Glass Classrooms

As my teaching careers draws to a close (and when I have the time!), I start to think more and more about the job as a whole and the things I have learnt. I keep thinking to myself: I should write this all down, but the moment I get home I get distracted by something soothing and forget at all about it. This is especially made worse by the fact that I've re-discovered the time black hole that is Civilisation and have been playing it almost every night since last week Tuesday.

For the past few Fridays, I've been assigned to a glass classroom next to the staffroom. I call it a glass classroom because it is literally made of glass. Glass windows look out onto Thomson Road where you can see flags from several nations fluttering away, and the walls and door are made of glass, giving you a full-on view of the two adjoining classrooms (and the other way round too). I am not particularly fond of the classroom because it feels like I'm teaching in a fishbowl, plus you need to awkwardly walk through another classroom to enter it. That being said, it is near the toilets and the staffroom, so I can dash about easily. Still a classroom is a classroom, and I'm getting vaguely used to it.

Recently however, I've been feeling a bit stressed out about teaching there, namely because of the teacher next door. She's a senior teacher, and the lesson plans she shares during meetings always sound fantastic, plus her students always look so engaged and interested. Watching her from my classroom I feel inadequate as a teacher. I can't command such gravitas, summon up such energy and spunk, and plan my lessons as well as her. Even though I tell myself she has a good 10 years worth of experience on me, I still can't help but feel slightly despondent and wish for better for my students. Wish that they had a better teacher who could help them a lot more.

All things said and wished however, I know (for better or worse!) that my students are genuinely of me as a person and an individual, rather than me as a teacher - and I cannot help but wonder if it just might be a good thing, that they will learn empathy amongst other things from the time I've spent with them. Only time will tell I suppose, and I wouldn't trade my students for any other in the world.

Parallel Parking

Just finished a driving lesson and will have another one on Thursday. Today my instructor (a kindly old man that reminds me of my grandfather) told me that the next lesson, we'll begin parallel parking, because my reverse parking seemed to be good enough. Granted while I agree I have been making progress, I'm still not very confident in my reverse parking skills. Oh well. Still, I'm happy to be driving. It's quite fun gliding along roads, and not at all as stressful as I imagined.

A few weeks ago on a Friday, I sat for my final theory test and scored 50/50. I was quite overjoyed because well, I don't recall ever having scored full marks for any sort of test before. That and if I failed my final theory test, it'd be months before I could take it again. Owing to my magnificent procrastination skills, I managed to time the whole learning driving + test schedule so tightly that I really only have one chance to pass both the final theory test and the practical test if I want to get my driving license before I leave to start my Masters programme. Well, fingers crossed for 18th July.

In other news I am still sick. I fell ill some 2 weeks ago and somehow muddled through work with my throat all swollen before leaving for a family trip to Boracay, Philippines, where I fell even sicker (hello heat!). Now some 4 days after coming home from Boracay, I am still sick. This also means that every time (2 out of 2) I go to the Philippines, I fall sick before the trip and get more ill during the trip itself. Talk about unfortunate.

That being said, I quite loved Boracay. The first disastrous hotel aside, the rest of our trip was fantastic. Our second hotel was cheap, cheerful, and right by the beach. The beach on Boracay was incredible, and easily the best beach I've ever seen. Its waters were so blue and clean that it looked almost permanently photoshopped and the beaches were filled with white sand. The food there was tasty too. I was happy to eat Chicken Inasal again we made many trips to D'Talipapa, a seafood market, to eat dinner. We had the tastiest baked scallops there, mmm. I feel hungry just thinking of those scallops again.

Felt a bit sad to come back to Singapore and WORK, but on the way home I was reading Marie Claire (the only female magazine I'd ever subscribe to) and they had a special on working professionals, plus career tips. As silly as it seems, reading that section made me feel all inspired and invigorated about work. I wanted to plunge right back into work and MAKE A DIFFERENCE YO! Of course that being said I've already tendered my resignation at M/s L because my notice period is 3 months. My last day of work will be 2nd August. Then I have 2 weeks to rest before jetting off to Romania with my parents for another family holiday, before heading off to NYC on 28th August to start my Masters programme. Talk about yet another tight schedule!

Disoriented

Today I woke up utterly disoriented. When my brother and my maid came barging into my room to put something down, they woke me up from my dream and I thought it was 7 am in the morning because he was still around and it looked dark through the curtains outside. Nope. It was 11 am, he decided he didn't want to go to school and it was about to rain something fierce outside.

My dream was a strange, disconcerting one. I dreamt that I was travelling to Ipoh again (but an Ipoh with winter?), but this time with friends and I was supposed to lead them around. I dreamt I had forgotten to take down the important details like hotel bookings and so on, and had left them in my email instead. Then came the odd part when I tried to retrieve the information and I could not access gmail OR agoda. That they didn't exist or didn't work! And I started to feel very stressed out. Finally there was an odd other bit where I had to charge over $200 worth of things to my credit card and I felt upset because I needed to save every bit of money I had and $200 was a lot!

Anyway I woke up confused. Heard the thunder roaring outside and drew back the curtains. Saw the odd lightning flash or two and decided to try and get a little bit of the errands I had meant to do, done.

I finally checked things online and realised how unhelpful the US system is to international students (or maybe I lucked out with LSE and how they bend over backwards for international students) and now I'm feeling stressed out about getting my passport/visa done in time. I worry too, that I might not be able to sit for my driving test on time before I leave. Meanwhile there's a slight problem with a student's parent that I neglected to call back. This could all have been solved if I had a greater sense of urgency, but no, all I do is sleep till 11am. Sigh. 

Exasperated

I've just spent more than 45 minutes typing up a few pages worth of vocabulary words to help my poor students when they face their mock exams tomorrow and on Thursday. I'm exasperated because 1) there are too many damn words that need to be explained, 2) this is supposed to be a MOCK exam, not a lesson where you introduce new words. Yes some of my students are geniuses, but the remaining 98% of them are struggling to tell the difference between 'enthusiasiastically' and 'enthusiastically'. They do not needed to be overwhelmed by vocabulary words like "adherents", "pensions" and "mildewed". Keep in mind that these are P4 and P5 students we're talking about - no wonder they're stressed! GRRRRR.

Last week while conducting oral examinations with my current P5 students, I ran into a bunch of my old P5 students who were having their class next door. They seemed really happy to see me, and one of the girls (a Sarah) told the student I was with that I was a "great and funny teacher" and I felt myself turn all warm and happy inside. Things like that remind me why I'm in this job I guess, despite everything I disagree with.

I realised today that I haven't been doing much at all. Right at the start of this month I went off to Ipoh with my Mama, Yeh Yeh, Kaugong, Aunty Sao Ping and my Sam Suk Kong for 4 days. We did the whole Qing Ming thing, visited Cameron Highlands and ate like pigs. I realised how pathetic it was that out of a carload of 75+ year olds, I was the only one that couldn't drive. Other than that, I went out for Mookata BBQ with Tiff, Andrew and HM one Saturday evening, and visited The Cider Pit with my colleagues after work last Thursday. I'm so happening I amaze myself. 

24

Hello hello hello, I am 24. Well technically 23 years, 364 days and 17 hours old (because I was born around 7:30 am in the morning), but for brevity's (and sanity's?) sake I am 24. Hello world, happy birthday to me.

Today after work I bought two slices of cake from Awfully Chocolate. Around 10:10pm I pulled both slices out from the fridge and started to eat them by myself because my Dad was upstairs and didn't want to come down, my Brother was dead asleep and my Mum was absorbed in trying to book flights on the SIA website while sitting next to me. So I sang a birthday song to myself and started eating the chocolately cake while watching a Channel 5 documentary about landmines in Cambodia.

Singing the birthday song to myself caught the attention of my Mum, so she stopped trying to book flights for a moment and started digging into the cake with me. About 10 minutes later my Dad came to holler at us to go upstairs and we lured him down instead with cake. He shoved half a slice of cake into his mouth and then switched the TV and lights off on us before heading up again. That left 1 slice left for my Mum and I to polish off in the dark. I started on the remaining slice and ate it till about half way before giving the rest to my Mum. So that meant my Mum and I ate about 3/4 of a slice of cake, so 75gms of chocolately sinfulness and my dad had 50gms.

After my Mum finished the cake I got her a cup of water in my Penguin P.G. Wodehouse mug. She was still absorbed in trying to figure out the best possible way to utilise the family's frequent flyer miles on the SIA website.

So anyway, Happy Birthday to me.

Doldrums

Been feeling increasingly burnt out from my job lately. Part of it is because since late November last year, I was given an assignment I not only did not want, but have increasingly felt incapable of properly coping with. I was given two classes of P4s. I now have a newfound extreme distaste and short temper with children, and have decided that I don't like anyone around that age that is not related to me. Even before I step into the classroom on Wednesdays I feel all riled up and upset, like some terrible pavlovian response. I feel more agitated, get angrier more easily, feel depressed and a sense of hopelessness.

Safe to say I think I can safely conclude from this that I do not like young children because they're these terrible creatures who reek of WTF because manners, boundaries and common sense haven't yet been pounded into them by society and I have ZERO patience for that. I can be nurturing in an intellectual and emotional sense BUT HELL NO I AIN'T BRINGING UP YOUR DAMN KID. Why didn't YOU, dear EGG and SPERM DONOR, teach your kid that it's rude/inappropriate/stupid to ask the teacher "Why are you dressed like a man?"/"Why does your lipstick match your jacket?"/"Why is your makeup so ugly today?" YES THERE ARE STUPID QUESTIONS, AND YOUR KID JUST ASKED THEM. As an aside, I think I'll be the type of parent that spanks their kid, because I want to do that to my idiot students often.

For all of this I can only say I blame M/s L because I told them explicitly before that I did not want to teach young students, and they ignored me anyway. They're utterly charming like that, which also explains why they have so much trouble retaining long term staff. As if the job wasn't emotionally draining enough, they stick teachers with assignments that we do not want nor are able to handle well. This just results in teachers (ergo, ME) getting frustrated and burning out at the speed of light. DAMNIT. I like my job most of the time, just that now I feel exceptionally unhappy and strung out like a piece of drying spaghetti.

In other more joyful news I've been offered a place by Teacher's College, Columbia. On one hand it makes me feel happy cause I've finally made it from all the wishing and hoping I did before, on the other hand it's opened a whole new can of worms. I am now forced to think of the future which is nice but extremely scary on the other hand (then again I've always been scared of the future) and worrying about money problems because living in Manhattan to attend Teacher's College is extremely expensive, and I'm still not sure how long the whole programme lasts/how the damn American college system functions.

So in short my job makes me feel shitty now, but thinking about the future makes me feel shitty too. No wonder I'm feeling down in the doldrums. 

The EMF Book Store at Holland Village is Closing Down

On Friday I ran into Jia Min at work briefly before she disappeared off to some mysterious place. Later when I asked Gail if she knew where JM had went, Gail told me that she and some of the other curriculum planning girls had gone to the EMF Book Store in Holland Village to buy books because the store was closing down and they were having a sale. Today, finding myself with extra time after going for a manicure (yes I enjoy bimbotic things), I decided to go there and check it out. The store was crowded with old regulars and I ended up sitting on the floor of the fiction section and poring over all the book titles. Although I was never a regular at the store, I did buy things from them from time to time. Sitting on the floor I thought about how sad it was that the one book place that was closest to my house was closing. Though of course that being said, the place I bought the most books from nowadays was bookdepository.com, exactly the sort of place that was contributing to the demise of brick and mortar shops. That and landlords who raise rents to $8,000.

I ended up buying quite a few books, some books that I honestly would not have considered if it wasn't for the sheer sentimentality of the place closing. It's almost as if I got into some sort of irrational frenzy and tried to make up for the business I had never quite given them all at one go. Still all in all, it was a bargain with 50% off used books and 20% off new books.

I bought:
I Don't Know How She Does It - Allison Pearson (I figure my Mum will like reading it, and I can read it if I want something light and fluffy)
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver (something my Dad might be interested in)
An Object of Beauty - Steve Martin (on the Art World, maybe for Jia and/or HM)
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet - David Mitchell
The Middlesteins - Jami Attenberg
The Burden - Agatha Christie
A Daughter's a Daughter - Agatha Christie
The Rose and the Yew Tree - Agatha Christie
Archie Comics
Trashy Romance Novels

All for $83!

On the way home I also saw a poster for the Eric Clapton concert. I almost forgot that it's just a week away + I took leave for that occasion too. Looking forward to it :)

As an aside, I'm reading Winter's Tale now by Mark Helprin. It is quite a peculiar and fat book. Still I'm reading it much faster than For Whom The Bell Tolls. Later, I'll be going for my first driving lesson. Feeling kind of apprehensive and excited about even turning the key in the ignition. I wonder if I'll even be allowed to make the car move. 

3 Movies

Today, purely by accident, I ended up watching 3 movies. The first was August: Osage County which I watched in the morning with my Mum at Orchard Cineleisure, the next was some daft movie called How She Move, and the last Princess Mononoke. I had intended to watch August for some time cause I saw the trailers of the star-studded cast and read all the movie reviews/Meryl Steep's nominations. Friends like Jia who had seen it had loved it too, and recommended it strongly. I really liked, and left the cinema feeling happy.

The next movie, How She Move, however, was unintentional. I had bought a groupon for a manicure and a pedicure, and when I entered, one of the nail girls started playing it on the TV. It was an incredibly daft movie, but hey I had nothing else to do and had time to kill, and expected to not finish watching it. Man oh man was I wrong. Mainly cause they assigned a trainee to me. A normal manicure and pedicure takes 1 hour. I ended up sitting in that chair and not moving for 2 and a half hours. That's 2.5x the time a mani and pedi takes normally. OH MY GOD. Needless to say I finished the movie (they win the dance contest, surprise) and after I walked out I was left feeling incredibly frustrated and irritated from not being able to move around for over two hours. I'm not the kind that can sit still unless I am mentally occupied.

The last movie I watched today was Princess Mononoke. Why? 'Cause when I got home, I realised all that sitting had been in vain. The nail polish that had been painstakingly applied by the trainee to my toes (and she did put a lot of care into things) had smudged on the way home. ARGHHHHH. I had to remove it and as I re-did my toes again, I had to occupy myself with something, so I watched Princess Mononoke, which was OK. Definitely not my favourite Studio Ghibli movie.

Even though by all means I had a fairly successful and productive day - watched a good movie in the cinema, had lunch with my Mum, bought gifts and a new pillow, did my nails - I am left feeling annoyed with today. Not that things can get much better though, cause tomorrow it's back to work with even more Situational Writing pieces to mark. Ye gads. Well, maybe I'll feel better about tomorrow. 

The Centre of Attention

When I go out with my family, we are usually sadly, the centre of attention. Today we went to the new Holland Close hawker centre for lunch, and Ryan was exceptionally hyper and noisy. Before, things were bad but not too bad, mainly because he was smaller and most people nearby would just think it was a kid acting out. Now however 'cause he's so much bigger and louder (hello voice breaking) everyone looks at us when Ryan is making 'Eee Eee Eee' noises and/or jumping up and down while flapping his hands. Hell, I'd look at us if I was a random passerby, haha.

Anyway today, my parents went off to buy food first while I stayed with Ryan. Ryan kept Eee-ing away while trying to grab my hands and use them to smack his ears (I'm not sure what that achieves but he seems to like it as he'll repeated use my hands to smack his ears until my hands hurt). I felt everyone looking at us, especially since we were seated next to a popular vegetarian store which had a long queue. When I felt the eyes of everyone on us, as Ryan still held onto my hands, I remember thinking "oh thank God I have some makeup on." At least if the son is crazy, I reasoned, the daughter should look all the more sane and polished to compensate against the judging looks.

Which as just as well since I've gone of another intense obsession binge, this time on makeup. I keep reading makeup blogs and reviews, looking at swatches online, and perusing online makeup stores. Last time I felt this intensely about something was when I went crazy over washi tape and deco rush tapes. Yes, I know, I lead a terribly terribly sad life. I need to find something better to do with myself. 

Feet and Feat

I've recently noticed that nowadays when I get back from work and sit down straight away, I can feel my feet throb. I'm sure they throb at work, or that they even throbbed before, but I never noticed how significant it was till recently. As a result when I sit down I don't feel like getting up even to shower till I can feel my feet stop throbbing. It doesn't matter that I do sit down even in class during lull periods, my feet are still tired anyway. The best feeling was on a Saturday recently when the first thing I did when I came home was lie on my bed. The feeling of my feet being on the same horizontal level with the rest of my body was amazing. Which of course brings me to wonder how some teachers can teach with super high stiletto shoes. Their special talent I suppose.

In other news I've finally finished all my Masters applications, which was no small feat. It felt much easier writing a personal statement for my Undergrad because I was so much more idealistic and could waffle on lots more. Writing the personal statement this time stressed me out a great deal, but now I am left with a sense of emptiness inside. Mainly because I suppose 1) I no longer have anything BIG to spur me on/aim to accomplish 2) There is nothing I can do to change my immediate fate now and 3) I am just a naturally gloomy person.

Feel ill earlier this week with the Flu. Felt it coming on Sunday when I was out with Tiff, especially when we were watching American Hustle in the Lido cinema. I guess it's cause the cinema was cold, which only exacerbated the situation. Monday ended up being a total washout cause I was in bed practically the whole day, and when I was out of bed I was barely cognisant. I did go to work on Tuesday because I felt better, but ended up regretting my decision when I started to feel sick and dizzy. Today however when I woke up, I felt quite alright, save the runny nose, so I went to work as per normal. Oh my frail immune system.

Am currently reading Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and I am taking forever. Have been reading it in bits since 5th Jan. For some reason I can't really get into the whole flow of things, which is strange because I got really intrigued while reading Othello and I expected to be utterly put off by the Shakespearean language and entranced by Hemingway's plain-speaking sort of prose. Oh irony. Am at page 160 now, so 330 pages left to go. 

Hyper

For the first time in ages I feel really hyper. I think it's a combination of having woken up early and done something (and it's only 3:26pm!) and the teh I drank. I woke up around 9:30am which is early by my slothful standards and went to meet Tiff at Serangoon to get our nails done. Reason why I went all the way to Serangoon to get my nails done was because Tiffany had bought a package at a nail parlour there for really cheap. The trip there was really fast, took me about 35 minutes in total. That's the time it takes for me to get to Dhoby Ghaut normally, and that's a far nearer location.

We walked about, went to NTUC and I bought lactose free skim milk, had lunch at Sushi Tei and then went to get our nails done. Was fun I must say, especially since I hadn't gone for anything of the sort in close to a year. I chose this colour changing shade (teal when cold, white when warm) which in hindsight is still cool but silly since Singapore is so warm all the time. As a result now my nails seem to be permanently white. Like I dropped too much correction liquid on them and just kept going.

Finished reading How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu on Saturday night. His writing style reminds me of Kazuo Ishiguro's style. Very subtle. Show-not-tell. But so well done and vividly described that you can feel, empathise, understand exactly the flaws of his characters. Reading the book felt slightly stressful because I understood and remember every little bit of the tension that comes from a relationship not-quite-being-functional. Of loving someone but still being unable to live with them. Reading the book has made me feel even more UGH about relationships in general, reminds me of how tired I am of all the subtle strife and tensions of things-not-quite-articulated.

In other news I am now reading Othello. I'm not a fan of Shakespeare at all, but the storyline of Othello always appealed to me. The idea of jealously completely taking hold of someone and destroying them. I also realised that it seems no one studies Othello in Singapore for Lit. I personally had to study Romeo and Juliet, King Lear and Twelfth Night. I was NOT a fan of Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night and studying King Lear was a chore (for IOC! Gosh that was ages ago). Am reading Othello now because I feel I should at least have some Shakespearean knowledge as an English teacher, even if it's not a title that my students are studying. Plus I can talk about it and sound smart, haha.

So far the only thing I must note about Othello is that I find the ribald lines very very appalling. Sort of surprised me how smutty some of Shakespeare's lines could be:

"Iago: Even now, now, very now, an old black ram 

Is tupping your white ewe" (Act I Scene I) 

"Iago: You'll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse" (Act I Scene I) 

"Iago: I am one sir, that comes to tell you, your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs." (Act I Scene I)

In retrospect they're all lines said solely by Iago to provoke Brabantio. While reading it I thought Roderigo said at least some of them but I guess I was wrong. I guess using such coarse language fits with Iago's character in knowing how to provoke the worst in people. 

4:04am

4:04am on Boxing Day and I am still up because I am now throughly stressed out (but also feeling very tired) because I have neglected to TOUCH! DO ANYTHING! LOOK AT! my Masters apps for over a week (before I went to Krabi!) even though I already started working on it pretty late. I wanted to concentrate on my GREs first, and even then after I was done I was still dragging my feet, telling myself it was alright to rest a bit. Bad idea.

On one hand I'm OK with waiting one more year and earning more money. On the other hand I think the expiry date of my current OK/PRETTY OK satisfaction with my job will run out in a few months time so I need to HAVE AN EXIT STRATEGY. Especially since they pull nonsense like FIDDLING WITH MY FAFFING WORKING HOURS (like this upcoming Friday) WITHOUT ASKING ME BEFOREHAND. Hello, that is not OK. Neither is making me teaching 4 classes in one day. I can already predict how I'll feel on Friday and Saturday: like shit. My colleagues will have to scape me off the damn floor. Grwarghhh.

Being exhausted makes me TYPING IN CAPS HAPPY. I think I need to cancel my gym visit tomorrow to sleep zzzz. 

Krabiiiii

Came back from Krabi on Tuesday and today I finally wandered in to work only to find out that I was still on leave. I ended up finishing up my lunch and doing a tiny bit of marking before heading off to go cut my hair. Now my head feels much more lighter and my hair is much more shorter. I kind of forgot what having short(er) hair felt like!

Krabi was fun, and definitely memorable. For starters I think I have learned to be less cavalier about going out in the sun because I got terribly sunburned on the first full day of our trip there when Ianthe and I went island hopping. I've never gotten so badly burned in my life, urgh. Still the beaches were lovely and the sea was oh-so-clear-and-blue. The next day we went white water rafting, elephant trekking and waterfall a-swimming. The third day we walked to Nopparat Thara from Aonang, stepped on crabs and got scared, and went to watch a cabaret show. On our last day we walked along Aonang beach once more and I found a really nice conical shell in the knee-high shallows of the sea.

Today when I (accidentally) went back to work I realised how weary and strained every one looked. In contrast I felt spritely and energetic for once, un-worn. It was a lovely, lovely trip.

Moo

One thing I absolutely loathe about the holiday season is how I will invariably always end up frustrated and hating my job because it's precisely at this period that they completely forget that teachers are human too, and instead treat us like cattle - creatures whose feelings can be easily disregarded and thrown at to pad up numbers. I hate being treated this way (but then again, would anyone like to be treated this way?) and feel like I lose a bit of myself. I lose the reason why I got into this profession in the first place, I lose my good temper and affability and I lose my health.

I am literally counting down the hours till I am off to Krabi with Ianthe. I need some of my vitality restored again before I turn into some child-management-eating monster. CHOMP I shall go, as I bite the head off some hapless human, and laugh I will over their blood splattering everywhere.

I am oh so weary and frustrated of my job now.

Then again even though I'm so tired of this job, I know I'm at least doing a passably good job of it when I see the smiles and cheerful goodbyes of my students. 

Elisha

If I had a son I'd like to call him Elisha. After all, I would want my son to be as awesome as his namesake and smite silly people to death by bears. I think I've found my new favourite passage from the Bible.

23 Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!” 24 When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number. (from 2 Kings 2:23-25)

In other news, work as of late has been tiring and draining. That being said, I've finally passed/finished my GRE! I got 156/170 for Quantitative, 161/170 for Verbal and 5/6 for Analytical Writing. I am quite pleased with my results, especially since I can now skip re-taking the paper in December! Hooray for the little victories in life :)

Memories of Animals Past

These are three photos that I finally, FINALLY took out of my DSLR camera. They were sitting there, in digital nowhereland for months, and they're all from Korea hahaha. I went there in February, so they were sitting there for a good few months.

I like animals. Especially dogs. For some reason when I went to Japan I didn't take any pictures of dogs even though there were quite a few shibas around. I suppose it's mainly because they were being walked by their owners or it was too dark.

As for the last picture, it depicts instructions to patrons of a Cat Cafe that I visited in Hongdae, Seoul. 

GRR GREs

Sat for the GREs today, on Armistice Day of all days, and got my marks back on the spot because it's all computerised now. For Verbal Reasoning I scored 161 and for Quantitative Reasoning I scored 156. As far as I'm concerned I've exceeded my own expectations for both categories, and now I'm left wondering whether I should take the exam one more time >.<

Still, I couldn't help grinning like mad when I got the final results. It was such a relief to know that I had made it after freaking out over math so much. That and the possibility I could throw all the math I re-learned just for this exam back into the great black void where it belonged. That I could forget every damn thing I re-learned about exponents, reciprocals and square roots. Anyway after all, I'm not applying for a PhD. We'll see.

Still, praise be to that lovely benevolent being up there!

Jiak Kentang

Haven't been writing online a lot recently. Not much to write I think. Usual go to work, loaf about and struggle to sit still and study, ye gads. Last week I fell sick again with the flu and struggled with it as I worked through the week. That was a pain.

On Saturday I went out with Chong Wee and Daryl to attend Daryl's first public poetry reading for his first published work(s) at the Singapore Writer's Festival (congrats again Daryl!). Someone gave Daryl a potato. Maybe it's to suggest Daryl Jiak Kentang (was a potato eater - someone who's more White than Chinese)? Either way Chong Wee and I beautified the poor potato and then we all left it at a prominent spot to grin at everyone. Beauteous potato.

Banana Unicorn

Or: Tamil Tiggers. Both phrases I heard I on Wednesday that were coined by strange, strange students.

Tonight as Gail and I left the office, it started to rain. The rain thankfully wasn't heavy because neither of us had umbrellas, but the droplets that did fall on us were these plump, fat things. Then when I got off at my bus stop to walk home I realised there was lightning in the sky too. It felt surreal watching the sky light up for the barest of moments at almost 11pm at night, and hearing the rumble of thunder not too far behind. I don't think I had encountered lightning or thunder the entire time I was in the UK, and definitely not while walking outdoors lately.

For those few moments that it took for me to cross the street and fumble with the gate, every time the sky flashed bright, my heart would clench a little in fear. The idea of being struck by lightning, being under a tree that was struck by lightning, the gate suddenly being struck by lighting as I tried to open it... The fear felt almost childish, but one I couldn't shake. It made me feel like a child again for a moment, to be afraid of lightning.

A few days ago, it started to rain and storm around 4am in the morning, The thunder was so loud that it woke me up. I've forgotten exactly what day it was, but as I realised while lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, it was the first time I recall being jolted awake by thunder. As I lay in bed, I thought for a moment that my house had been struck by lightning and the electricity supply had tripped. It turned out to be just my imagination. With every lightning strike, I watched my curtains illuminate with morbid horror. I ended up only being able to go back to sleep after the storm dissipated about twenty minutes later. 

Barking Up The Tree of Bad Math

I'm feeling quite frustrated now because I just tried to practice a section of basic arithmetic for the GRE and I made a right mess of it. Lots and lots of stupid mistakes, like reading the question wrongly or forgetting exponential rules. Or better yet, forgetting that 0 counts as a even integer ARGH.

Last week I didn't work because I was sick and contagious with a lovely bacterium called mycoplasma. It explained why I had been feeling so shitty as of late. I stayed at home most of the week rotting and questioning what the hell I was doing with my life, and feeling too disoriented to get any work done. That's a whole week of time down the drain ARGH. I did go to work on Tuesday and Thursday for a while to clear some urgent work, but that was about it.

While sending postcards today I noticed that they changed on the sign. Apparently SingPost no longer collects mail on Saturdays. I wonder if that's the case, whether they still deliver the post on Saturday. Probably no I suspect. Meanwhile, my brother has re-started his annoying habit of scrawling on each piece of incoming post that he can get his hands on.

I feel grumpy.