Profession

In case some of you are wondering what I'm doing right now...
I've been posted to Chai Chee Sec as a contract teacher.
Things have been going well so far for the past one week as I only did relief teaching for the first 2 days, followed by 2 days of Teacher Preparation Program and there was no class assigned to me on fri.
I'm still trying to get use to the school and know more teachers in the staff room.
What I intend to do is to draw up a staff room sitting plan for myself so that I know the teachers and their teaching subjects.
This is also a way to get them to know me and me to know them.

Hopefully, I can get my timetable on Monday so that I can start my lesson planning proper.
Which means I also need to find out from the teachers where they will be stopping when I take over.
Definately, I need to learn the art of classroom management from the teachers as some of the students are really difficult to settle them down in class.
My aim is to change their minds about study and change their behaviour.
Let's cross my fingers and hope that everything will go smoothly.

Class dismissed,
Peiyan

Batam Trip - Digital

The original plans today was to go Batam and have fun and the cable ski place.
Unfortunately, the place was so hot favourite that it's fully booked.
Still Gerald, Kelvin and I decided to travel to Batam for sight-seeing and some photo taking.

We took the 9.30am ferry to Batam.
Greeted by the large crowd at Harbourfront ferry terminal and slow clearance at Batam immigration, we made it to Batam in a 1 hour ferry ride.

Our main destination was to Nagoya.
The spa which we planned to go too in the afternoon is located somewhere in Nagoya but we had no idea where it is exactly.

We took a cab down to Nagoya and explored the area in the morning before we happened to find the right guy who showed us the place that we were searching for.

Here are some photos which I took in Batam to share.

More images can be found here.

The weather was rather hot. But by the time we finished our spa session, it started to rain heavily. We made our way back to the ferry terminal and settled for some coffee and donuts at J.Co, located in the mall opposite the ferry terminal. The donuts there are cheaper by about 40%. yipeee...
I bought half a dozen back home cause my family don't really enjoy donuts.

We were quite slow when it comes to money as we were trying to convert the prices to Singapore dollars. Furthermore, currency is in rupiah and everything is priced in thousands. :S

22000rupiah = SGD$???,
Peiyan

School posting

I got a letter from MOE.
It's the posting memo to inform me where I've been posted to for my contract teaching.
And it is Chai Chee Sec.

Well...
It's not what I really wanted in mind.
I've got no proper impression about the students there so I cannot make judgements yet.

Gonna start teaching next week.
Dunno how the students will behave.
Dunno what kind of class I will get.
Many dunnos...

???,
Peiyan

Commencement 2008

Yay...
I went for my 2nd commencement ceremony today.
2nd ceremony because I received my scroll during the main ceremony from President S R Nathan.
*yes you can envy me. hahaha*
But at the same time, I've opted to got for my faculty ceremony too so that I can see my friends graduate and take photos with them.
*the photo taking is the important part. hee*
This year's commencement is special.
The theme of the main ceremony is "Celebrating student achievements".
Thus, as a committee member in NUSPS for 2 years, I received an email from my faculty telling me that I've been selected to be presented at the main ceremony.
This made my parents proud because I received my scroll from the President of Singapore.
*The feeling of shaking his hands are neutral*

Anyway, back to the faculty ceremony.
It began to rain very heavily when I was waiting for the bus from Clementi to UCC.
No choice but to take cab to UCC.
At least it's better than getting drenched.
One bad thing about my faculty ceremony is that it starts at 7pm.
Hence the lighting is a problem at UCC with my sister's compact camera.

The most funny thing was that I am the only graduate who had been presented in the main ceremony to be present at the faculty ceremony.
Hence, I get a whole row of seats all to my self.
*hahaha...*

Oh... during the academic staff walk in, I saw my favourite Prof.
And he made my last semester memorable.
He was sitting in the first row, 2nd from the left.

So... Here are the photos.

Meiling, Me, Xingling

Me and Liza, my sec sch classmate from sec 1 to 4.

Me with Li Da (Honours student)

Me, Yishan, Ginny (OG mates)

Me and Shijun (Science Club)

Me and Chris (my maths best buddy, accompanying me for many modules through thick and thin. *hahaha*)

The Number Theory course Master, Shifu and Tudi (Me, Prof. Chan, Chris)*hahaha*

Me and Ginny (I meet her in MA3110 from my math gang)

Wen Hao and Me (OG mate)*he specially came back early from Malaysia to see us graduate*

Jeanbean and Me (I managed to catch hold of him before he goes home)

It was an fun evening taking photos with my friends.
When Chris and I caught up with Prof. Chan to take photos, Prof. Chan asked me whether I have graduated or not.
hahaha.
I was laughing and Chris told him that I got my scroll on Monday (main ceremony).
The Valedictorian is also a Math graduate and all Math graduates agree with one point that she said:
Eventually, we all master the art of tiny handwriting for the sucess of the many helpsheets written during the period of our course.
*hahaha*

Happy graduation,
peiyan

The new 17 bus

I was in luck today.
For the past few days, I've seen new buses for service 17 plying to my house.
But I have yet to get the chance to take a ride in it.
And finally today, I caught the bus from Bedok Interchange back home.

The new bus is actually the new handicap friendly bus.
It can take 2 wheelchairs and it has a low floor.
This allows easy access for elderly people.

There wasn't much passengers on the bus.
I took the last seat got 2 photos of the bus.

View of the bus from the back seat

One of the seats at the back row has seat belts on it because that seat is facing the walkway.
The seat belt ensures that passenger does not fly out of the seat in case of hard breaking.

This may sound a funny but there has never been such buses running near my area and hence I've never taken such buses.
Towards the back seats, the floor is levelled up so sitting at the last row feels like sitting on a high platform in the bus.
hahaha

Swa ku me,
Peiyan

Lost

I'm not lost on the street.
Neither am I lost in feelings.
I'm lost in deciding what kind of tops to buy.

What are the allowed and disallowed tops for a teacher?
One thing I know for sure...
Button blouse are definately ok.
But... I've got big upper arms.
Short sleves blouses are a bit tight at the shoulder area.
(I don't know why they like to have those small closing at the end of the sleves.)
Best is still long sleves.
My chest is another problem.
The big chested girl will show a big hole at the chest area when she wears button blouses cause the chest circumference is a tight fit (thus the area in between 2 buttons are stretched sideways).

Went shopping today at Parkway Parade.
First store was Esprit.
Shopped quite long there cause I keep trying tops.
In the end, I only spent $49.90 on a pair of grey pants (and that pants was on sale).
No tops buying for me today.

Picture from Esprit's website (espritshop.com).

So... yup, I'm lost as to what type of tops I want to get.
Hope that the female teachers out there can give me some advise.
Anyway, I still got 2 weeks of shopping time left before I officially start my contract teaching.

Though teachers have the easiest time in the choice of clothes, I still get the headaches.
Haiz...

Esprit and Dorothy Perkins, save the clothes for me...

*lost*,
Peiyan

Nike+ Human Race 10K

Saw this interesting race from my nus email lately.

The race looks interesting.
I've got this interest in joining it.
Not because of the satisfaction of completing 10km.
But I think it's because of the t-shirt.
lol
It has been a long time since I last ran (the last time was in JC?).
And I don't like running cause I always get pain in my calf muscles after running a short distance (by short, I really mean short like 400m).
A simple google on it shows that I've got tight calf muscles and here's what the website says:

Why do they tighten up?
You might have a compartment syndrome.
You might have a bio mechanical problem in your running style and need orthotics. See a sports injury specialist or podiatrist that can do bio mechanical analysis.
Your muscles have gradually tightened up over a period of months through poor stretching.
Tiny micro tears in the muscles cause them to go into spasm. When they are in spasm or contracted then blood cannot easily get into them. The muscles have squeezed the blood out like a sponge. If the muscles do not get enough blood then they will not get enough nutrients and so will tighten up to protect themselves and weaken and so on.

The longest distance I've survived running without stopping was like 800m?
That's only 8% of the 10km race.
lol
The rest of the 92%?
Walk lor.
Or jog when my legs are not hurting.
The race route is closed to traffice only for 2 hours.
That means if I decided to walk all the way, I must complete 10km in less than 2 hours (have to minus time for the huge crowd to pass the starting mark).
What to do?
I don't have to stamina to run that long.

To join or not to join?
Peiyan