so tired. heh today was last lesson with arts class.. one of them asked "will you miss us?" and i said "of course" and another one said "she's lying". anyhow, i'll miss the nonsense the front row ppl spouted.. they're so funny.. and at least they talked during lessons, made my life easier in a way. very likeable crowd in any case. although i don't think they learnt very much from me somehow.
and i realised i still have essays to mark. oops. i think i get very distracted sometimes. it's really painful reading the not-so-good ones sometimes, i can't even figure out whether they answered the question or not. or maybe that's cos i read too many essays. dunno lah, and those i have left are mostly tmr's 1st class.. means i have to finish them fast! aah!
i wonder if what i read defines me, or i define what i read. okay that probably doesn't make sense. cos i was reading stuff about my zodiac (somehow i find it quite fun) and i agree with some things but not others. right i don't think i'm making much sense, should probably get off and go sleep/mark essays if possible:
augh. i'm feeling so guilty. there're supposed to be 2 sm2 scholars in one of my gp classes and i kept forgetting to go and ask the cts why they didn't turn up. and now it's like 2 more weeks and the teacher is coming back.. die.. but aiyah this is jc after all shouldn't they be responsible for themselves.. okay i'm just pushing the blame to them. ugh.
haha it's the last 2 days of school and i already don't feel like going. and why do they have to leave tmr as thurs timetable?? i planned for the original monday timetable lah!! ahh. now i have no idea how to entertain my arts class for 1h40. groan.
ow. i hope i don't get bruises tomorrow. anyway, today, in the morning, i had a huge shock when someone called "clarissa" while i was walking to class. first reaction: hmm, i don't think any of my students remember my name. anyway, turned around to see HOD. right, so what could he possibly have to say to me? the teacher whom i'm replacing is coming back this sat! (okay either i wasn't thinking straight or his phrasing was really weird cos i was quite puzzled at first)
and i wonder when he was going to tell me if he hadn't met me in the corridor today. hmm. anyway, i'm glad i don't have to plan somemore lessons, but of course i'll be stoning around for the nxt 1.5 weeks. (without pay). haha. i'll be glad not to wake up at 7+ though.. out of habit i actually did that on saturday.. was so annoyed with myself!:(
anyway today was a 1/3 day! haha. reward for gd syf results. ended at 11.40 but lyd came over to get something frm me so i ended up staying till 3.30 to mark/plan lessons. it was really gd to see lyd anyhow, she's so cute n amusing heh. whined about how long it took to walk to nj main gate (i totally empathise) and then later complained that the ice kachang didn't have enough red beans. and took forever to decide what to eat.. and came into the staffroom and laughed at my students' essays. that's one thing i'll kind of miss, actually. while marking is rather tedious sometimes there are the highlights of the day.
latest quote from student's essay (i must add that i was quite, quite aghast): A television has a hidden function which is quite similar to the general function of a vacuum cleaner, except that vacuum cleaners suck up the dirty stuffs while televisions "suck" out the "soul and spirit" of many people, changing them into couch potatoes. (at this point, i wrote "they have no soul/spirit?? oh dear")
haha this is SO funny i had to blog it.. quote from my student's essay:
"there were incidents whereby young children, misguided by the idea of supernaturality, jumped off buildings in an attempt to fly like their childhood heroes, to eventually end up with a death worse than that of most birds that fly in the Birdpark"
(of course i corrected all the grammar and etc already)
so i wrote at the side "do they die a very horrible death most of the time?"
hahaha. i wonder what she was thinking.. maybe that the birds get chopped up and sent to the zoo for food. although it's probably just the association with flying things.
from the far side:
cow-seeking-advice consults cow guru, who dispenses the following advice: "And, as you travel life's highway, don't forget to stop and eat the roses."
haha. i like deadpan humour.
anyway, mom was showing me stuff me/my bro wrote last time.. which just proves my point that guys are more amusing than girls mostly. i remember all the stories i wrote were about fairies/goblins/horses/dogs etc.. the fairytale wonderland. i think i must've read too much enid blyton. or maybe fairies just appealed to me because of their perfection. and of course my stories always had the requisite happy endings. i realised watever i wrote about reflected my idea of a happy life i.e. one horse and one dog per person and having a huge field to keep the animals in and playing with them every day.
i just remembered something i thought about last year. how i'm afraid i'll forget how to see things from a child's point of view. as it is as a teacher i've forgotten how it's like to be a student. until junming reminded me. that was for when i was teaching phys at rj but still..
i'm also afraid i'll lose my sense of humour (if i had much of it to begin with) and grow pokey and stiff and prim and proper as i get older. it's not such a unprobable scenario when you think about it. we've already lost so much innocence/candour so far and it's only been like two decades..
okay now for amusement, here's a gem that i dug up from secondary school days.
context: along the road outside rgs there are (or were?) two signboards, on either side of the main gate. parents' cars are not allowed to enter the school, students are supposed to alight either before the 1st signboard or after the 2nd. prefects stand at these signboards making sure everyone alights in the accepted zone.
so, one day my mom stopped her car - part of it was in front of the 2nd signboard and part of it was behind. so i alighted, in front of the 2nd signboard, and promptly got booked.
a booking entitles you to a visit to the RTC. unfortunately, its full name has slipped my mind. ah, chris has just enlightened me - Responsible Thinking Classroom. i totally forgot! anyway, at the RTC, one is supposed to design a plan to avoid committing the same offence.
here is my plan. (and no, i didn't submit this, it was just something done for fun at home, with the help of my brother, mostly. i can't remember if my parents contributed suggestions)
- Next time I’ll crawl to the front seat and get out
- I’ll make the space between the front seat wider so that it’ll be easier to crawl through. Or better still, I’ll hack down the whole front seat! Then I can just walk through
- I’ll sit on the bonnet
- Revamp the car so that the driver’s seat is behind
-- Changing the car will take around 2 to 3 years so you will have to wait - Stretch my leg as far as possible so that it reaches the sign and step out.
-- Getting my legs to be long enough will take around 5 years and by that time I’ll be out of RGS - I’ll train to run fast like Carl Lewis, then I’ll stop in between the 2 signs and sprint to school so that the SLs and PITs and Prefects cannot catch me. It will also train me for my 2.4 km run, so that I will not have to keep re-running till I get a c.
- Open the door before the sign, say ‘oops’ to the prefects, then drive on and get out
- Crawl to the front seat, get out, go to the back seat, and get bag out
- If my car were smaller then I would have gotten out before the sign. Unfortunately, big cars are needed to contain more people so I am afraid it is not my fault.
- My father says that only traffic police can put up signs on the road because it is the main road
- My whole family thinks that I should just throw the slip away and not go for RTC
- Next time, I’ll stop there, and my mother will come out and push the sign back so that I can alight
- When I alight there, I’ll make sure no one is looking