Fri and Sat can be characterized by only one thing - studying. I spent both days with my gf, and we were reading through notes, listening to the video and audio lectures, and after a while, we gave up, finding that reading the textbook was a million times more useful and less boring. Can you imagine how boring the audio lectures must be for us to find reading a textbook more interesting? In fact, the most productive time we had was when we attempted MCQ quizzes for each topic. 20 chapters, about 15 questions each, so that was a grand total of 300+ MCQ.

Sat's tutorial finally felt more useful, and the sad reason was because our tutor was unable to make it, and someone else came in to replace her. The new guy at least was on track. Although once again, my effort in finishing the tutorials was in vain, the replacement tutor went through the chapters and summarized, also devoting time to clarify some concepts. From the comments I heard some classmates made, it seemed like a general unspoken consensus that in the next module, we would go for this guy's tutorial group instead. The other unspoken thing was that we wondered if we missed anything important in the last two wasted tutorials.

As for today, it is characterized by one word - assignment. After church and all, I came home to refine my assignment so that it would be perfect for submission on Fri. Sheesh. It was only 4 weeks ago when we started the module, and next week we are going to take the exams. The most irritating thing was that we were the guinea pig batch to try out this video and audio lecture system, according to the replacement tutor. He told us that our predecessors had one full semester to finish this module, amidst other modules. I wonder which is worse...compressing 4 modules into shorter spans, or having all 4 modules spread out over a longer time, but you work on more than 1 module at a time, which is more or less like any average university term.

It was a relatively short but busy day for me in school. The whole chemistry department is involved in some action research project that involves coming up with alternative ways to teach or revise different topics or subtopics in chemistry for the purpose of making it more engaging. Yesterday, I was inspired to create a card game for organic chemistry, but had insufficient time to do it. So today, I managed to rush out the entire template, printed onto A4 paper, and had a couple of test runs. I managed to locate some minor gameplay issues and refined them, and I think it's almost ready. I was so engrossed in finishing it that I forgot about lunch till almost 2 pm. I don't know if the students will have fun if we let them try the game, but at least my colleagues and I had fun testing the game.

A guest sat in my TA lesson today, and he hails from MOE HQ, partnering us because TJC is now a TLLM (current education mantra "Teach Less Learn More") prototype school. He was curious as to how TA classes were taught, and I volunteered my class for him to visit. Technically, many things went awry today. The class should complete the previous discussion within half an hour, but they dragged beyond the time. I had no choice but to start them on a practical anyway, and it was one chaotic mess, attributed to a few reasons: they had little practice on titration before this and the experiment was a challenging one, and many apparatus were either damaged or missing, and I had to send my students up and down to collect replacements. In the end, the whole lesson overshot by 10 min.

In my own assessment, I felt somewhat goofed up because of unexpected circumstances. However, my visitor was impressed by the whole new way we were teaching TA, and he had nothing but praise for the lesson. I was quite stunned by the huge discrepancy in opinion, of course, and only in retrospect did I realize that I have grown so accustomed to the new style of teaching that I had forgotten that to the unfamiliar observer, it would be viewed as novel and interesting. Odd that it takes such a circumstance to bring encouragement that I've been doing good enough.

I spent the evening studying with my gf for the coming exam next Fri for the current Master's module we are taking. It only just struck me that I myself am practising what I have been training the TA kids to do. The rest of my Master's class appears to be doing what a normal JC class would do - listen to the lecture, come to the tutorials, then incrementally work on the final assignment. For me, I went into the final assignment straightaway, devised what I had to learn in order to accomplish it, and went to find resources to learn all that I needed to, and churned out the assignment way ahead of the whole class. In doing so, I realized a couple of points. This approach to learning has an additional benefit of a big picture overview, rather than a sequential piecemeal acquisition of knowledge (lecture, then tutorial, and repeat cycle), and there was greater enduring understanding, because the things I had to read up and learn were applied immediately, rather than hearing something purely theoretical and out of context at first.

Only on hindsight today I realized that what I told some of my TA students was really true - that if I were them, I would enjoy what they were doing because that would have been a great way to learn - because that is precisely what I am doing. I am definitely in the right place doing the right thing at the right time.

A 3-day post again, courtesy of the excellent blogger server.

Mon 24 Jul

Today is a happy day for students, because they got an off day for elections, which is way overdue of course. However, for teachers, we were all hauled back to school to attend a workshop. The unfortunate thing for me was that for the first half of the day, the content of the workshop was exactly what I covered in the workshop last week, so at that point, I was wondering why in the world I was called back as well. Fortunately, the second half of the day was about socratic questioning, which was at least something not covered before for me, else I would be hauled back rather meaninglessly.

Again, I kept my hands busy! I made a BluTack 'sculpture', and the picture is below. I have to resort to using the Hello software once more, because blogger picture uploading has failed me yet again. There's another photo taken at a mural in TJC further down as well.

After the course, a few of us colleagues had dinner at Pizza Hut. We haven't done that in a long while, and the last big (kinda) gathering we had was almost two years ago! It was fun, so we should meet more often. We talked about a holiday getaway, but apparently there was no real conclusion.

It's a double lunar seventh month this year apparently. Chart toppers for this period:

1. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
2. Candle In The Wind
   
3. Relight My Fire

Tue 25 Jul

I had gone to school in relatively high spirits, thinking that it was a short day for me. Only when I reached school I remembered I still needed to cover one additional class till 4.30 pm. Bleah. In the meantime I helped to set up the fishtanks needed for the TA1 lessons. No matter how I looked at them, I still don't find fish interesting, no offence to aquarists out there. I think if I ever keep a pet, I want something with fur that I can stroke, and it should have some ability to respond to me intelligently. That roughly narrows it down to cats and dogs.

Again, the news herald disasters. Although this isn't classified as a disaster, but apparently the abnormal heat wave in Europe is quite devastating, and has reportedly killed 40 in France. Elsewhere there is massive flooding. Frankly, the words 'global warming' pop right into my head. I don't like being a doomsday prophet, but honestly, I think the way the world will end when Jesus comes back is either through a massive nuclear war or catastrophic weather and climate due to global warming. The signs are there. Considering the former possibility, many countries are recently stepping up on their nuclear regimes. It's difficult for me to imagine that it's for a peaceful cause in merely producing energy (think Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea). Considering the latter possibility, I think there are just too many reports about climate changes for me not to think of The Day After Tomorrow. Maybe someday I'll see snow in Singapore.

Wed 26 Jul

My remedial class was small today because today is Pets' Day, and apparently many students from my class were involved. It's interesting to see a whole galore of pets roaming around the track in the morning. I think I still like dogs the most, although cats come in a close second (but were not represented today). Finally, my class managed to take the class photo today, after many delays due to students being away for competitions. I think the photos will be quite memorable, since this is my first form class.

In the evening, my cell guys went down to lend support to a programme in which we befriend foreigners staying in Prince George's Park (PGP) in NUS. Most of them just flew in a few days ago, ready to start their courses in NUS. Today, we brought them to Esplanade, through the city area, and to supper at Lau Pa Sat. I was surprised by the diversity of my group. There were students from the UK, France, Korea, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and even Zimbabwe! It was very interesting to chat with them, and find out more about their backgrounds and lives. The fortunate thing was that almost all of them were at least sufficiently proficient in English. Although originally I only volunteered to support today's programme, but after meeting the friendly foreign students, I think maybe I'll join in the programmes that are planned for the future.

I title this 'sculpture' "I'm Sinking".

A mural at TJC. Does it look like I'm sitting down on the bench?

Fri 21 Jul

It's a long day today, because of Parent-Tutor Dialogue. After my lessons ended at 3.30 pm, I went down to Sim Lim Square with ZH briefly. He wanted to get something for his printer, and I needed to scout for good videocams for my AV technician. Unfortunately, it totally slipped my mind that my club phototaking was scheduled at that time, so I had to miss it. The PTD itself lasted till 9 plus, and I had the privilege of having one parent come in essentially after the PTD was officially ended.

Sat 22 Jul

Finally, a break from the Master's course tutorial. It's good to be able to wake up later. I spent the whole day with my gf, and managed to find a nice polo-tee too.

Sun 23 Jul

One of my boys seems to be deliberately missing cell group. Sigh. It's tough to be a spiritual parent. After service and cell group, I rushed down to Bugis to meet my AVC students, because they were having a farewell dinner for the seniors. As expected, I needn't have rushed, as a handful of them were extremely late. We headed to Tian Tian Steamboat at Tan Quee Lan street. I've seen the place being advertised on TV multiple times, but have yet to check it out.

I found the variety disappointing actually. Although the meat was rather fresh, especially the pig's liver, the seafood was so-so, and the other ingredients available were just not appealing. Prime dissatisfaction comes from the fact that there weren't any quail eggs! How could a proper steamboat not have quail eggs? Tsk tsk. After natural selection, the only things worth eating (which were almost the only things those at my side of the table ate) ended with only beef, mutton, pig's liver, and golden pin mushrooms. Not quite worth the money, if you ask me.

I wanted to blog last night so that I don't end up with a 3-day post, but blogger server had other ideas. Grrr.

Tue 18 Jul

I was to attend an Assessment for Learning workshop for two full days. I felt quite bad though, because I had to keep leaving halfway in order to continue with my lessons. My colleague is away on course, and there were only 2 of us left to handle all the TA classes, so there was no way I could afford to just abandon my classes to sit through a workshop. The workshop was fairly interesting, as the facilitator was at least humourous. But it did make the day very long. I didn't even have time to eat breakfast, and I was at the workshop, then rushing off to class, rushing back to workshop and so on till 5 pm. The 'highlight' of the day was when my gf and I had to rush down to NIE by 6 pm for a Q&A session for the Masters' programme. Ridiculous timing, if you ask me. Do the administrators assume all their Masters' students end by early afternoon, or all teach in the west side of Singapore?

That trip was worth $21 in cab fare actually. The most irksome thing was that according to our colleague who has been through this module before, the Q&A session was touted to release tips for the assignment and exam. However, upon sitting through the 2.5 hour long session, I heard no information of the sort. Some of the issues raised for discussion there interested me at the intellectual level, but from a practical perspective, I think it would have made no difference if we had skipped it.

I had a panic attack later in the night. I was at my computer when I saw my mum rush to the toilet. After a while, I heard her retching away, so I knew she was vomitting. Then she started calling for me frantically. I ran to the toilet, and found her clinging to the pipes for dear life, looking like she was going to pass out any instant.

I felt paralysizing fear clutch my heart.

The only thing I could rationally think of doing was to pray out loud, and over her. After she calmed down, and I regained some composure, I helped her out to the living room couch, and prayed like mad. Thank God she was alright, and only puked one more time in the wee hours, but had no other symptoms. I suspect that she probably had indigestion or food poisoning, then stood up too fast after bending over to vomit, and felt giddy from that, but then I'm no doctor, so that's only my educated guess. It was a moment of crippling fear, but I shudder to think how helpless I would have been and felt if I didn't have a God I could trust.

Wed 19 Jul

The concluding day of the course went by rather quickly. I started the day with a remedial with my J1 students. I find it alarming that remediation is beginning earlier and earlier. I remember when I was a student, the earliest remedial I heard of was at least in 2nd year. Nowadays, we are beginning right after the 2nd term. I don't think successive batches became dumber, since with good nutrition, more educated parents, and so on, each successive batch should be at least as smart, if not smarter. The only conclusion I can make is that there are just more and more things fighting for that limited time. No matter how busy and active I was in school when I was in JC, at least I know when I went home, at most I had the distraction of TV, or maybe going out with friends. Students nowadays, once they go online, are easily drained of their time. I think prioritizing and time management skills should be inculcated right when they are young and impressionable in primary school, looking at the way things are.

Anyway, what I find a consolation was that most of the students who were supposed to be there came, while the absentees had legitimate reasons. More importantly, they took the remedial seriously enough. I hope that by the end of the year, they would have rescued themselves from the pits.

I rushed home from school, ate a quick dinner, and headed down to church for a meeting. Pastor shared about many things regarding technology, and what the kids these days are engaged in. According to his table of activities, my techie-age is the equivalent of a 11-20 year old! Anyway he pointed out many disturbing trends which I was already aware of, but I am more disturbed by the fact that most of the people in the meeting seemed unaware of these things (e.g. famous/infamous blogs, youtube, maplestory...). What did come as a surprise was this video report of Goldfarmers in China. I heard of the term before, but I didn't know it was this commercialized there. Goldfarmers are essentially gamers who are paid to help the client level up his online game character or collect gold.

Isn't it ironic? Let me simplify the scenario. You go and try a game, like it, want to be powerful, and pay someone else good money to make your own character powerful, so that you don't need to waste time. Duh. Sometimes, people just go and purchase a high-level character outright. This is a weird era. Isn't the fun of the game the gameplay? How on earth is it fun when you pay someone else to play the game for you? I find the psychology extremely weird. If you just want to play a game at a high level without spending time training, you could easily play a PC or console game and use a hack. However, these online games are very strict on hacking, so I guess employing a goldfarmer is the equivalent of hacking, in a sense. If I use a powerful character, I want to be proud of the fact that I levelled it up from scratch.

Anyway, I totally agree with my pastor. His point is that nowadays conventional media do not work in reaching youths, because the media of the youths are no longer what we are accustomed to, and he recommends us to try to use this media for redeeming purposes rather than shun it all. I already realized this fact a long time ago actually. I blog, use MSN, and try MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, for the uninitiated) precisely for that purpose.

Thu 20 Jul

I finally finished my lectures for this term. At last I can sit back and relax, and watch someone else lecture, especially when these 2 terms felt hectic beyond measure.

The news is really getting depressing these days, and no, I'm not talking price inflations. Everyday I watch the news, I see reports on murder, or terrorism, or most commonly, natural disasters or the equivalent. Java being hit by a tsunami a few days back is a jolting reality again. In all honesty, I think the recollection of the previous tsunami had waned in past months. Because Singapore is sheltered from the wrath of nature, I think it's easy for us to forget, and get caught up in our busy and mundane lives. Seeing the report on the Java tsunami reminded me that the last tsunami was not that long ago, and there seems to be so many earthquakes, floods, etc recently. Scary stuff. The earth is really getting shaken up.

Another shock is about teachers. I think recently, there has been quite a lot of individual cases of misconduct that made their way into the news. A few days back was the ITE incident, and today, there was a case of a primary school teacher instigating a class to physically punish a student who did not do his work. Reportedly, she told one student that he had permission to beat his younger brother to punish him. It's odd to see such irrational behaviour, especially of trained teachers. I wonder if it's a consquence of stress or some mental imbalance. Hmmm...

I went to Bugis Junction with my gf after work. We had dinner in Tea Shake Hut, which was almost a desperate measure, because we never could come up with a nice place to eat whenever we are there. She ordered claypot rice, and I got myself the mee goreng (other than these, there was only fried rice...food menu had only 3 items). To our pleasant surprise, the food was not bad. In fact, my mee goreng was pretty good. Just enough spice and taste.

We caught Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest. I think Disney struck gold with this trilogy. I think they struck greater gold getting Johnny Depp to play the role. I've always liked Johnny Depp as an actor, because he usually manages to bring endearing quirkiness to the big screen. Think Edward Scissorhands, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and the more recent Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In this Pirates series, he managed to turn a complete rascal into a non-romantic, non-heroic, non-villainous main character with great flair. I think this is a spectacular sequel. I was engaged throughout the two and a half hours, and laughing intermittently at the hilarious scenes. The escape from the cannibal tribe scene and the three way swordfight scene was extremely entertaining to watch. The special effects and make-up were excellent, especially in the realistic rendering of the kraken, and the chief villain Davy Jones had a cool menacing presence.

It is interesting how the scriptwriters blended in some myth and folklore into the movie. The kraken is an old myth about a giant sea monster of gargantuan proportions that looks like a giant octopus, and there were sailors who have claimed to see it, but most people think they mistook the giant squid for it. The Flying Dutchman, the ship that Davy Jones captains, is another piece of folklore about a ghost ship and crew that is cursed to sail the seven seas for eternity. I love this show. I think I'll get the DVD once it's out, and probably I'll buy a DVD to replace my VCD of the first movie Curse of the Black Pearl. You have to watch this. Do watch the first movie too. Many characters make a return in this second movie, and there are inside-jokes that would be funnier if you have watched the first movie. I think the pirates beat the man of steel (a.k.a. Superman) hands down any day.

Be forewarned though - although the show has a fairly conclusive ending, it is still a cliffhanger. Watch out for the last movie At World's End (only a rumoured title, unlikely to be the actual one)! A bit of movie trivia: Chow Yun Fatt will play a pirate by the name of Sao Feng in the third installment.

Fri 14 Jul

Other than spending the whole day on administration and lessons, I spent the evening preparing the three tutorials for Sat's tutorial for my MEd (henceforth used as the abbrievation for the Masters' course I'm taking), and the assignment which is due on 4th Aug. Talk about role-modelling. If my students can be as motivated as I am to finish an assignment 3 weeks in advance, I think I'd be overjoyed.

Sat 15 Jul

What a long day today is.

Without my level head to give us a ride to Meridian JC, and considering how out of the way it is to go there, my gf and I decided to take a cab there. Once again, the feelings of betrayal have returned. After I have nicely prepared all three sets of tutorials, and neatly typed out the answers, they are once again unused. There was almost no reference made to the tutorials, and some reference to the online lectures. Instead, half the time the class was asking the facilitator about the assignment (again), and the other half, she came up with this do-on-the-spot exercise to verify whether we understood certain topics, which was not in the set of tutorials. Sigh. It's so frustrating to be a conscientious student for such courses. The good news though is that when I was verifying with my facilitator whether my assignment report was on track, she appeared visibly impressed by the content. I think I am the only one who has churned out the full assignment; the rest of the class is only asking about literature review, which is merely the beginning of the work.

We couldn't get a cab out of ulu Pasir Ris till very much later, and we headed down to Marine Parade for lunch. We were going to attend a church wedding of a friend of mine. I was quite glad to note that his wedding was fairly low budget. His is the only wedding I've been to in the last 2 years that does not feature a wedding shoot. You know, those cheesy studio/outdoor photo shoot where the couple will wear the traditional wedding outfits of various cultures across various time periods? Western, Korean, Japanese, period Victorian style, and etc. Seen one, seen them all. Instead, he had a little scrap book apparently made by hand by his friends that contained various photographs of bride and groom and quirky captions. Sure, it is not as stylish as what is done professionally, but it's got heart. The wedding itself was a simple but sweet affair, and the bride was beaming away throughout, up to the point of parents' appreciation when she cried, like every bride I've seen so far (except one).

Reception had fairly tasty food, but something happened that I couldn't comprehend. When we went to the chapel where the food was, there were only chairs available. I chanced to see one table in one far corner, and headed there right away, wanting the convenience of not holding the plate in my hand. My gf and I took up one quarter of the table. Other guests came, and sat down at the seats beside me, and they sat with their backs to the table. They were sitting right next to the table, and they didn't use it. They just held the plates in one hand and ate like the rest of the uninformed world. It was a duh moment. At first I thought I was thinking out of the box by being in the only corner with a table; looking at those folks next to me, I think everyone else is just plain...um...unthinking.

I headed home after that, showered, refined my MEd assignment till it was perfect, and rushed off to the wedding dinner at Peony Jade Restaurant at Clarke Quay. The food was pretty good, since it was a restaurant after all, and the amazing thing was that despite starting late at 8.45 pm (I was famished by then), all the food was served by about 10.30 pm. I think the waiters and chefs didn't plan on working overtime. However, the layout of the place was unsuitable for such an event. The place was rectangular in shape, with a long length and short breadth. I was sitting at the far end of the length, and could hardly see the stage on the other end. I quickly finished the dessert at the end of it, and rushed off to take a cab.

I made it to Partyworld at Shenton Way before 11 pm to join my friends for karaoke. A friend who is working in Japan flew back over this weekend, and hence, I went. If not for the sake of meeting her, which is a rare event in itself since she's in Japan most of the time, I think I would have gone home to rest, considering I was up and about rushing to and fro since 7 in the morning. Frankly I think I have more stamina than most people my age (or younger). Despite the big group, I got to sing a bit, and I'm glad my slightly sore throat did not impair the voice box.

Sun 16 Jul

An average church-going Sunday, except that I had forgotten to bring out my handphone. I merely changed my usual routine before I went out of the house, and somehow I missed taking the phone on my computer table. It felt weird to put my hand in my pocket and not feel the phone where it usually is. That was not the worst though. When I reached Expo, I realized that there was no way for my kids to contact me. Now that felt crippling. It is alarming indeed to realize that the phone, which used to be a luxury, had transited into becoming a commodity or necessity, and inadvertently becoming absolutely indispensible.

Tue 11 Jul

I accompanied my gf to Citilink where she went to do her lashes. The lady there told me it would take about 45 min, so I went to shop around by myself. In the end, it took 2 hours in total! I was famished by that time, and at the same time, wondering how women can spend that kind of time in a beauty parlour. My gf wouldn't be there in the first place if not for the fact she needed to clear the sessions in her package because of some complications.

We went to Qi Ji for dinner. I was so hungry I had a plate of nasi lemak, a bowl of laksa, and some kaya toast at one sitting. I was a bit disappointed with the food, especially considering that the last time I ate food from Qi Ji was when it was catered over to the school itself, and the food was impressively good. Therefore, I had some expectations when I was at the Marina Square branch. The nasi lemak was only lukewarm and not piping hot, and the rice was a bit clumpy. The laksa gravy was somewhat dilute, and the hum was a bit too tough and chewy. The bread in the toast was a bit too thick, and hence not that crispy, and they used margarine probably instead of butter, so it was not as fragrant, though it was a healthier alternative. The food was still not bad overall, and I did have a filling and satisfactory meal, but I thought it would have been better. I think I'll go check out the Shaw Towers outlet another time instead since that one was opened much earlier, and possibly have the better cooks. Afterward, we went to Esplanade for ice cream at Haagen Dazs for dessert. They have this new berries and cream flavour which was pretty rich in taste, and I will go for that flavour again some other time.

Wed 12 Jul

I had Mother Tongue oral invigilation again today. Fortunately, after doing it once already, it was more efficient this time and we wrapped up in less than 2 hours. Also, I brought my tablet PC along, and managed to finish some work. It really made the time pass faster, unlike last week when I had nothing with me to keep me occupied.

My cell leader is away from Singapore again, so I am the surrogate cell leader. Oddly enough, somehow all of us were free early, and so we met for a game of pool before we had cell group. I played well today! I managed to win most of my games, got in every rebound shot, and made some spectacular shots as well. Satisfying, especially considering I haven't got much time to play lately. We had cell group at J's place again, and it was a good sharing session about some important issues. After that, we decided to play mahjong, and ended up playing till about 1 am, and I got home by 1.30 am thereabouts. I think my lifestyle and sleep timing really don't resemble a typical teacher's. Heh.

Thu 13 Jul

I was asked by my senior colleague to announce the performance of the cohort to the students during my lecture today. Argh. Not a pleasant task to be given. I think I managed to speak my mind without the tone of scolding them, even though they fared horribly for the June Common Test.

Today was supposed to be a short day, but I had to go down to NTU with my HOD to liaise with SPMS (School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences) in the afternoon. In between, a few of us were chatting in the staff lounge for almost 2 hours. One of our colleagues was sharing about his family, and how he raised his children. The most impressive thing was that his two eldest children (15 and 16 years old) did not want a handphone! I think that is extremely sensible, because they both felt that they didn't need it. I think kids nowadays just want a handphone anyway, even at a young age, when they don't actually need one usually.

We managed to reach NTU by 3.30 pm, and had some difficulty finding SPMS because they momentarily do not have a building for themselves yet. Meeting the vice-dean was very interesting. He is a very friendly and humourous person, without airs, and was very helpful. I think it looks quite hopeful for some of our TA students to get involved in some projects for exposure next year during term 1 during their third year sabbatical programme. He also went on to say many candid things about the school and all, and I think it will be pleasant to be working with him for this collaboration.

I predicted that it would be a 1-1 draw at full time. I also predicted that it would go into a penalty shootout. What I predicted wrongly was who would come out tops of that shootout. I guess if there was a time for Italy to break its run of losing penalty shootouts, it would be the finals.

I don't quite believe it, but I stayed up for the finals - the only match I caught out of the whole world cup. The match itself was rather exciting, though I still can't comprehend why Zidane did a stupid thing like that. I think the (betting) world out there would be crying 'foul' and 'kelong' all the way. Anyway the fact that school starts at noon today makes it more convenient to catch the match. Heh.

Thu 6 Jul

What was originally a short day became significantly lengthened. I started with a lecture in which I was going through the answers for the recent June Common Test. I was waylaid by students eagerly fighting for a mark or two, so by the time I reached the staff room, my half hour break was over, and I went to my TA class. After the class was over, I headed straight to a meeting. The school is now one of the TLLM (current ministry mantra 'Teach Less Learn More') prototype schools, and the science department is leading the development. I happened to be on the team, and it is a bucketload of work coming from that area. I had a quick lunch after the meeting was over, and headed back for Mother Tongue oral examinations timekeeping.

Fri 7 Jul

Today is a happy day for students because it is MOE ExcelFest, which meant that all the teachers had something to do after lunch, and students get away scot-free, unless they are unfortunate enough to be in the hosting schools and were assigned duties. I had to go through the unpleasantries of returning a test paper to my TA class which was done poorly, and there will be another round of that next week. I think I would need to deliver a pep talk especially to my civics class soon. The results of the JCT were certainly worrying to say the least. A bunch of us went to Parkway Parade to eat a buffet lunch at Sakura restaurant, then proceeded to St Patrick's School to attend a course, which was thankfully short. We went around to see the exhibits just to get a feel of what other schools are doing.

In the evening I was at my gf's place, and it was only then that we realized that we had 4 online lectures, 4 tutorials, 3 problem sheets, 3 chapters of a textbook and 3 extra readings to complete before the next day. The average person would have given up, but I, being confident of my efficiency, decided to be a responsible student and do my work conscientiously. It was almost ten by the time we downloaded all the materials and printed them out, and it was eleven when I reached home. I thought I achieved the near impossible when I finished all 4 tutorials, type-written some more, and the problem sheets, and all the readings by 2.30 am.

It is interesting to note the amount of motivation I have for this Master's course. One part of it comes from the frequent preaching by senior pastor about excellence - exceling in every thing we do. I don't know if I can achieve it, but I shall aim for straight A's anyway. The other part comes from the innate principle of role-modelling. I figured that since I am a teacher now, all the more I shouldn't do what I won't want my students to do - go unprepared to a tutorial and be slack.

Sat 8 Jul

So much for motivation. When I reached the tutorial class, I discovered that almost everyone else had not prepared anything at all. I see only textbooks on the tables, and at most, an empty notebook ready to jot down notes. Still, I thought I did the right thing in preparing all the tutorials, even though I ended up with only 4 hours of sleep (but then again, I sleep that amount every day...hmmm). At the end of the 3 hour session, I discovered two critical points: firstly, the facilitator hardly went through the tutorial material, because the whole class were furiously firing questions about the upcoming assignment (graded), and the exams on 4th August. Secondly, one could have gone through the tutorial session with zero preparation, because when she did go through the tutorial content, people were answering it and sharing from their own perspectives and experiences, and inadvertently going way off tangent. Honestly, I think I felt cheated at the end of it. Bleah.

The closest analogy would be this: if my student came fully prepared to my tutorial about alcohols in organic chemistry, and I spent 3 hours talking about Vodka and Tequila, then at the end of it I tell them that in my side-tracked discussion about the two liquors, I have roughly covered what is in the tutorial thus we can move on, I am sure he would feel like he wasted his time doing the work. Or that I was being a irresponsible tutor.

However, my resolve would still be to do all the work required of me, and do it in excellence, because I know it would honour God. Even if I feel betrayed by my facilitator every week. Argh.

After some debugging, I finally got the page for my latest simple flash animation The Jesus Story up and running the way I run it on my metamorphosis site, which has undergone slight revamp.

I happened to notice that this post is my 666th post. Hmm.

Sat 1 Jul

I brought my mum out to eat lunch. I haven't done that for no special occasion for a while; so far, I've brought her out during Mothers' Day, her birthday, and etc. This time round, because I happened to mention Rabbit Restaurant, the cheap sharksfin place in Orchard, and she got interested, I thought I'd bring her there to try. Sure enough, she liked the food a lot. Cheap food as it may be, taking cab to and fro for my mum's convenience makes it not so cheap anymore.

Originally I was supposed to play mahjong with my cell group brothers in the afternoon, but somehow, one after another couldn't make it, so it was indefinitely postponed. In the evening, I went over to keep my gf company, and help her carry big stacks of scripts to do exchanging with our colleague. It's a bad deal to be the last paper of the week; you'll be marking through the weekend.

Sun 2 Jul

I was tasked to do consolidation duty today, but somehow, the service ended without an altar call, and was a mass ministry session instead. After service I had a brief cell group. It wasn't meant to be brief originally, but because I spent an hour talking to one of my boys, I didn't have much time left. To the bystander, it seemed like a trivial issue to be lecturing him so long over - it involved him using a crude word on another of my boys. However, the way he brushed it off as a joking use of the word, and that he didn't find anything wrong with it, and how naturally the word came out raised my alarms in my head through and through. I am aware of it, but still am shocked by how much influence peers have over one another at their young age, especially negative influences. It breaks my heart to see how he has changed little by little, till he seemed almost jaded by the fact that everyone around him speaks the same crude way. I wonder how many more kids out there are facing the same thing - slow erosion of manners, ethics and morals by their peers. Once again, the pain of spiritual parenting seems remarkably close to real parenting, if I were to imagine how it would be like. But it is my responsibility to educate him, and I shall not shirk from it, no matter how difficult it is.

In the evening, I went over to my cell leader's place for dinner. He cooked dinner himself, with the help of J who prepared fried eggs with tomato, preparing fried beef and vegetables, potato and carrot soup, and bought some fried chicken. I had a couple of games of international chess - it has been so long since I touched international chess! I won, but I felt as if I bullied players even more amateurish than I am. Heh. In any case, I still think Punggol is a really inaccessible place if you don't drive. Even after Adrian drops me off at Punggol MRT station, I still needed to take a train out, change to a bus and walk home, and I consider my place very accessible already. I think I can forget about getting a new flat next time when my current flat lease is up, since all the new flats in the east are based in that ulu area.

Mon 3 Jul

I went to Marina Square to watch Superman Returns and do some shopping. I think it's not a bad movie but it isn't a fantastic movie either. Till this day, I think Spiderman (both movies) is the best comic book to screen adaptation. Sure the special effects of Superman Returns is really cool, especially the way he flies, but I think there is too much romance woven in rather awkwardly. I don't like the Lex Luthor in this movie much. Of course, he is supposed to be a devious villain that wants Superman dead, but my image of him is a more sophisticated and dignified villain, not the madman in this movie. To me, his evil plot is so grandiose and of ridiculously epic proportions that I find it hard to swallow, even though it fits his land-hungry persona to a tee. Considering that Superman was supposed to have left for 5 years, I think the Lois Lane in the movie has been horribly miscast because she looks way too young. Especially to have such a grown boy as a son. I sympathize with Brandon Routh though. He has to fill the shoes of Christopher Reeves, who I think played Superman wonderfully, even though in those days, special effects were pathetic, relatively to the present day. So I think it's worth 3.5 out of 5 stars to me.

My gf and I ate at Carl's Jr. Delicious burgers. Once again, I think to myself that I shall not touch burgers from the common fast food joints anymore. We bumped into quite a few of our students there, to my surprise. Especially when I just commented slightly earlier on that it was odd we didn't bump into anyone familiar.

Here's a shot of a pretty cat at my gf's block. I made contact with it today, and managed to get it to like me. Heh. First cat I managed to befriend in Bedok! The other cats all bochup me.