Nostalgia

I like going to the bank. If I have some money to put in, it means I have some savings for my future and vice versa. Hence, if I am taking out some money, it means I still have money and I can now do some shopping! ...........Girls, why do we like shopping????

But two days ago, when I went into the BM, a sweet memory was stirred in me.... what was it? It was the smell of the bank which reminded me of UM where I studied for my masters degree. When I reminisced about UM, one of my favourite places which was the UM Library, came to my mind. Suddenly, the urge to further my studies was awakened and I had since been calculating all the 'costs' / risks which might be involved in my dreams of getting a PhD.

It is not impossible ..........

On-duty

After taking 4 days off from school, I finally made my way to school again today as I was 'on-duty'. My definition of 'on-duty' is when the other teachers have the option to come or not, but I must, I repeat, I must clock-in and spend 5 hours in school. Plus, I must be seen doing my duty - overseeing the activities such as extra-classes, filing, stock-checking of the SPBT books and also the tedious task of painting murals and classrooms- just to name a few.

That was quite easy as everything was actually done by other people, unlike my previous duty (in 2004, 2005 and 2006) as the ICT Lab co-ordinator whereby I came (at my own will) to school almost every day during the school holidays. Those were the days!

I met a few teachers who had quite a lot of things to tell me. I found out that one of my students was in the Sungai Buloh Hospital after undergoing a surgery. Though I was offered to go along to pay him a visit, I chose to decline it as I was on-duty. Get well soon, AFHH.....

Oh my, tomorrow is another day awaiting my presence in school.....

White Lies and Sixth Sense

A lie is something that someone says which they know is untrue.
(BBC Dictionary)

Hmm, it is interesting to have a sixth sense....sounds familiar? You can claim to have a sixth sense when you somehow know (or seem to know) things although you do not have any direct evidence of them.

Back to the 'lie', I remember a story of a 19-year-old boy who had lied to his coursemate by saying that the gold ring he was giving her was an old one, and that he didn't know what else to do with it. The girl was trusting, gullible and naive to swallow the facts given by him. The truth was finally prevailed years later after they were married......but of course she was not offended by the white lie as she knew that he was too shy to admit the truth. Hmm, what do you think?

What has this to do with sixth sense? Well, sometimes, even our sixth sense fails to detect a white lie because a white lie is told to avoid hurting our feelings or to avoid trouble, and not for an evil purpose. However, the end does not justify the means, and hence, to be safe , it is better to tell the truth and shame the devil.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

It started quite bad as I was late for my morning exercise - an activity that is going to be my daily routine during the school holidays.

"Mom, are you coming with us?", my little SSS (who just celebrated her 9th birthday yesterday) was asking me from the porch.

"No, honey", I replied hastily before changing my mind. "Oops, I mean.....", I rushed out of the bathroom but it was too late as my husband had already started the car engine. Phew! I had to catch a bus to the lake at Taman Bersatu since I knew he would take me to a restaurant after that.

Within half an hour, I was already at the lake, smiling triumphantly as I saw his car. 'I made it!' Unfortunately, the moment I started doing my exercises I realised that his car was no longer in the parking area! God! My knee-jerk reaction was to grasp my handset and try calling him- but there was no answer. I knew it, he must have left his mobile at home.

"Well, think positive...", I told myself. I wasn't going to waste another 70 sen, in fact I needed an exercise- so eventually you can guess what happened- I went back on foot. I reached home like a cat that got the cream. Of course, walking more than 1 km was indeed a good exercise.

Happy Birthday!

'23 May 1991' is a very important date....... I still remember that it was a Thursday, and it was 9 months and 18 days after we were married. And on that particular day, we were blessed with our first child who was later named M.H. b. M.

Now my little boy is 17 years old, and he has spent a good 17 years living with his mum, dad, a brother and 4 sisters.... I feel that we are trying the best we could to groom this little boy into a responsible man. It is too early to say that we have successfully achieved the desired results, but we would like him to grow up steadily............ anyway, life is a journey and not a destination.

My dear H, I would like to wish you a very Happy Birthday! Enjoy your driving lessons........

Socks

Someone whispered to me that it was interesting to be slightly more observant by taking a peek at the socks that people wear.It is not a taboo (that someone says), as some people might want to claim. Instead, it is part of your daily attire, right?

The unspoken language may well be as fascinating as the spoken one. Today, I learnt a few things with regard to antonyms and also body language. eg. The opposite of 'big' is 'small' (and there's nothing in between).

As for body language, I need a few days to re-learn this language. This holiday will be just the right time to embark on a re-learning project. Mmm, the list of 'things-to-do' will be quite long, just like the list of names which shall be delivered to me tomorrow....sigh....can't wait to see it.

Being Young

Being young and energetic is certainly a most interesting period of one's life. During this period, holidays and examinations are both interesting in their own ways. As a mother of six, I know better than to confine these youngsters' boundless energy to only the 'academic' world. Instead they need to channel their energy to some form of physical stuff, like what can be seen in these two pictures.

Last Saturday, after helping mum with her new Language Room, these two youngsters could not help themselves from doing some somersaults as mum promised to take them to an ice-cream treat. Luckily, there wasn't anyone else around except for the guard.

Youngsters are curious and they wish to know more about life. I think I am not wrong here, since I have 'been there and done that' too. As long as youngsters remain inquisitive, they are on the right track. Losing the will to learn is losing the will to live. So, be persistent in your quest for knowledge, you may make a lot of mistakes now, but these mistakes are well worth the efforts.

Badminton

As I passed the television set, I caught a glimpse of the Thomas Cup badminton match. It was Indonesia playing against Korea (men singles). Well, it s not really about the match actually, I was more interested in the Korean player (if I am not mistaken his name is Lee). He put up a good fight against Hidayat who seemed baffled at the brilliant strategy employed by Korea.

More importantly, Lee reminds me of Mr C, my teacher when I was in Form 4. He taught my noisy and lively class of Form 4N ,two important subjects namely Mathematics and Additional Mathematics. We were, as I mentioned earlier, a bunch of 30 rowdy girls who were easily excited by anything deemed interesting to us.

Mr C, a young Chinese teacher, was quite good looking and also an eligible bachelor. That last fact did not matter to me at all because I had already 'made way' for my best friend to handle this matter.

We really looked forward to his lessons as we felt appreciated by his caring attitude. We were always given a fair amount of class work and homework and we never , ever wanted to hand in our work late. Our Math and Add Math exercise books were always returned with his positive comments. At least, we would get a 'BAIK' written beside his signature. How we all loved it!!!

Don't get me wrong, Mr C was not a man of many words, instead his response was mostly "Hehehehe". He NEVER reprimanded us but nevertheless we respected him from the bottom of our hearts. I know I also owe my Form 3 Math teacher who helped me develop a keen interest in Math. So Mr C was a 'bonus' to me and a real source of inspiration to help me aim for A1 in both subjects. However all this came to an end when he was assigned to teach another class and we were given another teacher. The fun was different even though I still worked as hard as I could to score for these subjects.

Luckily, I was active in sports so I still had Mr C to coach me in the afternoon , unlike my best friend who had to suffer a little bit from the 'loss'. I don't remember if I had given Mr C any present on any occasion....but Sir, I do remember you. And back to the badminton match, Lee from Korea managed to outdo his opponent.

Time

What is time? It is a word that has different shades of meaning. This beautiful word 'Time' can be used to refer to a specific point in time (eg 11.15 pm) , and it can also be used to refer to 'the period of time that someone spends doing something' (eg. How does she find time to write her books?)

Time passes despite your attempts to kill it, to idle away or to use it to the optimum. Time seems brief when you are enjoying it but peculiarly, that very same 'time' can be never-ending when you are bored. The clock seems to have ceased ticking!

As a teacher, when you are invigilating a bunch of kids who cannot sit still, during an English Language paper 1 (Form 4 or 5), you know better than to hope that these kids would spend their time writing the right stuff. Take a closer look and you might be able to see that the ones who are furiously writing are actually copying down the questions.... Well, at least they are learning to write.

If you are recuperating from an illness or to the mothers out there, after you have had your baby, you need some time to get your health into shape. 6 weeks prove to be an ideal time for confinement (mums, you know what I mean).

This healing process is slow yet it can do wonders. If you are hurt, you need time too.... After living for more than 4 decades, I have learnt to accept the fact that sometimes you must heal yourself quietly and graciously. Of course, sometimes you cannot escape the 'sharp eyes' who never miss 'it'. But eventually, you are back to your dignified self. You just need time.....

Oh Mums

"Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian."
Dennis Wholey

When a student asked me inquisitively "Teacher, what was that commotion all about?" , my reply was the quotation above.

My day was great prior to this incident. A mother came to see me regarding a simple matter which concerned her daughter. Of course I managed to handle it calmly, especially when it was a blunder on her part. Undoubtedly, she thought she was being protective towards her sweet daughter , just like mothers do.........

The moral of the story, teachers - carry out your duty diligently and be meticulous as you might never know what is going to happen next....

And mums out there- take a deep breath and think calmly before you confront your child's teacher. Put on a smile and thank him/her first before you bring up an unpleasant subject. Perhaps it is equally important to check back your perception of teachers.... Happy mother's day!!

Thank you

This morning one of my students asked me whether I meant 'memory card' when I mentioned 'card reader'. Ya he s right! Thank you DS! So what was replaced was actually the memory card, pardon me.

Since I have mentioned the famous expression 'Thank you', I might as well touch on it a little bit more. To parents like me, do not forget to thank your children's teacher(s). It could make her/his day. And teachers like me too should thank students who deserve it.

My Favourite Things

My favourite things? Well, that sounds like the title of one of the songs in "The Sound of Music" - one movie that I have watched more than 10 times. Certainly, this is not indicative of how much I like that movie. I first watched it in 1980 , thus simple calculation tells you that in a span of 28 years, I have watched the movie more than most people.

Back to my favourite things - one of them failed to function properly yesterday. My first reaction was "OMG I had better get it fixed". So off I went to a shop in Selayang. In the nick of time, the card reader was replaced and I managed to reach home before the usual traffic jam started to build up.

Nevertheless, I was disheartened that I had to lose a few snaps including ' a bowl of fish' which was captured a few hours earlier. Thank God now I can start clicking again. Watch out!

Examinations

Tell me who likes examinations? Given a choice, I would rather skip sitting for a dreadful paper. The last paper that I had to sit for was the none-other-than the PTK paper (last year). The good news is that I am going to sit for a similar test this June.

Well,how shall I take it? Firstly, I need to take it positively.This is an opportunity for me to reassess my schedule. Besides, it is high time I started revising all the important topics which were discussed in the lectures I attended at the Pearl International Hotel. Moreover, when else would I get a chance to seriously put my mind-mapping techniques into practice? Apart from that, I find it invigorating to resolve to be more disciplined and to do away with procrastination....sounds familiar?

However, in the back of my mind, I really empathize with my students who are starting their first paper of the Mid-year Examinations today. Their journey into adulthood has just begun. I just hope that they remember this: "Little strokes fell great oaks". Good luck !!

Family

What constitutes a family to me? Apart from my lovely mum, sisters and brothers, I am blessed with a family of my own.... They are the apple of my eye . In the midst of all the stress and expectations of my work (which can be really daunting), I find solace in my family.

Somehow, my sphere of family has extended to a wider spectrum. My outlook of life has taken a new perspective. This has therefore inspired me to start writing in this column which is free for public viewing. Just hope that what is written here shall be shared by all for a good course. Welcome to my blog....