Drained...

It has been a long day... and a long week. I'm glad that the weekend is coming soon, although there's work to be done. Was filled with warmth when I entered my room after returning home from tutoring my cousin. My mum modified one of those door tags with advertisement that hang on the handrails of buses and pasted a piece of paper with the following words on it: FRIDAY Casual Wear. Ha... that was because I forgot about it last Friday. Quite an ingenious way of reminding me, probably sparked by the fact that she'll be asleep by the time I got home. One of my colleagues SMSed me to remind me about it too. Heh.

Anyway, back to the day... well, had an observation by my senior teacher. The comments weren't really positive, but as I've mentioned in the previous posts, I will persevere on and save the starfish. Perhaps I worry too much... and got bogged down by all the negativity. "One who sees more problems than solutions will not be able to solve the problems". I want my positivity back. Ha... and perhaps then I'll be happier in school =]

I spent more than a decade of my life as a pessimistic being. It was not until I went for National Service that I become an optimistic person. Currently, I think I'm having a relapse... but I do hope the pessimism will go away soon. Being optimistic helps a lot in life, especially when everything doesn't seem right.

Oh yar... brought the Part A NCC boys down to HQ on Wednesday to get their new uniforms... quite an experience for me, since it's the first time I'm doing it.

myFLASHbox.sg Downtime...

myFLASHbox.sg was down from about 1:00 am to 9:00 pm today... It was probably a routine server check which upset a setting on the server. I thought that the problem would be resolved by just getting my webhost to do a check on the server, however, the server was fixed at about 7:00 am, but the setting was not... Thus I was pleasantly surprised when I reached home after dinner with a colleague to see that there were about 25 comments on the website and close to 30 emails in my inbox.

So as usual, when such emergencies happen, I would just throw whatever work commitments aside and attempt to fix the problem. It was rectified within 10 minutes... however, I have half the mind to shut the website down, mainly because I seriously do not have the time and energy should such an event happen again. I wouldn't want to provide "lousy service" even though it is free.

Will see how it goes...

Meanwhile, I'm feeling better about school. 看开了... 如果我已尽了力, 做了在我的能力范围之内所能做的, 那就应该足够了吧. For whatever is to come, nothing will stop me from saving starfish.

Saving Starfish

A man was walking on the beach saw that it was littered with thousands of starfish. A little boy was picking up the starfish one by one and throwing them into the ocean. He asked the boy, "What are you doing?" The boy replied, "I'm throwing starfish back into the water. If I leave them here they'll dry up and die." The man said, "But look how many starfish there are. What you're doing can't possibly make a difference." As the boy picked up another starfish and threw it into the ocean he said, "Well, it makes a difference to this one!"

In the face of certain unmotivated students who seem to not bother whether they pass or fail, perhaps saving one starfish at a time is good enough. God helps those who help themselves. Who's going to help those who help others? I believe that I have the passion to want to educate the young. Please do not prove me wrong...

There are some things in life to smile about

As much as I am freaking pissed off with the behaviour and attitude of some students in school, there are still things to smile about because I do have students who put in effort and try their best even though they might not be able to do well.

"Only you can help yourself"... That is a phrase which I find true to the very last word. No matter how much I can try to help, eventually it is up to the students. If they cannot be bothered at all, there is nothing I can do... and by nothing, I really mean nothing. One cannot force a horse to drink from a stream if the horse does not want to drink. If you push the horse's head into the water, it will probably drown.

On a lighter note, it was an enjoyable staff recreational event at Safra Mount Faber on Friday... a Lou Hei + Bowling Tournament for the teachers. I was lucky I think... managed to win the team trophy as well as the individual male trophy. Funny that I never got to win anything when I was a student, but as a teacher, I have better luck. Ha

Let's hope that the following week will be a better one for all =]

Lunar New Year 2008

Week 6 of Term 1 is almost over... and the Lunar New Year break is almost over as well.

The last few weeks have been grueling... well, not really a word that I would use to describe teaching. But well, yea... you get the idea. It's a war out there and only a person in the same predicament would understand my plight.

I used to smile a lot in school, but not anymore.

Oh yar... Happy Lunar New Year...