I received the first stitch of my life about one month after my 31st birthday.

On Friday, 6th August 2010, Sri KDU organised a Merdeka Carnival in conjunction with Patriotic Run, which is the school’s mini-marathon. It is usually held in conjunction with National Day, but this year because the fasting month was starting on 11th August 2010, the school decided to have the run earlier.

My class was planning to make a maze of terror, and were only allowed to start our preparations on Thursday 4pm. I stayed back with the kids until 11.30pm to get as much done as possible, but the maze was still far from finished, and we had to come back early the next morning to continue work. The guards told us we could get in by 6am, but I was too tired and decided to get there by 7am. Bryan Homi asked me to pick him up from Zhou Han’s house, but because they overslept, I had to WAIT FOR THEM and we ended up reaching school close to 7.30am.

I was trying to fold the metal legs on the wooden table when the leg snapped at the ring finger on my right hand. I didn’t feel the pain at first; all I saw was BLOOD. My immediate reaction was, “Oh, we have real blood here.” Then I ran all the way to the school infirmary to ask the nurse to clean it up and to put on a dressing. The nurse took one look, and told me I needed stitches. I asked her, “What, now?” She must have thought that it was a really silly question. But what actually ran through my head was, “I need to be at the maze to monitor the students.” She didn’t clean up the wound, but put two tight layers of dressing to tide me until I get to the hospital.

I then ran back to the special classroom to get my handbag, but because I hadn’t had breakfast, I could feel the nausea building up. Jasmine Leong saw me, and stopped me to ask what was wrong – she said I had gone so pale!

She was going to accompany me to the hospital, but she couldn’t drive; so she got Mr Lee Wing Hong (the new Chem teacher) to drive me instead.

I went into the emergency ward and was given two shots: one painkiller in my ass, and another in my arm for tetanus. The nurse then opened the dressing but had a hard time taking it off because the school nurse had put the first layer on so tightly. She cleaned it and then put a basic dressing on it. They then recommended I get an X-ray done to ensure that there was no fracture.

After the X-rays, a hand specialist took a look and said that it didn’t require major surgery and said I only needed stitches. They were going to get an orthopaedist to take a look at it, but he was busy at that time so the emergency ward nurses suggested we go for breakfast instead and to come back in half an hour.

When we came back after breakfast, we were told that orthopaedist had come down in our absence, and they then sent us upstairs to see him. We had to wait for about half an hour before we were called in. The orthopaedist, Dr Soong, opened up the basic dressing and was going to do only another dressing before taking a second look and realising that I needed stitches.

He first administered a local anaesthetic, which was injected at the base of my ring finger. I couldn’t bear to watch that one… IT HURT!!!! I could feel the sensation of the anaesthetic traveling to my finger. But it quickly numbed my finger and the stitching process didn’t hurt at all. In fact, I was able to watch the entire stitching process without squirming or wincing at all. I was quite interested and fascinated because I had never received stitches before in my life!

Dr Soong was quite surprised and impressed that I could watch the whole stitching process. It was Mr Lee who was squirming with his shirt pulled up over the bottom half of his face.

We got back to the school late – at 11.30am. That’s 3 hours after the accident happened.in the hospital! The kids were already running the maze and there was already a line.

I’m going to be removing my stitches on Monday (hopefully) after 10 days. It was supposed to be removed tomorrow but I’ll be accompanying the kids to the debate competition at IIU.

I didn’t manage to take photos during the stitching, because I couldn’t have possibly managed it at that point in time; and poor Mr Lee was squirming too much. I did manage to take a photo of the stitched finger though… if you’re not squeamish, you can view them here.

Oh, and the class managed to make a little profit from the maze. The important thing was that we covered cost, which fortunately we did.

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.

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

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! <cross fingers>

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!!