"Yohoho and a bottle of rum..."

Back is aching
Legs are cramping
Skin is peeling
Mind is boggling

Hair is falling
Face is burning
Sweat is dropping
Smile is fading

It's a pirate's life for me.

Blogging here I come, again.

One of the reasons for my terribly irregular blogging habit is that the PC went bonkers on us, which was a problem because it was what I used to go online with. I know I can use my laptop to go online, but there's something wrong with it, and it lags awfully whenever I'm online to such a point where I actually thought it really isn't worth waiting 5 minutes for one single page to load. But now the PC's back, and I'll definitely be doing more blogging (relatively speaking).

So it's just another 3 days to go before I start volunteering onboard the Doulos ship. I'm getting really quite excited about the whole thing, because it is an experience of a lifetime, but at the same time I'm kinda worried about the workload. Like, will I even be able to stand at the end of my shift? Will I be forced to scrub the decks spotless with just a toothbrush? At least I'll have triSh to hold the toothpaste for me.

Yesterday I went to this education fair in town. I was really very excited because it stated on its promotional banner in really big words "Postgraduate". So logically, I thought it would be focused mainly on postgraduate studies, re: Masters and PhD programs. And I also thought, surely they'd have all these famous universities from all over the world, with their eager beaver attendants handing out little pamphlets with really big grins. Well, to cut a long story short, the eager beaver attendants and the really big grins were there, but the Masters and PhD programs and the international universities were not. Please, dear readers, try if you can to imagine my immense disappointment. I'd literally sacrificed my afternoon sleep (and triShie's) to drive halfway across town to this education fair proclaiming to be "postgraduate" in nature. When we arrived, we noticed that all the young people there were probably a good 5 years younger than we were. Don't ask us how we knew, I think it was pure instinct. It helped that most of them were dressed in today's idea of good fashion and that they had parents tagging behind them. So to say that we felt out of place would probably be one of the greatest understatements of this holiday season. But we thought nevermind, surely they've got something for us old folks, so we checked out the booths and our fears were confirmed when the first thing most of the booth attendants asked upon seeing us was "SPM leavers?" and that was it. Nightmares realized. And all the booths but 2 were local, private institutions. Bummer. This ended up being the shortest we've spent at an education fair - 30 minutes. So, needing to drown my sorrows, we headed to the nearest KFC. That sure cheered me up a bit. And next time, I'll be sure to read the promotional banners properly.

Some of us are planning a grand dinner tomorrow. There'll be a great cooking fiesta, and hopefully I'll snap some pics with my trusty handphone. Maybe I should hold back on the trusty title for the moment, haven't really posted up any good pics from my hp so should wait till tomorrow. I'll be having dinner at friends' tonight, so I'm looking forward to that as well. And to the great experiment titled Cooking Rice For Six. That's right, I don't know how to cook rice.

Cheers.

Ironically enough...

... I seem to be spending less time on the Internet even with all this free time on my hands. It happens all the time. I can be in the midst of the most gruelling, time-consuming assignments, and yet I still find time to blog. Then here comes the holidays, and you would think I'd be spending 24/7 online, yet I can't bring myself to sit in front of the laptop for even 10 minutes. Why? As much of a paradox as it might sound, I think it's actually because it's the holidays that I find it so hard to come online. It's like, with all this wonderful time to spend on other more lazy activities (re: TV, playing computer games, doing nothing), it just seems like such a hassle to use the Internet. It doesn't help that my laptop has serious lagging issues everytime it's hooked up to the Web. Speaking of which, it's nearly 2 weeks since I last blogged. Shocking, isn't it?

But it's been an eventful first 2 weeks of my holiday. I've been to Hornbill Steamboat with my coursemates (2 Fridays ago), the new eatery where Italiano's used to be with triSh and Vivian after watching Madagascar 2 (last Thursday), and even India Street to accompany triSh on one of her photoshoots. Had great fun pretending to be tourists too. That was just this morning, and we even had lunch at McDonald's! What great fun! Tried the shaker fries "move it move it" thingy, and well, let's just say it's not as good as it's advertising. Interestingly enough, I've also been accepted to work onboard Doulos for 2 weeks, starting the 11th of December. It's on some sort of volunteer program, and I'm looking forward to kitchen duty. I just hope they'll trust me enough to let me stir the pot. triSh will be onboard too, and between us I'm sure we could come up with some good pasta, right?

My craze with anime seems to be getting more interesting too. Currently I'm in the midst of watching Saiunkoku Monogatari, Ouran High School Host Club, and Bleach. I'm not going into details here (due to the risk of driving the remainder of my blog readers away) but I suppose I should say that it's quite hard for me to come across anime that really do pique (and maintain) my interest. I find the majority of anime rather silly and plotless, so it's rare for me to find one that actually has a good plot. It's something akin to digging up gold nuggets, I suppose. You dig through the pile of dirt, and every once in a blue moon you find something worth keeping. Does that make sense? It doesn't matter if it doesn't. I'm just trying to fill up this blogpost. Teehee.

So that's it this time. The next time I blog would probably be, well, next year? I hope not. Cheers you all, and happy holidays.

What a wonderful feeling

Thus ends the mental torture of one week's worth of exams. Such a relief, but such a pain too, to agonize over my performance this semester. I talked with my gang of friends last night, and we all unanimously agreed that this has been the worst semester for us, in terms of our carry marks and probably final grades. Sigh. But it's over, and I'm not complaining in the least. Almost two months stretch before me, eight weeks of not having to do anything but eat, sleep and slowly rot.

So last night, some of us celebrated the end of the exams by having a steamboat fest of sorts, as we always do each semester. It was ferocious, the way we literally attacked the food. Lamb, chicken, prawns, clams, fish balls, prawn balls, crabsticks, sausages, mushrooms, chocolate ice-cream, the only thing missing being nuggets, which I'm still quite upset about. Why no nuggets? What happened? Did they decide to quit their job and run off to Hawaii? Where did they disappear to? These questions still resound in my mind.

When I got home, I vegetated in front of the telly for a bit, just catching up on all the shows I'd missed. Not that I missed much, considering the amount of time I still spent watching telly every night of the exam period. I think I watch more telly during exam week than any other time. Why is that? Denial? Fear? Or just plain laziness?

Anyway, to get on with the rest of the story. Last night, to kick-start my holidays, I watched the first five episodes of Ouran High School Host Club. I must say that my first impression it was that it wasn't as good as the manga (especially as I was expecting a much deeper voice for Tamaki, and I thought he would be much more macho, manlier and charming). But you know how it is, when you picture something in your mind as you're reading, and the animated/movie version of it doesn't quite live up to what you were expecting. The mind is a powerful thing, I say. But after the first episode I grew to like the anime, so that's 5 down, 21 more to go, and loving every moment of it. It helped that I had an ice-cold drink to accompany my watching.

And it's Saturday today, and I'm happy it's the holidays. If only holidays lasted forever. But they don't, so I'm gonna treasure every minute of it. Cheers to you all, and happy holidays!

It's just one week!

That's what I keep telling myself this whole week, and it's probably what I'll keep telling myself the whole of next week too. It's been a great two weeks off from uni, but I'll be having my final exams the whole of next week, and it's torture just thinking about it. Truth is I haven't started studying. In fact, I haven't even started locating my notes. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if I even have any notes. How?

Anyway, it's not like this blog has many readers, but this is just a shoutout to the two or three of you that I wouldn't be blogging from now till the end of my exams. Just so I can stay focused. That's the plan, anyway. Knowing me, I'll probably get distracted from studying by the sound of the air-con or something. Or even the sound of the wind. Or something. But I will be back, as soon as my final paper's over.

So until my next post a week from now, cheers!

Dinner for one

This week alone I've prepared my own dinner twice. Don't go feeling all sorry for me now, it's actually something I look forward to, as it's probably the only chance I get to cook, which would come as a shock to many. So, yet again, I will describe my Maggi mee cooking process.

I always gather all my ingredients before I start the actual cooking. No point letting everything boil into nothingness while you go searching for that elusive egg or two. And I have a habit of crushing up the noodles (I think this makes it easier to eat with a spoon - lazy me). And I separate the eggs (yolks one bowl, whites one bowl), the reason for which will be explained soon. So once I've got all the ingredients ready, I fill a pot with approximately 2 centimetres of water (depending on the size of the pot), which I know is very little (and not following the actual instructions on the back of the packet), but then again this is creative cooking we're talking about. I let the water heat up a bit, just till I can see little bubbles forming, and then dump in one packet of the soup mix. Again, the reasons for all these specifics will be explained soon. Patience, my hungry friend.

When the soup heats up a little more, and then I dump in the egg whites and turn the fire to its lowest setting. I do this so that the egg whites don't poof up and spread throughout the soup. I want the egg whites to stay in one solid mass. So then I just watch the soup and eggs until they solidify. Then comes the fun part. Moving as fast as I can (actually the speed of my movements don't really matter, I just think it sounds more dramatic), I dump all the previously crushed-up dried-up noodles into the pot. Ahhhh... The sound of the noodles as they hit the pot and sizzle up... Nice. This is where the barely-enough-to-cover-the-noodles 2-centimetre's-worth-of-water-now-evaporated-to-1-centimetre soup comes into play. I like my noodles to be dry, so by the time the noodles absorb the soup, there's really not much liquid left. Then I leave the noodles to fry up a bit. Sizzle sizzle smoke smoke. Nice. What happened to the egg yolks you're wondering? Well, truth is I don't like them all cooked up. Like them as raw as they can get. So I just leave them at the bottom of the bowl, roll them around with a bit of seasoning from the second soup mix packet, and gently spoon the steaming noodles over the raw egg yolks. Leave them to just heat up a bit, just warm enough not to taste icky and cold.

Then comes the eating part. Before I actually devour the whole thing up, I use up the remainder of the second soup mix packet to dust the top of the noodles. Salty, I know, but very delicious. And later when I eat the whole thing up, at the bottom of the bowl lies two beautiful treasures, the two warmish raw-ish egg yolks, which I poke and mix around with the last few spoons of noodles and there, yummy yum. Slurp slurp. What a beautiful, satisfying, totally enjoyable meal. I love cooking my instant noodles this way, but I've come to the realization that Maggi mee curry flavour is the best fit for this style of cooking. Better still if it's the Kari Letup version, so much more flavour and kick. Maggi mee can really be an art form if you know what to do with it. Not that I'm claiming I know how to cook, but I think I'm quite good at cooking up a pretty fantastic Maggi mee. And it never fails to put a big smile on my face. Nice, isn't it?

Boleyn and the Chipmunks

No, that's not the name of a new show, or a new band. It's just shorter (and much sweeter) than saying "I watched The Other Boleyn Girl and Alvin and the Chipmunks two nights ago". Which I did.

The Other Boleyn Girl was pretty interesting, though I thought the two actresses (Scarlett and Natalie) should have switched their roles. The movie's basically about the entire Boleyn family, and how their greedy ambitions finally ruined them. Of course, the two Boleyn girls are the main characters, but then again, I think all that death and destruction should be shared equally amongst the entire family, excepting the mother and brother. For those of you who know the Anne Boleyn story, you know this movie is a period piece about ancient English times. No point spoiling the fun for you though, so I'll just say that Anne Boleyn's daughter became Queen Elizabeth. Wouldn't it be fun to flash a message on the cinema screen after this movie is over, saying something like "For the sequel of this movie, kindly proceed to watch Elizabeth, starring Cate Blanchett". Then at least the audience wouldn't be left with this horrible feeling of suspense.

I watched Alvin and the Chipmunks next, and I was quite disappointed with the way the chipmunks were drawn. But this was only at the start, and I kinda got used to their looks after a while. What I'm wondering though, is how they managed to change Jesse McCartney's voice to Theodore's? Maybe they forced the voice actors to inhale lots of helium gas before they recorded the movie. That would probably mean inhaling lots of helium gas, seeing how the movie's about an hour and a half long. It's a good plot though, as we get to see how the chipmunks ended up living with Dave. Jason Lee was pretty good, Alvin wasn't given as much screen time as in the cartoons. Here, the attention falls mainly on Theodore, who really is a very adorable chipmunk. Remember what I said about getting my own chipmunk? Well, even better if they can sing in three-part harmony.

Last night I finally got around to watching some Bleach episodes. About a year ago I started this addiction to Youtube, and most of my time was spent on watching Bleach. Then I grew some extra brain cells and came up with the bright idea of getting the episodes from my coursemates. I did, but I never managed to find the time to watch them, not until last night. So today, I'm going to continue watching more Bleach episodes. I think I'm in Season 4 now, but it's getting a little draggy. I think the previous seasons were more exciting, but we'll see how the season progresses. I've got such a long way to go to Season 8, but I'll try my best.

Well, that's it for today. I wanted to post this yesterday, but then somehow, in some strange way, I got sidetracked by the television. So here's an advice for all serious bloggers out there: trash your TV. As always, cheers!

Mini Movie Marathon

It's Day 3 into my 2-week long study break, and boy, has it been a well-deserved break. This semester has been everything short of plain torture, so I thought I would help my brain recover its original tin kosong status by watching something that really wouldn't involve any brain cells - I decided to spend the next few days catching up with the present by watching some movies!

So this project (which I'm calling my Mini Movie Marathon) started last night with a Disney movie that I've been wanting to watch for a very long time now - Enchanted! How best can I describe this movie? It's like, have you ever watched a movie and wished you'd written the script, or read a book and wished you'd thought of it first? Well yeah, this was what this movie was to me. And I must say, this movie lived up to all my expectations, maybe even more. I think the perfect actors were found for the roles, and really they were all superb. It's really very hard to pinpoint who did a better job, what with Amy Adams perfectly incorporating all the quintessential Disney princess mannerisms - check out how she moves her arms, her wide-eyed stares, and twirling and dancing - and James Marsden (aka Cyclops) really made a good Disney prince. Although really I can't quite recall all the other Prince Charmings being so, er, bimbo-ish. And Patrick Dempsey was simply fabulous. Grey's Anatomy doesn't do him any justice, but this movie really did reveal his suitability as a reluctant romantic hero kinda guy. I say from now on, just put him in this kind of romantic comedy movies. He really is very good. I think the character who stole the scene everytime he appeared was the chipmunk though. Pip (the chipmunk) is really too hilarious for words. Adorable, too. Where can I get a chipmunk of my own? The facial expressions he uses, the little game of charades... I want my own chipmunk. I really liked how the Disney-style cartoon was used at the start and end of the movie too. I think I even foresee a Disney animation spin-off in the making. The songs are really sweet and memorable, two of my favourites being True Love's Kiss and So Close. The first I like because it really is styled in the traditional Disney movie soundtrack way, and the second I like because... Look, Jon McLaughlin has a superb voice, and he can make any song sound good, even better if it happens to be a really romantic love song. It helped that I watched him performing it at the last Oscars. I think he has lots of leading man potential. If I were a Disney movie director I'd cast him in the very next one. I liked the way the movie spoofed off a lot of the Disney movies as well. There are references to so many old Disney cartoons that really, watching Enchanted is like watching little snippets of them all at once. I even managed to find a website that lists out the many similarities between this movie and the other Disney cartoons.

Then the Mini Movie Marathon continued this morning with me watching the first three episodes of Heroes Season 3. I only have one word to say - superb. Okay, I have more to say, and here it is: I think the pilot this time is much, much better than that of Season 2. So many twists, so many little surprises. I was really quite upset when Season 2 was cut short, what with the writers' strike and all, so I was really happy when I found out there would be a Season 3. I wouldn't write much, because I don't wanna reveal any spoilers. All I'll say is that in this season, the baddies aren't necessarily all that bad, and the goodies aren't that good either. Next came Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which I've also wanted to watch. I think this one is actually better than the first, but maybe that's because they've got elves (not the nice, pretty, LOTR ones) and other mythical-looking creatures. Although I must say watching Prince Nuada fight is like watching a Jackie Chan or Jet Li martial arts movie. So familiar, especially the part where he bangs the spear on the floor. I found the most touching scene to be the one with the Forest Elemental, and it was really quite sad to see it die. In fact, I think the movie has an underlying eco-friendly theme, something akin to nature conservation and all. You can almost see the whole movie as symbolizing the lost of nature at the hands of man's modernizing and urbanizing ways. Especially the part where Prince Nuada says something about the Forest Elemental being the last of its kind. Really sad.

Well, that's all I'll say for this post. I think I've said more than enough. I'm looking forward to later, when I'll watch more movies. So till tomorrow, this is cheers and goodbye.

Colours of Autumn

Well, I've changed my blog template again. This time I've chosen something to suit the lovely months of autumn. And yes, I do realize there's no such thing as autumn where I am, but that doesn't mean I can't dream of it. I've always liked autumn the best, so when I saw this blog template I thought the colours were just perfect. I've changed the music too, so now it's playing a couple of songs from the soundtrack of one of my favourite anime's at the moment, Honey and Clover. I do seriously think this anime has got one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard. There are so many more beautiful songs, and there's just no way to play them all here, so I selected two of the calmer, more wistful sounding ones. And I suppose that's it from me today. You'll hear from me real soon, what with my study break here! Cheers!

Finally... FYP Part 1

I finally finished the first part of my FYP.

I'm so happy I could scream.

Now I can sleep.

Lazy lazy...

Yes, I know I've probably said this more times than anyone else in the blogging world, but I'll say it again anyway: I know I haven't been blogging in a while, but it's all because of my terribly heavy workload. Hey, at least I've come up with just as many different ways to say it, right?

How long has it been anyway, since my last post? Oh yes, I can just see the previous post to answer that. Truth be told, this has been the worst semester ever. I mean, seriously. The work we've had to do is just so much, it's almost unbelievable. And everyone says my degree would be no sweat. Yeah right. Wake up, dear world. My coursemates and I, we've more or less come to the conclusion that a TESL degree is one of the hardest degrees in the world. Maybe even the hardest, if you're judging by the amount of assignments that keeps pouring in. And today, I've managed to scrap a little time aside for my dear old blog, simply because there'll be no class on Monday, the coming week is the last week, and we're down to just the FYP defense session, the actual FYP itself, and one last Readers' Theatre. So relatively speaking, we're having it light this coming week.

Speaking of my dear old blog, I think it's time for a change. Again. I'm just not liking the whole layout of it. Even though it did take a week of tweaking with all the html stuff (which I sorely lack knowledge of), and even though it'll probably pain me to press the delete button. But now, I think I'll just go for something a little simpler, maybe even a little more brighter. We'll scout around, but then again, scouting needs time, and plenty of it, which unfortunately, I have little of. Wow, 5 commas in that sentence. What's happening to me?

That's it. Enough of all the whining and complaining. Gimme a week more, and perhaps you'll see a happier, brighter, more relaxed blog. And me too, of course.

Cheers!

It feels like the weekend!

Simply because I don't have classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

You guys are probably turning green with envy right at this moment, but really, I have Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. It's been great so far, although my classes on Mondays and Thursdays are literally from morning till night. It's worth it though, being able to relax on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Somehow the schedule worked out alright this semester. I remember previous semesters, when I would kinda just sigh and wistfully listen as my seniors would tell me their schedules - most of them had at least a day where there were no classes at all. My coursemates and I, we waited and waited eagerly, clinging on to our dreams as the semesters went quickly by, but no, we never had a day off in all the past six semesters. Until this semester, where we get pay-back time! Muahahahaha! But there's always a negative side to everything, and having a mid-week weekend means that it's harder to work on group assignments. I suppose if I were living on campus it wouldn't be a problem at all, but the thing is I live off-campus, which makes having group discussions and stuff really difficult. So far it's been not too bad. My group, we've kinda gotten used to the idea of divide-and-conquer, which basically means we break up the workload into individual components and just work our best on those, then much closer to the dateline (deadline?) we compile everything together, edit the work, and pass it up. We usually end up getting quite generous marks, so I suppose it's a case of whatever works best.

Anyway, today 5 of my coursemates and I paid a visit to a school. Like I mentioned yesterday, it's part of a course that we're taking this semester, where one of the assignments/projects is going to a school and conducting a guidance/counselling-based program (cos the course is based on guidance and counselling). So we went to that school, and we basically went into some pre-determined classes and conducted a motivational session. We were aiming to encourage them to see English as a fun and cool thing, kinda like trying to get them interested and excited about using the language. I just hope they really did learn something. I'm just glad it's over. I hope we won't have to visit anymore schools. It's really quite tiring. Not to mention quite troublesome and stressful. Of course, this means I'll probably be out of a job.

That's all folks. Till next time, cheers!

Questions on my mind

It's gonna be a busy week. I'll be going to a secondary school tomorrow, together with 5 of my coursemates, to conduct a motivational session of sorts. It's part of a course we're taking, and we're all pretty stressed out about it. Then we have an assignment (with accompanying presentation) due on Thursday, although to this very moment we're still not sure whether it's our turn this week. Then on Friday I've got an appointment with my FYP supervisor. I'm kinda worried, cos I haven't even started on my FYP (re: Final Year Project). I know some of my more hardworking coursemates have already started writing out drafts and all that kinda stuff, but I've been too busy (and lazy) to get started. How?

What is wrong with me?

I fell sick. Again. In the past one week, I've gotten sick twice, first with a really bad headache plus vomiting, and then five days later with the flu. This is probably the most times I've fallen sick in a week. I spent the past four days or so eating porridge and eggs. Saturday and Sunday were spent at home, either sleeping or passed out in front of the telly. What is wrong with me? Why do I get sick so often?

Actually, no need to tell me. I already know the answer.

But now I'm back up on my feet again. It's time to put the brain to work. Time to get the fingers typing. Time to get all my assignments and work completed. On the other hand, maybe not. I'm happy being lazy. Why do anything today if you can push it off to tomorrow?

So there. Now you know why I haven't been blogging. Or going online. Or even switching on my laptop for that matter. Call it health issues if you want. But still, it's good to be back.

Cheers!

New and hopefully improved blog!

Hi people! I know some of you must have been wondering what happened to my blog in the past one week or so... Like, where did the entire blog disappear to? Well, the mystery has now been solved. I've been 'renovating' my blog this past one week. The original plan was to have the whole blog back up again within a couple of days, but along the way I got a li'l distracted. Like, who knew there were so many blog skins to go through? It was a rather tough selection process, and I'm real glad it's over. I tried to get my blog re-published on Saturday, but there was a slight problem with the connection (or maybe it's just my laptop?), and well, let's just say it's been a long one week. And I suppose some explanation is in order, such as "I got the blog skin from www.blogskins.com" and "trish was the one who told me how to upload the music".

All blog-related matters aside, it's really been a busy week. I finished my TP two weeks ago, and I originally thought that I could take one week off, just to relax and have a 'holiday'. So there I was, really enjoying last Monday and Tuesday doing relatively nothing, just lazing around the house, when on Wednesday morning I got an sms from my coursemate Song asking where I was, and why wasn't I in class. That's how I knew lectures had started. So I thought, why not just drive up to uni and check out what I've been missing. So I did, and it kinda hit me there and then that the lecturers weren't letting us take it easy. Already, we were supposed to start thinking about our final year project (FYP) topic. It was school everyday after that. No rest, no holiday. And tomorrow, I've got to defend my FYP outline proposal. I'll try to blog tomorrow, but the way I see it I'll be too tired anyway. Class starts at 11 am tomorrow, straight on till 9.30 pm. Add some extra time for driving, and there you have it, my Thursdays are jam-packed. I thought of a solution to get home earlier: skip the last 30 minutes of class! Muahahahaha! Let's see how it goes lar...

And that's if from me this time. Cheers you all!

A little reward for me!

So I spent the last one month or so thinking about getting a brand new phone. I thought I more than deserved it, what with my current phone practically falling apart with approximately 3 years of rough use. Also, most of you would know what a traumatic experience my TP was, and so thinking about a beautiful new phone really helped me get through the days. Consider it an incentive of sorts. My motivation to get through 9 gruelling weeks.

So I bought a Nokia 6300 at tHe Spring just a few hours ago. I was so excited and nervous, at one point my dad asked why I was sweating so profusely. It must have taken me a little less than an hour to spend close to a thousand bucks. Surely it's a new personal record. I remember feeling somewhat stupefied a couple of hours later as I sat in the Jeep on the way home. The phone itself is actually about 800 bucks, but I decided to top it up with a 2 GB memory card, so that brought the total close to a thousand.

I'm still trying to get used to my new phone. It's silver and black, aluminium casing. I've got the headset cum ear phones to go with it, and I'm looking forward to hearing my favourite songs ring out everytime someone calls or sms-es.

Oh yes, I sure am happy with my new phone.

I just hope I don't drop it anytime soon.

Finally, the end.

Well, the day I've anticipated for the last 9 weeks has finally come. What a big sigh of relief. What joy and happiness. Yes people, my teaching practice is finally - it sure took long enough - over! Yippee!

It's been one rollercoaster of a ride, with its very own I-feel-the-air-up-in-my-brain highs and oh-no-I-think-I'm-going-to-puke lows. So here is a list of the compiled highs and lows:

The "Highs"

• seeing a team from Form 4B winning a round of their debate against another (more experienced might I add) class
• realising I won't be teaching Form 4H in the final 2 weeks because they had their oral tests
• getting good reviews after my university supervisor observed my class with Form 4B
• the chicken nuggets, sotong balls and Excel drink purchased from the canteen on an almost daily basis (to a point where the canteen operator knew what I wanted before I could even open my mouth)

The "Lows"

• Form 4H
• the reality finally sinking in that 9 weeks is a total of 81 days
• realizing that I might as well say goodbye to getting an A or an A- for this whole experiment gone wrong

So that's a summary of the last 9 weeks. This morning in itself was a high. I can't remember the last time I woke up with a smile on my face and a bounce in my steps. I remember the first thing I said yesterday when I woke up was "ONE MORE DAY!" and today was really the final day. Can you imagine me grinning even now? It's funny what something like that can do to your mood. So anyway, I drove out, picked up my fellow trainee and arrived at school. You really should have seen the glee in our eyes when the three of us trainees met. I assure you, their sentiments are just like mine. We just sat there in our chairs feeling the happiest we've been in the past 9 weeks. Then we were told that the first 2 periods today was for a prayer service, which meant that all the other periods for that day would be shortened from 35 minutes to about 25 minutes each. After the prayer service, I saw a group of Form 4B boys and I called one of them to bring up a box to their class. They asked me what was in the box (they tried to peek under the Ikea plastic bag that I'd used to cover the contents of the box) and I remember someone yelling "Sugarbun!" excitedly. No, it wasn't Sugarbun. I told them it was garlic bread, and man, they went quite wild. Then they started to squabble over who would carry the box, all the way to the class. It was quite comical really. I entered the class and waited while all the students made their way back. As I waited, I realized there was some top-secret meeting amongst some of the boys. They were all standing in a circle at the back of the class, all obviously very excited about the thing they were surrounding. I tried to peek, but they literally chased me away.

So one by one the boys returned, and soon I managed to calm them down enough to tell them it was my last day there. They cheered. I wondered if they were happy for me, or happy to see me go. I told them that if it weren't for them, the past 9 weeks would have been plain torture. I also thanked them for being good when the class was being observed. In short, I told them they were one of the highs of TP. They cheered. Then I told them I had something for them. When they saw it was food, they cheered even more. A boy actually said something along the lines of "Waaah, you're giving us something? I thought it's supposed to be the other way around." The boys were really happy though, and at times, I almost thought some teacher would enter the class and scold me for disrupting the other classes' exams, my class was that loud. They looked really happy as they munched away, and some of them thanked me. Then I suddenly stopped and asked them: "Class, are you guys allowed to eat in class?" and with the most innocent expressions you will ever see on 40 boys, they all replied sweetly: "No." What can I say? Boys will be boys.

Somewhere into the second period, as I chatted with some of the boys who had gathered around the front tables, there was this sudden cheering, clapping and thumping of tables. I looked around, trying to locate the source of this mini-riot, when I spotted one of the boys holding up a big, bright green T-shirt. The class cheered as I took the shirt, and only then did I realize they had all plotted to give it to me as a going-away present (hence the secret meetings at the back of the class and the "No, you can't look!" earlier). They had scribbled a few words on it, all of them, and really I was very touched. I thought that as boys, this kind of sentimental ideas wouldn't even have crossed their minds. I stand corrected. Really, this is solid proof that boys can be thoughtful and sweet too. When the bell rung, the class stood up and gave me the loudest "Thank you, teacher!" that I have ever heard them give. It almost felt like the whole building reverberated with their voices. I was sincerely touched, although I do wonder what thoughts crossed the minds of the students in the exam classes. But still, I was happy. Really happy. Boys will definitely be boys.

The rest of the morning was spent in a sort of blissful daze in the staff room. There were photos taken (for the school magazine apparently), presents to give away (from us Unimas trainees to our school supervisors), and last-minute duties to perform (like telling the teacher where I'd stopped teaching, informing the Principal that we were leaving, and filling up forms). I even managed to squeeze in a little final visit to the school canteen to have a plate of nasi lemak and a cincau drink. And two little sticks of chicken nuggets, sotong balls, and chicken cakes. Think of it as a sort of farewell to the canteen. Teehee.

And so the Great 9-Week Experiment came to an end at noon. When I finally got home, I paraded my green shirt around. I sat myself in front of the TV, and only then did I realize how exhausted I was. But all in all, I'm still really really happy that it's all finally over.

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

One more day...

Breathe Esther, breathe.

One more day.
One more day.
One more day.
One more day.

Oh, it's just
One more day.
One more day.
One more day.

I think I've forgotten how to blog.

Double sigh...

Sigh #1: I'll have to start teaching again tomorrow. Toot. I feel so depressed. I don't wanna go back to school. Boo hoo hoo. I don't want I don't want I don't want!

Sigh #2: The 4th of July seems so so so so far away. It's almost one whole month! Exactly 26 more days to go before I can say bye-bye (a happy, gleeful one at that) to the school. Such a long way to go.

Why why why why why why why?

I've really been enjoying the past two days. It's always nice when you don't have to work, but these days there's always a niggling (is that a word?) feeling at the back of my mind because I know I've still got that terrible school project to work on and complete by the end of this week. And worse, I still haven't completed a single lesson plan in preparation for the next 4 weeks. In my mind, I was supposed to have finished all 40 or so lesson plans by the end of this coming week. Yeah, right. Stop dreaming, Esther.

Yesterday, what was supposed to be lunch at Singapore Chicken Rice became a rather amusing outing to Pizza Hut with triSh and Vivian. I picked them up at noon, and we decided to have lunch at SCR, but when we got there it was - horror of horrors! - closed. So we were on our way out of that area when suddenly we saw Pizza Hut. Parked the Jeep, walked through the door, sat down, and had a rather confusing time ordering. Why confusing? 'Cos we couldn't quite understand what the person taking our orders was saying. But still, the food arrived alright, and I had a great time eating the measly amount that was my spaghetti and meatballs.

Tonight, I'm looking forward to a great meal. I'm definitely gonna blog about it, and I'm hoping I can actually take some nice shots. I wonder if they allow cameras though?

Oh and by the way, could anyone recommend a new free antivirus programme? The one I've been using all this while, AVG, have finally decided to charge their users for their programme. So I'm on the lookout for a new virus-fighting machine.

Cheers you all.

The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day 19

I'm in a bit of a dilemma here. I'm sure you've noticed by now that I'm naming all blogposts regarding my teaching practice as "The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day So-and-so". My problem is I'm not sure how to count the days. I know that might sound strange, but hear me out for a bit. First off, do I count every day as a day? As in I include Saturdays and Sundays too? Or do I just count the days that I go to school, as in Monday to Friday is Days 1 to 5, and the following Monday is Day 6? And if I only count the days that I go to school, do I also count the days that I don't go to school, and... Well. Wait a minute. I'm beginning to feel a little confused. I guess I'll just count whichever way I wanna count. As for now, so far I'm counting only Mondays to Fridays. I think I better stop all this. I'm feeling really confused now.

I had to go to school again today. Yesterday was spent distributing questionnaires to whichever students we spotted (we completed some of the questionnaires ourselves to, er, speed things up), and today was spent attempting to analyze those questionnaires. Well, at least my friends analyzed those questionnaires. Me, I started writing out the actual report. It's been a relatively long time since I last had to work on a written report, so I'll admit that I've gotten pretty rusty. The good old brain isn't working as fast or as efficient as it's supposed to. Anyway, when we got there this morning, the staff room wasn't even open at all, so we went to the library. We were 'chased away' at approximately 1 pm because of opening hours and so on. So we decided to go home. We split up the workload and agreed to meet next Thursday to compile everything together before we actually print it out. And then it hit me while I was driving home. Why not just do everything online? Just compile everything and email each other back and forth. That way we didn't need to go to school at all! I really do enjoy this little eureka moments. So we did a little handphone-conferencing between ourselves, and we agreed to not go to school and waste even more time. So we'll be working on the project online. Don't you just love this age of the Internet? Muahahahaha!

Anyway, I'm still eagerly counting down to the 4th of July. Does anyone else find it ironic that our so-called release from TP coincides with Independence Day, albeit version USA? So ironic. I also find it extremely funny that we're so eager to go back to university. Suddenly, all we can do is wistfully reminisce about those good old days of poring over thick reference books and rushing through countless assignments day after day. Nothing like a little TP torture to make university life seem like pleasure.

So that's it. No more swotting in school while everyone else enjoy their holidays. We deserve to have a holiday too. And we're taking it from here till next week. Muahahahaha!

Cheers!

The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day 18

Yeah, believe it or not, we still have to go to school during the holidays. I nearly screamed when I found out we were 'required' to be in school during office hours, read: 8 to 5. So far, we've been to school twice these past two days, and have we been keeping to the strict office hours? Here's a secret: No.

On Monday, we actually reached school grounds at approximately 9 am (we were able to negotiate the time down to a 9-to-around-4 schedule). We walked miserably over to the staff room, and drum roll please... The staff room was locked. We couldn't enter. So we went over to the office and asked around, and apparently they can't give us the key, so we ended up in the dusty, stuffy old library. The aim of this 2-week torture during the school holidays is for us to complete/get started on our 'school project'. I ended up catching up on my Reflections (yeah, we have to keep some sort of journal-like record of all our doings every day) and a lesson plan that I didn't manage to prepare. Then I spent the rest of the time playing Minesweeper (on that note, I actually broke my previous record - now it's 133 seconds on Expert level). Then we were informed that the staff room was now open, and that we could go there now. That was about 11 am. So we went down, heavy laptop bags and all, and went into the staff room. We sat there until about 12.30 pm. Then it was time for lunch (Malaysian lunch hours are from 11 am to 3 pm, so we're actually pretty good to last till 12.30 pm), and we drove over to the Singapore Chicken Rice branch (one of my favourite places to eat, I'm sure I'll blog about it one day in the near future) near the Sunday Market area and I had my usual salad chicken rice and ice lemon tea. We reached back to school at about 1.30 pm (see how diligent we are, not following the 'real' Malaysian lunch hour time at all). We managed to surf the Internet on one of their computers there, trying to research our school project (we've decided to do something on students' perceptions on the importance of extracurricular activities) and suddenly, the impression that we were really wasting our time over there finally reached its peak. We decided to go home. So we packed up and left the school at about 2.45 pm. I reached back home around 3.15 pm. I was really so happy just to have that extra 45 minutes of time.

Then yesterday (Tuesday), we set feet on school grounds at 10.30 am. I know most of you are wondering "Hey! I thought they're supposed to be there at 9 am?", but please try to understand our predicament. We felt on Monday that since the staff room only opens at 11 something, might as well just go there around that time too, instead of waiting around for 2 hours doing nothing. So we were there at 10.30 am. We entered the staff room, I played a few rounds of Minesweeper, and suddenly someone came up to us and said they were closing up the staff room, could we please find somewhere else to do our project? So we took our stuff (heavy laptops and all) and trudged all the way up to the same old dusty, stuffy old library. We worked on the questionnaires that we were going to distribute, and after completing that, we decided it was time for lunch. This was at around noon time. So we went to the same old SCR restaurant (I told you it's really one of my favourite places) and I had the exact same thing I had yesterday, and then we decided to go home. Yeah, that's right. We decided that was it, enough of wasting time, we might as well go home and be happy. So we did, and yes, we were very happy.

So here I am, it's 9.22 am on a beautiful Wednesday morning, and I'm just about to get ready to go off to school for another boring day. Today, we've decided to hand out the questionnaires and leave the school by noon. See how dedicated and hardworking we teachers-of-the-future are?

Cheers!

The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day 5

Well, it's been 4 days since my last post (and my first day of The Great 9-Week Experiment). You guys probably have no idea how happy and relieved I am that it's the weekend. It's been a total disaster, these past few days. I don't even know where to start. Maybe I should start from the very beginning. On second thoughts, maybe not. I don't want to scare you all.

I taught my first class yesterday. We had the school assembly in the morning, and halfway through I had a very terrible stomach ache so I had to escape for a while. I returned just in time for the prize-giving ceremony for the cleanest classes in the school, and the whole assembly ended at about 8 o'clock. So I rushed to my first class, and man, all I remember of that is the amount of shouting, pointing, scolding and threatening I had to do. It was only the first time I taught that class and already I had to do all that? See me shake my head in despair. How private is my blog anyway? If I mention names, will they show up on the search engines "by accident"? I should check that before mentioning any names. Teehee. But anyway, that was the first class of yesterday, and I went back to the staff room in frustration. Then it was time for my second class, and man, I really didn't think it could get any worse than the first class, but dear friends, I was greatly mistaken. They were total hooligans! Gangster-wannabes, all of them! I tried being friendly, it didn't work. I even tried being firm and strict, and it worked for a while, and then it failed. Unlike the first class, this second class of mine are really proficient in the English language. And man, can they ask questions. It's one thing if the questions have something to do with the lesson, but their questions were everything under the sun, minus anything to do with the actual lesson. They were quite uncontrollable too. I really had to do a lot of shouting.

This morning was no better. The first class was the one with students who couldn't really speak English. I taught the literal meaning of Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken, this morning, and I was trying to get the students to actually listen to me. I got so fed up with how unruly they were that I finally said something along the lines of: "SIT DOWN! SHUT UP! Kalau you tak nak belajar, tak apa. Tidur! Jangan bising! TIDUR! Yang lain, kalau nak belajar, duduk kat depan. OI! YOU! TIDUR SEKARANG! Letak kepala atas meja! JANGAN BISING! TIDUR!" or something along those lines. Half of the class literally cheered in glee when I told them I really didn't care if they didn't learn, as long as they kept quiet. The front row of kids were better. At least they were quiet/brought their books/paid whatever little attention they could spare. Towards the end of the lesson, some of the boys from the back actually moved to the second row. I'll just give them the benefit of the doubt and pretend they did that so that they could hear what I was trying to teach. I left the class, so worked up and annoyed that I was sweating all the way back to the staff room.

The second class was much better. They were really noisy, but at least they were doing some work at the same time. Since they were the more proficient class, I thought I could leave them to construct posters on the themes of the same poem. I told them to collect their manila cards, and there was a squabble over which group got what colour manila card. I handed out marker pens, and there was a debate over which colour marker pens would 'match' which colour manila cards. I pre-assigned them various themes in yesterday's class, and today the entire class voted (oh yes, we're really very democratic you know) to select their own themes. I walked around the class to 'monitor seatwork', and they asked me even more interesting questions than yesterday. But for all the arguments, commotion, and near-fights (there was one yesterday), I think this class is actually easier to teach (and definitely more likeable) than the first class. At least in this class, they're naughty, but you can see they're still quite nice at the bottom of all that show of bravado (you've actually got to dig quite deep to see it). I wanted them to present their posters during the second period, but they couldn't finish their posters, so I said we'll present it next week lah. Aiyoh. Why like this one?

I really dread the next 8 weeks. It's gonna be 8 long weeks of sleepless nights, early mornings, and shouting. Can I quit my teaching practice now? Talking about quitting, my supervisor came this morning (yeah I can't see what quitting's got to do with my supervisor too). He observed my other two friends' classes, but he didn't observe my class. Some of my students in the better class actually asked me where he was. They even told me they spotted him, and I'm beginning to think maybe they were more excited and nervous than I was. Some students asked me yesterday (after I told them my supervisor would be coming to observe my class) whether I wanted them to 'act'. It took almost everything to not burst out laughing right there and then.

Well, I'm stopping here for today. Enough blogging about depressing topics. I'll try to blog soon.

The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day 1

That's what I said I'd call the teaching practice thingy, remember? So anyway, today was the first day of my teaching practice. I was so nervous and excited, I think I was only able to get, like, 3 hours of sleep last night. Apparently my fellow trainees-in-torture were also nervous and excited, because I asked them and they said they didn't get much sleep either. What a way to begin The Great 9-Week Experiment.

I woke up at 5.50 am this morning. I don't think I've ever voluntarily woken up this early for something academic-related. Even getting me to wake up at 10 am for breakfast is difficult. So try, if you can, to imagine how hard it was to wake up. Actually, come to think of it, it wasn't very hard. I was so nervous and excited, I jumped at the first ring of my handphone cum alarm clock. So I rushed rushed rushed and left the house at about 6.30 am, and I picked up one of the trainees on the way to the school. The other trainee was already waiting for us at the school, and we finally reached the school gates at about 6.45 am.

I want to say that I had a fun and exciting day, but in reality it was quite monotonous. I remember counting down the hours ("5 more hours to go!") with my fellow TESLian trainee. We're just supposed to observe this first week, no actual teaching yet, so you can imagine what it was like to be stuck in a staff room from 7 till 1, with no story books, no magazines, no laptop, absolutely nothing to entertain us but deliberating whether to smile whenever a teacher or student walked through the staff room. But I must say that I really like the staff room. You would too, if you were a terrible sweater and the entire place is air-conditioned. It was so comfortably cold that my friend and I have decided to bring our jackets tomorrow. We visited the school canteen too, where I had some chicken rice and a can of Excel (what, don't they serve Coca-Cola?) which brought it to a total of RM4. Pretty cheap, considering various factors. When we got back from our break, we discovered that there would be a Sports Day. Horror of horrors! Me and sports don't really make a good team (unless, of course, you count watching and reading Slam Dunk a sport, in which case I'm the number one athlete in the country). Me and my TESLian friend worried that they would force us to participate in one of those student versus teacher kinda games, like the traditional tarik tali or gunny-sack jumping and all.

We were allowed to leave at approximately 12.20 pm. Apparently we can leave if we don't have any classes or sit-ins in the last period. Yippee. I got home and literally logged off for three hours straight (sleep like a log, get it?), I was that tired. So, like, I've kinda decided. Teaching is a great job, but I don't think it's for me.

Oh, and by the way, I'm limiting my blog to only a select few. Obviously, this is to safeguard my privacy, seeing how I'm now in the so-called public spotlight as a teacher trainee and all. Wouldn't be very nice for my colleagues or students to stumble onto this here page and read all sorts of stuff. So this blog is for special people only! Wait. That doesn't sound very nice. But hey, I'm sure you know what I mean. I'll probably set it back to public viewing once The Great 9-Week Experiment is safely over.

Cheers you all! Stay tuned for more interesting anecdotes!

Exams are over... Yippee!

That's right. The exams are over, and boy am I relieved. It's been a tough semester, with a few really hard, back-breaking assignments. Oh wait. Most of them were hard, back-breaking assignments. But well, it's over. 3 years down, 1 more to go. I usually have a 2-month holiday after every semester, but this sem it'll be a little different. No holiday for us soon-to-be-4th-years cause we've got to go through our teaching practice for the next 9 weeks. I think I've mentioned this before. So yeah, I'll be heading out to a particular school situated right smack in the middle of town. Try to take a guess, you braver ones.

So what have I done in preparation for this great moment? So far, nothing. I just got out of exams lar remember? But anyway, there'll be three of us teacher trainees (I like the sound of that, don't you?) going to that school (the one right smack in the middle of town), more specifically 2 TESLians (me and a coursemate) and 1 Maths. We're pretty excited, rather worried, very nervous. We paid a visit to the school about 2 weeks back, just to y'know, look see look see. We've each been given 2 classes to teach (oooh, the poor students - they won't know what's gonna hit them), and we'll be starting "The Great 9-Week Experiment" - I'm gonna refer to TP as this from time to time - this Monday, the 5th. We're also supposed to get involved with some extra-curricular activities while we're there. No, we're not supposed to play basketball, we're supposed to monitor the goings-on. Big difference there, but hey it's not like I don't know anything about basketball. All that Slam Dunk-watching has its own benefits. But no, I didn't mention anything about basketball, though I did mention my interest in their debating club. My other TESLian friend said she might join the drama club.

Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be an experience of a lifetime. I'll try to blog as much as possible, but due to confidentiality issues, I probably won't be mentioning any specific names, just in case. You know how technologically savvy kids are these days. Imagine stumbling onto your teacher's blog. Not a very nice thought.

I'm kinda sad though. Slam Dunk will be coming to an end next Tuesday. They'll be showing the last episode then, but it's far from over. The actual comic book lasts for like an additional 10 books. Too bad. It's like my medicine after a hard day's work. Stress stress stress, come home, watch Sakuragi and the gang, laugh laugh laugh. What am I going to do when there's no Shohoku team to come home to?

There's still American Idol though. They're down to the top 5, and I hope David Cook wins. Have you heard his version of Mariah Carey's Always Be My Baby? I had to pick my jaw up off the floor after his performance. It's really something.

Well, that's it. I think I've probably blogged long enough. Will be back real soon.

Cheers!

It's been a long time!

Wow, I know it's been a really long time since my last blogpost. I've just been so occupied with assignments and all that I really haven't even had the time to come online. But it's getting better. This is the last week of lectures, and next week will be the study break before the final exams.

It's funny how time passes so fast. It seems like only yesterday that I took my first step into university, and in a blink of an eye my third year is coming to an end. I won't be having any holidays after the exams though. I'll be having my Teaching Practice (more affectionately referred to as TP) for 9 weeks, lasting from the first week of May till... however long 9 weeks is. Am I looking forward to it? Not really. The worst news I've heard so far is that we teacher trainees will be expected to go to the schools during the school holidays and work from 8 to 5. And the school I'll be going to is right smack in the middle of town, so you can see that I'm not really looking forward to facing the early morning and afternoon traffic rush. Why do they call it a traffic rush, when you can't even move a bit? Interesting.

But I've been doing a lot of reading. I've finished the first 4 books in Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic series, and on Saturday I finished reading Burnett's A Little Princess. This morning I finished Little Lord Fauntleroy (also by Burnett) in class, and this afternoon I started reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House On The Prairie. Yeah, I guess you can say I'm really catching up on my reading.

I also managed to catch a 27 Dresses last Friday with three friends. First we had dinner at Richmond, where I had delicious black pepper lamb. After the movie, we hung out at Bing's and of course I had my usual White Summer.

I've still got about 2 assignments to go before I can relax. But then again, I can't really relax until after the exams, and even then I still have to face the pressures of TP. Argh. But on the brighter side, it'll make for some interesting blogposts. And that's if I can even find the time.

Cheers you all. Let's hope I blog more regularly after this.

P.S. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you'll see that I've included the Tower Blaster game. So now you guys can come to my blog to read and play games, heehee! End of P.S.

Flu!

I've been very sick this week. I started feeling really lethargic last week, but I thought it was just the usual me, until my dad told me that I had the flu. But that was just that, I just went around feeling really tired and lazy. And then on Sunday, I woke up from my afternoon nap and felt different. Something didn't feel right. For one, my nose was feeling really itchy and sneezy-like, and my eyes were somewhat watery. Then there was the strange headache. But I went out anyway, and had dinner with some friends and ended up at tHe Spring. It was there, while sitting at one of the tables at Secret Recipe downing my slice of New York Cheese Cake, that I started feeling really cold. By the time my dad came to pick me up from triSh and Viv's house, we had to make a stop at the nearest 7-Eleven to pick up some Panadol Soluble. That very night, my throat started feeling scratchy.

I skipped class on Monday morning. I remember waking up in a daze and stumbling around, taking Panadol after Panadol. And to make matters worse, I had to sit for an exam that night. I skipped class on Tuesday too. I would have stayed at home this morning too, if not for this other exam I had. And tomorrow, I really don't feel like going, I'm still ill, but for the sake of an assignment, yeah I'll drag/drive my way up to Unimas. Maybe I'll just skip the Friday class. Oooohhh... But then there's the exam on Saturday, and the few assignments that are due next week, and oh yes don't forget the exam on Monday too.

It's just not the best time to get sick.

This time last week

Time has passed really fast. At about this time last week, I was getting really excited about the next day. Why? Because last Tuesday, at approximately 1.30 in the afternoon, I was getting ready to cook a big pasta feast for a little party of 10 girls. I know. The first thought that's probably crossing your mind right at this very instant is: "Esther can cook?" And my answer is really very simple.

Yes. Esther can cook.

It's just a matter of who she chooses to grace her cooking talents with, and whether you're lucky enough to get a bite of whatever it is she's decided to cook.

But yes, I can cook. So below, just to prove that I can cook, I've included some pictures (what little of it) that I've managed to capture during the cooking process.

Here is a snap of some of the ingredients that triSh and I went shopping for. Of course, we didn't have all the money to buy everything, so triSh managed to get everyone to chip in a few bucks to cover the costs.



Here's a close-up of the ingredients. You can see all 3 cans of button mushrooms, all sliced/chopped/butchered up real nicely. You can see the instant pasta (I personally think the San Remo's brand is the best there is). You can also see the chopped up onions and garlic. The others you can scrutinize for yourself. Like, press your nose against the computer screen and squint.



Just a few snaps of all the pasta we cooked up:



Looks scary I know. But hey, we're hungry people. And below! Check it out, people! My special culinary concoction: creamy mushroom ala carbonara! Looks really good, even if I do say so myself. I can't wait to whip this up again.



We also cooked one whole potful of bolognese sauce (my version lar!), but unfortunately I don't have any shots of it "in the making". You'll see the end product soon though. Here in the pics below you can see what triSh and I did when we realised we had an extra 2 hours plus to waste. Cookies! I used a knife to cut out the shapes. Notice how they're all shaped like the letter E? E is for Esther, heehee! I'm afraid it wasn't really very edible, but really it was just a trial and error kinda thing. A mere experiment that failed quite miserably. But at least we had fun.



Here's a snap of the entire end product, after nearly 4 hours of slaving over a hot stove. A pot of creamy mushroom carbonara sauce, a pot of bolognese sauce, and 3 packets worth of cooked pasta.



This was just a funny idea that crawled into our brains. Slice up some mandarin oranges (in abundance during the Chinese New Year period), freeze them until they're basically blocks of ice, and pop them into a cup of Sprite. I can't say I'm a big fan of it though. In the background, you can see a plate of the cookies we whipped up (in the microwave, no less!), which look good, but are quite capable of breaking windows.



There was about a whole pot of pasta left over, so I took some home. The two pictures below show what I had at midnight that night - my carbonara sauce with a twist. I added a raw egg to it, which is why the pasta looks kinda shiny. It was an interesting taste. I liked it.



And the next morning, we even had enough for breakfast! Yummy! Nothing like pasta for dinner, supper, and breakfast to put a great big smile on my face!



And to wrap this blogpost up, here's a snap of my cookies again. Don't they look really pretty?



So you see? I can cook! I sure had a great time cooking up a storm that day. I'm looking forward to the next time... Anyone care to take that hint? Cheers you all!

My holidays end tomorrow.

S-A-D.

The wonders of Astro

It finally arrived last night. After hours (days!) of waiting on the couch and staring at the blank screen, the beautiful, vibrant colours finally made it to our beloved television screen. To hear those unfamiliar sounds, all those different accents, the lilts of the various voices... It's almost as if we never had normal TV* at all.

And for the first time in a long, long while, I couldn't even decide what I wanted to watch.

One of the first channels I flipped to was the AXN channel. This was at approximately 10 pm. Imagine my surprise when I saw that CSI:NY was up next. Then I hit the TV guide button, and it told me that the next programme after CSI:NY was CSI:Miami. Apparently it was CSI Supreme, where they have all three CSIs on back to back, only on Sundays. But no. I didn't stick to this channel. The temptations of the other channels were just too much.

So we scrolled through the channels and landed on the Asian Food Channel. Food! At night! It kinda took me about 10 minutes to snap myself out of staring at the screen. What are they trying to do? Don't they realize that showing food shows at night is just so wrong? Don't they realize how close I'm sitting to the kitchen?

So when 11 pm came around, I switched back to AXN, to watch CSI:Miami. All that food was just too much.

During one of the commercial breaks (so relatively short and rare as compared to normal TV), I decided to check out what other channels we had. Imagine my glee when I found the Star World channel. At long last! English sitcoms and serials the whole day long!

Imagine, also, the near-hysterical laughing I went into when I found the Animax channel. Cartoons 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! Here's your chance to spoil your inner child! The whole night sorta passed in a big blur of glee and amazement. I remember laughing so hard (I thought I sounded a bit like a mad scientist cum maniac) at one point when they showed the ads for Slam Dunk. And to think I actually wanted to buy the complete DVD boxset when I was in KL. Phew! No need for that, now there's Astro!

And at about 1 in the morning, I decided to watch the E! channel. All the entertainment news! Now I don't even need to spend a single sen on those rip-off entertainment magazines (outdated ones, might I add) you find at the news stands. It's all here, on Astro! What are they trying to do to me? Make me forget my assignments? Slack off and fail my exams? Stop blogging?

Aaaaaaaaarggghhhh! I think there's a conspiracy to make me fail my exams. Just too many things to watch! Too many channels, I just can't keep track! So I'm stopping my blogpost here. I've gotta go surf the Astro website and print out the programme listings.

Cheers from an ecstatic Couch Potato!

*Normal TV: From here on out, this phrase is used to refer to my pre-Astro days.

I'm back!

Hello, everybody... Missed me? Muahahaha! I've been pretty busy these past 3 weeks, so I haven't been able to come online at all. That's right. No checking my emails, no Friendster-ing or Facebook-ing, certainly no blogging. But now I'm back (at least in the blogging world). I've got a little extra time on my hands now, what with Chinese New Year just around the corner. But it's not gonna be all bliss and laughter this hols - I've gotta work on some assignments. And I'm quite nervous about my teaching practice posting. For those of you unsure of the concept, it's basically an 'internship' thingy for all teacher trainees, where we get dumped into some school for a couple of months and see how well we can survive. Or something along those lines. We've all handed in our applications to our 'school of choice', and the results for those going to Sabah and Miri are already out, but not so for those in the Kuching and Sibu area. Probably too many students applying, so the workload is doubled and all.

And we have Astro in our house now. The decoder thingy is sitting there beside the TV, and I've been told that the satellite receiver disc thingy is somewhere up on the roof. We're still waiting for the programmes to come on though. Apparently we've got to wait a while for something or other to happen. I'm not sure what that something is. We're just randomly sitting in front of the blank screen from time to time, wondering when the Astro programmes will pop up.

Well, I better go. I'll be hanging out with triSh and Vivian tonight. Dinner, I think. And triSh, I've updated my blog. You happy now? It was your urgent insistence/pleading/threats that was one of the reasons I blogged this blogpost.

Teehee everyone!

First week of Y3S2!

It's been a tiring, dreadful, hectic, confusing, busy, messed up, chaotic, helter skelter week. Really, I think I could go on with the adjectives, but I think I've made my point painfully clear. The first week (at least by my calendar) of university is over, and it's safe to say that I am not looking forward to this coming Monday. You would think 5 subjects would be a breeze. A walk in the park. A swim in the pool. A waddle in the pond. Think again, my dear blog readers. It's worse than ever. Well, at least the workload is. I'll admit that there are a few mornings where I get to sleep an extra 1 or 2 hours, but really, what's all that in the face of "so-confusing-my-brains-nearly-leaked-out-of-my-head" lectures and "you-call-this-homework-I-call-it-a-freakin'-thesis" kinda assignments.

Lemme just try to run through some of the things that happened this week. I say try, because the very act of trying to relive those moments might make my innards - fragile as they are - explode at any moment.

The first class of the new semester for me was rather amusing. The most defining moment du jour was when the lecturer whipped out a stack of PMR English 2005 examination papers for us to do. I'm sure it'll have some connection to the course, somehow.

Then it was discovering, during lunch break, that driving to the so-called 'nearby' food court at Samarahan would now be an additional 20-minute drive each day because the authorities decided to block off the shortcut back to the old campus which would effectively force each and every one of us to drive like 2 miles out of the way just to make the turn at the roundabout to get back to campus. Did you get that last sentence? I'm getting confused just trying to read it, so don't pressure yourself to understand it. Just move on to the next sentence.

Then it was realising that the university had put up speed bumps (do you 'put up' or 'put down' speed bumps?) all over the university. Like, if you were to take a measuring tape, you'd probably find that the distance between one bump to the next is like, oh about 7 metres or so. This most efficiently strikes out the option of speeding your way to a class that you're already late for. I've started recommending helmets for my passengers.

Then it was realising in another class that one of the assignments entailed us writing a what-what research proposal what-what practise for next year's thesis what-what final year project. All the what-whats are there for a reason: to represent my blur-ness and confusion. Really I'm not quite sure what the assignment means. I guess I'll just roll with the times. You know. Go with the moment. Drift. Or something.

Then it was rushing on a Friday morning at 12 in the afternoon to complete a presentation that we're supposed to present this coming Monday. We finished preparing for the assignment at about 2 pm. And rushed to class. In the rain.

And then it's coming home for the weekend, ecstatic at the thought of a breather from the hustle and bustle, only to realise (with that sick feeling in your stomach) the impending doom that is the coming week. Another week of lectures. Another week of hard, mind-boggling work. Another week of madness.

Yippee. I don't think I can contain all this excitement. I better stop before I puke my guts out.

First day of Y3S2!

I can almost imagine the expressions of confusion on your faces as you guys read the blogpost title for today: "What's Y3S2? Has Esther gone nuts... AGAIN?" And here's my reply to you: Muahahahaha! No, I have not gone nuts. A little nutty perhaps, but certainly not nuts. You know how when you go about downloading episodes from the Internet, and how they always number their videos like that? Like, S02E12 would refer to season 2, episode 12 of a certain TV series. That's where I got the inspiration. Y3S2 refers to my third year second semester in uni. Instead of saying that mouthful, I'll just stick to simple ole Y3S2 from here on out.

So how was the first day of Y3S2? Let's just say headaches are no fun. Have a splitting one right now, probably from the usual lack of sleep attributed to trying to re-adjust to a new schedule and all. Let me just run through what I did in uni today. The first class this morning was... Gee, I don't even know the name of the course. But already we had to copy down lecture notes and all. We even got the outline and questions for this term's assignments. Then at about 9.45 am I had my breakfast cum lunch of nasi lemak and fresh lychee drink at Siang Siang. Then it was back to uni for our second class of the day (something to do with Malaysian literature in English or something, can't quite recall the exact name of the course) and there we were, discussing our workload and reading materials. There was a whole lot of debate over how much work was too much for this sem, and I remember at one point some guys brought up the issue of whether we should study Bawang Merah Bawang Putih! Funny. I always thought that was a fairytale. Then we were released from class at 11 am (earlier, since it was the first class and all), and I went to Siang Siang again because my so-called uni-'gang' hadn't had lunch yet. Then it was back to uni again, for the third class of the day (would you be surprised to know I don't even know the actual name of the course?) and then it was all over at a little past 4 pm, and I drove home, feeling really really tired. I reached home at about 4.40 pm. It's almost 9 pm now, and I'm literally aching from exhaustion. I can't believe this cycle is going to repeat tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, for the next 14 weeks of life.

Help!

Oh no!

Going back to university tomorrow. Not happy about it at all. Although I am kinda looking forward to meeting my friends again, but sigh, the start of the semester means the end of the holidays. The holidays weren't long enough for me. I had too much to do, and too little time to do them all in. I've already mentioned in the previous blogpost that I'm not looking forward to the workload (re: assignments and exams). It's the final semester of my third year, and the effort that has to be put in is increasing exponentially each sem. They're really putting (more like pushing) our noses to the grindstone now. It's work work work from every lecturer. But I guess that has to be expected. After this sem they release us (like wild animals indeed) into the schools for our teaching practice, and it's safe to say that we're still not prepared to face the kids. Kids can be vicious. Especially to teacher trainees. Trust me, I know. I was one of those kids. Not to say that I was mean or nasty or anything. I just didn't... take very well to newbies. Especially if they faltered or seemed 'blur'. So yeah, I know full well what to expect from the kids. I'm taking 5 subjects this semester, each 3 credits to make up the total 15 credits of this semester. I know it doesn't sound like much (as compared to my 1st sem) but really, the subjects are getting tougher, not to mention the assignments that come with it. And I've refused to take a room in college this semester, so there's really no place I can rest if I wanna. Well, there's always the library and my friends' rooms, but really sometimes all you wanna do is lie down and sleep your worries away and you can't really do that in the library or someone else's room. On the more positive side though, my schedule isn't as bad (I meant to say packed) as last semester's. Last semester saw me waking up as early as 6 something in the mornings and only coming back in the late evenings, sometimes even as late as 7. It was a wonder I could find any time at all to even complete my assignments and study and all. This sem, I'm glad to say, is not as hectic as the last. Mondays and Fridays are the only days I have to wake up real early. Classes begin a little later on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, so at least I have the pleasure of waking up late(r) on those days. Which means I get to sleep a little later the nights before. Which means I can watch and download more Bleach videos! YIPPEE! I wonder why all my conversations and thoughts these days have a tendency to veer off-course towards Bleach? Heehee. And I suppose that's it for today. I've got a really long day tomorrow, and I'll only be back home at about 6 in the evening.

(Not so cheery) Cheers!

Sigh...

It's a beautiful night tonight. In fact, it's been a terrific day. Slight drizzle here and there, weather's really cold, and I've got my air-conditioner down to a chilly 16 degrees. I love it when it's freezing cold. It makes me feel cosy, and calm, and happy. Very happy.

Anyway, these past 2 days have been interesting. I spent most of my time sleeping, and the other hours that I'm awake, I'm online, searching out Bleach episodes on Youtube. I'm going on a Bleach-hunt upon my return to uni this Monday. Gonna sniff and hunt around for any friend (or friend of friend) who has those episodes and download it. Muahahahaha! I think I'm really addicted.

I'm dreading the return to uni, by the way. It's the workload that I dread, the early mornings that I have to drag myself out of the comforts of home and drive all the way up. Being caged into a class anywhere between 2 hours to 6 hours. Boredom. The chaos surrounding assignments and exams. Worst of all, I don't even get the 2-month break after this sem 'cause it'll be taken up with the compulsory teaching practice that all 3rd-year TESLians have to go through. Plain torture, I tell you. I'd probably be running around hysterical with glee next November, when the 4th year 1st sem exams will be over. Yes, as you can see, I am already planning what to do in November 2008. It's the only thing that'll motivate me to put up with the upcoming year.

So, like, if any of you know anyone who has those Bleach episodes, or if you have them yourselves, please please please give them to me.

It might help me get through this semester, the teaching practice, and the semester after that.

Sigh.

The new year is here!

First thing you'd probably wonder is why this post is in monochrome. Well, I thought that since it's the new year and all, I'd take the opportunity to leave the colourful fonts behind and just stick to default black from here on out. Besides, all that colour-choosing and editing drives me nuts. Here's to sanity!

The first day of 2008 is off with a good start. The weather this morning is simply lovely. It's cloudy, and when I woke up a couple of hours ago at 11, I thought it was still 8 in the morning cos it was so dark and cool. Lovely weather. I hope it'll rain later. I love it when it rains.

I just had breakfast of takeaway kolo mee from that famous shop in Carpenter Street. It's always a satisfying meal, but I don't usually go there to eat because the wait is usually half an hour to an hour long, it's that popular.

There's nothing really good to watch on TV at the moment. No special movies, no cartoons. It's just like any other day, except it's the first day of the new year.

Here's hoping I blog more regularly this year!

Cheers!