Cambodia and Back!

Cambodia's really something else! I'm not really much of a writer so I'd upload lots of pictures instead. =)

Cambodia -Siam Reap
The SUN was scorching!!! I think my skin cells died en masse the first day there. Singapore sunblock was no match against Cambodian sun. T_T But it's really a beautiful country. Simple yet beautiful.



Hotel looked nice but wasn't too good in my opinion. Well, we can't expect much from a 3* hotel... and I'm a brat.... *shrugs*


After an extremely hot and sweaty walk, bout 30 mins or so (instigated by miss backpacker of the year -loser tan), we reached the central mkt in Siam Reap. Usual tourist stuff, nothing much to buy there because I didn't want to spend my money on the first day.


The two crazy but adorable girls with me! The Bhai girl and Loser Tan.

Angkor Wat and other assorted temples....



Alrighty... we visited so many temples that day it made my head spin. Honest. I loved it.... to an extent. It was certainly impressive to say the least. But the restoration of the place wasn't done too well... the tourists were the hazards! Hmm... I'm certainly guilty of it too.


Beautiful isn't it?






Absolutely love these carvings... impressive for 12th century craftsmen.


The three of us... note the difference in height.... *sigh*


We went up the center of Bayon Temple. And because I suggested going up, when the time came for us to get down, I was the first one down. It sure was a long way down... =_=


But the highlight was this one! Much higher then the previous one...this one was in the middle of Angkor Wat itself and Loser Tan risked her life to take our picture! Haha...


Me and Loser Tan




The view from above was fantastic....well worth the climb...


The climb down was no joke. The tourists were soooooooo afraid... but the locals are experts I tell you. The old uncles and aunties seemed to "run" down those steps! Mothers carrying little kids can go down faster than us.... haha... Bhai girl had to ask the extremely old uncle after her to slow down quite a few times. hahaha...

Phnom Penh-Took a domestic flight to Phnom Penh


Visited the Genocide Museum Tuol Sleng, formerly known as the Khmer Rouge S21 Prison, in Phnom Penh. Extremely depressing place.



It was formerly a high school. Under the K.R, many schools, hospitals, even temples were converted into prisons.


Regulations at the prison... translated into english... it's fucking insane lah!


Picture of guy being tortured, chained to the bed.


Blk C -The only block with the barbed wire still intact. To prevent prisoners from committing suicide. Truly sickening.


5-6 men will fit into one of these tiny cells....


Women's cells were on the second floor, made of wood instead.


Pictures of the victims


Some of them merely children.


The Khmer Rouge. I simply don't understand how they can do this to their own people. It's truely abhorrent.


The prisoners in S21 were tortured and when they "confessed", they were sent to the killing field. It's a classic case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you confess, you'll be taken to the killing fields. If you don't, they'll torture you to death. Bloody hell!


The Khmer Rouge, like the Japanese soldiers, would fling the children against the tree to kill them before flinging them into the mass grave at the side. argh...


The sugar palm tree. The Khmer Rouge used the sharp edges of the tree to cut the throats of the victims. *shivers*


The skulls of the victims...


This is actually quite disturbing. Our guide told us that we're actually walking on some of the bones of the victims. Everytime it rains, more clothes and bones of the victims will be discovered. All these will be collected in a pile next to a tree. Every month, people will take this pile of clothes and bones and cremate them. We were real careful about where we stepped after we heard this.

After that. lunch was a depressing affair. The sheer amount of beggers on the street was astonishing and sad. It'd been said that on the average, 2 Cambodians stepped on mines everyday and when you see someone without arms, legs or fingers because of these mines, one can't help but feel that the impact of the Khmer Rouge is truly far-reaching. if only that old bitch Pol Pot never existed all these suffering might not have occurred.


A place of fond memories... spent the bulk of my money there.=_=
It was here that we returned to after miss "backpacker of the year"'s backpack was snatched away while we were on the tuktuk. The tuktuk driver tried to give chase. To his credit, he really tried.... but the combined weight of the tuktuk and 3 not so small women inside didn't really help. Oh well, nothing important was lost and it was a cheap backpack from central market anyways. Not much loss... the important thing was we were all right. =)


At the airport.... too early to check in....


The famous yellow backpack. 2nd generation....


Loser tan annoyed me with one too many comments bout my photography skills.... so i took off her head. hahahahaha...


Last meal in Cambodia... with a not so nice brownie. haha...

Home sweet home....

The one mitigating factor in school...

I guess I'm thankful for small favours in life. It could have been worse but it's not. Thanks to these adorable people...


Chilling out at the Irish pub at east coast after seafood dinner. Bloody expensive dinner but the company was good.



As stated in the Shin-ster's blog... from the same junior college to the same secondary school to teach... no wonder we get along so well. hahaha... these are my favourite girls in school!



So bored were we that we started taking nonsense pictures... as seen from the above pic. =_=



The Gong-gong dragon team! hehehe... we might not have been the best rowers this time round. But we'll do better next year! =)


Oh ya... I was looking through the pics and came across this one... hehee... I think I like Loser tan's irritated expression. =P


But my fav is still this one. I think we look sufficiently spaz...correction. Beng looks spaz. I'm cute. wahahahahahaha...

Nostalgia

There's still bout 20 minutes to go before I have to leave the house for dragon-boat. Through a link on another friend's blog, I came across this blog by a junior of mine. In her blog, she wrote about friends leaving and how she's the only girl of her batch left, how training's not the same when your batchmates leave one by one and soon there's no one left etc etc. It sort of reminded me of myself back then. I think I felt the same way when my batch withered down to just the 3 of us. I guess I was luckier. I had er jie, fendy, ZX, uncle wengkeong, all these wonderful seniors to fall back on. I'm not so sure of her batch though. I hope they'll have as strong a support group among their seniors. Training is definitely not about friends... but it sure is discouraging when you're the only one left.

Tons of things to do... and miles to go before I rest...

It's truly sickening when it's the bloody holidays and I don't seem to have much free time to just chill out and do nothing.
1)Extra lessons to prepare for my classes
2)2 weeks of extra lessons
3)Sec 2 Camp (ok... this one doesn't really count... i was just being a busybody. hehe)
4)Meeting up with my cadets to drill them for the inter-unit quiz
5)Marking extra assignments
6)Collecting and checking files
7)Filling up forms for I don't know what....
8)Sec 1 Camp (settle food, firewood etc etc)
9)Up-coming Johore trip with the Sec 4s
10)Find out about ticket prices for Sec 4 fieldtrip in term 3

Oh ya... there's the dragon-boating on Sat as well... hehe... Go TP Dragons!

I wonder how can I squeeze time in for my Hindi movies and blading... sigh...

The arrogance of some people never cease to amaze me...

Anyways, I was blog surfing as usual and went to this blog that I went to quite regularly. He's quite funny lah and the stuff he talks about is quite relevant to my line of work. haha... I'd admit that sometimes I don't quite buy his way of thinking and sometimes I find that he moralises too much for my liking. I mean, shit happens, deal with it. But I guess blogging is his way of letting off steam and who am I to criticise.

The arrogance that I found distasteful was not his. It's from this comment on his blog on a particular issue of how parents abused the privilege of writing parents' letters. This guy actually criticised the profession as a whole and claimed that we are "fools". Well, apart from the spelling and grammatical errors, his comment is really quite irritating to read. I won't nit-pick because my own language abilities is not top-notch in the least. And well, I won't say it had not affected me because it did. But what amazed me was the sheer narrow-mindedness, short-sightedness and selfishness of it all. That someone holding that point of view actually exists and could very well be the parent or the future parent of a kid.

"Actally, a child should make the final say on his outcome of his educaztion. After that, its the parents. You teachers should not have the right to decide the wrong from the right, the morally ethical to the unethical and above all u should never get to decide if the event is compulsory."

This paragraph seriously cracked me up! I was really laughing my ass off when I read it. I mean... hehehehe... he's seriously delusional. But since he's entitled to his own opinion, I'd say... I'm really glad I'm not teaching his kids or him for that matter. And I do wonder how well people with that kind of thinking will live in this society.

"And dont glamorize teacher. Nothing great about it. Alot of people can do that too. Hell, a fellow classmate usually does a better job explaining a concept than an NIE trained teacher."

Actually, I do agree with this sentence. We're not saints. It's a bloody job. We teach, we get paid. If we care, it's a by-product. There are good teachers out there and there are lousy ones. Bloody fact of life. Let's not generalise too much. But I would also say to this seriously fucked up idiot not to send his kids to school to be educated by teachers in the future. Try home-schooling if he's so great. =P It'll save us a whole lot of trouble this way.

In kimchi's honour....

Haha... my darling kimchi accused me of never updating my blog. So, this pointless blogpost would be in kimchi's honour. There! Hope you are satisfied. =P

Got to go and mark some more scripts before meeting J for makan. Ciao peeps! =)

Something interesting on BBC...Banksy!

Heh. Was doing some random surfing on the BBC and came across this very interesting guerrilla artist -Banksy. Went through his website and and saw some of his works. Must say that I was kinda impressed. Maybe I'll use some of his works as inference practice for my kids. Maybe they'll be more interested if it's something non-history but still meaningful in a way. *sigh*













Interesting stuff I must say. Hehe... especially like his tongue-in-cheek style. =)
His work made me smile... and made me think a bit. =) I think that's how I decide if I like an artist or not.

just random ramblings....

昨晚我做了一个梦。醒来后也都什么也记不得了。 留下的只有莫名的感伤和遗憾。 记忆就好比幻影。隐约看的到，升手想去触摸，却什么也摸不着。我觉得我真的老了。不再拥有无穷的精力， 也不再拥有那少女般的憧憬。 只甚下虚荣和疲累的心灵。看這那群十六，七歲的孩子，真想回到那時。現在回想起來，還是念書的日子來得輕鬆。不過，想想也就是這樣，人生也不過這幾十年，做人也不用太過執著。日子過去了，就讓它過去吧。

用汉字来写网落日记实在是一项坚难的任务！ 我的文筆本來就不是很好，再加上没用华文來寫作文已有十之八九年之久。 短短的几行字就花了我差不多半小时的时间。 真要命！>_<

Well, on a lighter note, I tried foot reflexology for the very first time!! Under the encouragement of the crazy bahyi girl and shin-ster. It was an experience to say the least. J, next time I’ll bring you to try it out k! We must suffer, I mean enjoy this experience together! =)

Bitten by the skating bug recently... Went with J on Sat and Nat and Gerie +hubby today. That's like twice a week! *feels accomplished* Resolution to self! Must learn how to stop without crashing into people or things! Heh.

Okie... enough escaping... must go back to making notes for my kids. argh...

Carnival day and misc stuff...

Well, carnival day passed without a hitch and it was really rather fun despite the scorching sun. =_= My kids were sweet despite them being slightly late, we managed to handle the stuff pretty well I would say. Heh. The credit goes to them lah, not me. I just went around buying stuff and taking pictures. We took loads of pictures and my idiot colleagues were hilarious. I don't know what school would be like without them. Hehe...
My newest buddies. hahaha...

Then, it's off to Arab street with N and P for some good food, and off to Mr and Mrs Ho's wedding at RTC, where everyone dressed up except me and Ra. =_= But it was fun to see all our history classmates again. It's a mini NUS/NIE reunion in fact. We just couldn't resist talking shop when we see each other.
I just love these people... my buddies for the past few years.

Today was the start of the MYE and it was so tiring... I believed that it was hard for me to be so quiet for so long... coz I cannot talk during exams mah. T_T Then I finally had something to do for PMC. And because I didn't want to do it alone, I dragged Ah Beng along to patrol the blocks. The sun was fucking hot lah, and we were both wearing black. We nearly died. =_= But lucky he came along... if not I'd have died of boredom.

A Friday afternoon free!! Without remedial and CCA... it's just such a rare occasion... but then... the rain refuse to stop and I can't step out of the bloody school... arghhhhhhhh.......

Saizou strained her back... T_T

T_T

Bright sunny saturday and I just have to strain my back. Now, I can't go out and on top of that, I have to blow 75 bucks on an MC for today because I was supposed to go for a seminar in town. It's just such a tragedy!! Now I'm facing a dilemma... should I or shouldn't I go to school on monday? I do have an MC, but monday is such a light day! I'll be giving tests for most of my periods.... so it shouldn't be too bad... sigh... dilemma dilemma.... I'll just have to see how i feel on sunday i guess. =_=

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......I wanna go out and shop!! I wanna go out and spend money!! T_T

fucking irritated... =_=

Mass Run and misc stuff...

Well, first and foremost, PB's in! Woohoo! That's like the highlight of the month! *Grinz* It's not a lot but any extra money is GOOD money in my point of view. =)

Heh, the Shin-ster just sent me a few pics that me and my fav gals took after sports day last term. Thought they were pretty well taken to say the least. Of course it helps that we were all ahem.... so good looking! hahahahahaha... okie, maybe not. It helps that the majority of the people in the pic are cute.

The Shin-ster is the one taking the pic... you can sort of see her reflection in the mirrors above us. hahahaha...If you look hard enough...



And special thanks to the shin-ster for helping me do major facial reconstruction on my darling C.K.Kong. =) He looks much improved now. My cadets are grateful as well, we think it adds character to his face. Wahahahaha....














Today was Mass Run.... pretty uneventful except my class won 1st prize for class identity even though bout 1/3 of the class didn't turn up, and even though our theme was damn corny. But apparently, the judges bought it. =_= And so, we won for ourselves 80 dollars worth of delifrance vouchers. I foresee a lot of bread in the near future. I would post some of the pics up but i got to get them from ah beng first. =) Went out with the gang after the whole event and managed to blow a big part of my not so significant PB. T_T But it was fun lah...

Oh by the way nat(asha), I bought u something. =) Pass to ya next time I see you!

edit: Well, apparently, we didn't win 1st. T_T my kid took the wrong prize when he went up. ahhahahahaahha... we got 2nd instead. Wah lau....

*wails* it's over!!!

And so, my one week of "bliss" is over. Thinking bout it now, it's not that "blissful" anyway. Didn't get much of a chance to really rest up. It's work, work and more work everyday of the week. Today I even had to accompany my cadets for their course at HQ. Talked about 5 day work week my ass... but it was kinda all right. I managed to get a lot of stuff done in the time I was there and my cadets were adorable. Plus they had a rather cute medic there as eye candy. Hahaha...

ahhhhhh.... i have papers to be set and answer schemes to come up with. So many things to do and all I seem to do nowadays is complain and complain. Maybe it's time to ask myself what the hell am I going to DO with all this shit. =_=

Maybe I ought to start with staying home/school (what's the difference anymore) more to do more work. =_=

1 week of bliss!

Heh. It's going to be 1 whole week of bliss! I'm determined to enjoy this holiday! No thoughts of work to mar this perfect week even though I do have to go back to school for camp and work and courses. But still, it won't be 12 hour shifts like during term time. =P

Friday was awful! Things probably cannot get any worse than that. Besides having to rush out the kids' progress report, data entry (redundant shit), I have to deal with my CCA and in-focus. Really sucks. On top of that, a fight nearly broke out in my class during my period today. =_= Stupid me tried to step between the two guys. And they are so tall that they didn't really see me even though I was between them. =_= Really stupid now on hindsight. I could have gotten punched! But luckily, I managed to grab one of them (by his collar... haha) and get him to sit down. Fights in my class is really nothing new, but it's the first time I was actually there. Lucky it's defused in the end. I think we should go for anger management workshop as a class. I think I have the same problem too.

But my anger was slightly defused when later in the night over msn, one of them said that he got so angry because the other guy was showing me attitude. haha... so sweet right? I think I'm susceptible to this kinda remarks. Though it could be just an excuse. Hahaha...

Argh... I'm having a monster headache... think I'm off to rest. sigh...

BTW, ra, I'm so NOT going to do the tagged thing! hahahaahaaha....

Holidays!!

March holidays are coming up! Yipee!!!

I was counting down to this holiday since the end of the CNY weekend. Hahahaha... the kids are really rather good this past few weeks but I was feeling burnt out. The endless and redundent admin work is wearing me down. I want to teach... I don't want to be be a clerk. If I want to be a clerk, I'd go for office work instead. =_=

It's been an eventful week to say the least. Lessons are only so-so and I don't quite blame the kids. Things will get better when the exams are nearer. Oh ya! I got my first "marriage proposal" a few days ago. One of my fav kid ask me to wait 5 years for him. I thought it was rather funny and sweet though I know it wasn't serious. Seriously, 5 years is a long time to wait lah.... and I prefer rich, old men. So I told him no. =) My silly kids are adorable... as usual. i think i will miss them when they graduate end of this year.

Tomorrow's gonna be a long day! But it'll be over before long and the weekend will be here again! Counting down to the next holiday is how most of us cope with all this rubbish. =_=

Traumatised!

Was looking to kill some time on a lazy Sunday afternoon... so I was at the forum dedicated to the sacred profession. Man... it's freaking scary lah! It made me wonder why on earth did I ever sign on the dotted line?? the worse thing is, I can fully empathise with whatever was written in the forum!! Especially on the issue of discipline... or the lack there of. *shudders*

I haven't been in the profession long but even I can see the problems and the "powers that be" are wondering why so many of us are escaping once the bond is up. Hahaha... coughMORONScough...

But on the other hand, the kids can be real adorable when they want to be. *shrugs* Got to take the good times with the bad i supposed. =P

oh well...

one of my fav politician is being sued for graft. so sad... i know there's no such thing as a 100% honest politician... but i do hope that he's innocent. =)

Went for a course for BT today and saw lots of old friends. Esp SZ. but apparently, the whole lot of them went for a different course so we didn't get to talk at all. T_T. i miss them quite a bit lah. but the mainpoint was, the lot of us (N excluded), actually went off half-way during the course! we're starting to act like our kids. =_= but i'll have to say that it was rather exciting coz for a moment in time, i thought that the admin lady was going to come after us. =_= but that bloody JS's NATO lah- No Action, Talk Only. Talked so much bout leaving but in the end, it's the girls that left instead. i swear it's got to do with the school culture. perhaps people at DH don't do this kinda things. hahaha...

tomorrow will be a good day! =)

DEADLINES

hahahaha... my bro showed me this site and this particular cartoon just speaks to something in me. Many a times I've felt exactly the same.

The end of the week is coming! woohoo!!

I'm feeling slightly happier now that the week is coming to an end. Hehe. It helps that the kids have been very sweet(though a little weird) on msn yesterday and the class is very responsive today, though I think it's because of the chocolates I gave out as bribes. =_= If my sec 4s will be motivated, I really don't mind buying them chocolates everyday!

I think I like Thursdays. =)

Feeling a little down...

School's not all that great. Expectations are a little higher than reality. But I guess that's the case more often than not. *shrugs* Nothing to be done bout that I suppose. I could learn to care less bout them or I could try harder. I honestly don't know which way I would go but both ways are equally tough. They are mostly nice kids... and I can't seem to harden my heart and just give up. Sometimes they really disappoint me. What I really can't stand is their negative attitude. How they (or at least some of them) would just give up without even trying. It pisses me off more than anything else. Why should I try so hard for you when you've already given up on yourself? But then miraculously, they'll do something really impressive/sweet/touching, then the anger will be gone.

Off-topic...J will be off for a week to our friendly neighbouring country for work. Gone is my makan/bitching/bak kwa queuing buddy. T_T I guess there'll be no bak kwa queuing this year. Gone are the days when we have the time and leisure to queue (like obasans) for bak kwa during CNY. Luckily, there's something called the delivery service. =)

Ps: I fucking hate tuesdays... T_T

Routine

Mid-January now... life's been preoccupied with school. *sigh* Kendo and my social life all took a backseat to work recently. After all, graduating classes are no joke. I'm so worried about them. Because I really like these kids. They are all sweet kids despite their "ah bengish" exterior.

Social-life is almost non-existent. But I'm generally closer to my colleagues. They're really interesting people. Life in school is fun because of them... and to some parts because of the kids.

Asstea entered me for Youth Tourney. I'm so not prepared lah. But it's my own fault. I haven't been training since Kendo Camp last year. Think I'm gonna be slaughtered this time round. Even ZX msged to tell me not to enter unprepared. I seriously hate to disappoint my seniors. Especially ZX, since he was my Captain last time. I don't understand where my commitment to kendo went. I'm a lazy bum lah. Let me take it one training at a time, starting tomorrow.