A little breather

No, it's not a busy period for me.

Or rather, I'm getting a little break now that 2E5 and 3T1 are having their end of year examinations and the prelims are over for the sec 4s.


So it seems that my marking of the prelim exam papers are over.
The exam papers didn't smile at them AT ALL.
In fact, most of them deteriorated and they didn't seem at all worried.
Goodness gracious!

However, one of the classes improved and though they didn't improved by leaps and bounds but they did improve.

Like I told them in class, I told them that though I'm glad to see their improvements but it's not enough for me to feel secure that they can do well in their O-levels.
I don't expect them to do well for me.
I want them to do well for themselves.
But how else can I help them except to be there for them when they need that little helping hand.


It's strange to think how complex human relationships can be.


Last week, I celebrated my 5th year wedding anniversary with my hubby.
It's been 5 years.
Sometimes, when I think back of the times we spent together, I still find it amazing that we've spent 5 years together as husband and wife.
No doubt we've our shares of arguments and disagreements but on hindsight, it's always due to the way we show our concern for each other.
Probably, overly-concerned hinging on paranoia.

My hubby has been a great husband.
He's thoughtful in his own little ways and always put the family first before anything else.
He has his fair share of flaws and I'm sure I do as well.
However, he often turn a blind eye to my flaws and accept me for who I am.

We celebrated our anniversary in a simple way with dinner and drinks.
Simple and yet something that we both appreciate very much.
Eversince Raine is born, we seldom get a night out without her.
So even simple things like dinner and drinks seem extremely rare and special.

Today, I'm blessed with my family, my friends and a healthy body.

Raine is growing up day by day and I'm etching her growing up process deeply in my heart.
She's learning fast and her latest craze is to roar at others.
Her confidence to take her baby steps is growing and I'm still waiting for the day where she can confidently stand up and take her first few steps into her toddler year.
She's now a mischievous little imp and her funny antics never fail to brighten up my days.
I can't wait for her to grow up and call me 'mummy'.
Now she's just blabbering away with words that just doesn't make sense.
But I'm starting to realise that they're now of different intonations and pitches.


Her hair is a constant worry of mine.
Brought her to the hairdresser finally few weeks back and it was a disaster.
She started crying the moment the hairdresser laid the scissors on her hair.
She didn't stop till the hairdresser was done.
By the time the hairdresser was done, her face was covered with a mixture of hair and tears.
That was indeed a very teary hairy situation.
Gotta coax her with her favourite ride on Barney before she put the whole hair cutting episode behind and started smiling again.
So how did the haircut look?
Well, nothing much changed except that her fringe is now shorter.
Wasted $20! What's worse was the hairdresser.
She looked like a total ah lian and stunk of ciggies.
Sigh!
I swear I'm never going back there ever again!

I'm still deciding what kinda celebration I should have for Raine.
It's afterall her first birthday party!
But I figured she's too young to enjoy anything and the only people that'll appreciate the whole celebration will be the adults.
How?
This is such a tough decision.

Long Overdue

So....it's been a while huh.

Haha!

Exam papers setting was waaay too long ago.

Holidays came and left.

Week 1 is halfway through and I still feel a bit dazed.

And what have I been up to?!

Seriously, I was busy.

Ya ya, everyone's busy!

"But I can blog when I'm busy and you cannot."

AH HA! I know that's what you're thinking!

However, that's where you are wrong!

I'm busily being busy so you can't blame me.

Let's see.

Before the holidays, I had to prepare for the Teachers' Day concert.

Intensive preparations ok!

But I was glad that it all turned out well and I have everyone to thank for.

And after concert was over, being sooooo soooo popular, I had to say hi to many many pupils.

4E1 2006, I am very glad to still see so many of you.

It's been 2 years and trust me, you guys still hold a special place in my very big heart.

I know I mentioned that I'll blog about you guys, I will, I will.

Later la ok? I have to do alot of updates you know.

Ok back to what I was typing.

So after saying hi to many many pupils, I had to rush off for my Teachers' Day lunch.

Alright, maybe saying hi to many many pupils was a bit of an overstatement.

Cos most of them were actually rushing off to go home and I was rushing back to the staff room.

They were in my way and so I kept saying hi to shoo them away from my path.

Then the holidays came!

Yooohooo!

The whole holiday was spent with my little princess.

Had to take care of her for the whole week as nanny was away on a holiday.

I enjoyed myself tremendously as I really get to see her every of my waking moment.

(She appears in my dreams sometimes as well, so it's not only every waking moment.)

I'm really proud of the progress that princess has made so far.

She's now starting to develop her own character and has started throwing her princess tantrums.

She's learning to understand simple instructions like, 'come here', 'clap hands', 'bye bye' and so on accompanied with actions.

I always love to sing 'When you're happy' cos she'll always get so excited and clap along when I sing that tune.

She's also starting to learn to walk.

Though she can always walk successfully without support on the bed, she's still not confident enough to do so when I put her on the floor.
She'll eventually end up crawling.

But she loves it when we hold her hands while she waddle her little diapered butt around.

Physically, she now has a total of 4 pearlies!

Well done!

And she loves biting my finger with them.

Trust me, it hurts.

So you see, sacrifices of a mummy.

Her hair is still standing even though most of them are starting to fall back into place.

Been wanting to bring her for a haircut but I just keep telling myself to wait till all her hair looks normal before I do that.

Haha!

But I wonder when will that be.

Each time I look at my little princess, I think to myself that my little princess actually doesn't really look like a little princess.

She's more like a little prince actually.

But I'm very sure with all the pink clothes that she have, she'll have no problem transforming into a princess soon.

I love spending my time with her.

Watching her grow gives me immense satisfaction.

I always like going through her photos when she was just born and compare her to now.

She's grown so much!

No wonder others always says that baby's first year is always a year of transformations.

I'm now planning her 1 year old party.

She's gonna be one!

Oh gosh, how time flies.

By then, another batch of secondary 4s will be graduating.

Mr Exam Paper, did you smile at them?

They probably didn't think your smile was wide enough.

Cos I'm definitely not smiling when I was marking their papers.

Disappointment yet again.

Oh well, like how they always love to say.

I love you Raine Raine.

I don't feel like going on anymore.

It's gonna be 11pm and it's bed time.

My dark circles are getting darker and I think I'm looking more and more like the Olympics mascots.

My eyebags are bigger than the trash bag.

Oh and trash bags are black.

Gosh, I think my eyes are looking like trash bags.

By the way, I posted a challenge to 2E5.

Told them that I wanted them to be the model class.

I'll find out tomorrow.

I couldn't help laughing when I told them this just now.

And worst, they laughed along with me.

Sigh.

Oh well....

I'm so done!

*PHEW!*

Dear Exam Paper,

Thanks to you that.....

I've suffered sleepless nights.
because of all these sleepless nights, I had low immunity.
because of my low immunity I fell sick.
because I fell sick, I took my first MC for the year.
because of this first MC of the year, I can't get my $10 NTUC voucher.
because I can't get this $10 NTUC voucher, I have less $10 to spend.
because I have less $10 to spend.....

*ponders*

Ok, I can't think of a consequence cos I have less $10 to spend.

Anyway, thanks to you Mr Exam Paper that I have less $10 to spend.

So Mr Exam Paper, to justify the time that I spent on you, please make sure that my students can do well for this prelims.

Smile to them when they see you so that they can feel more confident.

Pass them some wisdom so that they can remember what I've taught in class.
Well, of course that is subjected to whether they've learnt what I taught in class.
Then again, that is subjected to whether they were listening in the first place.
And that is on the condition that they decide to turn up for class on that day.

Sigh.

Many say that the job of a teacher is really difficult cos you need to multi-task.
I think that's really an understatement.
Cos at times I feel that I just don't know what I'm doing at work.

Just when I finished typing the sentence above, Raine started crying.
I think she misses me.
She misses me so much that she woke up from her sleep just to let me know that she misses me.
Once again, I've you to thank.
Because of you, I didn't really get to spend time with my baby for the past few days.
And I'm worried that she'll think that I don't love her anymore.
That can result in her having a traumatised childhood and end up having an emotional scar.
She'll then grow up to be a delinquent and hate me for the rest of her life.

Oh Exam Paper, please recognise my sacrifices and efforts.
Smile to them.
Make me happy.

Yours sincerely,
Me

DEADlines

I'm feeling really stressed.

Deadlines looming and markings still piling up.

Weather is horrible and adding to my frustrations.

Classroom is dirty and badly littered.

Students are still as annoying.

O-levels is coming and yet I feel more anxious than my students.

Why aren't we entitled proper lunch time?!?!

Why can't money drop down from the sky?!?!

Why don't you do my work for me......

*collapses into a pile and dies*

My weary bones

Yet another weekend passed in a blink of an eye.

Nothing very much accomplished.
In fact, nothing is accomplished.

This seems to happen every weekend.
Every Friday, I make a silent resolution that this weekend is going to be different.
I will finish everything that I've brought back home but I just end up bringing them back to school on Monday, untouched.

So I console myself with the fact that every weekend, I get to spend an enormous amount of time with Raine and my baby is more important than everything else.

And that's a fact.

Oh well, work can never be finished but Raine will only grow up once.

However, I must say that I had a good week.

Last Friday was our annual school Road Relay.
I think I was the happiest teacher around on that day.
I like to think that I am the happiest teacher around on that day.
I don't care!

Anyway, reason for my happiness was that my students really did me very proud.
Both my athletics kids and class pupils came in first and second respectively for both the girls and the boys race.
I am sooo tremendously proud of them and you can't imagine the pride I felt when I see them racing towards the finishing line.

I was filled with emotions seeing them race.
Mainly cos I see another side of them that I had never seen before.
The sheer determination in their eyes when they race and the triumphant that they have when the win.
They suddenly became so grown up and are like the students I've always wanted them to be.
To do the best in whatever they do.
They did just that on that day.

This is especially so for J Khoh who always tells me that he's such a slacker and can not do well in things.
He's so different while he was racing.
He's so filled with purpose and I can really sense the fighting spirit in him.
J Khoh, stop thinking of yourself that way.
You can achieve what you want if you put your will to it.

Apart from J, I saw another side of CL too.
Not that I'm purposely trying to mention the golden couple.
CL became really serious on that day.
She seemed so grown up.
Not the usual CL-who-speaks-without-using-her-brains-first.
I'm so proud of her.
CL, you know what's your weakness.
Be more aware of your speech. You can also do it.

Having mentioned the two of them doesn't mean that the rest of you are not special.
Every single one of you made me what I am today too.
Teachers need motivation and encouragement from students too.

A special shout out to the Athletics team.
We have came a long way from the days when you guys ran around the school aimlessly.
In the past, others used to comment that the athletes are no good cos we can't even win at running events.
Today, you have proved them wrong.
You have shown the rest of the school that training hard produces results.
And you can tell everyone proudly that you are from the Athletics team.
Just like what Jo shouted, 'Join Athletics and you can become champion!'.
D has done us proud with his recent win at the Nationals.
The rest of you have done us proud at the road relay and sports day.
All of you are champions!
Thank you for all the good times and the glory.
I am really very proud of you.

2E5, you have proven others wrong too.
You are indeed the best class.
But please, I need you guys to pull up your socks for studies.
I've told pupils from the other classes that we didn't do well during mid-year cos we wanted to shock the rest of them for end-of-year examination.
Don't make me lose face!

So that's Friday.
Exhausting but definitely happy.

Everytime I have a bad day in school, I always rely on happy moments like these.
And that's the reason why I only blog about happy things.

Sunday, that's this morning was spent at Fort Canning.
Brought the prefects for a walk for a charity event.
Most of them turned up bright and early in their pink flamingo t-shirts.
Others overslept and gave irresponsible excuses for not turning up.

Was rather disappointed with a couple of them.
Reasons like 'I want to go out?'
I'm having second thoughts about keeping such people in the board.
I really can't depend on them.

Though it was a rather easy CIP to perform, I'm still glad to see most of them.
Throughout the walk, they chit chatted leisurely and I hope some form of bonding has taken place.
I came to know more about some pupils as well and times like this can not achieved in school.
I'm glad I went too.
Although we didn't really get to see the children, I hope they are happy that we turned up for them still.

After the walk, I managed to spend some time with JP and V.
Realised that V is really sporting and JP can be a real gentleman.
We talked about their future among others and discussing about their next milestone in their education made me realise that they'll be leaving the school soon.
A bad thing about teaching graduating classes is the fact your students leave you after their 'O' levels.
It gets very difficult when you've formed a certain bond with them and you get so used to having them around.
So, I especially cherish my times with them.
After meeting hubby and baby, they left.
That's when I realised that they actually hung around to keep me company.
Thanks JP and V.

Shopped around the supermarket and went for lunch after that.
Reached home around noon and that's when I feel that my lethargy has gotten the better of me.
Took my shower and just laid on the bed while having Raine next to me.
Raine didn't seem sleepy at all while poor Mummy just wanted her to sleep.
So my dear hubby thought that his poor wife can't take it anymore and decided to bring Raine down to my mother-in-law.
That's when I went dead and slept for a good 3 hours.
My hubby can be considerate like that. =)

That's my weekend.
Mundane you say.
But I always enjoy my simple weekend.

Double Happiness

Yesterday two births were announced.

Congratulations to my sister-in-law for being a mother a second time round.
Baby arrived shortly after she was admitted into the hospital.
He looks exactly like his elder brother except chubbier.

Congratulations to my dear friend Nan as well.
Welcome to the madness of motherhood, where days become nights and nights are crazy.

I can't imagine myself going through labour again.
Imagine the epidural, the contractions, the pushing and bare nakedness.
Aiyo!!!
*Shudders at that thought*

And the delivery is just the beginning.
Following that is the crying, poo-ing and waking up every 3 hourly.

Gosh....Motherhood.....

Neverthless, still CONGRATULATIONS on the arrival of your bundles of joy.

Happily Tired

Term 3 started off leaving me feeling very exhausted.
It's only week 2 but I feel as though it's almost the end of the term.
Thank God for Youth Day that I managed to get a day off tomorrow.

I think it's probably due to the fact that supplementaries are really intensive and also the camp in week 1.

The camp in week 1 left me feeling very nostalgic.
Jalan Bahtera was where I used to have my school camps in secondary school.
My secondary school organised lots of leadership training camps and I was very active in those camps back then.
At that time, the camp site wasn't like what it is now.
We used to have to pitch our own tents and the toilets were really filthy.
Mosquitoes were abundant and I always go home with lots of bites.
I even had to have my finger injected because my finger swelled up due to the mosquito bites.
But I had good times there.
I used to love the night time when I can look up to the sky where I can see stars and smell the grass.

As I see my pupils engaged in their activites, it reminded me of myself when I was doing those activities myself.
I recall the fear that I felt each time I try a new high element course.
Hence, I know exactly what my pupils felt when they tell me that they are scared.
However, I feel very proud of one particular pupil of mine.
Let's just call him S.
We were at the abseiling station and S was adamant that he didn't wanna attempt it.
So after much persuasion, he told me that he'll go for it with a smile.
However when it was his turn, he didn't dare to come down.
He started crying and that's when I thought he's really brave.
I asked myself if I were in his shoes, will I dare to cry and let the whole world know that I'm scared.
And the answer is 'no'.

How many of you reading this actually dare to put your pride aside and admit that you're scared?
That's why I feel that S is really brave cos even though he was crying, he attempted to abseil down a few times.
Another pupil made a remark saying that if S is considered brave then she is also brave.
Afterall, she didn't only go up to the top of the abseiling tower but she made it down as well.
But do remember, everyone has a different limit.
To someone who has no vertigo, doing a bungee jump is a piece of cake.
But to another person, it takes a whole lot of courage to do the same thing.
To S, going up to the top and attempting to abseil is already his limit.

S, I'm really proud of you.

I slept through both days during the weekend after the camp.
Didn't really recuperate well as I still have little baby Raine to look after.
Hubby was really considerate as well.
He took over the task of looking after Raine most of the time and asked me to just sleep while he spends time with her.
But I'm still tired.

So week 2 came and left.
Supplementaries everyday is really no joke.
I am tired. Students are tired.
Count the number of 'tired' in this post and you'll know how tired I am.
Gosh!

And you might ask then why is the title of the post 'Happily Tired'.

Cos I'm really happy even though I'm tired.

I once told a fellow colleague that teaching is not an easy job.
It takes a whole lot of energy and passion and sometimes, the rewards are not seen immediately.
So in order to keep me going, I relish on the happy memories that I've collected in my 5 years of teaching.
Last week, I had more of such memories to add on to the collection.

On one of the draggy afternoon, I was informed by the office clerk that an ex pupil sent me a postcard.
I looked into my pigeon hole and found a postcard of scotland lying in it.
I knew instinctively who it is from.
I read it and the content warmed my heart.
I love receiving hand written letters.
Though it's not a letter but I guess a postcard gives the same effect.
You know you've been missed and remembered.
You also know that at some point in time, you made a difference to this pupil's education in secondary school.
It brightened up my day and gave me more meaning to my job.

The second chapter of 'Chicken soup for my own soul' happened the following morning.
The day started off innocently with a series of math lessons.
Just as I was going to get some markers from my markers container, I saw a note there.
It was written from some pupils from my form class last year.
They wrote about how they missed being in my homeroom cos it brought them back some sweet memories.
Like I said, I really love handwritten messages.
So I smiled to myself like a silly goon and felt very contented for that day.

I think I've wrote about how blessed I feel most of the time.
But this is my blog so it doesn't hurt if I am to repeat it.

To start off, I've a wonderful family.
Caring parents, my-always-makes-me-laugh sister, loving hubby, ever adorable daughter and considerate, understanding in-laws.
I've a job that I feel happy in.
Note that I'm just happy in it cos I still think that the pay is too low and the workload is too heavy.
It'll be good if they can find a balance somewhere and I think that'll make me feel excited to be in this job. Hee!
I've good colleagues that I can complain to and laugh with.
I've friends who I can count on when I need help.
I must admit that I'm a very lousy friend cos I'm hopeless with meet ups.
That is why I think I'm doubly lucky to have friends like them.
I've good students who makes me feel that teaching them is not a waste of time.

So you see, what more can I ask for?

Actually, there is.
A round trip of Europe will be good.
One year bonus sounds cool as well.
What else....hmmm....a big bungalow complete with many maids and chauffeur?
Haha!

Guess all these are just wishful thinking.
Contentment is bliss.

Updates about baby Raine.
Her first pearly is finally appearing.
The lower front teeth is surfacing from her gum.
There's still no sign of her other teeth though.

She's still as cheeky as ever.
I have to add that I really love it when she snuggles up to me in the morning when she's lying next to me.
I love those moments.
I'm not too good in expressing how I feel about it but if you close your eyes and imagine it, I think you'll know what I mean.

This Sunday feels different.
No work tomorrow!
Triple Hip Hip Hooray!