CUT CUT CUT

I've got short hair now! Like 2 inches above my shoulders and rebonded. My head has never felt lighter. Oh, it also cost a whopping $178, excluding my $28 'clay'. But it's alright, cos it's a lovely birthday present from my mom.

Love and Submission

Have you ever wondered why the Bible instructs husbands to love their wives and wives to submit to husbands? [Eph 5] I can understand why husbands are told to love their wives but why aren't wives told to love their husbands, but only to submit?

After chewing on that thought for a while, I then decided that maybe it's because God has made women in such a way that she can easily love her husband. I guess you can say it's true that women are more emotional then and are more giving of their feelings. But while she loves her husband, she may not see submission as a form of love and God only knows that a continual assertion of will and independence pretty much destroys a marriage.

Men [!], on the other hand, obviously need that reminder from God to love their wives. Women's most common complaint is that they don't feel loved. Whenever my Dad gives my Mum an expensive gift, my Mum would be so nice to him for like a long time after that. Haha. So men, love your wives if you want to be treated like a king!

Someone candidly asked me, "Anna, do you think you can submit to your husband in future?" It's a good question since I've got a strong choleric personality. [For reference, google Personality Plus] But I thank God that I've been indoctrinated on the submission of wives since a young age otherwise if I were to hear a new message on this topic, I'll completely flip. I wish I could blog more but I really have to go offline now.

My New Job

It was interesting how I got my new job at this SME called Master Builder. It all started on Sunday when I decided to sit at the same table at the visitors' corner in church with my future boss. After a few minutes, this gentleman, whom I soon learned is a father of 5, offered me a clerical job at his company, whose office is sweetly located near my Dad's. This means, not only do I get a ride in the morning, I get free breakfasts too!

Compared to teaching, this clerical job have a lot less fizzle and much longer working hours [I left nearly at 6.30 today compared to 1.15 last time.] But doing admin stuff also is quite stress-free. I do brainless things like filing, punching holes, data entry blah. Admittedly, at the back of my mind, I was thinking, 'I'm a junior college graduate for goodness sake!' But, the people are quite nice and the main accountant who is my direct boss is quite sweet and not demanding at all. Oh, Edina works there too, so I really thank God for company.

S'pore Arts Fest coming up!

The Singapore Arts Festivals is coming in one month! [I serious wonder among my contemporaries, who cares at all?] I've shortlisted a few events that I'm considering to go. They are:
1. The Architecture of Silence [Dance/Orchestra]
2. Amjad [Dance]
3. Continuum [Dance]
4. Spin Odyssey [Dance]

Ok, you got me. I'm quite the dance-watching freak. To me, great dancing is really just stunts done in the most beautiful movements. Of course, there will be the free performances! Interestingly the festival will start and end with water performances, Water Fools at Boat Quay and Hydro Sapiens at Bedok Reservior [super near home, so this one is a must-go-watch] respectively. Did I mention that they're free too?!

Just jogging

7 am - riing! Snooze.
7.05 am - Riing! slept through it
7.10 am - Riing! Finally I get up, threw on some clothes and went to Bedok Reservoir to run my first jog in months.

Boy, it's was tiring but so satisfying. At the second half of the track, the sun was shining down on my fiercely and I could feel my left cheek burning. Bimbo me was thinking at the back of my mind, 'All those UV rays dancing on my face is gonna me age!'

There's a Psalm somewhere in the bible that says 'THIS IS THE DAY THAT THE LORD HAS MADE. I WILL REJOICE AND BE GLAD IN IT.' It so appropriately describes how I feel now.

Education

I used to dream of going US to study. In my JC days, somehow, out of nowhere, I had this notion that the best varsities are in America, eg, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, UPenn, U Chicago, Columbia etc. But since I've applied only to the local universities, of course most probably I'll be staying here. So, it is with a slight amount of envy that I'll watch a few of my friends fly away to America, Campbridge, LSE etc. How fun!

Even before I've entered varsity, I already can't wait to graduate. No matter what people say about uni life, financial independence remains one of my top goals in life. I'm going to turn 19 and since I've started working, I've taken very little money from my parents. When I enter varsity, I'll have to start taking allowance from my parents again. Well, there's just something very sickening about taking money from parents when you're at this age. Not that it is wrong, of course. Just that it doesn't feel too right.

Although I've not received my confirmation/reply letter from SMU yet, I'm pretty sure I'll get in. In the event that I don't, I'm still fine with going NTU. If I still cannot get into NTU, then I''m in trouble because besides accountancy and business, there is nothing else I want or can do.

A lot of my younger friends are going to Polytechnics this or next week. When I was Sec 4 3 years ago, going to poly wasn't an attractive idea. I heard, then, that in poly, there's lots of projects and at the end of the three-year study, you only have a ten percent chance of getting into a local Uni. Of course, I still do not fully understand what life in poly is like but one thing for sure, the playing field has leveled quite a bit. I would recommend a JC education only for the true academics, the kind of people who are into knowledge, knowledge and more knowledge.

I'll like to comment shortly on how it is unfair to use O level results to get a place in a particular course in Poly. To be fair, most of the subjects studied in Secondary school like Math, SS, Science, are pretty irrelevant to most courses available at Poly. I have a friend who wanted to take up Mass Com badly, and he's would be good in it, but was rejected based on results. He had the personality, the language, the flaire and the enthusiasm! What does that C5 in science matter? or that C6 in CHinese? On the other hand, it's a tricky affair as there's simply no other convenient and efficient to assess future Poly students. [Hint: there's something a little fishy about the whole entire education system right from Pri school]

Please note that all the above are nothing but ramblings, idle thoughts that can be considered trash.

Another blog

http://military-life.blogspot.com

THIS GUY'S BLOG IS HILARIOUS! insightful and infinitely biased.

How to write in good English

[This is my 88th post!]

How does one write good English? For a long time til now, I've always believed that one does not need to speak good, strong English in order to write well. After all, as a proud Singaporean, Singlish is so central to our culture and national identity so therefore to unnaturally cultivate the habit to speak articulately and with good vocabulary seems a pungent idea to me..

That is, until I read a few blogs while blog trawling at my friend's place today. She showed me some blogs of Singaporeans my age, 19 by the way, who wrote good, provoking entries in strong English. By good english, I mean well-structured sentences that contain good phrases of vocabulary, such language convey greater depth of the same message. Plus, good english is more fun to read, at least to me.

On the way home, I was just pondering how does one improve his English? If reading is all that is needed, then I would be OK since I read relatively a lot. [Granted though that I'm reading a Chinese book now] I write in blogging and in my diaries, so there is the practice of language. What really is lacking, I believe, is the discipline to speak well. Think about it, Singlish is actually English for the lazy, the refusal to omit familiar phrases of foreign languages from English. It pained me to say all that cos I love Singlish and I'll never change the way I speak. But for students out there, JC and below, if you wanna score for English, and if you're already a reader and amateur writer and still not up to that high mark, maybe it's time you make the effort to speak well.

Tuitioning all day

My korean tuition student told me this: 'I have English tuition, Chinese tuition 3 times a week, science tuition, math tuition, korean math tuition and piano.'

WHAT?!

This boy is really a bright kid. While I'm 'tutoring' him, I'm swiveling in my chair, randomly picking out questions for him to do. He's Primary 5 but we were working on a p6 math assessment book. His Korean math tuition deals with Sec 3 stuff! Doesn't this just blow your mind away?

Me: I have an idea. Why don't we just go straight into sec 1 math, maybe by u reaching sec 2, you can do O level Math already? And by Sec 4, you can take A level math.
K: I can do that?

I honestly think he can.

just a few more weeks

I'll be teaching for at least another 3.5 weeks, til Mid-Year Exams are over. I asked my HOD what she would do if I were to quit now, she said, 'I'll be depressed and go into a decline.' Haha.

I'm getting more and more depressed. Take today for example, I was practically going crazy teaching Remainder Theorem to the Sec 3s today. Towards the end, I was nearly teaching in a scolding manner. It was, to me, such an EASY thing to understand. Ok, from one point of view, it could be that I'm a lousy teacher. From another, it's because some of their minds are not nimble enough to learn math.

Earning $65 a day is not joke. True, it's well paying but the kind of emotional stress I suffer is traumatic. Recently, I was mulling over the issue that my Sec 3s are possibly hating me to the core. I used to have to a nice, act-cute student who would do my work and was one of the top in the class. When I recently was very harsh towards him, he completely gave me a 180 attitude change, he became quite rude and stopped being friendly.When I pass him by in school, he usually ignores me. NOW, somehow, he's gone back to his cutesy style. I mean, this is emotionally draining ok. MARKY is right, I've got to detached myself. Even more.

I was just asking my colleagues, 'Who are the parents of these students? Why isn't simple things like respect, hardwork and every other normal moral values instilled in them? Where does the attitude of 'I'm always right' come from?' ok. I need to get a hold. haha

The Pillowman

I watched Pillowman on Wednesday evening. Here are my comments:

Wicked good play! Ok, granted that it was a little more than 3 hours long and thus, for a person like me, so I did get a little tired watching. But the script was fantastic, albeit the splashes of the f-word in almost every sentence. Pillowman is a black comedy in which the play explores themes of horrific child murders and how or if childhood trauma can affect one's adulthood tremendously. It started off rocky, i think, as Kurtarian was interrogated harshly by two cop, one good and one bad. Adrian Pang played Tupolski, the 'good cop', and as he watched on Kurtarian being beaten up, he said, 'I forgot to tell ya, I'm the good cop and he's the bad cop.' [ok, i'm not sure if that line was word for one, haha]

Kurtarian had his spastic brother next door, his name was Michal. Oh, and being spastic, Michal said the darndest things! While the audience was kept thinking that this little fool was an innocent sweething, suddenly Michal said, 'I thought I hid those fingers really well. How did they find them?' I think I gasped inwardly then. Unfortunately, he got smothered by a pillow in his sleep by Kurtarian. Both brothers had a horrific childhood experience.

The play was really dark humour. I went with two buddies. One of them happened to have a pillow along. Man, I took it and hid behind it sometimes. This play cost me $50. Ouch, but it was worth every cent. But I wouldn't want to watch an expensive and long play again. I rather go for short plays that are cheaper.

April Fools

I WANNA QUIT LIAO. Sigh, at the rate I'm behaving in school, I'm gonna die of high blood pressure.

Because it's April Fool's day today, my sec 4 students wanted to throw water bombs at me. So I ran away.

I have started giving private tuition to two Korean primary school students, one P4 and the other P5. They are brothers. I teach the younger one English. His standard of English is like the my Chinese. The older brother is a brilliant kid! I teach him mathematics and have no idea why I'm doing that. His manipulation of algebra is even better than some of my Sec 3s! Apparently, from next lesson onwards, I have to teach him Olympiad Math. What a genius.