舍得

《舍得》
作词：姚若龙 作曲：叶良俊 编曲：王豫民
演唱：叶良俊

其实选择梦想未必是选择寂寞
放弃从前未必是放弃以后
我知道你之所以哭着骂我
是心痛我找了最难的路走

其实选择冒险未必是选择伤痛
放弃安稳未必是放弃快乐
你知道人将自我压抑太久
会越活越感觉心里好虚空

有时舍了一些欲望得到一种轻松
舍了那点害怕得到无限自由
你真爱我别用眼泪将我淹没
请答应跟我走或为我守候

有时舍了一方土地得到一片天空
舍了旧的美好得到新的感动
人一辈子总该有那么一次
洒脱的为自己坚持些什么

Listen to this song (limited downloads) from yousendit.com

This song reali describe my feelings now. on the concept of 舍得. 有舍才会有得. 鱼与熊掌不可兼得.

Committment usually involves sacrifices, but it is thru sacrifices that we can have the freedom and time to commit to the decision we make to achieve learning experiences and hence personal growth.

I would say this decision is painful for myself. The decision of which job offer to take between 2 choices. i've always wanted very much to teach though. perhaps heaven has given me this opportunity to teach in Jurong Island for the next 2 years so that I could be a better teacher in the future. hopefully during these 2 years to come,

-i would be exposed to the actual operation of a chemical plant, so that i can at least practice what i have learnt as a chemical engineer.

-gain better exposure to the polytechnic system so that if i return to the school system to be a teacher, i would be in a much better position to advise students the pathways to take.

-see wat the outside world is like, like wat some of my teacher frens find it a really tempting reason y they might leave the profession after their bond.

although i have to make this painful decision, Hopefully I will be able to continue to give private tuition so that i will not lose touch with the school academic syllabus, and hopefully the ministry will accept me again if i were to apply for teaching again 2 years later. 有时舍了一方土地得到一片天空 舍了旧的美好得到新的感动 人一辈子总该有那么一次 洒脱的为自己坚持些什么.

Magic?

I 1st got to see this video at my sis's place. Was pretty amazed.....it would be quite scary if i'm the woman (object of the magic)

The diamond from a different perspective

NUS open was juz over last weekend. No doubt both me and tweety were present at the field on both days, but we were there on identities....no longer players, but spectators. This was the 1st time i could reali sit down and watch the finals of the game becos in the past, we were players who were always stuck at the 3rd/4th placing game fighting for victory, and now we are already graduated. perhaps this reflects another theory of life: 天下无不散之宴席, which literally means that there's no neverending feast. yes. it's time that i gotta move on in my life, towards new goals and objectives.

P.S: To the softballers, all the best in the coming National League.

Teach Where???

On sat nite i received the letter i've been waiting for since last week. It's the reply from the Ministry of Education for the status of my interview to become a teacher.

This morning, i called up NYP to check out about the status of my final round interview to become a trainer in a chemical plant on jurong island. To my surprise, i made it thru the interview and my particulars have been submitted to the school for final approval.

Right now i'm facing a huge problem becos of these 2 offers.

1. on the NYP side, even though my particulars have been submitted for final approval, I could only get the confirmation on the details of the offer EARLIEST (according to the HR lady) by the end of this week, which is friday.
2. MOE expects me to make a decision by 26th Jun, which is next monday. once i accept the offer, i will need to start work as an untrained teacher in 24th july.
3. both jobs equally interest me, so basically my consideration factors now lies on the benefits, welfare and who offer me 1st. (apparently NYP have not made the formal offer cos the top has not approved on the terms) .
4. i'm worried that if i reject MOE this time round, i would not be able to apply for teaching wif MOE if i were to apply a few years later.

So where would i end up eventually? in less than 7 days more i'll noe where my future will belong

Thought of the day

read this quotation from a famous Taiwanese writer 吴淡如, which was posted on i 周刊 magazine. check it out:

“会死缠烂打的多数不是好男人，所以现在的女人要主动一点，因为好男人多半比较害羞"

she was implying that guys who are very aggressive in courtship are usually not good man. thus, women in today's society should take more initiative to court the good men of today, because these guys are usually the shy lot.

Do you personally agree with this statement? Do give it a thought.

Personally, i do not totally agree with this statement, even though it is pretty true to a large extent. but i can't help but to think: "is this quotation true for good women as well???" if dat is true, does that imply that good men and good women can never get together because both belong to the 'shy lot'?

岁月无情

16 years of my education has ended around 2 months ago. Looking back at my secondary sch and college photos, i can't help but to feel "how young i was" back then...........i wun be surprised people will have a hard time attempting to spot me from the photos, esp those taken during secondary school (close to 10 years ago)

This shot was taken during Sports Day 1997 when i was in sec 4. this photo was not found until several of us went back to our school for its 25th anniversary funfair last year. when we went to ransack the school library's photo collection without the teachers permission...^^. we actually had to plead the students to scan this shot for us so that we could keep this digital copy. 可见它有多珍贵哦!

Check this out, this is the only time when the whole class got together to take a class photo. formal shots of the class photos were never complete becos there were always absentees. Look at all the innocent faces, now, few of us are already married, one is already a mother, and another one is going to be one at the end of this year too. The occasion this photo was taken will always be remembered by me. i remembered so clearly that it was taken on 28th oct 1997, at the AVA room, after our GCE O Level Chemistry Practical Examination during quarantine. Everyone seems happy after the exam though.

the AVA room does carry a special meaning for the class. 10 years back, my class was considered privileged to have this air con room as our classroom. isolated from all the other classes becos it's not located at the classroom block, and also becos it's enclosed, we always had fun during recess time. There were few times after PE lessons that many guys would stay in the room to change our dirty T shirts behind the room. my frens and I were so playful that we switched off the lights while everyone was in the room and we started to attack our poor female classmates with our 充满男人味 and sweat 的 T shirt. even up till today, i still dunno who were the 'fortunate' gals who were attacked by me. FYI, my class comprised of 28 gals and 15 guys, so basically, the guys were envied by many becos of the high gal to boy ratio. "p

This shot was my JC class photo. JC days were fun and memorable too. Reali 怀念 the days when we skipped class to play mahjong and bowling. and the notorious gang which i belonged to when we were always the noisiest during class, adopted the 'sitting at the front row to talk and sleep strategy' during lectures which worked! this theory works in such a way that the most dangerous place will always be the safest place, that the lecturer will only have eyes and ears for people sitting at the back and will never notice those sitting in front. of course there were times in which this theory did not work, and there was one occasion when i fell asleep during the Physics lecture and i was caught by the lecturer.....guess wat i did....i feign sick and i managed to get away with it (with sympathy from the lecturer still)..............I will also remember our 北斗七星阵 strategy which we used during class tests. coincidentally our gang consisted of 7 people. and during tests at lecture theatres, we sat at the 1st row, with the most intelligent students sitting at the centre, and relaying the answers to the people at the corner (unfortunately i rarely sat at the centre except during chemistry tests)

The memorable days from JC also included my days in the Softball team and Chinese Dance Club. My batch of players were unique becos 9 out of 11 players were all from my secondary school, though only me and eug were experienced players. Trainings then were much tougher than trainings now and i was amazed by how i could actually pull thru those times: Holiday trainings were scheduled 3 times a week, every training starts at 9am, pause at 12pm for lunch, resume after 1pm till 5pm. My back and shoulder would have broken if i were to train like this at my present age.......so, treasure the days when you were young........

Our days in the Dance Club was a legendary......cos 6 guys who had ZERO chinese dance experience were being pulled into the college team for the National Chinese Dance Competition and Singapore Youth Festival Competition and very luckily, the team did well for both competitions. we were only given 4 months of crash course to prepare for the dance. becos of that, for the 4 months, we had bruises all over the body, from falls, lousy body flips and some of us (including myself) used handkerchiefs as paddings at our waist to lessen our pain while we practiced our "snake roll" for the dance. Again, we were envied by many guys becos we got to mix around and carry some beautiful gals in the team =p

Looking back at things, my teenage days were so memorable and enjoyable. So do treasure your friendships and time while you are still at this enjoyable age.........

Photos from FTPSS camp

This shot was taken on the 2nd day when the students got to build their raft. I hope i haf blended well into their demographics that i still look young =p

Apparently, the audiences seemed to be bored by my singing and music after the camp fire. i was 'ordered' by the students to sing many Jay Chow songs, which i feel does not suit my voice. Luckily my knowledge of the new songs is still sufficient and updated enuff for the students to be familiar with. But honestly, my fav songs r mainly retro songs from the 80s and 90s!!

This shot was taken during the camp fire= CAMPwithoutFIRE. Ever wonder y i always carry along a bag??? The ans is: I'm always ready for CRISIS! so i always got my 1st aid/ medicine box on standby =p

Juz to clarify, my previous post talks about my semestral cap, so i did not graduate wif a cap of 4+++. in WCU, our cap is cumulative. so because my results flopped in the 1st 2 years, i had to settle wif a cap of 3.73 for graduation. dats a 2nd lower. Eh the graph is labelled wrongly oso. it shld be cumulative cap vs sem. (y against x remember?)

Lessons

Job hunting has been tiring. No doubt it has given me the opportunity to improve on my interview skills and also to read up on other companies and industries, I could not help but to feel 'sian' cos of the boring preparation work required for each interview. So, to give myself a break, i have stopped looking for jobs for the past 3 weeks. So basically i'm depending on the results of the interviews that i have been going over the past month even up till today. Hopefully I'll manage so get some good offers :)

Juz finished my tuition wif a student at 2pm today. and i'm suddenly reminded of all my tuition students and also my camp students from PRSS and FTPSS. All my tuition students do not haf good exam grades (if not i'll be out of job), quite a number of my camp students oso did not haf good grades. Well, perhaps i could provide them wif some encouragement using my own life story.......

I tink i'm one of the very few who is willing to share my University grades online. the university uses a CAP system (cumulative point average) to indicate our performances (5 = highest, 0 = lowest) for every semester. obviously, i did not do well in the 1st 2 years, and it is damaging enuff to affect the degree which i'll be graduating with.

Note that in the 1st year, my results were poor, but not rock bottom. the reason is becos we are all adapting to a new system, and it is inevitable that we could not adjust in such short period of time (at least for me). thus it is natural to start everything poorly, becos we are all in a process of experimenting the best studying method to suit the system.

My results reached rock bottom in the 2nd year (sem3, 4). I dare to admit that i was heavily addicted to online gaming during that period, to the extent that i reali neglected my work. the impact is great and it is reali the darkest period of my undergraduate career. To make a committment, it usually involve sacrifices and it is usually after the sacrifices that we can haf the time to fully concentrate on one thing. For me, it's the unwillingness to give up online gaming that brought my disaster.

My results only started to make a jump from the 3rd year onwards. i tink the guiding principle that stayed wif me throughout those 2 years would be the "Never Say Die" attitude. I would say that I would have given up at the end of yr2 if i did not persist and wake up my F****** idea. Apart from that, i would also owe the results to my frens and teachers who are willing to lend a helping hand to me and also the faith in myself that i can make a difference in myself if i want to. I hope i will be grabbing on this guiding principle and continue to uphold it when i enter the working world.

I noe this post sounds EXTREMELY NOSEY AND BORING but i hope that people can get some insights out of this to benefit themselves.

Best Wishes FTPSS 3E2/Bravo/2006!

Finally i'm back from the FTPSS sec 3 camp this morning. was sooooooo tired after i reached home that i am feeling so lethargic now. this camp is so different from my previous camp wif PRSS.

1) Nature of camp: Outdoor camp wif FTPSS is indeed very unique. camping at open public area (changi beach), when students can really 'run about' the place.

2) Nature of coy: cannot comment so much, but there are definitely differences in terms of organizational style, instructor welfare etc.

3) Nature of students: though all r sec 3 students, but i have different sentiments towards both groups. To PRSS, I felt 'crazy' with them, when we danced, cheered, played together. Whereas for FTPSS, I feel 'more' for them in terms of empathy and sympathy becos there are reali a handful of students whom need special attention from me as i reali feel a sense of duty towards them to do all i can in my 3 days wif them to make sure they choose the right paths in life with strength and be equipped with the correct values because they are a such a well natured but vulnerable lot.

i would say that there's plenty of self reflections i can make out of this experience. But for the most important concept that i haf confirmed, it's the 1/many rule as a teacher. i was taught this rule by a secondary school teacher when i was in sec 3.

"as a teacher, do not expect to be able to change the lives of all your students. as long as you can change the life of 1 student for the better, u r already successful"

I have always used this statement to be my guide in camps. this is esp true for FTPSS. i dare to say that i have the heart to give my students the best i could provide for them, but it is also impossible for me to reach all 16 students given the time constraints and my capability and energy. so i could only allocate these 'extra' time to the students who need me most. in addition, it also take 2 hands to clap. even if i am willing to help, if the student is not receptive, things can never work out. For this camp, i hoped that i have made a difference to 2 students......despite the criticism from fellow colleagues that i should not spend so much time wif them, i haf no regrets becos i believe that i should not leave them alone to face the difficulties and by lending a listening ear and not giving up on them, i could haf create a difference that could possibly affect the rest of their lives. unfortunately, i felt that apparently, i haf failed to create this possible difference to 1 student whom i have chosen to 'grab', simply becos he's totally not receptive and his body language towards me says it all. but i haf come to terms wif it becos of the above guiding principle.

I have yet to get the photos of the FTP students, so the only momento i can keep from them is a packet of 旺旺雪饼. which they have won from the 2nd prize of the best cheer competition....unfortunately they do not want to learn the Hokkien cheer i haf taught PRSS, if not they might haf won 1st like wat my student from PRSS do???? ;p

To FTP 3E2/Bravo/2006, even though i doubt anyone will ever get to read this, i sincerely wish you all the best to you all in your studies and success in ur lives and future challenges.