ZiggyZag

Should have posted this earlier, but knowing me....here they are now...









Resort -- sunrise, the last day on the island -- More More Tea Inn -- Jacuzzi & the pool -- the ferry that ferried us to & fro the island & jetty -- poolview -- beach, snapped from lobby.

Just receive a list from Grace...the list of students who are exempted from my CSV. Quite a number of them, and HIS will...I have to meet with the difficult students...The good ones...all are exempted. I am so sad....

I have lesser students now. A class with only 8 left and the other with 19 left. Good number, but the latter one is the one that I worry most. Most absentees are from this class. Today, absence used to be something that we afraid the most. Warning letters and so on. These days, the kids don't bother much. Of course, I meant the de-motivated ones.

Sigh...I think i will miss them....I do hope they would still attend my lesson even if they are exempted...just come in and join in the fun will do....merrier....

he's finally back from his sabbbatical leave. it seems he came back earlier than he was supposed to. Nina* is in trouble. Trouble for making her point, trouble for saying out her words in her mind...trouble for going against some brainless idiots but guns were pointed at her head instead....

i bet i should really hold what's in cavin's philosophy...i shall start seeing myself as a 'tauke' in 10 years time....

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours
in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar ....... and the
coffee.

A professor stood before his Philosophy class and had some items in
front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.
He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the
jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas
between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.
Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "Yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and
poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty
space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, I want you to
recognize that this jar represents your life. "The golf balls are the important things - i.e. your God, family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions - things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. "The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car". "The sand is everything else - the small stuff." "If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls."
"The same goes for life." "If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you." "Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness."
"Play with your children." "Take time to get medical checkups."
"Take your partner out to dinner." "Go for a walk or do some form of exercise.""If posible, play another round of golf." "Make enough time to clean the house and fix the disposal." "Set your priorities right - the things that really matter.""The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee
represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked." "It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

Sad to admit, I have no problem in communicating with my students. I have this with my own brother, Tim.

The principal just called and said that he lost his temper and slammed the door out when he was questioned on his late-coming. I do have students who came in late, but I made sure that I spoke to them after the lesson. What happened to Tim now?

I am seriously not sure of what is going on now. I am not angry, nor disappointed. This kind of situation is like an expected outcome. I seem to expect such call from the principal. If this goes on, he would be kicked out from his school. Can anybody help me?

Whenever I reach out to my students, deep down in my heart, I would hope someone out there to reach out to my brother...guide him and bring him back to the right path. I am so lost. I don't know what to do. I realise that I can't do anything to help my brother, my own brother to realise his dreams. What went wrong?

I leave everything to Him. I believe that he must have his way for Tim. He must have planned everything for us. I shall not worry much and will go with the flow.

Self esteem is how good you feel about yourself....

People with High Self Esteem are caring, humble, understanding, respectful, responsible, decent, confident, positive, etc.

• Think for others
• Possess positive self beliefs
• Intimate, sincere and affectionate
• Willing to take risks and face challenges

People with low self esteem are argumentative, blaming, selfish, arrogant, aggresive, lonely, confused, critical, etc.

• Fear of rejection
• Agitated and aggressive
• People pleasing
• Afraid and avoid changes and challenges

To improve your self-esteem, you should do the following:
Do the things you fear most
Celebrate small achievements and reward yourself
Do something you are good at
Accept and give compliments
Give yourself positive talk.
Write down your achievements and successes
Picture your moments of satisfaction
Make a list of the things you like about yourself

Taken from Lifeskills module: PIE 2006.

I had a wonderful session with these boys from Electronics. They are the cheeky ones, they are the loud ones, and of course, they are the ones with low self-esteem. They may rebut much if they read this, but I think they are real cute ones. I love them.

I couldn't believe that I actually told them to stay in the class even if they were exempted. I didn't want them to go. They were so much fun and I think this lesson won't be that interesting without their presence.

This suddenly stopped when *Nina walked in. She showed me an email from Jane. An awful and stupid email that Jane wrote in reply to hers. If Jane could just shut up and said nothing, we would have thought nothing about the incident. Her words make her look real stupid. We are waiting for our bosses back from their short sabatical leave. I don't know what would the show / war be, but I reminded Nina not to be taken advantage at this intense moment. Who knows others would want to make use of her loud character to put up a fight with our bosses?

It was the first night. We had our blue sapphire with us and 7-up. We had a bit. Wanted to start off with some horror stories in our spacious, comfy room. When we were about to start, the phone rang. I picked up.

Me: Hello.
Child: Lok Ku zai ma? (Is Lok Ku in?)
Me: I'm sorry, you got the wrong number.
Child: Lok Ku leh?
Me: You got the wrong number. Sorry. There's no Lok Ku here.
Child: Ok.....(end)

Before I could tell the rest of the caller, the phone rang again. It was the same person. Bee picked up. He was playful with the child and said that Lok Ku went out and so on. I felt the chill in my spine, suspecting if Lok Ku was the ex-tenant of the room and so on. I stared at bee and signalled him to stop playing. He stopped.

Ananthi talked to the child. She told the child in a nice way that it was the wrong number.

Few minutes later, the phone rang again. This time, all of us were a bit hesitant. Marcus picked it up and talked to the child nicely. He even asked for an older person to speak. But the child said the mommy was lying on the bed. Rooms for imagination, folks! Then, Marcus told the child not to call again as there was no Lok Ku in the room. After the phone calls, we stopped the thought of telling horror stories. We drank a bit and then slept. The next night, we started our Truth or Dare. It all ended with Truths. The session went round and asked about our sex fantasies and experience. No one escaped except for Fred as he wasnt feeling very well. He slept. The Lok Ku story ended but we did not stop making fun of the Lok Ku story. Well, I guess that's the mischievious part of us. All of us forgot how spooky it was that night. We got on with our adventures in the island.

As for the last day before departure, Cal told me he had a bad dream. He said he would only tell me when we are off the island. Our next destination was KL. Everything was great. Sheraton was comfy, food was ok-ok. Drinks were great. Bar and nightlife were happening. We forgot all about the dream.

A week later, when I was at Cal's home. He told me about the dream. The room that we stayed was a spacious one. With two single beds separated by a TV set in the middle, a King size bed opposite of the TV, and another single bed on the floor next to one of the single beds. This extra bed was an additional mattress which we requested for Marcus. It was initially positioned at the entrance of the balcony, which I didn't like it because it obstructs our walk to the balcony. So, I suggested to change it next to the King size bed. We did and it was more spacious that way.

So, in Cal's dream, he dreamt of talking to a middle-age man. Quite thin and tall. Looked perfectly normal and he talked to him in English. He told Cal that there were SIX of us in the room and he slept next to Cal, which was the original place where the additional bed was.

That was it.......I cant imagine the chill in my bones when I heard that. Gosh, I can't imagine what would have happened if Marcus still sleep on that original place. Would sth disturb his sleep? Would he encounter breathing difficulties at night? I am being superstitious now. Would that have happened if we did not change his sleep place? hmmmmm

I know this is a bit late but I do wanna update you on this...rather funny than spooky.

Redang was fantastic. We reached on the 18th morning in the month of April. It was a beautiful morning. Not very sunny. The ferry was horrible, I must admit. I coped pretty well as I did not vomit. It was an air-conditioned ferry. Ananthi looked and felt pretty bad. She stayed out most of the time and finally, donated some food to the fishes...hoho, sounds yucky right? hmmm....

40 mins later, we reached the resort, Laguna Redang. Not bad lar....I wasn't disappointed because Cal mentioned that Berjaya is far more exclusive with its own coral bay. The queue was bad. The service was so-s. They should set up more registry booths for us as they would have expected so many of us on that off-peak week. Ananthi bought me a beer while we stood in the line. It was quenching. The cute guy who was on the reception? We got him. We spoke and he was nice to guide us through the procedures and answered all our questions. A young chap who was going off to further his studies. See how nosy we can be! Occupational hazards I guess :p

We got the other room instead of the one we booked. Ananthi feigned sick so we could checked in earlier. We were supposed to wait till 1pm after our lunch, but we were too eager to get into the room. Hence, the cute guy managed to get us another room. A good, spacious room for five of us.

Normal activities, good variety of buffet food, not-so-good desserts and monkey porns. Yes, monkey porn was something they looked forward to. Our balcony was facing the green, serene hill. So every morning at 7am, we would see monkeys with their prominent leader walking on the cable / wire to the other end. Their activities in the morning is so predictable. Easy trap to catch them if we wanted to!! So, they saw monkey porn the next morning but it was like less than 10 seconds. Guess we were too excited that the monkeys hid. I didn't get to see. I was busy brushing my beautiful set of teeth.

For the first time on my visits to island, I swam. Ananthi and Cal were very good. Of course, bee was good too. They were patient with me. They guided me. They brought me into the water. They swam with me. Ananthi was with me most of the time. She held my hand as we snorkelled. I gained my confidence. I wish to feed the fishes with the stale bread again!

Dinner was good. Night was beautiful. Everything was too good to be true. Drinks of course. Karaoke on the last night. And most interesting of all, our SPOOKY encounter...The Lok Ku story. To be continued.......

They are not in any order. Just all ten that would make my day.

1. My favourite songs on the radio. Only radio coz everyone is listening to it as well.
2. A cup of hot coffee.
3. Jokes.
4. Laughters.
5. Objectives met with my students.
6. Improvement from students.
7. Smiles.
8. Cheeky greetings.
9. Dance.
10. Singing.

1. People care less about others who are trying to get onboard.
2. People who push their way onboard.
3. Butts that are facing your face as you are sitting down.
4. Kissing couples.
5. Children who run around or scream.
6. Young and healthy people turning ignorant or pretend to have fallen asleep when the needy ones are onboard.
7. Crying or squabbling couples.
8. Parents who booked the seats with their pram parked in front of it.
9. People behaving rude or impatience when trying to get out of MRT.
10. Everything except myself :p

Redang is over. KL is over. Holiday is finally over. I am back at work.

Been really tired since the trip and didn't have the energy to sit and type. I realised that I can live without a computer and internet these days. I have found other things to do, to spend the time and plan for my future.

I saw this course from NUS webpage. It's "Introduction to Psychotherapy". I am very interested with it, 21 weeks, 2 hours a week, evening class and it only costs $1,000. This would serve as the pre-requisite for diploma course. Too bad, my timetable clashes with this timetable, can't apply for it yet.

Met most of my students. They are pretty good so far, responsive and so on. I am happy with the arrangement too.

Just had apple + celery juice, quite nice. Not sweet but quenching and refreshing. You should try it if you have not. I am pretty bored now. I am demoralised and demotivated. Gotta think of more ways to lift up my teaching spirit before ruining their future. Any suggestion to help me?

Oh ya, I went for belly dancing class. It was good, and I surely enjoyed myself. I am still considering for the next dance. Ok, you must be thinking what I am explaining here. One dance, one song, 8 sessions. Each session is 1 hour but usually extends longer. Each song costs $168. Expensive right? Urrggh, hard to convince a miser like me. I am still considering because the teacher is good and the students there are friendly too. Any comment?