yeah....Things will only get better

Yes, I confess that I’m getting pretty disorganised recently. Be it at work or at home.

My room’s getting messier ( or is it more messy?) and my work table is always so cluttered. I believe I can throw away some of the stuff but well no motivation to do so. My office girl is always bugging me for the accounts updates so that she can keep a proper record. I’m not sure if she’s really that efficient( or rather am I that inefficient) that she will be at my table every other day asking me for updates.

Every single payment will have to be authorised by me, though I’m not the one issuing the cheque. Every single cheque issued will have to properly recorded by her. Yes, she pretty meticulous I must say. But to be hounding after you for any updates every day, well it can reallyget on your nerves? Haha…. I’ve tried reminding her gently and she does acknowledges it. But aiya… I guess that’s her working style. As long as it doesn’t have any negative impact, I guess that’s fine with me. But then again, I don’t think ever in the history of this company that there are cheques to be issued everyday? There’s always a schedule for payment, of course barring any urgent/unforseen situations. So there’s really no way that there would be cheques issued every day.

I guess a weekly update is very much sufficient.

But well, still got a long way to go in training her. Her command of the English Language isn’t that good and risks offending customers whenever she picks up the phone. I rather she speaks in Chinese or even in Malay.

***************************************************

I look at my desk. Wow…it’s so cluttered. I won ‘t call it messy. Because the messy one is my drawer…. haha… I need some dividers inside my drawer. I open and close my drawers very fast. And the contents start to fly. Before I know it, I need to spend additional time searching.

I tried to reduce the stuff on my desk. Cannot do so until the shelf’s in. The thick files and folders are already taking like half the table space?. Put in my laptop, stationary, it’s almost fulled. And yes, the telephone. Must try some ways to get rid of the files.

Ok…. cheques are running low. Damn… I thought that there’s an arrangement with the bank that a new chequebook will be sent over the moment a certain cheque number is issued ? Oh well… must ensure.

******************************

Time to change my organiser and it’s only like end of September?

Have been trying to log into this particular portal but without any success.

I thought I have forgotten the password. But well, I’m pretty sure I didn’t. This went on for a couple of minutes and luckily there’s no maximum number of attempts before that account gets suspended.

I got up, sipped a cup of tea and realised, yeah, the CAPS key is on.

Oh my my…. am I getting old or what?

It's not that common that I wake up at 5 in the morning. But somehow I did it. Decided to go for a stroll but it as slightly drizzling, hence it didn't materialize.

I realise I needed a drink. Was kinda thirsty when I woke up. Don't recall having a bad dream, a nightmare or whatsoever, but somehow I woke up.

Decided that my room was in a mess, it still is. Began some major cleaning up operation and rid my room of some accumulated magazines and stuff. Will bring them down to the recycling bin unless some old magazine shops would want to buy them? Even if it means 10 cents per magazine, I would be willing to get rid of them.

*******

How time flies, it's already a Friday. It seems strange but I no longer look forward to Fridays. Not that I don't need a weekend or a rest but I hardly rest during the weeekends. In fact, any rest day for me ( and I really mean rest day, a day that I can rest and not do any work-related stuff) is very much welcome .

But nevertheless, I smile at the sight of the sms that Don sent. Well, that is to play bball this coming Sunday. Not that I love playing basket ball, in fact I don't. I don't even know what's the correct way to bounce the ball or the rules of the game. But it's nice to get together just before his folks shift into his place perm.

********

I think I shall laze around a bit more before going to work. =)

It feels good when the once blur and irritating office girl is able to point out my mistake and took the initiative to ractify it for me on the spot.

=)

Thanks

First of all, a huge thank you to Ms Tan ( formerly known as Ms Ng) for organising this .


It has been some 15-16 years since we last met one another. Lotsa catching up but well we only had a few hours. Nevertheless it's good start.



From left: Hanyang, Jialin, Caisi,Debiao, Me and Huirong.

Hanyang is a PhD candidate in NUS. Used to play "poison ball" with him. Those from Ai Tong during my era should know what I'm refering to.

Jialin is a Maths Teacher teaching in a secondary school in Singapore. Not going to reveal which school though. Thanks for making the effect to organise this gathering.

Caisi is in the construction industry. Seems like the industry is doing very well. Hope that her bonus will be good. Thanks for the pictures.

Debiao is a cadet pilot with SIA. He's enjoying every moment of it and will be going for training in Australia(again) pretty soon.

Huirong is a full time ballet teacher. A former auditor. Glad to know that she's pursuing her passion, something that I aim to do so too. Of course not ballet. =p

Really hope to meet up with you guys again.

Ok, I only realised that the picture of my extracted tooth didn't turn out well. Damn. Can't post it here.

The dentist is a very small lady. But her strength is unimaginable. Fantastic.Fast smooth and efficient.

Perhaps I was already mentally prepared, hence it wasn' t as painful as the first time. In fact , it wasn' t painful. It was at worse, uncomfortable. I mean, who would like things placed inside your mouth huh? The jaw gets pretty tiring too.

But well it's over. And I'm glad that it went well.

Thanks a lot Dr Ng.

Ok people, the month's barely half but I'm pretty sure this quote would be up there come end of the month.

To have a better understanding of this quote , let me describe the senario. Was at Suntec City yesterday evening. So happened that Steph was there too. We decided to meet up for a short while. I was at suntec to pass something to a friend and to get myself a laptop sleeve while Steph was there for some "atas" dinner with a group of friends.

Met her along the walkway outside Pepper Lunch. As usual , she's still so bubbly. She's complaining that she's getting fat. Now, this could end up as quote of the month but then again, gals are forever complaining that they're fat. So forget it.

Somehow I mentioned about the AS1 gang and the only remaining female member, our dear Ms Wong. Steph's eyes brightened up.

" She's so very chio hor, don't you agree?" refering to WY.

I nodded.

" Huh... only like that ah.. I don't care ah, she's chio means she's chio. If I'm a guy hor, I surely would court her one...I'm sure you AS1 guys surely went after her one right?"

Ermm.... I don't think I need to answer this question right? =) We know that.

To borrow a quote from the Mercedes radio commercial,

" Not that we don't know, just that sometimes we need a little reminder"

Ok, Ms Wong, you is very chio.

Gum Tia bo ah steph?

Slipped and fell today. Nothing serious just that I would have to get a new mouse. The impact of the fall sort of "disfigured" my mouse. You see I had my laptop bag slinged across my shoulders. Not too sure how I landed but can't use the mouse anymore.

I found this off the notice board of my church. A very touching story that I vaguely recall reading about it before somewhere. Can't recall though. But nevertheless would like to share it with all.

In the April of 1986, two gray-haired men greeted each other warmly in Tokyo's International Airport. Both men had tears in their eyes. One man was an American named Ponich; the other was a Japanese named Ishibashi. The last time the two men met was forty years before as enemies in a cave in Okinawa.

At that time, the American, then Sergeant Ponich, was holding a five-year old Japanese boy in his arms. The child had been shot through both legs. Ishibashi was one of the two Japanese snipers hiding in a dark corner of the same cave. Suddenly, Ishibashi and his comrade leaped fro their hiding place, aimed their rifles at Ponich and prepared to fire point blank. There wasn't a thing Ponich could do. He simply put the five-year-old on the ground, took out his canteen and began to wash the child's wounds. If he had to die, he thought what better way to die than performing an act of mercy.

The two snipers watched in amazement. Then slowly, they lowered their rifles. Minutes later, Ponich did something Ishibashi never forgot. He took the child in his arms, stood up, bowed in gratitude to the two Japanese and took the child to an American field hospital.

How did the two men happen to meet again after all those years? In 1983, Ponich wrote a letter to a Tokyo newspaper thanking the Japanese people for the two Japanese soldiers who had spared his life forty years before in that cave in Okinawa. Ishibashi saw the letter and contacted the newspaper who set up the meeting.

The meeting was long and affectionate

How often do we hear such war time stories? Don't get me wrong. I do enjoy reading about the heroic acts of soldiers fighting for their motherland and the touching stories of comaradrie. Film directors are best at glorying them, producing action packed films that very over shawdow the true meaning of war films. I'm guilty of being a lover of action packed movies. Movies that make you go "wow" and keep you on the edge of your seats. The ex will testify to this. While I watched in excitement, she will take a nice nap in the theatres till everything's over.

Yes, I prefer films that doesn't require a lot of brain work. Life is already hard enough. Why should we subject ourselves to additional brain work( unnecessary too) at the cinemas when what we want is to relax and enjoy? No need to kill so much gray matter lah.. save some for later.

Someone told me that I would have gotten one weeks' worth of MC should I have my wisdom tooth extracted. Went for it today but didn't get one week's worth of MC... haha.




Wasn't that way it seems but I must say the dentist's door is just as scary as the dentist's chair? Radioactive ah... I better wear protective clothes before I enter, least I get it.

Didn't get to take a shoot of my tooth, it didn't dawn upon me to do so until I reached home. It was slightly blackish, doctor said that it was way too far behind for any toothbrush to reach it properly and hence food remains got stuck and probably that's why the decay. I mean I brush my teeth twice a day, floss it once a day and rinse with mouth wash solution. Technically speaking, shoulnd't have too much of a problem right?

But I guess it's best to follow the advice of the expert.

The bleeding didn't stop until 4 hours later?I remember the first time I removed the gauze, I felt giddy. No idea why. Perhaps a sudden outflow of blood ? The pain killers were, erm.. pain killers. How nice can they taste? It did bring some relief, but I'm glad I recovered fast. Within a day I was able to eat fairly normally.

Going to have another one extratced next week. Someone please remind me to take a snap shoot of the tooth?

Found this old picture in my handphone. Can't remember when did I took this shot but yes, it's inside. I was trying to flush out all the unpleasant pictures when I stumbled upon this one.

For all your corny jokers out there that like to start of your statement with " gu za ma da cheng ter kor..." here's the real policemen with shorts and the ang chias. Well you don't see ang because this is a black and white picture. As simple as that. You can't call it black car too, cos... choi choi.... that's reserved for something else.

I remember passing this little stall several times on my way to my favourite herbal tea shop for my favourite gui ling gao. It does seem a little weird at times but it reminds me of thoseold chinese films whereby you see such stalls set up to cater to less fortunate and to the hungry and thirsty travellers.

Finally took a snap of this.

Not too sure if anyone still drinks from here but it sure looks nostalgic.

I'm not too sure what consitute respect to this young girl. Before the class can commence, certain rules must be established. Once broken, there's absolutely no way you can really talk about respect.

I'm not for the arguement that the teachers must forgive the students after all they are still kids. It is exactly this same group of teachers that are being attacked for " not showing respect to the students", hence they shouldn't be respected in return? I don't know but to me this is what this letter is all about.

Before you can talk about being respected, your must learn how to respect others first. And from this letter to the press, I'm sorry but young girl, you still have a long way to go.

How do adults react when they are hungry and the office doesn't reall allow them to do so? They approach the superior and in the classroom example, the teacher. Apolgise first, then seek permission. Explain your reasons for doing so.

Of course, if such a situation keeps repeating, then it's another issue altogether.

I disagree with Mr Kevin Wong Zi Hao's comments in his letter to The Straits Times Forum page, 'Back teachers who act on unruly students' (Sept 3).

Being a 15-year-old student, I would like to offer another side of the story - the student's point of view.

I agree that some students are rowdy, unruly and show disrespect to their teachers.

However, I wonder if teachers have ever reflected on the root of the problem: Why are students showing disrespect?

Some of my peers show disrespect to a teacher because the teacher does not understand their needs. Some teachers even speak in a rude manner to students first.

Recently, one of my friends took nuggets to eat during a lesson, even though she knew she was breaking school rules.

After talking to her, I found out that she had no choice but to eat in class because she had lessons continuously from 10am until 3pm, and had no time for lunch.

Before the lesson started, she had rushed to the canteen to buy snacks to eat during the lesson, which fell during lunch time.

However, she was chased out of the class because of this.

I tried to negotiate with the teacher on her behalf, but to no avail.

Shouldn't the teacher have found out the reason why she brought the food in, instead of dismissing her as a rebellious teenager who simply wants to break rules?

I felt that the teacher could have shown some flexibility in this situation. After all, a teacher should be someone who cares for a student's welfare.

While it is demoralising for a teacher to deal with unruly students, it was equally demoralising to be the student in this case.

In my primary school, when the teacher returned our exam papers, we were faced with lectures that could last up to an hour. They would scold us for being lazy - any praise was hard to come by. Even a score of 80 per cent was not good enough.

Most times, we had stayed up till past midnight to finish that project or to prepare for that test.

So, I feel that students' efforts these days are rarely acknowledged.

While some teachers expect students to empathise with how they feel, we students also expect teachers to empathise with us.

To me, respect is never one-way. It goes two-way. If teachers expect respect from students, they should start by showing respect to students.

Woo Jia Qian (Miss)

Wah.. win already lor...

then must many many lines ah...

What do Wee Ee Chong, Kasper Schmeichel and Lee Hsien Loong have in common?

They have outstanding fathers and are following in their footsteps. Both Wee and Lee have matched their fathers in term of acheivement. Wee Jr is currently the CEO of UOB and Lee Jr is currently the PM of Singapore. Both Seniors had assumed the posts before.

Kasper Schmeichel is a very promising goalkeeper with Manchester City. Apart from the similarities in terms of physical appearance, both Schemeichel senior and junior once played with Man City Football club. It's completely understandable that fathers are concern about their child's progression and success in life. The overwhelming similarities in career choice and progressions and so on is actually a very common issue. Say what you, it is inevitable that the seniors have a hand to play in moulding their sons. I don't deny the fact that the sons must have what it takes though.

I've met many of times young men and women that have been "brainwashed" into a certain career target or a certain track as determined by their parents. Now parents will argue that the child is theirs, they can "dictate" his career choice. I'm not sure if this is a good move. Even if the child express interests and is genuinely so, having such an illustrious parent, or for that matter any subject d of comparison is not a good thing. People don't realise it's futile to compare. No 2 individuals are indentical and no 2eras are the same. This isn't a good basis for comparison. I shan't talk about the pressure; that's another issue to discuss. It's just the world that we live in. We think that having competition is good. I need not list down the reasons, you go google or pick up any newspaper you can find articles of that nature.

The main issue I have here is that we seem to think compeition is always good and the final survivor is the best. But well, assuming this is correct, are we "competiting" with something in common?

Lee Hsien Loong will forever be compared with Lee Kuan Yew. Lee Hsien Yang is smart enough not to follow into the footsteps. Not that I think that he's not smart/capable enough but is there a need to subject himself to such kind of unfair comparison?

Ministers in the 60's do not draw millions of dollars, but ministers today do. Singapore of the 60's underwent turbulant times, but Singapore today is peaceful. Ministers of today must be compesated with millions of dollars in order to be efficient and clean and blah blah bah. Should we drawn into such a comparison? Should top civil servants be paid so much ? Should this and that... blah blah blah???

Well, at least there's one thing in common and somethings just don't change. We like to compare, whether or not if such and such a comparison is justified. From the very moment you're born, you're compared with some other babies as to who is heavier, who is cuter; after that you're compared of the age you start to talk or the age you start to walk . After which when you attened school, what grades you get and after grad, what jobs you get and how much you earn. And when you get have children of your own, ah... the comparison starts again.

I guess this is the something in common that we have. We just cannot accept the differences. =) Somehow

Yeah... have been down with cough for the past 1 week or so. Didn't cough a single time today, at least not yet. Or I hope not.

Finished one bottle of Pi Pa Gao or Pei Pa Koa. Don't intend to carry on with another one though I kind of like the taste. =)

Ah... so you have it, people that share my views... then again, it's not that my views but a view shared by many many.....

Straits Times Forum
3rd September 2007

Back teachers who act on unruly students
READING last weekend's Saturday Special Report ('Those who can, teach'; ST, Aug 25), I was heartened by the vision exercised by teachers in engaging with students in new and creative ways. However, I believe there is another side of the story that is not told.
I have friends who are teachers, and they sometimes share with me the frustrations that come with the profession. The situation in schools is not always as bright and cheerful as the media may suggest. Not often reported is the fact that there exist some students who refuse to behave and consistently show disrespect to their teachers, sometimes intentionally disrupting classes and generally being a nuisance. This is not cynicism but an unfortunate reality.

Teachers naturally have to take action. However, when they hear of their child's impending punishment, parents tend to complain, and the school, to appease them, advises the teacher to be more lenient.

Not only does this diminish the teacher's authority and effectiveness as an educator and encourage further misbehaviour, but the lack of support from the school can also be very demoralising. Teaching can be very draining, and teachers make tremendous personal sacrifice on a daily basis. They need all the support they can get from their school. Paying them more just doesn't cut it.

I acknowledge that these accounts, as personal anecdotes, may not be entirely objective. However, given the highly competitive nature of the local education market, with schools constantly vying for popularity and top positions in rankings, it is not unreasonable to accept that such cases do exist.

It is true that education is a service, and that, as in every service, the customer is always right. But, remember that in education, the customer is the nation and not the students or their parents. If parents expect schools to effectively educate their children academically, they must also accept that it is the school's duty to enforce discipline. Schools must be prepared to stand by their teachers, to take action against students when necessary, even if it is not easy, even if it causes some unhappiness. Such an understanding does not seem to prevail.

Is the Ministry of Education aware of this important issue, and what measures has it taken to discourage schools from placing their own image and popularity ahead of the nation's priorities in the cultivation of an effective workforce?


Kevin Wong Zi Hao

It's never easy for someone to take charge of 30-40 children. It's not easier to be entrusted with the moulding of someone else's children but minus the authority to take actions that in your opinion, best deal with the situation. Something like a doctor, but you cannot prescribe medication. Not too sure how that works.

*****************

I scrolled down my handphone contact list and was surprised to find out that I actually have more than 30 names of teachers. Some are my friends, some were my former teachers. I'm not too sure why I didn't up with MOE. I enjoy interacting with young people, I like the thrill of making someone understand certain issues that they don't understand.

But somehow, this isn't the kind of scenario that I witness in Singapore today.It requires more than just that . Before you think that I'm gonna launch into some MOE bashing mode, I'm not. Just put it that I've not received that call from somewhere. =)

SO to all my friends in the teaching profession and former teachers,

HAPPY TEACHERS' DAY!!

The year of break-ups?

The list is just getting longer and longer... oh my .....