Sherry’s Blog

today is a lazy day at home for two good reasons, one - i’ve left my wallet in office & i’m penniless now! two - i think i’ve worked too hard these days & it’s time i give myself a break for once. to start off my day, i woke up at 6 plus this morning, together with my sister, we accompanied our mum for a walk in the park opposite. it was almost 7am when we reached, but there were a lot of uncles and aunties exercising already. this adventure park is quite cool, the exercise corner, pyramid and skating ring for the older folks, young children and teenagers respectively. cool yeah? anyway, seeing those people exercise made me feel i’m so unhealthy recently. due to the ultra busy schedule & long tiring days (excuses? haha), the only exercises i do is to walk to school & back home, and to take the stairs everyday. oh, i saw some cute kittens in the park, black & white series. keke… i ended up snapping many pics of them with my sony ericsson hp.  

after the morning exercise, we went to the food centre for breakfast. i saw my colleague there. she’s a lady in her 50’s, but she’s ultra fit and she goes jogging very often. seeing her reminded me of one thing, that i could be spotted by my students any moment also, Miss Soh shabbily dressed and in her black edna-looking spectacles. haha… sad right? "underpaid celebrity", that’s what i call myself.

when i was back home, i watered my plants and rid them of some hateful pests. three big discoveries!!! that the caterpillar i found the other day has grown to quite an amazing size, it is much bigger than the last one i had. i found another of the same species, but so tiny that one will probably give it a miss. it looked like it was hatched yesterday, so tiny & adorable! the third discovery was that i found a moth hiding in the pot i grow my orchids in. last night i saw it flew into my house and then out again. this moth looked like the same one that grew from the capsicum! hmm… wonder if i’m being too sensitive.

in the late afternoon, i met my financial planner to finalise some insurance plans that i’m taking up. he’s a pretty nice chap i got to know through a friend. anyway after settling the serious stuff, somehow started talking about Christianity and he shared with me his personal encounters with God and how his wife who was previously very against Christianity was converted. it was a pretty much enlightening session. however, i was telling him that though i believe in the existence of God, i need a personal encounter to be totally convinced of what he can do. taking the first step without faith is always the most difficult isn’t it?

ok, that’s 3/4 of my sat, the rest of the time is for surfing, blogging, sleeping and minimal marking. keke.

today lecture again, first one was good, second one, in the middle of the lecture, suddenly my laptop died?!?!! grurr… and my internet connection just got cut off! what luck…

haven’t blogged for days already, been too busy to sit down and relax, more say blog. today’s better… just finished my lesson observation by my HOD, so decided to give myself a break before i really go mad. haha… all was fine, i had my tutorial as usual, no gimmicks to make my lesson seem more interesting. simplicity is good. lolx.

tomorrow i gotta lecture again, by i’ve yet to revise my lecture powerpoint presentation! been painting my toe nails for the past hour! it’s such a tedious process! i’m glad it’s done, but quite disppointed with the END-POINT colour though… doesn’t quite look like what i expected it to be. or maybe tt orangy-red colour just don’t look right on my tiny toe-nails. sob sob… i just bought the nail polish after work today, the sales-girl was so nice to me, she helped me paint my nails to try out the colors, she even opened a new bottle for me to try on when the tester ran out. when the nail polish thickened too much, she went to soak it in hot water so i can try. i feel like a queen, haha… first class service lor! i thought it’s so rare. we even call each other by our names. then when i was about to leave, she stopped me and passed me a bar of fragrant soap, FOC. i think that gift wasn’t supposed to be there, so her colleagues were commenting in cantonese that she’s like “wa, like old friend hor?” they probably thought i couldn’t understand, but they’re wrong! keke… hmm.. must be my lucky day today, either that i’m such a wonderful customer that she loves me so much. hee…

ok, latest update before i end, there’s one lime caterpillar growing on my lime plant again. i first saw it three days ago, it’s eating the leaves at an amazing rate and growing well. i think it’s about time to move it into a container before it becomes too fat and catches the eye of some birds or insects!

now back to lecture rehearsals…. btw, my mum’s feeling much better now. thanks to those who are concerned with her state of health. she’s been regularly seeing the doctor for checkup, and we’ll monitoring the situation lor… cheers

weekends are burnt with marking and work and nothing else. even on a beautiful sunday, where the weather is so good and perfect for lazing around at home, i have to mark & even to go out for tuition. haven’t met my student for a long long time as she’s now surviving on group tuition. well, at least she’s in good hands of a good teacher i know of. today i had to tutor her cuz that topic was already covered before she joined the class. i only recently know of some unpleasant experiences she has in school, hence chatted with her for almost an hour trying to console her and encourage her. hope she’ll be strong…

anyway back home and i was working again until just before i blog. next week’s a shiong week. i’ve lectures ongoing, mock SPA assessment, which means tedious marking, tests to finish marking and worst of all, lesson observation by my HOD! i live or die depends on tt lesson liao. haha. wish me luck k? lolx

hmm… just collected my MAGNETIC MATTRESS today, spent a bomb on it. though primary reason is my concern for my mum’s health, seriously i don’t think i would buy & trust such an expensive item if not for my cousin selling it. hee… tonight, the mattress is MINE as my mum’s still not feeling very well & she doesn’t want to try it now. wonder what difference it’ll really make… tmr i shall see!

Saturday, and I’m still working, been marking the whole day since 9 plus this morning. in the afternoon i took a few hours off though, to meet up with my financial planner. i need a good retirement plan, better depend on myself than others, i don’t want to be a burden. anyway, it’s break time now & soon it’ll be back to more marking. tmr got tuition also, this whole weekends is burnt again. haiz… been telling my friends that "i’m busy like mad". hope i don’t go mad. next week gotta lecture and lesson observation! hope everything will be good next week! *keeping my fingers crossed*

never mind, bad times will soon be over! june holiday is near… something to look forward to!

oh yeah, just had my college sports day yesterday, took some pics, but they all turned out too lousy, so thought i’ll just share this lousy general overview of the sports complex. these days the students have cheerleading teams for each house, the highlight of the day was really the cheerleading competition. seeing them do their stunts almost made my heart jumped out! my camera battery went flat, so no pics to share, ex-TJCians should come back & see for yourselves!

today’s one out of my two my CCA days, i normally don’t look forward to this day because i have to travel to a neighbouring school (the hot sun or rain makes it worse) and station myself there for 2h ++. i didn’t reach home until about 7pm today. in case you’re wondering, i’m overseeing a mentoring programme and my students are there to mentor some primary school kids. as the only teacher-in-charge, i have to be there to ensure things are running smoothly, especially now that the list of mentors is not yet finalised… thanks to the big turnover during JAE posting. lucky for me the teacher coordinators in that school are very helpful and easy to work with, my student leaders are also very responsible and efficient. though i normally drag myself there half-dead, the day usually ended with much joy. somewhat it is brightened when i see how serious my student mentors are, their genuine care and love for the kids and most importantly, i know they’ve enjoyed themselves. every minute is well-spent! oh… by the way, it was raining pretty heavily when i left for home just now, i’m so proud i kept to my resolution because i had not taken a cab. hahaha. three cheers for myself! hooray!!! lolx

Today is much better than black monday. haha… finally finished marking about 130 experimental reports, they have been accumulating since the start of last week. phew! but NO NO, marking’s not over yet… i still have three more classes to mark, just collected back some assignments. this week’s gonna be worse! 2 experimental reports x 130 = 260 reports to mark!!! cham, all my other work is on hold.

gosh, donno what on earth happened today, SUAY is the word! hear my story…

first period in the morning, i was supposed to do a lecture. i went to the LT, set up the system only to realise that the power switch on the projector could not be turned on. I called my friend for help, he came, fiddled around the switches and concluded that the projector could not work, because it looked like we had already done the necessary. I was still pretty cool about it cuz I had printed the notes out for backup, and so I suggested using the visualiser. but guess what? the visualiser eventually needs the projector to work! to my dismay, i rushed back to the staff room hoping to get some transparencies as a last resort. when i was almost to the door, my friend told me he had rectified the problem. so what was the problem? donno which person had ITCHY HANDS, there is actually one more switch on the projector itself other than the usual ON/OFF we use, and this was turned OFF! *fuming* well, the lecture proceeds with the powerpoint i’ve prepared…

barely a break and i had a meeting, after the meeting, i did some lesson preparations, ate one slice of a cake and soon it was time for a three period tutorial/practical. it was supposed to end at 12.45pm, but some students stayed back to ask me questions and I left only at 1.15pm. no time for lunch, cuz my next lecture’s at 1.30pm.

now the most exciting part of the story, i was back in the same LT again. guess again what happened this time round?

the cables connecting to the projector were unplugged!?!?!?! I tried as hard as I could to fit to the different slots, it still could not work! no choice, gotta call for help again… this time round another colleague came by, he plugged in the cables but BEFORE he could test the projector, my laptop DIED!!! Isn’t it a BLACK Monday?!?!?! 15 minutes have been wasted, there was no point in me rushing back to print the notes on transparencies anymore. lucky i told myself, better bring some transparencies and markers just in case… so i ended up using the dear old but RELIABLE OHP, scribbled notes on the spot and blabbered on for the next half an hour. I am pretty AMAZED that I made it. haha… but one thing, i forgot to make an announcement. ARGHhhh! anyway, after lecture was already 2.15pm, donno why but students have so many questions today, we talked and talked until 2.40pm… I’ve not taken lunch, but by this time, I was simply too exhausted to eat.

3.30pm, my next class all the way to 5.15pm… sigh…

BLACK MONDAY… boohoo

ey, but i think i am in a good mood today. haha…

yeah! my longest blog so far! keke.

it’s Qing Ming Festival again, early this morning, my relatives and I went to Bishan ting (3) to pray to our ancestors. i hardly had enough sleep, but this is like once or twice in a year thingy thus I told myself that I must go. not to mention praying to the ancestors, i think it’s chance for everyone to get together. we chatted, and one topic striked me deeply. my aunts were commenting that families are so small in sizes these days and bonding between extended families is so much lesser than in the kampong days. any day one’s partner leaves, it’s pretty lonesome. i can’t agree more. i think that no matter how successful a person is in his/her career, how many friends he/she has, eventually it’s the family warmth and support that’s most important. you’ll probably be thinking that quality means more than quantity, but with the kind of hectic lifestyle one has these days, how much time can one really give? so it’s always a good thing to have more. sadly the standard of living is becoming so high, and family sizes have to be kept small. hmm…maybe i’m just plain old-fashioned, but i think the govt will like me for being so pro-govt plans. lolx

nothing much exciting today, however i met up with my financial advisor this afternoon. the things that happened recently (other than my mum, my uncle’s also not feeling well) only tells me one thingy - that life is so volatile, so unpredictable. to me, medical protection is an essential. touch wood anything happens, at least i have something to fall on. it’s always better to depend on oneself than others right?