October...

This morning I woke up thinking of the following -
snap, nap, naps, pan, pans, san?, nas? pas??...
then it was pane, mane, lane, bane, cane...
then clear, lear, lean, mean, man, men..

Been playing too much of the word challenge game on facebook. It's wildly addictive. One of those things one can do with a lot of time to kill. But problem is, I'm rushing something and I don't have that luxury!! AArrgggh!!
Crap...............................................................rap.cap.pac.par.pcr??

Was reflecting on something during mass yesterday. Say I am praying for a period of time, say in church or after I read some scripture. So it's nice to be in a prayerful state right..but oftentimes something would happen right after that - and I just lose it - I get angry, frustrated, irritated. So it's like, what's the point of entering a prayerful state when I can't seem to maintain it at all? So I begin to question myself - like why is it that I am so vulnerable to external irritating factors? Esp. in the early morning at the start of a school day. I just need one small imperfection, one small thing that maybe someone or myself didn't do properly...and dark clouds start looming over my head. Black face, the works. Why can't I accept disturbances with more..tranquility?

Most of the time, just irritated with myself..grrr

Watched Tropic Thunder yesterday, and had a sort of mini reunion with some ex-DHS schoolmates. People whom I saw all the time back in sec school and maybe even knew or spoke to...and meeting them again ten years later. Pretty cool. =) Oh yea and as for the movie, well...I liked the beginning and the ending, but it was kinda messy in the middle. A result of attempting to poke fun at too many disparate issues, and having too many big names around. Not really enjoyable, but a brave attempt at bashing Hollywood stereotypes. I give it a 6/10.

rightoz...so that was just some morning ranting to vent some steam...now it's back to...functions of placenta. Hmm.

it's been a while...

Yes it has been so long.

Finally able to sit down and not feel too bogged down by work to type an entry in this poor neglected blog of mine.

It's the start of the one week Sep hols. My Year 4s should be mugging hard for their EOYs now. Should.

It's nice to have students wishing me Happy Teachers' Day over sms or phone. Didn't occur to me that the actual day is today coz we had celebrations last Friday.

Went onto MSN to chat idly with friends, updated my Facebook. Activities which I largely eschew in favour of work/sleep.

Things really looked up for me this semester. Had a few near misses at work but somehow the turn of events managed to save my poor butt. Very thankful to God for His blessings. And for other things, a special someone who recently entered my otherwise monotonous life...

Half a year to go before the bond ends. Decisions...

Read an amusing article in the Reflection section of the Lifestyle yesterday. Think it nicely sums up our TV experience with the Olympics. Was a healthy form of escapism for some of us =P. Felt so inspired just looking at the hot bods and skill in playing those ball games.

And I even had time to think about my friends...:P

To Rachel who has just left for Germany to pursue her PhD in Econs, all the best and may you have a great time there.

To Yumin and Yasmine who just ROM-ed, congrats and best wishes!

To GuoHao and Sharon who will have their wedding this Sunday, may your married life be blessed with lotsa joy and peace. (and kids)

To my students, mug yr ass off man. Or, ahem, do work hard and don't disappoint me! Though I understand that it involves occasional sms-es from different people clarifying random bio facts.

Ok enough of my travelling thoughts, back to the textbook. =)

woven and spun

I titled the above as such coz for some reason dug out this cd I bought some time ago by Nichole Nordeman, which carried the same name. A nice change from Rihanna I must say =P I quite like the groove of her songs but her MTVs are in a class of their own. Instead of portraying a cliched storyline like what most do, hers are mainly video clips of herself in various states of undress, gyrating her body on the top of a car, in the rain, on the bed...and they have garnered millions of views on YouTube. Sex sells, sex sells indeed.

I don't feel like I'm about to turn 26 in a few months. It's like, physically and mentally, I'm still where I was in my early 20s. Actually I don't think I've changed physically since I was like eighteen (i.e. still skinny and long-limbed). I guess such thoughts come to me when I see friends moving on to the next phase of life - getting married, having kids, having to deal with new commitments...and can't help but feel like I'm on the slow track somehow. It has its advantages, like more freedom in a sense, to pursue my dreams (the perpetual "in" thing for youths and increasingly, older folks) unencumbered by other personal obligations.

When I took up teaching I thought that that meant I would be freed from lab work forever, and would only need to supervise students doing them. But as my luck would have it, I still find myself trialling experiments in the lab. Doing repetitive measurements and trying to optimise readings. Only this time round, I'm working with far less sophisticated secondary school lab equipment. Gosh.

Was in a terrible state of mind during almost the whole of Lent, mainly due to overwhelming number of responsibilities at work, and also..my escapist tendencies trying to find a way out of it all. One week break proved to be more exhausting than anything...but was really glad for the Easter break. Though it was just one more day, but I had the time to organise my frenzied thoughts and actually make plans for the rest of term. And of course to pray and get in touch with God again after being a bit lost in work...

A lot of interesting local and global news lately: the Mas Selamat fiasco (i visited the talkingcock.com website jus for the laughs), political upheavals in M'sia and Taiwan, black man vs white woman in a very curious political tug-of-war in the States, scary child-killing flu bug in Hong Kong, rising prices of everything everywhere...much to think and talk about.

Six more weeks of teaching before leech-infested level camp in m'sia with 300-odd 16 year olds, electives (means - no teaching) in week 10, and something to smile about - June holidays. Gotta really start writing that textbook..

And before I end off, just a note that I got promoted recently, along with several other colleagues. Am now GEO1A1 (whatever that means). Am not over the moon about it coz erh..it seems rather standard procedure to moi. I mean, it's the civil service, not to mention the education sector. Though they are trying to differentiate performance more by the new scheme (which I once again have some difficulty comprehending - or mebbe it's more like I understand as it is being explained but it completely slips my mind the next time I think about it). What's wrong with my neural connections when it comes to money I don't understand.

2008 - A Happy New Year (?)

I am now at the threshold of what could possibly be the only event more monumental than the start of a new year - the start of school.

I remember being filled with utmost dread last last year (2006) around this time, but now I'm calmer and more purposeful. Guess it's coz I already know what to expect (mad scramble, mad sssccrramble...)

I'm beginning to wonder if I've become less nice than usual. Maybe I'll know when I've totalled up the times when I actually feel that I need to make an effort to be nice to others.

I'm looking at my timetable now and my latest class ends at 2.45pm. Which is something quite unprecedented for moi who has gotten used to lessons at late timings.

For what I believe is the first time in my life, I spent the five minutes before and after countdown attending to some urgent matters in the confines of my home toilet. So i kinda missed the transition totally..

I'm so going to miss the clarity of mind afforded by sufficient sleep.

It has been a gloriously relaxing one month plus.

I can't bear to leave...but the dream is ending...what could this year hold for me?

And another...

...year has passed.

It is customary for most people, I believe, to look back on all that we've gone through and make some philosophical conclusions on how we could have done things better.

So before I start thinking about the New Year gathering I'm going to later (one of the millions going on in the world I suppose)...I shall pause and reflect. Hmmm.

I'm beginning to wonder if I generally fare better during the years which are even numbers. Or mebbe I just happen to hold more fond memories of '04 and '06, and am psycho-ing myself to believe that 2008 will be also similarly full of happy stuff.

That being said, 2007 hasn't been very enjoyable. Mainly coz of work. Of teenagers towards whom I feel a huge generation gap. Of lack of sleep. Of forgetting endless things, big and small. Of life centred on school and nothing much else.

But I also made good friends among my colleagues, and I guess that helped to neutralise some of my gloom and doom outlook.

alrites enough of the reminiscing. Looking forward now...

In the new year, I'm going to...(in the spirit of resolutions I shall avoid the use of the word "try")
- continue learning piano
- learn driving
- manage my time in school better
- stop taking the school bus (still not sure)
- take a firmer stance towards students
- be more organised
- adopt a more disciplined prayer life
- smile more (?)
- reply to SMSes and emails
- be more understanding towards my mom
- be more open towards relationships. There I've said it. It's not easy to maintain my usual indifference towards relationships when just about everybody around me is getting married/planning to get married/already married. It gets me thinking bout the "why" of going into a relationship with someone, what could I possibly be missing out on...and it doesn't help that just about everybody who's in a relationship has quizzed me about why I'm not. Well, I'm not sure why things turned out this way but maybe I'm just more enamoured of a solitary life than most people. Well, whatever...

Teeth...

Tis a significant day for moi as my upper set of braces got removed today, after two whole years of wearing them. The first time I looked in the mirror, I realised that I had forgotten how large my front teeth are. But it's nice to be able to close my mouth properly, the first time in my life. The dentist even gave me the mould of my original ugly, crooked, pre-braces pearlies..."for display on my mantelpiece", he says. Hurhur. But it's really some scary skeletal sculpture.

Anyway...I'm glad to be able to appreciate this holiday season for what it should be. Relaxing and most importantly...cool weather. Mmmm...

Was a little bored so googled my name and to my pleasant surprise found a pdf file that was the report that I wrote for my UROPS (undergraduate research opportunities programme in Science)...was part of this long long list of reports as part of a NTU site. Had done it four or five years ago..so...odd that a scientific report can be nostalgic but yea...I'm keeping this one as a memento of my initial research aspirations. Somehow that din work out.

It's less than a month to start of school. Yikes!! Why am I thinking of this...

Back from Vietnam

Yep...back after 5 days in Vietnam...and one of the first things I did upon reaching home was to record the entire journey in the form of a trip plan (which is supposed to be a plan b4 a trip, but whatever...)...and it's at Yahoo.

Slowly easing myself back into work mode....gaaaaah.