I'm in the mood to write
Marking the entire Sec 1's Geog papers was a real downer. After work, I still have to put in 4 hours at home everyday on all those papers. For an entire week... When it was all done, I then had to key in more than 280 students' marks, all clearly categorised into sections at that. Good thing I had my colleagues who offered to help because without them, I would seriously have set fire to those papers. It's a ridiculous amount of work for one man, really.
Then came the one-hour session to go through the paper with all 280 of them, which was quite daunting, not because of the many pairs of eyes staring back at me blankly but rather I was "assisted" by all the senior teachers. In short, I was being watched much like the kids were. I went in, hoping to start off on a bright note (Good morning, my fellow geographers. Blah, blah *loud cheers*) but that was put to rest when the senior teachers started admonishing the lousy jackasses who were 1) making noise 2)not paying attention 3) both. It was eeerily quiet after that, which made me seriously uncomfortable since I am not the type to put down students so harshly unless they seriously deserve it. In this case, a little noise is to be expected when you put all 280 little rascals together in an auditorium.
Maybe I should be a little stricter already. Can't be too different from the senior teachers. It's the post-exam period and understandably, the kids want a little downtime. Me included. Still, that means no magic cards, no groups of more than 2 persons, no excessive toilet time and certainly no sleeping in class.
Friday was a non-event except I got my pay, which made me feel a little rich plus Mum's going for a 14-day China trip. It costs a whooping $2700 but that wasnt the bugbear of it all. Apparently, her friend had made a mess of the entire appointment to meet the travel agents, so we had to linger outside this dodgy-looking shopfront posing as a travel company for a tiring 1.5 hours. That really pissed me off cos I had gone with her, hoping to pay for her package with my Visa card and get the reward points. It's ridiculous that we are paying customers and the whole thing was such a mess that we ended up wasting our time and THEN had to pay for it too. We ended up exploring the nearby shops in this run-down estate near Defu Lane area, where I chanced upon this old-skool shop selling biscuits in old tin boxes, some obscure Chinese snacks and get this, made-in-Switzerland Marlboro lights. The latter going for $10.90, which is almost a dollar cheaper than the usual, so I bought two packets :)
Saturday wasnt very much either. Just some post-tuition relaxation at Zouk. As usual, Aldrin disappoints. He's so very ordinary now, after he morphed his sound this much. What a pity. The sound system was running at its peak but whatever escaped from the zoo and through those massive speakers was BORING. So RJ and I ended up drinking at the winebar, which was surprisingly less crowded than most days. That suited us fine. Then it was on to the dancefloor for a very short while, followed by a oh-so-satisfying supper in Geylang.
It was shark's fin soup served in a Chinese pumpkin. Considering the no. of times of "shiok" we almost yell, it deserves its own post at a later date.
Then came the one-hour session to go through the paper with all 280 of them, which was quite daunting, not because of the many pairs of eyes staring back at me blankly but rather I was "assisted" by all the senior teachers. In short, I was being watched much like the kids were. I went in, hoping to start off on a bright note (Good morning, my fellow geographers. Blah, blah *loud cheers*) but that was put to rest when the senior teachers started admonishing the lousy jackasses who were 1) making noise 2)not paying attention 3) both. It was eeerily quiet after that, which made me seriously uncomfortable since I am not the type to put down students so harshly unless they seriously deserve it. In this case, a little noise is to be expected when you put all 280 little rascals together in an auditorium.
Maybe I should be a little stricter already. Can't be too different from the senior teachers. It's the post-exam period and understandably, the kids want a little downtime. Me included. Still, that means no magic cards, no groups of more than 2 persons, no excessive toilet time and certainly no sleeping in class.
Friday was a non-event except I got my pay, which made me feel a little rich plus Mum's going for a 14-day China trip. It costs a whooping $2700 but that wasnt the bugbear of it all. Apparently, her friend had made a mess of the entire appointment to meet the travel agents, so we had to linger outside this dodgy-looking shopfront posing as a travel company for a tiring 1.5 hours. That really pissed me off cos I had gone with her, hoping to pay for her package with my Visa card and get the reward points. It's ridiculous that we are paying customers and the whole thing was such a mess that we ended up wasting our time and THEN had to pay for it too. We ended up exploring the nearby shops in this run-down estate near Defu Lane area, where I chanced upon this old-skool shop selling biscuits in old tin boxes, some obscure Chinese snacks and get this, made-in-Switzerland Marlboro lights. The latter going for $10.90, which is almost a dollar cheaper than the usual, so I bought two packets :)
Saturday wasnt very much either. Just some post-tuition relaxation at Zouk. As usual, Aldrin disappoints. He's so very ordinary now, after he morphed his sound this much. What a pity. The sound system was running at its peak but whatever escaped from the zoo and through those massive speakers was BORING. So RJ and I ended up drinking at the winebar, which was surprisingly less crowded than most days. That suited us fine. Then it was on to the dancefloor for a very short while, followed by a oh-so-satisfying supper in Geylang.
It was shark's fin soup served in a Chinese pumpkin. Considering the no. of times of "shiok" we almost yell, it deserves its own post at a later date.
posted by Ming at 2:18 PM
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