Living in my own world

Sentosa Outing + ZZ's bday party

2008-06-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

Saturday (27/6/08)

I brought 2V8 to Sentosa as a reward for doing well for their Maths in MYE. Well, I believe most of us had lots of fun playing on the beach. I only paid for the entrance tickets because I simply could not afford to pay for everything.

We played volleyball and a little of Frisbee. I certainly hope that they had much joys playing in Sentosa. I gave my skin a dark shade from all the sun that I got in Sentosa without a sunburnt. From the trip, I learnt several things about my students and myself.

Firstly, they are really good in playing sports. I was flabbergasted by their ability to play beach volleyball. They are way better than most of my secondary and JC classmates. Sugi and Candra are probably among the best sports players that I have ever seen. Not only are they good in volleyball, they excelled in the other sports too as can be seen from the netball and badminton matches held previously.

Secondly, I guess some of the students are too immature, especially the guys. Applying sunscreen lotion is certainly not a sign of weakness. It just means that we would want to get additional protection from the hot scorching sun. Getting a sunburnt is certainly not a sign of manliness, but stupidity. Some of them simply just let words shoot out of their mouths without thinking. Honestly, I was offended in several occasions. I guess the last straw was to hear someone commenting about me not being in the sun because I was afraid of the sun. I chose to stay in the shade because there was no one to look after the bags.

Thirdly, I feel that some of them lack sportsmanship. They are too obsessed with winning. When they blame or if their friends missed the ball, some of them blamed and criticised their friends instead of encouraging them to try harder. In this aspect, I thought that Sugi and Candra did a rather good job. Although Yufan and Xintao were new to the volleyball game, Sugi and Candra were very encouraging and allowed them to try. I was utterly disappointed to see some students arguing and shoving the blame to one another.

Lastly, I realised that there is an obvious segregation in the class. While most of the other classmates were playing together, the Chinese students were doing stuff in their own small groups. The class outing was supposed to be a good chance for the class to bond together. However, this objective was not met. It is rather disheartening.

Later on, I left them to go for Zhi Zhong’s birthday. Zhi Zhong is really one funny guy. Before his party, he kept grumbling and complaining that he was afraid that no one would come. But in the end, his party turned out to be rather successful. I spent a large portion of my time chatting with my primary school classmates. We were so reluctant to stop talking so we kept pushing back our departure time. I had intended to leave at 10pm. But in the end, it became 12am. As a result, we took taxi home and it cost me a bomb ($39, to be exact) Lesson learnt: You need more self discipline in order not to burn a hole in your pocket.

Japan trip (7-15 June)

2008-06-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s time to update my blog again.

I was in Japan for 8 days and just returned on the 15th of June.

Before I went for the trip, I still had tuition in the afternoon because I thought it wouldn’t be nice to take too long a break for my students. And expected, my mother nagged a little but I told her I was confident that I would be able to manage my time properly.

The flight was at 11.25pm. Honestly, I was a little disappointed to be taking ANA rather than SIA flight. The in-flight entertainment features of SIA are way much better than ANA. Whenever I take SIA flight, I would ask for a few decks of poker cards since I am an avid card player. However, the air stewardess said that there is no poker card on the plane. The food was mediocre, probably because I am not sure to the taste of it.

When we arrived in Japan, my tour guide turned out to be of Taiwanese and Japanese parentage so he could speak Chinese fluently. Thank goodness! Although I learnt Japanese for 2 years in Sec 1 and 2, my knowledge of the language is almost in the drain already. I can only read the katagana which I can guess the meaning. Kanjis are Chinese words so deciphering the meaning was not too difficult too. But then, when all these words are stringed up in the sentence, I have seriously no idea what it’s talking about.

One of the few features is the onsen or hot spring. After NS days, these were my only times where I stand in my birthday suit in front of the others. Even in NS, the BMT shower areas have partitions. Fortunately, they weren’t many people using the hot spring whenever we go so it reduces the embarrassment significantly.

I got myself buried hot sand bath on one of the occasions. It was supposed to help stimulate blood circulation and so on. Whatever! I thought the experience was more interesting than the benefits of it.

The two theme parks that I went to were Universal Studios Japan and DisneySea. USJ was fun as they weren’t a lot of people there so we didn’t waste too much time queuing. One of the roller coaster rides, “Hollywood’s Dream” was so thrilling that I shouted my lungs out. I have never tried shouting until I need to pause to breathe to continue shouting again. Oh well, I won’t deny that I am the adventurous and macho type of guys who are undaunted by such rides. I had no intention of taking the ride until both my bro and sis wanted to take it so I decided to join them. Result? Loss of voice for 1 hour.

As for DisneySea, there were simply too many people that day. Each queue was in terms of hours. So instead of playing the rides, we decided to take the danshya or the equivalent of MRT to go to the town to shop.

Taking those trains rides was an interesting experience. There is always this strong prospect of getting lost since the system is not one which we are familiar with. But luckily, we did not get lost, with some credits going to my very basic command of Japanese. Shopping was a chore for the men but a delight for the women. I won’t deny that my mother bought a few pieces of clothes for me as well, but the process of choosing and trying and going from shops to shops was mentally and physically draining.

2 major incidents happened during my trip. One of them was the mad guy who went around killing people along the streets of Tokyo. How did I know? Being a TV addict, I browsed through the TV channels the moment I stepped into the hotel. There was no English channel which was a major letdown. So I looked at the news and saw the particular report. The next day, the tour guide talked about it, giving me a clearer picture of what was happening. Apparently, though this is not a common phenomenon, maniacal incidents of such kinds would happen once every long while. The stress level of the people living in Tokyo is simply too high, attributed by the high cost of living.

Another one was the earthquake. The epicentre of the earthquake was supposedly quite near the area I was staying at that moment. Tremors could be felt in my area. However, that morning, I was at the hotel lobby at that time and I didn’t feel anything. The other travelmates who were still in their hotel rooms felt it and had a rude shock as earthquake is a situation that is totally alien in Singapore.

That’s about it. Below are some pictures. :D

Spot the grammar errors if you can! :D

This is called yukkata or bathrobe. Wear this before you go for the hot spring bath.

At Hello Kitty Land

At some hot spring which is RED in colour

These are taken at Mount Fuji

DisneySea: Art of a Million Smiles

A shop named EDWIN :D

NTU + East Coast

2008-05-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

In the morning, I went NTU for the Chemistry and Biological Chemistry (CBC) tea session to let me understand my course better. The briefing by the Prof was a blatant self-praising session. It is hard to determine if all that he has said is true since “if it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably a scam.” I saw many familiar faces and I felt comforted to know that I will not be feeling lonely in the orientation period of the university.

After the briefing, I realized that my path is not restricted to teaching. I always thought that having a Science degree will mean that I can only be a researcher or a teacher. Apparently, I have a much wider range of jobs to select from.

To be honest, my determination to become a teacher has wavered yet again. I am not sure if my character is actually suitable for a teaching career. Handling problem students is a rather tricky thing, which I am not sure if I am up to the task.

I guess I will never be certain of what to do until the time arrives

After the tea session, I went to East Coast Park with xw, ql, ll and wk for kite flying. Being a boring person, I volunteered to look after the bags for them while they flew the kite. Wk joined me and later on, the “look-after-the-bags committee” expanded with the addition of xw, leaving only ql and ll to fly the kite. For dinner, we went to Katong to eat and the food was pretty good.
Looking back, our clique of 5 has been together for the past 7 years. It feels great to meet up with your old friends every now and then where we would sit down to reminisce the past and talk about each of our current situations. We would meet up every school holiday for a short outing to make sure that we still stay in touch. Human relationship is as fragile as life itself. You never know what will happen tomorrow so treasure your present while you can.

At the crossroads

2008-05-21T06:46:00.001-07:00

Today was yet another day. I have nothing much to say for the lesson. After all, the holidays are coming so the pace of the lessons is rather relaxed.

The highlight of the day was more on the events that happened after school. After school, 2V8 had a netball competition after school. Initially, 2V8 sent out 5 boys and 2 girls to play, of which I had already suspected that the gender ratio was rather unbalanced. Later on, after they had won 2V6, the 2V8 players were told that they would be disqualified since there should only be a maximum of 3 boys playing the game. Luckily, I went forth to ask if it was fine to have a rematch with the gender ratio amended accordingly rather than an outright disqualification since there were some administrative errors. So, the request was granted.

And what’s the outcome? It turned out that the first game against 2V6 was just a warm up. In the end, 2V8 played even better in the rematch and totally trashed the opponents. They performed spectacularly in the subsequent matches, emerging as the champions in the end.

To be really honest, I am extremely proud of them. However, on hindsight, I cannot stop myself from thinking that their victory was a little unfair. After all, they are a few years older than the other classes and are taller than their opponents. It’s like the giants mercilessly squashing the dwarves flat. Then again, regardless of whatever it is, I still feel overjoyed when they had won.

Now, I am faced with the dilemma of whether I would be continuing the next term. On the one hand, continuing to teach in the school would be fun especially when there is a cross-country carnival coming up and there may be a teacher’s race. On the other hand, I would not have the time to revise my A levels stuff. I would be doing that over the June Holidays but I wonder if that is sufficient. After all, 2 years of NS can do miracles to one’s brains. Life would be sad reverting back to those dark days where I would go to the Gek Poh Community Club to study my guts out for Os and As.

I don’t know. I will just see how...

The birth of my blog...

2008-05-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

It's been years since I last blogged. Oh well... Let's just see how long I will be able to sustain this blog then.

Looking at the options I had and looking at the choices I have made, I guess I can't do anything but to move on and on...

Time waits for no man...