zhiqin

hmm, went out with xy to the Science Centre today. Basically, it was supposed to be a 8-min walk from the Jurong East Interchange. However, we took the red route, which took much longer than 8 min definitely! -.-” And we only realised this blunder when we tried to walk back to the interchange at the end of the day. This time we took the black route and yah, 8 mins…

CRAP…actually I was supposed to join my platoon mates and PC for dinner, and I wondered how I came to agree to go in the first place when my tuition starts at the same time as the dinner..forgetful zhiqin..

ya and her mid-year block test is before the holidays, which means because of my sydney trip, today was my last lesson with her before her paper. AND I can do nothing but hope for the best..because I can tell that she is still not confident enough…haiz..jiayou ba!

The weather’s really freaky! This afternoon was one of the hottest afternoons I have ever experienced. zzz. Went to town today. Oh and I saw this guy from Weapons Platoon and he approached me to help him do a survey. Tried the chrysanthemum tea that he offered..it tastes not bad lar I have to say..Anyway met up with xy later. We watched this show called "Take The Lead". It has an interesting theme, regarding dancing and detention school kids, albeit with a corny ending. Nevertheless it was still a decent show, which was a relief as we kinda have a habit of watching silly shows.zzz. At the same time, kev and the rest booked the tour to sydney le. Thanks! and sorry for not being able to join you all! Talking about the weather again, by evening time, it had to rain..And I realised that it tends to rain heavily on Tues evenings, and I dun like going for tuition on rainy days. In the end we have to make do with the small umbrella that I have and yes once again, I go for tuition with a wet umbrella.

Anyway nice catching up with her today..looking forward to the holiday trip!

Came across this as I was going through all my stuff..It was actually given by Mr Chan during JC days..just wanna share this..

Once upon a time a tortosie and a hare had an argument about who was faster. They decided to settle the argument with a race. They agreed on a route and started off the race.

The hare shot ahead and ran briskly for some time. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise, he thought he’d sit under a tree for some time and relax before continuing the race.

He sat under the tree and soon fell asleep. The tortoise plodding on overtook him and soon finished the race, emerging as the undisputed champ.

The hare work up and realised that he’d lost the race. The moral of the story is that slow and steady wins the race.

Thsi is the version of the story that we’ve grown up with.

But then recently, someone told me a more interesting version of this story. It continues.

The hare was disappointed at losing the race and he did some Defect Prevention (Root Cause Analysis). He realised that he’d lost the race only because he had been overconfident, careless and lax. If he had not taken things for granted, there’s no way the tortoise could have beaten him. So he challenged the tortoise to another race. The tortoise agreed.

This time, the hare went all out and ran without stopping from start to finish. He won by several miles.

The moral of the story? Fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady. If you have two people in your organisation, one slow, methodical and reliable, and the other fast and still reliable at what he does, the fast and reliable chap will consistently climb the organisational ladder faster than the slow, methodical chap.

It’s good to be slow and steady; but it’s better to be fast and reliable.

To be continued…

just received admin details from DSTA…hmm starting to have the "going uni" mood le..immediately went for a haircut, then took photo..will be going for a medical checkup (again?) tomorrow…Orientation programmes start mid june, highlight would be the 5-day OBS ( which I ve gone be4 le)

anyway just to mention something trivial, after months of playing maple, finally reach 3rd job advancement le..Priest! ok crap..

went down to NUS on wed to find yh..had a chat with him as well as went to his hostel…now i have a better idea of what’s life in uni, along with the grading system, modular system etc..and i have a feeling that it;s gonna be tough!

need to find 2 sureties….TOUGH….anyway I do feel fortunate that at least my tuition fees will be covered for…If not i cannot imagine the burden on my family..haiz…work hard…do well…get good job…earn money…:P

met up with my platoon mates at People’s Park Complex to look at the various offers the tour agencies have..was raining quite heavily and brought the BIG umbrella that I borrowed from kev..Well went across the street to Amara Hotel to get curry puffs from Old Chang Kee since I missed lunch..Recalling the numerous occasions where people are so reluctant to share their umbrellas, I decided for a change that I shall be different..I approached this male Caucasion to offer to share my umbrella..Haha…and on the way back shared the umbrella again with another lady in her late 20s, and she kept thanking me..lol…Actually all it needs is just a simple act of kindness on one’s part and it can really brighten up someone else’s day, and to remind us that the world is still a pleasant place to live in..

Continuing on my day, current best offer is from Chan Brothers(but still 1k+)..we spent most of our day walking and walking, and made our way to Carl’s Jr @ Marina Square for dinner..Chatted for quite a long time, basically talked about everything under the sun..Really enjoyed the chat, really felt at ease, particularly because the rest are starting to clear their ORD leave..Went to the arcade to play some shooting game later (which i sucked at).

looking forward to the trip!

It’s the last week of april! Time sure flies, it’s been more than a month since I ORD-ed and it’s going to be the ch and co’s turn! What have I done since I’ve ORD-ed? Nothing much really…I kinda enjoy the slack and carefree life now..can do whatever I like, go out whenever I want, meeting up with many friends..I think I ll need some time to adjust to uni life when the course starts..

I am currently giving part time tuition now..refreshing my JC stuff as I teach. What else have I been doing? Finished watching a korean drama - Love Story in Harvard. Recently I have also been very active in my Maple Guild, met up with quite a number of them in the past month. Carefree enough? Plus the one day stint(or more to come) as a relief teacher, I would say that there are lots of reasons to make me feel positive about life. So many things to look forward to, including a holiday trip with my platoon mates.

Sun - Was in the lift with this old lady and she started chatting with me. I am so proud that our whole conversation was in hokkien! She said something about not having seen me be4, and said i looked "chu bi". LOL. But that brightened up my day. Then I went over to xy’s house to teach her sis..Haha the two of them look alike! Her parents are so nice! They even prepared snacks as well as lunch for me. *appreciates* Anyway I look forward to weekends, 7pm, cos there’s this detective show on tv called 卫斯理. (did I write it correctly?)

Haha I would be catching another show with my platoon mates today. Eight Below, and I have no idea what the show is about..LOL..Anyway here’s wishing all a good day!

21april - a new experience

The day began with me trying to find my directions to XXX Primary School. It was a 15min walk from the MRT station. It wasn’t hard to find my way there, because i basically just followed behind the students. It was a short wait at the General Office before some teacher came to brief me. It wasn’t a detailed briefing, since assembly was starting soon. It’s been a rather long time since I sang the National Anthem and recited the Pledge. Haha and it just reminds me of my primary school days.

Lesson started immediately. P5 Eng, and I was just given a handout last minute. I merely asked them to copy some points down and they complained. Pampered kids! Everything must photostat! And they insisted that they bring their work back home to do! Then I had to take some music lessons for P1 and P2 classes. Oh well, some classes are more well-behaved than others. It’s nice hearing a group of P1 P2 girls singing songs aloud, it’s enjoyable. Amidst the lessons were funny incidents like helping some girls find their shoes, their locker keys, their wallets.

The teachers there are really helpful. Perhaps they are used to seeing relief teachers around. It’s tough being a primary school teacher. Experienced ones know how to control their students. Given a choice, I would prefer to relief teach at higher levels. However, it was still an enjoyable first hand experience.

"Thank you and God Bless you."

Actually skating is kinda cool, after going through 1 lesson taught by kevin. But i think my priority now goes to getting a new pair of shoes, rather than skates..ahhaz..haven;t bought a pair for quite long le..i keep saying i wanna buy, but i still haven;t gotten it yet…zzzzz

anyway it’s hard to be able to teach well…i remember my maths tutor once discussed about aptitude and attitude..surprisingly, he said that aptitude in maths was more important than attitude…it’s debatable and certainly discouraging to hear, but he must have some reason in saying that since he has taught so many batches of students..sometimes it is true that hard work yields little or no results though..but in any case, what he said has left a strong impression in me..

afternoon, without fail, it has to rain! no surprise today too…it’s funny to see small kids cry when there’s thunder, and gal students freaked out and screaming ( though i do get scared too when the thunder is exceptionally loud)…went down to tampines to accompany qiqi..she went to cut her hair today..at shunji..first time inside there..ahahZ..also got to know one of her friends..pj..a nice friendly indian gal..dinner at cafe cartel…kaoz..there’s 10% service charge now apparently..when there’s not much service..and i got a nice ulcer in my mouth..

pj left soon after dinner…leaving us to go shop around in tm..was trying to help her check out the price of 7370 without line..and singtel’s the cheapest! AND i m impressed by the fact that qiqi seems to know so many people! one minute she ll be saying "hey this guy’s called ****" , and next "this auntie is ***" etc etc…zzzzz i need to have a larger circle of friends…

left for tuition at 6+..touched on curve sketching and functions..i LOVE maths lar..simply because there’s nothing to prepare…so slack..better than chem which i am going to go through next lesson..needa go revise…chem sux..maths rox…oh i realised that my tuition student is from co too…cello somemore! ahah such a coincidence!

Oh lastly, there’s this incident which happened on Mon which set me thinking..wanted to blog about it but i just can’t really express myself well..got jieying (thanks!) to help me though…she’s better at writing…LOL ..click here to see that entry.

It’s 1.57am on a sunday morning! The past week has been eventful! This shall be a continuation of the entry i posted on Mon.

Tue: met up with guild friends..met turtlefour, magimee, turtletw0, merrilyn and turtlefive! heeh went to catch the show "yours mine and ours" at lido..the show’s alright, a simple-plot comedy but i find the aircon a bit too cold for comfort..I think all of them are so friendly lar…hehe..nice people..can crap and crap like we used to do online..

Wed: this time round met up with platoon mates..met dwin, chris, liheng, tim, and 2 of dwin’s friends…watched the second show of the week "Ice Age 2". I usually do not watch animations but I must say that this show really impresses me. Plot wise it’s so-so but it’s really humourous..yeap entertainment value is 10/10.

Thurs: my one day break

Fri: met up with guild friends again..this time one more guy came. hehe this PoorBeggar, my age de, also another friendly guy..ahahZ..this time round met at city hall..and there was this makeshift stall promoting sunflower cooking oil at the control station area..and they were giving out sunflowers! in the end you could almost see every one in few people holding on to sunflowers at citylink! went to catch my THIRD show of the week, Dorm, the Thai horror show..apparently this time is qiqi jio de, cos she got "complementary" tickets which are not free..quite a nice show, not really very scary but after the show I can’t help but feel like sleeping lar! cos i woke up too early that day and slept late the night before, chatting on the phone, something which i have not done for quite some time le..

Sat: woke up early again, this time to give tuition..got lost but still managed to find my way in the end..It’s some private housing estate at Eunos there. She is a very guai and hardworking girl. Hope to see her through all the way to A Levels..Anyway i charge at really a low price lar, according to ch..LOL..after tuition went to ch’s place (nearby mah)..treated him to a bowl of fishball noodles cos got my pay on the spot..hanged around for some time until 4 which then i left for tampines..AHS 2A outing …wow like the first in 6 years? 11 of us all together..lazy to name all..had buffet at tamp safra sakura there…nice food…really nice food! so many varieties! must intro de! i psycho-ed qiqi to organise the next guild outing at sakura…LOL anyway had a good catching up session with all of my ex-classmates…guys tend to talk more about army..went to K Pool next..and the thing i hate was the trip back to home..so LONG..

Sun: I self declare it to be a rest day…spent so much money le..Oops..