Have become duly aware of the dangers of throwing caution to the wind when it comes to doing this, particularly within the context of being a teaching staff in a school, so i shall be deliberately vague (so people who shouldn't be reading this don't) and brief (cos i've to wake up at an disgustingly early hour in order to get to school before marikita) here.
So for the next four weeks starting from yest i'm attached to a mixed school in the near-west area - initially i was rather apprehensive on how it would be, but various unexpected but nevertheless positive surprises have come my way, not the least of them having three people i know (and chances are, you know too) among my colleagues. Additionally, i've been really impressed to see the dedication of the staff here, made me think more about why i'm getting myself into teaching in the first place - will elaborate another time maybe, when me no need to sleep...
Anyways, in other news, i'm more or less decided - yup, barring any major objections from the folks (which are unlikely in any case), am going ahead with it, or rather, going ahead with not going ahead with it...
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
out of place
NIE stuff has started - this week there was registration on tuesday, briefing stuff on wednesday and something called 'teacher's prep program' yesterday and today - four days of travel to and from the school that seems to be closer to Gelang Patah and even Kukup than it is to my house equals around $20 of transport money being spent - which means i've had to consciously work at changing my usual habit of topping up my farecard with just $10 at each go, cos i've realized if i kept that up, i'd be topping up my card almost every day. That aside, the sheer act of traveling from my place all the way there and back is tortuous enough as it is (i may be a travel buff but that's strictly restricted to travel outside of S'pore, although come to think of it traveling to NIE is just about as close as one can get to doing that without leaving the S'pore mainland...).
These past two days was the aforementioned tpp - admittedly (and i mentioned as much at the end of the session during the checkout session) i was not looking forward to the thingy at the start - i believe i described it as "(moe/nie's attempt to make us) waste two otherwise perfectly free days." To my unexpected surprise it turned out hardly like i'd have expected it to, in good part because our facilitator was this cool lady who was discerning enough to do less of the program and more of the sharing of rich personal experiences (and boy does she have a lot of them), and also cos of the people met/friends made.
No secret that in any case though, at the start of the week i wasn't in a good mood - and to that end one thing i was consistently praying for during my qts in the morning was for (pleasant) surprises of any kind to come my way - and by the end of the week thankfully God delivered a lot of those my way, stuff like how the tpp turned out, bumping into someone i've not seen in four years, catching-up/bleah-ing opportunities etc - all these definitely helped to de-death-glare-ify my face as the week progressed...
A string of semi-related random things that happened to me this week:
1) Went to the Malay stall to get lunch one day - the people before and after me were both addressed and served using Mandarin, but when it was my turn, the lady took one look at me and went "abang!" in order to catch my attention. That was followed by "lagi" and other random Malay words when i was pointing to the dishes i wanted, she even told me the cost of the plate in Malay...
2) Today during class our facilitator was telling a story which somehow involved porridge (she tends to digress a lot), and she was talking about something called "um," which most of the class seemed to understand immediately - i was left clueless until my groupmate informed me that it is some chinese dialect (hokkien?) term which refers to the liquid part of porridge - she was so surprised that i had no idea what that was, and then she asked me (with a serious face btw) "are you local?"
3) Later on she somehow came to the topic of patriotism (i forget how), and she asked the class "would you stand up for S'pore?" My cynical self's immediate reaction was to cringe and roll my eyes, i thought she was jokingly asking a rhetorical question. I was thus freaked to realize that several people immediately said "yes!" rather assuredly. Not that i'm about to betray the country, but i'm not one for such strong outward displays of patriotism, just never realized that most others are quite unlike me heh... Eek who's the one who needs NE lessons now eh?
Anyways, think i've come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with the situation is avoidance, in whatever means it may take - hmm that seems to be a common theme in me life eh...
These past two days was the aforementioned tpp - admittedly (and i mentioned as much at the end of the session during the checkout session) i was not looking forward to the thingy at the start - i believe i described it as "(moe/nie's attempt to make us) waste two otherwise perfectly free days." To my unexpected surprise it turned out hardly like i'd have expected it to, in good part because our facilitator was this cool lady who was discerning enough to do less of the program and more of the sharing of rich personal experiences (and boy does she have a lot of them), and also cos of the people met/friends made.
No secret that in any case though, at the start of the week i wasn't in a good mood - and to that end one thing i was consistently praying for during my qts in the morning was for (pleasant) surprises of any kind to come my way - and by the end of the week thankfully God delivered a lot of those my way, stuff like how the tpp turned out, bumping into someone i've not seen in four years, catching-up/bleah-ing opportunities etc - all these definitely helped to de-death-glare-ify my face as the week progressed...
A string of semi-related random things that happened to me this week:
1) Went to the Malay stall to get lunch one day - the people before and after me were both addressed and served using Mandarin, but when it was my turn, the lady took one look at me and went "abang!" in order to catch my attention. That was followed by "lagi" and other random Malay words when i was pointing to the dishes i wanted, she even told me the cost of the plate in Malay...
2) Today during class our facilitator was telling a story which somehow involved porridge (she tends to digress a lot), and she was talking about something called "um," which most of the class seemed to understand immediately - i was left clueless until my groupmate informed me that it is some chinese dialect (hokkien?) term which refers to the liquid part of porridge - she was so surprised that i had no idea what that was, and then she asked me (with a serious face btw) "are you local?"
3) Later on she somehow came to the topic of patriotism (i forget how), and she asked the class "would you stand up for S'pore?" My cynical self's immediate reaction was to cringe and roll my eyes, i thought she was jokingly asking a rhetorical question. I was thus freaked to realize that several people immediately said "yes!" rather assuredly. Not that i'm about to betray the country, but i'm not one for such strong outward displays of patriotism, just never realized that most others are quite unlike me heh... Eek who's the one who needs NE lessons now eh?
Anyways, think i've come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with the situation is avoidance, in whatever means it may take - hmm that seems to be a common theme in me life eh...
Monday, June 16, 2008
running on (near) empty
Saturday was kinda a reunion sorta day - in the afternoon went back to acjc for a choir 20th anniversary thanksgiving service thingy - it's hard to believe that it's already been seven years since leaving jc - but anyways, that was a good opportunity to touch base with old faces (not many, i was one of only two people from my batch who were there) and get reacquainted with some of the music that pulsated through my brain over those two years [me being the kind who retains music in my mind well, i honestly can still remember a good portion of the music and lyrics (in my part, at least) that formed our repertoire (well with four/five-hour-long rehearsals twice a week, it's hard not to actually)]. Good also to see again what the seemingly endless stream of fundraising we did during those two years went into (especially when the school is unadorned with makeshift stalls and decorations during funorama - which has been the only other reason i've been back there apart from this in recent history). And also (unlikely, but at least became more open to the possibility) a widening of potential posting opportunities post-nie. But at the same time i was also reminded of how out of touch i (was and) am with choir life in general. Heck.
After that it was time for a cross-country mrt ride (first of many more to come methinks in the near future) to another barker class reunion. Honestly, in the past two reunions i've attended this year, i would never have expected to enjoy myself as much as i did - it's great to see how everyone looks roughly the same but nevertheless seems to have grown a lot in the emotional/spiritual sense, and also look back on good times all those years ago. Everyone's really come a long way, though i must admit, many of the various classroom shenanigans that people were recalling were stuff i was hitherto unaware of.
I wonder now if that was at least in part because while in sec 3/4 i was admittedly a (relatively) guai student who probably was too busy being a guai student to notice that all this was going on, at a time when many of the others (by their own admission) didn't really study much during that time, but have since gone on to much greater things in their own right, such as getting into good schools and graduating with good degrees or finding a great job, that sorta thing - along those lines i seriously wonder if i had more or less exhausted whatever capacity i had to be that sort of guai student by the time nus, and in particular the period after coming back from exchange, came around, culminating in the spectacular academic failure that is my final sem. And along similar lines, whether my early involvement in all things VCF pre-exchange sort of sapped a good deal of the capacity i had for cf involvement in general, culminating in my dwindling energy put in to cf stuff over the last year (yes, in spite of being in exco), up to the state of near apathy that i seem to be feeling at this moment. Of course, as per my usual disclaimer, i am probably making things out to be far worse than they actually are, but in essence, it's all there.
Well, the obvious alternative to that hypothesis is that things just changed dramatically for me upon coming back from exchange - i've a good portion of what was written in the excellent report in Saturday's ST on disoriented S'poreans returning here after time abroad to support that theory (even if five months isn't exactly the longest of times, as compared to say years/decades). I'd like to think that it's a combination of the two, plus other random factors.
Oh well. i know how much i hate overthinking/overanalysis, and i figure that's exactly what i'm doing in the above, so let's keep it at that for now - just hope that things change soon enough...
After that it was time for a cross-country mrt ride (first of many more to come methinks in the near future) to another barker class reunion. Honestly, in the past two reunions i've attended this year, i would never have expected to enjoy myself as much as i did - it's great to see how everyone looks roughly the same but nevertheless seems to have grown a lot in the emotional/spiritual sense, and also look back on good times all those years ago. Everyone's really come a long way, though i must admit, many of the various classroom shenanigans that people were recalling were stuff i was hitherto unaware of.
I wonder now if that was at least in part because while in sec 3/4 i was admittedly a (relatively) guai student who probably was too busy being a guai student to notice that all this was going on, at a time when many of the others (by their own admission) didn't really study much during that time, but have since gone on to much greater things in their own right, such as getting into good schools and graduating with good degrees or finding a great job, that sorta thing - along those lines i seriously wonder if i had more or less exhausted whatever capacity i had to be that sort of guai student by the time nus, and in particular the period after coming back from exchange, came around, culminating in the spectacular academic failure that is my final sem. And along similar lines, whether my early involvement in all things VCF pre-exchange sort of sapped a good deal of the capacity i had for cf involvement in general, culminating in my dwindling energy put in to cf stuff over the last year (yes, in spite of being in exco), up to the state of near apathy that i seem to be feeling at this moment. Of course, as per my usual disclaimer, i am probably making things out to be far worse than they actually are, but in essence, it's all there.
Well, the obvious alternative to that hypothesis is that things just changed dramatically for me upon coming back from exchange - i've a good portion of what was written in the excellent report in Saturday's ST on disoriented S'poreans returning here after time abroad to support that theory (even if five months isn't exactly the longest of times, as compared to say years/decades). I'd like to think that it's a combination of the two, plus other random factors.
Oh well. i know how much i hate overthinking/overanalysis, and i figure that's exactly what i'm doing in the above, so let's keep it at that for now - just hope that things change soon enough...
Thursday, June 12, 2008
wanderlust
The Vietnam trip was by and large my first real experience at backpacking (or at least as close to backpacking as i've ever been on - with the actual procurement and usage of a backpack playing a big part in that) - typically my travels (or at least those of the non-family/non-school trip variety) have fallen into either the shamelessly-invite-self-to-stay-with-relatives/family-friends or the pay-a-premium-and-share-a-proper-hotel-room variety - i.e. i'm more used to slightly more atas accomodations (and more importantly, washroom facilities) when it comes to traveling.
But basically by the end of the Vietnam trip, i realized that i can easily go down a scale when it comes to traveling - the important thing is more the new places seen than the place you stay in, unless of course you make your hotel your destination like those atas places you see on discovery travel and living...
Eh so anyways, even during the trip and since coming back a whole host of places have popped up in my head which i would like to go to in the near future (i.e. before stuff like backaches and joint pains make more rigorous travel a non-option). What great timing that this happens at the same time as my schedule is about to get a whole lot less flexible in the long term, but ah well, we can always dream eh...
My main criteria is that the place must interest me (like duh), and if a language that i'm at least a tad familiar in is spoken there that's an added plus (except for mandarin of course, which i'd rather not use at all). Don't necessarily have to backpack there, more atas types of travel is definitely an option, as long as got enough $ - anyways Vietnam has taught me that i don't really like to shop, so which means more $ for other stuff, like eating =)
In random, indulgent order:
1) Visit the 21 states in the US i've yet to visit - those i'm especially keen on are Ohio (although that's almost solely cos i want to go here); Alaska (cos i want to go on a cruise far away enough from S'poreans who will storm the buffet lines and has more interesting and new places to call port in than Melaka and/or Phuket); Colorado (for mountains and skiing); Vermont (for fall scenery and Ben & Jerry's) and Wisconsin (well it's near enough to Chicago, which is my favorite big city in the US, and i don't mind stuffing myself with cheese). How convenient that they all are relatively far away from each other eh - (as in they don't touch each other...). Bah.
2) Revisit Chapel Hill, and old friends, and at the same time see more of NC, especially the mountains which i didn't see at all, maybe hike at least a fair bit of the Appalachian Trail too...
3) Go around the Philippines - hike the rice terraces, swim with whale sharks, chill at the beach in Boracay/Palawan, chocolate hills (how can you go wrong with a place called chocolate hills?) - hopefully by the time i get back there i'll have enough command of the language to live up to my appearance...
4) Some kind of backpacking trail around Europe - either around France (where i'll hopefully be able to cope with the language), the central and eastern parts (i.e. funky ex-Communist countries), or Scandinavia and the surrounding regions (where i know a couple of people, who hopefully still know me heh) - this of course, will take far more time than methinks i'll ever have available in the next few years, but at least speaking at this point in time this is enough reason for me to take a break once my bond is up hmm...
5) (if got less time and $) go around Thailand, since i can speak enough Thai to make me wish i was there instead of Vietnam during the trip owing to communication problems.
6) South Africa (just cos i want to go to Sub-Saharan Africa, and this is the most accessible part of it to go to)
7) Mauritius (not cos of it's proven honeymoon potential, but cos it's a French-speaking place with great scenery)
8) Tunisia/Morocco (eh cos French is spoken there and i want to go to North Africa too - yes i'm that predictable)
9) South America (if ever i get to picking up Spanish - just to cover another continent - i can do without going to Antarctica - too expensive and unfeasible)
Heh maybe that'll do for now - don't want to get to indulgent and unrealistic, and anyways i've been blessed with the opportunity to go to a lot of places as it is... And i don't want to rake up unnecessary carbon emissions... But still, any takers to any of the above?
If not, i'll find my way to these places myself... Hopefully... Eventually...
But basically by the end of the Vietnam trip, i realized that i can easily go down a scale when it comes to traveling - the important thing is more the new places seen than the place you stay in, unless of course you make your hotel your destination like those atas places you see on discovery travel and living...
Eh so anyways, even during the trip and since coming back a whole host of places have popped up in my head which i would like to go to in the near future (i.e. before stuff like backaches and joint pains make more rigorous travel a non-option). What great timing that this happens at the same time as my schedule is about to get a whole lot less flexible in the long term, but ah well, we can always dream eh...
My main criteria is that the place must interest me (like duh), and if a language that i'm at least a tad familiar in is spoken there that's an added plus (except for mandarin of course, which i'd rather not use at all). Don't necessarily have to backpack there, more atas types of travel is definitely an option, as long as got enough $ - anyways Vietnam has taught me that i don't really like to shop, so which means more $ for other stuff, like eating =)
In random, indulgent order:
1) Visit the 21 states in the US i've yet to visit - those i'm especially keen on are Ohio (although that's almost solely cos i want to go here); Alaska (cos i want to go on a cruise far away enough from S'poreans who will storm the buffet lines and has more interesting and new places to call port in than Melaka and/or Phuket); Colorado (for mountains and skiing); Vermont (for fall scenery and Ben & Jerry's) and Wisconsin (well it's near enough to Chicago, which is my favorite big city in the US, and i don't mind stuffing myself with cheese). How convenient that they all are relatively far away from each other eh - (as in they don't touch each other...). Bah.
2) Revisit Chapel Hill, and old friends, and at the same time see more of NC, especially the mountains which i didn't see at all, maybe hike at least a fair bit of the Appalachian Trail too...
3) Go around the Philippines - hike the rice terraces, swim with whale sharks, chill at the beach in Boracay/Palawan, chocolate hills (how can you go wrong with a place called chocolate hills?) - hopefully by the time i get back there i'll have enough command of the language to live up to my appearance...
4) Some kind of backpacking trail around Europe - either around France (where i'll hopefully be able to cope with the language), the central and eastern parts (i.e. funky ex-Communist countries), or Scandinavia and the surrounding regions (where i know a couple of people, who hopefully still know me heh) - this of course, will take far more time than methinks i'll ever have available in the next few years, but at least speaking at this point in time this is enough reason for me to take a break once my bond is up hmm...
5) (if got less time and $) go around Thailand, since i can speak enough Thai to make me wish i was there instead of Vietnam during the trip owing to communication problems.
6) South Africa (just cos i want to go to Sub-Saharan Africa, and this is the most accessible part of it to go to)
7) Mauritius (not cos of it's proven honeymoon potential, but cos it's a French-speaking place with great scenery)
8) Tunisia/Morocco (eh cos French is spoken there and i want to go to North Africa too - yes i'm that predictable)
9) South America (if ever i get to picking up Spanish - just to cover another continent - i can do without going to Antarctica - too expensive and unfeasible)
Heh maybe that'll do for now - don't want to get to indulgent and unrealistic, and anyways i've been blessed with the opportunity to go to a lot of places as it is... And i don't want to rake up unnecessary carbon emissions... But still, any takers to any of the above?
If not, i'll find my way to these places myself... Hopefully... Eventually...
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
i've had a few
Got back yesterday from Vietnam - two weeks with random exco peeps, navigating our way from Saigon/HCMC up to Hanoi with various stops in between. Overall was a good time, goodness knows that i could do with an added holiday, even though it was not to a place where i conventionally would have chosen. In any case, the company elevates the enjoyment of a holiday from depending on the destination per se eh?
Well, maybe will talk more about Vietnam trip another time. What's on my mind now is the whole issue of graduation and how i'm going to handle it. So in short what happened is that results came out while we were in Vietnam (results that i was not really looking forward to as i guess many can gather). In preparation for whatever those results may have been i tried to spend time during qt/random times of stoning to talk to God specifically about it - even devoted a good one and a half hours or so walking up a good length of the main beach in Nha Trang and back doing just that. Well by the end of all that i thought that at least whatever the results would turn out to be, i'd be (eventually) ok with it. Which i guess is the case now when i write this in retrospect, more or less, at the least.
But at the time boy were they not. It hit me slowly, very slowly, in fact, at first. And then, as i began to think more about it, and realised how i came so close, and the simple action of using the s/u a bit more wisely alone, independent of scoring any better for any class, would have eliminated that 0.01 or so gap, i began to get real pissed - with myself and with the school. Of course, at the same time, what i had been pondering over previously helped to sober me a bit, although overall i was really super frustrated.
Although for much of the next two days i began to retreat into one of my pensive (and where i'm concerned, hence anti-social) moods, think that the Lord worked so wonderfully in timing this to take place in Vietnam and not back in S'pore. In short i was able to look around and see how i really have nothing to complain about, at least relatively speaking - a rehashing of the why (not) me thingy again. So now i'm not really too bothered about it anymore, although admittedly i'm using my time-honored strategy of avoidance to try and tackle the situation. Which is where the current resurfacing of all my thoughts on the matter at this present time comes in - don't want to elaborate here, at least not now - suffice to say that i've a lot more thinking and praying to do i guess. Motivations...
Well, maybe will talk more about Vietnam trip another time. What's on my mind now is the whole issue of graduation and how i'm going to handle it. So in short what happened is that results came out while we were in Vietnam (results that i was not really looking forward to as i guess many can gather). In preparation for whatever those results may have been i tried to spend time during qt/random times of stoning to talk to God specifically about it - even devoted a good one and a half hours or so walking up a good length of the main beach in Nha Trang and back doing just that. Well by the end of all that i thought that at least whatever the results would turn out to be, i'd be (eventually) ok with it. Which i guess is the case now when i write this in retrospect, more or less, at the least.
But at the time boy were they not. It hit me slowly, very slowly, in fact, at first. And then, as i began to think more about it, and realised how i came so close, and the simple action of using the s/u a bit more wisely alone, independent of scoring any better for any class, would have eliminated that 0.01 or so gap, i began to get real pissed - with myself and with the school. Of course, at the same time, what i had been pondering over previously helped to sober me a bit, although overall i was really super frustrated.
Although for much of the next two days i began to retreat into one of my pensive (and where i'm concerned, hence anti-social) moods, think that the Lord worked so wonderfully in timing this to take place in Vietnam and not back in S'pore. In short i was able to look around and see how i really have nothing to complain about, at least relatively speaking - a rehashing of the why (not) me thingy again. So now i'm not really too bothered about it anymore, although admittedly i'm using my time-honored strategy of avoidance to try and tackle the situation. Which is where the current resurfacing of all my thoughts on the matter at this present time comes in - don't want to elaborate here, at least not now - suffice to say that i've a lot more thinking and praying to do i guess. Motivations...
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