A Lazy Sunday Afternoon
I wish the title were true today, but unfortunately I have a number of things to do, including a tuition class, dance practice, and going to pick a fight with Ikea later (more about this later, when the issue has hopefully been resolved).
Anyway, just wanted to write a quick mention here that I have appeared on Soo Hon Wye’s blog!
Who is Soo Hon Wye and is he important? No, he’s not. He’s just a former student of mine starting his own blog. I’m not even mentioned by name. I thought it’s just cute how he had selected a photo with me in it to represent his school days.
By the way, the comment I left on his blogpost was true at the time it was submitted. He changed it accordingly after I pointed out the error.
That's me in Hon Wye's blog post!
Update 6:18pm: Hon Wye added my name in his blogpost after I wrote this post. Thanks, Hon Wye! 
January 3, 2012
Happy 2012!
And yet another year has flown by.
2011 was certainly a good year for me. It’s a year of many firsts for me, and a year of many memories. It was also a year of many tears, because you can never have too many good times without bad times. It’s a balance that’s required – as the Chinese say, the yin and yang.
There are some things too personal that I can’t talk about here on a public page, but I will say that among the many that have happened, there are three things I will definitely remember about the year: (1) I’ve finally managed to buy my own place, (2) I’ve finally broken the ceiling for my individual dance win, and (3) my dearest students.
(1) I will not discuss this at length, because I have no desire to let people know where I stay lest I get stalked O.O But what I WILL say is that it’s so great to finally be able to own my very own place! It’s so fantastic to be able to do it up and decorate it and do things the way *I* want to. It doesn’t have to be perfect, or to be beautiful, as long as it’s my own.
(2) People close to me – and those who read my blog – know that I compete in local dance competitions, but because I’m limited in my dance genre (line dance / jazz dance), I don’t get many chances to compete as I simply cannot afford to travel out of state or the country to be able to compete in other competitions. So I’m usually limited to maybe one or two dance competitions a year. And from the past few years, my highest individual win has always been second place. Even though I’ve won champion before, that was for team events. For the first time, I’ve managed to break that ceiling and obtain first place. And the best part was, I managed to win first place TWICE this year. I don’t mean to boast, but the feeling is indescribable. It feels as if all that hard work for the past eight years has finally paid off. The support that I have received both from friends and audience (whom I don’t even know) has been both humbling and strengthening. I am truly thankful for what I have been given this year.
Champion, baby!
(3) I love my students every year, and I don’t mean to make any of the students from the previous years jealous… but this year, I’ve been rewarded with some really awesome students. I had the opportunity to be the homeroom teacher of two very special classes – 4 Mozart in 2010, whom I also taught in 2011, and 5 Columbus in 2011. I was also fortunate to teach 5 Aristotle and 5 Galileo, and there are certainly some amazing students from all these four classes. But I really have to give a special mention to my homeroom 5 Columbus – you are the most united homeroom that I’ve ever had! My friends tire of hearing me talk about your class incessantly. It was great fun being with you on the class trips and working on class projects and selling twist potatoes with you. I am going to miss each and every one of you dearly! And yes, this also goes out to the students from my other three classes! You are the best batch I’ve ever taught!
5 Columbus 2011
So what’s in 2012 for me?
I don’t know. If I did, I’d be psychic.
What I would like for 2012 is for it to be just as good as, if not better than 2011. I hope my students would be just as awesome as my 2011 students. As for my dance competitions, well… I will just keep working hard and continue to do my best!
There are several other things that are in the works, but I’m not allowed to discuss that until things have been finalised.
I am not going to hope that 2012 is good. I am going to MAKE it good!
Happy 2012, everybody!
Happy 2012!
P/S: I don’t believe that 2012 is the end of the world, no matter what the Mayans said. Besides, even if it is, what I can do about it? I’ll just make the best of every day as long as I can!
The Movie: 2012
October 18, 2011
My Introduction To Groupon
Let’s start with my very first introduction to Groupon.
I was first introduced to Groupon when a friend sent a Facebook link to me about a deal she had bought for herself. When I first saw it, I didn’t quite get what it was. I thought that the deal was too good to be true. RM45 for a voucher to buy a service worth RM119? I wondered if it was some kind of Internet scam – who would offer such a whopping discount? But after I read their website content, I was more assured. And I don’t rely on the info from that source only – I always research by reading about them on neutral third party sources. Groupon seemed genuine enough, and anyway at only RM45, I figured if I ended up being cheated, it’s a very inexpensive lesson learnt.
So I signed up and bought the voucher. It is one of the most hassle-free online purchases I’ve ever made! Many websites, during “checkout”, always try to prompt you into buying other things by showing you a list of “items you might be interested in”. I don’t usually blame those websites… unlike physical stores, there are plenty of small items placed on purpose near the checkout counter to encourage you to make those last-minute tiny purchases. But in an e-store, there is no such possibility; hence they will come up with lots of prompts and recommendations to try to make you buy other things, so you end up spending another 2 minutes just to get past all that to pay for your items. So the good thing about these discount voucher websites (and this is not limited to Groupon only) is that you only buy what you want – and not prompted into buying more!
How to make payment? Well, like all e-commerce sites, Groupon accepts Visa and MasterCard. In addition, because it’s all about local deals, they accept online bank transfers via Maybank2U, which is operated by the largest bank in Malaysia. If you’re worried about security, fear not – the online credit card payment gateway is run by iPay88 which is a local online payment gateway. So far I have had no cases of fraud (but I could be one of the lucky ones). Anyway, it also largely depends on your credit card company to be able to prevent fraud cases from happening. I use Citibank, and Citibank usually stops the payment from going through if they suspect a fraudulent transaction; if this happens, a simple call to the bank usually sets it right.
So, the ease of genuine payment created another problem for me – the tendency to buy a lot of vouchers on Groupon…
Next story: Review of my first Groupon voucher experience!
Have you signed up for Groupon yet? If not, click on the following link to sign up:
http://www.groupsmore.com/r/zyen-hoo
If you sign up from this link, I’ll get a RM2 cashback token – and so will you!
January 26, 2011
The Irony of What You’re Saying
This morning I was listening to Mix FM’s Breakfast Show (on the radio) hosted by the new hosts JD and Dilly, who have included a new segment in the breakfast show called Dilly’s Daily Dilemma. In this segment, Dilly picks out one dilemma submitted by listeners, and they discuss the ways to handle the dilemma, and encourage listeners to call in to give their input.
So today’s dilemma was by a listener who wants to know if long-distance relationships can work, as he and his girlfriend have been in two different states for a few months now and the girlfriend seems to be getting cold, and wants to break it off; but he wants to keep trying.
Anyway, so this caller “Miss Anonymous” calls in and says that long-distance relationship can work, and can testify to witnessing that it can work – apparently her sister’s marriage has survived long distances. JD kept on saying “No” insistently (that LDRs don’t work) whereas Dilly was looking for the optimists; and she was encouraged by the caller.
Until they asked her about her own relationship, and it turned out she had a guy who was in a different country (can’t remember where) and it didn’t work out. But she insists that it’s different because she “found someone new”.
As Dilly tactfully put it, “Can you see the irony in this situation?” I think the irony went right over the caller’s head. I couldn’t help but to burst out laughing when I heard the caller defending herself. Like Terry Pratchett would have said, to some people, irony is how you describe your weapons and helmets made out of metal.
January 21, 2011
Rocking to a new year!
It’s been three weeks into a new school year, and I’m slowly settling into the school routine. I’ve been assigned to teach four Form 5 classes this time; different from my previous assignments, which have always been a mix of Form 4 and Form 5 classes, except for the one time I was teaching Chemistry to four Form 4 classes. I’m teaching Physics again, which is and always has been my baby.
I was hoping to be the homeroom teacher of the same class again, which was 4 Mozart last year, but alas – they assigned a new class to me (5 Columbus), and I did not teach this class last year, so it’s going to take some time to get to know the students (and their names!). The good news is that they seem to be a pretty cool bunch. More good news is that even though I am not the homeroom teacher of 5 Mozart, but I’m still their Physics teacher, so I can still yell at them hang around them as much as I did last year.
The year ahead looks like it’s going to be a tough one, though, but I’ve got some practice handling it from last year. Last year was riddled with financial setbacks, false lies spread by a former colleague about me to students, and many other personal issues I am not willing to discuss on a public website like this. It wasn’t all bad though. At least I still have my hair and my teeth.
OKOK, it was better than that. I recovered some of my financial losses, and I worked hard to prove that the lies were indeed lies, and managed to overcome quite a number of personal challenges.
This year I’m taking on a number of personal projects, including moving to a new place of my own, and opening my own business. So yes, I’m looking forward to the year of the Rabbit!