NVM 05 Blog before Practicum Starts

It's really early in the morning, even earlier than the time I used to wake up for my 8.30am lessons on Monday. Used to suffer from Monday blues due to that, but now it's even better, it's Practicum blues! Yeah.. 3 cheers for my sufferings.

Anyway, before I get myself all geared up and ready for the battlefield, let's have a early blog!

Yesterday, I took part in the annual National Vertical Marathon organised by the NTU sports club. For those who are unaware, it's an event for people who wish to torture themselves and explore buildings by climbing up the stairs. And I mean high buildings like the Westin, OUB building or suntec towers.. for us yesterday, it was the Temasek tower. It was a whooping 51 storeys! I didn't know how I ended up on the 51st floor in the end, but I knew that from the 10th storey onwards, I was thinking I would just flop down anytime and die there. But of course I didn't, and I'm glad to be alive and tell you guys the tale about it now.

That was actually the 5th time I took part in the same event, it was sure worth the labour with great goodie bags and a breath-taking view after proving that I can climb stairs! =)

Okay, better get going soon. Good luck to everyone starting on your practicum today, your students would be dear, I'm sure!

Temasek Tower, I actually climbed my way up to the top!!!
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Our dear photographer (none other than Cl*nt*n Lam) trying to be funnie and took a pic of our legs, with no faces!
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Finally the pretties..
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This is the whole lot of us, still smiling before we conquer the building..
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Practicum Blues

Nowadays, just go to school and speak a certain 9-lettered word starting with the letter "P" and it's going to evoke a look of terror on people's face. Yes, it's that terrifying.

Before we go any further, let's examine the definitions of the word, with courtesy from Webster.

Main Entry: prac-ti-cum
Pronunciation: 'prak-ti-k&m
Function: noun
Etymology: German Praktikum, from Late Latin practicum, neuter of practicus practical
: a course of study designed especially for the preparation of teachers and clinicians that involves the supervised practical application of previously studied theory

I can vaguely remember that when I was only in Primary 3, we had this trainee teacher coming into class to take over our Chinese lessons for a certain period of time. I still remember her name, she was a "Miss Lu" in 1990 (1.5 decades ago). Anyway, the whole highlight of the whole experience was that we got scolded harshly the first day she had proper lessons with us. Some of us (I can't remember who, but certainly not me) were just playful, and called her an 'ugly duckling' in her face, causing her to run out of the class, crying and leaving us little ones with astonished looks on our faces. But we really did like her, as her lessons were havoc times for us, a welcome break from our usual strict Chinese teacher.

*Flashback from the past* Oh man, I hope that bad karma is not going to happen to me. This is first time I seriously repented for what happened, after so many years.

Chinese New Year 2005

To add on to my previous blog, friendster is not only pink/red for this festive season, it also expanded its capacity to allow 12 photos to be uploaded into each person's profile. Yeah, as a narcissist, the more photos of my face on the web, the merrier!! Hahaha..

My ex-roomie used to comment that I'm a neurotic as I even do friendster surfing when I'm bored. Yeah.. I’m such a freak. I spend a lot of my time surfing blogs, forums and even friendster, anything that's on the net. During my JC days, I've already stay up till 3am with my eyes glued on the screen of the computer, though most of my friends only got that habit due to the unlimited access of the net in their uni days. I'm an ultimate net addict.

CNY
Back to Chinese New Year, I went to Msia on the first day of CNY to visit my maternal relatives. I stayed for only a night and came back home, leaving my mum and younger sister there. It's great to have the whole house to myself for a few days, and feasting on the cookies meant for visitors.

Highlight of the whole trip was of course the firework display conjured by my relatives. The colourful firecrackers of the past had already revolved to firework these few years, nothing unlike those that we have during the NDP, just a little less fanciful. In Malaysia, setting off firecrackers is very common during the CNY season, though I'm not sure whether it's legal or not. On the eve of the CNY, many people will arm themselves with the red 炮竹and set them off at midnight, which will create a really massive din but push the festive mood to the highest. The households down the street seems to be competing with one another to create the loudest noise, and this year my relatives spent RM$400 to get some magnificent fireworks, which I believed was the best in the district. *Proud* The whole family (around 40 of us) proceeded to the field next to the house to witness the event, with some of the neighbours attracted by the noise. I got the whole process on video and took some shots of it, but the photos didn't turn out that fantastic.

Our very own fireworks display!
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On the 3rd day of CNY, it was a visiting day for my closest group of friends. The girls meet up at my place for dinner, while waiting for the teachers to knock off from school. We also took this chance to have our ‘Wedding 2005’ meeting, and so far everyone is quite excited about the first wedding among us that is about to take place a few weeks later. Sometimes, it gave me the impression that we are planning for the likes of Campcraft comp or CI night, as we work just like in the old days. We nominated an overall coordinator, programme I/C, MCs, urshers, and a games master; such that we allocated tasks for everyone, other than the bride being the bride and the groom being the groom on the day itself. There is also a yahoogroups being set up for the event, and minutes taken during every meeting. Very pro right? Of course, our most major task is to “tekan” the groom in the morning, as he had very courageously allocated 30 minutes for himself. All sorts of evil thoughts and crappy ideas came up.. the poor groom!


Us with the happy bride
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Doesn't Jay seems to be touching my head? Hahaha..boh liao..
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Oh yah, while my favourite roomie was using my comp to surf the net, we discovered by accident that our practicum posting was out. That caused some excitement as well. And my poor roomie was really badly traumatised as she got the most notorious school in the north district, losing all her appetite and enthusiasm for our dive trip that's coming up. I pity her, although I may not have a better time afterall. Practicum is coming soon! *shudder and tear hair out*

Friendster with Pink Skin!

Friendster
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Hey, even Friendster is in my favourite pink and red colour to suit the CNY mood. Hmm.. I didn't know when it became like this. =P

Happy New Year 2005
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Yeah, it's Chinese New Year's eve!! CNY is of my favourite festivals of all times, moreover, it's going to the Year of Rooster soon.. that's me! =)

This festival always have different meanings for me as I move into different stages of my life:

When I was in Primary School, CNY meant lots of fun and goodies, fire-crackers and happy times at M'sia (my ah-mah's place). I had many cousins to play with me when I was young, therefore I enjoyed the holidays so much that I always cried when its time to go back to home and school.

When I was in Secondary School, CNY still meant a lot to me.. but on the contrary, I don't get to play with my cousins anymore and I couldn't wait to go back home instead. I was in the school's DALT (Dragon and Lion Troupe), so the CNY period is the time for us to go 'plucking green' and collect more ang paos. It used to be one of the highlights of the year for me, and still stay as very fond memories for me till this day.

From JC onwards, I went for countdowns with a group of friends on the eve of CNY every year. We'll try to catch the fireworks near the Singapore River at midnight and then squeeze with the crowd along Chinatown. It was very sweaty and stuffy as there's always a big crowd going for very cheap New Year goods after midnight.... but it was lots of fun too! Sadly, most of us had became more homely and less adventurous as we got older, so this event had already stopped.

And now, ever since I started working, CNY is a very happy festival because of the long holidays. It's getting less of a family event but more of a on-going gathering times. There's a lot of home visits to friends' place, steamboat dinners and reunion dinners to take part in. Reunion, reunion and reunion.. Of course, I'm still eligible to collect 'ang paos', so hopefully more 'ang paos' for me this year!

Both my sisters had just came back from overseas this morning to celebrate CNY, mum's very happy and I'm so relieved that I'm not the only one entertaining the relatives at home. =)

Have you heard of this? 

"Fifth Annual Weblog Awards". It's like the Grammy of the bloggers' world, but I only happened to chance upon it in the midst of boredom from doing my assignments. There's many categories of blog awards, with two from Singapore under the Asian category *applaud*. One of them is none other than Xiaxue's blog. Took a quick surf through the many nominated blogs, I think they're all quite cool and inspiring for people who had run out of things to blog, including myself. And looking at the design of the blogs, most of the best blogs are actually quite simple and plain. WITHout tacky things. Just like mine. Ha!

Tag and Hello
Just realised that my tagboard was a dowdy shade of blue hue, and I've just changed it to a brighter colour. Guess it was ugly, but everyone was too polite to point it out to me.

And there seems to be problems loading photos uploaded by Hello software recently, hands up for those with the same problem!! I don't have this problem in hall, but some of my pics are missing when I view them from home. Hmm..what is this program up to? I hate all these techno grits.

Just Read
For those who had been following my updates of the column on the left, you would have noticed that I've just finished my fourth book for the year! Hurray! On average, that's one book per week! I'm such a intellectual nerd. Well, actually so far all my readings are English novels. To speak the truth, I hardly do my readings in Chinese, except for my notes, assignments and my own handwriting.

Partly inspired by my lit module, and to beef up on my Chinese, I had been trying to pick up some Chinese novels. But, it's kind of difficult for me to categorise these Chinese classics as easy readings, or good bedtime stories after a stressful day. Hmm.. I wonder why there's no adult fairytales, like the LOTR, Harry Potter or Roald Dahl in the kingdom of Chinese classic novels. I think even adults need fairy tales to indulge themselves, and it'll be great if I can discover some of those. Am I just ignorant, or what?