taming the hair
Monday, February 26, 2007, 07:15 p.m. #1287
I usually don't wash my hair in the morning, and I don't like to use combs and hair products either. So, every morning, before I get out of the house, I'll use my hands and a little bit of water to tidy up my hair and do some minimal styling, just to look neat enough to face the world. Then, I realised that my hair always looks flat on weekdays (when I wake up at around 5 am) and it gets messy again quite easily. On weekends (when I wake up at around 8 am), however, my hair usually looks full of volume, and is able to stay in the way which I styled for the entire day. There must be some special thing about oil secretion at the scalp between 5 am to 8 am to cause the difference!
All right. A totally lame entry. But one day I'll surely discover the groundbreaking truth.
little miss sunshine
Sunday, February 25, 2007, 07:14 p.m. #1286
Watched "Little Miss Sunshine". What a great, funny movie it is! This little movie is about a dysfunctional family of "losers" - oh well, maybe they aren't "losers", because according to Grandpa, "Losers are people who are so afraid of not winning, they don't even try." This family kept trying, until the end, despite the not-so-smooth ride on their way to send their little Oliver to the beauty pageant. Towards the end, I was laughing so hard that I cried. It's unlikely that this movie is going to win the Best Picture in the Oscars this year - the Oscars have something against comedies being best pictures - but this is definitely a delightful movie which I'll watch again, and again, and again, to relive its magic when I feel like having a good time.
half nelson
Sunday, February 25, 2007, 10:38 a.m. #1285
Watched "Half Nelson". History and opposites. A teacher on drugs. A student who found out and understands. A friendly drug distributor... I don't remember The Straits Times giving many films five stars, and this one scored five. Somehow this film didn't touch me at a very high level, but it's a reasonably flowing and quiet film which explored the intricate relationship between the teacher and student, and there were several memorable scenes of emotional tension. My expectations must have been too high.
an inconvenient truth
Saturday, February 24, 2007, 04:55 p.m. #1284
Just watched "An Inconvenient Truth". It is a documentary film which highlights perhaps the most teething problem at hand - global warming, and how it is related to recent buzz like SARS, Avian flu, glacial earthquakes, thawing of permafrost and drowning of polar bears. The film painstakingly tries to convince us about the urgency of the issue with engaging and astonishing facts in the forms of graphs, photographs, scientific evidences and even a Simpsons cartoon clip. I have also learnt a little about ocean acidification, a phenomenon which has become so prominent recently but has yet to make it into the Geography textbooks, where those at the bottom of the marine food chains - the planktons - or any other shell creatures for that matter - are having problems making shells due to the acidification of the ocean. And all of us knows what that means, when the base of any food chain is facing problems of survival.
That is just one of the many consequences of global warming. And we are in the middle of all those consequences right now. If we want to pull ourselves out of this spiral destruction of the Earth, like a frog in a pot of boiling water, the time is NOW. If we keep thinking that the problem is too big for anyone of us to do anything about, our negligence simply adds up. Each of us can do our own little part in reducing global warming, if we make a conscious effort to do so.
P.S. Don't miss Melissa Etheridge's song "I Need To Wake Up" when the credits are rolling.
students visiting
Tuesday, February 20, 2007, 07:06 p.m. #1283
Students came visiting today. There were Alvin, Terence and CS, who graduated two years ago, and also Ben, Gary, Angela, Felicia, Christine, Cheryl, HC and ST from my form class of last year. Quite happy to see them, but some of the younger kids really didn't know how to behave themselves, even when they were in the presence of my uncles who came to visit later. Sigh.
Everyone who enters my room expresses their instant love for the new Lime Green. Initially thought the colour was too loud for a bedroom two days after my room was painted, but it seems my choice wasn't that bad after all. :)
Start of work tomorrow - ironed a few shirts minutes ago - and it's going to be a busy week ahead. Argh. :/
new year
Sunday, February 18, 2007, 09:52 p.m. #1282
Ah, it's Chinese New Year again. Just like most other years, I'm never really interested in CNY except for the long holidays, CNY goodies (pineapple tarts!!!) and the customary spring-cleaning which I'd love to do on normal days but I'd never feel motivated enough unless I know visiting students are going to see the state of my room (forced myself to clear up my room and throw away things that remained untouched for years). After visits to the temple and a few relatives' houses, I'm dead tired right now. And there's nothing worth watching on TV. Think I shall sleep early tonight...
Here's something done by my Sec 4 class, which was pinned on their noticeboard. Still remember these formulae? :)
the forgotten
Saturday, February 17, 2007, 08:58 a.m. #1281
You have to watch this. A Flash movie on Deviantart about The Little Girl Who Was Forgotten By Absolutely Everyone (Even The Postman):
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/21423447
coke to the rescue
Friday, February 16, 2007, 11:56 p.m. #1280
Chinese New Year celebration. We teachers had a fairly decent buffet lunch at a restaurant. Apparently I ate so much that I was bloated with gas but I simply couldn't burp it out. The gas got stuck at my chest level and I felt really, really uncomfortable. This tormented me while I went for shopping and guitar lesson. And finally when I was having keyboard lesson, EL suggested drinking some aerated water to aggravate the condition and just vomit everything out. It really worked! I took large gulps of Coke and after just a few minutes, I let out such a monstrously loud burp that people from the other rooms in the music school came out to see what created that frightening sound. I was quite embarassed, but I felt much better to get that gas out of my system, so that I could proceed to NYDC for the long chat with my gang later... So, next time, when you want to get some gas out of your digestive system, go for the Coke!
chocolat!
Thursday, February 15, 2007, 09:14 a.m. #1279
Students also give presents to teachers on Valentine's Day. The sweetest present I received yesterday was a box of self-made assorted chocolates made by a Korean girl. I'm a chocolate lover and her chocolates turned out to be really nice (especially those with cookie bits inside). According to her, she spent the whole night before V Day to make the chocolates. So sweet right?
oc the third
Monday, February 12, 2007, 09:45 p.m. #1278
Just finished watching "The O.C." third season DVDs. It's truly the most boring season of the series so far. The chemistry between the characters and the carefully-planned scripts of Season 1 were gone. Season 2 started in a mess but it at least got much better later. The entire Season 3 (with the exception of Episode 23 - The Party Favor), however, lacked engaging storylines throughout. The main characters, which have been so painfully well-written for the past two seasons, lost their shine and humour in Season 3 and became almost unrecognizable.
The ongoing Season 4 is going to be the final season, quite understandably. Fans claim that the start of Season 4 is very promising and is almost as good as Season 1. Am looking forward to the DVDs, and I hope the series gets a deserving good ending.
pck
Sunday, February 11, 2007, 09:29 p.m. #1277
The final episode of "Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd" has been an emotional one. Didn't watch this final season as it clashed with my violin lessons, but I've followed through most of the episodes ever since the series started 12 years ago, when it was merely a small segment of the brilliant "Gurmit's World" - and that didn't feel so long ago at all. Don't "pray-pray"! For 12 years, as we watched Aloysius grow up in the series, the PCK cast has made us laugh heartily without having to "use your blain". Despite the torrents of criticisms over the years about its language and "crassness" (being the "Singapore icon" has its burdens), the show survived. But all good things have to come to an end eventually.
Goodbye, PCK. You're truly the "best in Singapore, J.B., and some say Batam".
the crash
Saturday, February 10, 2007, 06:47 p.m. #1276
Although the green man has already come on for about one second, a car zoomed past right in front of me when I was crossing the road junction in front of Picturehouse yesterday. While I was staring in disbelief and the rest around me shook their head in disapproval, the car crashed into another car which couldn't dodge from the reckless driver. Smoke came out of the cars and the drivers got out of their cars seemingly unscathed. If I'd walked a little faster, I would have been sandwiched between the two cars.
O level results were released yesterday and I helped to hand out the result slips for 5N1. Was glad to be at the occasion although I didn't teach any graduating class last year, as I got to see students from my first form class (2E1 in 2004) receive their results. I suppose some of them don't even remember that I'd taught them when they were in Secondary Two, but the sentimental me got a little emotional as I watched them calling their parents to tell them about their results, hugging their Secondary Four teachers and thanking them... Ed was overjoyed as his students did very well for Physics. Not only 100% of them passed, 68% of them scored distinctions. The worse grade was a B3. Those were really amazing results for a little neighbourhood school like ours. I'm taking the Secondary Four's this year. Hope I'll be equally glad on this occasion next year. :)
utter disappointment
Thursday, February 8, 2007, 09:56 p.m. #1275
One month ago, two sticks of cigarettes fell out of the pocket of a boy in my form class, A, when he was changing to go for his softball practice. The teacher-in-charge saw the cigarettes and confronted him. A said that a big boy from another school approached him that morning. The big boy forced him to safekeep those cigarettes and later pass them back at a void deck after school. When we asked A how the boy looked like or what colour the boy's uniform was, A said he couldn't remember. That's probably understandable - A's just a Secondary One boy! We could imagine how terrified A must have been, to be terrorised by a big boy like that. We called the parents, and the father fetched him to and from school for the next few days to make sure that A wouldn't be harassed by the big boy. I brought up this matter in class without mentioning A's name, and advised the class on how they could have reacted whenever they faced threatening situations like this.
Today, A was found in possession of cigarettes again. Apparently he was safekeeping the cigarettes for another girl in my class, N. In fact N has been forcing her other girl classmates, M and H, to pick up smoking. M and H couldn't take her threats anymore and finally approached us teachers today. They told us that N threatened to get her gang members to beat them up if they didn't join her in smoking, but they have said "no" to her threats all along. According to M and H, what A said this time is true - he's indeed keeping the cigarettes for N. But he isn't totally innocent either. A is also a smoker. In fact he has been smoking since he was in primary school. His family is well aware of this but they do not care. The father even played along with his lie one month ago.
I was speechless when I learnt about the truth. Suddenly everything became clear. I've often asked A why his hair looked coloured, but he insisted that that's his natural colour. Then I asked him to get his parents to write a letter for verification - the parents wrote it. But I simply couldn't understand why his hair colour got lighter as the weeks went by... Now I understand why. All of us have been so naive to believe in this boy.
I'm utterly disappointed.
the superstar
Sunday, February 4, 2007, 09:43 p.m. #1274
Watching the finals of the Superstar competition right now. The real superstar is obviously the guest singer ³ÂΰÁª! I nearly melted to his rendition of ¾Õ»¨Ì¨ (although he lowered the key). It reminded me of his »ð²ñÌìÌà years ago - his vocal demands your attention, reaches straight to your heart and makes you breathless. His performance made the two finalists feel like they're merely program fillers.