New subdomain!

My website is now resting on a new subdomain. You'll only know this if you typed in http://www.zyenhoo.com because it will automatically route you to this location. If you typed in the old full subdomain name (http://zyenhoo.thewildwestbabes.com)... well, obviously it won't work.

I will be moving to a webhosting space all on my own soon though... I'm not moving yet because I would like to finish up my contract on this webhost first. Will keep you all updated... but then, as long asyou keep using http://www.zyenhoo.com, you wouldn't notice the difference.

I lost a Sony auction! :(

I lost a Sony auction! :( I could've gotten a Handycam worth RM2,999 for less than half the price...

I went for the Sony Style members-only night with a friend just now. They had a lot of things going on there... special discounts, auctions, etc. I told him that if he sees me taking out my credit card, he has to stop me, because I honestly cannot afford to get another new gadget at the moment.

Anyway... initially he was just playing with the auction, raising his hand when he was way too far back to be noticed and to be counted. However when we got really close, I started raising my hand - because I wanted to buy that Handycam! Well, I have no idea what the model was but it sounded like a dead good deal. I'm just a videotaping freak... I got it at RM950 and someone outbided me. My friend glared at me and I decided not to push it above RM1,000 and let the other guy win.

Afterwards I was groaning on and on about how it was so worth it to pay RM1,000 for a Handycam worth almost RM3,000. Whereas my friend chided me and scolded me and said he didn't know what to do initially to stop me from bidding. And afterwards he shut his ears whenever I kept complaining.

Well, I suppose I could look at this way... that RM1,000 I did not spend could be put into a new Handycam model I really want.... Haha!!!

Pet peeve

My students have come up with some silly little blog which is supposedly dedicated to me. I was initially mortified but at the same time very curious to see how it was going to turn out.

Just read the latest entry. Quite cross with it. I'm not cross because the entry makes fun of me. I can take jokes that take a poke at me - people who know me well know that. I'm annoyed because the person who wrote it (and the entry before that) seems to think he's witty and funny. Whatever he wrote isn't even funny or remotely intelligent. And it doesn't border on tasteless - it's way over the border.

No, I'm not providing the link here. I don't provide links to sites I feel aren't worth your screen time.

Physics 100% passes! Woo hoo!!!

This post is a bit overdue but I've been too busy the past few days. My school's Physics results - 100% passes with 46% As! Woo hooooo!!!! I'm more relieved than excited, actually. I was so worried that I hadn't prepared the students enough for the examinations, given that I only had half a year with them, and it took a while for them to warm up to me when I first came in. Phew!

My task has not ended, however. There's still this year's batch to worry about. And if I'm still around - next year's.

Of people...

Whenever there are people, there will always be politics. No matter where you are, what profession you're in, who are involved, how old you are. Politics will always exist.


In completely unrelated news, I have a wedding to attend in Muar tomorrow. An ex-coursemate of mine, who helped me a lot during my university days. I was supposed to drive down with 2 friends (who are a couple). I didn't ask to join them; the girl was the one who invited me to join them. I did mention that I can only go on Saturday morning itself - I cannot leave on Friday. She hinted a few times that they might want to leave on Friday last week, but they were not sure yet and it seemed more likely they will leave on Saturday. So I didn't source for other means of transport.

Suddenly last night she said they are leaving on Friday after all and told me to find my own transport there. Two days before the event and suddenly I'm left without means to travel. A little annoyed, really. Fortunately I found a friend who hasn't found a convoy to travel with yet and he said I could drive down with him.

I suppose it's my fault. I should've looked for backup means, eh? But that's not how I work. I don't want to book a seat in two cars, because that would deny somebody else from traveling down with one of the groups of people. It's like making reservations in two hotels for the same night just in case one of the hotels screws up your reservations. Things don't work that way.

If I were the one who was driving and I was not sure whether to leave on Friday or Saturday, I would have told my potential passengers early on that if they can only leave on Saturday, they ought to travel with someone else so they have guaranteed transport, no matter which day I leave on. I do not like leaving people in a limbo. It's called being fair.

If I had to drive down to Muar by myself, I wouldn't go at all.

I blame myself. I have too high expectations of people. I forget that not everyone works the way I would like them to. Hell, I'm not perfect myself. But I do the best I can with every consideration possible to others. The higher the expectations I have of others, the more disappointed I get when they fail.

International Women's Day

I heard a really stupid ad on the radio today. It's some new slimming massager by Osim, I think. It goes something like "My waist is smaller" or "I can get into an M when previously I was an L" thanks to that massager. And then it ends with a "Happy International Women's Day" to celebrate how wonderful the women in that radio ad feel now because they look better.

They have completely missed the point of International Women's Day. International Women's Day is the story of ordinary women as makers of history; it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate in society on an equal footing with men (quoted from UN website). It's not about how good some bimbotic woman feels because she's half the size she used to be.

Even if it was about how a woman feels about the way she looks, I think that they should be celebrating the fact that a woman is beautiful no matter how she looks. It doesn't matter how many inches she's lost off her thighs, or how much weight she's lost, or that you can now see her rib cage almost protruding through her skin. A woman should be appreciated for who she is and not what she looks like. A woman should be valued for her achievements and not her body shape. And sadly, this simple concept seems to have escaped most of the people in this world. Especially the advertisers of a slimming massager.

Happy International Women's Day, everyone.

We Are Blue ... We Rock More Than You!

And .... Sports Day is finally over. After a long morning of breathing down the microphone and eating an ice lolly for breakfast, it's over. I got to school early enough to spend some time with my cheerleaders, before spending the rest of the morning cooped up at the emcee stand. I think I did a pretty good job as an announcer. Yes, yes, I'm blowing my own trumpet.

The whole event went quite smoothly, and it was a pretty tight race with Green House leading most of the time before finally clinching the Champion House trophy. Blue House trailed in at third place with only a difference of one point behind Red House.

These are the champions of the exciting team events:

Tent Decoration: Yellow House (I think it was a tough fight between Yellow and Green)
March Past: Blue House (honestly, I was a bit surprised at the result. But to tell you the truth, the standard of marching in the school is ... well, really low)

And... the one that I had to hold my breath for.... Cheerleading goes to Blue House!!!!

OK, I wasn't really holding my breath. After all, as one of the emcees, I had the results in my hands way before I needed to announce them. I had to keep myself from smiling so that the kids wouldn't know for sure that they've won. Oh, everyone said that they did a good job and they were sure to win (even before today - when they saw the full rehearsals) but I didn't want them to get their hopes unnaturally high up and then take a hard dive when they don't win. If you ask me whether they deserve to win - my answer is, of course, a resounding yes. And the reason is - I'm biased! Like, duh! I'm the one who has been sacrificing my afternoons and Saturdays to spend time with them, making sure they get their stuff right! Although I was not the choreographer (we had gotten an external trainer/choreographer, who's great at what she does) but I was there for the kids all the way except when I was away during Forensics.

I think they all did a great job within their own capabilities. It's not the best I've seen, but I thought it was the best within the school, and I was so worried that the judges may not recognise that. (Or at least, share the same view as I do!)

The team had gotten extra medals, as there were 24 allocated medals but only 20 in the team, so the captain gave me one. Haha!! I'm going to hang that up in my cubicle. That's something for me to brag about, until next year, at least.

I won't comment on the other teams, but I thought that everyone did well. I think it was a pretty tough fight between all the four cheerleading teams. It was of course, pretty crushing for the other teams who were ranked low. But if someone's going to win, someone else has got to lose.

Anyway, the rankings for the cheerleading teams are:

1. Blue
2. Yellow
3. Red
4. Green

A video of the whole thing on my website may be too much. I might put in some short clips of key sections... if I feel like it.

Go Fight Blue Team Win!

I cannot begin to explain how badly I want my house cheerleading team to win!! So much so that I don't even care whether the house wins the overall champion title. It's more important to me that the cheerleading team wins!!! Yes, yes, I know I'm only the teacher advisor. But I've seen how hard these kids have worked and how they've all gelled together so well they're almost family to each other. At any rate, no matter what happens, they're all winners to me.

This year the cheerleading teams have all improved tremendously from last year (how would I know this if I wasn't in the school last year? I saw some videos) which is great for the school because that means the standard within the school is improving. Personally I think that all the teams are on equal footing now and provided there is no foul play and no unexpected accidents that happen, it will be a very tough and close fight between all four houses. Perhaps after sports day, I'll post the videos on my website.

The school is also planning to participate in this year's Cheer 2006 competition. I don't know if the standard within the school is that high though. Every year, the national cheerleading standard keeps increasing exponentially and it will be quite a lot to hope that the school squad can get a placing, or even win anything (like Best Newcomer). I'm not involved in that though. (Phew!)

May the best house win tomorrow! Woooohooooo!!! *Cough cough* I'd better save my voice as I'm one of the announcers for the school's Sports Day event tomorrow.

Some tribute!

While you're reading my blog, you should read what my student has written about me. Thankfully it's not some kind of fawning flattery of cavity-and-diabetes-causing fan blog. Very much the opposite, really. It's so touching to know the impact I made on my students. Muahahaha....

Oh, and while you're reading other blogs, read this. The post isn't really the interesting bit (although the videos are worth downloading, especially if you know the people concerned) - the comments are the entertaining read.

Auditors...

I went to a function recently, which was for internal auditors of a particular bank. It was actually a four-day convention for the said auditors, but I was there on the first night for an ice-breaking session.

No, I'm not one of the auditors. Don't ask what I was there for.

Anyway, I was there with a few other non-auditors and we were pretty surprised by the cool responses we got from the auditors. Some people did come over to say hi to us, but the moment they found out we were not one of "their people", i.e. not auditors, they immediately turned their backs on us - some quite literally. It's as if they're blatantly saying, oh, obviously you're not important, so I don't need to waste my time sucking up to you. The only ones who were gracious enough to talk to us were people from the other countries. The snubs we got were from our own Malaysian people, and the Singaporean counterparts.

Made me almost glad I have no transactions whatsoever with the bank. I did have a credit card with them, but I cancelled it years ago (although there was still some issue about it for a while - I kept receiving statements for more than one year after the cancellation).

While we're on the subject of auditors, my school is currently being audited. There's a brief story to tell about it, actually, but I can't tell it yet lest I get the persons involved (and myself!) into trouble. I'll have to wait until it's actually safe to tell... probably after all the auditing books have been closed for the year.