going Down Under

we're flying off to perth, western australia this saturday!

i know this may mean nothing much to fortunate souls who are frequent travellers - but it sure is a huge deal for me. my last overseas holiday via air (minus the 2D1N business trip to brisbane in 2005) was to phuket in 2004 when there was only 1 kid in our family then. xian was about 20 months old when holidayed at phuket. she's now 6 years old.

wen's only been driven across the causeway and has never got the chance to travel by air. wei's only 5 months so this will be her first holiday experience. both wen and wei will take to the skies for the first time in their lives...and i don't know what to expect on the plane!

initially the hub was planning for new zealand (i was ecstatic because i wanted to visit as many LOTR sites as possible and visit my cousin and his family) but it was way too expensive and we estimated that 20k may not be enough for a 8 day tour! so i suggested perth since no-one (aside from myself) has been there. the 4.5h flight's more manageable too.

there'll be 7 of us on this trip: FIL, MIL, the 3 princesses, the hub and i. it's a free-and-easy self drive and we've mapped out our destinations: perth, fremantle, bunbury, bussleton, margaret river, bindoon (farmstay). we're only covering a modest portion of the south-west region as there's only 1 driver (the hub) and i don't want him to be too exhausted.

and thank goodness we're living in the internet age! we got all the information we wanted off the net and made our flight and accommodation arrangements via the web too.

unfortunately i'm still stuck with loads of administrative and module assessment work that need to be cleared within the next 3 days before the trip. i'm running on a tight schedule and have to work till the very last minute on friday (perhaps even staying up to finish my stuff) before i take the morning saturday flight out to perth.

which also explains why i haven't written about this trip earlier. work's been eating up my waking moments. plus baby's middle of the night feeds = a drained mumsy.

but i promise to give an account and upload the photos once i'm back.

till then, G'DAY MATE! ;)

tainted milk

two young, innocent lives have been cruelly and prematurely terminated.

and the cause of this fatality is, ironically, the primary source of sustenance for the babies: milk.

it's devastatingly horrifying! i can't believe there're still scums out there who'd resort to such ruthless and unethical tactics to increase their bottom line.

read here for full details of the case or watch this cnn report:



another compelling reason why babies should be breastfed on mummy's milk, whether direct from the source or bottle fed mummy's expressed milk.

tech-glitch

something's wrong with the embedding function from youtube.

all the clips display blank screens. at first i thought the video had been removed from youtube but it was still clearly available for viewing.

so my next assumption was that i'd screwed up my own posting but when i checked other people's blogs, all the embedded youtube clips showed the same thing: a black screen.

ah well. i guess it's one of those technical glitches the IT folks will have to solve. clearly something i know nothing about.

mumsy the teevathlete

i'm suffering from the post-olympics hangover.

and it just won't GO AWAY!

for 2 weeks in august, i was a teevathlete. my eyes were glued onto the screen almost every night as i struggled to catch as many events as i possibly could. the coverage from starhub was AWESOME! 6 different channels broadcasting almost every single game, round, race, match...

volleyball. beach volleyball. swimming. track and field. gymnastics, diving etc. it was every teevathlete's dream.

everyone was talking about US swimmer michael phelp's quest for a seemingly impossible feat of 8 gold medals which he amazingly pulled off, smashing almost all the world records he'd already owned. phelp's going to be a gazillionaire. the golden boy can retire NOW and still support his future great grandchildren with money from sponsorships, endorsements and advertisements.

while i enjoyed watching the swimmers thrash and splash about in the watercube, my main focus was on the track events.

and boy, did it bring back memories of my days as a competitive school athlete. it was such a loooooong time ago when i sprinted. but whenever the runners lined up at the starting blocks, my heart would thump loudly. the adrenaline rush made me giddy with excitement and i felt like i was literally at the starting line waiting for the gun to go off!

without a doubt the beijing olympics sprint sensation was jamaican usain 'lightning' bolt who dashed the world records in 100m, 200m and the 4x100m men's relay. this unusually tall sprinter cruised so effortlessly to victory and caused a stir when he actually slowed down towards the end of his 100m final race. despite his clowning (and some say arrogant) antics, bolt still struck gold thrice and claimed new personal world records in 9.69 seconds (100m) and 19.30 (200m)!

imagine how much faster bolt would have been if he'd been really serious...

check out this youtube spoof of bolt's historic race:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSpPaCIG0g&feature=related

well, it's been almost a month since the visually spectacular beiing 2008 opening ceremony directed by the talented zhang yimou. personally i felt the closing ceremony wasn't as breathtaking although the fireworks stole the show.

and the clever people at starhub probably realised there would be many teevathletes like me who'd be experiencing traumatising withdrawal symptoms and kindly scheduled re-runs of several final games and matches. i sought some measure of relief watching these re-runs and was grateful that i didn't have to suffer the cold-turkey treatment.

for now, it's 4 more years of wait. many things can happen in 4 years.

will usain bolt retain his sprint double fastest-man-in-the-world status?

will there be another upstart who'll challenge his reign?

will michael phelps come back to haul back more golds?

all will be revealed in 4 years' time.

see you in london 2012.

Woofy's Corner: Now Open

a couple of months back, i mentioned briefly here that the hub decided to invest in a pet shop.

well, it's an existing business which has been up and running for the past 5 years or so. the hub just wanted to try his hand at managing a retail business, and it started more out from interest rather than churning out profits.

so far, our little prince arif's benefited most from this venture as he now gets to try out different brands of food - which has turned him into a spoilt, fussy eater. our canine family member's obviously got expensive taste as he only finishes his meal when we give him the top quality (and pricey) brand of food.

anyway, the pet shop's moved to a new location - just round the corner, at the next lane. here's our new address:

Woofy's Corner
27 Lowland Road
Singapore 547418
Tel: 6284 6093

Email: enquiries_woofy@hotmail.com

Opening hours:
11am - 8pm (Mon to Fri)
11am - 6pm (Sat & Sun)

and of course, i've started a woofy's corner blog too. feel free to browse http://woofys-corner.blogspot.com/ as i'll upload promotions and specials there.

do support us, yah? ;)

teachers 'r' us

been busy, so updating my blog's not been top priority.

and i know this is 24 hours too late, but what the heck...happy teachers' day to my fellow educators!

and thanks for the smses too! you crazy kids sure know how to brighten your old lecturer/tutor's day :)

unlike the kindergartens, primary, secondary schools and JCs, teachers' day isn't celebrated over at the poly. not in our poly at least. plus the exams just ended last friday so perhaps the students aren't really in the mood to thank their lecturers, especially if the paper was a real killer. i can just imagine what those smses would be like:

"happy teachers' day! thanks a million for that horrible paper you set - now i know what it feels like to be suicidal. if not for the exam, i'd never have tasted utter desperation and defeat. but it was a lesson well taught, and i'll never forget how painful it feels like to be a complete loser...

...anyway i truly hope you'll enjoy marking the scripts because from what i've heard from my classmates, it'll probably be an easy task since the answer booklets are virtually empty and thus free of our terrible handwriting which you constantly complain about! have a great day!"

ha!

anyway, it was a quiet day in campus yesterday as school's officially out. but while many of the students are enjoying themselves, the lecturers are now scrambling to complete the exam processes - after marking the scripts, there's moderation, board of examiners' meet (BOE) and lots of behind-the-scene work before we can release the results officially.

i've been assigned to a committee that's in charge of processing the exam results. and on the day of the BOE, we've to present the findings of how the respective levels have performed at the exams. and honestly, it's not something that i'm looking forward to for several reasons:

• it involves pulling out data from the system, analysing the figures, importing information from microsoft excel sheets into powerpoint. i'm not an expert with microsoft excel though i can get by with simple commands...and i'm certainly NOT a numbers person. they just confuse and befuddle me endlessly, and i can't make any sense out of statistics.

• i never enjoy being in the spotlight and unfortunately, i'll have to present the results to all my colleagues and bosses. we're talking about 200 lecturers here. it's very different lecturing to students and speaking in front of a large audience, and it's made scarier when you're among fellow lecturers. as this is my first round in the committee, i'll be spared the agony. but next semester, i'll have to do it.

• will have to put aside 2 full days involved in preparing the results. so our actual work begins only after others have completed theirs...that's only the tip of the iceberg. 3/4 of the so-called holiday break will be spent on this as there'll be another few rounds of processing. after the main examinations, we also have supplementary exams for those who failed or for some reason, were unable to sit for the main papers. what's worse is that the busy periods are sporadic, which makes it tough to plan for a long break.

bleh. bleh. bleh. triple yucks.

so yes, the popular belief that lecturers can "enjoy" school break is pure rubbish. we've got annual leave to clear but unlike those in other professions, we can only take our leave during the official term break. (we're not allowed to go leave during term time as that would disrupt our teaching schedules).

and everybody knows teachers/lecturers aren't well paid (unless you're in the top scale) and that's the truth. many of my peers who aren't in education get 2x, 3x or even 4x my meagre salary. i kid you not. being an educator may be a noble profession, but it barely pays bills.

so what's in it for educators if money (i assume) isn't the key motivating factor?

well, many of us are in this line because we're passionate and committed about moulding and inspiring young minds, and we take great pride in our students' achievements and success, big and small.

for me, it's always very heartwarming to receive emails, smses, and recently, wedding invitations from former students. i take those as positive signs that i've somewhat accomplished what i'd set out to do as an educator.

so to all my present and past colleagues, and those who're in teaching, HAPPY TEACHERS' DAY once again.