Saturday, May 29, 2010

Random

What would you do if you need to be with your beloved and they are either:
a) locked up in the cage because the kids are afraid of it; or
b) coming up with excuses of having to finish their work because they do not want/have the courage to be with your family?

I think I would rescue the first one and elope far, far away and dump the second one. Agree?
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Haha...my sister's family came over for the long weekend. I love my nephews in my own way. I don't PLAY with young kids. So, stop forcing me to. It will not happen no matter how you cajole me to do so. Wait until they are older. I'll play language games with them. :P

Long weekend...I love 'em. Going to continue with my movie marathon now. Have fun!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Happy Teacher's Day and a heart-felt thank you

Ok, I take my words back. Kids still enjoy Teacher's Day because there were no lessons for the day and they could be as rowdy as they liked. I, admittedly, also enjoyed my Teacher's Day celebration. No lessons for the day, everyone in good mood, and we could see how we are appreciated/not appreciated by the others.

Best appreciation from pupils, however, was shown a day and two days after the celebration. The first was when 3 of my 7 special pupils in Year 6 English class whom I am doing remedial lessons passed their English paper. Of course, I didn't tell them that the paper is rather easy compared to the other times. One of my pupils whooped with joy and thanked me, saying that this is the first time he had passed English since Year 4. Yay! :) Another looked at me unbelievingly and said that it was the highest he had ever got for English. He got a 52. I feel rather sorry for the other pupils, especially the average ones because my attention is more often than not spent on the very weak and the better ones during class time, but I can't do it all. Maybe after this, I'll try to push the average ones to at least a B.

Today, my pupils from my BM class came and asked me why they got so high marks for their BM paper. Only 7 failures this time compared to 22 failures in the last exam. Reason being, the Section A and Section C of the paper is extremely easy this time. They were happy but still in the disbelief mode. :) Kids. Give them low marks, they complain. Give them high marks, they don't believe you. What do they want?

The life of a teacher. Love it or hate it? Or maybe both? :) Have a good day!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Teacher's D-Day celebration tomorrow

Teacher's Day...how I used to enjoy the celebration at school because that would mean a day without lessons and performances by the pupils for our teachers. I think I stopped giving my teachers presents from Year 4 onwards. I only gave presents to selected teachers - my favourite teacher to this day, Puan Zaiton Mahmud, my favourite spoil-me-rotten Mandarin tuition teacher, Mrs Cheong / Liu Lao Shi and my mentor, my idol of a teacher, Mrs. Mahinder. Other teachers would not get presents from me. I don't remember where and how I got the idea that it is pointless giving teachers presents just for the sake of giving presents.

Fast forward to my first Teacher's Day as a teacher trainee. I got little presents from kids who are strangers to me because the kids thought I was cute (coz I smiled a lot). Second Teacher's Day was also the same, but with more meaning because I have taught the children for about 3 months. I still keep all their gifts, their cards and even their wrapping paper. I cherish the gifts as my first meaningful and really memorable Teacher's Day presents.

My first Teacher's Day as a trained teacher, however, was not so eventful. I didn't mind not having many gifts. I appreciate those who did give me gifts and thoughtful hand-made cards. I still keep them. I didn't mind the celebrations were cut short because it is not the culture of the school to celebrate the whole day. At least an hour of the day must be used for teaching. I minded the fact that the Teacher's Day Dinner was done in a not-so-happy manner. We heard that the President of the PTA complained that the teachers were only good at eating and not working. Hmmm... it didn't really bothered me then because I was rather new.

This year, however, Teacher's Day celebration is going to be a full-blown whole day affair. Teachers are complaining about the extra work that they have to do because of the celebration. (No wonder the complain I heard last year) To not attend the dinner, it is as though we do not give face, to go for the dinner, we are 'only good at eating and not at working'. Hmmm...dilemma, dilemma.

I keep telling my family, you know what is the best teacher's day gift? Let us off for the day. Let us enjoy the celebration like the workers do on Labour's Day. 'So many school holidays, still not enough?' you ask? If you think we are asking too much, then no need to celebrate Teacher's Day lo. It is like the idea of Mother's Day and Father's Day. I don't see the point in celebrating and appreciating these people only a day in a year.

Sigh...tomorrow's celebration is going to be a BLAST...I just hope I'll survive it...

Monday, May 10, 2010

Lousy service providers

Oh my...Malaysia's network service providers are really lousy!!

My Celcom broadband has been rather hopeless for the past week. Maybe it is because of the thick rain clouds, but the connection was horrible. I haven't been able to log on to Yahoo for 2 weeks now. And my facebook is also neglected. Sigh..."bik chik".

The other day, my phone line got barred. Ok, so I forgot to pay last month. Since the line is under my father's name, I pay in advance as though I was using pre-paid to avoid my father paying for me. So, my last payment of RM 500 was in December and I forgot to pay last month. When I got the message of possible service interruption, I went to the nearest branch to pay. But they only open during office hours (coincidentally, the time where most people would be at work). So anyway, I saw a new payment machine that was not there the last time I paid. So, I paid using the bank card, thinking that it is so convenient for me to make payments now. Two weeks later, my phone line got barred. I could only call the customer service.

Me: Hello, my line got barred today but I paid via the machine number XXY. This is my transaction number ABA.
Woman: Oh, the system was not updated. How much did you pay?
Me: RM 200. Can you un-bar the number for me?
Woman: May I know who is on the line?
Me: (My name). The number is under (DAD).
Woman: Oh, then I need to speak to your father to un-bar the number.
Me: What for? I can give you his IC number and details. Just un-bar the number.
Woman: Sorry, Miss. It is the procedure. Just ask your father to call us and we will un-bar your number.
Me: That is ridiculous. You barred my number. My father is not anywhere near me. How am I supposed to ask him to call you? I can give all the details that you need!
Woman: I'm sorry Miss. I'm sorry for the inconvenience caused.


Angry, I was ready to go to war with people in DiGi. I had to wait for an hour before anyone served me. Most of the customers were there because their Iphones had problems (hahaha...too high tech dy...use the traditional phones, no problem one...). So anyway, the person who served me was very nice and unbarred my number right away. Apparently there was some problem with my bank or something. I was given the transaction number as though it was completed even though the transaction was not successful. So, I had to pay a second time at the machine, using cash.

Seriously, sometimes I wonder...procedures are important, but I am making payment. I am not asking for an extenion of credit. Why the heck do you need to speak to my father to un-bar my number??!! If I had just asked any man to pose as my father, the person wouldn't know either right?


Sheesh!!

Monday, May 03, 2010

Challenging the pupils

Hmm...Voon, thanks for the comment but you didn't try typing it out. :P

See, what happened was I was teaching a chapter in Bahasa Melayu about lagu kebangsaan. And I think although I could write the lyrics out since my primary years, it was not until my secondary school years that I truly knew what the songs really meant. It is disheartening that Malaysians forget the lyrics to the national anthem after leaving school. Yup, don't deny it...how many of us can actually remember the entire song and our state song if we have not been singing it for years? (I'm glad that both my parents who are in their 60s could still remember the lyrics. I tested on them so many times!)

I digress. Anyway, I was teaching that chapter and the song lyrics were there for all to see. So, I tried my best to explain the lyrics to the Year 6 children and tried to instil in them the love for our country through an understanding of the song lyrics. After explaining the lyrics, I challenged them to write the lyrics of the Selangor song. The pupils were excited. Some started singing the song the moment I challenged them.They have been singing it for 6 years every week, no problem! My old school in a small town had problem after the first two lines and would start to murmur. The headmistress had to hold a competition to make them memorize the lyrics. This school, they didn't have problem with the lyrics, as far as I could see, they just had problem with the pronunciation of one or two unfamiliar words (or so I thought, how naive!).

So, the class of 33 pupils, 19 boys and 14 girls competed to write out the lyrics on the board. All 33 pupils did not get it right. The girls had a good start and wrote the first few lines well but the final 2 sentences were disastrous. The boys were rather hopeless from start to finish. I was laughing my head off. After correcting the lyrics and explaining the meanings, I erased the board and asked them to rewrite in their exercise books. I think many of them cheated, but still, there were still the few over-confident, don't want to listen in class, and do cincai work boys who produced the below for me. Take a look:

Pening oh...

Sunday, May 02, 2010

Challenge

Ok..here's a challenge to all Malaysians and Selangor people who are no longer in school:

Can you type out the entire lyrics of these two songs without Googling/cheating? Negaraku and Lagu Negeri Selangor. :)

More tomorrow. Cheers!




I didn't realise until when I Googled for these flags' images that the star on the Selangor flag is slanted. Is it supposed to be so?