Back to the Basics

Do you know what's the "in" colours this fashion season? They are black and white, believe it or not. It's back to the basics. Black and white can never go wrong. And grey is cool too. Ok, actually, I've side-tracked from what I wanted to say. But this is just one of the many ways to allude to the title of this entry. Just a little tip.

To answer Daniel's question, I always on the air-con in my room whenever I return from outside or booked out from camp. Yes. That's the first basic thing I do. First of all, I'm prone to perspiration, so I can't live without the air-conditioner. Thank goodness and to whoever who invented it. Especially in a hot tropical country like ours. But then, there is no fan in my room! Ok I've yet to get one. So yeah. Still, here's a shout out to my cosy room!! Haha. Am proud of it, for it looked immaculate and polished, if you don't use a microscope to look at the dust particles of course. Lol. It's my favourite chill-out place after long tedious weeks in camp. What's lacking is perhaps a wine bar, which is too big for the room, but still anyway, I love my room!!!

To allude back to the title once again, I'm back to Primary one again! Hahaha. Don't get me wrong. What I meant was, I was given a tuition job to teach a Primary One student at the tuition centre I'm working at currently. It is officially my first teaching assignment and I absolutely relished the time spent. My colleague, Michael called me 2 days ago to inform me about the fact that I'm expecting a new student cos the previous teacher needed to focus on the upper Primary students. I was more than surprised to hear that. I talked to my superior Yean and expressed my concerns cos I was actually not very confident of my capabilities. But then, Yean said that her many years of intuition told her that I'm the perfect candidate to handle kids. Hahaha. Oh my! Sure, I love kids. But except for coaching my younger sisters and some voluntarily teaching at a Primary school before, I had little experience to bank on. I told Yean that I was worried if the parents would enquire about my qualifications cos I was after all an 'A' level graduate. She told me that the centre's policy was actually to hire NIE-trained teachers or current school teachers or experienced tutors, which I fall into none of the categories. But she told me one thing. "So what if you have a PHD but if you can't handle kids? I knew of a housewife who could teach her 3 students so well that they aced in their studies. So the key thing here is not about your qualification. I mean, any Tom Dick or Harry can handle Primary One's work. But not everyone can handle young kids". Based on her opinion and observations, she highly believed I can. I was honoured though I remained skeptical of myself. But I decided to give it a try anyway.

So I had my first lesson today. I walked into the tuition centre with a breath of fresh air, ready to perk myself up and "transform" myself into a teacher. One thing is, you have to be professional. So I told myself I could do it. Beforehand, my mind was doing mental rituals of self-beliefs, encouragement, etc etc. A few minutes after I stepped into the tuition centre, a mum came in with her daughter. I immediately recognised them cos I have seen them in the centre before, taught by the other teacher. What I felt awkward was when the previous teacher actually stepped into the centre too to prepare for her Primary 6 class. And the parent was like asking the teacher why she would not take her daughter for lessons anymore, though Yean already informed the mum earlier about this change. So anyway, I had to maintain my composure. I guided the little girl into a classroom after some small talk with the mum, which I thought went rather smoothly, surprisingly.

When I first looked at the girl, I thought she looked really vulnerable. She seemed to be really nervous and through her spectacles, her eyes were not focused on me, her new teacher. So anyway, she took out her pencil case and papers and was actually ready for lessons when she cried. She cried!!! She was like, "I want Mummy.." I almost wanted to dig a hole and hide myself in it. Honestly, I don't really know how to react if someone were to cry in front of me. Especially girls. I was dumbfounded. I reassured her(in an awkward tone) that everything's gonna be fine. And soon enough, I was cracking jokes with her, asking about her hobbies before getting on to lesson proper. I guess she needed time to adapt to the change. I wondered if she read Roald Dahl's BFG(Big Friendly Giant) before. Haha. Still, there are many things I learnt before. That a child's attention span is limited. So you cannot scour through the books and force them into doing paper after paper. As a child once, I perfectly understood that. So I tried to infuse a little bit of fun into the lesson by using other means. But I didn't come very prepared, so the next time I'm going to come up with new ideas to make her learn and to ensure results!

Sure enough, after talking a while and going through some earlier work with her, she climbed over my head, figuratively. That's the thing about kids. Be too nice to them, and they take advantage of you. Haha. But well, I still need to balance things up Cos there's a time for work, there's a time for play. At points during the lesson, she would ask me questions like "Do you know where I got my file from? Make a guess whether it was from my school's bookshop or the bookshop down my flat?" I replied "School's bookshop?". She said "Wrong. I bought it at the bookshop down my flat." I wanted to roll my eyes literally but I was pretty amused in fact. She even popped questions like "Guess how many ice-cream(pictures) are there on my file?" I was like, "Two?" She said "No, it's six. See, one, two, three, four, five, six", pointing each coloured ice-cream scoop to me. It is really heartwarming to see how adorable kids can be.

Ok, here's the highlight of the lesson. Throughout the one and half hours of lesson, I noticed she liked rocking her chair, something I admitted liking to do so last time too. I didn't bother much about it until she rocked and rocked and overturned her whole chair and knocked her head against the wall!!! Thank goodness the wall was not made of bricks. I was too shocked for words. Her mum was already outside waiting for her and was peering in to see what happened. Luckily, the little girl regained her position. Lol. Phew.

That's all for my first ever official lesson as a tutor. A very good experience. It reminded me of those good old days when I used to be a primary school kid as well. Speaking about that, I need to visit the bookshop soon and pour through the assessments, textbooks whatever to see how much the syllabus have changed. Damn. Now I need to regurgitate what I have learnt and infuse my knowledge to the "pillars of the society". Lol. I do hope I produce results.

On 26th Jan 2008, I'm officially a tutor. Call me Ong, Mr Ong. =)

Counting down and the blues

It's less than 2 weeks near to ORD. Don't know why, I'm not like overjoyed by the fact, nor am I exhilarated that I'm going to be "free" soon. It's probably due to so many things going on, both externally and internally. Externally, what's happening around me. Internally, what's going on in my mind. So many things to start planning. So many responsibilities to carry.

Why do I always find myself standing at the crossroads? There are so many options but which is the right way to go? That's the question I always ask myself. Ultimately, it's all about stepping that foot forward before you know where you are heading. But it takes courage. The road ahead is uncertain.

Speaking of that, I still can't decide what course really suit me. I think I really need to scour through the information on the various school websites again. And probably pay some visits to enquire more.

There's one thing I need to kill. And that's sloth. -_-"

Grumpy in Snow Black and the Seven Giants.

Hello people, I just passed a mundane long week(I mean the days in camp). Damn, I can't even remember what I went through for the week. I just know it had been tiring. Oh ok, now I remember. These few weeks in camp was disastrous. We had to focus so much on the area cleaning bits because of the safety checks. And I was just too caught up with my flu which was worsened by the dust and the "achoos!" around in camp, and of course, the cold rainy weather on some days. I even had a fever I think on one of the days. It was just terrible. And to top it up, I had to be involved in the 3rd Div COC parade. And that simply means full day rehearsals for the whole of next week. Arrggh. My friend could even tell me to look at it as the last major event before my ORD. That's really optimistic. Oh well.

I decided not to go work on Saturday because we booked out late at night on Friday. Damn, went through some drill lesson, had to clean the garage and all that stuff, and just to meet the expectations of the safety officers, we had to do "saikang". Oiling the guns, washing the garage, painting the aiming poles(and getting my hands soaked in thinner).. And we booked out around 10pm. How wonderful. Anyway, told Yean at work that I won't be turning up on Saturday. She texted me back and told me that my cheque was ready. I reckon it's only around 100 bucks for my 4 days of OTOT(own time own target) work. But I'm happy. She told me that one of my clients(how professional I make this sound like) enrolled in the tuition centre but had not yet paid for the fee. So that means I could only get my commission on next month's pay. Grr. Ok. At least there's some beginning fruits of labour.

I don't know if it's the lack of prozac or am I simply feeling the pinch, but recently I'm beginning to feel the stress and tension mounting up. It won't let go of me!!! Argh. 20 odd more days to ORD and I have to go through this shit.

*Grumbles grumbles*

Ok, wait, my dearie told me guys should not complain too much. But I'm a human too. At least let me cry out loud here please! :`(

Review and Renew

It's already few days since we first crossed over the new year 2008. Looking back, 2007 did pass by in a whizz. I still remember taking the pics with my siblings and cousins at my grandma's place on CNY '07. And now I'm getting ready for another round of new "photoshoots" again. It almost seemed like yesterday. But the fact remains, 525,600 minutes passed.

I regret to say that I did not really adhere to my resolution for 2007, which was to invoke the "child" in me, in the sense that to start on my journey for knowledge, for depth, without any fear. Like how we used to be as a child, fearless, adventurous. Sad to say, I didn't really do much. Nearing the half of the year had been a turbulent period for me as I had to struggle to fight the inner "demons" that were out to obstruct my path. Of course, things in army still appeared to be well and fine. I aced my IPPT and SOC, achieving two times gold and cleared in one try respectively, my superiors still thought highly of me, and I was all the way labelled as a "good soldier".

Did I tell you something? I hate labellings. It's like people thought of you as someone high up there from the start. So high that you felt like there's no more room to improve. So there's always this constant pressure to perform, to excel, so you can safely and comfortably remain at the same high level. This is tedious. I hated that. Sometimes, a part of me wished I had not been such a "nerd" during school time, and that I would at least have got into some fights, smoked cigars or whatever. I know this sounds crazy. But what I want others to realise is, don't judge me by first impression. As far as I know, I can be your average-next-door-smiling-guy, I can be your heavily-tattooed-hangout-mate(though too much of an exaggeration), I can be anything. In short, don't label me. I don't like to be fixed.

Well, anyway, I have to admit that I'm a rather complex character. Not that I chose to be, but maybe that's just the way some people are. I believe in flexibility. That's how it should work in reality, right? I don't know if this is some kind of trait or what. Maybe it's me being too much of an introvert in my younger days that I yearn for a break through. Maybe? But at least, I get to handle both sides of the coin, though not easy. It's hard to wear a smiling mask wherever you go.

It's alright. Forget regret. Time is too precious to dwindle away and blaming yourself on things you should have done or should not have done. The key is to look ahead of you. So, that brings us to my next topic, which is the resolution for 2008. Almost everyone close I've known have come up with their own resolutions. Not that I have not thought of any, it's just that I have not written them down. So here are them. Realise it's not just one sentence anymore, as of before. No way. This time round I'm not going to be that vague. And I realise one resolution is too little. So there are more to accomplish this time round. All are of equal importance.

1) I want to do what a real man(in modern terms) can do. At least I'm going to learn.
*Earn my own keep.
*Get a job.
*Pay my own bills.
*Fix my own stuff.(That includes car, appliances, gadgets, etc.)
*Be updated with current trends.
*Be resourceful.

2) Build myself physically and mentally.
This means more gym and running. And keeping myself sane by my own means.

3) I'm going to start saving!
This is gonna be pretty tough for me since I'm not much of a money-saver as my wants have obviously outweighed my needs all along. But for the sake of my future, I'm going to start.

4) Continue to pursue my dreams.
Dreams are the reason we live our days. That, I strongly believe. Hence, I'm going to catch every opportunity possible. My passion for music will never cease.

5) Be a more sensitive boyfriend.
I'm doing this one specially for my love. :)

Well, so that's all for now. Perhaps they seem too much to handle. But I believe that tough times don't last, tough men do. Ha.

Nothing is impossible. Fear not the impossible. Hear the possible.