Chemistry’s Cool. I think. But Physics totally Rocks!!
Weng Yan made an observation today that is so true.
Ms Yee Weng Yan is one of the Biology teachers in school. I was chatting with her today, and I took a look at the Biology Paper 3 (mid-year examinations are going on right now. I’m sitting in front of the laptop with a huge stack of Chem papers to mark – I’ve gotten as far as Question 2 on Paper 2; I mark everyone’s paper at the same time, one question at a time) and compared it to the Chemistry Paper 3.
Honestly, I am so not familiar with the Biology paper format or answering style, but that’s because I’ve never taught Biology, and I never continued learning Biology after my SPM years and years ago (Gosh, I sound so old!). And Biology has never really been my favourite or strong Science subject (though I still got an A).
Well, anyway, so I took a look at the Bio Paper 3 and compared it to Chemistry Paper 3, and found the format to be almost identical. Even the answering scheme was the same (3 marks for writing just one hypothesis! And you can still get 1 mark if you got it wrong, as long as you write SOMETHING! …. provided it’s a visible attempt at answering the question, not some random “Miss Hoo you’re so pretty” kind of answer). The marks allocated per question are the same, and the total for the paper is the same (50). But Physics Paper 3 is so different. There’s no pity mark for a wrong answer, and the total for Physics Paper 3 is 40.
And when I started explaining to Weng Yan about the answering scheme for Physics Paper 3, she interrupted with an observation. “You really love Physics!”
Err, yes. I didn’t realise how obvious it was. Apparently my entire face and demeanour changes and I become quite animated when I start talking Physics.
Lydia totally agreed.
Gosh, I miss Physics already. I mean, Chem’s cool and all… really. The experiments for Chemistry are quite exciting compared to Physics (how fun can it be to roll a trolley down a plane?…. dohhhh). But gosh, with Physics… I can come up with near-impossible questions for tests, which can be answered based on the principles you learn in Form 4 and 5. You know, the type you can’t do during the exams but when you see the answer you go, “OH MY GOD!!! THAT’S IT?!!?!?!”
Did I say that loud? Oops.
May 19, 2009
Sleep-deprived
I’ve been telling myself that I ought to be in bed by 11pm, but usually I’ll still be in front of my computer at 1am.
Today I could barely get myself up. I managed to get to school in time for invigilation though, phew.
I thought I could catch up on my marking, but I can barely keep my eyes open. And I was so blur that when sorting through the experiment reports (that have been waiting for my red pen since the beginning of the semester), I started hunting for a particular class’s reports before I realised that I had already marked theirs yesterday.
Doh!!
May 16, 2009
I got my dark chocolates!! :)
Today was Teacher’s Day at Sri KDU. Initially the teachers were supposed to play games (men – football, ladies – netball) but then the plan was scrapped and nothing was supposed to be on, except for a lunch for the teachers.
I had also initially planned to have a birthday celebration for my homeroom 4 Dickens for the March, April, and May babies, but with the lack of anything special going on, we decided to postpone it to next month.
I didn’t want to go to school today (I don’t work on Thursdays and Fridays), but Lydia asked me to accompany her for the lunch, so I went. I got there about noon – in time to catch the last 5 minutes of the “surprise performances” the students put up for the teachers. Not that it mattered much to me 
I wasn’t there to celebrate Teacher’s Day.
But even though the students knew I hadn’t planned to be at school today, I still got some gifts!! I GOT MY DARK CHOCS!!! Check that out… Lindt 85% COCOA!!!! YUMMMMM!!!!! And a box of Black Bitter Chocolate with 100% chocolate!!!!
My Teacher's Day gifts! Not all are from students - the food flask and the folded storage box are from the school, the small flask from the PTA, and the bottle of lotion from Mrs Chan.
Thank you to Nadirah, Ee Wen, Florence, Nee Shuang and Ee Ping (my former shadow!!!).
It’s so sad that I can actually name the students who gave me pressies.
Oh! And thank you 4 Mozart for the papercard!!!!
Card from 4 Mozart
Even my own homeroom didn’t give me anything :’( But anyway, thanks, you Chickens :-*
Oh. And I still owe you kids the Chemistry answers.
May 11, 2009
Dance Update :)
I know this is a bit late. But I was so busy trying to fix up my blog with other things first.
The first weekend of May, I was up in Penang for a dance competition. There were three dance disciplines in the competition: latin, belly dance, and hiphop. Initially I wanted to bring a hiphop team in for the fun of it… but then after a few practices, my team members decided to pull out for personal reasons. Anyway, we’re not hiphoppers. We’d probably have died on the floor; the other teams were very good.
I took part in the Latin Ladies’ event with Bronya. Actually it took me a while to make a decision on whether we should enter the competition or not. I was actually scared of taking part, mainly because I felt the pressure to do well. Bronya has more than twenty years’ experience of dancing. Me? I only took latin lessons these past two months… and I totally suck at it. Haha. Learning latin made me feel that the past 5 years of doing line dance and freestyle dance was all for nought.
Anyway, we also signed up for Latin Novice under the organiser’s encouragement. The skill levels (Beginner, Novice, Pre-Amateur, Amateur, Professional) are usually reserved for man/lady couples only. Latin Ladies is a unique event which only lady/lady couples participate; this event was created as many ladies found it difficult to get a male partner to dance with (like Bronya and myself).
Because we signed up for two events, I pulled out of belly dance which I signed up for also purely for fun. I wanted to conserve energy for the latin events.
Well… the novice event had A LOT of couples, so much so that the preliminary rounds had to have 2 heats! And guess what, Bronya and I made it to the quarter-finals!! But there was no joy in this triumph. We were not the only ladies-only couple to participate in the Novice; some even had gone as high as Pre-Amateur, and many ladies-only couples managed to get through to the next round. And it was only AFTER the preliminaries that after some complaints, the organiser was forced to announce the disqualification of all ladies-only couples from the non-ladies events. So we didn’t even get to fight in the quarter-finals, even though our number was called. 
As for the Latin Ladies… well, we made it to the finals!!!
And we got fourth!!!
Which is not bad for me, being a first-timer!!!
Yay, me. Pats self on back 
OK, we don’t have any photos. That’s because we had no supporters accompanying us up there. Not that I wanted any, I was already under pressure as it is, although most of it was self-induced pressure.
And here’s proof: http://www.williamluisa.net/v2/pages/posts/1st-national-ymcas-international-ballroom-hip-hop-belly-dance-competition-pulau-pinang-2009166.php
William is our latin dance trainer and he’s fantastic. If William and Luisa look familiar to you, that’s because they were among the trainers on Malaysia’s So You Think You Can Dance
May 10, 2009
Website in progress of being updated
I was showing a website client how a blog works yesterday, when I suddenly realised that my own blog hasn’t been updated. And I don’t mean the blog posts… I mean the other pages!! I have been sadly neglecting all the other parts – like “About Me”, “Dancer”, “Teacher”, etc…
So… I’m currently in progress of updating those pages.