Wisdom in its teething stage

My wisdom tooth is forcing its way out and I'm feeling rather miserable now.
The pain started since Thursday but I thought it was only an ulcer then. By
Friday night the inside of my left cheek had swelled up and when I checked
the mirror, I could see more of my wisdom tooth than I did before. The very
same wisdom tooth had bothered me before a few years ago but it was only a
very dull ache that quickly ebbed away. Now it seems it's going to be giving
me a full-blown problem, boo hoo hoo. Now I can eat only on one side of my
mouth, and it hurts whenever I screw my mouth out when gargling or spitting.

All in one week before my competition! I daren't see the dentist now because
I don't want to have an op before the comp, so I'll have to wait until after
the comp. And even so, I won't have the op straightaway, I need to get his
opinion first (and I'll probably go to another dentist after that to get a
second opinion) and then set the date later. That means it might be a good
three weeks from now before it's fixed. I hope the pain doesn't get worse.
It's not really so bad now, but it's the difficulty in using my mouth that's
bothering me.

Sweet Helen has bought me Bonjela. Haven't tried it yet, but I hope it
works.

IS evaluation results are out!

The IS evaluation I took on my birthday are out! My principal announced the results during the staff meeting today after all the important agenda had been covered. At first she told us the pass rates (which I'm not going to announce here because... I'm not going to) and out of which four people got As. And before she announced who got As, she took the liberty of bringing my name as an example of the usage of MS Excel... when I first joined the school, I had to mark five classes' worth of mid-year papers which I tabulated the results in great detail using the spreadsheet program. By accident I showed it to my deputy principal who told me to give a copy to the principal. The principal used it as an example of how I managed to identify the question which brought the students' grades down, and discovered that the topic was not taught by the previous teacher. Anyway, it was obvious after that I had passed, but I didn't expect to get the highest score of 93%.

No, I'm not gloating here. I think nothing of my ability of MS Excel, mainly because it's such an easy program to use, and looking back, although it seemed like a silly subject, I had to do a short course of the software back in university (it covered three software: MS Excel, MS Access and Autolisp), I learnt a lot from it for which I am thankful for because I've been heavily using the programs I learnt eversince. But I'm glad that I passed, because that means I won't be glumped into a boring basic course which I can easily take over as a trainer, and I suppose the IS guys don't hate me enough to spite me by putting me into that basic course. Haha!

Doctor's orders: Stay away from computers

Oh, and my back's giving me a nagging pain. It's smack at my right shoulder blade. The pain started hammering only this morning when I was seated at the school's PTA forum. Had this pain only once before in my life, and that was in third year university; it nagged me for about a week. Friends tried massaging it for me only to have the pain returned the moment the pressure was lifted. Finally went to see the doctor who gave me muscle relaxants and told me to stay off the computer (had been working very hard for months for numerous projects. Which student doesn't?). Fancy that! Have to stop working on doctor's orders... hehehe... of course I ignored his orders but I typed with only one hand, because it was the right one that bothered me. Same thing happening here, but this time today I went for a Thai massage. The masseur was very helpful, she did her best to relieve the pain for me. I think my nerves are all twisted or something. It hurt like hell, but I felt a lot better after that; she even gave me a medicine tablet to take (from Thailand - supposed to be very effective) and told me to take two paracetomol tablets tonight. Already took it, and the pain's still there but it's more out of stiffness rather than the nagging pain I was feeling. Hmm, and here I am typing away at two hands for a blog. I think I've strained my muscles all over again lugging my heavy PC (yes, it's heavier than normal) to and from the computer table and work table to open/remove/add/close the PC for my earlier troubleshooting problems.

Oh, and Harry Potter's 6th book is sitting on my desk. Haven't actually opened it except to cover the hard cover with plastic book wrap. I'm not that mad on Harry Potter anymore, but yes, I pre-ordered the book and bought it. Frankly speaking, I don't mind waiting 6 months for the paperback, but the reason I'm willing to blow close to RM100 on the sequel to the dismal Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is because... I CANNOT STAND THE IDEA OF SOMEONE TELLING ME THE ENDING!!! More than anything, I hate spoilers, whether they're for movies or for books or for stories. I have walked out of a room before when my friends were talking about Sixth Sense which at that time I have yet to watch; and they kept talking about it although I have told them I haven't watched it and to please not talk about it. Of course, just to annoy me they did, so I walked out of the room and sat outside reading the newspaper until they have exhausted their own conversation. I will not hesitate to do the same in any situation, but I don't think I can keep it up for 6 months, especially when now I've got to see a whole bunch of students, probably half of whom are major Potter fans. When I collected the book today (I didn't bother going yesterday which was the book opening day; I'm so not interested in the freebies or the parties), the Popular bookstore gave me a witch's hat made of black sugarpaper; a large wooden chopstick which was supposed to be a wand; a pair of paper spectacles and a large, long thin white candle. Methinks they're all leftovers from the party they had the day before. Honestly didn't know what to do with all of them, so I gave the paper stuff to my younger sister, kept the wand for use at school, and stored the candle with the other candle supplies at home. Right now I'm halfway through Lemony Snicket's sixth book (which is a lot thinner and faster to read than Harry Potter; and IMHO, the whole series is a lot wittier) and Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment (yes, I'm reading two books at once) so I don't foresee myself starting on the Potter brat until probably next week.

In the meantime, it's already 1.30am and I really ought to give my aching back a rest. If the pain is still bad (which I hope it won't be), I'll have to go to the clinic for advice. I wonder if this doctor will also tell me to stay away from computers... what a great way to skip work...

My PC's back!

My PC is finally back!! It started going cranky on me since last week... the
PC kept restarting after a few minutes no matter what I was doing (or not
doing) until Windows finally gave up on me and gave me the blue screen of
death (which I suppose is its equivalent to the finger). On the advice of a
friend who said it might be a BIOS problem, I sent the PC to a computer
dealer (one which I commonly frequented, because they know me, and I trust
them) who said that the power supply was shot and changed it for me and also
reformatted my hard disk - after backing up my data (very important!!!), of
course. However my emails were all lost because he didn't know where it was
kept... seems like I'm one of the rare few weirdos who actually know where
the Outlook Express folders are kept... *sigh*

Anyway, after a couple of days being computerless at home, upon getting my
PC back (which was now a stranger to me, after losing all my programs and
customizations. But fortunately I'm IT-savvy enough to know how to
reconfigure it, hehehe) I tried to reinstall my programs... and to my
dismay, after merely installing 3 software and trying repeatedly to get the
network card recognised (because for some strange reason, the guy at the
computer store unknowingly didn't get it recognised) my computer refused
cooperating with me anymore and Windows froze everytime I started up; I
could only get in at Safe Mode (which is completely useless), no matter how
many System Recoveries I did. I panicked again, because I didn't want the
danger of losing my data again (40GB!!!) and so decided to reformat
the hard disk myself. It is no biggie to me to reformat the hard disk. The
problem was, I needed to back my files up. I could've sent the PC back to
the store, but being rather of a control freak when it comes to my digital
technology, I'd rather do it myself because I would have complete control of
what was actually being installed and what is happening to my computer. The
guy at the store installed a Windows XP SP2 which caused mayhem on my
computer; I didn't know what he actually did, and it made me feel as if I've
lost control over my PC. Yes, yes, I am a control freak, I've already
admitted that earlier :þ

My friend reiterated that it could be a BIOS problem, and said I could
update it myself. Not a problem, really; I knew where to look, because I
have been searching for BIOS updates for months for another friend's
computer which I was trying to patch up a few weeks back. Anyway, for the
sake of my data, I went and bought a new hard disk (was tempted to get a
200GB one, but $$$ rules over desire so I settled for a mere 80GB) and in
Safe Mode, managed to copy everything over. Then I tried to reformat the old
hard disk and problems arose all over again. Over the course of two days I
tried many different CDs - WinXP SP1, WinXP SP2, Win2K but none of them
worked. The computer always froze about the same place - I could never get
past installation at a particular point. Using my brother's PC I managed to
get the latest BIOS update for my computer, and even that had a bit of
problem updating. I followed the website's instructions but it didn't work;
it was supposed to be a bootable floppy disk but my computer refused to boot
from it. Fortunately I knew enough about DOS to work around it (it wouldn't
read the DOS version which was FreeDOS; I had to make a Startup disk from
another PC to load DOS, and after several trials-and-errors managed to run
the EXE file) and updated my BIOS; but to my utter dismay the problem was
not solved.

Trying another approach, I installed Windows 98 and it installed and worked
beautifully; but I've gone beyond the point of settling for a faulty ol'
piece of 7-year-old junky technology, especially when I'm running on a newer
(but getting obsolete) Intel Pentium 4 HT, but the point of the exercise was
to test if my computer would accept any installation to begin with. It did,
so I tried firstly to replace Windows 98 with Windows XP; then just tried to
update it to Windows XP, but both times it failed; and when I tried to
reformat the hard disk (I hated the thought of using FAT32 system instead of
NTFS), nothing worked. It failed at the exact same spots as it did before.
All my work - wasted!

I was just about ready to throw the PC into the can when a thought seized
me... I might be requiring too many drivers. I had added on at least three
additional cards: a network card, a video capture card, and an IEEE card.
Taking out a handy screwdriver (never leave home without it - although in
this came, I AM at home) I took out all the additional items and
tried the Windows XP CD again... and... IT FINALLY WORKED!!!!!!!! So that
was the bloody problem all along!

The reformatting using NTFS and Windows installation finally completed, I
added back the cards together with my new hard disk, and now everything's
golden. Except that I've misplaced my MS Office CD, and I haven't had time
to install anything else other than the vital anti-virus and Internet
connection software. It's 1.10am on a very early Monday morning and I have
to get up for school in little more than 5 hours. I'm so going to die
tomorrow, what more when I've got this PC and the things I have to reinstall
in it haunting my brain.

I wonder how many readers have completely tuned out when reading this entry. Or rather, how many readers finished reading this entry. By the way, special thanks to Ik Choon for his many suggestions and his patience for both answering my frustrated enquiries and listening to my whining gripes - it ain't fun doin' tech support during your off-time, I know :)

A stopped watch may be right twice a day... but it's still pretty useless otherwise

My new watch which I bought in Bangkok in April had stopped sometime last month. Initially I thought it was the battery... I thought maybe the person who sold it to me put in a bad battery. After all, it was only a night market product. Hadn't had time to get the battery changed until today, where I discovered it was not the fault of the battery, but the fault of the watch. Got rather pissed off about that! Now I'm really stuck without a watch, because I don't think I can afford to get a proper one until a few good months later. It's so strange for me to go without a watch, I have been wearing one eversince I was 12. I've been surviving the past few weeks on my handphone. Fortunately my school has clocks everywhere so I can rely on them; and now that they've standardised the timetables of the entire secondary school, the bell goes off at every period change. It's just that when I'm out with friends, it's inconvenient to keep digging for my handphone; I used to be able to discreetly check out the time on my watch if I wanted to see what time it was.

Now all I've got is a shiny metal wrist accessory that looks like a watch. Hmph.

The weekend after...

Ugh... I woke up this morning with a slight chill. I think it's because I
got caught in the rain slightly yesterday (yes, my immunity is that low),
and also possibly because I've had two late nights in a row (slept at 5am
both nights). First night was my birthday celebration followed by a mamak
session thereafter; second night I went for a midnight movie
(Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Hilarious!!!) followed by a mamak
session thereafter. I had lots of personal errands to do today, but I
overslept and woke up later than I wanted to. Sigh... Still, I didn't wake
up too late, so I managed to get to The Curve before noon.

Tried to call a friend who's in Amway on the way there because I wanted to
restock on my echinacea, but couldn't get through to her. Had to hope that
my chill didn't get worse.

Bumped into a friend when I was at Tesco's, and ended up having lunch with
her and her kids after I did all my personal shopping. Had full intentions
after that of going home to nap when another friend who was feeling peckish
paged me and so ended up going for another round of drinks... back at The
Curve. I know The Curve and Ikano Power Centre so well now... except of
course that I happen to refer to both as The Curve, to the confusion of
people I talk to. They're the same to me, because I park in one place, and I
just cross the road to the other.

Somehow managed to stave off the impending flu, so I'm feeling not too bad
now. Not sure how I'd feel tomorrow though. I hope I don't get sick, I can't
take a day off work, it will upset my lesson plans for my students.

Just realised that my two birthday celebrations this year have something in
common - in both parties, there are four persons of one gender and one of
another. With my fellow teammates at the studio, there were four girls and
one guy; with my former school friends there were four guys and one girl.
Yeah, I'm the kind who likes to find similarities or pair up logic as much
as I can, I've been like that all my life. I can tell you a lot more silly
little logical sequences I have discovered over the twenty-something years
in my life. I'm good at logic with numbers (not logic with mnemonics; that
needs a lot of general knowledge, something I'm too lazy to equip myself
with) - I once took this supposed IQ quiz in a software form someone had
written and was going around the Internet; but it was all logic with numbers
and shapes, so I think it was a biased IQ test because IQ tests usually
consist of several different types of questions. ANYWAY, I finished the test
under the time given and I scored almost the maximum score. I can't remember
the score now and I don't know where I put the software. I just remembered
that they had a few different scales for the results, and you'd think the
highest on the scale was genius, but mine was above the genius - they
classified me as Extra-terrestrial. Hahaha!!! But of course, this
wasn't a qualified IQ test. If I took any other proper IQ test, I'd fall
into the average category.

Hmph. I think I spoke too soon. I'm sniffing again. Argh!

Birthday!

Had a pretty interesting day today. My day started out at school where I forced a class of Sec 4 students to pay attention a 20-minute lecture, much to their dismay, because none of the other classes had lessons before the KDU college trip. Yes, I'm mean. Of course I'm mean. And that's because I really want them to learn.

Anyway, some of my students had earlier managed to dig out my birthdate from me, and a group of Sec 5 Aristotle students sung Happy Birthday in the hall in at least 3 separate occasions (yes - the same bunch) whenever they see me walking down the hall. Of course they were out to embarrass me... but I think it's sweet all the same ;) Su Yi of 5 Mozart even gave me a hug for my birthday.


The school bus took us to KDU college, where the field trip unfortunately, was boring for most. They started with an inter-school quiz where the first prize was a trip to Australia, and each school were to send 3 representatives (I can't remember how many schools there were today). We initially did pretty well, but our students started faltering towards the end, but they still did pretty good coming out fourth, although they unfortunately didn't win any prizes.


As for the students in the audience group, they were quite supportive at the beginning, but as the quiz dragged on, they started fidgeting, and many got really hungry, so we slowly lost numbers as they disappeared to get food, and most of them wandered around the college, which I thought was the general idea for the field trip today. However I had to stay in the quiz area, and after it was (finally) over, I sat with the students for lunch. There wasn't much opportunity for me to wander around the college (not that I wanted to) as there was not very much time after lunch till the bus came; so I spent the remainder of the time checking out some of the booths which were set up along the college hallways selling trinkets which were mostly girl stuff. Bought lots of butterfly accessories, hehe... of course spent a fair bit.

Oh, and a student from 5 Mozart - Adrian - gave me a Memory Lane bear. He admitted he got it for free, but it's sweet of him all the same.

It's br-- err, students like all of these who make it feel worthwhile to go to school, and I've only been teaching for little more than a month. :) (I'm refering to the ones who gave me birthday songs and wishes and presents, not the ones who resented my 20-minute class)

After we returned to the school, the day at school ended with an IS evaluation which left a bitter taste in my mouth because the IS guy is such a jerk. Was determined not to let that ruin my day.

Spent the rest of the afternoon asleep... that's my usual Friday activity, I catch up on all my lost sleep from the week then.

My birthday ended with dinner with four friends from school - Ik Choon, Jefri, Teik Seng and Jick Yong. We went to TGIF at Section 14, and I hadn't realised until it was too late that I was the only girl... not that it was a problem, of course ;) For the first time though, I didn't get a TGIF birthday song... all I got was the usual stand-on-chair, give-a-speech, blow-candles-from-a-mile away and a normal birthday song business :( But the company was great and I had a really good time.


Jefri gave me a really great gift - a photo of the two of us taken when we were 15, which was really the start of our long and close friendship. Childhood friends are great reminders of what we were like as kids, and they're among some of the most sincere friends we'll have in life (provided we stay friends...).


Well, at least I wasn't spending my birthday alone as I dreaded :) Had a very tiny-scaled treat from Bron earlier in the week, and yesterday a few of my teammates threw a small surprise party during our practice session. Small, cuz usually our team celebrations involve larger numbers. It's silly of me not to have expected it, because my team always makes it a point to celebrate no matter how few there are who will be present (not counting the birthday girl, of course), but I've learnt not to expect anything from my friends so that I won't be disappointed. Whenever it's someone's birthday, I always come equipped with my handycam and digital camera, but this time because it's a surprise birthday for me, I came without my trusty digital memory-recorders. When I first saw Cat come in with the cake (she being the third to arrive after Kobe and me), I was ready to go straight home to take my camera, but fortunately she remembered that her camera phone had an excellent camera and video function inside (Sony Ericsson K750i. Damn cool phone!) so we used that to take pictures. Catherine gave me a lovely set of toiletries from Crabtree & Evelyn, with a tiny purple bear (including Adrian's bear, that's 2 for my total this year, which is a lot to be said since I've never received bears - big or small - before for my birthday), and Barbara gave me a pack of Sally Field's cookies which I would have opened on the spot if we hadn't been too full from the cake. Hui Koon said she'll bring her pressie for me next week since my Friday was already reserved, hehehe. I honestly didn't expect any presents from anyone; cake was usually more than enough for me, so I'm really touched this year.

I can't be getting sick - not now!

I’m losing my voice. I’ve been feeling a bug since last week but I’ve been trying to hold it off. Yesterday I felt really cold and had to wear a jacket to class. Today I’ve nearly lost my voice twice but after much glaring at the students, they kept silent enough for me to teach the lesson. I’m really trying to hold of getting sick – I do not want to get sick tomorrow!!! After tomorrow I don’t mind… if the bug that’s been festering inside me finally breaks lose on Saturday, by all means I’ll let it, but I am not getting sick by tomorrow!

Speaking of tomorrow, I’ve got to KDU college. NO, I’m not looking to enroll there. I’ve got to accompany the brats … err, I mean the adorable children* from my school there. They’re having a field trip there and it is the school’s intention to get our current fifth-formers into KDU college. It makes perfect business sense for the school, since they’re from the same educational group of companies. The field trip is for Australia week at KDU. And no, I have no idea what it’s about. I’m accompanying the students because the school needs some teachers to accompany the br- I mean, the hip young teenagers* to the college, and back. The teachers who are accompanying the students are specifically Secondary 4 & 5 teachers… because the students who are going are Secondary 4 and 5. (Talk about duh!)

So there’s no classes tomorrow. Yay! The only bummer about tomorrow is that upon our return, I have to go straight for an IS evaluation, about Microsoft Excel and Outlook. Yeah, teach me Microsoft Excel. Hmph. But I totally understand why it’s made compulsory – not all teachers are as tech savvy as I am. <conceited smile on face>

I really hope I don’t get sick. I’m going to go home and pump myself up with Vitamin C. I’m all out of Echinacea – of all the luck!!!

*To my students who are reading this: yes, I was being sarcastic, you br-… err, I mean you wonderful students of mine ;)