pizza talk
Tuesday, September 30, 2003, 10:04 p.m.

Just had dinner with Gek Hong, Eileen, Elizabeth and Desmond at Pizza Hut and talked about our lives/experiences in school. Elizabeth said my 'slander case' could be because I am too outstanding... but I have always been keeping a low profile!... And they advised me that I should stand at more prominent places so that I could be seen during flag-raising. I told them I WOULD NOT do that just to prove my innocence cos I AM innocent and I don't have to do such things just FOR SHOW...

On a brighter note, apparently there are teachers who think I manage my 1T1 class quite well, and the class respects and likes me. They say the class will fall silent the minute I walk past their classroom. I wonder how true is that - I am not even the very-fierce type - though I know the class is quite impressed that I can remember many of their names. Nevertheless that's a nice compliment for me, so I shall accept it for the moment. :)

hot water
Tuesday, September 30, 2003, 01:25 p.m.

For those who think teaching is an easy job, think again. We teachers not only have to control our emotions and behavior all the time, we have to plan and execute lessons in the most conducive and creative manner so as to maximise students' learning. When we have to do all of these at the same time for a whole morning, it is extremely mentally-tiring. The best break for me in between lessons is to sit back in my workstation and drink a cup of nice, hot water. Somehow that has a curing effect that heals me of my blood-boils and tiredness.

integrated once again
Sunday, September 28, 2003, 04:10 p.m.

Integral had our practice once again today. I played the violin, Junbin played the western flute, Youxia played the clarinet and Zhiqiang played the cello. Tried out a quartet piece written for exactly these four instruments which Junbin found on the net - Country Quartet. We thought it SHOULD sound nice, but we couldn't play beyond more than four lines as our skills (ok, MY skills) were still not exactly up to it... So we practised Lullaby, which was much simpler but I still screwed up and went offbeat sometimes... I thought we sounded quite nice as an ensemble. Maybe someday we can really perform onstage as an Integral...

backstabbed
Friday, September 26, 2003, 07:49 p.m.

Can't believe this is is happening to me. Jim told me a teacher has been telling many people that I always didn't attend the flar-raising ceremony and would idle in the office. This is NOT true! Gek Hong and Eileen can vouch for me - we always go downstairs together to attend the ceremony. I never EVER missed a single flag-raising.

I can't understand why someone wants to backstab me like that. It may seem like a small matter, but when it spreads around in the office, I wonder what kind of impression people will have of me. I have a clear conscience, but I can't control what people think or say. The thing is, I'm only here for a few weeks... why SHOULD such a thing happen to me?? I feel very disappointed that among all the smiling faces, one of these people has a dagger behind his/her back waiting for a chance to slice me from the back.

zul
Thursday, September 25, 2003, 11:05 p.m.

Really appreciate what Mi'er told me about her mother's success stories as a teacher. Indeed when we show care and concern for those unfortunate students, they'll be very thankful and will "do anything for you". There's this student, Zul, in my 3T2 class, who always made loud comments in my class and he never brought his textbook. I brought him to one side and asked him about this and realised that he had serious financial problems at home - I allowed him to share books with his neighbor and promised that I'd photocopy for him whatever materials that are important. Since then, he seemed to have changed - I could see that now he always paid attention in class, and he always actively made constructive comments... Hope he continues to work hard and do HIMSELF proud! :)

new task
Thursday, September 25, 2003, 09:40 p.m.

It rained the whole day. And it's so comfortable this morning that I dozed off and missed my stop on bus 53 and ended up at the airport. Had to take a cab to school.

It's confirmed. I am starting the Contemporary Dance club. The principal spoke to me today and told me he wishes that the club will be able to participate in the SYF competition in 2005. I am quite excited about starting the new CCA, but I am also starting to feel the pressure that I'd be doing it all alone...

cruel truths
Thursday, September 25, 2003, 03:34 p.m.

I am now teaching 3T2 (my Normal Technical class) together with a contract teacher, Benjamin, and he's been with me since last week. It was Magnetism today, and I showed the class how magnets could attract iron filings and metal bits and form nice magnetic field lines. As there was excess time towards the end, I allowed the students to come to my desk to play with the magnets and demo gadgets, row by row. Some students got into some mischief and ended up breaking a chair. After class, Benjamin told me he's utterly p*ssed with the class and some of the students, and he asked me how I could still be so positive towards them. I told him, there's no point in getting angry with the students, in fact some students purposely agitate us to get our attention, and they may even be HAPPY to see our infuriated faces, so we should always try our best to appear calm and unaffected by their silly behaviors... Oh well, at least SOME things that NIE taught us are still applicable...

Talked with Gek Hong over breakfast and to my horror realised the cruel reality of the fate of Normal Technical students, which I didn't know all along (how ignorant): NT students can only go to ITEs. Initially I thought they could still sit for 'N' levels and there's still hope if they do well, but the fact is, no matter how hard they work, no matter how good their conduct is, they will not sit for any major exam (neither 'N' nor 'O' levels), and after 4 years of NT secondary, they just go straight to ITE regardless of their results. Not even A CHANCE to get into polytechnics. How sad. I could suddenly understand why NT students didn't care about studies. In fact, since they have no major exams, their results don't even affect the school's ratings, so most principals are not even concerned about how they perform. So, they are just, basically, left to rot by themselves and sink deeper into their low self-esteem... This is our Singapore educational system - even if you're a late-bloomer, if you're in Sec 4 NT, THAT'S IT. I'm not saying that there's surely no hope in ITEs, but I'm just shocked that they're cut off from chances to go into polytechnics and JCs. And I thought everyone has an equal chance to be educated?

These so-called slower students - Their only hope is if they can do well in lower secondary, they MAY get transferred to Normal Academic, which will open up the chances for them to take 'N' or 'O's. But apparently, even the success rate for such transfer applications is extremely low. So, their fates are more or less sealed, as early as PSLE, once they get allocated to Sec 1 Normal Technical.

I truly feel sorry for them.

asp
Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 03:58 p.m.

Started reading Dominic Deegan (recommended by Mi'er) in the office - people who walked past my workstation must be wondering why I was smiling to the screen the whole day. :)

Conducted an ASP (After School Program) for my Sec 1 Normal students, and I got the students to work independently on ONLY four short questions (on bar charts and pie charts) - anyone who completed their work early was allowed to go early. In the end, the earliest to go only went after about 45 minutes. This really showed me how weak they were in Math (I could see that all of them were really trying hard by themselves to finish as fast as possible), and I start to truly understand that sometimes it's not that they didn't want to do their homework, but that they got too frustrated when they're doing work at home and had no one to ask when they'd already stared at the questions for hours and had absolutely no clues on how to start. I was quite happy at the end of the session when all the students finished their work and handed them up to me, and one of the students said the session really helped him a lot.

all change
Tuesday, September 23, 2003, 10:34 p.m.

We had a fire drill today. I'm in the firefighting team, so I wore the bright orange vest and helmet, and I was supposed to be carrying a fire extinguisher, rushing to the fire scene to save the "fire". But too bad I am in the backup team, so I couldn't enjoy the full fun of it. Quite interesting as I stood and watched how first aid stretchers were set up and how people ran round searching for the "missing kids" (the kids were told beforehand to hide where the teachers would have difficulty in finding them). The drill stole three periods of my time though, and I'd have to make up for that by either having extra lessons or rushing through certain sections. Hmph.

Then we had a good nasi briyani lunch, contact time, LITS discussion, and I worked on my Math observation lesson until it's time to meet up with my uni friends.

Met up with Chris, Baxiang, Junming and Guowei at PS Cafe Cartel. Realised how detached I was from the engineering world - the jargons, the companies... It's quite ironic/sad that five years ago we civil engineering students used to be the elites of the engineering batch and people fought to squeeze into the CE department, but now civil engineering is the "dumping ground". And Chris exclaimed at how I could fold up my sleeves and carry a slingbag as a teacher. How times have changed.

dreama serials
Monday, September 22, 2003, 09:32 p.m.

My friend just talked about dreams in her blog today. This reminds me about how I have dreams that are like serial dramas that play out in episodes. I may dream of something one day, then dream of its sequel several weeks after. The amazing thing is, for a forgetful person like me, I can actually REMEMBER that I dreamt about the first episode before. And the other amazing thing, or rather, a personal discovery about dreams, is that I can actually FEEL the sense of deja vu IN A DREAM - does that mean I am able to THINK in a dream?

So basically I have two lives, one in reality, and the other in my dreams where it is played out in episodes. I shall not dwell into the cliched Zhuang Zi Meng Die story, but sometimes my dreams feel so real that when I wake up, I wonder if they REALLY happened. What if I am schizophrenic and the dream scenarios are actually what I do in my sleepwalk state? What if I really strangled some students and kidnapped the principal last night?... Er... did I just say those out loud? ;p

sing the night
Saturday, September 20, 2003, 11:22 p.m.

A night of self-deejaying of Elton John, Tricky, Beck, Bjork, Emiliana Torrini, Lamb and Alanis Morissette. Sang my hearts out.

Hand In My Pocket - Alanis Morissette

I'm broke but I'm happy
I'm poor but I'm kind
I'm short but I'm healthy, yeah

I'm high but I'm grounded
I'm sane but I'm overwhelmed
I'm lost but I'm hopeful, baby

What it all comes down to
Is that everything's gonna be fine, fine, fine
I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is giving a high five

I feel drunk but I'm sober
I'm young and I'm underpaid
I'm tired but I'm working, yeah

I care but I'm restless
I'm here but I'm really gone
I'm wrong and I'm sorry, baby

What it all comes down to
Is that everything's gonna be quite alright
I've got one hand in my pocket
The other is flicking a cigarette

What it all comes down to
Is that I haven't got it all figured out just yet
I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is giving a peace sign

I'm free but I'm focused
I'm green but I'm wise
I'm hard but I'm friendly, baby

I'm sad but I'm laughing
I'm brave but I'm chicken shit
I'm sick but I'm pretty, baby

What it all boils down to
Is that no one's really got it figured out just yet
I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is playing the piano

What it all comes down to, my friends
Is that everything's just fine, fine, fine
I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is hailing a taxi cab...

a whole free day at last
Saturday, September 20, 2003, 07:52 p.m.

Finally. A full day which I have wholly to myself, a day that I can do whatever I want (no school, no guitar lesson, no tuition) after the past few weeks of work and rush. Practised violin and guitar, played D2x, watched TV, planned my next week's lessons and spent several hours amending exam papers (the papers were vetted by the HODs and many amendments had to be made - the diagrams were a pain to amend).

rosin wonders
Friday, September 19, 2003, 08:13 p.m.

My second violin lesson. Elena praised me for my "very natural, very good posture" and asked the class to look at me. Quite embarrassing, but I was very proud of myself. Was taught bowing today, and I resined my bow for the first time when Elena told us our bows needed resining. Didn't know the rosin could do so much wonders - I think the sound produced by my violin has really been greatly enhanced after my (quote Elena) "hungry bow" was fed with rosin. The resonance of my violin traveled from the chinrest to my chin and face, and I think this feeling was quite extraordinary - very intimate and "touching" (I don't know what could be a more suitable word), like the violin and I were trembling together as one entity... Oooh, how I LOVE my violin!!...

arrows
Thursday, September 18, 2003, 05:06 p.m.

Arrows were flying everywhere around me in the office, and I got struck by a few of them. Lance, the guy in charge of allocating CCAs, came to tell me that I have a choice of either joining the Scouts or starting a Contemporary Dance Club (don't ask me what contemporary dance is, I don't know either). I have totally no interest in a uniform group - in fact no teacher in his right mind would volunteer for a uniform group because of the heavy responsibilities, weekends burnt and the long hours of training every week, but on the other hand I have absolutely no idea how to start a new CCA too, especially when it's in an area that I am unfamiliar with. Though I'd always wanted to pick up dancing, I guess starting a dance CCA would be a very different matter - I'll have to search for tutors and prepare budgets and be passionate enough in the CCA to attract members... when I have no idea what contemporary dance is all about!... Hip hop? Line dancing? Streetdance? Bartop dancing?? Anyway Lance told me I could take some time to think it over... Hmm...

Then the Sports HOD (I don't even know her name) came to ask me to join in a camp at Sentosa just after the exams when I'll need to mark several classes' papers at that time. Ee Von (a Math teacher) was behind and she signaled very vigorously telling me not to go. I wasn't particularly keen on saving straykids from the sea either, so I told the HOD that I would be too busy in marking papers to take part. I think she wasn't very happy with my rejection, and I kept thinking about this later when I was on my way home (I seldom reject people, you know).

Like what Sakina (a Physics teacher) and other friends have warned me before, new teachers will usually be thrown with many dirty jobs that the present teachers don't want to do. I think I'm starting to experience this...

energetic
Wednesday, September 17, 2003, 09:37 a.m.

Feeling great today. I could feel myself smiling and greeting everyone on my way to classes. Think a good night's sleep really works miracles, and I think I am feeling so high partly because I have relatively more free periods today and the day started with a very manageable Express class. I even have time right now to surf the web on my laptop and type this entry. Ah... if only every day can be like today... :)

tired
Tuesday, September 16, 2003, 04:31 p.m.

I'm so tired. After standing the whole day, chasing students over undone homework and getting restless students to remain on their seats, I still have to plan the next day's lessons and mark my students' untidy work. Yesterday I slept immediately after Friends (that was very early, by the way), but this morning I still woke up feeling so tired that for the rest of the day, I could literally feel myself dragging my feet in order to move. As many fellow teachers have told me before, you have to have something other than teaching to keep you going. I am glad I have music. And I am looking forward to my second violin class this Friday... Going to take a nap now...

slurrophobia
Sunday, September 14, 2003, 08:55 p.m.

"A McNuggets Meal please"
"Thatsonemcnuggnetmealforyousirwouldyouliketoupsizesir?"
"Sorry?"
"Wouldyouliketoupsizesir?"
(pause) "Oh... no, thanks."
"Havinghereortakeawaysir?"
"What?"
"Havinghereortakeawaysir?"
(pause) "Er... takeaway."
"Wouldyoulikechillisauceorketchuptogowithyourfriessir?"
"... ..."

Don't you just feel like giving such people a punch in the face and telling them to "for heaven's sake, speak PROPERLY"? They make me feel so deaf/stupid! It's worse when they have that smug look on their faces as if they're speaking "high-class" English by slurring the words so that no one understands. I always feel the urge to tell them, "Hello? You're not in a howmanywordscanyousqueezeinonesecond contest... sir!"

parting
Friday, September 12, 2003, 11:18 p.m.

Jiaqi flew to Japan today for her exchange program. Caleb, Zhiqiang, Yingyun and Meihui went to see her off at the airport this morning. I didn't go - never liked such parting occasions, moreover she's not leaving for good and'll be back in six months. Kelly is leaving next week too... Guess I'm going to miss them at BH practices...

reflections
Friday, September 12, 2003, 03:40 p.m.

Although this week is supposed to be the school holidays, I still went back to school almost every day for meetings and workshops. Finally I could stay at home today, but I spent the whole morning typing a paper and its answer scheme. So all of you students out there, please appreciate what your teachers are doing for you even if they teach badly.

Xiangbin led us to practise my piece Shan Xiang (or Reflections. The midi can be found in Archive) at BH yesterday. The effect wasn't too good. Probably there were too few people, or (more probably) my instrumentation sucked. But I really love the main theme. If only I could find a professional to do the instrumentation for me...

forbidden city
Wednesday, September 10, 2003, 11:49 p.m.

Went to watch Forbidden City: Portrait of An Empress with Eileen at the Esplanade. Coincidentally, Jiajia happened to be sitting RIGHT IN FRONT of me (what a small world! I was sitting at DD37, and she, CC37) and our dear Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong was sitting just two rows in front of me (so throughout the play many people were looking in his direction instead of the stage).

The show was good - everything from music and lighting to props and costumes was exquisitely elaborate - but somehow I felt the play was a little too dry and mechanical... very clockwork-like. Maybe I'm not the type of person who enjoys plays.

my first laptop
Wednesday, September 10, 2003, 02:29 p.m.

Spent more than a month's salary on my new Fujitsu Lifebook laptop. According to my friend, the specifications are so good that it usually costs twice as much if I didn't buy it from NTU. I don't know much about the technical details, but this thing sure looks slim and sleek, and it decorates my workstation very well indeed.

control
Wednesday, September 10, 2003, 12:10 a.m.

Just back from Huiyan & Zhihua's wedding dinner at Sheraton Towers (Huiyan looked absolutely radiant and different today), met up with many friends whom I haven't seen for a long time (Ronghua, Jinglun, Yitao, Yanfen, Zhizhong, Zhenxiang, etc). At the end of the dinner, Jinglun gave me a lift home on his new car, and we talked about some solemn stuff when we were trapped in a jam. About others' perception about "people with cars", social status, how he felt in control when he was driving - yet there're things that he couldn't control in his life - disappointments, expectations, human relationships...

It's Not Up To You - Bjork

I wake up
And the day feels
Broken
I tilt my head
I'm trying to get an angle
'Cause the evening
I've always longed for
It could still happen

How do I master
The perfect day
Six glasses of water
Seven phonecalls

If you leave it alone
It might just happen
Anyway

It's not up to you
Oh it never really was
It's not up to you
Oh it never really was
It's not up to you
Well it never really was
It's not up to you

If you wake up
And the day feels
A-broken
Just lean into the crack
And it will tremble
Ever so nicely
Notice
How it sparkles
Down there

I can decide
What I give
But it's not up to me
What I get given

Unthinkable surprises
About to happen
But what they are

It's not up to you
Well it never really was
It's not up to you
Oh it never really was
It's not up to you
Oh it never really was
It's not up to you

There's too much
Clinging
To peak
There's too much
Pressure

torches at chiltern
Sunday, September 7, 2003, 11:40 p.m.

Our orchestra has been invited to perform at a midautumn celebration at Chiltern Park. So 12 of us (Kelly, Jiaqi, Yingjie, Peishan, Auntie Yahua, Youxia, Zhiqiang, Shuinan, Caleb, Jianyuan, Kenneth and I) performed a few popular pieces like Ye Shang Hai and Cai Yun Zhui Yue. As our repertoire was too short, we even presented impromptu pieces like Huo Ba Jie Zhi Ye, a zhongruan solo piece which Kenneth and I played together with only 2 times of rehearsing, and Prussian Polka, which Kenneth, Yingjie and I performed after only a few minutes of testing out. I don't know how it sounded over the PA system, but from what I could hear, I thought our Huo Ba Jie sounded very dreamy and nice! Too bad we didn't have a sound recording for tonight.

By the way, I broke my liuqin string before the performance even started. Luckily Changsheng came to watch us and he happened to bring along his liuqin. So he kindly lent me his liuqin, but I soon broke his string as well (oh my, I'm too violent). To my surprise, he's already changed the strings for my liuqin and brought it to me. Phew, luckily he was there. Else I wouldn't know how I could survive the night (there're many sections where liuqin plays the main melody). Thank you, Changsheng! :)

the fan incident
Saturday, September 6, 2003, 08:26 p.m.

Gek Hong isn't such an irritating brat afterall. Used to think he's a childish attention-seeking guy, but since he's got posted to the same school as me, we've been quite close due to work and we talked over lunches. Realised that he can be very helpful and serious if he wants to. Probably I have misjudged him in the past.

Due to that freak incident, all three of us new teachers were called back for a meeting today with the principal and the discipline mistress. Gek Hong was the one who kept comforting me that I should just take the principal's comments with a pinch of salt and not be overly-troubled over them. Actually I already didn't take the principal's words to heart because I figured it wasn't mainly my fault and I couldn't have possibly done anything to prevent the incident from happening, though I shall from now on be more mindful of what's going on in my class...

What happened is this. There is this student Wee Yong in my Sec 3NT class who flung a book up to the fans when I was walking around checking students' work. I didn't catch him in the act, but the other students screamed when the book was being flung in a random direction and fell with a thud. I guessed what must have happened and ordered the boy to stand outside the classroom. Of course he denied it, but I stared at him and insisted that he leave the class despite his denials. He did eventually. The wrong thing that I did was, that I didn't report this to the principal. And the class prefect went to report this to him.

Apparently they felt this was a serious offence as the incident could have caused the fanblades to break and fly off to cut someone's throat. I do agree to this possibility, and as the teacher in class, I accept full responsibility for what had happened. There's no point crying over spilled milk, so I guess all I can do is to make sure such things will not happen again, and that I may need to understand Wee Yong better to manage him. According to the discipline mistress, he's a "simpleton" who does what his peers pressure him to do. Like for this incident, he was actually trying to "outdo" what a previous student had done (that student threw paper bullets into the fan).

I did feel quite upset when the principal asked me about this yesterday: Why should such a thing happen in your class? Don't you think there must be something wrong with your class management? That you haven't earned their respect, that's why they're doing such things?... I couldn't even concentrate after that when I was marking papers. Luckily the violin class saved my day, and I decided that I shouldn't burden myself with such things that are mostly out of my control.

Guess I'll just have to be hard on the Sec 3NT class.

violin fever
Friday, September 5, 2003, 07:22 p.m.

A freak incident that happened yesterday got me into trouble and the principal asked to see me this afternoon. But I don't want to talk about this now, cos I just had my first violin class at Yamaha today and I am so excited!

Got my violin (a cheap and good $128 Synwin violin which my teacher Elena recommended over the 3-times more expensive Suzuki one), complete with a bow, rosin, shoulder-rest, a set of strings, violin Grade 1 and theory Grade 1 books. According to what I've read, there're many classes of violin players - some feel the violin is more important, some feel both are equally important - my teacher belongs to the class that believes that the bow is more important.

Quite glad that I am not the oldest in the class (I think). In fact, among 7 of us, only 2 are children, one lady seem to be of the working class, and the others are probably in JC or secondary.

Time passed very quickly, we only learnt how to hold the violin and the bow, but I think that's enough for me to practise for the week... got to hold the violin between my chin and shoulder without the help of my hands, and I am supposed to be able to still do other things with my hands when my violin is firmly held there. And for the posture of my right hand holding the bow, I got to be able to turn my wrist in any orientation without dropping the bow... Ah... so exciting!!! Couldn't stop admiring my beautiful violin when I got home.

cool act
Wednesday, September 3, 2003, 05:51 p.m.

Today, in the Sec 3 Normal (Technical) class which all the teachers have warned me about, I calmly wrote down on the board, "Go to the staff room and look for me when the class is ready for lesson" as the class was persistently too noisy. Then I coolly walked out of the class and went back to the staff room until the class sent representatives to ask me back to the class. (Don't you think that's very cool?! Haha.) After I went back, the class still got noisy sometimes, but they knew to shut up when I pause and wait for them to settle down. Actually I was half afraid that the class couldn't care-less and did not send anyone to look for me. Luckily they did. Phew.

Received gifts from Math department and the school - two inspirational books for teachers. Quite glad that they're doing such things for the teachers.

first day at east spring
Tuesday, September 2, 2003, 04:43 p.m.

First day of teaching at East Spring.

I didn't teach for all of my 5 classes, but only referred to the namelist and called out the names to make sure that I got the pronunciations correct and roughly remember the students' faces. Some of the classes were quite noisy, but I think they're still manageable (read: they're afraid of punishments), and I think most of the students are inquisitive and responsive. This is a great comfort as I'd be bored to death if I were to teach 40 zombies. However these were only my first lessons with them, so they might not have shown their "true colors" yet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed... In general, I thought the first day was good. Despite the fact that I'm loaded with lots of work to do (which I don't really mind) and that my desk was piling with loads of rubbish from the previous user (which I spent an hour clearing up today), the teachers were apparently quite helpful.

And there's a gorgeous acoustic guitar at the pantry. :)

P.S. Thanks to everyone who wished me luck and prayed for me.

there's more to life than this
Monday, September 1, 2003, 01:59 a.m.

There's More To Life Than This - Bjork

Come on girl
Let's sneak out of this party
It's getting boring
There's more to life than this

It's still early morning
We could go down to the harbour
And jump between the boats
And see the sun come up

We could nick a boat
And sneak off to this island
I could bring my little ghettoblaster
There's more to life than this

But we'd have to rush back
To the town's best baker
To get the first bread of the morning
There's more to life than this

teachers' day
Monday, September 1, 2003, 01:53 a.m.

My first (and probably, only) Teachers' Day present is from my tuition student, Fiona. It's just a bar of Cadbury chocolates, but I felt very proud to receive it as a teacher.