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.

Here are the previous years wishlist if you wanna read them…

2009 Wishlist

2008 Wishlist

2007 Wishlist

According to sources, after last week’s Showdown by 8TV, Fly FM DJ Prem had done a little dance of his own backstage which his Rush Hour partner Jules witnessed, and told Hafiz (another fellow DJ) that Prem can’t dance. Hafiz went on to tell Prem who decided to take Jules on in a little dance showdown of their own. They got callers to volunteer themselves as part of their crew; and surprise surprise, Nuven, who is the husband of my colleague Lydia, got through! He volunteereed himself for Prem’s crew and has had a few practices.

The Prem vs Jules showdown was going to happen at the same time as the Showdown 2010 roadshow in Sungei Wang today. Lydia and Nuven invited friends to watch and support them!

So I went with my Canon EOS 7D to take photos and videos. To be honest, I didn’t even know Showdown was going to happen at Sungei Wang (shame on me, considering I’m in charge of The Dance Directory) today. I went thinking I’ll just support my friend’s husband in his own little dance competition.

The show started at 2.30pm at the Sungei Wang centrecourt. Fly FM DJ Hafiz had to work hard to try to get the crowd riled up (the crowd wasn’t very responsive) to cheer for the final seven teams of Showdown 2010. It first began with a few individuals from each team taking turns to wow the unpleasing crowd with their fantastic dance moves… and it wasn’t long before the crowd began to loosen up.

Then, each dance team went onstage to show off what they’ve got… and it was evident that each team had its own set of fans in the crowd. Every team that went onstage were greeting by screaming fans… in fact, one of the teams, HMC Phlow had their own little “hand symbol” and were duly greeted by the crowd with the symbol when they came out to perform. Even the Wakaka Crew, which was only down to two members today did a fantastic job, being backed up by another dance team.

After that, the exciting bit came on… Prem vs Jules!

Prem’s team called themselves the “Blank Crew” whereas Jules’ team was “Fly Crew”. Prem lost to Jules on a “paper-scissors-stone” contest, and his team had to go first. Dancing to a medley of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance and Michael Jackson’s Thriller, none of them were trained dancers but they all did a fairly good job. The crowd was very supportive and they especially enjoyed the team’s version of Thriller.

The Fly Crew went next, dancing to a medley of Lady Gaga’s Telephone, Kei$ha’s Tick Tock and Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. Choreographed by one of the members who was a fitness dance instructor, the team did a fairly good job as well, with simple steps that were synchronised.

This showdown was judged by a representative from each Showdown team (except one, who somehow disappeared); and the six judges couldn’t decide so requested for a mini dance-off. The DJ played the Showdown theme song and a dancer from each team took turns to the floor to show off their individual moves, before everyone broke out into a dance.

The winners were done by a show of hands by the judges, who upon prompting by Hafiz, all pointed towards … BLANK CREW!!

Each Blank Crew member was given RM200 Echo Park cash vouchers (totaling RM1000). But Fly Crew didn’t go empty handed… they were rewarded with RM100 Ech Park cash vouchers each (totaling RM500).

At the end of the show, Fly FM had to give out five goodie bags, but they were told to hurry up by Sungei Wang as there was another event onstage immediately after theirs… so the DJs just said that they would give the goodie bags to those who shouted the loudest, or rather, first.

They asked simple questions like, “What is the frequency of Fly FM in KL?”… “What is this guy’s name?” and I was a bit frustrated because they didn’t hear me shout. Actually, I didn’t REALLY want the goodie bag, but what happened was this… because they were under pressure, they couldn’t think of questions quick enough. In a silent lull as they were racking their brains to come up with a question, I raised my hand and screamed, “JUST GIVE THE BAG TO ME!!!!”

… AND THEY DID!!!

Of course, to make it fair (they can only award bags to someone who answer questions), they just asked, “Who wants the bag?” and they directed the bag my way in response to my obvious “Me!”.

Lydia couldn’t stop laughing at how I scored myself the goodie bag.

Photos and videos from today’s Showdown are being downloaded from my camera into my computer as I’m typing. I’ll post the link once they’ve been uploaded

Me and my Fly FM goodie bag

What's inside my Fly FM goodie bag

Oooh... and I got myself tickets to the finals of Showdown 2010!

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.

Read it here!!!

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

Update 22 May 2010: If you have downloaded the notes last night, please re-download Chapter 4. There was a minor error that has been updated since.

My mom was going to the morning market at Taman Megah, and was going to get a parking voucher for her car when a man approached her. Speaking in Cantonese, he asked my mom whether she knew of this “famous” Chinese practitioner who could cure all kinds of illnesses. He apparently wanted to buy some herbs from this practitioner, as the Chinese medicine shops he went to didn’t know about the herbs he wanted to buy. This practitioner apparently operates from his home which was somewhere nearby. He doesn’t advertise, and it’s only through word of mouth that people know him.

Then as a woman walked by, she heard the conversation and she said she knew about this practitioner. She said he can cure all kinds of diseases. She pointed vaguely in the direction of the house, and the man started walking there. My mom was of course interested to find out more, so the woman offered to bring my mom over.

They walked towards the badminton hall in  Taman Megah, and caught up with the man who looked a little lost, as if he didn’t know which direction to go to. So the woman offered to lead the way, and suddenly around the corner another lady came and apparently recognised the first woman, and started speaking to the group. They called the practitioner “ah yeh” (which means “grandfather” in Cantonese). The second lady was like, “You haven’t seen ah yeh for a long time, he’s asking why” (all in Cantonese), and asked who these “other people” (the man and my mom) are. The first woman said, “My relatives” and later told my mom and the man that ah yeh does not allow anyone to just go and see him, they are supposed to meet on appointment or if they are relatives of the people he knows. The second lady said that ah yeh was busy now because his granddaughter had given birth to a premature baby (7 months) and is praying over the child and taking care of him. However, she will go and see him and see if he is willing to meet new people.

So she walked around the corner of the badminton court which my mom found odd because she had expected her to walk across the road to the houses. My mom knew the area quite well, and where the lady was walking to, she’d have to cross a big drain to get to the houses, but there’s a fence and no bridge to cross the drain.

They stood there talking, and after a few minutes the lady came back to the group. She said that ah yeh had looked in a “mirror” and said the first woman had lied to him. The man had left his house with the intention of meeting with ah yeh, but my mom did not. Ah yeh said that the man had problems (can’t remember what my mom described) but my mom is having serious problems. Apparently my mom is being haunted by a ghost child who had died at a traffic accident and followed my mom when my mom stopped at a traffic light. This child wants to be reborn and will cause the death of someone close to my mom.

My mom of course panicked (wouldn’t you?); she felt faint and had to sit for a while. Then both women started talking to her, like she needs help and kept asking my mom, does she know anyone who can help? She needed to go to a temple to pray and find some senior there (>80 years) to help, etc etc etc. They said that ah yeh can help my mom, and he doesn’t need any payment. All he needs is for my mom to visit him often as a friend after that. They said that my mom would need to list out all her properties and jewelry and money so that ah yeh can pray to protect all of them. The man started thinking and he said aloud, “I have RM32,000 in the bank.”

It was then it suddenly struck my mom that it was a con job… why would she need to say how much she had? And they kept pestering my mom about jewelry. My mom acted dumb saying she doesn’t have any jewelry and showed that she was wearing none. They asked, what about at home? And they told her that she needed to act within the next 3 days. They told her she would need to bring her jewelry and wrap in newspapers and bring for ah yeh to pray over. They assured her that she can take the jewelry back (but who’s to know they wouldn’t do a quick switch?). They also told her that she must not tell anyone about this ritual until it was all over, otherwise it wouldn’t work.

Fortunately my mom had read enough in the newspapers about these tricksters, and just kept playing dumb. All she wanted to do was get away from these people. Finally when they realised that they weren’t getting through to my mom, they said, “If you don’t want, nevermind then.” So finally my mom managed to get away and the three of them walked off in the opposite direction.

My mom related the story to my dad afterwards, and my dad was like, “You should have called me!” He said he would have gone over and made a citizen’s arrest. But my mom didn’t have her phone on her.

I’m just really glad my mom came out of it unscathed. The consters of course acted so smoothly that any victim or would-be victim wouldn’t have realised it was a con while it was being conducted. It must have been scary especially to be told that someone near you was going to die soon. Just sharing this so that all of you will be aware… just be careful!!

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>