Nihongo anyone?

As a form of light entertainment, let me regale you with the stories that happen during Jap lessons with Yen.

Part of our textbook includes a sample dialogue between 2 or more parties, and sometimes, Sensei will tell us to pair up, and practice the dialogue with each other. And Yen and I always pair up, to the most hilarious results.

For example, last week's lesson had the following dialogue: [entirely translated for your benefit] The background is Mira is getting transferred from Osaka to Tokyo, and the rest of the office is giving him a farewell party.

Yamada: Congratulations on your transfer!

Mira: Arigatou gozaimasu! [needs no translation, i think]

Kimura: Mira-san will become lonely when he goes to Tokyo. Even if you go, please don't forget Osaka.

Mira. Definitely not. Kimura-san, when you are free, please come to Tokyo to play!

Santos: When you come to Osaka, please call! We'll have a drink together!

Mira: Yes, definitely. Everyone, I'm really grateful for all you have done.

Satou: Take care of yourself. Ganbatte!

Mira: Yes, I will! Everyone, please take care of yourself!



Then Yenn and I take over. I am now the one being transferred, and Yenn is seeing me off.



Yenn: Congratulations on your transfer!

Me: Thanks!

Yenn: You will become lonely when you go to Europe. If you find a man over there, please don't forget your friends in Singapore.

Me: Er, yea. Yenn-san, when you have lots of money, please come to Europe for a holiday.

Yenn: When you return to Singapore, please call me. We'll have a lot of drink together. [the insinuation here is obviously alcoholic]

Me: Oh, definitely! Yenn-san, I'm really grateful for all you have done.

Yenn: Take care of yourself! please take care of yourself!

Me: Yes, ganbatte. please take care of yourself!



After this, Yenn and I change. Now Yenn is the one who's being transferred.


Me: Congrats on your transfer!

Yenn: Arigatou Gozaimasu.

Me: You will become lonely when you go to Africa. [?!!] THere is a lot of AIDS over there, so you must be careful! When you go there, please don't forget Singapore!

Yenn: [drops her face after hearing Africa] Er...... Definitely! Aki-san, when you are free and have no man, please come to Africa to play!

Me: [trying to supress wild laughter] If you come back to Singapore, please call! We'll go for a drink together!

Yenn: Yes, definitely!

[and so on, and so on]

Well, obviously, our versions weren't the ones we eventually read out to the class....... Though many were much amused to hear that Yenn was getting transferred to Africa.... hehehe...

This is now mine:
And I'm a very happy person, thanks for asking.

*EEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

Hehehe...

Another spring cleaning.... Groan

Yup, looking around at the masses of 'things' and the colonies of dustballs that were created in my room, I decided to unleash a holy act of god and sweep them all clean from my room.

After cleaning up the usual obvious mess on the floors and tables, I decided to start on a part of my room that had never been touched before. This was a particular shelf on my gray cabinet that I used for stationery and old toys, and I wanted to clear it out to make more space for my expanding collection of manga and books.


Good gravy god. What did I unleash?


For starters, you have to know one thing about my parents. Other parents bought home toys and stuff for their kids. My parents bought me stationery, because one, it was 'free' from the office, and two, because for practicality's sake, stationery was the one thing I, being in school, was always in need of.

So from Primary to Secondary to JC, my stationery needs were all fulfilled by my parents, except for some emergencies where I had to buy pens from the co-op, or where I wanted cute coloured pens. By the time I got to NUS, I received a lot of free stationery from all the orientation activities I was involved in, and I never had to buy stationery then.

So all my stationery just laid there, in that one shelf, until today, when I decided to clear it out. I wanted to reuse the stationery in nie, since a lot of it was unused and I didn't like to throw away good stuff.

And then I realised.......... Just how much stationery I had. Which was enough for me, Yenn, and possibly my entire hostel block. (^^!)

I uncovered, during my clearing-out:

- Almost 20-30 pens
- About 40 pencils [included in this number are 2 whole unopened boxes of 2Bs]
- About 15 highlighters [i think] of at least 3 different colours
- 1 box of binder clips
- 1 box of paper clips
- 3 packets of index tabs [those coloured stickers you paste on your pages]

And that was just the normal stationery stuff. (^^!) Here are some of the more 'exotic' stuff I found:

- Thin rolls of heavy duty tape
- A metre of raffia string
- A box of coloured chalk [some art set, long time ago]
- 15 small paintbrushes
- A [working] torchlight
- 2 leather [possibly fake] name card holders
- A old foundation holder [!!]
- 7 mousepads [and unfortunately, only one laptop]
- One old Magna Doodle and Ghost Writer set [anyone still remembers what they are??]
- One stack of old computer paper. The kind for dot matrix printers, with the perforated holes by the side

And also boxes and boxes of nice pens. You know, the kind that comes with its own holder and looks really expensive, like Parker? I think I counted almost 10 of those. (^^!)

So now, I'm packing whatever I can into a toolbox [yup, I have one of those too] to bring along to my hostel. I figure, with the amount of stationery, I could probably set up a sideline selling stationery to the rest of the block. hahahaha...

Way cool, the miseducators blog got tomorrowed! :)

I thought something was up when I saw 6 comments on my latest entry........

But aside from the pompous glee [my blog got tomorrowed! mwahahahahaha!] it was great to see the couple of comments and emails I got from other people, especially those who had been teaching, or those who were able to enter teaching.

And this is the purpose for which I created the Miseducators blog. So that I could 1] let off steam about my work. Haha, who doesn't? and 2] to also garner responses from others in teaching and 3] to let others know about the true face of teaching. [you think teachers just stand up in front of a class and talk? It's not that simple!]

So I sincerely hope I'll be able to keep this blog going. :) If nothing else, it'll become a form of occupational therapy for me.......

Cosfest 2005 - 10th July at Downtown East

So yea I know the Cosfest pics are late.... :P I got a Photoshop fit and tried to do some layouts on them.

Unfortunately, considering I brought home 64 photos from the Cosfest... It's taking a while. (^^!) Gomennasai......

Anyway, here are some of those I've done:





And a panoramic shot of everyone on stage:



Yea, THAT'S how many people turned up in costume.

For more, click on this very obvious link.

And it was a GREAT cosplay! There were tons of people turning up in costume, of AMAZING quality and design from anime, manga, games and J-rock! Not to mention the various artists' groups hawking their wares, like doujinshi [fanart] merchandise, like postcards, badges, and some really amazing posters. It was the closest anyone in Singapore could ever get to an Anime Convention. :) :) :)

I'll continue editing the photos and uploading them, so stay tuned hor! [i'll get there, i'll get there......]

My mentor teacher was on MC on Friday.

This Monday, she was also on MC and rumours I heard say that she may be on MC the entire week. Not to mention, my 2nd mentor was also sick.

So I had to relief 2 teachers' classes. And help my mentor mark some work after school.

I may just have been inadvertantly plunged into full-scale teaching.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Ok, I'm done :p

But it was hard today, since I got another throat infection [my old lao mao ping, which I may have accidentally passed to Yenn. Oops] and I could barely raise my voice. Not to mention the boys today were havock.

I ended up buying a whistle from the Neko Pri. Bookshop to compensate for this. (^!) Which kinda worked, but was no substitute for good old fashioned ranting when scoldings had to be done.

Now I'm just drinking all the hot water and honey lime I can.

*Groan* Sore throats. A teacher's worse ailment. Ganbatte, yenn-san...

Goodmeat: IT'S NOT SPELT WEIFUN!!!! ARGH!!! THE TRAVESTY OF IT!!!

---

Who bought the 8 Days with the Fantastic Four on the cover?

If you did, flip to the inside back cover, where there's an ad for Essence, a laundry detergent.

The ad shows, supposedly, a day in the life of a woman.

9am: Office. Woman is dressed in office wear, carrying a briefcase

1pm: Shopping. Woman is wearing black dress and carrying bags of shopping.

6pm: Yoga class. Here's where the layout gets a bit conky. A woman in a meditative lotus-whatever pose is meditating at the bottom of the picture.

10pm: Beauty sleep. And the woman is wearing a slinky bright red dress?

Here's why.

At 8pm, it's Dinner date with Ken.

And the corresponding picture has her dressed in a blue and white striped bra and panty set.

Now if that's what she's wearing for her dinner date with the guy, I really wonder what it is they'll be eating for dinner......... (^^!)

We now return to normal blogging...............

---

On Friday night, the gals decided there wasn't anything chronically wrong with the DF when it came to relationships. *phew*

His only problem is that he's dumb. *huh?*

Let's post a question here to those who read my blog and who do not know me in real life.

Your boyfriend/girlfriend hardly calls you out. Doesn't call you on the phone to talk. Doesn't meet up unless you call him, except for some exceptions. Doesn't call you sweet nothings.

Is he a bad boyfriend?

He doesn't smoke. He doesn't drink or club. [which in my case, could constitute something of a slight disadvantage] He doesn't ogle other girls. He's a well-mannered, decent guy.

Except that he's not except a diehard romantic here. (^^!) Whoever coined the term 'stocism' certainly had him in mind.

So is he a bad boyfriend?

Ok, 'bad' is too strong a word.

Can we say that this guy 'cannot make it'?

Or is it that he doesn't know how to behave in a relationship, having never been in one?

Or is it now that he's gotten the goods, he doesn't need to put in the effort to keep the relationship going?

Or is he just, as Candle put it, just plain dumb? (^^!)

Personally, I'm inclined to go with the last one. :p

When I met up with him last night, I was talking to him about it, and what my friends said.

He says guys are just like that, and that all his friends are like that.

I said, not the guys my girlfriends know, apparently, and just how large is your sample size of friends anyway?

He admitted that it was one attached guy who acted like that towards his girlfriend, and that most of his other friends were single. *duh* To which I replied, there's a lesson for you here. (^^!)

Hmph. Hmph hmph hmph.

On the bright side though, if you were one of those who said that he just doesn't know how to behave in a relationship, I can only say, he and I, we're both learning.

And yea, he's learning. >)

[warning: Picture heavy. Wait for entry to fully load]





"Did they come out right?"






"Don't worry, even if they didn't, I know Photoshop."






"Yea, that's what I was gonna say. Nowadays, you can do almost anything with Photoshop."







"Yea, so I'll fix it even if it doesn't."








And indeed, it didn't really turn out in the end. :( But others did. Like this one:


















And this:









A more Morpheus-Like look, because I couldn't get the proper lighting. (^^!)







And this:



A bit blur, cos he kept moving. Darn!






And what I got in return:







And my favourite:



DREAM DANGEROUSLY. How cool is that??






And now can I go all otaku?






Of cos I can. It's my blog.






AAAAAAAAHHHHHNEILGAIMAN!!!!!!!!HE SIGNED MY BOOKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NEIL GAIMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





ok, otaku fit over. :)

Indeed there has been a lot of dust gathering in this blog... (^^!) the tolls of working and blogging at the same time... *sigh* And of course the highlight of this one week being the chance to meet ONLY THE GREATEST COMIC WRITER OF ALL TIMES, MR NEIL GAIMAN HIMSELF in Kinokuniya. *mad giggly laughter*

The queues were insane by the time I managed to run down to Kino after work. When I first arrived up the escalator, I saw a bunch of people queueing already, near the foreign languages, so I followed the queue to find the end.

I walked past graphic novels.

I walked past the chinese comics.

I walked past some japanese comics before FINALLY i saw the end of it! And mind, I still had NOT seen the signing table itself!

That was at 3. I waited there with a good mystery novel, till I happened to meet Mega, who had skipped work halfway to come down. (^^!) Got her priorities right, she did. And together we queued till Slayer came as well.

And by this time, the queue had already stretched all the way to the Chinese books section. (^^!) No doubt about it, queueing IS the national pasttime. Especially for something they really, really want.

But at least...... I got my books signed....... *dreamy look*

And he's really nice in person? He'd take the time to say a few words to everyone, even though they kept rushing him for more signatures, and, and, he's really sweet, and, and,and a funny cliched thing, but he somehow seems bigger in real life? And almost Morpheus-like...

*Sigh*..................................

But damn to the Kaiser, who met him on TWO occassions and got a damn cool signature on one of his books. *hmph*

---

Already it's been my 2nd week at Neko Primary and I now only have 2 more weeks to go before going back into Nie. Has it been that fast? And I've already landed myself with a sore throat after ONE day of shouting at one particular class. Has anyone ever tried getting a class of 40 havocky boys to sit down and keep quiet? It's almost an impossible act...

Thankfully I have one thing in my mind keeping me sane: Which is the thought that I don't have to be in their class for much longer... mwahahaha... the advantages of a relief teacher means that you're usually only in their class for one day, so you don't have to care too much about trying to teach them. (^^!) I was pretty much just trying not to let TOO many of them run over me at once, while storing lessons for future usage in my mind...

Not fierce enough being one. Hmmm...

But for the time being... Must. Drink. Lots. Of. Water. *cough cough HACK!*

Here's an interesting situation that arose when I paid a visit to a friend of my parents, known here as Aunty Mok.

Glancing at the 1001 knick knacks she had around her house, [she makes my room look spotless] I noticed a basket with some small, round, chocolatey-brown things inside. I was curious as to what they were, cos they looked like some strange species of truffles to me [I donno why truffles popped to mind] so I finally asked Aunty Mok what they were.

"Oh, they're mandarin oranges!"

"What?" Total disbelief.

"Mandarin oranges, from New Year!" She took out one of the 'oranges' from the basket and held it out for me to look at. Even at closer range, it didn't look any more 'orangey', and in fact, resembled more a chocolate muffin.

"Erm, from which New Year is that?"

Turns out that if you leave the oranges alone, in about 6 months, they'll turn totally brown all over, if you're lucky enough that they didn't grow fungus instead. Then, you can peel off the skin, and leave it in boiling red bean soup. The soup is supposed to taste fantastic after that. Even when she peeled off a piece of the skin, I could smell a strong, tangy orange smell coming from it.

Hm. Would be an interesting science experiment for decomposition and then Home Econs.................. :p

Something is so wrong with my Firefox! *wails* Everytime I click on the icon, the browser doesn't load, but yet IE and MSN works... Small comfort........ *hmph*

So let me gloat: It's a Monday morning. I woke up at 10, because it's a SCHOOL holiday, and I'm getting PAID for all this.... WAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Kinda makes up for the rest of the school year where I have to wake up at 6... :p

It felt almost weird, rolling out of bed, looking at the time on my handphone, and thinking, "Hm, half the school day gone." when it was only 10 in the morning. I've almost got into the roll of things at school, and will [hopefully] be observing classes next week with 2 experienced teachers. Thankfully, both are upper primary teachers. [phew!]

The strange effect about this job is that I just don't miss DF anymore. *Collective Gasp!* Well, in a sense, yes. The moment I wake up, I'm off to the bathroom to get ready for school, and then in school, I'm too engrossed watching the kids or relief teaching [whatever little of it last week] to even think about him. After school, I come home for a while, and then I bathe and get ready for tuition. By the time my tuition ends, it's almost 10 at night.

Where got time to think about boyfriend? Hahaha... [though u can see the baggy effects of this lifestyle on my eyes. Dang...]

But in a way, it's good. This way, I don't spend all my time fantasizing, analysing, agonising over him anymore, and I have a healthy life outside of him and my incessant blogging.

But I still have time to think up this little entry one day:

---

What is love?

A while back, while Turtle and I were on the bus heading to NIE, he handed me an issue of Today.

"There's an article in there, which you MIGHT disagree with, and call me sexist or something, but I think you should read it."

A pretty bad intro, if ever I heard one, but I read the article anyway.

The article was written by a woman who'd been blissfully married to her husband of cantremember how many years, and the article was about how she attributed the success of her marriage to subservience.

The author wrote that she'd once been a hot-blooded feminist [whether she burnt her bras or not, she didn't say] till she got married. She then discovered that the key to a successful marriage [or hers, anyway] was that women had to be submissive to their husbands, to listen to them, and to support their decisions and be loyal to them in all affairs. In return, their husbands would respond to this by being more responsible spouses, seeing the weight of decisions rested on them.

Of course, in writing so, she neglected the one crucial flaw of her argument: The formula is only successful if the men are responsible and caring husbands in the first place. Can you imagine 'serving' a guy who was a drunkard, a wife-abuser, or who had absolutely no respect for other human beings in the first place? Or even staying by his side and 'supporting' him till the end of time?

I think most women would do what I would do: Pack the bags, leave for Mother's with the kids, and give him a proverbial kick in the ass before I left.

It just goes to show how terribly varied relationships are all around us, I guess. No one formula can really apply to every couple, and trust me, I learned this the uncomfortable way. (^^!)

But the article did make me think of how relationships have evolved over a span of a few generations. Think about how it was during our grandparents' time. The practice of bethrothing your children from birth was still practiced then, and it was common if you didn't get to meet your future spouse till the day of your wedding. [the time till then spent fervently praying that he wasn't terribly deformed in one way or another]

But divorce was rare. Possibly one reason for that was that there were fewer lawyers then [duh] but also because men and women accepted that this was the guy they were going to have to live with, and so they may as well make it a smooth ride as much as they could. After all, if there was no way to get out of the marriage, then you had an onus to learn to live with each other as much as you could.

Who read the article in the ST [i donno when] about the couple with the record for the longest marriage in Singapore? They had been married in their tender teens in China, and the husband then went to Singapore to look for work, as a lot of men did then. His wife waited 5 years in China with her in-laws before he finally sent for her to join him there, and they lived in Singapore forever more. (0_0)

And I used to grumble if I didn't meet up with DF for a week or more..........

I digress. My point being it seems that our grandparents were willing to stick with each other as much as possible because the concept of divorce was not as known, or socially accepted then. [I speak mainly of Asians, btw, being unfamiliar with the history of divorce in Western countries] In our parents' generation, divorce became slightly more common, but divorce rates were still low.

[I have no official statistics to back up all these btw. They're all based on my general impresions, and of the people I see around]

Now? We've become affluent and independent enough, such that if ever hubby doesn't live up to your expectations, or if he leaves the toilet bowl seat up one too many times, it's off to the lawyers you go. Divorce has not only become cheaper, it's also more socially acceptable nowadays. What did the old mantra go? "Attached can break up, married can divorce"

Have we lost something in all this?

As a generation, we're probably more picky and more demanding in our relationships than either our parents or our grandparents. Our spouse/boyfriend has to be the ONE. He has to meet all the requirements in our own mental list we compiled since adolescent. He has to support the family. He has to be kind, understanding, listen to our views blah blah blah.

A few would probably think he has to be rich, or have nice teeth or something, but I shall not touch on those people. (^^!)

So what's the diff? People over time have always been looking for that one special someone. We're always on the lookout for the one special love, whether we recognise him or not on the first glance. If we think the guy doesn't fit, we chuck him, and start the hunt anew. Whether we are attached, engaged, or married.

"He wasn't the same man I married" Sound familiar?

But just how many people find love at first sight anyway? No relationship is totally perfect, even if they seem so on the surface. There are bound to be problems between 2 parties one way or another, or things about each other that drive you crazy.

Which is why maybe the keys for a successful relationship is not love, but rather the ability to settle conflicts amiably, to compromise, and to always have an open mind.

Even if you find the right man and you marry him, can you have any guarantee that he will remain like that for the rest of time? Maybe he will change. Maybe he will fall in love with some other woman. Maybe he'll find out he's gay. *peng* Should that happens, how willing are you to stick with the relationship? Or will you bail at the first signs of trouble?

[btw, the one thing I will NOT put up with is abuse. NO MAN has the right to abuse others, most of all his wife and kids, whether physically or verbally, and deserves to get his ass kicked big time]

I wonder whether our culture and our generation has become so used to the idea of getting what we want, that we are less unwilling to work it out over time. That we must have the man now, and that he must remain like that for the rest of his life. Hmm...

Ponderz..................

---

Btw you guys have to realise that the only reason I can write so detachedly about the whole thing is because I'm on the right phase of my menstrual cycle. :p Gimme a few more weeks and I could be writing about something else altogether...

Lower. Primary. Kids. Are. Hell. To. Teach. Nuff. Said.

As a distraction [and a form of therapy] here's a new website I found full of those irritating yet sometimes entertaining stuff we sometimes find in our email.

Here's a driving joke from the site:

What to do in the event of a car accident

A woman and a man are involved in a car accident; it's a bad one. Both of their cars are totally demolished but amazingly neither of them are hurt.

After they crawl out of their cars, the woman says, " So you're a man. That's interesting. I'm a woman. Wow, just look at our cars! There's nothing left, but we're unhurt. This must be a sign from God that we should meet and be friends and live together in peace for the rest of our days".

Flattered, the man replies, "Oh yes, I agree with you completely, this must be a sign from God!"

The woman continues, "and look at this, here's another miracle. My car is completely demolished but this bottle of wine didn't break. Surely God wants us to drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune."

Then she hands the bottle to the man.

The man nods his head in agreement, opens it and drinks half the bottle and then hands it back to the woman.

The woman takes the bottle and immediately puts the cap back on, and hands it back to the man.

The man asks, "Aren't you having any?"

The woman replies, "No. I think I'll just wait for the police.... "

MORAL OF THE STORY:
Women are clever, evil bitches. Don't mess with us!

From: Bore Me - The Best of your Inbox

Quick, spam your friends now...

A natural wanderer

A night of suddenly cancelled tuition allowed for some father-daughter bonding.

After dinner, I was complaining and whining to my dad about Neko, and I said something like how I could face more discipline problems with boys in the future.

"Well, now you're getting a taste of what your own teachers went through" Daddy grinned.

"Excuse me, I was a well-behaved kid during school ok?"

"That's not what your teachers said!"

"Huh? What did my teachers say to you?" This was new. I never really knew that my teachers got exasperated with me enough to call my dad up.

"Like during excursions? You were always wandering off by yourself and pulling your friends along with you!"

"No I didn't!" I truly had no memory of this happening. Then again, I know my memory sucks...

"Yes you did! Especially when your class went to the zoo! We used to go there very often, so you knew all the shortcuts! And you would wander off by yourself while your teachers took the class on the proper routes!"

"Are you sure??"

"Yes, this happened for EVERY excursion you went for in school! And you would pull your usual gang of friends along with you! Your teacher would do a headcount, and when she realised that some girls were missing, she would immediately start a search for YOU! You were always the ringleader!"

"Sure or not??"

"How do you think your teacher knew the number to my special line, the one that no one else calls?"

My deficient memory refused to pull up memories, though I vaguely remember one day in the old museum, when I suddenly found some other exhibit in the other side of the museum more interesting, and snuck off with my friend. We spent an hour or two wandering through other areas of the museum before we finally rejoined the rest of the class, much to the ire of my already irate teacher.

Then I remembered the British Museum and the Louvre. I remember walking along with Juls and the rest for the start of the journey at first, before my eye was caught by a particularly interesting exhibit. I started reading the description of the exhibit, and when I finished and I looked up, everyone had disappeared. (!!!)

I walked around a while, but I couldn't find them. I walked ahead, hoping to catch up with them, but I didn't. I retraced my steps in the hope that I would find them, but I didn't. In desperation, and irrationally afraid that I would be lost and stuck in a foreign country for the rest of my life, I started hunting for a payphone to call Juls, and that's when the Turtle found me and I rejoined the group.

Even when I recently went to the Vatican exhibition with DF, I was steadily ahead of him in the exhibits, because I read the cards faster than he did (^^!) It wasn't long before we were totally separated, and I had to retrace my steps to reunite with him again. Thankfully it was a small space, so no chance of totally losing me, like in Europe (^^!)

Hm. What can I say? A born wanderer...

I FINALLY GET TO BLOG.

What with modules in NIE, conky PC, [got hit by serious adware software] and tuition at night, I'm starting just what is the size of the pile of shit I may have gotten into. Bad signs include no life at night, increasing feelings of fatigue, inability to drag myself out at 6 in the morning, [bleah] and what looks suspiciously like eyebags under my eyes.

Ergh.

Not only that, I haven't been able to buy comics, [will be going down to buy later! I swear!] or my regular 8 Days, and of course NO PRATA FOR B'FAST. *cries profusely* Can life get any worse than this???

Ok, I dramatise. :p I'll get used to it, but I'm guessing what you guys really are interested in [besides anything to do with DF] is how my first day at school went.

Can I first say for the record, I think the communication channels between Moe and Neko broke down somewhat? They had no idea I was gonna come into school till I called the admin office on Mon. Then when I came, the senior teacher I was intro-ed to said they didn't receive any official communication from Moe till yesterday. *duh*

This despite that I received news of my posting last Thursday.

So what did I do on the first day, if they had nothing for me to do? The ST said I could sit in the office, and sort of 'absorb the atmosphere'. Or perhaps, he meant, 'sit here and don't do anything to cause any trouble'.

Nah, he's a pretty nice guy.

So I sat there, in the office, idly flipping through a Neko handbook.

Then it was recess.

Then I finished the handbook, so I searched my sparse bag in desperation, and found a book about research into the teaching of Social Studies in schools. [Yenn, Turt, it was the research book they included in our 'orientation gift']

I alternated between falling asleep, pretending to read, and actually reading for about 4 hours.

Then school was over, and it was Contact Time.

The teachers bustled around me, and then I went up at 2, sat there till 3, and finally made my way home.

Like, I'm so filled with the desire to teach. (^^!)

I could have talked with the other teachers, I guess, but... I guess I sorta went into 'survival dao mode', which is to act 'dao', and make myself as invisible as possible. (^^!) Worked a charm, the other teachers must have wondered why I was so interested in The Use of Stories in Teaching Social Studies. [one of the more interesting papers]

Then everyone looked busy and bustling, like they had something to do, and it became a sort of situation where I was the only one standing idle, while everyone else was running around me, so I decided to sit and ignore everyone else instead.

Not a good move, admittedly, but one I'm too used to for my own good.

It became almost that I wished they were severely shorthanded, so that I could have been chucked into intense teaching from the start. At least I would have used some energy in the meantime. (^^!)

Ah well, these are the normal starting blues I guess. Hopefully from tom, they'd give me some relief teaching and I'll actually be able to do something.

Keep wishing me luck.

Updates from my Job

I can almost feel the lack of sleep weighing down my eyebags... urgh...

My tuitions on sat and sun morn have officially commenced once more, and I've been vainly trying to pull myself out of my very-comfortable-bed at 730 on weekend mornings to fulfil my educational duties to those in need.

Sometimes I wish I was just that little bit more irresponsible.

So if you've been on my MSN list, you'll know that I've been posted to a semi-famous primary school very near my house, which we will call Neko Primary School. [if you think about it, you'll know why I called it that, and which school it is] And I'm FREAKING because it's an all boys school and I came from an all girls one.

How da fish do you handle boys?

On the one hand, most boys will take blows [figuratively speaking, of course] better than most girls, who will simmer and glare at you with red hot pupils and silently plan your demise in their little ribboned-ponytail heads. On the other hands, most girls would not pick fights and come to blows with each other and attempt most of the things that, well, boys will do. :S

My only consolation is that I probably won't be taking up much REAL teaching duties, seeing as how I'll be there for only 4 weeks. [or rather I'm PRAYING i won't be taking up much teaching duties] Most likely, I'll be doing a lot of observation, co-teaching, and maybe relief teaching. [hopefully the school will be a single session school]

And of course, there will likely be much more stories on the Mis-Educators blog because of it. :S So keep supporting that site. I've just posted a link for stories from an English teacher teaching in Japan, so you guys can go there. It's tres funny, it is, the things that happen there. :p Makes me [almost] thankful I'm teaching in Singapore. :p

And I just remembered: I suspect one of my kids' parents could be teaching in Neko Primary!!! :0 right now I'm praying that she's not, and at the same time, hoping that she's not in that school! Let's keep the Tutes and Schs separate, ya?

Keke done for now... Wish me luck and that I survive the 4 weeks... :S

This morning started out all wrong.

FIRSTLY, tuition kid who was supposed to come in the morning cancelled last minute. As in she SMSed me the message LAST NITE at 130AM and I read it at 730 this morning. WTH??? What for I wake up so early in the morning then???

Never mind, I thought, console yourself by going for breakfast and have your favourite roti prata and teh ping. As thoughts of crispy prata and fragrant curry filled my mind, I looked out the window, and saw the cloudy horizon filling with dark clouds and a cool, misty, rain-like wind blowing into my face.

Oh kuso, I thought, and then as if by magic, the heavens burst upon to rain their showery blessings upon me.

YEEEAAARRRGGHHHHH.................................................................

So FINE i'm STUCK at HOME, with the PC again.... I decide to open up Freehand and draw up a new cartoon for the Mis-Educators blog. [inspired by Yenn during lecture. Go take a look]

Pen. Stroke. Erase.

Pen. Stroke. Curve. Delete.

Pen. Stroke. Curve. Fill. Undo. Delete.

Pen. Stroke. Curve. Fill. Undo. Delete. Swear. Curse. Threaten all manner of unholy acts upon the PC.

You get the idea. (^^!)

And I still gotta rush off and bathe and meet Turtle before going to school.

For a 4 hour tutorial.

And it's still raining, albeit a light drizzle.

oh kuso.....................

Another update on Mis-Educators on my rather eccentric lecturer...

Hate her? Saboh her online!

Yesterday's Digital Life supplement in the ST ran an interesting article on the dangers of online sabotage. Did you guys realise that it's NOT illegal for someone to post your personal details online?

I remember a Xiaxue post where she wrote about the revenge she wrought on a girl who had [unfairly, she judged] stolen a cab from her. If I remember correctly, I think she even jumped into the cab to confront the girl and even took photos of her on her handphone camera.

So ok, whatever. Then later on, she realised that the girl had been giving a highly-biased picture of her through some online forums. [Well, simply put, the girl was talking bad about her lah] In a fit of righteous indignation, she went on to post the photos of the girl and the boyfriend online, linked the girl's blog, the friendster profile, and any other online paraphernalia the girl had online. She even gave instructions on how to bypass the Javascript password prompt the girl had on her blog.

Considering the daily visitor statistics to Xiaxue's site average in the 1000s, you can imagine what happened to that girl's blog. :p

But you can already see from this that it's not difficult to find and put information about a person online. Even for a person who retains an anonymous facade like I do, a truly determined person could probably hunt out clues on my blog to find hints to my identity. [good luck trying. I have over 2 years of archives]

Worse still, someone who knows me in real life, should he/she have a sudden flash of hatred towards me, can post as many personal details as they know online. For my close friends, this would include my real name, my handphone no, my address, and, if you want, you could probably steal my underwear and sell online. [not that any of u would want to do so....... right?]

And you know the best part? NONE OF THIS IS ILLEGAL.

That's right. If I type on my blog now "Ah Neow lives in Jalan Anak Kambing Blk 123 #12-345 and her phone number is 98765432. She's a damn sexy chio bu so call her now!" it's NOT illegal. Even if Ah Neow gets 1000s of phone calls from that one stupid post, she cannot even sue me for harassment.

Scary huh? So moral is: Don't totally piss off your friends.

There is a little clause in the law: The law in Singapore can only make an arrest, if it can be proved that the information I posted led to a crime being committed.

So if I type: "My friend Ah Kow is living in [insert district 10 name] house no 124. You can't miss it! It's the big white house with lots of begonias in front! He's going on holiday from this friday to monday. I told him better change that rusty lock for his gate, or at least buy more than one lock for the house, but he don wan. Scally his house kena rob ah! So much jewellery he leave in his brown cupboard in his bedroom!" it's still considered legal.

ONLY if some stupid burglar decides to rob the house BASED solely on the information above, bungles up the job, gets caught by the police, and admits that "Yah lah, I read the boredslacker blog then I know that guy going on holiday mah! How I know I so xia suay you will be taking kopi break there at that time??"

THEN can I be charged under the law.

Luckily for me, I do NOT post much personal information online. I've seen blogs where they put photos of themselves, their house, their friends, their boyfriends, their dogs, their mother's underwear, [ok, I've never seen the last one. Heh.] and can't help but think: If people recognise you on the streets, talk about you, express many unfair opinions about you ["Wah lau, her mother wear so obiang panty ah?"]

Whose fault is it? Haven't you sort of invited the comments by posting all this up?

Thankfully for me, I've never encountered too much of this kind of thing from my humble little blog. There's something to be said about being one of the xiao ren, as the song goes.

Oh, and remember my previous post on defamation? Digital Life also posted some more information.

"Ah Kow is a bastard" implies Ah Kow was illegitimate. If he wasn't, he can sue.

Then how about "Ah Kow is a f**king bastard"? Will the law sue me for using f**king? After all, he is a normal, functional human male is it? That's not defamatory is it?

"Ah kow is an incompetent idiot" implies he cannot do his job. This damages his reputation, so he can sue. But he can't sue you for using "idiot"

"idiot" and the like are common expletives, so "no matter how vulgar, are generally not considered defamatory." according to the article.

"Slut" and the like implies that the woman sleeps around, but it's an expletive too, so the judge would probably determine whether it's defamatory by looking at the rest of the message.

So in other words, that means that I cannot sue people for the following statement:

"boredslacker that BITCH! What a f**king fool! Always writing a bunch of f**king crap on her blog! Why doesn't that SLUT just go f**k her IDIOT boyfriend already?"

But if they write:

"boredslacker is clearly unfit to teach at any level. You can see how irresponsible she is, from the casual use of foul language on her online web log. She is clearly very incompetent at her job"

THEN you will receive the letters from my lawyers. :)

A quick note: I've set up the Mis-Educators blog for anything school-related, so you guys can check that out for my misadventures, yea? I'm not putting them on this blog, because I got other plans for that one in the future :p so take a read once in a while, k? Arigatou...

Btw, don't spread the news of this blog to gahmen frens, ya? You never know when Da Ge is watching......

Mis-Educators

And for other entertainment, check out what one creative genius did to the fountains at Taka...

Terrorists Poison Ngee Ann City

Too bad, might've been more interesting if he'd used Tiger instead...

Day 1 of Servitude

This next post is coming to you at another ungodly hour, but this time I'm at home, frantically typing away to finish this post so I have time to run out, eat prata, [food at NIE suckx. Will try to reduce eating there as much as possible] and stone on the train all the way to Boon lay. Thank God I have a good book with me. :S

As of yesterday, 20th June 2005, 9am Singapore time, I officially became a trainee teacher, employee of Ministry of Education, of the gahmen. God help us all, and especially the children who will be under me.

Anywayz, as from the last post, Yenn and I successfully managed to get to campus, and find the locations of the LTs without getting too lost. :S Aside from a slight hiccup. Heh.

The day went by rather smoothly, I guess, since it was just 2 briefings we had to attend on future modules, one of which starts TODAY and goes on till Friday. Talk about a crash course! The way I hear it, the course I will take for 6 months is like a doctor shoving half a dozen pills down your throat, shaking you hard till it all goes down, and then kicking you out his clinic door, demanding that you be healed and healthy NOW! :S

Ok, that's a strange analogy, but my brother's nursing drug guide is in front of me right now, so that's what I came up with :p

The GTs [GTS, GTT, and now GTK] were also astounded at the number of ex-classmates, ex-schoolmates and ex-dunnowhat that we came across in the canteen during a break. For the Bizaders, we saw LEROY of all people. [taking into account he was a first-class hon student, you can roughly guess how much the Ministry will be paying him. :S] Then there was Ron L, who'd worked in private for 6 months, and then went to contract teaching, and a couple more people Yenn recognised, but I didn't. For CJC-ers, Krys, I donno whether you remember Soo from C2 last time? Yea, she's a teacher too.

*Peng* Quite the reunion there :S All these souls, disillusioned and disenchanted by the private sector, and thus heading into teaching instead. :S Only to join more disillusioned and cynical souls like Yenn and I. Good choice of career.

Then after another briefing, the GTs headed for the queue for registration [which would give us stuff like our matric no, orientation pack, time table etc etc...] only to find a queue which rivalled the Great Hello Kitty Fiasco of 2000. Wah liao kuso leh! We decided, no point, and went to Jurong Point for lunch instead, resolving to settle it another day.

Pretty much, that was the end of the day at NIE. I have one crash course module this week, [bleah] and another Teacher Prep one next week for 2 weeks, and I'll be posted to a school!!! :S:S:S Remember that doctor analogy just now? [double BLEAH] It's all in line with the latest Ministry initiative to let trainee teachers try out the teaching world to decide whether it's for them or not. Granted it's a good idea, but YEARGH! I NEED CLOTHES! [scrambles around frantically for pants and Giordano shirts]

Brekkies time now...... wish me luck and let's see how the first module goes..... :p

BTW, might consider starting another blog in future, dedicated solely to exploits in NIE... will consider and post any updates on this blog...