detestable...

They are ubiquitous
I see them at home, they are all over my stuff at work
They are desperate
They dun spare a single molecule of sugar
They are diligent
Persistent
Disgustingly hardy

I HATE ANTS AND HOPE THEY VANISH FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH (or at least, from my sight)

WHoopee...

It's nice to...

- Spend the precious last day of the hols having tea with my past exco bunch (Hannah, Julz, Netto, Ian - Kes and Ina are unwell - get well soon!) - have always thought that the seven of us had a special sort of bond originating from the times we did our exco work and mebbe those uber long exco meetings in HC...had our tea at this quaint little spot in Esplanade called the "V Tea Room". It serves all kinds of flavours of tea and a yummy assortment of cakes - we had our fill of melted cake, tea cake, yoghurt cake, quiche...and chatted about issues ranging from the frivolous to serious societal worries.

- Realise that I'm a 90s kid...to tune in to the 90s weekend on class 95 fm and be able to recognise a song simply by listening to the few opening notes, or to just sing along, not really sure about the song title or singer but just working purely on long term memory... That just rocks, man...

It's not nice to...

- Be still up at this time of the night (or morning, actually) trying to squeeze out some last minute notes, with the thought of having to wake up at 5.40 am tmr morning, and dashing to the pick-up point only to face some bus problem (touch wood, of course, but the last two terms were just too awful for me to keep from being pessimistic)

Wish me luck!

Hee...

Today marks the day I finally completed my marking of close to a hundred files. Tis a moment to remember. About two weeks worth of morning+ afternoons spent in school during the hols...purely for the sake of flipping thru grubby worksheets and photocopied stuff from friends (thankfully this only applies to a handful of students but please..how can one just photocopy a friend's completed worksheet and chuck the thing in the file?? what's the point of doing that? were they actually expecting to get credit for what is obviously another person's work? Got morally grossed out...)

Headed to queensway and found the backpack I was looking for - this Vertikal one that served me well during my France trip two years back. Apparently Vertikal is quite a "cheapo" sort of brand and dun think it's that popular among backpacking enthusiasts but I have to say the model I used was really good for me - think was carrying about 14 kg and din really feel it. Not quite sure whether I got a good deal tho...apparently prices of backpacks (and also a gadzillion other consumer goods) are going up...hmm.

And since I'm on the subject of travel...just for record purposes, in case I need to refer...the travel agency Wingo is good for the asian countries, e.g. korea, taiwan...coz it's rather cheap compared to the other agencies (believe me I took a comprehensive tour of almost all the agencies in people park's complex). And the F&E wasn't great but was still acceptable...And never buy tix too close to the date of departure esp. for budget airlines like Jetstar, coz prices can shoot up by the hundreds...yea...I should remember this kind of info...

And now just need to find out which agencies are good for europe (?)...

I'll be bidding u adieus soon, dear blog...once term starts the MIA commences too...

some hearts...

it's a nice cloudy day and am in staff room surrounded by the abominable files.

Decided to blog coz it ain't something I get to do very often in the staffroom. Not exactly coz it's not allowed or what (anyway my seat is real secluded - usually my presence is not noticed by anyone coz I dun make a single sound, apparently), just that usu. am too tired to compose any intelligible piece of journal entry.

So was at lunch with colleagues just now and thought that what one teacher said was pretty sound advice - that it's very important for parents to spend enough quality time with the children when they are young i.e. primary school age, coz once they reach secondary school they will start to drift apart from parents. Which is very true coz 9 out of the 10 parents I speak to tell me that there's absolutely no communication between them and their kids. And they are clueless as to what to do about it. Not that I see that there's much that can be done. It's a bad phase most adolescents go thru, unless the parents really make it a point to try to understand the child...but one key point that the teacher brought up was that if the parent establishes a good foundation during childhood, then the teenager might drift but will not stray too much. Guess it also depends on the style of upbringing e.g. my mom had always kept a tight rein on me since young, and she's real fierce when she gets angry, so out of obedience I would not dare to try anything too overboard. And that has kept me rather safe and sheltered from harmful influences through my growing up years. And even though I hate to admit it, it's usually wiser to take her advice on most matters.

The dread of term opening and having to face dreadful kids...who dun cooperate and dun do work and dun care much about deplorable grades.

Listening to: Carrie Underwood over the web music player. Soothing country style music...

A thought bubble...

Have been seeing the world with new eyes lately, simply coz of the opportunity of sufficient sleep that the holidays have afforded me with. Really, it's amazing how many slip-ups I commit due to lack of sleep. In a way I do miss the good ol' days in the uni, esp. in the hostel, where I can always sneak back to for a much-needed midday nap. Where 8 am lects can be easily skipped...where I can stay up till wee hours to fulfil my nocturnal habits like watching downloaded movies when it was still not so illegal, aimless surfing, maple story (?? firmly a thing of the past, thankfully)

How I envy those peeps who can survive on a few hours of sleep...it's like..they can get so many more things done...instead of those who are genetically programmed to behave like zombies if they get less than eight hours of sleep.

ok think I've gone on enough about my love affair with the zzz gods...

let's look back at how self spent the one month break...

- Am grateful for the times spent having fun with friends who are also colleagues - late night karaoke, cards, mahjong, meals...thanks for the cheers and thrills peeps..=)...nice to see the more outgoing side of everyone, and to joke and discuss trivia instead of approaching one another solely for work-based issues.
- Learnt very recently that burritos + water+ margaritas with low alcohol content can make me puke (I almost did, but managed to keep it down coz I was at the MRT platform - not a good place for barf). It's the build-up of wind la...my stomach is vulnerable in that aspect.
- Found out just how fun it can be to play around with the timetabling software. Really. Change one timeslot or subject and you realise that you gotta change a million others (which is of course an exaggeration, coming from me)
- Did work in school. Marking files is a dreadddd...
- Did very slightly more housework than usual.
- Charted my future prospects. Scrapped unrealistic ambitions and decided to focus on more feasible stuff.
- Prayed more.

Have been looking back at the semester that has passed, and just feeling rather red-faced when I realised there were so many things I could have done better. Like sometimes I just dun understand why when I'm thinking about doing something and visualising it in my mind, it seems perfectly workable. But say when I actually face the students, I either forget that something totally, or react in some other strange, unplanned manner. I'm just too freakin' nice and weak-willed with people. It's a disadvantage in life, really. Unless your ambition is to be a hermit.

Have been craving for food lately...good yummy food...mmmmm...

Now am just looking ahead to the end of the year when I should (barring any totally unexpected, unwelcome, unpleasant circumstances) be heading on a vacation to Europe (yipppeee...but it's gonna be winter..so...=(...risky for skinny and rhinitis-prone me)...plus the sec 4s are having exams real early in august so will be freed after that...

One week more before I re-enter the semi-conscious state of existence.

reflections

The school hols are the only time in the year when I can stop and reflect about my current state of existence.

So it's been a year since I embarked on this teaching job officially. Has been a really interesting kind of learning experience, complete with blood, sweat and tears. Was forced to make some fundamental changes to personality (never a comfortable act) and also discovered more (usually negative) traits about myself. (like how I can never function properly if I have to wake up before six a.m. daily, the extent of my 3 second-comparable-to-a-goldfish-short-term-memory, how it may not be the best thing to go back to your alma mater and see that you cannot apply any of your old familiar standards on the kids anymore)

Have been researching future prospects of a second career after teaching, and managed to attain some headway. Most prob will want to go for further studies (not involving research in a lab doing repetitive rounds of the same experiment of course) in UK/Australia. Has been long-held dream of mine to study overseas, and still remember my naivete after the A-Levels, blindly applying for any Tom Dick Harry scholarship that could get me an overseas education. Was extremely miserable during first year in NUS, feeling like I've been denied a slice of the glamour pie. But in retrospect, if I had ended up overseas I would have missed out on so much - the network of friends...and most importantly a strong Catholic community in the form of CSS. Think I would be quite a different person today without it, much less close to God...

So yeah...overseas education. Much to consider...

In the meantime, am just getting too comfortable at home and in front of the internet. Most colleagues have chosen this time to go for a short holiday...but I shall...save money..hurrr....