻梦想的至死不渝。一直十分喜欢陈子谦的电影，因为在里头可以看到独属新加坡的元素、幽默。看到电影院里许多人带着年老的爸爸、妈妈、公公、婆婆一起来看戏，更为闹哄哄的《881》增添了不少亲切、窝心的气氛。
脑里仍萦绕着：一人一半，感情不散——
the shameless turning point
Friday, August 24, 2007, 07:31 p.m. #1383
Was shamelessly impressed by my own violin-playing just now - and I'm thankful that this is just in time for my exam, which is just a few weeks away - one month ago my exam pieces were still in a mess and I thought I'd never make it. Somehow everything fell into place just now when I was practising - the bowing, the tone, the musical feel... I was totally immersed in my own music - even for my usually lacklustre "Grazioso" (Leduc)! My "Allegro Moderato" (Fibich) was so sizzling hot, and my "Blues #1" (Lee Burswold) was simply so... blue... Was it the work of Du Diable? Or the Pirastro Obligato strings which I started using three weeks ago (the gold E string looks damn chio by the way)? Or the L'Opera Jade rosin which I only began using one week ago? Or maybe it's just the wonderfully magical me? *Feel free to puke*
Couldn't stop playing just now, afraid that the magic would be gone - that always happens - such magical moments always come and go, and I always end up playing horribly during violin lessons. But just now was just exceptionally phenomenal - it felt like a turning point for me...
All right. Time to fly back from la-la land.
i, actor
Friday, August 24, 2007, 10:40 a.m. #1382
Forgot to write about this, which happened weeks ago... I was an actor for a day when I brought a class of students to Pulau Semakau Landfill. A short movie had to be made to showcase the vibrant enrichment programmes in our school, and the movie is going to be shown in MOE conferences. One of the boys and I were selected to be the two main leads of that "movie". There's a storyline, and there're a few emotional moments. One part even required the boy and me to hold hands to show the closeness of our teacher-student relationship, and it was quite awkward for us. Ha ha.
We got our scripts in the morning and had only a few hours to memorise and practise our lines. Then we we went for the shooting in the afternoon. That's when I realised I'm terrible in remembering lines - I can memorise facts, but I simply can't memorise big chunks of paragraphs of dialogues. Most of these lines had to be accurate, word for word, in order for the audience to understand the programmes well. So, one of the teachers had to stand beside the camera to show me the script on a clipboard, and I had to act natural while reading from it.
Don't know how everything turned out. I haven't watched the final, edited movie yet - but my friend who edited the movie said it was good, and the principal liked it. It was fun being an actor - but I don't think I'll ever want to go through the process of remembering lines again... =)
cutesy sounds from sonic hell
Thursday, August 23, 2007, 04:15 p.m. #1381
Don't you just hate those baby ringtones? Oh well, maybe you happen to like them, but I'm definitely not a fan. I have a colleague who has all these ringtones, and she leaves her handphone in the staff room when she goes off to teach, with the ringtone volume set to its maximum. So, whenever someone calls her, these baby ringtones will replay endlessly like a siren in the staff room, and those silly laughters will irritate the living hell out of me, especially when the caller is a persistent one who keeps on trying to call through... She also has these ringtones that mimic the cartoon character Crayon Shin saying some dumb lines ending with the equally dense "hohohohoho-hohohohoho" laughter - the recurring act-cute voice of that child sound-actor (to be fair, that could be an adult too *shudder*) can raise my annoyance level to the max in an instant.
It's okay if we like some things, but we can't assume everyone has the same tastes and there's certainly no need to force these things down other people's throats (or in this case, ears) - although I still can't fathom how anyone could possibly fancy such nerve-wrecking sounds from Sonic Hell.
the young dick
Wednesday, August 22, 2007, 08:51 p.m. #1380
Sis and I were trying to find a photograph of me in primary or secondary school uniform (for the purpose of a school event) when we found this on an album cover:
My sis exclaimed, "How come so many fruits on his head huh?"
unearthly stories
Tuesday, August 21, 2007, 09:34 p.m. #1379
It's the seventh month on the lunar calendar, and strange things have been happening lately.
My form class girls complained about a strong smell of blood that comes and goes in class. The same girls also said that they saw a white lady figure on the ceiling when they looked into the classroom from outside.
Weird things are happening in the staff room too. My workstation is near the toilet, and I'll often hear the handdryer in the male toilet turn itself on when nobody's inside. There was once when I went in and hammered at it to try to stop it (the primitive way of fixing malfunctioning appliances) but it continued blasting loudly. Then when I gave up and took a leak beside it, it stopped. My colleague also said that the handdryer startled him when it suddenly went on by itself while he was in the toilet. This could simply be a case of a spoilt handdryer, but all of us love a couple of supernatural stories every now and then, eh?
anticipating the destruction
Tuesday, August 21, 2007, 07:11 p.m. #1378
Can't wait for the release of Annie Lennox's "Songs of Mass Destruction"! Check out her music video for "Dark Road" on Amazon.com!
sonatas
Monday, August 20, 2007, 08:32 p.m. #1377
Nab is my ex-student whose birthday is one day after mine. When I heard her play the piano during a school event last year, I was so impressed by her emotive expressions that I made her promise to play a piece for me one day. She promised to play for me on my next birthday, on the condition that I play a piece on the violin for her too. Whenever we met along the corridors, we'd remind each other about the "promise". Last Friday, on her birthday (a day after mine), we finally met up in the music room, and she played two of her favorite Korean drama pieces, including that very popular theme from "Winter Sonata". In return, I played the same piece on the violin, and we took videos of each other playing our instruments. (Incidentally "Winter Sonata" would probably be the last piece I played on this violin - I passed the violin to JJ that same night as she's keen on buying it.) Now that we have fulfilled our promise, we won't need to "remind" each other anymore. 达成了承诺，竟然有点怅然若失。
Last Tuesday was my lunar birthday. I wake up at 5.30 a.m. every morning, and Mum woke up earlier than me to cook a large bowl of mee sua with two hard-boiled eggs for my breakfast (mee sua is usually translated as vermicelli but I always don't think it describes the mee sua very accurately) - the mee sua and eggs are supposed to mean good luck and longevity. Dad contributed a salted chicken to add to the dinner dishes - a normal dish to most people, but a "delicacy" which he buys only on rare celebratory occasions since I was young. 简单的便菜，充满了浓浓的暖意。
Sweet pieces of memory which I'd always treasure...
technical mob
Saturday, August 18, 2007, 11:09 p.m. #1376
Met up with JJ, Zew and Kel at Wisma Ichiban Boshi yesterday to celebrate our belated birthdays. Enjoyed the company thoroughly and had a hearty chat.
Technical mob recall today. Had to report back in camp in the afternoon in full battle order. Waited there for several hours before we're released. Seriously, do we really need to practise "going back to camp"? If they want to make sure that the automated notification system works, isn't it sufficient for us to send back an acknowledgement upon activation? Why did we need to cancel our day plans, physically report back to camp, and then spend hours waiting for nothing? All of us will surely report back in camp in time (nobody wants to be charged) - I sincerely don't think we need to be tested on this in such a primitive way. We still know where our camp is and how to make our way there, and we still know how to wear our uniform and tie our bootlaces, because we go back for reservist every year - maybe such mob recalls are more applicable to people who don't regularly report for reservist? :/
birthday
Thursday, August 16, 2007, 05:39 p.m. #1375
When I walked towards my form class today, seeing that the doors and windows were closed and the lights were off, I knew they must have been up to something. Risking the possibility of a pail of flour falling on my head, I bravely opened the door, and I was immediately greeted with a very loud "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR TAN" and a nice, big cake on the teacher's desk. The first (rather spoilsport) thought which ran through my head was, "Right, this period is gone. Shall have to rush in the next lesson."
What followed were a string of birthday songs in three languages, a mini-celebration (which I had to ask them to lower the volume several times as other neighboring classes were having lessons) and lots of photo-taking. Thought the kids had been really sweet and thorough - the "surprise party" was totally unexpected, and the kids collected money among themselves a month ago to prepare for this. They also remembered to get bottled drinks, paper towels and disposable utensils (I usually have to scramble for utensils in the office for such occasions), and cleared up the mess on their own after the celebration. Quite proud of their "organisational skills" and discipline, for a secondary one class. =)
Anyway, got a range of presents from colleagues and students, from lovely hand-drawn cards to a simple, heartwarming bottle of chrysanthemum tea. Liked every single one of them. (WT gave me a used teabag and some half-eaten chocolates. -_-''')
Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday messages through sms and email too! =)
cam eras
Sunday, August 12, 2007, 12:33 a.m. #1374
Indeed. During my "era", my family used to be really careful with using the camera - one roll of film might be used for years, and we'd always "save" some film in the camera just in case an important event pops up - which is why I don't have many childhood photos, and there's one whole part of my life (between one to five years old) which was not documented at all in pictures. As a result, that period of my life is a blank to me - I just can't recall many things that happened then. Even for those few things that I can barely remember, they are mostly blurry, and I'm uncertain whether they really took place or they're just fragments of my childhood fantasies.
That probably explains why I love to snap pictures so much now when digital photography has taken over - I'll easily take hundreds of pictures at one go. Can't afford to let any more precious moments slip by.
oldgames mania
Saturday, August 11, 2007, 02:36 p.m. #1373
Just received my first birthday present from Eriko...
Pictionary!!! Woohoo!!! A great addition to my recently-acquired collection of good old-fashioned games!
the end's not near, it's here
Friday, August 10, 2007, 11:30 p.m. #1372
Just finished watching the DVDs of the fourth and final season of "The O.C.". And it got me to recall what made the series so enjoyable four years ago.
The first season was phenomenal - funny, clever, tight scriptwriting, great soundtracks by independent songwriters... The second season started off in a fuddled mess but it got better towards the end. The third season was an utter bore, living up to people's misunderstood expectations as a cheesy teenage melodrama. The fourth season, thankfully, regained the Seth-Summer wit and well-crafted scripts of the first season, and gave the series its well-deserved end. Didn't like the unnecessary Frank-Bullit thread and the simplistic and almost slipshod treatment of characters like Julie, but I guess with the rush to end the series, some sacrifices had to be made. There were several memorable moments ("The Chrismukk-huh?") and instances of scriptwriting brilliance, especially in the last few episodes. The penultimate episode "The Night Moves" was heart-stopping, and the entire series came to a full circle in the final episode "The End's Not Near, It's Here". Quite glad that the series ended this way - it might have gotten messy again if it'd dragged on.
Still, nothing beats the first season - and I'm sure I'll be watching it for the third time soon. =)
the segregating congregations
Thursday, August 9, 2007, 09:50 a.m. #1371
National Day celebration in school yesterday. Not very memorable. But it's the after-school activities which I enjoyed. Had a feast with the usual gang at Miramar Hotel (with the addition of new blood, James and JJ), then sang at Suntec KBox, and ended the day with a much-awaited long chat. It's good to be able to talk to close colleagues again, after such a long time - we haven't met up for a meal since May. It's quite ironic, when we haven't really talked to each other for months, although most of us are in the same department. We have been so busy in school, and even during meetings, when we have to sit in clusters, we cannot sit with people of the same department, and there has got to be a mix of gender and race. According to the management, we have to do this in order to set a good example for our kids, to illustrate the need for diversity and facilitate interactions between different people so that we do not just mix with people whom we're comfortable with. Since students are always seated and grouped to reflect this mix in the classroom, we should also be grouped in this way.
And I think that just doesn't make much sense. In the class, while teachers try to arrange the seating arrangement such that a boy will always sit with a girl, and a Chinese will always sit with a Malay, to encourage inter-gender, inter-racial interactions (unless there are not enough people of a certain group), all of us know that the REAL reason for the mix is so that students do not talk to each other as much during lessons. Girls, if seated together, will gossip to no end; and boys, if seated together, will become rowdy in no time; people of the same race, if seated together, will start chatting in their mother tongue.
But the management enforces this "mix" rule during staff meetings "to promote interactions with other departments, and people of diffent gender and race". Teachers end up not talking much within the group, and even when we interact, it's just the hi-bye, let's-just-finish-the-task-at-hand kind of interactions, and we gradually become strangers with the teachers of the same department. During school hours, we are so busy that we don't even see each other in the staff room (our free periods are different), then during meetings, we cannot even share our thoughts with our closer friends... Wouldn't working with people of the same department (sharing the same goals and subject) be more productive and meaningful? By adopting this practice, are we progressing? Or are we regressing? It's probably good for students to have the mix in class - after all their social circle may still be quite small and they need to cultivate this habit of acceptance of different people from young - but we teachers are already adults, if we didn't appreciate diversity we probably wouldn't have survived for so long in Singapore, and it's not as if we avoid communicating with "different people" in our daily work - forcing us together in groups only makes us feel more uncomfortable and further emphasizes that fact that we're "different". Do we have to follow these rules that students follow in order to be "good" role models? Do we have to start wearing uniforms, and do female teachers have to tie up their hair? Do teachers have to line up in two lines before we move to the meeting room, to show that discipline and order are important? Where do we draw the line?
I always hear this, "Sometimes we may not be happy with certain policies, but we should always be mindful of the original intents behind them." And I wonder, what if the intent is not achieved? Isn't it time to move on to something else which may serve the purpose better? Do we still have to follow through with something that doesn't work, just because it has a "meaningful intent"?
This probably only happens in the education sector, where everything has to be oh-so-politically-correct.
schizophrenia
Tuesday, August 7, 2007, 01:56 p.m. #1370
Have always been complaining about the loads of admininstrative things which teachers have to do. This time, I shall talk about something which most people think teachers do most of the time - marking.
Spent several days marking theory tests, practical tests and mock exam papers last week. Now I really appreciate the teachers who used to set tests for me, because it is an extremely draining process to set a test, get it printed, find a timeslot to conduct the test, and lastly (and the most laborious part), mark it. Sitting for the test requires about an hour, but marking the test papers for one class easily takes up several hours. I took 4 hours to mark the mock exam papers for each Sec 4 class. Last week, I had 14 sets of test papers to mark - some of them are still unmarked. And I haven't even counted the piles of homework that still reside in my pigeonhole.
Worse of all, sometimes after hours of marking, when the classes are not performing, I'll be terribly affected - which was the case this time, when the Sec 4 classes did horribly for their mock exam - and the prelims are just two weeks away. I felt a mix of anger, disappointment and lethargy, and I told myself I have to impress this on my students when I give out the papers, and hopefully wake them up with a dramatic and inspirational speech. For the first class that I went to, I spoke to them for one period, telling them how disappointing they have been and questioning them whether they have done their part as students. Some of them (I found out later) felt really guilty and remorseful for not studying - most of the remorse will be shortlived anyway, according to experience - but I hope that at least a few of them got the message and would get down to some real actions to improve themselves.
The thing is, scolding can be very tiring. By the time I went into the later classes, when I had to repeat the previous "drama", the effect was not as impactful already, when some of these classes actually deserved more of that "drama". And I am not using the word "drama" because it is fake. To express the disappointment which I felt last week when I already feel okay now can be quite difficult - usually I'll recover from such low feelings really fast as I don't want to torture myself with negative feelings for too long. So, sometimes, to a certain extent, part of such "drama" may be acted out, in order to portray the real feelings which I felt some time ago. And sometimes within a day, I'll need to "act out" several different roles in various classes. Am becoming schizophrenic already.
I should take up some drama or stamina courses.