zyenhoo dot com » Ramblings

A Lazy Sunday Afternoon

zyenhoo — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 07:28:37 +0000

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!

Happy 2012!

zyenhoo — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:54:13 +0000

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

My Introduction To Groupon

zyenhoo — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:03:02 +0000

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!

The Irony of What You’re Saying

zyenhoo — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 06:08:39 +0000

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.

Rocking to a new year!

zyenhoo — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:31:12 +0000

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!

Accidental Discoveries

zyenhoo — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:47:18 +0000

Some of the best things in life are discovered by accident.

For example, some of the most used inventions in today’s world were discovered quite by accident. Vulcanized rubber (rubber that was resistant to heat and cold, and did not change shape even after the force exerted was lifted) was not invented, but was found when a mixture of rubber, sulphur and lead was spilt – by accident – on a hot stove. Penicillin – most important scientific breakthroughs ever made – was discovered simply because Alexander Fleming did not clean up his workstation before going on a vacation, and upon his return found that bacteria did not thrive near some of his cultures which had a strange fungus growing on them.

Well, I didn’t make any breakthrough discoveries but the other day I found this really nice mamak quite by accident.

I was at e@Curve with Aiman and we were both feeling out of pocket, so we walked around the lower ground floor where the “cheaper” restaurants were.

There was this restaurant called “Ah Cheng Laksa” which proclaimed to be “Best in Subang Jaya & Sunway… some even said in PJ!” That was a pretty bold statement to make considering that PJ was full of fantastic food, so we thought OK, let’s just give that a try.

It must either be a cook who simply could not recreate the same taste, or the people in Subang Jaya & Sunway have very poor taste… because the food was below average and very dissatisfying. After the meal, we were still hungry (who wouldn’t be?) and Aiman was staring at Popeye’s which was just opposite the restaurant. But I was starting to feel sleepy and I wanted teh tarik, and the only mamak we knew was at Tesco’s. We didn’t really want to walk that far, and it with great reluctance we dragged ourselves all the way through Curve to Tesco’s. We were even tempted to stop at Pappa Rich, but my craving for the good ol’ mamak tea made me insist on going on.

When we got to Tesco’s, we didn’t see the mamak we were looking for. I guess that goes to show how long we have not been to Tesco’s… but I don’t know when the mamak changed. We didn’t even remember the name of the mamak that used to be there, and if it was the same (we used to just call it “The mamak at Tesco’s”), and what we saw in its place was an air-conditioned restaurant called “Q Bistro” with modern chairs and tables. We were already there and we didn’t really want to waste that walk, so we peered at the menu and saw mamak-looking food. Oh what the hey. Let’s just give it a try.

And the food was really good! And so were the drinks!

They had a huge variety of food, ranging from roti canai to nasi kandar to western food. It was basically a mamak, but with fancier setup, pretty menus, and comfortable chairs… and similar prices! We even came back to Q Bistro for dinner after we watched a movie.

I like it so much that I’ll probably go back there again soon just for the food. And we wouldn’t have found the place if we didn’t try the monstrosity called Ah Cheng Laksa and have been completely dissatisfied.

Random Thoughts During Invigilation

zyenhoo — Tue, 25 May 2010 03:07:53 +0000

Invigilation is one of the most boring duties a teacher must ever undergo.

It is the most sleep-inducing, but at the same time it is the time where it is of utmost important that we are alert and awake.

I don’t know about other teachers, but personally I’d try anything to keep myself awake and alert. What I usually end up doing is counting the number of left-handers in the class. Interestingly, I’ve found that if the number of students per class is the same, the number of left-handers are higher in a Science class than in an Arts class. I’ve found this to be true every year. However, I can’t say that this is conclusive because my statistics pool is only in the upper secondary classes of Sri KDU.

Unfortunately, counting the number of left-handers takes less than one minute, but a solo invigilation session can take up to 1 1/4 hours.

Anyway, today during one of my invigilation slots, I started thinking about the past few years that I’ve been teaching here, and my mind starting trying to form logical relationships.

Now, I like anagrams. I’m not great at them like in Da Vinci Code, but I like playing the Word Jumble in the Sunday Star and I always score high in games like Boggle. Anyway, there isn’t much to work with here, but here goes:

In 2005, I was teaching 5 classes: 4 Aristotle, 4 Mozart, 4 Dickens, 5 Aristotle, 5 Mozart.
Taking the first letter of each class and rearranging them, I get:

MADAM

In 2006, I was teaching 4 classes: 4 Aristotle, 5 Aristotle, 5 Mozart, 5 Dickens.
Taking the first letter of each class and rearranging them, I get:

ADAM

In 2007, I was back to 5 classes, and the names still haven’t changed: 4 Aristotle, 4 Mozart, 5 Aristotle, 5 Mozart, 5 Dickens. I get the same old:

MADAM

In 2008, I was teaching 4 classes: 4 Aristotle, 4 Dickens, 5 Aristotle, 5 Mozart.
And I’d get:

ADAM

Can you see a pattern forming here? Had I stayed on, I’d have gotten MADAM ADAM MADAM ADAM and I’d probably go MAD. But I left in 2008. That must have turned out to be a good thing for this pattern, because when I came back in 2009, I had a slightly different set of letters to work with.

In 2009, I was teaching 4 classes: 4 Aristotle, 4 Mozart, 4 Dickens, 4 Newton.
I’d still get three letters that are the same as the earlier sets, but this time with the introduction of a brand new letter, I’d get:

DAMN

Finally! Something different!

This year, with a change of subject from Chemistry back to my fav ol’ Physics, I didn’t follow up with any of last year’s classes.

So, in 2010, I have: 4 Aristotle, 4 Mozart, 5 Columbus, 5 Edison.
With two pretty new letters, I get:

CAME or MACE or ACME

Nice!

However, I’m supposed to give up one of my Form 4 classes (Aristotle? Mozart?) and take over another Form 5 class (Mozart? Dickens?). I don’t know which class I’ll have to give up and which class I’ll have to take over. But regardless of whichever class I have to give up or take, I can’t form proper words with any of the new set of letters. The only one that will still work is if I have to give up 4 Mozart and take on 5 Mozart because that gives me the exact same set of words; but I can’t give up 4 Mozart because they’re my homeroom and I DON’T want to give up 4 Aristotle because it will spoil my anagram.

OKOK, it’s not just the anagram. I like ALL my classes, I don’t want to give any class up. It took me long enough to remember everyone’s names.

Remember kids: It’s not my choice. It’s an executive choice the school administration has to make for the benefit of all students.

Teacher’s Day :)

zyenhoo — Sun, 23 May 2010 13:02:07 +0000

This year, Teacher’s Day was on a Sunday, hence nothing happened.

Well, Sri KDU never celebrates Teacher’s Day on the day itself anyway… they usually celebrate it after. I heard an unconfirmed news that it would be celebrated on June 4th (last day of the semester) this year, where there will be micro-performances to entertain the teachers. However, since that day is after all the examinations, my guess is most of the students will have already left for an early vacation and all we’d have are crickets to entertain us. (chirp chirp chirp…)

Anyway, I wasn’t expecting anything this year from anyone, and it was an extremely pleasant surprise to receive a card from Pearlyn who was in my homeroom (4D 2009) last year, and she gave it to me on Monday May 17th. I’m not teaching her class this year, and I think most of them have already forgotten my name by now (Miss Who?), so it was really nice to know that she remembered me. Thanks, Pearlyn! You made my day! Pearlyn’s always been very sweet anyway. At the end of last year, she gave me a box of dark chocolates, knowing that I love dark chocolates. It’s hard for any of my students not to know I love dark chocolates, because I keep reminding them throughout the year. But still, she was thoughtful enough to get me a box, and they were really good chocs, too.

Oh no! I forgot to take a photo of Pearlyn’s card! I’ll upload it when I have.

That wasn’t all. At the end of the day on Monday May 17th, I saw a couple of my present homeroom (4M 2010) students coming into the staffroom with a giant cardboard folded in half. I thought they were handing up their Chemistry project to Ms Jasmine Leong, because earlier in the day I saw various projects done on hard boards about Chlorine Gas which were works-in-progress to be submitted. Yi Hong said, “No, teacher, this is for you.” I thought he was joking until he and Bryan opened the card. PLUS, they also gave me a lovely handbag!!!

I feel so blessed to get a good homeroom every year. Last year my homeroom got me TWO birthday cakes for my birthday. This year my homeroom gave me the big card and a handbag for Teacher’s Day… and I’m only the assistant homeroom teacher.

Thank you, 4 Mozart! You made my year! Love you all!

Happy Teacher's Day from 4 Mozart!

The lovely handbag that my students gave to me

Updates!

zyenhoo — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 15:23:24 +0000

I haven’t checked my own blog for quite some time, being so busy with work; as some of you may know, I’m sort of holding a few jobs at the same time so I have very little time to post anything on my blog. Surprised to find a few comments on my blog posts; didn’t expect anyone to respond, haha. There’s a comment on my last blog post, clearly written by someone who barely knows me and what I do and why I don’t blog often enough. Oh well.

Every year I make a new year’s resolution to update my blog more often. Every year I fail to keep that resolution…

Anyway, here are a few quick updates I’d like to share:

KDU CQ Teo Debate Challenge 2010 (12-14th March 2010)

Lydia who is the “official” school debate coach could not accompany the students this year to the tournament so I, as the “assistant” stepped in to help out. We sent in two teams this year; Team A consisting of Shane Low, Daniel Khoo and Kristina Teow, and Team B consisting of Celine Thai, Tiffany Khoo and Chia Chien Teng. Of these six kids, Shane and Daniel are the newest as this was their first tournament. I must say that they did very well; out of 60+ teams, Team A broke into octo-finals at #12 and Team B broke at #4, both on 4-1 out of 5 prelim rounds. Unfortunately both teams lost at Octos, but regardless, I’m very proud of them. If you’re on my Facebook friends list, you’d have seen the constant updates I kept posting throughout the tournament.

Sri KDU's reps for the CQ Teo Debate Challenge 2010

CONGRATULATIONS TO CALVIN AND MELISSA!

Congrats to Calvin and Melissa! Such a lovely couple. Here’s wishing them the very best for the future.

Congratulations to Calvin and Melissa!

Their wedding dinner was a perfect time to catch up with friends from uni days whom I haven’t seen for a long time. After we graduated, everyone got busy with work/family… I met some friends whom I haven’t seen since graduation.

Oh, and I took loads of photos but haven’t had time to edit before uploading to FB.

Happy Easter from KL Swing!!!

KL Swing always organises a party in conjunction with a festival, and I always try to make it for their social parties as I can’t make it for their social dances. Well, not anymore, at least, since I have other duties that clash with their regular socials.

Anyway their most recent event was in conjunction with Easter, and they had it at this cosy little place in Bangsar called “For Fresh People”.

+1000 points for a hat!

Photos to be uploaded on FB soon!!

More regular updates soon. I swear!

This is for you students

zyenhoo — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:32:22 +0000

I know that the moment some of you find out that I have a blog, you’ll Google and you’ll try to find it…

So this is for you who found my blog: STUDY PHYSICS!!!

In other news, I also know that many of you will try to add me on Facebook. Feel free to do so, but please introduce yourself (which class are you from?)… because I haven’t put your names and faces together yet.

If you’ve added me before but it’s pending confirmation, please send me a message identifying yourself.

The reason I’m being quite strict about my FB friends is because I only add people that I really know. This is more for safety purposes; I don’t add complete strangers becaues they will have access to my details, plus access to my list of friends, many of whom are my students. So yes, I’m being protective about my students.

Physics Rocks!!