Hey all!

Yup, I'm still surviving (surprisingly) at the end of a week at my school. Haha, people would pulverize me for complaining about my school and luckily I don't have anything to complain about anyway.

Well, I've been in some observation for both Geography and Literature. Not so much on Geog as this week is their common test and so they did their revision in class. According to my very nice CT, the whole problem about starting on the new revised edition of Earth: our world, is that the publisher was slow to release all their resources online.

Thank goodness the publisher was kind enough to provide the suggested SOW as well as some multimedia resources to go along with the textbook. Not sure if that's good or not but ah well, haven't exactly taught in class per se yet.

As for my Lit classes, by virtue of the fact that they are Sec 3 means that they have to deal with the Shakespeare cannon. In this school, they're dealing with Macbeth. THe only problem is that they do it in a lecture style thing cos they combine 2 classes into one and they get lecture in the AVA theatre.

Both of us, the trainee teachers teaching Lit, were quite worried as this wouldn't reflect well in our observation. Even we were close to dozing off (I kinda regret that I forgot to 'put on my teaching hat') save for the fact that we both were about close to freezing our butts off.

Yup, hmmm... but these academic and pedagogical concerns aside, I found the staff more than helpful in many ways. They didn't exactly share resources up front but in other ways they kept offering help. At our 'trainee cluster' there is this one male PE teacher who is also very helpful and loves to joke around.

OH YAH!!! My highlights of the day:

1) Sitting in for Lit observation in a Sec 4 class and noticing (only about 5 minutes into the class) that I was sitting next to - guess who - SHAWN YU! In the flesh! Haha... Yah, too bad I'm not a fan of his.

Er... for those who are really swa-gu... the guy is the one acting as Jack Neo's son in I Not Stupid Too.

Anyway, I didn't find anything special about him, except that he kept very much to himself in class. He's about my height (for those who are interested) and looks pretty much less tanned than in the film. Nothing very spectacular actually... I mean this is the only time when he can have privacy and not be bugged for autographs I guess? So, I basically accorded him the same attention as I did the rest.

2) Attended MOE Health 2006: the only time when you see the teachers go crazy. Our SCM was telling us tales about a certain principal who would dress rather... er... interestingly and would purposely let fly her head scarf every year. Not sure why but ah well, she just served as entertainment.

ANd yah, I heard something about principals being sticky about whether or not the teachers attend such events or not. Apparently for those who fail to turn up for this event, their bonuses are affected somewhat. Not a very big thing but quite noticeable nonetheless. So, the rationale is to turn up for the event.

My opinion is that there's no harm in turning up for the event since you can register in some walk test and get a certain monetary incentive for achieving something in those tests. For example, if you get gold, you'll get $100 while it's $50 for silver and $10 (I think) for bronze. And somemore there's refreshments and goodie bags to collect at the end of the whole event. Nothing to lose by going there (unless you stay in the freaking east lah of course). Haha... lucky I'm a Westerner (and will be all my life, I hope).

Okie, kinda tired out from doing the warm-up exercise in the open field and going to sleep now. Paying off sleep debt now. Hahaha... hopefully I get to teach the class soon, then can get to know their different personalities and stuff.

Will try to update it as frequently as i can!

Heh... this thought just occured to me while in my bath so i'll just add it in...

I think I found my hols absolutely boring as friends around me were jet-setting to places. Very few chances to hang around with them and so I found myself bumming around in my home. I guess it was a definite "anti-climax" from the whole sem when we were cursing and swearing over the projects and assignments.

Also there was the dearth of friends around me all of a sudden. There were people working in different sectors and people who were out of the country and etc... There was no more rock fishes, no more 3hr slots where we played punk, no more drama-mama sessions!

As mentioned, my NIE life was highlighted by the colourful friends surrounding me and they sustained my day to day activities. I only realized how much I missed them when I came back to NIE and stared at those familiar faces again.

Yup! to my friends and colleagues... THANK YOU FOR ALL THE WONDERFUL CRAZY TIMES!

I bet I'll miss it during the practicum... ;P