I can't wait!

I'll be officially graduating in less than 15 hours.

Ready or not, here I come!

The taste of freedom...

... is so very sweet. I really can't believe it. It's finally over. That's it. The end. No more school. Just allow me to savour this moment... Ah... Now here it is, the release of emotions:

MERDEKA!

The moment we were told we could leave the exam hall, I let out a great big whoop of joy. Some of my friends up front started screaming, and I saw some girls shaking each others' hands. Obviously, happiness wasn't running short today. Four years, we've been thinking of this exact day, and it's finally here. It was kinda strange though. An hour later, I wasn't feeling much emotions. Everything still seemed somewhat, well, normal. I suppose it hadn't sunk in then.

But now it has! To celebrate and commemorate this great historical once-in-a-lifetime moment, my good friends and I went to this eating place called Elephant, where I had my usual Coke and mushroom and turkey ham fusilli, with extra cheese of course. Then the night was still young, so we headed over to tHe Spring for a little walkabout. And of course, I managed to snap some pics while we were having dinner. The pictures might be blur because my camera can't seem to take good night or indoor shots. But anyway, here are some of the good ones:


It's really strange, knowing that I've completed my undergraduate degree. I'm not sure what's next, and I've got to think about what I really wanna do next. I mean, I know what I want to do, but I'm still not sure if it'll all work out. Only time will tell I suppose. But for now, I'm going to enjoy this new-found freedom! Cheers you all!

End of Lectures

I'm a few days into my study break, and really it's quite strange to realize there'll be no more lectures to attend. Yup, as you might have guessed, my days of driving to and fro, rushing to Unimas for classes and all, are over. They ended last week, with a big bang in the form of our Popular Culture and Literature Exhibition. I've uploaded the pictures on my Facebook profile, so head over there if you've got some extra time on your hands. You might notice that in the pictures, everyone's got really big grins and smiles, and I suppose this is 'cause the realization that it's really over hasn't quite sunk in yet.

The past few days have been spent rushing through the final draft of my FYP. I passed it up for grading on Monday, and yesterday I sent it to the printers. Why so early, you ask? Well, I'm hoping to pass it up early, and apparently transforming our miserable FYPs to impressive-looking hard-bound books takes up to a week. Basically though, my university life is over, and all that's left is the last two exams we'll ever take in Unimas. Sure calls for some interesting thinking and pondering. Cheers people!

One last presentation

It's another huge sigh of relief to breathe, as I cross yet another hurdle in my university life - defending the results of my FYP (or undergraduate thesis, as some might call it). It's not something all undergraduates have to do, but it's part of my TESL course, and passing it allows us to get an additional Honours title behind our B.Ed degree. It usually takes up 2 whole semesters, and last August (or was it September?) I finally got down to working on it. Well, to cut a really long story short, I finished it about two weeks ago, and today I had to present the findings to a panel of lecturers cum judges. I did alright, so yeah I'm happy. Anyway, here are some pictures that I managed to take of the scene in the presentation room.

I know everyone looks really happy in the pictures, but in reality the room was filled with so much tension and nervous anticipation, you couldn't even breathe! And here I've included some random shots of this week of lectures.

Yup. TESLians sure work and play hard. It seems as if I only entered university yesterday. Time sure flies fast. I think I should try to take pictures of these last few remaining weeks. We'll see how it goes. Cheers you all, and have a good weekend!

Now I can sleep...

I finally finished my FYP, or at least the first draft of it. Took me a few days of back-breaking hard work, but I've finally got my Chapters 4 and 5. Am so relieved that it's over. The only thing left is the revising, editing, re-revising and re-editing, then it's to the printers with it! There'll be a presentation of the findings on March the 19th, but for now I think I'll just forget everything and try to rest. It's time to enjoy!

A New Friend

One of the fun things about going to school is making new friends. Well, I was introduced to a new friend about 3 weeks ago. As you can see from the picture on the left, it's a vending machine placed conveniently in front of the toilets at the place where we have most of our lectures. Before you start laughing, please, hear me out. You have no idea how much a person like me needs a vending machine. Especially if said machine carries a large supply of Coca-Cola. It's just the thing to freshen up a dry lecture, or a hot day. For just one buck fifty, you can have a relatively lengthy chat with this new friend, depending that is, on how long it takes you to drink up 325 mils of carbonated liquid. Me, that would be anywhere between 5 to 30 minutes. Usually the former though, because hey, have you seen me drink? And there's nothing really that boosts up your cool factor quite as quickly as cradling around an ice cold can of Coke. Imagine the rainiest, coldest day of your life, and imagine me holding a freezing can. Wouldn't you ask me how I could drink that on such a cold day as this? Get my point? Yup. Nothing quite like a vending maching as your new friend. Cheers to future Coke-drinking days.

Steamboat in the rain

Well, not quite, but it was drizzling and there was quite a bit of wind. It was a very impromptu thing, just something Cynthia suggested while we were in class. So the four of us, being the steamboat enthusiasts that we are, agreed and proceeded to drive through the rain to get to our favourite hang-out spot. Right from the very beginning things were very exciting. For one, a bird flying through the area decided that Phek Hung's food looked really appetising, and decided to swoop in and snatch the food off the griller. Only thing was Phek Hung's portion of the griller was also coincidentally where the flame burnt the hottest, so the poor bird let out this enormous squeal that none of us had ever heard before, and all of us ended up choking down our laughter, which of course confirmed what the other diners had suspected all along - that here were a bunch of crazy lunatics just released from some mental asylum. You'd think that would be the highlight of the evening, but no, Angeline discovered that some of the other diners at the next table kept staring at our table. So for most of the evening after that, we were paranoid that the next table was trying to pick a fight with us. By the end of the evening, Cynthia declared our table the winner, simply because we ate more.

As for me, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, even though I was suffering from a mini headache caused by lack of sleep. Surely a little headache wouldn't stand in the way of our tradition of visiting Hornbill Steamboat at the beginning and end of each semester, especially as this is our last semester as university students. When we've parted our own ways, I'll definitely miss our dinner adventures. There's nothing quite like getting bloated with a few good friends, and when you add in the risk of food poisoning, it's just too fun for words. Here's to more steamboating, people!

P.S. Due to my 'trusty' digital camera going bonkers on me, I'll be using my handphone to snap pictures from now on. So yes, I know I shouldn't be posting pictures that are blur/out of focus/not sharp, but I just can't stand the lack of pictures here, so just humour me will ya? End of P.S.

First week of lectures

Well, lectures here in university have officially started. I've only got three registered subjects this final semester, and one of it is my FYP, so that means I only need to attend classes for the other 2 subjects. I thought with this significant drop in the number of subjects I'd have more free time. In reality, that's what the whole lot of us thought. But no. Trust them to leave the hardest, most thought-provoking subjects to the very last. It's almost as if they wanted to watch us go mad and self-destruct just when we're so close to graduating. Already we've got approximately 7 assignments to worry about. I just wanna bury my head into the sand and cry. You can see almost everyone of us TESLians going around with this really dazed expression on our faces, like we can't believe it's really happening. You guys might think I'm exaggerating, but trust me, I'm not. So at the risk of making you depressed, I'll end my blogpost, right here and now. Cheers, I think.

What a wonderful feeling

Thus ends the mental torture of one week's worth of exams. Such a relief, but such a pain too, to agonize over my performance this semester. I talked with my gang of friends last night, and we all unanimously agreed that this has been the worst semester for us, in terms of our carry marks and probably final grades. Sigh. But it's over, and I'm not complaining in the least. Almost two months stretch before me, eight weeks of not having to do anything but eat, sleep and slowly rot.

So last night, some of us celebrated the end of the exams by having a steamboat fest of sorts, as we always do each semester. It was ferocious, the way we literally attacked the food. Lamb, chicken, prawns, clams, fish balls, prawn balls, crabsticks, sausages, mushrooms, chocolate ice-cream, the only thing missing being nuggets, which I'm still quite upset about. Why no nuggets? What happened? Did they decide to quit their job and run off to Hawaii? Where did they disappear to? These questions still resound in my mind.

When I got home, I vegetated in front of the telly for a bit, just catching up on all the shows I'd missed. Not that I missed much, considering the amount of time I still spent watching telly every night of the exam period. I think I watch more telly during exam week than any other time. Why is that? Denial? Fear? Or just plain laziness?

Anyway, to get on with the rest of the story. Last night, to kick-start my holidays, I watched the first five episodes of Ouran High School Host Club. I must say that my first impression it was that it wasn't as good as the manga (especially as I was expecting a much deeper voice for Tamaki, and I thought he would be much more macho, manlier and charming). But you know how it is, when you picture something in your mind as you're reading, and the animated/movie version of it doesn't quite live up to what you were expecting. The mind is a powerful thing, I say. But after the first episode I grew to like the anime, so that's 5 down, 21 more to go, and loving every moment of it. It helped that I had an ice-cold drink to accompany my watching.

And it's Saturday today, and I'm happy it's the holidays. If only holidays lasted forever. But they don't, so I'm gonna treasure every minute of it. Cheers to you all, and happy holidays!

It's just one week!

That's what I keep telling myself this whole week, and it's probably what I'll keep telling myself the whole of next week too. It's been a great two weeks off from uni, but I'll be having my final exams the whole of next week, and it's torture just thinking about it. Truth is I haven't started studying. In fact, I haven't even started locating my notes. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if I even have any notes. How?

Anyway, it's not like this blog has many readers, but this is just a shoutout to the two or three of you that I wouldn't be blogging from now till the end of my exams. Just so I can stay focused. That's the plan, anyway. Knowing me, I'll probably get distracted from studying by the sound of the air-con or something. Or even the sound of the wind. Or something. But I will be back, as soon as my final paper's over.

So until my next post a week from now, cheers!

Finally... FYP Part 1

I finally finished the first part of my FYP.

I'm so happy I could scream.

Now I can sleep.

It feels like the weekend!

Simply because I don't have classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

You guys are probably turning green with envy right at this moment, but really, I have Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. It's been great so far, although my classes on Mondays and Thursdays are literally from morning till night. It's worth it though, being able to relax on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Somehow the schedule worked out alright this semester. I remember previous semesters, when I would kinda just sigh and wistfully listen as my seniors would tell me their schedules - most of them had at least a day where there were no classes at all. My coursemates and I, we waited and waited eagerly, clinging on to our dreams as the semesters went quickly by, but no, we never had a day off in all the past six semesters. Until this semester, where we get pay-back time! Muahahahaha! But there's always a negative side to everything, and having a mid-week weekend means that it's harder to work on group assignments. I suppose if I were living on campus it wouldn't be a problem at all, but the thing is I live off-campus, which makes having group discussions and stuff really difficult. So far it's been not too bad. My group, we've kinda gotten used to the idea of divide-and-conquer, which basically means we break up the workload into individual components and just work our best on those, then much closer to the dateline (deadline?) we compile everything together, edit the work, and pass it up. We usually end up getting quite generous marks, so I suppose it's a case of whatever works best.

Anyway, today 5 of my coursemates and I paid a visit to a school. Like I mentioned yesterday, it's part of a course that we're taking this semester, where one of the assignments/projects is going to a school and conducting a guidance/counselling-based program (cos the course is based on guidance and counselling). So we went to that school, and we basically went into some pre-determined classes and conducted a motivational session. We were aiming to encourage them to see English as a fun and cool thing, kinda like trying to get them interested and excited about using the language. I just hope they really did learn something. I'm just glad it's over. I hope we won't have to visit anymore schools. It's really quite tiring. Not to mention quite troublesome and stressful. Of course, this means I'll probably be out of a job.

That's all folks. Till next time, cheers!

Questions on my mind

It's gonna be a busy week. I'll be going to a secondary school tomorrow, together with 5 of my coursemates, to conduct a motivational session of sorts. It's part of a course we're taking, and we're all pretty stressed out about it. Then we have an assignment (with accompanying presentation) due on Thursday, although to this very moment we're still not sure whether it's our turn this week. Then on Friday I've got an appointment with my FYP supervisor. I'm kinda worried, cos I haven't even started on my FYP (re: Final Year Project). I know some of my more hardworking coursemates have already started writing out drafts and all that kinda stuff, but I've been too busy (and lazy) to get started. How?

The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day 19

I'm in a bit of a dilemma here. I'm sure you've noticed by now that I'm naming all blogposts regarding my teaching practice as "The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day So-and-so". My problem is I'm not sure how to count the days. I know that might sound strange, but hear me out for a bit. First off, do I count every day as a day? As in I include Saturdays and Sundays too? Or do I just count the days that I go to school, as in Monday to Friday is Days 1 to 5, and the following Monday is Day 6? And if I only count the days that I go to school, do I also count the days that I don't go to school, and... Well. Wait a minute. I'm beginning to feel a little confused. I guess I'll just count whichever way I wanna count. As for now, so far I'm counting only Mondays to Fridays. I think I better stop all this. I'm feeling really confused now.

I had to go to school again today. Yesterday was spent distributing questionnaires to whichever students we spotted (we completed some of the questionnaires ourselves to, er, speed things up), and today was spent attempting to analyze those questionnaires. Well, at least my friends analyzed those questionnaires. Me, I started writing out the actual report. It's been a relatively long time since I last had to work on a written report, so I'll admit that I've gotten pretty rusty. The good old brain isn't working as fast or as efficient as it's supposed to. Anyway, when we got there this morning, the staff room wasn't even open at all, so we went to the library. We were 'chased away' at approximately 1 pm because of opening hours and so on. So we decided to go home. We split up the workload and agreed to meet next Thursday to compile everything together before we actually print it out. And then it hit me while I was driving home. Why not just do everything online? Just compile everything and email each other back and forth. That way we didn't need to go to school at all! I really do enjoy this little eureka moments. So we did a little handphone-conferencing between ourselves, and we agreed to not go to school and waste even more time. So we'll be working on the project online. Don't you just love this age of the Internet? Muahahahaha!

Anyway, I'm still eagerly counting down to the 4th of July. Does anyone else find it ironic that our so-called release from TP coincides with Independence Day, albeit version USA? So ironic. I also find it extremely funny that we're so eager to go back to university. Suddenly, all we can do is wistfully reminisce about those good old days of poring over thick reference books and rushing through countless assignments day after day. Nothing like a little TP torture to make university life seem like pleasure.

So that's it. No more swotting in school while everyone else enjoy their holidays. We deserve to have a holiday too. And we're taking it from here till next week. Muahahahaha!

Cheers!

The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day 18

Yeah, believe it or not, we still have to go to school during the holidays. I nearly screamed when I found out we were 'required' to be in school during office hours, read: 8 to 5. So far, we've been to school twice these past two days, and have we been keeping to the strict office hours? Here's a secret: No.

On Monday, we actually reached school grounds at approximately 9 am (we were able to negotiate the time down to a 9-to-around-4 schedule). We walked miserably over to the staff room, and drum roll please... The staff room was locked. We couldn't enter. So we went over to the office and asked around, and apparently they can't give us the key, so we ended up in the dusty, stuffy old library. The aim of this 2-week torture during the school holidays is for us to complete/get started on our 'school project'. I ended up catching up on my Reflections (yeah, we have to keep some sort of journal-like record of all our doings every day) and a lesson plan that I didn't manage to prepare. Then I spent the rest of the time playing Minesweeper (on that note, I actually broke my previous record - now it's 133 seconds on Expert level). Then we were informed that the staff room was now open, and that we could go there now. That was about 11 am. So we went down, heavy laptop bags and all, and went into the staff room. We sat there until about 12.30 pm. Then it was time for lunch (Malaysian lunch hours are from 11 am to 3 pm, so we're actually pretty good to last till 12.30 pm), and we drove over to the Singapore Chicken Rice branch (one of my favourite places to eat, I'm sure I'll blog about it one day in the near future) near the Sunday Market area and I had my usual salad chicken rice and ice lemon tea. We reached back to school at about 1.30 pm (see how diligent we are, not following the 'real' Malaysian lunch hour time at all). We managed to surf the Internet on one of their computers there, trying to research our school project (we've decided to do something on students' perceptions on the importance of extracurricular activities) and suddenly, the impression that we were really wasting our time over there finally reached its peak. We decided to go home. So we packed up and left the school at about 2.45 pm. I reached back home around 3.15 pm. I was really so happy just to have that extra 45 minutes of time.

Then yesterday (Tuesday), we set feet on school grounds at 10.30 am. I know most of you are wondering "Hey! I thought they're supposed to be there at 9 am?", but please try to understand our predicament. We felt on Monday that since the staff room only opens at 11 something, might as well just go there around that time too, instead of waiting around for 2 hours doing nothing. So we were there at 10.30 am. We entered the staff room, I played a few rounds of Minesweeper, and suddenly someone came up to us and said they were closing up the staff room, could we please find somewhere else to do our project? So we took our stuff (heavy laptops and all) and trudged all the way up to the same old dusty, stuffy old library. We worked on the questionnaires that we were going to distribute, and after completing that, we decided it was time for lunch. This was at around noon time. So we went to the same old SCR restaurant (I told you it's really one of my favourite places) and I had the exact same thing I had yesterday, and then we decided to go home. Yeah, that's right. We decided that was it, enough of wasting time, we might as well go home and be happy. So we did, and yes, we were very happy.

So here I am, it's 9.22 am on a beautiful Wednesday morning, and I'm just about to get ready to go off to school for another boring day. Today, we've decided to hand out the questionnaires and leave the school by noon. See how dedicated and hardworking we teachers-of-the-future are?

Cheers!

The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day 5

Well, it's been 4 days since my last post (and my first day of The Great 9-Week Experiment). You guys probably have no idea how happy and relieved I am that it's the weekend. It's been a total disaster, these past few days. I don't even know where to start. Maybe I should start from the very beginning. On second thoughts, maybe not. I don't want to scare you all.

I taught my first class yesterday. We had the school assembly in the morning, and halfway through I had a very terrible stomach ache so I had to escape for a while. I returned just in time for the prize-giving ceremony for the cleanest classes in the school, and the whole assembly ended at about 8 o'clock. So I rushed to my first class, and man, all I remember of that is the amount of shouting, pointing, scolding and threatening I had to do. It was only the first time I taught that class and already I had to do all that? See me shake my head in despair. How private is my blog anyway? If I mention names, will they show up on the search engines "by accident"? I should check that before mentioning any names. Teehee. But anyway, that was the first class of yesterday, and I went back to the staff room in frustration. Then it was time for my second class, and man, I really didn't think it could get any worse than the first class, but dear friends, I was greatly mistaken. They were total hooligans! Gangster-wannabes, all of them! I tried being friendly, it didn't work. I even tried being firm and strict, and it worked for a while, and then it failed. Unlike the first class, this second class of mine are really proficient in the English language. And man, can they ask questions. It's one thing if the questions have something to do with the lesson, but their questions were everything under the sun, minus anything to do with the actual lesson. They were quite uncontrollable too. I really had to do a lot of shouting.

This morning was no better. The first class was the one with students who couldn't really speak English. I taught the literal meaning of Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken, this morning, and I was trying to get the students to actually listen to me. I got so fed up with how unruly they were that I finally said something along the lines of: "SIT DOWN! SHUT UP! Kalau you tak nak belajar, tak apa. Tidur! Jangan bising! TIDUR! Yang lain, kalau nak belajar, duduk kat depan. OI! YOU! TIDUR SEKARANG! Letak kepala atas meja! JANGAN BISING! TIDUR!" or something along those lines. Half of the class literally cheered in glee when I told them I really didn't care if they didn't learn, as long as they kept quiet. The front row of kids were better. At least they were quiet/brought their books/paid whatever little attention they could spare. Towards the end of the lesson, some of the boys from the back actually moved to the second row. I'll just give them the benefit of the doubt and pretend they did that so that they could hear what I was trying to teach. I left the class, so worked up and annoyed that I was sweating all the way back to the staff room.

The second class was much better. They were really noisy, but at least they were doing some work at the same time. Since they were the more proficient class, I thought I could leave them to construct posters on the themes of the same poem. I told them to collect their manila cards, and there was a squabble over which group got what colour manila card. I handed out marker pens, and there was a debate over which colour marker pens would 'match' which colour manila cards. I pre-assigned them various themes in yesterday's class, and today the entire class voted (oh yes, we're really very democratic you know) to select their own themes. I walked around the class to 'monitor seatwork', and they asked me even more interesting questions than yesterday. But for all the arguments, commotion, and near-fights (there was one yesterday), I think this class is actually easier to teach (and definitely more likeable) than the first class. At least in this class, they're naughty, but you can see they're still quite nice at the bottom of all that show of bravado (you've actually got to dig quite deep to see it). I wanted them to present their posters during the second period, but they couldn't finish their posters, so I said we'll present it next week lah. Aiyoh. Why like this one?

I really dread the next 8 weeks. It's gonna be 8 long weeks of sleepless nights, early mornings, and shouting. Can I quit my teaching practice now? Talking about quitting, my supervisor came this morning (yeah I can't see what quitting's got to do with my supervisor too). He observed my other two friends' classes, but he didn't observe my class. Some of my students in the better class actually asked me where he was. They even told me they spotted him, and I'm beginning to think maybe they were more excited and nervous than I was. Some students asked me yesterday (after I told them my supervisor would be coming to observe my class) whether I wanted them to 'act'. It took almost everything to not burst out laughing right there and then.

Well, I'm stopping here for today. Enough blogging about depressing topics. I'll try to blog soon.

The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day 1

That's what I said I'd call the teaching practice thingy, remember? So anyway, today was the first day of my teaching practice. I was so nervous and excited, I think I was only able to get, like, 3 hours of sleep last night. Apparently my fellow trainees-in-torture were also nervous and excited, because I asked them and they said they didn't get much sleep either. What a way to begin The Great 9-Week Experiment.

I woke up at 5.50 am this morning. I don't think I've ever voluntarily woken up this early for something academic-related. Even getting me to wake up at 10 am for breakfast is difficult. So try, if you can, to imagine how hard it was to wake up. Actually, come to think of it, it wasn't very hard. I was so nervous and excited, I jumped at the first ring of my handphone cum alarm clock. So I rushed rushed rushed and left the house at about 6.30 am, and I picked up one of the trainees on the way to the school. The other trainee was already waiting for us at the school, and we finally reached the school gates at about 6.45 am.

I want to say that I had a fun and exciting day, but in reality it was quite monotonous. I remember counting down the hours ("5 more hours to go!") with my fellow TESLian trainee. We're just supposed to observe this first week, no actual teaching yet, so you can imagine what it was like to be stuck in a staff room from 7 till 1, with no story books, no magazines, no laptop, absolutely nothing to entertain us but deliberating whether to smile whenever a teacher or student walked through the staff room. But I must say that I really like the staff room. You would too, if you were a terrible sweater and the entire place is air-conditioned. It was so comfortably cold that my friend and I have decided to bring our jackets tomorrow. We visited the school canteen too, where I had some chicken rice and a can of Excel (what, don't they serve Coca-Cola?) which brought it to a total of RM4. Pretty cheap, considering various factors. When we got back from our break, we discovered that there would be a Sports Day. Horror of horrors! Me and sports don't really make a good team (unless, of course, you count watching and reading Slam Dunk a sport, in which case I'm the number one athlete in the country). Me and my TESLian friend worried that they would force us to participate in one of those student versus teacher kinda games, like the traditional tarik tali or gunny-sack jumping and all.

We were allowed to leave at approximately 12.20 pm. Apparently we can leave if we don't have any classes or sit-ins in the last period. Yippee. I got home and literally logged off for three hours straight (sleep like a log, get it?), I was that tired. So, like, I've kinda decided. Teaching is a great job, but I don't think it's for me.

Oh, and by the way, I'm limiting my blog to only a select few. Obviously, this is to safeguard my privacy, seeing how I'm now in the so-called public spotlight as a teacher trainee and all. Wouldn't be very nice for my colleagues or students to stumble onto this here page and read all sorts of stuff. So this blog is for special people only! Wait. That doesn't sound very nice. But hey, I'm sure you know what I mean. I'll probably set it back to public viewing once The Great 9-Week Experiment is safely over.

Cheers you all! Stay tuned for more interesting anecdotes!

Exams are over... Yippee!

That's right. The exams are over, and boy am I relieved. It's been a tough semester, with a few really hard, back-breaking assignments. Oh wait. Most of them were hard, back-breaking assignments. But well, it's over. 3 years down, 1 more to go. I usually have a 2-month holiday after every semester, but this sem it'll be a little different. No holiday for us soon-to-be-4th-years cause we've got to go through our teaching practice for the next 9 weeks. I think I've mentioned this before. So yeah, I'll be heading out to a particular school situated right smack in the middle of town. Try to take a guess, you braver ones.

So what have I done in preparation for this great moment? So far, nothing. I just got out of exams lar remember? But anyway, there'll be three of us teacher trainees (I like the sound of that, don't you?) going to that school (the one right smack in the middle of town), more specifically 2 TESLians (me and a coursemate) and 1 Maths. We're pretty excited, rather worried, very nervous. We paid a visit to the school about 2 weeks back, just to y'know, look see look see. We've each been given 2 classes to teach (oooh, the poor students - they won't know what's gonna hit them), and we'll be starting "The Great 9-Week Experiment" - I'm gonna refer to TP as this from time to time - this Monday, the 5th. We're also supposed to get involved with some extra-curricular activities while we're there. No, we're not supposed to play basketball, we're supposed to monitor the goings-on. Big difference there, but hey it's not like I don't know anything about basketball. All that Slam Dunk-watching has its own benefits. But no, I didn't mention anything about basketball, though I did mention my interest in their debating club. My other TESLian friend said she might join the drama club.

Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be an experience of a lifetime. I'll try to blog as much as possible, but due to confidentiality issues, I probably won't be mentioning any specific names, just in case. You know how technologically savvy kids are these days. Imagine stumbling onto your teacher's blog. Not a very nice thought.

I'm kinda sad though. Slam Dunk will be coming to an end next Tuesday. They'll be showing the last episode then, but it's far from over. The actual comic book lasts for like an additional 10 books. Too bad. It's like my medicine after a hard day's work. Stress stress stress, come home, watch Sakuragi and the gang, laugh laugh laugh. What am I going to do when there's no Shohoku team to come home to?

There's still American Idol though. They're down to the top 5, and I hope David Cook wins. Have you heard his version of Mariah Carey's Always Be My Baby? I had to pick my jaw up off the floor after his performance. It's really something.

Well, that's it. I think I've probably blogged long enough. Will be back real soon.

Cheers!

First week of Y3S2!

It's been a tiring, dreadful, hectic, confusing, busy, messed up, chaotic, helter skelter week. Really, I think I could go on with the adjectives, but I think I've made my point painfully clear. The first week (at least by my calendar) of university is over, and it's safe to say that I am not looking forward to this coming Monday. You would think 5 subjects would be a breeze. A walk in the park. A swim in the pool. A waddle in the pond. Think again, my dear blog readers. It's worse than ever. Well, at least the workload is. I'll admit that there are a few mornings where I get to sleep an extra 1 or 2 hours, but really, what's all that in the face of "so-confusing-my-brains-nearly-leaked-out-of-my-head" lectures and "you-call-this-homework-I-call-it-a-freakin'-thesis" kinda assignments.

Lemme just try to run through some of the things that happened this week. I say try, because the very act of trying to relive those moments might make my innards - fragile as they are - explode at any moment.

The first class of the new semester for me was rather amusing. The most defining moment du jour was when the lecturer whipped out a stack of PMR English 2005 examination papers for us to do. I'm sure it'll have some connection to the course, somehow.

Then it was discovering, during lunch break, that driving to the so-called 'nearby' food court at Samarahan would now be an additional 20-minute drive each day because the authorities decided to block off the shortcut back to the old campus which would effectively force each and every one of us to drive like 2 miles out of the way just to make the turn at the roundabout to get back to campus. Did you get that last sentence? I'm getting confused just trying to read it, so don't pressure yourself to understand it. Just move on to the next sentence.

Then it was realising that the university had put up speed bumps (do you 'put up' or 'put down' speed bumps?) all over the university. Like, if you were to take a measuring tape, you'd probably find that the distance between one bump to the next is like, oh about 7 metres or so. This most efficiently strikes out the option of speeding your way to a class that you're already late for. I've started recommending helmets for my passengers.

Then it was realising in another class that one of the assignments entailed us writing a what-what research proposal what-what practise for next year's thesis what-what final year project. All the what-whats are there for a reason: to represent my blur-ness and confusion. Really I'm not quite sure what the assignment means. I guess I'll just roll with the times. You know. Go with the moment. Drift. Or something.

Then it was rushing on a Friday morning at 12 in the afternoon to complete a presentation that we're supposed to present this coming Monday. We finished preparing for the assignment at about 2 pm. And rushed to class. In the rain.

And then it's coming home for the weekend, ecstatic at the thought of a breather from the hustle and bustle, only to realise (with that sick feeling in your stomach) the impending doom that is the coming week. Another week of lectures. Another week of hard, mind-boggling work. Another week of madness.

Yippee. I don't think I can contain all this excitement. I better stop before I puke my guts out.

First day of Y3S2!

I can almost imagine the expressions of confusion on your faces as you guys read the blogpost title for today: "What's Y3S2? Has Esther gone nuts... AGAIN?" And here's my reply to you: Muahahahaha! No, I have not gone nuts. A little nutty perhaps, but certainly not nuts. You know how when you go about downloading episodes from the Internet, and how they always number their videos like that? Like, S02E12 would refer to season 2, episode 12 of a certain TV series. That's where I got the inspiration. Y3S2 refers to my third year second semester in uni. Instead of saying that mouthful, I'll just stick to simple ole Y3S2 from here on out.

So how was the first day of Y3S2? Let's just say headaches are no fun. Have a splitting one right now, probably from the usual lack of sleep attributed to trying to re-adjust to a new schedule and all. Let me just run through what I did in uni today. The first class this morning was... Gee, I don't even know the name of the course. But already we had to copy down lecture notes and all. We even got the outline and questions for this term's assignments. Then at about 9.45 am I had my breakfast cum lunch of nasi lemak and fresh lychee drink at Siang Siang. Then it was back to uni for our second class of the day (something to do with Malaysian literature in English or something, can't quite recall the exact name of the course) and there we were, discussing our workload and reading materials. There was a whole lot of debate over how much work was too much for this sem, and I remember at one point some guys brought up the issue of whether we should study Bawang Merah Bawang Putih! Funny. I always thought that was a fairytale. Then we were released from class at 11 am (earlier, since it was the first class and all), and I went to Siang Siang again because my so-called uni-'gang' hadn't had lunch yet. Then it was back to uni again, for the third class of the day (would you be surprised to know I don't even know the actual name of the course?) and then it was all over at a little past 4 pm, and I drove home, feeling really really tired. I reached home at about 4.40 pm. It's almost 9 pm now, and I'm literally aching from exhaustion. I can't believe this cycle is going to repeat tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, for the next 14 weeks of life.

Help!