Wednesday, April 27, 2005
It's not Impossible, Inevitable,,
My title quoted from Agent Smith of Matrix Revolutions when Neo found out he took over Bane's body, one of the ship's crew, and the battle of Neo n Smith in the "real world" ended wif a dead Bane, and a blinded Neo..
Dat aside, in all meaning of the title above, 2 things occured at the same time which required me to part wif my hard-earned tuition money meant for my marital savings.
It was love at first sight, and more of love at first try. My close friend, Saidi bought it first when he had to change his sleek rubbers due to an unpatchable hole... since dat fateful purchase on the first day of my City Nurhonda, life as a driver had been kinda speed demon, coz of the confidence I have over my Advan Neova AD07. They had travelled wif me to as far as KL and Melacca, and endured the run of 160km/h at one point in my life, though I won't be doing such a stunt anymore, abeit the adrenaline rush I had!
Now they have worn out and hard; noise making is their specialty, but grip is still not compromised much... so it was time to shop for a new beloved.. n wat more can I talk about but of my 4 precious tyres! As greatly emphasised by Saidi, they are the only 4 small contact points between u and the road, and ensuring that they are promptly replaced when worn is of utmost importance. I was more concerned when he told me dat tyre burst is highly possible if I let them wear to its limit. At the moment I was getting it replaced, the inner groove's worn-out marker has already surfaced. In other words, I have less than 1.8mm groove left, which, if my car were to be sent for inspection, I'd fail with flying colours! ;)
I shopped at my usual YHI warehouse, the distributor of Yokohama tyres, and the reknown Enkei, OZ and their house-brand, Avanti. I decided to get my preferred Aspec dB A500, Yokohama's breakthrough in clinching the quietest tyres in the competitive market. I met up wif Raymond, the usual salesman I've been served by since the first time me n Saidi went in 2002. As usual, a wide smile was beaming from him, and I smiled more when he gave me a good deal for a set of 4 newly released rubbers, yet to be unleashed to the market. According to Raymond, I'm the first person to have a car fitted wif one. I promised him a review, and all I can say from a first day drive is, the tyres r MAGNIFICENT Alhamdulillah. It stays true to its claim of being silent. The only thing that broke the silence was my engine's roar and the occasional road noise. Alhamdulillah I finally got wat I wanted, at very unbelievable prices.
Those who are interested in checking out which tyres I meant, at the moment, u can only find the details from catalogs found at YHI at Pandan Road. Like wat Raymond said, it has not been officially launched yet, and I can't find it in the net. Anyway, it's called "DNA dB ES501".
The second instalment of my inevitability, my home PC's 11th month, 15 day-old hard disk just crashed on me last Sunday evening. Mom's face went pale when I told her, coz her Syarahan audio files were all in there! Initially I tot I was attacked by virus, but it turned out dat the HD I was using as quite prone to a "Disk Boot Failure" problem. I even had a problem getting the HD detected by the BIOS. I was in for a state of shock becoz there wasn't any warning to its failure, unlike my previous HD which gave me much ample time of its demise. Reluctantly, I went to get a new HD, NOT the same brand of dis demised one, but the one dat gave me ample warning before its "departure"; coz at least if it were to break down, I'd have time to do my necessary backing ups!!
It turned out, when I connected the new one as the Master, and the crashed one as the Slave, both got detected, and I soon found out dat I could access the data when I got XP installed in my new HD. Alhamdulillah, Allah gave me some hope in retrieving all the important data such as my mom's syarahan audio files, my videos and MP3, and other impt data relevant to my work! Phew.... But I still need to repartition my new HD, it still needs tweaking, and I guess it won't be dat early to finalise my backup, and send the old one to the distributor since it's still under warranty. Probably I'd get a replacement, coz my best guess, n almost everyone's guess is dat the sector of the disc platter containing the impt boot records have been damaged, due to its own needle scratching the surface I guess?
Now Im thirsty... n I have to get ready for class soon... ever wonder why I have so much time in hand? It's "ORD" mood, man; n I've got 2 more working days in dis sch! Though more responsibilities n duties to come once I'm inducted into the system, Heck! enjoy watever time I have!!!
See ya all... ;)
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Friday, April 22, 2005
8 down... 1 more to go..
dats the number of weeks of practicum we've had so far... n i can't wait to end dis. Alhamdulillah I don't foresee any problems passing dis important part of my course. n from the looks of it, I dont want to think of where I'll be posted to in the end. Wat I want to know is dat I'll be meeting up with the rest of the "Blunt Axe" guys, n probably we get to play soccer together, along wif our professor too!
time to go mosque.. enjoy your weekends... ;)
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Thursday, April 21, 2005
Ng Kau..
Students nowadays can be such a pain in the **s. Simply can't follow simple instructions, n think that one can talk during exams.. n replied so rudely when confronted. I wanted to scream n tear their papers, but I told myself wats the point when I'm leaving the school by next fri... so like dat lah, makan hati...
Hmm, mebe I do a bit of running to de-stress.. n be back by maghrib coz there's class tonight. Probably Ustaz would spend the entire time for zikir n selawat since it's Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) 's birthday :)
Must start eating lunch now, dont want to be sick again! ;)
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Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Ain't dat bad..
Just finished doing time-keeping for oral exams conducted in the school hall for the past 3 afternoons. consider myself lucky or otherwise, I had to do time-keeping for only today. But the drawback is dat I was tasked to take charge of the last Normal Acad class.. which by nature, could be quite boisterous. I think the threat of them being chased out of the hall and get zero marks for making a nuisance while waiting for their turn, made these pupils think twice before they intended to do anything stupid!
n today's also the end of my teaching week for today. The school has come up with a system where the language exam papers are taken earlier than the others. I believe dats because language papers are the most time consuming to mark, especially when the essays written by these students can be very atrocious and bad. I've marked essays before, and i understand dat we can only mark about 3 essays in an hour. dats becoz of the grammatical and other types of errors students commit in their writing. so imagine if an english teacher were to have 2 classes of a total of 80 students, how long will dat take? I dont wanna know. Thank goodness I'll only be teaching maths n CPA, answers are more or less straight forward!
Despite the last teaching day of the week, the students in both my Maths Express and Normal Acad seemed to be more restless and inattentive. I guess, for me, since its going to be my second last week of my practicum, i became someone who couldnt care less if they were to pay attention or otherwise. especially in my normal acad class. Somehow they were very restless and talkative. I even warned that I wouldnt stop those who didnt want to pay attention, coz i wouldnt have much time to entertain such nonsence and wasting my time trying to get everyone to look up and keep quiet. Sigh... dats how teaching days can be at times. good luck to those who didnt pay attention, n all the best to those who's been giving much effort in their studies.
By the way, i finally managed to change my blogskin. Now i think it looks much brighter, much cheerful and more appealing. but its still Linkin Park themed. Tot of having a Matrix concept for a change, but none catches my attention. Feel free to comment on it, I'll be adding a song just like before, but will be from the list of songs found in the Reanimation Album. Can't seem to be able to load the song from school intranet..
Have a pleasant day ahead....
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Friday, April 15, 2005
2 down, 1 more to go
dats the number of exam papers my fiancee has left for dis semester. she's been studying very hard for the papers, until she didnt have enuff sleep! but i hope all the effort would pay off when the results would be a good one in the end.
been scolding students quite often lately. one student even came up to me during recess time to ask y i've been looking quite moody dis week. i mean, which teacher wouldnt be mad if the class is not taking the lessons seriously, especially when there were students who talked while the teacher was trying to explain something. even more so if the students actually come from the express stream, n thinking they're soo damn smart enuff not to give a damn to my explanation! well, at times, i just tell myself not to care for them, but if i were to do so, then im not being a good responsible teacher. so here's every teachers' dilemma. we as teachers, can only do dis far, the rest of the effort must come from the students. if all teacher were to do the homework chasing, scolding, and become a nanny to all students, one fine day, we all will collapse... n even when we do, we are still not appreciated, instead, being labelled for not having proper time management, or not putting enuff effort in our teaching. in addition to dat, we have to make students think critically, especially when maths is concern. but, if students are not able to grasp the basics of a certain mathematical concept, how can we make them do some critical thinking? its like we ask a toddler to run before he can even walk properly!!...
sigh, dats life... still, teaching is a calling for me, just like the rest of the teachers n fellow colleagues i know. may one day, we will get the respect we deserve, not just from our students, but also from their parents, n fellow colleagues!
good night, friends.
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Thursday, April 07, 2005
2nd NIE Supervisor observation done..
Alhamdulillah it was done... but dis time it was fun, although my grades were not as outstanding as the previous observation (2 Cs and rest are Bs instead of the previous 1A and all Bs). I dunno y, but i really enjoyed teaching today's class. mebe its becoz of the "game" i introduced to the class. its about breaking them into groups of 4 students, and each of the groups getting the same question at the same time. then all groups were to write their answers on the board. so i had abt 6 answers at one time. then i ranked according to who came first. then i marked accordingly. the first group to get the right answer, although they may come in second or third, got 3 marks. the second got 2 and the third got 1. i had instances when the group who wrote up on the board first, didnt get their marks coz of careless mistakes!
ive also done 7 out of 8 observations by my Cooperative Teachers. another one to go mebe tomorrow or next wk. my maths CT seems to be very lenient, i've got mostly Bs and a few As for the grading, so i think i should do quite fine for my overall practicum. but the most important part is not now, but when i finally embark on my teaching career, dat would mean my permanent posting. its always scary to think dat i may be posted to a school dat i may find difficulty adapting, or the stress caused by the students would overwhelm me to a level dat i may just blow up n burn out. i hope dat would not happen, insyaAllah, and for now, i can pray hard, work hard and let HIM decide the best for me...
i miss my NIE friends, Fazli, Lye Peng, Faizal, Lewin and the rest.. will be looking forward to end dis practicum so dat we can all meet up again, n mebe get a chance to drive to JB for a group makan! take care, ya all.
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Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Not Everyday is A Sunny Day..
especially when the weather is quite erratic these days. one moment the sky's raining, another moment the sun shines like nobody's business! but such temperament is trivial compared to the temperament of a teacher..
i started my day scolding my entire Sec 3 Express maths class. number 1: some of them didnt do or bring the assignment i oredi told them yesterday to bring it. number 2: one student dared to stuff her left ear wif an earphone right when i was about to start the lesson. number 3: students tend to not pay attention n make a hell lot of noise when i was explaining, and when i asked to do similar questions, they claimed they didnt know how to solve, or even approach it! so i ended my class threatening them dat if they didnt learn well, chances are they would fail tomorrow's test very badly!
i tot it was over, but NOOO, my sec 3 Normal Acad Maths class also tested my patience. some of them didnt do the homework assignment i gave them last fri. dat meant they had at least 3 days to complete only 2 qsns, I REPEAT, ONLY 2 QSNS! i started confiscating their EZ-Link cards, and made them do on the spot. i asked 2 students to present their answers so dat i could go thru their mistakes, and allow them to do corrections immediately. so those students who didnt do managed to finish their work (by copying from their friends or the solutions on the board), and handed it promptly.
wat happened next really blew my top sky high! i returned their test papers back, where the failure rate was almost 80%. one even scored a zero, but i pitied him. i think he just studied wrongly. so i was trying very hard to get the entire class's attention just to begin explaining the first part of question 1. instead, i gave a good tongue-lashing to them, so dat they would realise how weak they were. i even asked them if my explanation was too difficult to understand. theni explained dat if they were to talk while i was trying to explain, how would they understand? how would they be able to answer the questions given to them?
so i stopped scolding and began to explain. YET, there were people talking... so i told the entire class to FIND THEIR OWN ANSWERS! Since they're sooo damn smart dat they didnt have to pay any attention to the explanation. i just sat down n did my marking till the class ended. some of them approached me to confirm their answers, so there was some relief for me ah, at least some really wanted to study.
BUT, wat made my day was after dat class. i was doing a maths relief for my colleague. it was a Sec 5 graduating class, and they had assignments to complete. i couldnt care less for those who didnt want to do. to me, they're all BIG enuff to know wats best for them. but, among those lazy ones, 2 students approached me for help. they were doing an assignment on Vectors, my least favourite topic, but Heck, i just offered my help. there were a few qsns i needed to think n try by myself before i could explain to them. Wat made me feel glad, satisfied, Alhamdulillah, was dat the 2 thanked me for helping them, could really see their sincerity and appreciation in having me around to help them! Alhamdulillah, at least it does help me reaffirm believe on my purpose of teaching as a career...
sigh, wat a day, but at least some things do turn out right. i'll be having some extra classes wif the students from Sec 3 Normal Acad, who really wanted to study, they were the ones to ask me for extra classes. so i believe i'd enjoy dis one...
enuff for the day, thanx for reading my nonsense! ;)
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