Saturday, March 24, 2007

At the very least, the night did not forsake me

It's a sat night, and I'm here blogging in front of the laptop. The outing to don's house for england against israel was cancelled due to the poor attendance. So it's just me, the laptop, the thunder and lightning outside the small window and the radio on 100.3 with smooth jazz music to keep me company for tonight.
Watched TMNT on friday, and yes it isn't the best movie by far, but like I always say, watching it is a celebration of the fact that you have a childhood. Loved the way they managed to combine the grittiness of the comic with the slapstick humor of the cartoon. There were some killer lines in the movie that prompted many guffaws from the audience.
Today I went for a combined birthday party of 3 of my JC classmates, held in SMU students' lounge. It was fun and nice, had 3 groups of people to talk to, fencers, 4D and 3E. Was the one of the earliest to arrive and latest to leave, thanks to the fact I live about 15 mins walk away. Spent a nice afternoon there, talking cock with good friends.
So much weird stuff in my life. 1 of my friends is going for a matchmaking session next week. I thought he was kidding, but turns out he was deadly serious. Met my old econs tutor on the train home and she claimed I was very "naughty" during my JC times. I spend quite a bit of time gossiping with my former chinese teacher in the staff lounge. And my Japanese teacher thinks that I practically live in Suntec as her favourite question for the monday class is "what did you do yesterday?" in Japanese and I have been answering for the last few weeks either "travel fair" or "IT fair". Interestingly my Japanese class has been reduced to only 2 guys in it, 1 of them which is me. And it's going to be further reduced as the other guy is going to enlist soon.
I'm practically falling asleep on my chair. At the end of the day, when it's dark and quiet, I'm glad for the fact that the night will never forsake me. I know it'll always be there for me even during the darkest of times. I think I'll heed my body's insistence for rest soon. Sleep is the best balm for any kind of emotional malady, that I've long realised.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Polemic

My life is eerily like army. Everyday I book in by signing a book, spend my time alternating between being busy or acting busy, sneaking in a few personal activities in between, finally clocking up the required hours before having to leave in the most stealthy manner. And of course you have to sign out before you leave. Once I get home I inevitably go take a nap before dinner. It's fast becoming a bad habit and screws up my bio clock.
Oh and after the Boro game when Ronaldo won the penalty that decided the game, he used the word "polemic" in the post match interview and had me scrabbling for dictionary.com.
While in the staffroom today, I was chatting with a teacher with my colleagues. She was asking about what happened to the personalities of our batch, and she proceeded to take out a file with all the class lists of the classes she used to teach, which dated back to 1997. In the 1997 file pocket, there was a namecard. She said that this student came back recently and gave her his namecard. Written on it was "Phd MIT".
That really got me thinking. I really want to be able to bring back a namecard and it would be something impressive as well. Not for vanity, it's more for a validation that yes, I did well.
However, I went to my former form teacher and asked her, "Ma'am, Mrs XXX kept classlists of all her students and still remembers most of them. So, what's my name?"
She couldn't answer me.
Well, at least it's an improvement. The first time she saw me when I came for relief, she confidently called me Zhi En.
Anyway, I would like to just air some views about my alma mater. Thinking back, I think the best and the most carefree times were in sec school where my class just fooled around. I kind of regret not making the most of my time then. Now that I'm a teacher there, I see a lot of things happening behind the scenes and realised that a lot of perceptions was wrong. I used to detest chinese, but now I think chinese is a very important subject and would always find the opportunity to use it (hence my various conversations with my former chinese teacher); I would complain about going to school, but now I'd love to go back in school; I would fret unnecessarily about results and compare them with peers and get jealous, now I realise it's so pointless as long you do well in the end for the major exams to get to where you want to go.
I guess these sentiments are a result of growing up. I get if-only-i-knew-then-what-I-know-now moments a lot, but yeah life goes on and I've to just get over it. So just a friendly word of advice from someone who has gone through it before, enjoy your school life. Don't be so eager to get out of school as once you do, there ain't no way back there. Unless you become a teacher that is.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

The Mascaron Drive

Another one of my late night rambling again.
Teaching is fun, but definitely don't see it as a potential career for me. I think the novelty of teaching wears off after 2 days, and I got 2.5 weeks more of it to go through. Not to say I don't like it, but it's rather stressful to prepare for lessons and get sent around in circles by the incessant and weird questions the sec1s can come up with. Challenging and somewhat amusing if you ask me.
Also, it allows me a look on the "other" side in my old school. I got a kick out of sitting by the side on the chairs during assembly today. Was speaking to my old chinese teacher today, she was lamenting that the chinese standard is quite bad nowadays, so much so my standard of mandarin which is quite condemned is considered quite good! Things have really changed much when I was in sec school, the facade, the subjects taught, the teachers etc. I don't really remember being like my students when I was their age though, and I'm like only a few years older than them! No wonder my chinese teacher said it's getting harder to connect to students nowadays.
On a home side, finally set up the home network system. So I'm actually blogging using my new laptop in my room. No more fighting over between us 4 siblings on who gets to use the only internet enabled computer in the study room.
Played basketball on saturday with a pathetic 4 people. Good thing I warmed up and cooled down thus I didn't get any aches or muscle strains.
There's still a whole tonne of stuff that require my attention, all listed very compulsively in my blue notebook, all waiting to be struck off with some satisfaction. It's probably the late night syndrome again, as I feel this compelling need to speak to someone. Oh well, one way to deal with that is to just sleep it off, which is what I'm going to do now.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Cause celebre

No work for the next 4 days till friday as it is the school holidays. Am savouring the break, but reminding myself to make good use of it. Things have really piled up and there are a lot of stuff that require my attention.
Was a bit apprehensive about going to work on sat, as it was all the way in the west at an ungodly hour. Good thing I managed to secure the car, otherwise the journey will be very intolerable, especially since I slept precious little the night before thanks to the adrenaline and testoterone 300 worked up in me. But in the end it was rather fun to be there training, the students were the most obedient and receptive bunch I've gotten, probably because they're the incoming captains and student councillors. But as they were undergoing a boot camp of sorts, they were pretty militant in their style, as evidenced when one girl said "All pens on the right hand side of table tip pointing forward, water bottles under table on the right side as well". I thought this would kill their spotaneity, but after a slow start they came good.
Went for barney's birthday party about an hour early as I came from work. Just talked cock with the 4D people, met a long lost pri school friend who happened to be barny's friend as well. Been seeing my old pri school classmates lately, on friday one of the sales promoter at the IT fair was my good friend in pri school. Ended up buying a laptop from him when I went back on sunday.
Yet again I'm unwilling to turn in for bed. Don't know why I always display such self destructive tendencies. Maybe I love the night a bit too much. After all, in the quiet of the night, the only voice you hear is yours and yours only.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Joie de vivre

For the benefit of those who don't know, for the past 3 days I have been reliefing in my old secondary school. It's fun to go back to my old stomping with an elevated status, but the education business is no joke and there are many quirky things that occur. These include sec 1s asking me weird but yet logical questions that are very hard to give a proper answer to, sec 1s asking me to explain a concept he found out on the net which I have never heard before in my life, sec 3s claiming to prefer route-learning, the very fun relief teacher gang who come together to talk cock or visit each other at our cubicles to have lunch together, the laptop and all the benefits that come from it, the students calling me "Sir", meeting my old teachers, like my old chinese teacher whose first words were to make fun of my hopeless mandarin, bestriding those nostalgic hallowed halls of education from my past. And in the space of 3 days, I was almost late thanks to champions league football, only came in right on time for assembly, witnessed a car breakdown and almost lost my voice.
Was out with nick, fab and don for the IT fair after relief today, went to scout around for laptops, but was rather tired and irritable so wasn't really able to concentrate. Also am frustrated by the great variety of choices which decision making a real headache. And also, **** that cock sony ps3 promoter, didn't give me a brochure when I asked for it, even though he clearly had some more if he had bothered to ask his colleague. In the end, I got one from the counter less than 10 paces away. And when I went to get it, the cockster came over to where I got the brochure to talk cock to his colleague. Wanker. Was damn pissed.
Went to watch 300 with the guys. It was the ultimate manly movie, with only 1 prominent female in the show, and the sight of tanned sculpted bodies with ads of steel on screen more than half the time. The gore was sometimes unnecessary and off-putting, but overall it was nice, and it inspired the manliness in us.
During dinner, mog was making random manly jokes and punctuating his sentences with stuff like "that's not what a true Spartan will do", and as usual we started to talk lots of random cock.
I just realised it's these simple times, sitting at carl's jr eating and cracking silly jokes that I'll really miss when I go over. As the clock slowly but surely ticks down to the day of my eventual and inevitable departure, I find myself wanting to savour and cherish every moment of happiness. Sometimes I get bogged down by work that I forget that I should allow myself to enjoy life now as I'll get lesser chances to do so in the next few years.
Sorry for being a bit pensive, not that I'm sian or anything, just a little tired and that's when my mind goes all zonky. But I know for sure that I'll miss genuine good company whom I know will cover my back, shield and spear ready against the trials of the big bad world.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Knackered

"Know the dark and the light to walk the grey.
But when you walk the grey for too long, you know not what is dark or light anymore."

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Homecoming

It's been a rather strange week. It's like someone up there read my subconsciousness and resolved to give me stuff that is close to what I desire yet not quite as similar as what I really want.
Was chatting with yangqi on sun at liang court macs about the good old times in RJ, like how we missed the old campus especially. Then lo and behold, I receive a sms on mon morning, telling me that the venue for today's assignment was switched to mt sinai, where the school I was supposed to go for work has taken over the old RJ campus. Was very excited to be back there. There were many changes, although the main facade did not get altered much. All that was once green, like the doors or railings were not painted sky blue, LT1 no longer has the extra chairs on the sides, but it still has those rickety green chairs cum folding table, the field is very condemned, with bare patches everywhere, LT 2.5 was paved over, thus no more paint stains, the library (which I spent most of my time there as it was where I had my workshop) had its layout changed, the back rooms where we once took econs s papers in are now sealed off and converted to classrooms. They still retained the magazine shelves though, and I found a copy of Outlook amongst the Time and Newsweek magazines. Didn't get to stay too long though, as I had to rush off immediately when we ended, but will be back next week so will definately go and take a longer and harder look at how the place has changed.
Thursday brought me to Jalan Batera (sp?) adventure camp, site of the Singapore jamboree 6 years ago. I remember how it rained almost everyday and I felt extremely lousy throughout the camp. It was raining heavily on thurs as well, so my students did the indoor rock wall first. I then spied upon students wearing the iconic PE shirt of my former JC. Then I saw my old PE teacher, which strangely enough yangqi and I were discussing on sun. Talked to him for a while, found out those students were J1s going through a class adventure camp. Also saw one of my chem lecturers, but he wasn't my tutor so didn't talk to him. Those from my batch, you would rmb him as the guy who twitches his head frequently.
These incidents helped to make a busy week memorable. Went dragon boating, rock climbing and high elements with my students. Working with so many students, each of them having very unique problems, it always leads me to think, how did we end up the way we did? How did we learn to stiop being playful and study hard for exams? How did we realise that only by doing well for our exams will we have a better future? How did we realise that fighting is the wrong way to do things? How did we become well-adjusted and dare I say it, normal individuals? My job is to equip my students with lifeskills, but when I was in school I sure didn't have these workshops. So how did I, and most of my peers, become who we are?
I realise that myself and my colleagues, despite we teaching our students lifeskills, sometimes we ourselves are flawed indivuduals as well. Yet flawed as we are, we managed to be well adjusted enough to deal with life. I guess we just grew up to become flawed adults, but with the sense to hide these flaws from sight.
Still, I feel happy when the students I try to reach out talk to me and say that they want to work hard and be the best they can be. It sure does help to brighten my day. I believe in helping people the practical way, and I must say I enjoy my job. Sure there are times when I feel disappointed when I try my best but the student just won't listen, but I know I can't save everyone, as long as those who are willing to be helped help themselves, at least I'm safe in the knowledge that he or she will respond positively and live up to their potential.