north-american possums! work fatigue grouses; singaporean; ex-poet and writer; former convent girl; converted, convicted and painfully quiet; bibliophilic; skyscrapers; weather-talk; dining alone on sashimi; your life with Jesus; banging heads with problems; looking from afar; loving my xiongmao; peanuts & anchovies; battlestar galatica; novella dreams and paranoai: holding onto you.
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Tuesday, May 30, 2006
gonna talk about the weather so if you have no stomach for such things, you are free to skip this post and go on to do more worthwhile things.
but i'm going to talk about the weather here in Singapore and more specifically from the perspective of someone who lives in the north, in an area that was once all kampong, pig farms and gutters but now polished sanitised high rise buildings and neon blink-blink lights of a shopping mall..
today everything was in bright vivid primary colours. yellows, blues, greens. oops one of them aint a primary colour. But (who cares), for me it's been the longest time since i actually slowed down my pace and just admired the abundance of light that flooded the cross junction adjacent to the mrt tracks. it was literally the flooding of lights that made the objects on the road, the people walking, the buildings... just standing... all stand out from each other with such vivacity. The heat of the early afternoon sun was shielded by a blanket of clouds on the western horizon, leaving the eastern terrifically blue. Good weather, excellent humidity, cooling breeze. I don't know how God does it. I felt like i could walk on forever and just enjoy the afternoon that was laid out before me.
As i admired the scene before me, i realised that my thoughts no longer were weighed down by the impending demands of work or unexpected twists from a hit broadway called "school days". School is out by the way and students are having a one month break. Although i've been waking up early to return to school for consultations with students, i don't dread it. I can't wait to wake up early and see the sun already risen, the sky just turning its coat of colours over. More so, I can't wait to leave and walk under the shade of the trees, enjoying the wind and inspecting the colours while i wait for the traffic light to change. Just feeling the ground change under my slippers as i walk across grass, dirt tracks, concrete pavements is quite thrilling. I often go out in the evening on the pretext to buy groceries to just leave my house and smell the breeze.
you know the other night, as i was taking the trash out of my house.. the sweetest smell wafted through my corridors (and it was certainly not my neighbour's garbage). my apartment faces an isolated stretch of round lined with very tall trees that scale a little hill rising alongside with the road. The sweetest smell... i think to myself that this can only be frangipanis. I've never smelt anything like it before. It could have come from the neighbours' house. Afterall, malay homes always have a different smell. No racist undertones here. An Indian household with the lingering smell of spices could be heart-warming to certain individuals and if i stayed long enough in such a place, i'm sure i'll be of the same mind. But coming back to the sweetest smell, it didn't matter where it came from but it was simply a gift from God even if it came from someone's cooking pot. I called to mr yim to come out of the house and smell. He most probably thought i was mad but too bad for him.
i think it is in every place i travel to, i try to be open to such moments like these. And i would consider a vacation to be excellentand thoroughly well spent if i have moments like these? Haha. Yah and it's not just about the shopping and food mind you although they're still ermm rather important.
It's the simplest mundane things that capture our hearts. I wish the government could just understand that instead of mass manufacturing national education and drumming it in our heads. There's no other sky like this in all the world. There's no other smell, no other time, no other place.Labels: peanut facts
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
You Are Fossil Fuel Ice Cream What does liking "fudge dinosaurs" say about someone? Labels: peanut facts
oh crappers. there is some inane expression to say "you are in deep shit" but i've forgotten what it is.. was it "my goose is cooked"??? how interesting it will be to have a book of such inane expressions and their origins. I've set my eyes on this book on hypochondria.. excellent reading material for my sister who's a little phobic about germs ... it gives an excellent case for being hypochon and not, in a very twisted and humorous manner.
so i've got tons of marking to do and i'm writing my blog entry and changing my template.. wonderful. I will give a better update on what's been happening but only later.. suffice to say that i enjoyed my hk wedding anniversary trip- the shopping was exhilarating. more when i'm done with marking, cooking my goose etc.Labels: peanut facts
Thursday, May 04, 2006
something interesting happened in class today. I was illustrating to my students how to demonstrate and illustrate the importance of a role of wife and mother. It was an essay question they were doing and many of them simply could not describe this importance. Suddenly the analogy of a teacher came into mind and i decided to use that as an illustration. I said that the role of a teacher is important and how we know that it is important is because of the impact it has on others, whether for better or worse. In describing that, I used myself as an example that I as a teacher had an impact on their lives.
And that's what i'm thinking about today. Have i impacted their lives yet? It seems too early to tell as i've only known them for about 2 months. Lately, I have been harsh on them because they were not handing their work and when they did so, the quality did not meet my expectations despite the numerous times of encouragement, admonishment and warnings given. In such times, I always remind myself not to lose my control and not to vent my anger unnecessarily. I remind myself that what is more important is not that i have an emotional outlet but that they will learn from this and be better students. I only pray that they understand how much I want them to learn and grow, and be proud of what they do and are becoming.
As the year began, I prayed to the Lord and asked Him not to give me a perfect class because such a class would not need anything and there would be nothing I could really give them. Instead, I asked that He would give me students whom I can help, students who were not perfect. I asked that even though they were imperfect, that their imperfections would not overwhelm me and that He would use me in whatever way, to help them win the battles that matter. Above all, that they would know His love for them through their contact with me.
I know that's a tall order. There are so many things that I can't even manage. Just yesterday, i forgot to bring the long sleeve white shirt for my student who was entering a competition. I literally cringed at the thought of how incompetent and weak I have become. How do I help others when even in my own battles, i'm on the losing end?
Yet, even as i'm typing this, I am once again renewed with a sense of hope that what I have prayed early in the year would be fulfilled. I still do make mistakes with my students and sometimes, I don't treat them with the honesty and integrity required of someone in my profession. But I'm glad that there's a stirring in me that says "You can change" without the bitter tone of condemnation. What a priviledge to know that He "talks to me, and walks with me along life's narrow way". God knows that I need that everyday.Labels: the teacher's attendance book
Monday, May 01, 2006
my husband is taking his afternoon naps. I'm afraid afternoon naps just don't work for me. I'm much too tense with the many things on my mind that i have to do. I'm not particularly stressful person. I just want to spend the afternoon doing things that i normally don't have time to do. Like updating my blog, doing my laundry, reading a book, praying and singing... the little things that make me happy.
i resolve to take much better photos when i go to hongkong with my hubby to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary. Just was commenting to my friend about the trip and when she told me she always thought my wedding was in the second half of the year, i wanted to say that i understood that very well.. one year just goes by so quickly.
Anyway, back to photos. i want to take better photos in the sense that i want to be able to slow down in the midst of rushing from one place to another, to just take a step back and take a picture. Oftentimes when i have the camera, i often feel hurried and rushed to take that one shot. That one moment passes by so fleetingly that the time the camera takes to charge up and the time needed to get the right angle for the shot.. before you know it. You have already lost half of what you felt at that moment and the moment is already past; a desire to relive it lingers but frustration is often the end result; It feels like you are left to deal with a parcel that has landed on your doorstep, addressed to the wrong person but with no means to return it.
So i often leave my camera alone and enjoy the moments: light glazing the surfaces of the building painting an empty canvas with a sheen of gold. tree tops that rustle as the wind blows, in an almost stark contrast to the static slabs of steel and glass rising out of the earth. passing by a lake that almost seems to flow from beneath your feet as you precariously balance yourself among squashed and anonymous bodies in a train; it engulfs the land, quenching the dulled senses of surburbia.Labels: peanut facts
krunchypeanuts...once u pop u can't stop...daily trivia with a dose of social responsibility...a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down...let's say we try...oh Lord how we try...