Of Moblogs, Newsletters, Bikes and Durians

Been kind of busy this week.

Friday afternoon.

Reached school at about 12.30 noon. Meet a few of my ex students : Nur, Sri, Zawanah and Razali who were admiring my green kitty bag. Me (along with Rudie) taught them Computer Applications last year. I miss teaching them. They were one of the most interesting class that I’ve ever came across. Sure, some of them slept in class and there are a few smartasses in there. But its all good. They aren’t bad kids. Misunderstood perhaps. They are friendly and proactive when one talks to them. And you can see that they really put in an effort (well, sometimes)

Anyways, I was to bring some students to the Esplanade for a National Blogging Competition. I was supposed to bring only 5 students. However while I was in the staff room, there were a number of students waiting for me. I counted them. 9! That’s too many. I can’t bring you all there! Some of you will have to step out.

And all of them gave me puppy dog eyes. I guess I’ll have to bring you all there then. I filled up some forms and off we went. We had to take public transportation as I didn’t have the foresight to book a small van for us since I assumed that I couldn’t for a group smaller than 10. This will be a learning situation for me I reckon. We had to walk and walk and walk to the 190 bus stop and then wait and wait and wait in the bus and then walk and walk and walk on the way to the esplanade itself. I was beginning to melt from the afternoon sun.

The kids looked adorable though. And quite chatty all the way. It lifted my spirits a little bit. Ooh. I could just pull their cheeks


At the parliament house

By this time, Zila called me up telling me that there were a number of schools already assembling at the hall. I was late! We tried to rush as soon as we could there. My kids still had time to pose 😛

We reached there finally, at about 3 pm or so. I had to apologize to Zila for being so late. I really didn’t expect that the journey would take more than an hour. Anyway, we signed up for the attendance and entered the hall.

It was interesting to watch the previews of the competition. The event, organized by singtel where different schools compete in creating the most popular moblog. It was interesting in the sense that not only was it a blog, one could also use mobile phone sms to create posts. It was quite accessible and the nice thing about it was that it was virtually spam free, as it needed a mobile phone to be activated. Not many people would want to spend money just to spam needlessly (probably, maybe)

Singtel and Moe has organized many interesting events. 2 years ago, they hosted the Learn@Arts event which I enjoyed tremendously. That is why I couldn’t just let this event slip by. I’m sure that the students would enjoy it. It’s a pity that most of the Technology Club member weren’t interested in it. All of the students that joined me were sec 1’s.

Anyway there were heaps of students from many various schools participating. It was a little odd hearing the questions posed by the students

“Can we add programming languages to the blog?”
“How about PERL or Java or C++”
“Isn’t there a way to edit the templates instead of the default?”
“What are these datacards for?”

Umm … Isn’t this a blog? Where one puts their thoughts and opinions in? To me, my definition of a blog isn’t where one messes with the coding so much so as compared to the actual content and writing of the blog. But I guess to each, their own. I can get surprised sometimes at some people’s eagerness to compete that they forget the actual purpose of the competition.

Anyway, after the briefing, my kids saw Jamie Yeo and you could just see them hyperventilating. ‘Cher! ‘Cher! Its Jamie Yeo! ‘Cher! Do you think she’s married? ‘Cher! Do you see her? Wow! ‘Cher!

* ‘Cher is a short form for Teacher that Singaporeans adopted

Jamie Yeo, by the way, is a popular Deejay as well as an actress for the local television station here. She seemed nice and pretty down to earth with no airs about her. She was pretty busy though, with all the people around her, asking for autographs and taking pictures. My kids pestered me to take a picture of them with her.

Zila and I also managed to talk to Aaron, who was from the show “Eye for a guy 2” (which I don’t watch though) so I guess he’s another celeb that we saw there. Like Jamie, I guess he was pretty swamped too. Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t really get the charm and appeal of the guy. But he seemed interesting. I snapped a picture of Zila and Aaron in this interesting shot


Zila: I’m gonna dig your nose! Muhahahaha!!

We went for a little refreshment after the preview and we went home soon after.

Saturday

Bwaah!! Feeling groggy after waking up in the morning. I just had a heavy lesson in economics on Friday night and I really didn’t feel like helping out in the school newsletter. But I had to since I promised to help Waheeda and Randy out.

Reached school at about 10 am and wondering why the heck I was at work on a Saturday and I groaned and moaned and sighed. I walked past the staircase before the staff room and saw the mural drawn by the art students starting to look really good.

I was surprised to see that there are *many* other teachers there on a Saturday too.

I settled in and got to work with the trusty laptop. I shrieked and had palpitations at how slow the laptop is at saving the 70 megs a document (there were 8 altogether) I almost had a mini heartburn. But before we knew it, it was already 3 pm and we were finally done.

Randy and Waheeda decided to act silly as a celebration.


Narimah: Dont complain marina!


Randy: Do you like my pants?


Waheeda: NO pictures!


Prakash, Superman gone wrong


Just me and my yellow flip flops

Anyway, we brought the documents to be vetted by the principal. It was the first time ever that I went over to his house. I was surprised that he lived in a HDB flat. I’ve always assumed that he lived in a bungalow or a terrace. When asked about it, he replied that he’d rather have a smaller house and keep the additional money so that he could enjoy the money instead instead of having the house as a liability. I could understand his point of view.

After vetting, he took us out for dinner at the hawker centre nearby for some seafood. And we talked casually,the principal, his friend, Tamil, Randy, Prakash, Waheeda, and me. Waheeda told me to tell the principal about my company problems. She saw that I was really depressed in the afternoon after receiving a sms from the company. They’ve delayed my pay again. Moreover boss wants to see me again on Tuesday. Just what the heck does he want this time? After that Thursday night, I’m really beginning to lost faith with the company.

The principal listened to my story and proposed to help me out by hiring me as a full time staff with all the benefits and perks as a regular staff there. I’d get 1.8 k he said. And that sounded good to me. But he couldn’t give me the job now since he is under contract with the company. At the end of the year he said. I guess that was enough to keep me hanging. I’m actually earning very little right now. I used to earn 1.3 k and now the company actually CUT my pay to 1 k since the beginning of the year. I don’t even have CPF contributions. I don’t feel like a full time staff at all! Not even medical benefits? That was so sad … It was really tough with my studies and my riding practices and my expenditure … Tamil added that the economy was bad and asked me not to listen to the newspaper that said that the economy was picking up. He added that COE prices are going down. That was actually an indication that the economy was bad. I think I’ll hang on, I have to try to. I’ll send my resignation at the end of October or November for the one months notice.

Sunday

Suffered a mini burnt out. Slept all afternoon to recharge

Monday

Went for my final riding practise today. 8.01. And what do you know, I passed that practise. No more lessons! I was pleasantly pleased. About 3 weeks from now will be my traffic police test. I hope I pass it. If I pass it, I’d finally get my license 🙂 So exciting!

Met Randy in the afternoon to pass him the edited version of the newsletter and went to the Taman Jurong Community Centre in the evening for the “parents day event”. It was quite interesting albeit, crowded. The minister was there and it was bustling with activity. There were durian tasting session, buffet as well as games. Not many pictures this time though, people move too fast and night time shots needs time for the lighting to flood in properly.

Ah well, time to sleep now in time for the Marathon at the Macritchie Reservoir in the morning. And I haven’t even completed my Literature essay yet.

5 Replies to “Of Moblogs, Newsletters, Bikes and Durians”

  1. Now I can see your reluctence to wave yellow flip flops in the air. They should be called Tweety Bird shoes.

    I get tired watching your energy. 3 hours to get to an information lecture. Hope your students liked it. Now time for zzzzz’s and only 8:43 am. That’s how tired I feel after seeing what you have been busy with.

  2. No you make me tired just reading the blog, I have no energy when it is hot.

    Leave on the shoes and paint the toenails green heh!

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