Day 2

finally can get onto blogger after 20 minutes of trying... network here really sucks.

i can only post but cannot view my own blog. dun ask me why. ask the chinese govt why the network is in this state. imagine how the thousand atheletes will feel in Aug 2008. lol

Day 2 began with my first time public speaking in Mandarin. the usual butterflies my stomach, the trembling hands and knocking knees. luckily i have soon yeow to write the script. it was a good thing that we made the speech cos it was a good conversation starter for many teachers who came to speak to us.

my lesson on adjectives and the 12 western zodiac signs could have been better. The time management was not ideal and at the end i had to improvise the lesson plan while keeping in mind the lesson objectives. In the end, i only get to introduce some new adjectives to the kids and i must say although i had 3 teachers sitting at the back of the class, i did ok.

Kids were breaking out in laughter at the correct moment and hopefully, they can remember the 3-5 adjectives that best describe themselves. After the lesson, lunch at the school canteen was pleasant but food in Suzhou is really salty.

Walked ard the main branch of the school and boy, it was beautiful and huge. The gardens, rock formation, the greenery made it picture perfect. It was almost like a movie set.

then a heavy downpour helped to lessen the effect of the hot summer.

The school hosted us to a dinner and again, salty food again and did many many rounds of "wo jing ni yi bei" cos they like to do this when conversation runs dry. So the whole night was "wo jing ni (then we stand up)".... "wo zai jing ni (then we stand up again)" and the cycle continues and continues. The good thing was the Suzhou beer (like our Tiger) is very tasty. LOL.

Still gotta do some refinements to my lesson plan today. will have to add in some chinese words to make it easier for the kids.

k, gtg. i'll hope to be able to blog tmr.

day 1 in suzhou

arrived in pudong T2 abt 3pm and by the time i was transferred to Suzhou, it was 5pm le...

walked ard the school grounds and was shocked by this long bright red banner that has my name and soon yeow's to re(4) lie(4) huan(1) ying(1) us. AND they got one of the characters (the "de") in my name wrong :/

that was still not too bad since my "de" is the less conventional one. the real shocker is our hotel room that was so small that we couldn't find space to open our luggage to unpack. We had to open our luggage in our beds (nope, there wasnt even floor space for that!), take out what we need, close the luggage and put it upright again. sigh. luckily i received a call that helped to alleviate the dire situation, Lol.

looked ard for another alternative hotel but we can't switch cos it would mean that singaporeans are very hard to please (which is sometimes the case). So we will be cooped up in the dingy hotel room that soon yeow said is really meant for sleeping.

while we were waiting for the lift, the corridor next the lift had rooms on both sides. But it looked so errie cos the lights were not switched on. this dong wu hotel is a perfect location for horror films :o

now gotta rush with lesson planning so that it can be delivered tmr.

sorry, no photos now cos i forgot to bring the cable out to this non-aircon and smoky i-net cafe in suzhou china.

et go home

things are definitely looking up.

felt really weird when i called home to inform my mum that i was not going home for dinner and will be back late cos it's mitch's berfday. it had been eons since i last did that O.o

my return also led to my first hug with my dad =]

its such a pity that i have to spend the next 2 weeks in Suzhou after coming home for abt 5 days. well, there are many more days for me to laze and hang ard when i get back.

hopefully i can achieve wat i set out for myself for this trip.

need to plan the lesson le... will post again when i reach suzhou

what's the purpose of our journey?

The trip to science centre proved to be somewhat useful, at least we get to know another group who is in the same kind of shit as us, lol. Cam-whored while cabbing over to science centre, oblivious and nonchalant to what the taxi uncle is thinking.

I guess if I am the guy from Conrad and am meeting up to 12 people for this sharing session, I must be thinking what the hell are these people wasting their time on? Shouldn't they be doing things that is more closely related to their core business like teaching & learning and brainstorming for relevant and interest exhibits to entice and engage their students and visitors? Well, for this, I have an answer which is too long and troublesome for me to verbalise, think as long as we know what we are doing, it is good enough.

However, I was watching this lecture series from some China Prof on Channel U last night and she said something that knock the sleep bug out of me - "Sometimes we are too caught up with our journey that we forget why are we embarking on it in the first place." Think we should make a conscious effort to schedule time for mile-stone checks so that we always what is the meaning and purpose of our life, ya? elsewise, burn out will set in which is very prevalent in the teaching profession.

Had a talk with QM over Nuggets (i only ate 4 out of 9, phew) and Coke Light and we have a new money-spinning (hopefully) project which is useful (definitely) for students to work for this year. So am looking forward to get rid of the inertia and complete our proposal by Oct 08.

funny how a one-liner from someone who has been on your mind helps you to see things from another perspective. sometimes we can have the cake and eat it too.

back to reality

My 3-week hiatus has officially ended, (*&^%$#@#$%^

If you have been waiting anxiously for an update on my attempt to clock under 10min for e 2.4km run, I have gooder (dun go tsk tsk tsk, cut me some slack. I am entitled to some bad English at times, especially given the exposure I am subjected to on a daily basis) than good news. Not only have I managed to achieve what I set myself (09:48), I came in ahead of two 20-year-young officers. lol. At the end of the run, I sat quietly at a corner and indulge myself in effervescence of pride and huge sense of achievement. Looks like the weeks of running with Dave has really paid off and it just goes to buttress the notion that there will not be success without hardwork. Really looking forward to experiencing this again in Aug 2008.

With reality rearing its ugly head and leering at my impending doom, the only consolation I can get is the teacher exchange to suzhou. Getting kids to love and appreciate the language is what I want to achieve in Suzhou unlike what I have been doing in SGP which is to get them to do well at the EL O levels. With the success that I have experiencing at preparing the kids for the O levels, I would like to see if I can ignite the love for the language which I think SHOULD be the mark of a true language teacher.

Tennis this morning was spiced up by this guy who approached us and asked if he could join us. Since there were only 3 of us, why not. And woah, is he good. While playing, three 1-week-old balls (the new ones we used when we played on Wed, yes with you) went cui. This just goes to show that the usual 3 musketeers haven been hitting the balls hard enough as we have never encountered this before. Anyway, we had a hell of a time trying to defend his shots and tire him out. Naturally, we played a little longer than usual since it was more fun, until Dave needs to zao. Looks like we still very amateurish despite having bought control racquets and played for close to 5 years.

so it's 2 weeks of pandemonium before I get to spend 2 weeks in Suzhou. Then the whole cycle starts again. Wish me luck and I know you will be there always =]

self praise

managed to clock 48 mins for my about 10-km run. thanks to an invisible pacer, lol. Looks like I am prepared for the 2.4 run this fri. wish me all the luck.

also pray for
1) good weather
2) mozzie free
3) no sudden urge to crap cos I dun look forward to doing my business in the wild

No. 4 and CV

din manage to get the marksman at the combat shoot. our team did pretty well in the day shoot by hitting a 72 out of 90. i contributed the most to the score for i only missed 1 out of the 15 bullets that we were given, :P morale was rather high and the prospect of getting $200 each was making the grown men act like a child in a candy store. Raymond even exclaimed, "$200 can buy alot of milk powder for my baby. so all must tau ka cheu hor."

in the midst of shooting, also needed to be the safety officer to look into the erm... safety la. what else. there was this LTA who placed his rifle down after shooting, whipped out his mobile and started texting. WTF! walked over, threw an empty cartridge at his helmet and said, "nnm, bo message eh si ah! can you do this later!!!" sheepishly, he kept his mobile and apologised. for goodness sake, you are in your 20s and here you are acting like one of the kids i have in class. "Do the right thing at the right time," i blasted and he apologised again. LOL. scary cat.

night shoot came and it was a disappointment. we were given the wrong targets to shoot and it was disastrous. not that if the targets were right, we would have been $200 richer. tho it does affect somehow, the truth is we are bo-bo shooters at night la. so for the entire day's work, there was no monetary award for us. only a pass. looks like the $200 has to be earned at my IPPT.

the weeks of running have done some good to my fitness level, lol. at my recent IPPT, i managed to cut a further 22 secs and clock a decent 10.23sec for my 2.4km. (stop rolling your eyeballs) yes, it is still far from my personal best when i was 18 years young, but at least better than letting the timing increase right. the best thing was, the guys in my platoon are ALL between 23 - 25 years young and i came in first. when the official results were released, the guys then proposed that i take the test again and try for gold so that i would get $400 instead of $200. so on 16 may, all of my guys will take turns to pace my run. *stress* with this hurdle down, will have to start training for the army half-marathon in aug. looks like as we grow older, we constantly engage in activities that make us feel young and alive. sigh, let's hope viagra would NEVER be a facet in my life.

the one-week break from school has done me some good. i dun have to face people who like to mark their territory by peeing all over the place, dun have to put up with bad english (students and teacher alike; nope, there's no missing 's' after 'teacher'), dun have to stop whatever i am doing and entertain questions that has nothing to do with me etc... but but but, i miss being in class. so to fill that viod, made a trip back on fri after i booked out primarily to collect marking and confront students who have conveniently forgotten to hand in my work. once i stepped onto the field and saw some of my kids, i knew i was at home. and this cannot be bought with all the money in the world.

the shop is doing fine, money is coming in but parents are very tired with the close 15-hr days. looks like i have to make my presence felt more often at the shop to lighten their burden. really hope that things will turn out fine so that things at home can start to look up.

said enuff. mitch, am counting down already... ...