zyenhoo dot com » School

Yummy Twist Potatoes!

zyenhoo — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:06:23 +0000

Twist Potato (from www. twistpotato. com.my)

This post is quite overdue, but I must make this special mention because we had a fantastic sponsor who helped us!

Last year, in a bid to raise some money for our class fund, my homeroom of 2011 (5 Columbus) decided to open a stall during the school’s Merdeka Day carnival. This carnival was held in conjunction with the country’s National Day, and it was an open carnival which meant that public could come into the school. Many classes and clubs opened stalls to sell food, drinks, and products, and some ran games stalls such as a dunking booth and even Haunted Houses.

5 Columbus wanted to set up a food stall that sold fried finger food (I can’t remember the name of what it was they wanted to make initially) and smores (marshmallows with melted chocolate served on cream crackers). The smores were deliciously fabulous, but the fried finger food that they tried to make did not work out so well. They showed me a photo of their failed attempt – it tasted quite good, they said. But it wasn’t in a presentable form. You wouldn’t have bought what they were trying to make.

I knew they were frustrated, and I wanted to help them find something foolproof that they could make. And honestly, the moment they told me they wanted to open a food stall, I already had the solution for them, although I wanted them to figure something out for themselves first. When they hit this roadbump, I immediately called Twist Potato Malaysia.

Twist Potato Malaysia is actually a division within Fresco Cocoa Supply, and this division sells machines that makes potatoes into a lovely spiral – hence the name “twist potato”. Even when uncooked, the shape of the potato is aesthetically pleasing.

However what would make the potatoes sell is not the machine, nor the shape. It was the taste. If it was delicious, no matter how it looked, the potatoes would sell.

And this was where I found Twist Potato really awesome.

The Twist Potato machine is very easy to use. Just a quick twist, and voila! Click on the photo to view the rest of the album.

Twist Potato Malaysia does not only sell the machines to make the spirals; they also sell their Magic Flour, as well as more than twenty different flavouring powder to accompany the twist potatoes. The key to the delicious twist potatoes lies not in the twist potatoes, but in their Magic Flour.

What’s so special about their Magic Flour?

The Magic Flour, which is made from their secret recipe, makes it so easy to cook a potato. All you need to do is add some water, oil, and salt; then coat the potatoes with the batter and deep fry them. Quite frankly, you don’t even need twist potatoes, or even potatoes. You can just slice potatoes thinly and coat them with the batter, or even use other foodstuff like fruits or vegetables. Coated with the Magic Flour batter and deep fried, they’ll taste better than our local delicacies such as goreng pisang or goreng nangka.

Twist Potato Malaysia helped me out without hesitation when I called them; I wanted to rent the machine, but instead they lent it to us for free, and even sponsored us three different seasonings. They even lent us their buntings which reduced our need to decorate our stall. All we needed to do was just buy the Magic Flour, and promote twist potatoes.

Actually, we didn’t even need to promote them. The twist potatoes promoted themselves.

The twist potatoes sold like hot cakes during the carnival; we sold so much more twist potatoes than our smores did. We had so many repeat customers, and the lines were so long. We made a lot of twist potatoes in advance, before the lunch crowd came in; but when the crowd really began to swell, the twist potatoes were snapped up so fast that we had to start taking orders instead. We didn’t expect the twist potatoes to sell out so fast; in fact, we had been quite worried that we wouldn’t be able to sell enough to cover our cost. Our home deep-fryers were not able to cook fast enough. Had we known we were going to sell out, we would have brought our own gas stove!

The stall busy selling Twist Potatoes. Click on the photo to view the rest of the album.

We still had orders coming in way after the official closing time of the Merdeka Carnival, and were forced to stop only when the carnival official politely but firmly told us that it was time to call it a day.

Thank you very much, Twist Potato Malaysia! Your wonderful twist potatoes sold so much that we not only covered our cost, we made a considerable profit. (In fact we had losses from the smores because they didn’t sell as well as planned, but the twist potatoes more than covered that loss.)

Hon Wye enjoying a twist potato! Click on the photo to view the rest of the album.

If you are looking for business opportunities with Twist Potato Malaysia, I would tell you that they are a fantastic company to work with, without a doubt. Even though we were merely using their machine to sell twist potatoes for just one day, they were very generous and they were willing to spend a considerable amount of time to teach me how to make the twist potatoes to ensure that they will sell. I tell you the truth – it is so easy to make the twist potatoes that are ready for sale. I didn’t even need to teach my students ahead of time; I brought all the items with me on the morning of the carnival, and spent about ten minutes teaching them what to do, and they took it from there.

I would also like to say : to 5 Columbus 2011, you guys rock! All of you really worked hard and contributed so much to the class through this stall. You know I miss you already!

Special note: If you are seriously looking for some side income, why not consider Twist Potato Malaysia‘s business plan? For a very low one-time payment, you can purchase their kiosk which is complete with a twist potato machine and a commercial deep-fryer (that’s bound to cook much faster than our home deep-fryers!). Their training course comes with their kiosk, and they have a motto: we teach you until you know, which means that they will train you – at no additional fee – until you are able to operate the kiosk on your own. And quite frankly, if a bunch of 17-year-olds can do it, so can you! With their Magic Flour, your twist potatoes are bound to be a hit. There is no additional fee to be paid, so all profits are truly your own. How much you make will depend on how hardworking you are. Check out their business plan on their website!

The first stitch I’ve ever gotten

zyenhoo — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:52:52 +0000

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.

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!!

I just love, love, LOVE this shot!!!

zyenhoo — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:26:35 +0000

With 4 Mozart for the last time. Click on image for bigger view

Thanks to Kristina for sending me this photo.

I am really going to miss you kids!

Chemistry Year-end Examinations Answers

zyenhoo — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:19:19 +0000

Answers posted here > Click click

And here are some random shots.

Pile of exam papers I had to mark. This was only Paper 2. Mind you, I was so driven to insanity that I had to take a photo.

Shen Deng & Geoffrey. Click on photo to view more photos.

Why do I have a photo of Shen Deng & Geoffrey on my blog? Because I took the photo. Hahaha.

Actually today was my last day with my four Form 4 classes. I am personally very sad because I really like all four of my classes, but I won’t be teaching them next year. I’m going to miss them very, very much; some, more than others. A bit disappointed that not everyone was in school today, but that couldn’t be helped because a lot of students wanted a break from the exams and didn’t know that headstart which starts next week would be taught by different teachers (even the teachers ourselves only found out yesterday).

I had an opportunity to take photos with 4 Mozart today; unfortunately I only brought my Olympus instead of my Nikon DSLR, so my photos didn’t turn out so well. Dang! Something’s wrong with my Olympus, and I had just sent it to Olympus to get it checked, but for some reason it’s still not fixed. Sigh.

There’s a really nice shot of me with 4M in Kristina’s camera; will just have to wait until she sends it to me.

Best Birthday Ever!

zyenhoo — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:43:55 +0000

OKOK. I’d better write this down before I forget to, and the news becomes so old that it’s not interesting anymore. It’s just that I had no time, what with the class tests and the dance competition and falling sick.

My birthday was last month, on the 8th of July. I had shamelessly been announcing my impending birthday in vain hopes that I would, for once, be able to get something from my birthday wishlist, and I mean my birthday wishlist. Nothing of the sort happened, of course. Except for the dark chocolates. Oh, but at least I didn’t get any plumbing accessories this time

Anyway my birthday was off to a good start with dinner with close friends at The Ship. It was fun and enjoyable, but if I thought I could escape the “Happy Birthday” singing, there was no such luck. While other places like TGIF merely get all their staff to sing very loudly, The Ship blasts the birthday song over their speakers so that everyone in the restaurant knows it’s someone’s birthday.

Birthday fun at The Ship! (Kodie not in the photo because he's taking the pic)

The meal was fantastic, and the company was excellent! Kalem arrived extremely grumpy but his mood got progressively better and he became positively hyper by the end of the night.

We took a lot of photos… Take a look!!!

Sunday saw a brief celebratory lunch with some of my dance teammates. Tracy made me beautiful cupcakes, every single one personally handpiped by herself. The cupcakes were absolutely delicious! She bought us lunch at Starbucks before making everyone embarrass me with a “Happy Birthday” song…

Tracy's beautiful cupcake. She says her sifu told her it takes 600 tries before she'd get a perfect rose, but it already looks beautiful to me

Me with Tracy and her cupcakes

More photos of the beautiful cupcakes here!! Must-see!!!

My family then took me out fo a nice quiet dinner at Sri Siam. Erm, there’s no photo because it was a really simple dinner.

Tuesday night, on my birthday eve, I went for dance class which is usually followed by dance practice. One of the ladies who attends the social dance class, Eloise, usually brings her 6-year-old daughter Jye Yi to the class, but because the little girl usually can’t cope with the adult-level class, I spend time with the little girl, teaching her the basics and dancing with her so that she doesn’t lose interest in the dance. Because I spend so much time with her, she became quite attached to me; and she found out my birthdate… through the expedient method of asking me.

She made her father take her out to buy a cake, and insisted on coming to class to give me the cake. Fortunately it wasn’t a class celebration, because everyone left quite quickly when the class was over (phew!) but for the little girl’s sake, her mother and her aunt (both of them attend the social dance class) sang a quick round of Happy Birthday, and I cut the cake to give the little one a slice. She had bought a delicious coffee cake… yummm :)

Jye Yi and I

Wednesday… my actual birthday. I have to say that it was simply the best birthday I’ve celebrated at Sri KDU, ever. The day got progressively better

I had ordered mini-cupcakes from a friend, with the intention of giving each of my students one, and some of my colleagues (can’t give EVERYONE… there’s too many). I ordered the cupcakes because I knew that I couldn’t expect people to celebrate my birthday with me, so the only way to make sure I’m not alone in my celebration is to MAKE THEM CELEBRATE IT WITH ME.

The mini-cupcakes I distributed to my students and friends

The first class of the day was 4 Newton who, instead of the customary “Good morning, Miss Hoo” sang “Happy Birthday”. That was a nice greeting

"Everyone do the Japanese pose!!"

And… surprise, surprise. Some of my tuition students actually got me a cake!!! I was quite touched; it was the first time I ever received a cake from students not in my class. Muaxes to all of you With Lydia’s help, they got me a very pretty chocolate cake.

With the 5A kids who bought me the cake

Shaun attempting to stab Kareem with the superlong knife

The second class was 4 Aristotle, who used to drive me nuts the whole year by always singing “Happy Birthday”. But when I walked into class, they refused to sing it to me, and gave me the customary “Good morning” greeting instead. And when they did sing, they sang it to one of their classmates Gary instead. After a bit of hemming and hawing, Juno finally came forward with a papercard which everyone signed. And they said they didn’t know how old I was, so they wrote every number they could think of – “Happy 16th birthday”… “Happy 32nd birthday”… “Happy 48th birthday”… But of all the numbers everyone wrote, no one got the right number.

Me with 4 Aristotle

The class immediately after that was 4 Mozart, and they sent people outside to stop me from going in. I guess it would have been obvious to anyone as to what they were planning, especially since the lights were off and so many of them were holding cameras, but I had long taught myself not to expect anything. And… so when I went in, they had a cake with candles lit and everyone burst into song, I actually started crying. And unfortunately, a few of them caught my tears on camera. =.=”

But I don’t mind admitting it. I was truly overwhelmed, especially since this class isn’t even my homeroom, yet they were thoughtful enough to throw me a surprise party. If I could, I’d take them in as my homeroom, too.

"Everyone look at Miss Hoo!"

I don’t have photos of the cake 4M prepared for me though. I didn’t have my camera ready, I was too busy wiping the tears away.

The best surprise was yet to come though. 4M had done something great, and it would be right to expect my homeroom to do something better, but like I said, I had taught myself not to expect anything. But during lunchtime, it was obvious that they were planning something, because from my seat in the staffroom, I saw quite a few of my students walking by the doors, and the moment they spotted me through the glass, they quickly doubled back. Then Darryl was sent in to ask me to step out. He pretended to want to ask me a Chemistry question, but it was so obviously a lie, that I handed him my camera. What was waiting outside for me was beyond anything I had expected…

I GOT A HUMAN GREETING CARD!!! IT’S THE BEST CARD I’VE EVER RECEIVED!!!

My human greeting card is so big, I get to stand inside it!

And on top of that, they got me a cake! And embarrassed me in front of everyone by singing “Happy Birthday” very loudly at the cafeteria.

The cake 4 Dickens bought. I'm at the cafeteria where they embarrassed me by singing "Happy Birthday" very loudly.

I had no more tears left, but I was still very touched. It trumps 4M’s surprise party, hehe.

I was surprised at how quickly everyone disappeared back to class when the bell rang, leaving me and a few others to clean up the mess. And when we got back to class, someone kept saying, “The party isn’t over yet” but it didn’t register until Johann walked in with a second cake…

My second cake from 4 Dickens!!

The day ended with my receiving a beautiful bouquet from Bronya, which she had sent to the school. They were late; it was supposed to be sent in the morning. But nevertheless, it was a great end to a great day.

The lovely bouquet Bronya sent to me at school

Thank you everyone for your wishes, presents, and cakes! I love you all!

Photos of my birthday at school can be viewed here.

Chemistry’s Cool. I think. But Physics totally Rocks!!

zyenhoo — Tue, 26 May 2009 06:43:19 +0000

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.