Saturday, July 21, 2007

Teaching and teaching and teaching....

TEACHING AND TEACHING AND TEACHING.....BUT OSO GOT RELAX LAH!!

Wow it's been a very very very long time since I last posted sth on my blog...muz hav been really busy recently i guess...yup, basically teaching & teaching & teaching & teaching & teaching.... even though I only have 1 class to teach, i still felt busy. Maybe it's bcuz i made it a point NOT to do any work on Saturdays, or if not, the whole weekend...hahahaha...I wan to enjoy work first before the full load of NIE assignments come in... Anyway, just to update on my homework chasing, making the kids stay back on Friday to complete their HW b4 they can leave was quite useful. At least most of the HW came in, even though there were some HW which were BLATANTLY copied. Nevertheless, it was still not a 100% submission of HW though... haiz... maybe next time shd nt give HW, so that no need to chase. Just let them do all de work in class, but tat'll take up quite alot of time, and not everyone would actually do it, and tat wld result in blatant copying again... wat to do?????

Well, at least besides teaching and teaching, managed to take time off to relax oso... On Wednesday (11 July), I went out with a friend for dinner...wanted to go to rice table at first but it closes quite early, so we went to lemon grass at heeren instead. It was quite a nice and memorable dinner cuz tis dinner was one which I can say that "I "fought" for it!!!"... If not for what I had previously done with unexpectedly amazing courage which somehow came to me, tat dinner would never possibly materialize. If you actually knew what I had done that day on 24 June, you'd definitely be shocked and surprised at what I was actually capable of... Wanna bet??? And it was actually a treat from me to my friend, but frankly speaking, my money was spent more for the company of that friend (even though it lasted only abt 1.5 hr at most) rather than the food itself. Cuz we only started dinner at about 8.45pm, but somehow, i wasn't hungry at all, especially in front of that friend...so needless to say, we left some "tips" (a nicer word for leftovers..haha) for the waitors and waitresses to clear...hehe... In retrospect, even if after all that I've done to fight for what I wanted, things dun turn out the way I want it to, I will still not feel that my efforts were in vain. At least for that moment, I was satisfied with myself that I actually possessed such courage to really fight for what I wanted...hmm...is tat an indication that what I was trying to pursue was sth that i really truly wanted??? Somehow, I tink that I take greater pleasure in the PROCESS of pursuing something rather than the object of my pursuit itself, such that when I successfully obtain the object of my pursuit, it somehow starts to lose its appeal to me... quite an irony..lol... So far, regarding this episode on the dinner thingy (which might be considered part of the process of my pursuit of sth...), I hav yet to successfully obtain the object of my pursuit...wonder if one day, if i ever successfully obtain the object of my pursuit, would it likewise mark the beginning of its loss of appeal to me???

In any case, to that friend whom I treated dinner that wednesday, all the best to you as you embark on a new phase of your life... :) May the trials and testings you've gotta go through during this period make you a stronger, better and more mature person! May God grant you not only physical strength, but also a strong willpower to overcome all that you have to! Trust in Him always and He shall direct your paths! :)

Lyna

Friday, July 6, 2007

My Convocation

MY CONVOCATION!!!!

Yup, had my convocation on 4th July, and it marks de end of my education life, and the start of LIFE!! Cuz i dun really hav plans to do graduate studies for now..hehe..Many thanks to de 3 most impt ppl who helped me to make tis day possible!! They are de first 3 ppl whom I took pics wif as shown in the pics below... Saw many of my chemistry honours frens and took lots of pics...Realised tat quite alot of em r oso in teaching career right now, so we'll be course mates again in NIE!!! Everyone had his/her glorious moment of walking up the stage and shaking hands with the prof, receiving the degree scroll..but i tink we were oso quite nervous to make sure tat our "cat-walk" on the stage looked ok...haha... Although it was graduation ceremony, it din really feel like one to me, cuz de next day still hav to wake up early to work...and to make things worse, i was falling sick too...so had to teach wif a throat that is in a not-so-ideal condition. It's sth like u did well for O levels, but cant truly enjoy, cuz u've got another problem at hand to handle, which is A levels...it's unlike getting A level results tat time, when u r really on holiday during tat break b4 entering uni, and can truly enjoy it (f u did well) cuz u dun hav any major problems at hand..haha... Anyway, pictures speak a thousand words, or maybe even much more...so I shall nt elaborate more, but let de pics do de talking... de pics of convocation r below...enjoy!!

Lyna

Thursday, July 5, 2007

A Mad Chase After Homework!!!!!!!

A MAD CHASE AFTER HOMEWORK!!!!!

Wah! chasing after HW as if it's Great Singapore Sale lidat...it turned out to be a task harder than i imagined...Tat day, after I gave em HW, i told de kids to hand it up to their class chairman, and the class chairman will pass the whole pile to me at 2.15pm. And that day, i actually finished lessons at like 9.15am, which was like so early and can like zuo bo...but cuz i told em to hand it to me at 2.15pm, i had to WAIT and WAIT and WAIT for 2.15pm to come...if not i cld hav left at 1.40pm liao...den after that long long WAIT, when de class chairman came to look for me, guess how many pieces of HW i received??? 5 out of 27 students!!! LOL...so much for de long WAIT...i was at least expecting maybe half to hand in, but 5 is like only about one fifth of de class...LOL...was kinda surprised though i had expected problems wif getting students to submit their work..haiz...

Lyna

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Day 2 in class...

DAY 2 IN CLASS....

This is day 2 teaching maths now! Had only 1 period wif de kids today. What I mainly did was go thru their homework qns wif em to reinforce on wat they hav learnt, assuming that they've actually tried their HW beforehand at home...which i realised was an assumption that cannot be lightly made..lol...most of em who diligently tried de HW beforehand generally had not much problems wif it.

But today, my mentor actually left me on my own in class to teach de kids!! i was a little surprised at first..lol.. tot tat he wld stay in a few more times first b4 letting me run the show on my own...haha.. But nevertheless, the absence of my mentor allowed me to experience wat real teaching is like. It exposed me to reality of having to handle a class, to get em to pay attention, to test whether they've understood, all on my own without any external help.

I have 2 more topics to teach to de kids within abt 1.5 weeks' time, hopefully i can finish on time.. and feel tat i've got to start preparing more interesting materials for the kids, if not, they might start to find me boring..hehe...for maths i find it quite inconvenient to teach using computer and IT..it's unlike other science subjects like chemistry & physics which allow more room for creativity...personally, i've never ever been taught maths using computers or powerpoint in schs b4..lol...everything was mainly done on de board, if not on transparency.. n i feel tat de board is better as i can write stuff as and when i wan conveniently..harder to do tat on com unless its a tablet, which i'm nt familiar wif yet oso.. so probably hav to work on producing some handouts wif interesting stuff on it to gain their attention and interest in studying..so tat as i go thru de lesson, they can write it down oso instead of juz listening to me n getting distracted wif wandering thoughts after sometime. That wil mean MORE WORK TO DO!! hahahaha so i'd better get started at it now..haha till next time, cya!!! ;)

Lyna

My Very First Lesson in class!!!!

MY VERY FIRST LESSON IN CLASS!!!!!

Yeaah!! Today is de first day i actually conducted a class!! Was rather excited bout it as i was glad to be given the chance to have a go at real teaching even though i'm still considered untrained and not required to do teaching yet. Thanks to my maths mentor, Mr Ang, who is also part of the discipline commitee! For that day, there were some changes made to the timetable, such that we had 3 maths periods straight in a row instead of 2...haha n i was wondering if it was gd or bad cuz either i wil end up having to tink of stuff to crap wif em as time-fillers if i finish early, or it'll be good that i'll have more time to cover wat i planned to. In the end, i could finish my talking earlier than expected, so juz went thru more examples wif de kids.

The kids r actually quite fun-loving ppl though sometimes playful too, but most of em actually know when they shd get down n be serious in their work. Hope they'll continue to hav a satisfactory level of discipline instilled in em throughout life :) Young ppl wanna hav fun and hav a life too, so cant expect em to be perfect students all de time. :) Even I myself wasn't a perfect student all de time, muz admit it..hehe!! The topic i had to teach for tat day was that area formula for any polygon under de topic of coordinate geometry.. quite a tedious formula actually if u still remembered it.. so i kinda went thru it step by step, but i tot it might hav been easier for em to follow if i had given em some handouts, but that'll take more work..lol... But thankfully, majority of them generally could catch the gist of it when I walked around to check if they cld do the exercise correctly. And after that, I assigned them homework to do, and heard sighs of distress as usual...quite common lah..was wat my class did last time in sec sch oso..haha

Frankly speaking, I was feeling rather apprehensive before i started my lesson..after all, it's my VERY FIRST time teaching a lesson in a sec sch. But at least it did not make me feel as nervous as playing organ for church service...lol...but i tink it got better along the way wif more interaction wif the kids, who were thankfully, rather responsive ppl and not de quiet type of student. And i learnt that kids these days wan a tcher whom they can see more as a fren rather than a person wif authority over em..so i guess it's an art to strike a balance between being firm and being friendly and approachable to em.. it's sth i've yet to master, but wil try to wif more practice..practice makes perfect right???

The classroom's actually quite warm, and having to speak in a sufficiently audible voice most of de time under such conditions can be quite a tiring task. Hence, I now understand why my JC maths teacher was sweating while teaching...lol...and after that, was afraid tat i'll stink, so started using some perfume...and apparently, i over-used it, such that when i went to my next class, some students were like asking, "Who put perfume ar??" in chinese when i walked pass em..lol...diaoz.. ok shall stop here for now :) hope to hav more interesting stories to share as time goes by... ^_^

Lyna

Monday, July 2, 2007

Youth Day = Teacher's Holiday!!!

YOUTH DAY = TEACHER'S HOLIDAY!!!

Today's youth day, and thanks to it, teachers get extra bonus leave!! yay!!! And to me, tis 1 day of holiday is definitely something i really need at de moment...had de privilege of having 1 more day to prepare my lesson for tmr, which is on Amaths coordinate geometry...tried to tink of means n ways to teach tis technical topic "interestingly" but cant seem to come up wif anything solidly interesting at de moment...haiz... :( Besides tat, tis 1 day of extra holiday oso gave me a chance to charge up my physical energy...n probably emotional energy too....

Recently, I've juz done something tat i've never ever expected myself to hav de courage to do so...(but tis is not a gd example of trying out new things n enterprising spirit though..lol..) 24th June 2007 was de day i did it, and i tink it'll take me quite awhile to forget bout it. Muz admit tat i'm rather affected by de aftermath of it though...But thankfully, so far, it has not affected or taken a toll on my work...it's my aim to be professional at work, and i tink i hav been able to do so thus far. :) But when i get home or when i'm alone, i tend to get more affected by it, and wld feel kinda sad over it...hopefully it'll end soon...Perhaps i shouldn't hav done wat i hav done, but i tink i wld feel worse if i had not done it...wat an irony!!! but nvm...wat's done cant be undone...so far, i've only shared de whole episode and almost every decision i made throughout de whole episode wif a person whom i tink is a good adviser on the things of life...he's only a few years older than me, but i can tell tat he's been thru much more than me...you know who u r..haha so if u're reading tis, thanks for all ur advice over dinner tat day! It made me feel better! :)

Ok gotta get some sleep soon...cuz tmr is back to routine of waking up at 530am to go sch again.. realized tat i really treasure weekends once i start working haha...n i'll be teaching my very first lesson tmr, so pray tat it'll go fine...i tink i'll be quite nervous..but hey, there's a first time to everything right? (just like dat "courageous" thing i never expected myself to do... :( lol...) it'll get better wif practice. Practice makes perfect! Yeah! gd nitey.... ^_^

Lyna

It's such a small world!!!

Lyna

My First Band Practice in dunno how many years...

MY FIRST BAND PRACTICE IN DUNNO HOW MANY YEARS...

Yup, went to see de band kids during their CCA...theirs was a military band, same as my sec sch tat time.. The main band teaher-in-charge brought me to see their band room. We passed by de band store room, and the smell of it reminded me of my good old days at band...it smelt somewhat of a mixture of rust tat appears on de instrument and the stuff used to grease de instrument's valve as well as de polishing liquid to make de instrument look shiny...Not exactly aromatic, neither was it a stench, but nevertheless, it still reminded me of de past... :)

And after that, de tcher introduced me to de band, saying tat i'm a new tcher who wil be joining em for 4 weeks, and tat i was previously oso frm band and was a french horn player..I was a little paiseh when he said tat to intro me...cuz i haven been touching my french horn ever since sec 4...lol..haha... The band was standing at attention like in marching, and they greeted me..can tell that they r quite disciplined. :)

Next, they splitted up to do sectionals...remembered last time when i was in band, during sectionals, de whole place wil be quite noisy..cuz everyone playing their own stuff haha...and after sectionals, i joined em again to hear em play...haven been hearing band music for quite some time already, so it was a good feeling to refresh myself hearing their music... they were practising a piece called "circle of life", and i wanted to listen to em playing de whole song, but their conductor kept on cutting n cutting n stopping halfway... :( everytime they started playing, i tink it lasted for 15 bars at most.. but can see tat de kids r working hard for their concert cumin up!! keep it up! jiayou! ^_^

Personally having experienced being in band for 9 years in total, i can say tat band actually helps quite alot in instilling discipline in me...it was in band where i learnt de bulk of my discipline, teamwork and unity, and of course, we had fun too! Especially during footdrill, we were really taught to be disciplined, and it trains us up to endure hardships esp during de times when we had to march under de hot sun or stand still for dunno how long to wait for the arrival of the VIP during Speech Day. At the same time, can learn abit of malay too.. :) Because of tat, my impression of band members is tat they r committed and disciplined ppl to de band, and wld seldom give serious discipline problems... hope my hypothesis is correct!! :)

And of course during SYF competitions, we learn to work as a team, as every member's contribution is juz as important in determining de results we get... In my 4 years of secondary education, i only managed to participate in SYF once, which was during sec 3...when i was sec 1, they said tat i was still not ready for SYF even though i had pri sch band experience... mainly bcuz in pri sch, i played de euphonium n trombone, but changed to french horn in sec sch cuz they need ppl n i din really like reading de trombone score which was in bass cleff..lol...And for tat SYF, we got a bronze, n naturally many of us were rather sad, cuz for de previous SYF, we got a silver and so, means tat de standard dropped...but hey, wats more important is tat we learnt to work together as a team in unity, and we gave our best. Just hav to work even much much harder next time and learn frm our mistakes. Besides tat, oso remembered tat we wld come slightly earlier before sch starts to do some additional practice for footdrill during tat time when we joined de Marching Band Assessment...it was actually only like 15mins earlier b4 sch started, and at first i was like tinking "only 15mins, cant do much.." but hey, 4 days of 15mins wld actually add up to an hour! and 2 weeks wld amount to 2.5 hours of extra practice! So, muz tink positively! In de end, we got a Grade 2, but we were hoping for a Grade 1...was kinda disappointed, but at least, we can truly say tat we've worked as hard as we cld for it..even de band teachers-in-charge oso told us dat de whole sch cld see us putting effort into this assessment when we come early for extra practices.

Hence, I feel tat for competitions like SYF or marching band assessments, we shd try not to focus solely on de end result or medal tat we hope to get...Instead, shd oso remember de learning process and de things learnt during de journey towards our goal. But most importantly, muz put in effort and be committed, and give your BEST on dat day of competition. I'm sure tat if u can truly tell yourself tat u've given your utmost best, u shd be satisfied wif whatever results u obtained. At least u can say, "I've given my best!" And this reminds me of a verse in the Bible and sth i learnt during church camp 2007...

"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:" - 2 Timothy 4:7
Hope to be able to say that in every of my endeavours! :)

Lyna