Zyen's Weblog - The One and Only!

My new blog

2007-06-09T18:37:00.000+08:00

In case you didn't know, I'm no longer using this blog because I've switched to WordPress as it integrates beautifully with the rest of my new website.

http://www.zyenhoo.com
http://blog.zyenhoo.com

Enjoy!!!

I need a blue sky holiday

2007-04-06T15:08:00.000+08:00

This has been a terrible week for me. Everything's just going wrong!

Lost and not found! :(

2007-04-04T13:16:00.001+08:00

I lost a pair of shoes yesterday! I'm so angry at myself. I left them in a locker at the gym. I usually check the locker before I leave and it was the first time yesterday I didn't check - and it had to be the time I left something behind!

It's a pair of pretty Scholl shoes, and as you know Scholl isn't cheap... I don't buy cheap RM20 shoes because they hurt my feet. And they're quite new, I only bought them four months ago :(

I discovered that I left them behind about half an hour later after I had left the place, but I couldn't turn back because it was raining heavily and the roads were jammed. So I called up the gym immediately and the guy there told me he will ask the cleaners to check and he will call me back.

He didn't so I called again and he told me that someone was using the locker and hopefully the member will pass the shoes to the front counter. He promised to call before they closed that night.

No news so I called again this morning and nothing was left at the lost-and-found counter. I'm guessing that the girl who used the locker kept the shoes for herself. After all, they're expensive, quite new, and the common size (my size is the common shoe size).

I'm so mad at myself! Pretty annoyed at the gym for not calling too. The leas they could do was call to tell me that they couldn't find it. Grrr....

The only thing I can confort myself is that the shoes were hurting me a bit and that they didn't cost more than RM200. Sigh...

This isn't the first time I lost something at the gym. I've lost one and a half pair of earrings there too, although I remember distinctly putting them in my handbag.

Money - the root of all evil?

2007-03-06T20:12:00.000+08:00

Wealth - the more you have of it, the less generous you are.

That's what I've found out over the course of many years. It seems illogical, doesn't it? Usually people who have more to give are expected to give more. But the sad truth is, it's the other way around. Whenever there are requests for donations, it's the poor who give more, not the rich.

The rationale behind this is that poor people know what it's like not to have money. Because they understand it, they give more because they don't want others to suffer as much as they do. Unfortunately, for the rich, especially those born with silver spoons in their mouths, they don't know what it's like to sometimes never having enough to eat; to struggle to make ends meet; to worry about when their next meal will come from. Because they don't understand it, they don't think it's necessary to give. All those media reports of generous donations by rich people? Pshaw! It's all publicity.

Money is what is also able to divide family and friends. And interestingly, I've been a victim of this. I've been fortunate enough to never have gone hungry; but I do know what it's like to worry about making ends meet.

My story isn't dramatic, and I'm going to get over it soon enough, but it makes me burn anyway. Unlike my earlier posts, I'm not going to be vague about the people involved. And I'm going to be very blunt about it.

Let me start from the beginning.

Those of you who know me know I love to dance. Those of you who know me better know how hard it was to get a team to dance with. It all started with the successful team The Wild West Babes who invited me in to join them, and my other friends joined soon after. We managed to carry the name well, and I think we can proudly say that the team has won every competition it has participated in (the lowest being second place). It came to a point where people respected that team name and saw it as "the team to beat" in a competition. Soon after however the team had to disband, because some of the team members decided to focus on their careers; one had even migrated for a better opportunity.

Of course I understood it, but I was sorry to see them go anyway. Having been a team for about 2 years, it's quite sad when the team was suddenly no more. And some of them have become incredibly good friends. Of the original team, there were only 4 of us - a guy K, the original team captain L, a lady V, and myself.

My coach B feels the team disbandment much more than any of us; she's been in the dance circle for more than 18 years and she has always been frustrated about getting a good team together. Just when the team has reached an acceptable competitive level, it is always forced to disband and she has to start all over again from scratch.

Last year, this time instead of creating a new team and waiting for people to join, she decided to do things differently, by issuing invitations to any dancer she feels has the potential to rise to a competitive level. At the end of the year she will disband the team, and the following year, she will reform the team by reissuing invitations. The good thing about it is that if the dancer does not wish to compete, she can turn the invite down, especially if she has danced for one year and has had enough. That way she won't feel obligated to stay in the team, because there's no more team to speak of - it is now a new one.

That's the rationale anyway, and that was the original plan.

Let me add on a little bit more to the history. Prior to the disbandment of The Wild West Babes, another group of ladies had banded together to try to join a competition. Unlike the Babes which was under B's wing however, they formed the team themselves and merely paid B to coach them. Of the 6, only 2 were from the Babes, but they decided to borrow the name by calling themselves The Wild West Belles.

Why they wanted to borrow the name, figure it out for yourselves. The team lasted only for one competition, but that's not because they were no good. They were really good, very good in fact; but due to some circumstance I choose not to elaborate here, they did not make it to the next round.

Some of them couldn't take the strain of the competitive training, and decided to drop out of the team completely; the others still wanted to train as dancers. When the Wild West Babes disbanded, so did the Belles. Then when B reissued the invitations, she extended them to all the members of the Babes and the Belles who wanted to carry on dancing. These included the four earlier mentioned, plus two more J and N.

Now we had a new team, with a much larger pool of talent, which included M, P, T, Y, and E. I didn't gel with them all that well initially, but it's not because I didn't like them. They're all nice ladies. The problem is simply that I was not in the same age group, and I couldn't understand the things they talked about. I don't have kids, I'm not married, I'm not a housewife. Worse, I'm not a girl's girl, so I'm not into fashion or make-up or clothes or shoes. I find topics like that immensely boring.

But they were nice about it, and some even took the trouble to talk to me, which I appreciated a lot.

We came up with a new team name quickly enough, called Rhythm Matrix. I'm sorry to say though that some of the ladies privately thought that the newbies weren't good enough to compete with, because they had no experience whatsoever. I think all they needed was just a little time and exposure.

They went into their first competition and did quite well - made it to the semi-finals in the Open category, and second place in their age category. I didn't join them, because I wanted to focus on the individual events (unfortunately, I didn't do well). The second competition they went into was an Open dance competition, and I was part of that. We didn't make it to the finals, but we did get top 10 out of 25 teams, and all the other teams were much younger than us =)

That's the visible dance history of the team.

So where does the money bit come in? Let me explain a little bit. Since the days of The Wild West Babes, our team always has a kitty. The Babes had money put in from our paid performances, and whenever we win cash prizes (as a whole team), it goes into the kitty too. Of course, because any of it goes into the kitty, a certain amount is always paid out to the dancers involved first. The use of this kitty is to pay for any team-related expenditure; for example, subsidising our costumes, competition fees, etc. But at that time usually any competition fee is borne solely by the participating team members, and in this case if there were any cash prizes it was kept within those participating team members too.

This time for RM we decided to have a kitty too, and this kitty is used to pay for all competition fees (regardless of which team member participates), coach's fees, rental fees, and any other incurred expenditure. If we do get any paid performances or win cash prizes, a certain amount will go into the kitty and the rest split among the dancers involved.

Now in the past year, we didn't win any cash prizes, and we didn't get any paid performances (we had only been involved in one charity performance). So the kitty was built solely on the amount collected by each team member every month. I will admit now that later in the year some of us had paid less than others, but here's the reason why: we attended less training sessions than the others. Everyone else attends 2 sessions a week; the rest of us attend only one. And even when I didn't join one of the comps, I still paid my due share which was used for the comp fee and studio rental for practices even though I was not a part of it at all. And I paid for my own individual entry fee and costumes.

At the end of last year, K and I felt that we needed more "hardcore" training - due to only one session per week and kind of waiting for the others to "catch up" with us, our own stamina and skills were sliding. Plus, I was frustrated that any decision to join a competition had to be made as an entire team. There were some competitions which other team members refused to join due to personal reasons. So we suggested to B that out of the entire team, we created a sub-team; this team will train competitive-style, and we are autonomous; i.e. if we wish to join a competition we can make this decision independent of the larger group. Of course if the others wish to participate it's all the better. But this way if some of us wish to join the competition we can do so without much hindrance.

B liked the idea, but decided to take it a step further by splitting us into two teams - RM1 and RM2. RM1 would focus on the lighter stuff; they would train to keep themselves in shape, and competitions if they wanted to. RM2 on the other hand would be pure competitive style. RM1's trainings are in the mornings whereas RM2 at nights. She left the decision to us to decide which team we would like to join - we could join both if we wanted to. Some did opt for both, but later when they found the strain too much they decided to stay with RM1. It's not that they're not good; but late nights can be quite a strain especially for mothers with children.

It's the beginning of 2007, so coach has already "disbanded" the old team and reissued invitations. Right now, of RM2 there are only three of us: K, a new girl A and myself. The rest (except E who disappeared and L who was pregnant and just gave birth to a lovely baby boy two months ago) are in RM1.

With the reissued invitations, we're suddenly hit by a bombshell by RM1.

Oh no, nobody opted out. Everyone (except E and L, of course) have decided they liked the training and have decided to stay with the team. But they must have liked each other so much that they decided they want nothing to do with RM2.

This is the gist of it: they want to be independent of RM2, which means now they want us to be two completely different teams. Here is the main reason given: they don't want to carry us financially anymore.

Perhaps in not so succinct a term. But that's what they mean. And when I heard it secondhand through my coach, I was like, WHAT THE F***? Since when have they paid anything for us? The only thing I can think of is the monthly fees. RM1 is paying RM100 per person for 2 sessions a week. RM2 is paying RM50 per person for 1 session a week. But then, tell me what's wrong with that. We're paying the same amount per session!

As for competitions, well, there were no competitions at all this year. And last year of the two competitions, it had already been agreed that the fees would come from the kitty. Some of us contributed to the kitty even though we were not members, and this "some of us" includes people from RM2, too.

Or perhaps some of them were unhappy because they had to "pay the fees for us" first. One of them collects the fees from everyone and pays B at the beginning of the month, but RM2 often pays a bit later, simply because some of us have to wait for our salaries, or have to save from our allowances. So one of them takes it upon herself to pay for our share first and then collect from us later. The problem is, we still pay later, and maybe she doesn't like that. I think she really didn't because she often harrasses B about it (because she doesn't get to meet us anymore, so B has become the point of contact). But then, we never asked her to.

Or maybe there's some other underlying issue about it that we don't know about it. It may not even be money-related. But right now they make it sound like it's all about the money, and it sounds really petty.

It all sounds like bulls***t to me. They have never paid anything for us; we've always paid everything for ourselves, even if it was a little late. To say that they don't want to carry us financially sounds like utter nonsense to me. And besides, it's not like they have a want for money. Most of them don't need to work as they have successful husbands; and they have plenty of money in the bank. They don't need to worry about getting that cheque for the next car loan; they don't need to worry about when their next meal is going to come from; they don't need to worry about money at all! They can afford to pay their monthly fees on time simply because they have more than enough with them at all times, and the reason they have it on them is not because they need to pay for some bill or other.

To be fair, it isn't all of them who have this opinion. It's obvious who has though - it's the one who speaks up. But the rest don't say anything and unfortunately, silence is acquiescence. You're agreeing simply by not saying anything.

Am I hurt? Yes. Disappointed? Extremely.

I take this personally. You can tell me not to, but I am. Of everyone in the team, including themselves, K and I are the only ones who are extremely serious about competitions. We don't have the funds to support our passion, but we're trying. We've sacrificed time and money even if we don't have a lot of it. And we know how hard it is to find good team members who are willing to stick it out like we do.

By cutting us out, you're ignoring our situation. Let's forget money for now - it has never been an issue with us. You're ignoring the fact that we now have no more team members with which to compete. Three are not enough to join most competitions. And don't forget that A is a student who will be furthering her studies overseas very soon, which will knock down the number to two. Tell me what can we do with two? We're not couple dancers; we can't join latin or ballroom or even line dance couple competitions. We're team dancers, and we dance in a team.

And worst of it is, you can afford it, you now have lots of team members, but you're not all serious about competitions. You're choosing to pass up one perfectly good international competition at our own doorstep because you're afraid of the competition, even though the exposure will be good for you. You choose to prepare for a competition that you b*tched about in the previous years because you didn't like some of the people in charge, but that's your main goal for this year. I don't understand you.

You're completely ignoring me as one of the most senior dancers (in terms of experience and not age). I'm not demanding my right as the senior dancer; I wouldn't dream of using it like some of you would. I'm merely stating that I've been through the thick and thin and the disbandment of the teams, and between the four of the original team, I'm the one with the most competitive experience after L. I'm not the best dancer, I know I'm not. I don't have that natural talent that some people are gifted with. Some of you may be better than I am. But I sure as hell am a lot more serious about my dancing. I put damn lot of effort into what I do, and I always put the team first ahead of myself. If I'm the reason I'm bringing the team down, I don't make the team suffer for it. I don't make excuses if I make a mistake that makes the team look bad.

I will never be a professional dancer. That isn't even my aim. I started at too old an age and I don't have that gift. Dancing is merely my hobby and passion, and I just enjoy taking part in amateur competitions. What you're doing is destroying my chances of indulging in this.

The good news for you is that you never need to come and watch us and support us if the tiny number we are ever take part in a competition that you're not involved in. I suppose that the better news for you is that we would never need to go and watch you and support you if you ever take part in a competition that we're not involved in. Or even if we are. We're not a team anymore, are we?

I hope I never be as calculative as you when I do reach that social standing you are now. Let's face it - we in RM2 aren't at that same social standing, nor are we in the same social circle. We were merely connected by that flimsy term "teammate" - and now thank goodness for you, we no longer are. I don't even know what is there to be calculative about, when we have never asked you to help us financially in any way. And even if you had, we paid you back every single cent. We owed you no money. How can you say you're carrying us financially?

I'm hurt. And disappointed. And really quite disgusted. And if you're ever reading this, I make no apology for what I say. This is my opinion, and I'm entitled to it. You were entitled to your opinion that we were burdening you financially, so this is my opinion that I think we never had been a burden.

I've been trained for so long that teams always look out to protect and defend each other and stick together as a team. I've always put the team first before myself. What I've learnt from this team is that it's perfectly alright to backstab each other, to condescend each other, and to look down upon each other. Perhaps it's a good thing we're not the same team anymore. I don't want to be in a team like that.

Money - the root of all evil? This is a small issue. But it was enough to divide a group of people into two. I can't bear to think of some of the worse evils that humans are capable of.

Sri KDU Fitness Program

2007-02-05T11:59:00.001+08:00

Yes, yes, I know that my website is way overdue for an update. I've got too many things on my plate now, but I really do want to give my website a complete makeover. The update will come soon, I hope. I hope...

I think I've been unwittingly enrolled into what I will call the Sri KDU Fitness Program. I think it's so top secret that even management doesn't know about it. Let me explain:

1) My staffroom is on the first level at the end of the hall far away from the lift. To get there, whether I take the lift or the stairs, it's still a good 2 minutes' walk, at least.

2) ALL my classes are on the second level. That means I have to go upstairs to my class. None of my classes are on the same level as my staffroom.

3) Several of my classes are on the OTHER end of the hall. So after going upstairs, I have to walk down the hall right through to the other end.

4) My classes all have one period breaks in between. That means when I finish a class, I have to go downstairs to my staffroom where I'll only have at most a 20-minute break before I have to get up and go upstairs again to another class, instead of being able to go straight from class to class on the same level.

5) The washroom is down the hall; I have to walk past three full classrooms to get to it. And that's the students' washroom. The staff washroom is on the OTHER end of the hall.

6) The cafeteria and library are beyond the OTHER end of the hall where my staffroom is.

Maybe I'll take some pics to show y'all...

Tribute to one whose absence is the world's loss

2006-11-21T20:04:00.000+08:00

I've just found out that a friend of mine has passed away. Ironically I just changed my ringtone to All-American Reject's It Ends Tonight and that was the tone that rang when I got the news. Well, it didn't end tonight, it ended last Tuesday. The funeral is already over and there's nothing we could do - even my friend who called me had just found out. I'd really have liked to be able to go to the funeral and pay him my last respects. I wasn't close to him, but he was a good friend.

He was a photo buff, and he's even had an online photo gallery. He's really talented.

I'm not in the right state of mind to pen any poem, so he'll have to do without one for now. Here's a tribute to him anyway:

CHEANG CHOEN HOE
6th July 1976 - 14th November 2006

I didn't know you very well in university; my final year there was your first year doing Master's there. I knew you through the debate club, and you worked under me in the English Language Club's newsletter. You were quiet, but whenever you spoke, you held the room's attention with your unexpected wit and cynicism. Your written works bespoke your astounding, unending creativity. You were an amazing, intelligent person.

You had a crush on me for a while, and I rejected you. I don't regret rejecting you, because I don't think it would have worked out anyway. But I do wish I could have gotten to know you better.

We did keep in touch for a while, but then we lost touch when you went to US. Then one day whenI was thumbing through my email address book, I suddenly saw your name, and I thought hey, why not just try to reestablish connections. And that was when I found out about your suffering. And you said that you were surprised at how I didn't give you the usual positive "everything will be OK" response you got from everyone else, but then you found out I had a cousin who had passed away from liver cancer, too.

Well, you didn't make it. Between you and me, I'm sure you didn't expect to, because your condition had deteriorated so much. But you outlived the doctor's prediction by one year if I remember correctly, and I think that's pretty damn good. I only wish that I'd known about your passing on, because I'd have liked to buy you flowers. Real flowers. Remember the paper ones you made from scratch for me when you had a crush on me? I still have them. It's one of the best gifts anyone had ever given me. Every rose, folded in red paper. Every leaf, hand-cut from green paper. You even wrapped them in a plastic wrap almost like a florist would, fragranced with rose scent. The fragrance is long gone, and truth be told one of the roses has already dropped off (it couldn't stay on its fake stalk), but I've managed to get it to hang on a little more.

I don't think the world realises what a loss it's suffering from with your passing on. So I'm crying for the world now. I'm crying for what it has lost, and what it doesn't realise it has lost.

Because I can't pay my respects to you at your final resting place, this is my final respects to you. I'm going to make a proper tribute page for you permanently on my website.

You've been one terrific individual, and I hope you know that. I think you know that.

This is the only clear photo of you that I've got in my online gallery. Yes, yes, I know it's a terrible photo. I promise I'll get a better photo of you and upload it into my proper tribute to you.

REST IN PEACE

Oops!

2006-11-07T15:02:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the triple posts earlier! Damn my home broadband connection. It took me a while to fix it cuz I was too busy to go online and check my website. Anyway it's fixed now.

Nothing else to add here for now, except that I can't wait for the holidays!!!

Lame entry!

2006-10-29T19:54:00.001+08:00

I had dinner at Prince Cafe in SS2 today and one of the writings in their menu caught my eye:

If you can't read it, here's what it says:

blog entry: 1.30am
Saturday: I had my sweetest and most wonderful date in Prince Cafe today, where he took my hand and said "I Love You". Oh dear, he's becoming the Prince of my heart. Thank you Prince Cafe! :-P

IT'S TOTALLY LAME!!!!!

How do you like being stabbed in the back by your own supposed friend?

2006-10-24T00:36:00.000+08:00

It's not that I've never been backstabbed before. There are probably a number of people out there who don't like me who love to make up stories or say really stupid things that aren't true just to make me look bad - I don't pretend to be loved and liked by all. What I don't like, however, are people who are supposedly my friends who do that to me.

I've just found out that I've been backstabbed and I'm so angry about it. I can't say that I totally love the person who did it - that person has driven me nuts many times and there are a lot of things that person did that I don't like. But I've never knowingly done anything bad to that person, even if it was just gossiping. And this same person has helped me out sometimes and I do appreciate it. I was shocked to find out that this person has made up a story about me though that puts me in a completely terrible light. And worse, has been telling other people about it - people I don't even know. It so happened that a close friend heard about it and thought it fair that I should know. It makes me so mad. Goes to show that you just can't trust some people.

Pweety birdie

2006-10-19T20:07:00.000+08:00

I whiled away 50 minutes of my time at school today reconnecting with my youth. OK, not really. 5 Aristotle had been doing crayon pictures for the past few weeks and they'd stuck them on their notice boards... even though there is only one more month till their SPM. Anyway, one of them brought a colouring book and various classmates had been colouring different pictures in the book. They even showed me one that was half-done by their Chemistry teacher. I ended up sitting in one corner of their classroom tediously colouring one of the pictures with their crayons.

Honestly, I never liked colouring when I was young simply because I was terrible at art. I think all my students will attest to that... seeing the pathetic attempts of drawing pictures in a bid to explain Physics concepts to them. But I really like my work today. So I'm posting the pictures here for you to view...

The Chemistry teacher saw it after I was done and said, "It's very girly lah." Well, duh... I'm a girl!!!

Give them an inch and they want the mile...

2006-10-19T12:44:00.000+08:00

It's amazing. Some students have been miserably failing Physics for the past two years and when it comes to their forecast, I am still willing bump their grade up to a 5C and they'll stand there demanding at least an 2A. Just because they say they need it to enter college. Just because they say "I will study very hard lah Miss Hoo - I need an A for Physics." How can they possibly expect me to give them an A for a forecast when they have not proved they are capable of even passing the subject?

For those who don't know the grading system, as a rough guide, the grades trickle down this way: 1A 2A 3B 4B 5C 6C 7D 8E 9G where to pass they need at least 45 which is 8E. Our school's system is tougher than the SPM grading system to make the students work harder for their marks. Actual suggested grading system is a minimum of 40 for a pass.

Pop Ya Collar (Usher)

2006-10-19T07:52:00.000+08:00

Something I'm going through... Well, not the bit about the girl following me home. The ones in bold though.

Pop Ya Collar
Usher

Hello everybody, welcome today to the wonderful world of U.
Now check it, you have two options you can eat it or throw it away...

See it's a shame that when you're working hard
doing well people hate you
yeah buying nothing else but the best for yourself they really hate you
yeah ya gotta live for you and no one else
don't let em make you feel like you're not being real
just live how ya wanna live you gotta do for you

(Dig that)
If you work hard play hard
(Dig that)
And do what you wanna do
(Dig that)
Just pop ya collar don't let what people say bother you
(Dig that)
You perpetrators I got something to say
(Whats that?)
You can eat it or throw it away
(Picture that)
You're just mad cause you're following in my tracks now can u dig that? Hey

[Chorus 2x]

Hey ladies
(Yeah)
Hey fellas
(Yeah)
You know you're doing good cause they're jealous
they wanna hate you cause you're a go-getter pop ya collar
don't let 'em sweat ya

You can see me every week hanging out with a different girl sitting next to me
cause I'm not about to settle down right now
I gotta be free some of y'all fellas might be jealous but y'all know that don't faze me
I just pop my collar tip my hat and turn my backs on the ones who hated me

(Dig that)
Never going home alone
(Dig that)
If she follows then you know it's on
(Dig that)
She gets the beeper not the cellular phone
(Dig that)
I let her know I won't be around for long
(Dig that)
To all you haters I got something to say
(Whats that?)
You can eat it or throw it away
(Picture that)
Stop hatin, wishin, waitin, anticipating for my heat to fade

[Chorus 2x]

I break my neck for the things I get
so much sweat just so I can get that check
and I'm not gonna let nobody bring me down (Nobodys gonna steal the crown)
because I eat good I live good, I rock good, my life good
if you got a lot and you're working for it pop ya collar don't be afraid to show it

[Chorus fades out]

Subjects delegation!

2006-10-17T14:28:00.000+08:00

We had the subject delegation today! As in, which class each teacher will be teaching next year. Earlier we had already filled in a form indicating which subjects we wish to teach the following year, and our principal will do her best to accomodate the requests in conjunction with the demand.

Nah, I'm not going to say which classes I'm going to teach... although it'll probably leak out sooner or later. But darn it, maybe I shouldn't have selected Form 4 & 5 Physics :P I was so hoping not to teach Form 5 Physics. It's way too much work. Especially with these brats I have....................

Time to party!

2006-10-15T00:05:00.001+08:00

Bronya's graduation party tomorrow! Or rather, today. I'll be part of the presentation dances, again. This time a bit more stress though. Chiang (son of a friend, Catherine Goh) who is in my class has sold tickets to some of his classmates and THEY'RE COMING!!! Man, it's bad enough I see them in school, now I've got to see them socially too. Fortunately there's not going to be any booze there, hahaha... Not that I drink anyway. But it's good cuz then those underaged brats - I mean, kids - won't get drunk and embarrass ME in front of everyone else. Hahahahahaa!!!!!!

Photos will be up after the party!!!

Growing old is necessary, but growing up is optional. That, however, doesn't mean you can act like a five-year-old

2006-10-14T23:41:00.000+08:00

Have you ever noticed some people don't act their age? It's amazing. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing to be young at heart; I mean, I know a number of 50 to 60-year-olds who are more fun to be with than people my age. They're lovely people who are so vibrant.

I do know people my age, however, who act like they're still teenagers. And to me, it's dreadfully annoying. If you're asking me if I'm saying that teenagers are annoying, to say no would be lying. OK, truthfully, I do like a number of teenagers (can't help it, all my students are teenagers). For teenagers to act like teenagers is perfectly fine with me. After all, they have not grown up enough to behave any other way. And everyone has to go through the growing pains stage: the rebellious, authority-challenging, regulation-defying, pink-hair-colouring stage before they realise what idiots they were at seventeen.

What I do have a problem with, is TWENTY-SEVEN-year-olds behaving like they're seventeen. I mean, grow up. You're way past the studying age, you've gone into the working world and dealt with many obstacles that is part and parcel of life. Unless you're still trapped in your coconut shell, please grow up!

By the way, have I inadvertently let slip my age?

Thank goodness for the holidays

2006-10-09T21:05:00.000+08:00

Today I didn't do much at school. I was supposed to have an invigilation duty, only to be told that the invigilation slots have been created in error and I didn't need to work it. Woohoo!!! So I spent the whole day finishing up my marking of the finals papers. A real headache, I tell you. You kids are going to suffer my wrath on Wednesday.

Was home early, and had initially thought of going to the gym after dinner. Of course, I got too lazy and now here I am in front of the PC. I was planning to redo my website, and I ended up writing a blog entry. Haaa!!!

My MSN messenger is driving me nuts. It's impossible to login at home. It's my Streamyx connection. Beyond hopeless!!!

I'm hungry.

Steven & Mei Chin's wedding

2006-10-08T01:12:00.000+08:00

For the second time in two weeks, I was at the Tropicana Club again for a wedding. This one was a smaller affair compared to last week's, but the bride and groom seem to be much cosier. They didn't have any special video to share like last week, and the space used was less than half the size of last week's, but they had considered little things like having someone lead the way to our table (last week, I had to find the table on my own). And this time, I had friends with me whom I could chat with.

I didn't bring my digital camera again - this time, because I lent it to a friend who hadn't returned it. Choon Meng was supposed to bring his but (1) he forgot, and (2) the battery was already flat. Or so he claims.

Fortunately my camera's 2 megapixel lens was good enough to take close-up shots. Hopeless for far shots though, so we stuck to taking pictures of ourselves. I'm waiting for Mei Chin to share the photos taken by the designated photographer.

Top left: Me Top right: Hui Ling
Bottom left: Choon Meng Bottom right: Yee Kiang

Our table was dedicated to school friends. Chandra didn't turn up though due to work. The others were Jefri, and two other girls from school with their boyfriends. Yes I do know their names but I'm not going to mention them here, to protect their identities. I don't really know these two girls, never did talk much to them in school cuz we hadn't been in the same class. We didn't talk much tonight either. I suppose we did appear standoffish, but somehow I couldn't really be bothered to make an effort. OK, so I'm a snob. I admit though, I felt pretty bad about it because I remember how I felt last week sitting at a table with a bunch of strangers who didn't talk to me.

Here are my excuses though. I didn't really talk to one of the girls because the last time I met her, although she appeared friendly enough, was not very willing to talk about much (I was kinda asking after her, as in how she is, what's she doing now, etc). The other girl, who appeared very bored throughout the dinner (possibly because she didn't really know the rest of us), I had met before at my gym, and when I tried to say hi to her then, she also didn't seem keen to talk to me. Conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi, you're <name goes here>, right?
Girl: .... yes...?
Me: I'm Sze Yen from Taman SEA.
Girl: Oh, hi.

And it ended there. She just kinda went off, which was a bit of a shock to me, because normally when I meet someone from school whom I have not met for a long time, we usually kinda catch up, even if we barely knew each other back in school. Even if it's fake interest. Small stuff like, "Where are you working now?" and general enquiries like that. The conversation ended making me feel as if she thinks I'm some wannabe who just wants to get to know her. If I get snubbed like that, I'm not going to bother trying to repair bridges especially if it doesn't seem worth repairing at all.

By the way, here are some interesting facts I've found out about weddings tonight (or rather, weddings I attend):

There is such a thing as a karaoke wedding. Honestly, I've never heard of such a wedding before. Mainly because I've never been to one. Hui Ling mentioned it as we were sitting down at our table, and said she had been to a number before. Well, tonight's was the first I attended. It wasn't really a karaoke, because there were no TV or karaoke sets. But there were a couple of old men who went on stage and belted out a few tunes. One old guy went up to sing English songs (out of tune, by the way. He sang three, but the most horrible experience was the last one which he did Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini) followed by another old man doing a few Chinese numbers. I was pretty thankful when it was over early. I didn't want to lose my appetite, especially when I had so little to eat the whole day.

I don't think he was crooning to the couple of the night. I think he was just singing because he liked the sound of himself singing. It's what we say as syok sendiri.

No disrespect meant, really. I mean it. But if I have a wedding, I think I'll be a real control freak about it. I'd probably monitor the microphones so tightly that if anyone even attempts to sing at my wedding, I'd be jumping onto the stage and grabbing the mikes out of their hands, in my high heels and long train and all.
Chinese waiters at Chinese restaurants are hopelessly inattentive. I always run out of tea and no one comes up to fill it up. Even last week at Alex's wedding. But at least last week we were seated right next to a table which had the refills on standby there, and I often walked over to refill my own cup. Tonight, my glass was constantly empty. And at one point, when the waitress was filling the glasses at my table, as the canister reached my glass, it had already ran out. And guess what, she didn't come back to fill up the glass.
I'm always at the last few tables to yam seng the happy couple. For those new to this, every Chinese wedding has this hideously noisy ritual where we will raise our glasses to toast the newlyweds, and being typical Chinese, it has to be as loud, long, and noisy as possible. This happens after the couple have gone on stage and poured champagne into the pyramid of wineglasses, where the couple's close family members will be on stage and the whole room will stand with their glasses raised and scream the long "yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ........... SENG!" And then a little later, the couple will go from table to table where each table will repeat the ritual, with lots of happy photographs too.
And I have noticed that at almost every Chinese wedding I've attended, I am always at one of the last few tables approached by the couple. Some may say this is a good thing, cuz the idea is that the couple has "reserved the best for last". I'm like, yeah right!!! It just means I can't leave so early. Usually by the time the happy couple reach me, dinner was over ages ago, but I won't leave until I toast the newlyweds (and be included in the photo).
OK, OK, I'm being really selfish. I'm not really grumbling. I really do want to wish the couple happiness with a toast and I will never leave a wedding until I have done so. It's just that I've noticed this has happened to me at Chinese weddings almost every time without fail.
Chinese weddings never start on time. I already knew this because when I was young, my parents never brought me to a wedding on time. When I was little I used to fret about it because the invitation would say "6.00pm sharp" and we're only leaving the house at 7pm. But even when we got there by 8pm, dinner hadn't even started yet. So I learnt not to go so early to weddings. This year I always stroll into wedding dinners about an hour after the time stated on the card and I'd still have to wait at least half an hour before dinner began.
I'm just mentioning this because I know some people who do fret about the time. There was a wedding earlier this year which was suppsoed to start by 6.30pm sharp, but because I had jazz class until 6pm, I knew I was going to be late. I took my own sweet time preparing though, and didn't get to the restaurant until about 8.30pm. An dinner hadn't even started. It annoyed one of my Indian friends though, because he had been there on time. Haha!
And last week, Jefri had fretted about the time saying that it was supposed to start 7pm sharp. And that they may actually start on time because it was puasa month and they may start on time for the Muslims to buka puasa. I told him he can go early if he likes, I'm only going to be there by 8pm. He finally decided to arrive only about 8.15pm, and dinner still had not started. Seeeeee???!!!

Here's wishing Steven & Mei Chin the very best!!!

Dance Supremacy

2006-10-07T23:55:00.000+08:00

We gave it our all today. I think we were the oldest team on the floor today, haha. All I wanted was to make it to the finals, but we didn't. I knew we couldn't anyway - the other teams were too young, too energetic, too good. My coach was still proud of us though; in her words, we were superb.

What really got me was how responsive the crowd was. The moment we got onto the floor they were already screaming their support (I suspect this was very much due to the emcee who had "inside information that the team spans generations: ages from 19 to 44". And guess who the insider was...) and for everything we did, everyone - not only the other dancers, but also the public - were cheering us on. It's a great feeling. It was almost worth giving up that perfect attendance award for.

I can't upload the photos of the team yet because they were taken with my teammate's camera, and I haven't gotten a copy yet. But here's a great photo I took with my handphone of me and my coach:

Team captain & coach

The teams who won really deserved to win. I thought they were absolutely fantastic.

Wish me luck

2006-10-06T21:59:00.000+08:00

Wish me luck for tomorrow. I'm giving up my perfect attendance at school (tomorrow there's a replacement Saturday for the Raya holidays) because I have already committed to my dance team for an open dance competition. I think it will be a very tough fight, because we'll be competing against people much younger than us (I'm the second youngest in this team of five!!!) but I hope we'll be able to put up a good fight.

Cheap shot of the day

2006-10-05T18:19:00.000+08:00

This is just too good not to post on my blog. I'm not going to put names here to protect the identities of the people involved, so I'll use initials instead.

I was at the cafeteria at lunchtime when I bumped into Mr Z and Ms M there, and decided to join them for lunch. Ms M was joking that Mr Z and I were single and that maybe we should get together, and Mr Z replied her with, "No lah, M, I can't go out with her. I can't go out with you either. You're too tall, and she's too intelligent."

"So," I piped in, "Basically you're saying you're too short and stupid!"

Can anyone blame me for not taking that open cheap shot???

Picture updates

2006-10-05T08:55:00.000+08:00

Finally! Here are some picture updates:

Remember my entry about the girl who sprayed biscuits on me? The picture promised was way overdue... anyway here she is, on the right:

Me & Sue Ching

Oh, and my school had a Hawaiian Luau BBQ organised by the PTA on the 16th of September 2006. It went fairly smoothly, although it was rather spoilt by the cordless microphones which stopped working halfway. I was one of the emcees so I had to dress up a little.

Aloha!

No, I wasn't nominated for best-dressed or anything. Here are the winners of the best-dressed competition:

Winner of the ladies' best dressed category: Norazlinda (teacher)

Runner-up of the ladies' best dressed category: Pn Hayati (parent)

And while we're here, I'm uploading a shot of me which I really like, taken during Alex's wedding.

Picture of me. Photo taken with cameraphone, that's why it's not so clear.

When I have time, I'll upload them all to my online photo gallery.

Awww

2006-10-01T00:45:00.000+08:00

Just came back from a friend's wedding today. I only know the groom who was my classmate in school; I don't know his bride. She's really pretty; they look like such a sweet couple. They even made the video presentations themselves.

Dinner was at Tropicana; the food was pretty good. Can't say that I really enjoyed myself though. I was placed at a table where I knew only 4 of the other 9 sitting there, one of whom constantly talked to the others I didn't know because they knew each other, but those whom I didn't know didn't make an effort to get to know the rest of us. And I was seated at an inconvenient position which made it hard for me to catch up with 2 of those whom I did know but rarely meet.

Anyway I'm waiting for my married friend to post the pictures taken during the wedding. I do have some pics of my own but they were taken with my handphone; I didn't bring my camera cuz I forgot to charge the battery which went completely flat before I left the house. I'll post them here later though. My home connection somehow makes it impossible for me to upload pictures on any site; I was trying to upload pics to my school alumni site to share with the others and it refused to work too. Gotta do it in school then.

This baby's got a new cyberhome

2006-09-20T16:01:00.000+08:00

I've just switched my webhost so that I can have my own domaon name. Woohoo!!! No more subdomain URLs for me. None of that zyenweb.thewildwestbabes.com or zyenhoo.bronyabishorek.com anymore. Actually, I've just learnt that I could've still shared space without using subdomains... *blush*. Oh well. The main reason I'm switching is actually because I've found a host that is much cheaper, but still very reliable.

I haven't updated my website except for that Off The Edge article, so there isn't much else to parade. I'll get crackin' on a new update when the hols are here. I swear. I'm thinking of doing a total revamp on the site, and that's a huge effort. If I have no time/energy/too friggin' lazy, you'll just see the same site with updated text.

So, just in case you come across any broken links or images that don't exist, do let me know yeah. I did the files transfer myself so I might have overlooked some files.

Dreamy sigh

2006-09-11T00:01:00.000+08:00

I rarely watch TV; in fact I almost never watch TV nowadays but for some reason today after dinner, I was bored and decided to watch the idiot box instead of clearing out my backlog on the computer. It so happened that I managed to catch the beginning of American Sweethearts. I watched it before but couldn't remember what it was about so I watched it again. It was so funny, and quite heart-tugging at the same time. Catherine Zeta-Jones played the annoying character so well, and I really felt so sorry for John Cusack's and Julia Roberts' characters. It was quite a lovely movie, although it was very corny at the end. I'm not that fond of romantic movies (I call them soppy) and neither do I like reading romance novels. Corny bits agitate my cynical view of reality.

But when John's character was doing things for Julia's character by buttering her toast and helping her pack her bags (so to speak), it was something I could really empathise with. Well, I can't say I empathise with the character completely - I don't spend my life cleaning up and pandering after an annoying sister whose world revolves only around her. But it's nice to have a man who loves you and takes care of you and does things for you. Of course, there are plenty of men out there like that but their partners don't appreciate them. It just makes me go... sigh... (dreamily).

By the way, I think John Cusack is really cute. I think Edward Norton is cute, too. And I think they're both terrific actors. So is Johnny Depp - love him in Pirates of the Carribean .

Oh, and I'm still not looking for a relationship. I'm very happily single. :)

T_T

2006-07-29T21:46:00.000+08:00

I don't know why I'm feeling so utterly depressed. I can't figure out the trigger. I'm not facing any life-changing or major problems. It might be the lack of nutrition though; someone told me that insufficient magnesium can cause anxiety, irritability and depression.

Well, this sucks. I hate being depressed. The self-pity is more of self-loathing. I'm getting this way too often now.

What I got for my birthday this year

2006-07-28T10:42:00.000+08:00

OK, this post comes a bit late. My birthday was over about three weeks ago, but I haven't really had the time to sit down and write about it. Anyway, here goes...

My birthday, having fallen on a Saturday, meant that there were bound to be something happening on the Friday. My class attempted to throw a surprise party for me, which didn't really turn into a surprise because someone said the wrong thing.

Three boys came to look for me in my staffroom during their break, and one of them said, "Miss Hoo, can you please come down to the cafeteria?" I already knew something was up. Some of the others got a bit mad because they had planned to say something else; they were about to tell me one of the boys in class got into a fight at the cafeteria. If they had told me that, I would have gone flying down without a clue!

Anyway, it was still pretty thoughtful of them to take the trouble to buy the cake and stuff. Coincidentally, their English teacher's birthday was two days after mine, so they made it into a combined celebration.

This is the cake the students bought for us. It's CHOCOLATE. Yum yum yum.

Ms Anjali and me

This cake is lip-licking good. Mmmmmmmmm....

That night I went for dinner with a very close friend of mine. We went to TGIF, and the crew had the usual "We Will Rock You" song. Yowza!

Helen and I

Saturday night I went to dinner with another friend, but didn't take any photos during then.

Sunday night, went out with a bunch of my former schoolmates. We tried out this Korean restaurant in Taipan. It wasn't too bad; the food was nice and the concept interesting.

I've got cake again!

The cake was bought by my friends, not supplied by the restaurant.

Happy birthday to me...

The tedious process of cake dissection

Hai-yahhhh!!! A totally lame attempt at trying to practise Korean martial arts

Here's looking at you, kid...

All in all, my birthday wasn't too bad this year. I was half-afraid that everyone was going to forget and I was going to spend Saturday night alone. Haha! I've got bigger plans for next year though, because it's extremely rare for my birthday to fall on a weekend. Couldn't do it this year because of the lack of funds...

All about 4A

2006-07-27T21:16:00.000+08:00

Here I go again, talking about my class once more. My class can be really annoying sometimes. Well, some of them, not all of them. But not too deep down, they're really good kids. I think that they're quite united, and there is no one who is an outcast in the class.

When the new students came in the second semester, I was quite impressed to see how quickly the class tried to make them feel at home. For example, when a new boy arrived, as I was talking to him, some of the class quickly formed a group around him to get to know him better, and to include him in their conversations. It was really heartwarming for me to see this.

Even with the stupid jabañero peppers. Someone brought the peppers and the whole class ended up tricking students from other classes - and even some teachers - into eating them. (Thankfully, I had heard about them before and I did not even attempt to touch them.)

And when the new girl was sort of harassed by a boy from another class, she saved the MSN conversation and the WHOLE class read the conversation. OK, that was partly my doing too; I displayed the conversation on the projector using my laptop. Perhaps not the whole class was interested, but a huge majority of them were. And some of them got pretty riled up about how the girl was (sort of) harassed.

And with the yearbook page in discussion, some of them were coming up with ideas on the pictures to take. Many of them were heavily involved in the technical bit; i.e. rigging up the camera from overhead to take a bird's eye view picture. We haven't taken the photo yet, but we've done a test run and it seems to be working to plan. It's incredible how seriously they're taking this, to take just one picture. They've got measurements and a drawn plan and stuff.

My point is, some classes have outcasts. Some classes have segregated cliques. Some classes can't stand the sight of their own classes. My class isn't perfect. We still have cliques, we didn't win the Paramount Championship, we made losses trying to sell liquid nitrogen ice-cream. But I'm so proud of them, every single one of them. I hold no credit to their achievements or their unity. I'm just glad to be with them this year.

I'm so going to miss them.

All about Khor Sue Ching

2006-07-20T16:58:00.000+08:00

Sue Ching is a girl, I think. She eats biscuits. And when she talks, she sometimes spray people with biscuit crumbs. At least, at me. Oh, and she bought me a jar of hot chocolate powder. She was supposed to get one year's supply, and somehow her idea of one year's supply is limited to only 500 g's worth. I wonder how much she drinks in a cup of hot chocolate. Maybe she puts about two drops of hot water with every grain of hot chocolate.

I wrote this with Sue Ching right behind me. I'll upload a picture of her as soon as I can find one.

"I like AIDS"

2006-07-20T14:29:00.000+08:00

At least, that's what this one brat -- err, I mean student of mine always says. Coincidentally, he had to attend a workshop on AIDS today for 5 whole hours. Well, he and his classmates. And another class. And ... oh, that's it.

I had to sit in with them for the first hour because the first hour was my subject with the students today, from 8-9am. The workshop, conducted by a group of volunteers (I can't remember the name of the organisation) started with ice-breaking where the facilitator told the students that she will ask them a series of yes-no questions, each of which they had to respond by moving to different parts of the room (left side: YES, right side: NO, middle: NOT SURE). It started of with simple personal questions ("Everybody likes me", "I share my problems with my parents", "I talk about sex with my friends") and went on to test their knowledge on AIDS ("If a mosquito bites a person with AIDS, it can infect the next person it bites"). When it came to the knowledge testing part, I was quite surprised on how so many of the students got the answers wrong. Yes, even the kid who loves AIDS did get some of the answers wrong. The facilitator went on to show presentation slides with information about AIDS after that litle exercise.

I think I took it for granted everyone knew about AIDS. It's common knowledge for people in my age group, because back then, the government had an all-out AIDS awareness campaign; there were plenty of advertisements in the media both printed and broadcast, plenty of leaflets, etc. We knew how AIDS can and cannot be spread simply by listening to a short ad on the radio. The awareness campaign was everywhere.

I forgot that there hasn't been an awareness campaign for a while, and only now there's a gradual comeback to the campaign.

I left at 9am because that was the end of my lesson so I don't know what transpired next. I'm sure they learnt a lot.

And no, I don't like AIDS. And I don't have AIDS!

Ear-ring loss galore

2006-07-13T09:20:00.000+08:00

It's so maddening! Two weeks in a row I've lost earrings after going to the gym. Last Wednesday I lost my pair of silver hoops, and yesterday I lost one side of my black butterfly dangling earrings. And I really liked these two pairs, and it's not easy to find replacements for these. Sigh... I don't know how I could have lost them. But I'm going to have to take precautions from now on to make sure they don't get lost again.

I'm supposed to put up a post about my birthday last weekend. Haven't gotten round to uploading the pictures. Will do it soon...

Today, I've learnt...

2006-07-06T00:20:00.000+08:00

Today I've learnt that if a current system has been in use for a long time, it will not be open to suggestions for change, even if the suggestion has grounds in it for a more logical and efficient use.

Today I've learnt that people who are supposedly charitable aren't necessarily professional.

Today I was supposed to learn something about creativity in the classroom, but then I learnt that I was already attempting to do creative things in the classroom and therefore haven't really learnt much, although I learnt a little bit more.

Today I haven't really learnt much, but then, today was a day which has been pretty infuriating and writing is sometimes a tonic.

(I'll write later about what was so infuriating)

By the way, England's out! Brazil's out! Germany's out!

A little something to share with you

2006-06-25T21:01:00.000+08:00

While I'm online, here are some pics I'd like to share... I've taken a number of shots with my camera-phone whenever I see something interesting or amusing, and haven't had the time to upload them onto my blog.

Anyway whenever I have time I'll upload one set. So here's the first...

It's not a good shot because I took it from a newspaper... I was too lazy to scan the paper. Anyway, it's a Marie France Bodyline ad and this is what it says:

We Let Our Figures Do The Talking

The one choice for professional slimming solutions 97%
The one name I would recommend to everyone 96%
The one weight loss management centre I trust more than any other 94%

* Based on survey results of MFB customers

Does anyone notice what's wrong with that??????

If you don't I'll tell you - read the fine print. If it's based on survey results of
their own customers, isn't it obvious that the results will be biased towards them since they have already chosen MFB as their slimming solutions?

Then, this is where it backfires. Why isn't their customer satisfaction 100%????

Baaa Baaa Blaaack Sheeep

2006-06-25T20:31:00.000+08:00

Had a really tiring day today. Accompanied the school's Leo Club, together with the Lions Club, to take some orphans on a trip to several farms - orchid farm, fish farm, fruit farm, deer farm. Hot day and swollen tongue didn't help. Fortunately had Lydia to accompany me otherwise I'd be going out of my mind.

Students did a fantastic job, especially the Leo club president Lianne who had organised this (with the help of the Lions Club) and put her heart and soul into the project. Many (although not all) students took care of the orphans instead of wandering off to do what they liked.

Can't say exactly the same for the Lions Club. Oh, some of them were really good and really nice. But there's one particular person (I shall not name for politically correct reasons) who busied herself with a book or sat in the shade while the other Lions Club people ran around and made efforts to get to know the students. The event management company was also very good, involving themselves in the activities - there was one photographer who went around taking shots of people, and said silly things to make them smile. All in all everything went smoothly.

Also can't say that I was all that great. I didn't play much with the orphans or mix around with the other adults. I tend to leave everything to the students because they were doing such a great job. However I did amuse everyone at the end with a new-found ability to sing in a bleating voice after we saw sheep at the deer farm. Haha!

Will upload some pics once I've found some nice ones. The ones in my camera aren't all that great - there are some others in Lydia's camera, and also some with the event management company which I hope they will send to us.

Here's the link to download the audiofile if you should care to listen to the bleating voice repertoire. No, there's nothing wrong with the recording. What you hear is what I sang. Hehe.

A wonderful end to all that bodily injuries

2006-06-24T23:33:00.000+08:00

Guess what I did at dinner today. I was having dinner with a friend, and after my meal, I ate some bread and butter. I don't know how I did it, but somehow I chomped so hard on my tongue that it drew blood. A lot of blood. It didn't stop bleeding for about five minutes while I held a serviette against it waiting for it to clot. And it hurt like hell!

I couldn't talk properly for a while. Well, I could, but my tongue would hurt. I can deal with ulcers, but I can't deal with a scar on my tongue! I've never bitten my own tongue this hard before. What a grotesque experience.

I managed to finish the bread and butter, but I couldn't eat my fries. What an ending to my week...

A swollen eye, a twisted back, and a painful hip... all in a day's work

2006-06-23T21:21:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since my last blog entry. I've been so busy with school and personal work. I don't even use my PC as often as I used to. I used to log on every night... now there are days I don't even want to touch the computer in favour of my luxurious bed.

I've had a spate of minor bodily injuries this week. It started with a swollen eye on Sunday - I had to go to a doctor on Tuesday to get antibiotics and thankfully it has gone down by today. I can't meet parents tomorrow at the school's three-way conference with an inflamation on my beautiful eyes, right?

Then on Wednesday, I woke up with my lower right back feeling rather twisted. It only felt like a muscle twist though, because my spine didn't seem affected. (I should know - I had a serious back pain 2 years ago) No idea why, because I didn't do anything the day before. Typically, I get muslce sore especially in my back the day after gym (probably due to incorrect posture during my workout). I merely rubbed a heat rub and it seemed to help because on Thursday it wasn't so bad, although there was still a shadow of the pain.

This morning I thought finally everything in my body would be ok, but as the day got on I began to limp because there was a sharp pain in my left hip, which is probably due to my gym workout yesterday. I've corrected my posture so there's no more pain in my back, but I honestly don't know why there should be a pain in my hip.

Oh, and in addition, because I worked my legs out so much, my muscles are now very sore, which adds to the limp.

I'm really getting old.

I thought I've hit rock bottom, but then I found I could still dig

2006-05-24T22:32:00.000+08:00

I think the title speaks for itself.

I wrote this during invigilation today. I wasn't asleep, but I was certainly dreaming about it.

2006-05-16T14:27:00.000+08:00

My Invigilation

Do you know how boring invigilating can be?

It’s a tiring fight to keep your sanity

There’s nothing to do but to keep your eyes open

To make sure that the silence is never broken

No exchange of words, no tries of cheating

No semaphores attempted, no matter how fleeting

I’m willing the hands of the clock to move faster

I’m trying to stay awake with all the will I can muster

In my bed of heather beneath the sky

Deep in slumber, I quietly lie

The stars twinkle in their heavenly home

While the fireflies begin their nocturnal roam

The warm breeze chases away the cold

Deeper into the heather, I fold

A susurration of night-time whispers I hear

Lull me gently into a sleep so dear

The sounds are getting much louder

A sudden explosion of voice in my ear!

That could only mean –

Dammit! I fell asleep!

Invigilation

2006-05-15T14:01:00.000+08:00

I haven't blogged lately because I've been so tired. Mid-year exams are coming to an end (Phew!) and it's really more draining to invigilate than to teach. Just sitting there doing nothing is worse than actually doing something.

Nothing much to reminisce about actually. I've actually forgotten what it was like to take a school exam, really. But watching them suddenly reminded me today of a fellow classmate I had back in Form 3 who made a lot of noise when we were taking our exam papers. It wasn't that he was the class clown or he was trying to draw attention to himself humourously; far from it actually. The noise he made was more of his constant crushing of papers he wanted to throw away; and the noisy glugging of water from his 1.5 L water bottle. And because he does it very loudly, and very often, it can be quite distracting. I don't think he intentionally meant to distract us, he was just thoughtless in a socially inept way. He had the same level of noise during our PMR examinations too. I don't think anyone ever told him off, because we were all too polite to.

Oh, I didn't see anyone like that at all. It was just that I was suddenly reminded of that classmate. Quite a horrible recollection, actually.

Paramount Championship is finally OVER!!!

2006-04-19T11:23:00.000+08:00

The Paramount Championship is finally OVER!! It was so draining. The finals were on Monday and Tuesday, and I was more drained at the end of the both days than I usually am at the end of a normal teaching day.

Here's something to boast about for my class. We got third overall for Upper Secondary! Woo hoo!!! Honestly I didn't expect to us even be in the running for an overall top three. We got knocked out of so many events, I thought we'd be at the bottom or something. Hehehe. I forgot that there were several classes who didn't participate in most events. When they announced the third place, I think I'm the only one who screamed for joy. Haha.

Here's our medal tally:

GOLD
1) Poetry recital
2) Mandarin debate
3) Band performance

SILVER
1) Seasons drums
2) Group singing
3) Solo instrument

BRONZE
1) BM Essay
2) BM Sajak
3) English speech

Honestly I was just so sick and tired of the Paramount Championship because it was really draining, even for the days leading up to the finals (preliminaries in action). But I'm glad the kids had fun and I think they should be immensely proud of their achievements, even if they didn't win a medal.

Speaking of the band, everyone watched them perform as they were the last band to go on for the competition, which was the last event of the championship. They totally rocked the house and they were the champions, hands down. Maybe they should start playing gigs to earn the money we lost from the Open Day booth... hmmm....

4 Aristotle Rocks!

2006-04-15T19:23:00.000+08:00

We sold liquid nitrogen ice-cream today. Everyone was impressed with the procedure to make it but we didn't even manage to break even. The main reason was that we ran out of tasty mixtures to make the ice-cream; all we had left was coffee which was too bitter and no one wanted it. Sigh...

But we still had fun. At least, I hope they did. I was just way too tired. I had to check on two other booths too (Physics + Leo Club) from time to time. And in the middle of the day I had to go out and refill the liquid nitrogen so we lost an hour there. Not that it made much difference because it was the running out of mixture that was the problem. We still had plenty of LN by the end of the day.

Anyway I'm just writing cuz I'm really, really proud of these kids. They were very responsible in handling the booth (i.e. didn't shirk duty) and they worked very well together. It's mainly due to their knowing each other since they were in Form One, I think. I take no credit for the kids' teamwork. I think I'm just lucky that I've been put in charge of a class which consists of students who are smart and responsible.

The band from my class who participated in the Paramount Championship (more on this later in a future blog entry) were also part of the mini-concert showcase. When I arrived early in school this morning I heard them practising in the hall, and I was quite surprised. I didn't know then that they were part of the showcase. However I recognised the song because they were the only group in the Championship to take on a song that is not of this generation - they played the funky Ghostbusters of the '80s which is really nostalgic for those in my age category. So I walked in and watched them practise (they're so damn good!!!!!!!!!!!) and it was then I found out that they were part of today's show. I'm totally pleased for them, but I can't help wondering why they were picked for the showcase, considering the finals for the Paramount Championship's band category is on Monday or Tuesday (can't remember which), and they said they were surprised too. But I'm totally happy for them. I missed their actual performance though, because I went out for the liquid nitrogen refill. I missed the whole concert, actually. It wasn't a biggie for me though because I've seen most of the performances before. I was just sorry to miss the band's performance.

I think 4 Aristotle totally rocks. Even though we didn't break even for our booth. Even though they screwed up the English debate (AAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!). Even though we're not leading in the Paramount Championship (screw that!). Even though they hate me for my difficult Physics class test. Even though they screw up in Physics!!!

Let's see if I can survive the rest of the year with them though.

Arghhh!!!

2006-04-13T23:11:00.000+08:00

Sometimes I wish that my students don't know of my blog. That way I can vent a lot frustration out and they'd never know I was talking about them. Argh!

No, no, I don't want to complain about you who is reading my blog now. I love you kids too much. (Insert bouncing rubber eyeballs here). OK, seriously... well, I do like most of you. And honestly, you're not the one I want to complain about.

I shall stop my cryptic blog entry here.

Stupid Girls

2006-04-10T11:04:00.000+08:00

I finally saw Pink's video of Stupid Girls. Yes, yes, I'm a bit behind in terms of MTV and music. I used to know all the name of every new song that hit the radio airwaves. Nowadays I'm not too bothered anymore and I only find out the name of the song that catches my attention.

Anyway, I think Pink's song of Stupid Girls really drives the message home and the video is one of the best (and funniest!!!) I've ever seen. I've often liked Pink for her songs with strong messages about the girl power - her first single being Most Girls. She's not an outright feminist, but she doesn't believe that girls should rely on men. Like that Destiny's Child song, Independent Women.

Belated tears

2006-04-05T22:28:00.001+08:00

I'm feeling rather sad. My brother left us for Japan on Monday night on a scholarship to study medicine. All the months leading up to Monday night was full of preparation for him to leave - buying his things, sending an advanced package, etc. I wasn't really involved in it, because I was way too busy with school work. I hadn't even bought him a farewell gift. Yes, yes, I'm a terrible sister, but I didn't know what to buy for him that he didn't already have. I didn't want to get him some useless trinket he'll leave behind because there isn't any more space in his luggage.

My mom had a farewell dinner for him, inviting all my relatives from her side of the family on the Saturday night the week before. Two of my brother's friends were invited too. My relatives on my father's side are all in Penang, so of course they couldn't join in. It's not like we're all that close to our cousins, actually. My mom had the dinner because (according to a reliable source) my maternal grandmother gave him a huge ang pow and my mom wanted to show her appreciation. The ang pow still couldn't beat my two aunts from Penang though, who bought him a brand new laptop.

My relatives came down from Penang on Sunday to send him off - the aforesaid two aunts and my paternal grandmother. At my suggestion we all went out for dinner on Sunday night. (Was surprised this wasn't thought of earlier, actually. You'd have thought that when your only son is about to leave the country for about seven years, you'd like to have one more nice dinner as a family.)

We all drove to KLIA to bid him farewell. The same two friends who came to the dinner came over to KLIA to send him off too. I thought it was really nice of them to do that. We whiled the hours away sitting around and trying to finish up the film in my mom's camera (yes! She's still on that old thing. I told her she should have told me to bring my digital camera).

When it was time for him to leave, we each gave him a hug except for my father who was kayu as usual. I was surprised that my grandmother didn't cry. No one did. Not there, anyway.

I haven't been close to my brother since I came back from university. I missed four of his vital school years when I was at university. We were very close when we were younger though. We used to fight a lot too. And he was such a chatterbox when he was a kid. When he was older he was much more reserved.

It just didn't hit me how much I'd miss him even though we weren't exactly close, but at least he was around. It was only when I came home just now and I suddenly noticed he's not at his usual spot in front of his PC. Strange, isn't it?

So... that leaves me alone here in Malaysia. My sister is in UK and my brother is in Japan. Maybe I should go to another country too...

When debates are run by people who don't know what debates are

2006-04-03T18:48:00.000+08:00

My students lost in the BM inter-class debate today. I didn't watch them because I was conducting extra classes for my fifth-formers. After it was over, they came up to me and told me that... they lost. I'm not upset they lost. No - what I'm angry about is how the debate went. It seems that the other side went and gave printed evidence to support their case to the judges. And my team apparently lost because they appeared to be under-prepared, and lacking in confidence.

This is the first time I have ever heard that evidence to judges could be accepted in a debate. I have never been to a debate competition that allows such things. What surprised me was that all three judges (BM teachers) accepted it. The highest level of BM debates that I know of in this country is the Malaysian Royals Debate between public universities, and they are very similar to the English version with the exception that it is held in BM. You never provide evidence to the judges. Even in Forensic's value debates, you show your evidence to your opponent if need be. Not carry the big fat Black's Law book and pass a copy to each of the judges.

And then it turns out that evidence presentation is allowed. All the other classes were doing. So is this ignorance their fault? Hardly - like me, they never heard of debates that allowed such things. So my question now is, why were they not briefed on it? Is it not obvious that they should have had some kind of briefing by the BM debate judges about this?

I question the integrity of this kind of debate. If they go on to inter-school debate competitions, I'm sorry but they're going to be kicked right back to school. I wonder if any of the teachers in the school have ever been to a proper debate competition before.

Oh, and here's another joke. For the English inter-class debate, their constructive speeches are four minutes each and the reply speeches are three minutes. In proper competitions, they are SEVEN minutes long and the reply speeches are four minutes. How much can you say to support your case in four minutes? I suppose they assume the kids aren't smart enough to stand up and talk for very long.

Debate Finals!

2006-04-01T18:06:00.000+08:00

My students were involved in a debate competition the whole of last week organised by KDU College called the Dato' CQ Teo-KDU College Debate Challenge. Together with Ms Lydia, we trained the students and discussed the motions with them, spending HOURS and HOURS, even on weekends before the competition. They made it all the way to the finals, which is a huge achievement given that of the four of them, three have never debated in a competition of this style, and it is the first time since the challenge started two years ago that the school even made past the preliminaries. We lost to Chong Hwa in the finals, but I think it was a very worthy school to have lost to as the debate was a good one and it had been a very close fight.

Still, am damn proud of my kids!

New subdomain!

2006-03-25T22:39:00.000+08:00

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! :(

2006-03-18T22:19:00.000+08:00

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

2006-03-15T21:58:00.000+08:00

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!!!

2006-03-15T21:41:00.000+08:00

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...

2006-03-10T08:07:00.000+08:00

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

2006-03-08T21:20:00.000+08:00

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!

2006-03-04T16:39:00.000+08:00

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:

Blue
Yellow
Red
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!

2006-03-03T17:09:00.000+08:00

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!

2006-03-02T22:07:00.000+08:00

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...

2006-03-02T21:45:00.000+08:00

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.

PARTY!!!! .... at school

2006-02-17T22:18:00.000+08:00

On a lighter note, my class had our first party this year. We've agreed to have a birthday celebration every two months, combining all the birthdays of the students during the said two months.

Err... we're all holding candles because I got candles with the cake... and COMPLETELY forgot to bring a lighter to light them. I forgot serviettes too, but fortunately the kids brought enough tissue paper to go around.

This was also some kind of "farewell" for two students who have transferred down the hall to a Humanities class.... Yeah, yeah, I know. "Farewell" kononnya when we can still see them everyday. Doesn't mean that their presence in the class won't be missed.

And this is our first class picture. Not everyone's here though. Some are absent. And some are... well, I don't know where they went. I don't know why anyone would want to give up a party. OK, admittedly they had an Add Math test after that. But, still....

I've got lots more photos (because of Alvin who trigger-happily kept snapping my camera at every moving object) and a very short video of the party. Don't worry, kids - you'll all be getting a copy of everything. I hope to compile photos and videos of the class throughout the entire year into one nice fat CD. If you want these photos ASAP though, I'll make a link available for download on my website.

At the end of the whole party, Iman cheekily smeared cream on my cheek. Fortunately the camera and videocamera were already in my possession and there are no pictures of that...

My story at the gym today

2006-02-17T21:10:00.000+08:00

I went to the gym just now, as part of my usual routine. I don't attend the classes; I typically do the cardio machines, the weights machines, or the free weights.

There are always people coming up to me to correct me whenever I do something incorrectly, or to give me suggestions on additional exercises I should do. These, of course, include some of the personal trainers who work there, but I make it clear that I can't afford to pay for personal training lest they try to sign me up for a course or something. Some personal trainers don't even bother to look at some of the people working out on their own; I think they're really in it for the money and not to help people. There's one who did come up to me and he was pretty sincere in helping, because he told me what I should do and also explained the reasons for what he said.

There are also a couple of guys who often work out there and have also corrected what I've done. I've noticed that they always help out some of the girls in the gym, and they've also offered to help me. I sort of accepted the help of one of them (let's call him A). Sort of, because he kind of just came over and started telling me what I should do. He had very quickly noticed my scoliosis and explained what I should do to try to make it look more balanced. From then on, I trusted his judgement because he always explained every exercise very clearly, the correct posture, the muscle groups that are working, and why I should do that exercise.

And then, another personal trainer (let's call him B) suddenly comes up to me and makes an appointment with me. I was quite surprised, and I wasn't sure why. I even told him that I can't afford PT, but he said "Saja...." However I missed two appointments, albeit unintentionally.

Anyway... I had told A that I'd be at the gym today and he said he'll meet me then. So at the gym just now, I was warming up with cardio when B sees me and then he tells me he will meet me upstairs. I was like... OK.... Then when I went up I saw A and I told B that he was my "si fu". A begin making me work my shoulders with free weights when halfway through B cuts in and makes me work my legs.

I could actually see A wasn't too happy about the interruption. And neither was I. But I went along with the flow, and somehow B's exercises just didn't work for me. He made me do walking lunges that were supposed to work the butt muscles, but I didn't feel the right muscles working. So he made me work on stationary lunges with weights, and they ended up exhausting my thigh muscles and I almost collapsed. A saw me and told me to sit down and noticed that I seemed to feel a sore in my lower back. So A told me to use the stretch machines to stretch properly but then B comes along and makes me stretch on the mat. And again, his stretches didn't work for me; in fact I almost got a cramp in my side. I even felt slightly nauseous, but I focused on my breathing to try to alleviate it.

I got quite pissed off, actually. Here, B was telling me that he's got this trainer competition coming up soon and he's not all that good in identifying exercises for me. I'm sure whatever he suggests may work generally, but he hadn't identified the problems I have in my body, and what my actual aims are. So I told him I would rest awhile and use the stretch machines on the lower floor.

I went down, did the stretches, and got a fizzy drink from the juice bar. And I sat there fuming. I was pretty upset because I didn't like the way he interrupted my initial training session, and I felt that the failed exercises he told me to do may have ruined my workout session today. I don't have many chances to go to the gym in a week, so I try to maximise the few chances I get. But I was also pretty angry at myself. I should have just politely but firmly declined his offer to help, and all this could have been avoided.

I was lucky today though. My back stopped hurting, and the slight nauseous feeling went away. I went back to the free weights area, but when I saw B I just mumbled incoherently and quickly looked A up to get a proper training session. Man, I really worked out today and I'm pretty exhausted now, but I'm feeling darn good too. Whether I can lift my arms tomorrow is a completely different story, but at least I'm working the right muscles. Right?

My archive...

2006-02-16T21:57:00.000+08:00

Just realized that the archive links on this page didn't work. Sorry!

Anyway, someone's asked me to clarify a post I wrote in September. I was waiting for a good time to write it, and it seems to be right now.

Earlier that day, I received a call from a friend. The conversation went something like this:

Friend: Sze Yen, where are you?
Me: In the staffroom. Why? (typing away at my laptop to complete some work)
Oh. OK. Well, don't scream when I tell you this.
Me: Why? You're getting married? (in my usual sarcastic manner, still typing away)
Friend: Err... yeah.
Me: ........ Huh???!!!!

I was very quiet for the remainder of the day.

Well... I was in shock simply because I did not expect it and I didn't expect my sarcastic answer to be, well, true. Anyway the couple is very happily married now and I'm very happy for them.

Passing thoughts

2006-02-16T21:43:00.000+08:00

Nothing significant to report today. Just heard that in addition to Tai Yang and Danil, Darryl is also thinking of switching to a sub-science (Bio) class. Why are they all breaking my heart? *sob sob*

Took a video of three boys who were doing something that looked really funny. When I've compiled it, I'll upload it onto my website... muahahaha....

By the way, anyone interested to go for the Rainforest World Music Festival in Kuching this year? I wanted to go last year but couldn't get tickets. Anyway the very week before I was already in Kuching for a friend's wedding. Can't afford to go to Kuching two weekends in a row. Not that I'm really interested... it's way too near my birthday. Rather hang out with my friends and be the centre of attention then to go somewhere else to pay attention to someone else... hahaha!!!

Awards for my students...

2006-02-15T22:20:00.000+08:00

If I had to give the classes I teach awards, these are the awards I'd give...

CLASS THAT PAYS THE MOST ATTENTION goes to 4 ARISTOTLE. Sure, there are some kids in there who make a lot of noise. Every class has its clown(s). But having taught five rowdy classes last year, three of which are still in the school this year, it's amazing to be able to teach a class in which almost every student is paying rapt attention. For once, I actually feel appreciated.

QUIETEST CLASS DURING CLASS TEST goes, again, to 4 ARISTOTLE. It was simply amazing. I gave my usual threats of destroying papers of anyone who cheats or lets someone cheat off their papers, and that I will write TALKED DURING CLASS TEST in marker ink all over their test papers if they did. Almost none did though. And when they asked me a question about the test paper, it was merely to clarify something they didn't really understand in the question. Unlike the following award, which is the...

NOISEST CLASS DURING CLASS TEST which goes to 5 DICKENS. This does not only pertain to talking (or attempting to talk) during the class test. They actually ask me questions like, "Teacher, is this the right answer?" "Teacher, is my working correct?" "Teacher, what's the answer?" Not one minute during the entire class test goes by without someone raising their hands to ask some kind of question. And they ask why I look so angry whenever I'm in the class!

Seeing that the other two classes might feel left out, here are some awards I have concocted for them:

CLASS THAT MAKES THE MOST NOISE IN THE LABORATORY goes, hands down, to 5 ARISTOTLE. Somehow, they seem to think that the laboratory is the place for them to talk in amplitudes way above their usual. It makes me almost want to never take them to the lab ever again.

CLASS THAT PARTICIPATES MOST IN THE LABORATORY would have to go to 5 MOZART. I suppose that this is mainly because there are only 11 students in that class who take the subject, as opposed to 15 in 5 Dickens, 27 in 5 Aristotle and 28 (now 26) in 4 Aristotle. But like I wrote in Student Lounge, this is my guinea-pig class among the Secondary 5 classes, and they're the most willing to try any experiment even though it might turn out to be a failure.

What about the other classes, you ask? .... What other classes? I only teach four! I did say "If I had to give the classes I teach awards, these are the awards I'd give..."

If you're looking for medals or a trophy though, dream on.

From 28 to 26

2006-02-13T22:51:00.000+08:00

One of my students from my homeroom told me today that she's changing classes next week. That brings it a total of two students leaving (the other told me last week on Saturday). Well, they say that's it's not because of me (I really hope it isn't!! Haha!!!) but because they don't want to do Pure Science anymore. They've opted to switch to a Humanities class. I'm really very sad about it, because I like the two of them very much. Oh, I like my whole class, but there are some students whom I got to know better than others. Lest you think that I'm playing "favouristism", I'm not - it's the natural way things work. You always get to know some people better first before you get to know the rest. I can't possibly get to know 28 people at one go at the same pace, right? It's only a little more than one month that I've been their homeroom teacher which is really a short period of time, and I won't pretend that I believe that I've impacted them in any way. I'm not that conceited.

Rather silly, isn't it?

When your car's drink costs more than your own

2006-02-12T20:08:00.000+08:00

Damage control...

2006-02-11T21:31:00.000+08:00

There seems to be a little argument going on in the comments of my last post. Thanks, kids, it's an interesting read. I'm now somewhat grateful that my msjbox is temporarily not working lest you use that as your platform instead.

Many seemed to be upset about Matthew being called the supreme intellect of the universe. I was being sarcastic, did you not read my previous post? I'm not sure if he's just being some kind of egoistical cynic (OK, he obviously is...) or if he's just joking, but this trait of his is what seems to be so endearing to all of you. Someone's even got a blog dedicated to writing about Matthew. By the way, Darrel, you stole one of the photos off my blog without permission and without giving me credit for it.

Matthew - thanks for announcing to the world about that silly little thing I signed up for years ago. I never got around to removing that entry. By the way, you need to run a spell check on your blog and the comments you write on others' blogs (including mine). And I've removed the link to your blog from my links page. It's not that I can't take bad language, but I simply cannot tolerate it from an underaged student who may think that it's cool to pepper every other sentence with offensive words. I still am your teacher, and I can't say that I find your entry about the cats remotely amusing, even if you didn't mean it (which I really hope you don't).

Having said and done that - I still like all of you kids very much, whether or not you're in my homeroom or in my class. I just think that there is still a long way more for you to grow up.

A little something for you

2006-02-09T23:00:00.000+08:00

While I'm online, here are some photo updates taken with my brand new Nokia 6270. *gloat gloat*

A little something for you which my students from 5 Mozart made with the light box they were supposed to be doing the diffraction grating experiment with...

Oh, and since I'm talking about my beloved homeroom, here are some photos with which you will then be able to identify some of them should you happen to bump into them on the streets:

And here's the Supreme Intellect of the Universe who concocts the Fundamental Dynamics of the Universe...

The secret's out...

2006-02-09T21:48:00.000+08:00

My blog has been discovered by my students! OK, actually many of them have read it before, but they were all my students of last year. Unfortunately my big mouth let slip to my homeroom yesterday that I have a website. I didn't want to actually, wanted to keep it under wraps (I shy shy mah). I didn't tell them the URL of course, but I did say that they can Google my name and it'll turn up. And of course one of them tried it.

My older students have already found out my website because many of them added themselves to my MSN messenger, and I usually announce my website updates on MSN (with the URL in blazenly written, of course. What's the point in telling people my website has been updated if they don't know where they're supposed to go). No, Matthew, I am NOT going to give you my MSN username.

Anyways... after reading his comment, turns out this young chap who constantly has AIDS on his mind (if I had a penny for everytime he utters that word, I'd be a millionaire) has a blog too. Very cynical and seems to be under the impression he's some sort of supreme intellect. Just because you carry a calculator that can play Super Mario Brothers doesn't make you one, you know! Anyway, I've added it onto my links page. Quite interesting read, really. Am very curious about what's happening between him and NS. Must dig that out from him soon. If not him, well.... then his classmates. Haha!

By the way, just to let you know, I'm going to be changing the URL of my website soon. The domain name http://www.zyenhoo.com is still going to stay, of course. In case you didn't notice, it always points to a subdomain, i.e. http://zyenhoo.thewildwestbabes.com. Yes, yes, I know many of you are wondering what's up with the wildwestbabes bit. It's my dance team name. Read more about it on The Dancer. However the team has disbanded and we're going to discontinue the website, so obviously my website won't be residing on that domain anymore. I haven't planned what the name of the main domain should be yet. But the main URL will stay so you kids can still use it with or without the change.

Why do I use a subdomain in the first place? Well, simply because I've purchased web hosting space that I'm sharing with others and I can't afford space all on my own. I'm not rich like you kids, you know. :D

By the way, about the earlier young chap - OK, to give him his due credit, he is some sort of Math genius. And PC genius too. I'm sure he's itching to tell me quite a few things I should do to improve my website. He does have some spelling errors in the entries in his blog, but I suppose the AIDS... I mean, Math ability makes up for it.

And if the rest of you 4 Aristotlians are reading - you're all great kids too. I'm still so proud to hear how much you've chipped in for the notice boards. I'm just waiting for the work to be done on the notice boards.

If the rest of you are students from other classes who are waiting for your names to be mentioned - errr, why don't you go visit the blog of your homeroom teacher or something...

Tuesday update

2006-02-07T14:59:00.000+08:00

I was so blur that I went in for my relief period at the wrong time. When the subject teacher came she was surprised at my presence and upon checking the relief timetable, it was so embarrassing to find out that I was the wrong one. I don't know why I remembered the time incorrectly. Sigh!

Then when I tried to use my new charger which I had just bought last week in school, not only did it not work, but the top plastic bit broke off and got stuck in the wall socket. Fortunately the maintenance people came to my desk to do some minor work (which I had requested for last month) and they pulled the plastic bit out. Have to take it back to the shop to show what inferior quality goods they sold me.

And... I had sent off a mass email to some of my school friends and for some reason one of them decides to change the mailing list group instead of "Replying All" - changing a lot of their email addresses, adding some into the list, removing some from the list, and worst of all, adding a person who isn't even in the circle of friends in the list. The guy added is the current president of the school alumni and almost none of us even know him, much less personally. I don't understand why he was in the former's mailing list anyway. I got quite pissed off. Not the first time he changed the mailing lists. The first time he did it, he had sent it to someone's work email which is not a personal one. Everyone who replied after that merely clicked "Reply All" without realising the change, until that person had to write an email to request the change of email address. I don't understand how some people do things sometimes. Was it necessary to change the mailing list group when a simple click of the "Reply All" button would suffice? If you wanted to add more names, you can just add them along the way. And it makes me look bad because people would think that it was my initial mailing list all along. Very few would realise the sudden change in the recipient list.

Keeping Mum....

2006-02-04T00:37:00.000+08:00

I just watched one of the most unusual films this year... (but then, hey, it's only February. Hmmm, come to think of it, it's the first movie I've watched this year. I've been that busy...) Keeping Mum starring Rowan Atkinson, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Dame Maggie Smith and Patrick Swayze. It's a British black comedy about a vicar who's so preoccupied about writing the perfect speech for an upcoming convention that he doesn't realise his wife is having an affair and his kids are messed up. That's all I knew about the film when I got into the cinema hall, from what little I read in the papers. I hadn't seen the teasers nor the trailers, so I wasn't quite prepared for the real underlying plot. The real reason for my watching this film in the first place, is for the comedy of Rowan Atkinson.

Watching at GSC in Midvalley, I was stuck immediately behind the divider in Hall 2, which was not quite comfortable. Oh, I can see the screen fine; but I had no place to stretch my legs, and I unfortunately have long legs.

And the idiot behind the reel screwed up the focus a few times.... one of the usherers had to go up and tell him to focus the film on the screen properly. Fortunately it was done within the first few minutes of the film.

*** WARNING. SPOILERS AHEAD***

The film was about a psychopathic killer!!! Ok, not entirely. But mostly. It starts off with this innocent-looking sweet, young pregnant lady on a train whose large leather trunk had started bleeding at a corner in the luggage area of the train. Spotted by a train officer, the police was very quickly notified and they discover... the dead bodies of her husband and his mistress. Sent to a mental institution with no hope of release unless decreed by the Home Secretary.

Forty-three years later, in a town called Little Wallop whose population of 57 is much less than the number of students I personally teach in my school, we see an absent-minded vicar who does not notice how burnt-out his wife is; that his daughter getting lucky in the back of the van in front of their house on Sunday morning; that his son was getting picked on in school. All he seemed to care about was the algae-filled pond near the house (getting his updates from two workmen in yellow raincoats) and the speech he has to write for the upcoming convention.

In steps a new housekeeper who seems like a lovely motherly old lady, who does her best to make the whole family comfortable. Does a little too much, actually. It starts with her silencing the dog - forever - to allow the vicar's wife peaceful nights' sleep. And then she deals with the bullies of the young boy. Oh, and she teaches the slutty teenager to cook.

The wife, in the meantime, is getting hot and heavy with her golf instructor who wins her over with his American accent and athletic body, who wants to give her what she's not getting from her husband. The housekeeper finds out about it, and to fix it, she nudges the vicar into reviving his sexual desires for his wife. (First time I've ever seen Rowan Atkinson in such scenarios. I'm so used to seeing him do slapstick a la Mr Bean and Johnny English)

Just before that however, the golf instructor manages to elicit an acquiescence from the vicar's wife to go with him to the sandy beaches of Mexico. But having spotted the hot teenaged girl once when he sent her home, he comes to the house the night before equipped with a videocamera (which looks a lot like the model I have) to capture the nubile young body changing her clothes through her window.

Caught by the housekeeper, he ends up not in the beaches of Mexico, but at the bottom of the lake near the vicar's house.

Quite a number of people had to die in this film, and I'm suprised that the remaining 50+ residents raised no questions about the missing persons. And the seemingly motherly love the housekeeper has for the family is truly motherly, for the daughter who is now 43 years old. She leaves one night for another job, but she still keeps in touch with her new-found family via letters. Because of her, the couple have rekindled their love, the vicar has found a splendid sense of humour (his speech was a great success, by the way), the boy is self-confident, and the girl now has a proper boyfriend which the family accepts (in the show, she had changed boyfriends up to four times, and we only see each boy once). They're now a perfect family in a perfect house.

The pond is still not forgotten, and the vicar who is blissfully ignorantwhat really happened to the missing persons (only the wife and daughter know) learns that the blue algae that now fill the pond is extremely detrimental to the pond, which in turn can adversely affect the entire village. With the film coming rapidly to an end, I just sat there waiting while the camera panned underwater to the lake until I saw what I was looking for - the yellow raincoats.

I told you there were spoilers!

This show has a very twisted sense of humour. Nevermind the holes in the plot. It's still worth watching for a good laugh.

Grr! Arf! Woof! Bark! (Translation: GONG XI FATT CHAI!)

2006-01-31T18:34:00.000+08:00

And... so we welcome a new year. Good bye to the year of the rooster, hello to the year of the dog!

Chinese New Year eve was MADNESS... I was on the highway for SIX-AND-HALF FREAKING HOURS!!!! I attempted to leave again at 6pm and we still got caught in a horrendous jam. There were 3 reported congested sections: from Rawang to Bt Beruntung, from Lembah Beringin to Jelapang and from Ipoh (South) to can't-remember-where. I got caught in the first 2 sections; the third had cleared by the time we got there. I arrived in my grandmother's house after midnight!! This is the first Chinese New Year which I haven't had a reunion dinner in over 20 years!!! My Chinese New Year eve dinner consisted of a Dunkin Donut sandwich with my father in the Tapah rest stop (my other family members had gone earlier in another car, leaving at 3pm and arriving at 8pm).

Chinese New Year was spent the usual way... the visit to four temples. I took pictures with my brand-new Nokia 6270...

Didn't do much else. We rarely go visiting in Penang anyway. My bro and I took the opportunity to leave a little earlier, and we came back down on the 3rd day of CNY although the 4th day was still a holiday. I needed to catch up on work anyway. When in Penang, I have NO mood to work at all. All I do is eat and sleep. Tomorrow I soooooo have to hit the gym!

Unmoving traffic!

2006-01-28T12:42:00.000+08:00

It's the day before Chinese New Year! And unfortunately, this year it happens to be on Saturday. So everyone who's not from KL but are staying in KL are flooding the roads with their cars today. I'm not not from KL (I was born and bred here!) but I have to visit my grandmother who's in Penang. My family and I entered the North-South Highway at the Damansara toll which was clear... up to Kota Damansara (which is like, about 5-10 km away) and got caught in a horrible jam.

No, I'm not writing this blog in frustration while stuck in stop-and-go traffic. We're not stupid enough to stay put in a stream of cars that can turn a 4-hour journey into a 10-hour one. We turned back and now I'm in the comfort of my home in front of my beloved PC... while waiting for a better time to hit the roads again. Yeah, we'll still have to get on the highway sometime today... sigh...

February comes... and friends go

2006-01-27T22:08:00.000+08:00

Come February, I'm going to lose two friends... to another country. One is a friend whom I have known for 13 years, since Secondary 1; another is one who is very dear to me although we have only known each other for little more than one year. The former is going to Singapore for a lecturing job, and her news was rather sudden to me. The latter is migrating to Australia after her PR application was finally approved.

The former (Wei Kwan) is a very sweet girl who was my classmate for five years in secondary school. We rarely meet up anyway because the whole group is usually quite busy; but her absence will definitely be felt in our future gatherings. I'm happy for her anyway, because I think it will be a great career boost for her. And the great thing is, her boyfriend has a job in Singapore too. So she won't be totally alone. It can be quite scary to be alone in a country all by yourself, with people you don't know. At least she has someone she loves with her.

The latter (Barbara) is a dance teammate who's a very sensible character that I can totally rely on, and also very much fun to be with. I'm going to miss her terribly because over the past year, we've gotten to know each other much better (due to our many late nights practising together for various performances and competitions), and she gives me sound advice whenever I tell her about a particular problem of mine. I wish I have known her earlier. She won't be going alone too; she's going with her husband and dog, staying with her sister and her sister's husband until they get a place of their own.

Really gonna miss them. I'm so happy for them that they're moving on to greener pastures; but I'm still gonna miss them!

Today I flew...

2006-01-26T23:30:00.000+08:00

OK, not really flew. But I tried being a flyer... :D

OK OK. Here's what really happened. I'm the teacher-in-charge of the cheerleading for blue house in my school, and I was watching my students testing out the flyers and practising the base positions (FYI: Bases are the people at the bottom of the pyramid, the flyers are the people on top of the pyramid). Towards the end, after many had gone home, there were only two boys and three girls left, and they were having so much fun practising that they actually asked me to try being the flyer. Initialy I declined, but upon their second time asking I decided to give it a shot. I did manage to go up, but err... it being my first time, there was a slight panic and instead of grabbing the spotter's hands, I accidentally grabbed the boys' heads instead. It was pretty embarrassing, but the boys were great sports and readily forgave me. They even let me try again, and this time it went much more smoothly. Probably not great, but at least I didn't grab anybody's heads and I managed to get up there straight without incident. It was pretty fun... and I inspired the captain to try flying (she initially kept desisting). Although there were a few false starts for her, the boys did say, (and I quote) "If we can carry Miss Hoo, we can carry her!!!" And they did...

I kinda wished that there was cheerleading in my school when I was still schooling. It would have been such great fun. But looking back, in all probability, I wouldn't have made it as a cheerleader... I was not at all flexible and I didn't know I could dance until I was 23 when I started taking line dance at the gym out of fun, which only then lead to my serious passion for dancing. Heck, I'm still not flexible, but I'm a lot more flexible than I used to be, hehehe. AND it's improving every day, only because now I'm a lot more willing to try than when I was younger. Sigh... the things I lost out on when I was a youth. Isn't it ironic that when you're older, you try more things which should have been tried when you were young?

And... we're counting down

2006-01-24T14:10:00.000+08:00

I’ve never looked forward to Chinese New Year as much as this. I usually don’t like Chinese New Year. I still don’t. It’s not that I’m not proud of my Chinese heritage… it’s just that every year we have to battle the jam up to Penang, where I’ll spend sleepless nights not because of stress, but because of the ongoing firecrackers that go on for hours. And there’s nothing else to do there, and there’s certainly no Broadband access.

But this year I look forward to Chinese New Year. But it’s not because anything special will be happening this time. I’m just waiting for the Year of the Rooster to end. The entire year has been such a bad run for me, and even in its very last week, things are still falling on my head. The Year of the Dog promises to be much better. I don’t believe in astrology, but at this point, I’ll take anything that offers me sunshine behind the clouds.

Clarifications about the Radiation Protection for Officer

2006-01-08T01:54:00.001+08:00

By the way, in reply to the comment made by Eng Seng - I'm sure not everyone knows what this program is about since I never did explain it. It's a 2-week course about radioactivity that one has to undergo if they wish to be involved in an industry that uses radioactive materials, whether as suppliers (manufacturers of radioactive materials), users (of X-raymachines, nuclear gauges), or to work in the licensing board.

It's not just about attending the course; at the end of it, one has to take an exam consisting of 3 papers: one general paper (all MCQs), one specialization paper (as per the above three divisions; MCQs + essays) and one practical paper (we write our answers based on the results of a lab experiment we did sometime during the 2-week course). The passing grade is 70% average for the first two papers with a minimum of 60% each; and 70% for the third paper. If one fails, he/she is allowed to resit once; thereafter upon failing again, he/she has to retake the entire course before allowed totake another shot at the exam.

Because this involves radioactivity, as you can imagine, taking the exam is no walk in the park. It helps greatly to have some basic Physics background; students from Arts streams might find some difficulty doing this course, as this course is very technical in terms of its course content. The passing rate is generally quite low(but that might be because the people taking the
exam come from different ages with different backgrounds).

Although many expected I would pass easily, the reason I wasn't sure was because it's been years since I last mugged for an exam and I just am not used to studying anymore. I think I studied 5 hours at most. I simply couldn't focus! And the parts I focused on did not come out in the exam; most of the parts of Paper 2 came out from the other section I barely read. I had to BS my way through most of Paper 2. No, I'm not boasting here. I'm honestly surprised (and VERYrelieved!!!) that I passed.

Here I go again: I PASSED THE RADIATION PROTECTION FOR OFFICERS
EXAMINATIONS!!! WOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!!

Grumph postscript

2006-01-08T01:54:00.000+08:00

Well, the dinner turned out quite lovely and it was at an affordable rate.
I'll admit that. I know I sounded really frustrated in one of my earlier
entries. They've done their best in what they had to work with. Thank yous
to those who planned it, I really appreciate it.

Still bugging me

2006-01-07T19:01:00.000+08:00

They're still trying to miss-call me. The number 013-2643599 SMSed me asking
me to call him and when I ignored that SMS, the numbers 019-6785392 and
017-3776378 tried to call me. Immature brats.

Prank miss calls?

2006-01-05T21:51:00.000+08:00

I got a missed call from a number today, so it was a natural thing for me to try to return the call, although no one picked up. Ever since then, for same strange stupid reason, the idiot of that number started giving me missed calls tonight. Then someone of a different phone number messages me in Mandarin asking why I called that first person. When I finally got through the first number I asked him who he was and all I could hear was a bunch of boys talking in the background before finally someone swore at me and hung up. Then someone else of YET another number SMSed me to call him. I did, just to find out what was going on, but I don't think they understood English very well because he couldn't answer me, and in fact stayed silent after a while. I stayed very polite throughout the call, but I persistently kept asking, "Why are your friends calling me?" even though I could elicit no response. After some silence I finally hung up.

I haven't gotten any more missed calls, but if I do, I'm going to lodge a complaint against all three numbers, AND I'm going to send an email out to every contact I know. I might not get any more tonight, but who knows what tomorrow might bring. There's no point trying to bar their calls because they might try to call me from another number. I'm listing their numbers down here. If anyone can tell me who these pranksters are, it would be a great help. The reason I'm pissed off it's because it's extremely annoying and I really do not want to be inundated with loads of useless missed calls or worthless SMSes in the future, and I have no desire to be driven to change my number by a few childish pranks.

019-6785392
017-6187758
017-3776378

Grumph

2006-01-01T17:08:00.000+08:00

I'm broke. Super, super-broke. OK, it's my own fault I guess. The holidays are just draining on the wallet, and now it's empty as a sink with unclogged pipes. And I'm feeling a bit annoyed because there are some of my friends who don't understand the financial constraints that the rest of us go through. They're the older ones, fortunate enough to already have their money made, and some of them are also taitais who don't need to work. In a recent performance, we each got RM80 which isn't much but to rest of us, it can be a life-saver. Because it was in a single cheque, they had in their own discussion suggested that the entire group take the money and spending it on a high tea.

Fortunately the person whose name the cheque was made out to (who wasn't in the discussion) asked the rest of us first, and we said we'd rather have the ca$h. And she reminded them gently that the younger ones who are still working would look to the money as extra income, and not as extra pocket money.

Now we're getting together for our rare get-togethers, and they've been suggesting dinners at fancy restaurants which would cost just under RM100. I did make a request for something under RM50 but apparently it could not be achieved, and arrangements have already been made for a dinner somewhere that's just under RM80. Oh, and I was reminded that I have RM80 from the performance. Hah! I've spent that money long ago and I was not planning on blowing it all on a single dinner. I'm not even sure I'd like the place. I can't help wondering if enough effort was made to find a nice affordable place to go. These are people with expensive tastes, and somehow I feel that they've been looking at costlier places. It's not that I think they chose the expensive places on purpose. I think they looked at places they would like to go to, found that the price was high, and picked a place that cost the least among them. I don't think they actually made an effort to look for a place that was cheaper, because those were "lower class". I mean, even going to a place like Swensen's and having a la carte would chalk up to RM50 per person, on average, if you don't order three ice-creams in addition to your meal. Right?

I'm not angry with them. I'm just annoyed that they don't think about other people's financial constraints. That doesn't make them bad people. They're actually quite lovely. But for some people, it's easy to forget about money matters when money comes easy. My students are a fine example. (If you're a student of mine who's reading this - you fall in this category! I only have students from Sri KDU which is a PRIVATE school!! :þ Hehehe.)

What a mood to start the new year in.

Goodbye 2005... Hello 2006

2005-12-31T21:41:00.000+08:00

So another year has come and gone. My, my, how time has flown! To end this year, I'd like to make a list of my hits and misses...

Career

Yessirree... I changed jobs again this year, to a whole new field. Was in IT for a good 3 years, and made the leap to education. Totally hated what I was doing and was really wondering what to do, when a friend suggested I try for her son's private school. Am teaching high school Physics, and the very first week I was there, I was burdened by exam papers to mark... Workload complaints aside, for the first time I really enjoyed my job and have never found anything so enriching. Of course I still have a lot more to learn (and I am not talking only about rereading my favourite Science subject)... such as better teaching methods and how to deal with teenagers. Fortunately I don't have a problem getting through to most of them as I'm quite close to them age-wise.

Career satisfaction (out of 10): 6 (for the whole year. The first half-year still has to be counted. It's an average of 3+9)

Dancing

Hmm... this is a rather depressing. This entire year was very bad for me. Up to last year I always made it to the finals of every comp I go into; this time I can't even sniff finals, the closest I got was semi-finals. And I only participated in one team event, and we didn't do well either. It's not a question of the lack of practice; I think I put in more hours than most do. I think I expected too much from myself this year and tried to push myself too hard that whatever I tried failed. Learnt a lot along the way about my own weaknesses and how to deal with them. Painful falls, but I hope to learn more.

Skills (out of 10): 8 (coach says my skills have actually improved tremendously, and my learning curve is much faster now)

Progress in the field (out of 10): -5 (yup... it's a negative! I have transgressed as I did very well in 2004)

Relationships

Hah! That's another one. A few guys tried to ask me out this year but they're all screwed-up cases. There was this engineer who, after one dinner date with him, started calling me and SMSing every day as if I was his girlfriend already and even got angry that I didn't call him upon my return from a work trip to Bangkok. I was like, HELLO, I've only gone out with you ONCE! And actually, after that dinner, I swore never to see him again because he was dreadfully boring. And then there was this guy who hasn't got a clue on how to woo a girl although he supposedly had a few girlfriends before. That's the main stuff, the other minor ones that happened throughout the year are not even worth mentioning.

Scale (out of 10): 2 (the experiences aren't great, but hey, at least I got to go out)

Music

Argh! Another depressing story. I used to pass every electone exam with a distinction, but this time when I went in, the moment I hit the keyboards, I knew I screwed up. It was mostly nerves. And probably underpreparation, even though I practised so hard the previous weeks. I was just not prepared for the exam, which was quite tough. I laid off the electone after the exam. I haven't touched it in 6 months. I still like music very much, but I just don't want to do it academically for a while until I feel ready again.

Scale (out of 10): 3 (I still enjoy it. All I did was screw up the exam)

Friendships

Ooh! My best friend has come back from Penang this year so we got to catch up on quite a bit. We go for supper once in a purple moon whenever he comes back (or when I came back for the hols when I was studying in Johor) to catch up. This time he's working in KL so now we can meet up more often. He's definitely one of those I can confide in without fear of judgement.

Also, have been getting closer to another wonderful friend's family. I've known this wonderful lady for two years but she has done so much for me, in terms of support, love, friendship, and advice. Her kids are also beautiful treasures who have accepted me as a firm friend to the point of being family. She's another one whom I can talk to about anything and I know I can rely on her sound advice.

Managed to catch up with a number of school friends too, through friends' weddings and baby showers, some of whom I barely spoke to when in school but now we meet up quite a bit. Great guys who celebrated my birthday with me. One of them even got me a memorable gift - a photo of us 10 years ago when we first got to know each other on a school trip.

On the downside, I hadn't been all that nice to someone who cares a lot for me. I must say that it was mainly my fault and I'm not going to delve into this too much. However I shall say that things are on the mend and I'm going to make up for it.

Overall scale (out of 10): 8

That brings to a total of.... 22 out of 50. This has been a below-average year! Yech. I hope next year's a lot better.

At least I have one additional highlight. I PASSED THE RADIATION PROTECTION FOR OFFICERS EXAMINATIONS! WOO HOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Got to end this properly, right? We've always got to count our blessings. Hmm, where shall I begin...?

I'm thankful for the privileges I have in life; that my parents managed to rise to a level of comfort and have always provided whatever I needed. I'm thankful that they brought me up well to be a good person, and to be independent ("I don't need no man to finance my life!"). I'm thankful that they have provided well in terms of home, education, and even beyond the basic necessities. These privileges have given me a good headstart in life and I wouldn't get to where I am (which isn't really very high at the moment, though) now otherwise.
I'm thankful that I have five working senses (I don't have 20/20 vision, but at least I can see) to enjoy my life. I'm thankful that I was born intelligent (well, not a genius... but I'm definitely above average. Yes, I'm blowing my own trumpet. Haha!) and that my brain learns quickly (did I say I passed the exam for Radiation Protection Officers?). I'm thankful that I have four functioning limbs which enables me to dance and play the electone. And that no matter how imperfect my body, I'm still better off than a lot of other people (at least I've got CURVES, babe!).
I'm thankful for my family and friends who have been very supportive of me no matter how I screw up. I know who my true friends are!
I'm thankful that the country I was born and bred in, in spite of its silly politics and downhill economics, is a still relatively comfortable place to be in, and it's peaceful. Here's to racial harmony! Oooh... and that we haven't been struck with any super-major disasters except for the tsunami last year, but we were nowhere near as badly hit as Sumatra, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

I think that's enough for now.

Well... here's to 2006!

Here's an end to 2005...

2005-12-30T23:25:00.000+08:00

Today was not all that great a day. It started with my school's orientation
for the new students and the PMR students-going-into-Secondary 4. Oh,
nothing went wrong with the orientation (for me, at least). It's just that
it started with my spilling Milo over my library books (shhhh!!!! Don't tell
the librarians that), and then I lost a cup cover down the drain. It's not
just any cup cover - it's a cover for one of my tea thermos. OK, it's not
actually a thermos, it just about keeps the tea hot for half an hour, and
the cover doesn't actually work. Still....

However, had a bit of excellent news to make up for it... I went for a
radioactivity course last month which was over 2 weeks, ending in an exam.
Passing the exam gives me the right to be a Radiation Protection Officer.
The passing rate is usually quite low, and the exam was quite difficult. I
have somehow lost the ability to "mug" for an exam - I guess it's because
it's been many years since I last studied for an exam. I studied only about
4-5 hours for the paper. And... guess what, the part I didn't study CAME OUT
IN THE PAPER. The part I studied did NOT come out! I had to B.S. my way
through... thank goodness I paid attention during the lectures.

Passing grade is quite high: 70% average for Papers 1 & 2, with a minimum of
60% each; and 70% for Paper 3. I was very confident of Papers 1 & 3, but
Paper 2 was a killer and I worried that I wouldn't get the 60% minimum even
if Paper 1 could bring up the average to above 70%. The results were
supposed to be out weeks after the exam, but there was no news for one
month, even when I used the online checking system. Finally today one of the
guys who went for the same course SMSed me asking my results; so I checked
online again... and .... I PASSED!!!!

Wooo hooooo!!!!! A great end to my year.

Not that quiet Christmas after all

2005-12-24T23:29:00.000+08:00

I thought I would have a very quiet Christmas, albeit better than last year... I slept off the entire Christmas weekend last year as I was very sick from fever and cough, and it took about 2-3 weeks just to get better. This year I'm pretty much healthier, but I thought Christmas would past by quietly. I don't really celebrate Christmas as my family aren't Christians, although I occasionally do exchange gifts with friends.

However celebrations came in the form of lunch and dinner with very close friends. On Friday, I had lunch with 2 of my best friends and the family of one of them, including her husband, kids, and mother. I've become a family friend for her, and it's a really wonderful thing for me, because I'm not really used to "family friends" (in my family, we don't really have any). Her three kids are some of the most loving children I've ever met, and what strikes me the most is her youngest. The older two are very loveable as well, but they are more outgoing and have no problems talking to their mother's friends whom they've met for the first time; but the youngest has always been very shy. I remember in the past year whenever I met him, it would take at least one hour for him to get warmed up to me. Although he has met me several times before, he'd still stay away from me, no matter how many times he's cuddled up with me before. Now (perhaps because he's older and not so shy) he 'knows' me the moment I arrive and without undue hesitation he'd climb into my lap. He even considers me as family and in reply to my protest (in jest) that there's no room in his house for me, he said that there's a room they can open just for me.

Then Christmas eve, another dance kaki whom I haven't met for a while called a few of us to her friend's brand-new restaurant to be opened on Boxing Day for food-tasting. The restaurant called Big Boy, is in USJ Taipan, and the food is excellent. Except for some weird-tasting pizzas. But the dessert was very good - flourless chocolate cake with ice-cream. Yum yum yum.

Oh, we didn't do anything crazy or noisy during the lunch or dinner, so it was still a rather quiet Christmas. But it was definitely not uneventful. I like this type of Christmas. Good food with good company, what's there not to like?

1st Perak International Dancesport

2005-12-19T13:48:00.000+08:00

I went to Ipoh on a one-day trip yesterday with a friend to watch the 1st Perak International Dancesport which has four different categories of dance: latin, ballroom (standard), line dance and hip hop. The hip hop section alone was worth it... there's a team of four boys called D'Artiz whom we have seen in the past few competitions, whose dancing is SOOO good that they've set a very high level of hip hop which I think no other can reach, at the moment. In fact, they did something really novel yesterday. Aside from the hip hop individual and team open events, they also took part in the Professional Hip Hop Team Showcase event. The difference between this event and the team open event is that they get to use their own piece of music whereas in the team open event, the teams have to use a preselected song chosen by the organiser. They didn't use an existing piece of music, they SANG their own song (although it was chiplaked from other songs... i.e. they took other songs and modified the lyrics a little) in Hokkien. The quality of the recording wasn't great, but their moves were. The song - a medley - basically introduced themselves (you'll hear the words D'Artiz from time to time) as a team and also individually, and questioned whether the people who do hip hop nowadays really know what hip hop is. Of course, they won...

And I saw a few girls who had been winning the line dance individual events the whole of this year participate in the hip hop individual events, and also made it to the finals in this one. I don't know if they won, because I left before prize-giving (the competition was running late; it was supposed to end by midnight, but by 12 the ballroom section still had not even started. And we had a 2-hour drive back home). I'm not their fan... I'm only mentioning this out of jealousy. Hehehe. Well, my time will come...

Oh, and more observations. People who are good at latin are not necessarily good at line dance. While line dance is seen as a "lower" level of dancing compared to latin and ballroom, the standards of line dance has increased tremendously in just 1-2 years, and comprises many different styles, including rise & fall (waltz), cuban, smooth, lilt, funky, and novelty. If the style of line dance happens to be similar to latin, the latin dancers obviously have the upper hand; but watching them do funky is like watching a tennis ball thinking it can do the job better than a pingpong ball in a table tennis game. It's just... something you cringe at.

Lessons learnt during one "family day"

2005-12-17T17:11:00.000+08:00

Haaa!!! I've finally got some time to sit here and type some pent-up thoughts.

The past Sunday was the culmination of some observations, as I was involved in a performance for a "family day" of sorts for an MNC. I've learnt that...

... dancers aren't very important to your corporate organisation, even you have planned the events around the dance performances.

... you can tell your performers to come early in the morning and wait for 2 hours before the event starts, and not to worry because you will provide breakfast for them, but you don't really have to keep that promise and after they have arrived, you can tell them to go outside and buy their own breakfast.*

... it's OK to keep your crew and performers (inclusive of dancers and clowns) hungry, long after the public has been fed. And since they're all in the same area, just dump all the food in one area and let them fight among themselves for what little food you've provided. Anyway, it's not like you're providing that little, you are providing second and third rounds. It's not your fault if there is a long delay after the first round.

... you can contract freelance performers, pay them a pitiful amount, give them about one month's notice, make last-minute changes, and expect them to do just as well as international performers who do this for a living.

... you can have many "dance" competitions in the same event. First, blindfold the participants and get them to boogie like mad chickens (The whole idea of a blindfold is to keep them from recognising people who might recognise them). Nevermind that you've already told your performers to hold a mini-dance competition. Since they're coming on second, it makes them look bad that they're having a similar contest.

... the emcee/deejay can come to the event late, even if it's just a one-day event. Don't worry, there will be someone there to fill in for you. The show still must go on, it doesn't matter who starts it.

... 100 people (by pre-registration only) are enough to have a carnival for. It doesn't have to be a very exciting one, just put a few games up under the tents, and get some dancers and clowns to keep them entertained. You can charge per head including the kids... and they'd still pay!

This is arguably one of the worst events I've performed for, what more for an MNC, and as a performer, one of the worst treatments I've received. For the latter, I can't help wondering if it's because we didn't have a very strong and experienced leader though. I'm not saying that we've had a bad leader, but leadership does come with experience. For most of my previous performances, I was with my dance team who was under the management and de facto leadership of my coach who has had more than 18 years' experience as a dancer, teacher, and performer. It is definitely the responsibility of the organiser who contracted the performers to take care of them, and to make sure they are informed about the events and that they are at least fed as promised; but few people know what it's like to be a performer - they think that dancers can perform on the spot (without warming up/without food/straightaway after food/etc). Then the responsibility lies on us to educate them about what we performers need or want so that they are aware of our requirements. Otherwise they're going to roll into one event after another year after year, staying the @$$holes that they are, none the wiser.

Why didn't I step in and plead our cause? Because I'm not the leader here, and I don't want to cut in on someone else's position. ........ OK, OK, I'm also not very experienced. But I'm learning all the time.

* Fortunately our breakfast was paid for by them. It's still a cause for grouse though.

Sun behind my dark clouds

2005-11-21T21:00:00.000+08:00

Was feeling very low yesterday. Won't say too much, but to cut a long story
short, something I anticipated happened the way I thought it would even
though I was hoping the outcome would be a more positive one. That's life
for you. You sometimes expect the worst and try to prepare mentally for it,
but when it happens, you're still not as prepared as you thought you were.

On the way to Bangi this morning, for the first time I met a very friendly
toll operator who greeted me with a bright, "Apa khabar?" I was so
surprised I nearly forgot how to reply in BM but I recovered very quickly
with "Khabar baik" and I enquired after him too. I usually smile at
all the toll operators and say thank you when the transaction is over, but
this is the first time a toll operator has preempted me. That's a great way
to perk someone's day up.

Then received an SMS from my mentor about the aforesaid incident which made
me feel loads better. I had done the best that I could, and what happened
was not completely within my control. I can smile now. :)

Syed Abu in Sunway Mas - never going back there again!!

2005-10-19T01:01:00.000+08:00

I went for supper with a couple of my friends just now at Syed Abu in Sunway Mas, and we're never going back there again. The service is terrible, the food isn't good, and they tried to con us with the prices. Things listed in the menu were apparently not available; my friend wanted to try something unusual listed in their menu - roti canai nanas - and was told that they only have roti canai pisang and roti canai jagung; they didn't have the other unusual stuff like roti canai durian although it was listed.

Never mind. She changed to jagung (which was very bland). Then I ordered nasi goreng ikan masin. Not unusual, right? Surprise, surprise, out of the many types of fried rice there (more than 10 in their menu), they only had 3-4 varieties available. He tried to suggest nasi goreng USA but when I asked what it contained, he mumbled a whole lot of gibberish. He didn't know either, did he.

So I ordered nasi goreng ayam which turned out very dry. After eating, when we wanted to pay, we found a lot of prices inconsistent in his written bill. For example, in the menu, the listed price for fried rice with chicken is RM4.50 but he charged me RM5.30; the roti canai jagung came out to RM1.50 instead of RM1.40; and the roti telur bawang as RM1.60 instead of RM1.50. He made the change in the bill for roti canai jagung but for the fried rice, he argued that the chicken given was bigger so it was more expensive; they had no small chicken pieces he said. Then you should have told us, we shot back. You can't just give it to us without telling us. He finally agreed to reduce the price to RM5.00. Then for the the roti telur bawang, he said the menu price is wrong, it should be RM1.60. My friend was quite mad; she said that they had to follow the menu price, and that if they insisted on changing the prices on their whim, she can actually make a police report. It was only with reluctance that he followed the price in the menu.

I swear, we're never going back there again.

Bad week...

2005-10-12T08:23:00.000+08:00

Haven't been having a good week. It started with my videocamera; last
week I found a consistent error message on my CCD E:61:00, although I
didn't know it was an error message until I called up the tech support.
Had to send it in to the Sony Service Centre (fortunately it's not that
far from my house) and when I dug out the warranty, I found that the
warranty only covers labour charges up to 90 days, although parts, if
need to be replaced, are covered for a year.

Then my car overheated twice in three days which kept me topping its
water up. Remembering my father's reaction to the last time the car was
not working, I took it to the car service centre myself where they found
the water pump leaking (funny, my dad just repaired it a few months
back), so I had to get it changed.

And yesterday, when I wore my contact lenses, I found the left lens
irritating my eye and I had to take it out a few times to give it a good
rinse. And... it tore in my hands. It must have been already starting to
tear which was why it irritated my eye. It's only a disposable (phew!)
but it wasn't reaching the end of the month yet. Anyway, I was in school
when this happened and as I stared at the lens, all I could think of
was, "OK, I have class in half an hour, after which I have another
class... WHEN CAN I GO HOME TO GET MY GLASSES?!?!?!?!" To walk around
half-blind for a few hours is not a very comfortable idea, and it's very
disconcerting to have unfocused vision, with one eye seeing clearly and
the other not. I did manage to get a half-hour break after my first
one-hour class, during which I rushed home. I was already beginning to
get a headache from the odd vision.

I hope nothing else happens...

I end this entry with an excerpt from a song that fits my mood at the moment:

BAD DAY
Daniel Powter

Well you need a blue sky holiday
The point is they laugh at what you say
And I don't need no carryin' on

You had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don't lie
You're coming back down and you really don't mind
You had a bad day

Sometimes the system goes on the blink
And the whole thing turns out wrong
You might not make it back and you know
That you could be well oh that strong
And I'm not wrong

Where's their integrity?

2005-10-07T09:54:00.000+08:00

I'm quite disgusted. I was at a competition a few weeks back (I won't
mention names here) organized by quite a big company, and while we were
waiting for results, the organizers showed the audience clips of videos
taken from the competition the year before. In that year, my team were
the champions of our category. I watched the entire sequence, which
showed all the different individuals competing in the individual events
(nudged my friend, "Hey, that's you!" and a short while later, it
became, "Hey, that's me!), and then the champion teams in their own
categories. Surprise, surprise... my team was completely neglected. It
was as if my team had never been there in the first place, dancing our
butts out to vie for first place.

I suppose it had been silly of me to expect it, given some political
clash which I'm not even involved in. But I'd have expected more from
such a big company.

I am in shock...

2005-09-29T12:01:00.000+08:00

I am in shock. I was right, although I hadn't really believed it. It
hasn't sunk in yet. I'm still in shock.

What the...

2005-09-28T08:44:00.000+08:00

I heard a pretty stupid radio ad today. Actually, there are plenty of stupid radio ads, but I heard this for the first time today.

I can't remember it word for word, but it went something like:

"Honey, help me do this IQ test. Where is Malaysia's premier shopping haven?"
"Definitely Seremban 2!"
yadda yadda
"Let's go there now!"

I didn't know IQ tests included knowledge of where a supposed shopping haven is. When I heard it, I was like... wtf???

Don't tell me what to do

2005-09-28T08:19:00.000+08:00

I don't like people telling me what to do. I don't mean at work. Of course people will be telling me what to do all the time at work; that's part and parcel of the job. Sometimes it's a necessity.

I'm talking about outside the office; people trying to tell me what to do with my life. If I wanted your advice, I'd have asked you, thank you very much.

I'm quite frustrated at the moment because someone had overridden what I wanted. I'm not going to go into specifics here, but I was supposed to receive something from another person; and that person overrode it and I received it in a different form. I will admit that the person did mean well when the change was made, but now it's upset what I had planned.

Plus, I don't like people telling me what to do. OK, this doesn't technically count as being told what to do; but it falls broadly into that category because it's as if I'm being told that this is a better option for me; without asking me first.

If I wanted your advice, I'd have asked you, thank you very much. And there are very few people whom I trust for good advice, and if you don't hear me asking you, you're not one of them.

Haze!!!

2005-08-10T12:52:00.000+08:00

The haze is getting worse. In the morning it's bad, but it gets progressively worse as the hours tick by and by nightfall it's very dense. It always seems to let up by morning, I'm assuming it's because of dew.

Almost all the primary school students are now walking around with face masks. I don't see the secondary school students doing the same though - I assume it's because they think it isn't cool. My own mom scoffed when I suggested wearing a face mask - I bought some yesterday - but then, she works in an air-conditioned building. While I'm lucky enough that my school is air-conditioned, the hallways aren't and the smog still permeates the rooms. There's a heavy smell of smoke tickling throats and noses and asthmatics are using their inhalers a lot more frequently.

I shall take a picture later today - if I remember to - and post it here. This is the worst haze I've ever experienced.

Oops...

2005-08-04T21:22:00.000+08:00

I accidentally hit the back of a student's head with a door today. I was at one of my naughtiest classes where the students love to disappear from the room before I come in. One girl was leaning against the open door talking to her friends from another class and ignoring my orders to go into the classroom. So I began to close the door to nudge her in. I think what happened was she resisted the door when it suddenly slipped and hit the back of her head. The worst thing is, it was in front of a bunch of students and two teachers who had chosen to come to speak to me at that moment! She was groaning in pain and I was rubbing her head and I kept telling her to go to the infirmary to get something for it. At first she didn't but finally she did.

She went around telling everyone what happened and was even shouting it out loudly when I was leaving the school after hours, and kept saying that she will hold it against me (she's said that many times in the past when I've been pretty sarcastic, so I'm rather immune to that, really). All I said was that she wasn't loud enough. She added that I've caused her brain damage, and my sarcastic reply was ... err ... mean. Well, I'm known for my evil sarcasm... now I'm going to be known as the one who hits students on the head with a door.

Wisdom in its teething stage

2005-07-24T22:16:00.000+08:00

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!

2005-07-20T17:56:00.000+08:00

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

2005-07-18T01:33:00.000+08:00

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!

2005-07-18T01:12:00.000+08:00

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

2005-07-10T23:37:00.000+08:00

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...

2005-07-10T20:42:00.000+08:00

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!

2005-07-09T04:58:00.000+08:00

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!

2005-07-07T16:32:00.000+08:00

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 ;)

It's finally over... at least, i hope it is

2005-05-14T21:10:00.000+08:00

After being under SMS siege for two weeks, it's finally over. My God, has it only been two weeks? It ended with an email explaining his actions and apparently to request for clarification, although I can read in every line that he's implying it's my fault; that it's my fault, for the silence on my part, for ignoring his SMSes and calls. You'd think one would be smart enough to get the hint, but noooo.

I wrote back, my email laced with sarcasm, but with enough honesty to express my annoyance and to get my point across. I told him that it was incorrect of him to say that the "relationship ended on a sour, bad note" when there was no relationship to begin with; I told him that you don't bombard a friend you've just met with SMSes and it was totally the wrong way to go after a girl; and I certainly did not expect to have to report to him on my return from an overseas work-related trip. The emails contain much more, but I think this will suffice to cure your curiousity for now.

I have received a genial reply from him, trying to make everything end on a "sweet" note. I didn't bother to reply that one. No point dragging the whole issue out unnecessarily longer than it already is.

I know I'm not too clear about the whole thing, but I have clearly documented and chronicled the entire case which I might someday display here. I might, I might not. You'll have to wait and see. It is enough I think, for now, to say that it's a guy I had only met twice in my entire life (including that one dinner which he thinks is my commitment-binding contract to him; the first being a work-related appointment at the company he works in) and I hope to never meet again. The two weeks of SMSes contained personal questions with regards to my age and my home address; SMSes asking if I was angry about the numerous SMes received; asking why I don't reply; etc. I go out for one dinner and suddenly he thinks I'm his girlfriend. To reject him nicely - and for good - on a friend's suggestion I concocted some story about my ex being back in town and he then asked me to choose between him and my ex. I mean, who does he think he is?? He sent me a rather unpleasant SMS saying that that's the end of it (end of what? We had nothing going on in the first place), but that was followed closely by the emails.

A friend said that "he is obviously in love" with me - obsessed is the more correct term to use, really. Another called him "psychotically possessive". I shudder to think what his (future) girlfriend(s)/wife (if any) would be put through. He might be a nice person, but this whole episode certainly does not put him in a good light. I personally want nothing more to do with him.

I've learnt my lesson (that is, to never go out with pyschotically possessive men who are obsessively in love with me). I hope he has learnt his.