Hello all!

If you’re stumbling across this for the first time – welcome!

If you’ve came across this blog for the first time – 歡迎！

If you know me personally, have fun reading this blog as it details my daily bits, as I recount the days that have went by me.

If you don’t know me personally, I welcome you to join in this lovely ride called Life.

Absence

This entire weekend + 2 days have been nightmarish – I really cannot wait for the weekend to come again so that I can properly rest, and recover from the happenings of the last weekend.

Have missed classes, have been absent from the virtual world for a while. Friends are bugging me to go online, yet I can’t spare the time.

My only consolation – the little lamb that my boyf just rescued from the florist shop at Ion Orchard – the cutesy lamb whom we name, Floppie. Today I placed Floppie next to the pile of unmarked work, and my dad commented that Floppie wants to mark the work for me.

Awww how cute.

Almost there..

I can almost see the end. Just, almost. Faintly, vaguely. If I were to wipe the mist off the windscreen, I can see it faintly waving to me, urging me to push forth and think happy thoughts. Think positive thoughts, think happy thoughts.

Focus on the positive, put the negative thoughts behind. That’s what I like to use to tell my EL class – focus on the positive, look at the negative with a critical eye and see where improvements can be made. If I can say that, I need to walk the talk too.

XXXXX

I’m supposed to be working, but here am I, blogging instead.

Today, one hefty load off my shoulders, and I must say, it went pretty well, with plenty help from my class. Thanks! (: You guys made me a happy person today, and you made my supervisor one happy lady too! I have just 3 more to go – 3 more to go! The end line is near, the sprint hastens, speeding towards the finishing line. Actually, just let me look forward to Friday first. Fridays are always nice, provided I get to knock off early and amble aimlessly without having a list of things-to-do floating about in the head.

3 + 5 + 4 = 12 more working days. And we continue to wait, and work in the meantime.

Some of the words my supervisor said to me, reminded me of why I love teaching in the first place. Along the journey of teaching, somehow somewhere I thought I had lost sight, lost sight of why I’m here and why I’m doing this in the first place. Negative thoughts clouded the mind, making it a nasty and unhappy place to reside in. Encouragements help, compliments even better.

Some teachers teach for the passion of the subject. I teach to see the smiles on my students, to see that enlightment when the lightbulb within them lights up. So I think I can safely say that it’s not the passion of the subject that fuels my motivation for teaching – it’s the students. That means I’m taking a huge risk – because this can go either way – students may really hate me and affect my teaching, or they like me for who I am and work with me for their goals in the academic route.

And we wonder.

Plenty to do, loads to mark. I should get back to planning my lessons for tomorrow – lest I get myself into a fix again, and we sure don’t want that, right?

蔡艾珈 – 不痛

Woke up to a very nice morning today, and sat in front of my computer, refreshed my Facebook home page.

Saw a friend share this particular video on his profile, and I was suddenly reminded that we had singers who went to take part in the PK match in Taiwan for 超級星光大道. Was extremely pleasantly surprised with this:

Nicely done, Singapore! This was from the show on 7th August, so it counts as a small birthday gift to our nation’s birthday, right? 🙂 I do know that Diya and Zhiyang went over as well, and my mum did manage to tell me that it had been mentioned in the recent papers that Diya didn’t manage to 踢舘成功, whereas Zhiyang and the other Singaporean who went on his/her own expenses managed to.

I wonder if they will continue to pk next week, or take the money and leave. 黃韻玲has shown interest in Zhiyang’s voice ever since they started reaching to overseas contestants – like in 星光3，where they brought Sugi and 黃靖倫 over, where Zhiyang auditioned and got through, but did not manage to defer from National Service in time for the competition. Thus, I’m glad to see him go over this time round to 踢舘, even though this time round the Singaporean singers don’t get to stay long in the competition and develop like the previous 星光.

In any case, I was really in awe of 艾珈’s singing. I followed Campus when it was broadcast on the network, but I think her style of singing has changed slightly since then. No matter what, good job done! Look out for 陶子’s response at the timing 1:05! Me thinks its hilarious. Hurhur.

Pixar.

We are growing up in the times when cartoons no longer mean, The Lion King or Mulan.

Instead, we have animation films, like Up, Wall-E, Ratatouille etc. Everyone agrees (well, everybody I know, at least) that Pixar films are classic – they are the animation films that stick by you for a extremely really long time. Plus, they make you feel really good.

I remember, Finding Nemo came out in 2003, and I was in junior college during that time. Finding Nemo got us all into a nemo-crazy period, when we would grab each other’s belongings and start saying, “Mo-ine, Mooo-ine.” You know, the really classic “mine” phrase that sounded part French. We still do that from time to time, at least RL and I do. It reminds me of the good old days when we get all gooey at really cute things.

Actually, I still do get really gooey and squeal-ly at cute things. My friends commented that I could not stop squealing at Remy the rat when we were watching Ratatouille. I squealed through Wall-E and nearly drove my friends up the wall. When I was watching Partly Cloudy (a short film that Pixar traditionally plays before every Pixar full length movie), I squealed at the sight of adorable babies, kittens and puppies. The boyfriend was really very amused.

You get the gist, don’t you.

My sister adores Toy Story, she can watch that over and over and over again. I can watch Ratatouille over and over and over and over and over again. That is the impact that Pixar has left on us, the storylines could be entirely out of the world, but because they are animation films, we go along for the amazing ride and we are never disappointed.

Warning: Stop reading, do not click – if you don’t want to read spoilers to the movie, Up

Sleepy.

Am trying my hardest not to fall asleep on the nice big couches at Orchard Central while waiting for Ling to be done with her appointment, so that we can go for lunch.

Like, lunch at probably 3pm. Am sooo sleepy. Not that hungry because I grabbed a bite before settling down to wait for her. There’s plenty of nice big red couches located on the first floor of Orchard Central, did you know?

Twitter is under attack apparently, its all sluggish and not updating. My Cupcake update is finally delivered to my G1, like finally, so I spent a good bulk of the battery life installing the Cupcake update and driving the remaining battery life all the way down to 2%. Hurray. Thankfully I brought the pink phone out, so old number is still in use – at least I won’t have to go around the whole of Orchard Road trying to find a payphone – that is if, payphones still exist in Orchard Road.

Am getting a little bored and twitchy, but I brought out the Toshiba today, so at least I still have internet access from my laptop as I wait out the time for RL and SY to be done with work, so that we can do the durian buffet which we have already reserved for! Ooooh sinfully delicious. Nice start to the long holidays, I’d say.

There is still no news from Ling. My hands are getting very itchy – am getting very tempted to walk over to Kino to just buy a book so that I can curl up on the big sofa, drink a hot strong cup of mocha at one of the cafes here, and while my time away, resting my brains.

Yawns. Extremely sleepy, but I cannot sleep here on the nice big couch. For one, super unglam. For two, super unglam. For three, if I’m unlucky I might meet students. For four, the security guard will come and wake me up, really damn unglam. I’ve already seen him walking around waking sleeping beauties up. I shall not sleep.

Mutters to self: I will not fall asleep in public. I will not.

Let the long weekend begin!

Well, almost anyway.

Tomorrow is just a half-day in school for almost everyone, and then we have the long weekend of National Day + 1.

The mood is pretty light amongst us, as we look forward to the long weekend ahead! Plenty of activities planned, which includes going to Jurong Hill Prawn Farm to go prawning. Though I never knew that there was a prawn farm on Jurong Hill though. I only knew it when my friend suggested going there to prawn. When I asked Ling if she wanted to join us, she said prawning will cause you to smell like fish, you won’t catch anything and it’s a bloody waste of time AND money.

O-kayy. Right.

I hope I don’t smell like fish after the prawning session. Sheesh.

Am hoping that we’ll be able to catch fireworks on Sunday, but the idea of the crazy crowds at the fireworks hotspot is insane. It turns me off bad.

Plus, I figured I should make this blog public, instead of just keeping it for blogging together with my English class students. So I posted it up on almost every social media platform I’m currently on. Now, this blog is getting more hits than I counted for, but it’s okay, everyone can join in the fun here (if you can find any fun, at least).

Now I’d wish my parents would come sooner, so that I can drive us to the ulu-ated corner that my mum decided on my dad’s birthday celebration. We always marvel at the coincidence of our birthdays – mine is on 8th June (08/06 – dd/mm), my dad’s birthday is on 6th August (06/08). I wonder if my mum planned it, or it was really that coincidental. Shrugs.

I’ve got marking to do, but I’ve decided to blog first, because I just felt like writing. I swear, blogging has helped me improve on my writing – because you think and you type (write). You try and organise your thoughts some times, but verbal diahorrea does happen, I admit.

Like how random and all over the place this entry is. 😉

Sudden urge to..

redesign my room.

Was flipping through the Ikea catalogue you see, and I was sooo tempted by the various designs they have. Was drooling all over it actually. I need to budget – earphones, DSLR, then redesign my room.

Perhaps, I can even rope in friends to help!

In the meantime – I should start marking. Hums.

Finally.

I wanted to talk about Saturday where I went out with the boyfriend to buy his birthday present (coming soon!) and we just spent the entire afternoon wandering around Bugis for his watch. But work caught up with me.

I wanted to talk about Sunday, where I spent the whole day doing nothing but work, planning lessons and coming up with materials – but I’d doubt if you want to know the inner workings of a teacher – so let’s skip that.

I wanted to talk about Monday, where school started on a new week and I got so caught up with work, it almost slipped my mind. Not to mention, I had badminton with thebestfriend in the evening, where we talked about each successful hit across the net earned us 1/4 of a fry. We always say really stupid (but absolutely fun) stuff when we’re around each other. Like, how I said once, after dinner when we were studying in NUS – that, RGS girls, when provoked, roar like a Merlion. To be honest, I meant lions, but I don’t know how Merlion came out of my mouth.

Nevermind me saying that, you’d probably be lost trying to understand what I’m saying.

Have been really uber tired the last few days, to the extent that I’ve been taking a cab to school every morning. It hurts the pocket, you know. However, try waking up at 515am in the morning everyday – it is just too damn friggin tiring – makes me want to get a car in preparation for next year. Sigh.

And, I’ve been checking out 3/5’s blogs (after painstakingly importing them into Bloglines) and I must say I’m pretty impressed with the progress that most people have made online! However, there are just those few stagnant non-existant blogs that I wonder, if it’ll ever get started. It’s not that difficult on my part to monitor the blogs – all thanks to RSS feeds. (:

I should climb into bed soon – if not I’d end up taking a cab to school tomorrow again, and I cannot spend anymore money on taxi rides. I need to save up for my earphones – I need to, because it’s gonna be a reward for myself. Question to self – universals, or customs? Hmms.

Weekends.

The weekend is always something that I look forward to, and yet hate.

The start of the weekend is always splendid – I look forward to spending time with friends, family and boyfriend. Saturdays are always magical, because it is always so fun, so enjoyable. However, as Saturdays come to a close and Sundays come, the energy level always drops. I’d sulk and sigh, looking at the mountain of work undone, and then hop into bed without giving it a second look, hoping that it will miraculously disappear by itself come Sunday morning.

However, when Sunday morning comes, it is not to be. The mountain of work stubbornly refuses to disappear, it is intent to make a indelible mark on my Sunday, thus making it a lousy one. Then come Monday, the week starts again.

Enough of looking on the down and gloomy side of today, I’m waiting for my phone to be charged before I can attempt to +50moodlet (think Sims 3!) to trying to do work on a Sunday morning by heading out to a Starbucks with work, mocha latte and belgian waffles in hand.

I’ve had a really good Friday night and Saturday so far!

It was the last day of teaching practice for some of our fellow colleagues on Friday, so we adjourned to the nearby NIE library for some farewell lunch, and one of them brought his baby along – googoogaga ahhh! Super cute. We could not stop making funny faces to his baby, and the married ladies could not stop talking about their babies. Talk about being the odd one out, me being unmarried with no babies! Hahaha.

Then I had to make my way all the way down to NUH to visit a friend, who is currently recovering and staying positive. I am very amazed that he can manage to stay positive in times like this, and am glad that he’s looking on the positive side, instead of focusing on the negative. I think if I were him, I would have been crying buckets of tears and thinking as though doomsday has come (and has not left). Was wondering if I would see my fellow batch of doctors around, but didn’t managed to catch any glimpse of them, anywhere. Left said friend’s bed when two others came in to visit him (the 2 visitors per bed is still in place at the hospitals!) to sit at the Kopitiam to wait for boyfriend to finish work so that we could grab dinner.

And that was Friday. (:

Am in a rush to get out of the house so that I can actively get work done – so let’s leave the recounting of Saturday till another time. In the meantime, I had better get some work done, if not, I’d be so screwed for this coming week.

Reduced Shakespeare Company – Hilarious!

In the Telling vs Showing way…

I am going to tell you that…

Ling and I had dinner yesterday at Ms Clarity’s. Then, we caught a comedy at the National Library Drama Centre yesterday, done by the Reduced Shakespeare Company yesterday and it was very funny!

However, I am going to show you that…

Yesterday’s comedy at the National Library Drama Centre was so hilarious, the audience could not stop laughing and Ling was laughing from side to side. I was too busy tearing with laughter to stress over the fact that I still had a lot of work to do, with a lot of work to mark!

It was a nice evening to begin with, meeting Ling at City Hall where we had a good chat over ice cold java chip frapp at Starbucks before going to Miss Clarity’s for dinner. I wanted something western, whereas Ling wanted something new that she had never tried before. Combining the two factors together, I suggested Ms Clarity’s for its much affordable menu, with its delectable choice of food. I had my usual soft shell crab linguini, in garlic cream sauce and it was sooo sinfully delicious. However, the bread and butter pudding did not quite live up to our expectations, it was oozing with water, and became rather nasty when it cooled from its original piping hot soft texture, to its lukewarm hard texture.

We were both really excited at the prospect of watching the Reduced Shakespeare Company because Ling was dead certain they came to our school to perform when we were in secondary school (Aww who remembers what happened eleven years ago? I can’t!) and I could not wait to see how they managed to bring all of Shakespeare’s works into a 97 minute play!

The venue was nice and cosy, with the audience near to the simple stage setting of a painted canvas backdrop and a oldfashioned chair in the corner, apparently, for the story teller. When they came bursting out on stage (one even sat with the audience and pretended to be the one person in the audience who has read King John!), they entertained and engaged the audience. We, as the audience, even got to participate in telling Shakespeare’s most famous play of all time – Hamlet. Their version of Othello became a rap; Romeo and Juliet was just sideachingly hilarious.

Here are some video clips to show how absolutely funny and entertaining they were:

Romeo and Juliet Part 1

Romeo and Juliet Part 2

If they ever do come back, I am most definitely going to watch it again. They are just so funny and adorable! If not for the fact that all 8 shows in Singapore have been completely sold out, I would urge you to watch it during this run!

I did pay for my night of enjoyment dearly – I slept at 130am and woke up at 530am. 4 hours sleep, I’m barely hanging in there.

Sleepy. 😐