Recently some sort of inspiration came to me, through a book that i randomly borrowed from the library. Hurhur the world works in wondrous ways, indeed. It's "Island" by Aldous Huxley. Amazing book. I'm halfway through it. I find it easier to read than "Brave New World". Actually i'm rather surprised at the modernness of this novel, it made references to "University of Manchester" and "Nestle milk chocolate"?! HAHAHAHA!

I just wiki-ed, it was published in 1962. Hmm. Whoa "Island acts as an antonym to Brave New World; it is described as "one of the truly great philosophical novels".[12]" :):):)

Today was a great day.
Even with NASS, if you realized today is Wed-Soul-Crushing-NASS-nesday.

I did something drastic in class, though at that moment, i did it with a sound mind and totally calm mental state. It was the Sec2 class, and towards the last 10min, when i was supposed to deliver that Chinese Tradition/General Info bit, and today's topic was supposed to be Chinese Marriages. Which i also think is damn sian, but still i have to deliver. So i did.

It was a miracle i managed to deliver the coursebook lesson rather efficiently, and towards the last 10mins, the class just descended into endless babbling, and i was already 80% hoarse and i just said "Ok it is pointless for this lesson to go on. That is all for today."

And the class applauded and a boy cheered and got scolded by the teacher sitting at the back of class.

Sigh. But still i just said "tong xue men zai jian," and they replied in disjointed and uncoordinated "lao shi zai jian," and left the class.

There will usually be at least 1 teacher sitting at the back of class, though i have to say i am getting increasingly irritated by them precisely because they dont do anything. But their presence there makes the students feel as if they have some sort of "backing", in the form of their own MT teacher. And the students will come in, and greet their MT teacher and cajole a bit in Malay, while i stand in the front of class feeling totally foolish. There is only 1 female Malay teacher who had been helpful to me, she was the one who made the class stay back and also helped me to scold them and her authority over the class is obvious. And today, she's also the one who scolded the boy who cheered. But she cannot do anything else about making the class listen to me, or making the class interested, or making them realize nobody can help them but themselves.

After the class cleared out, and the there-as-good-as-not-there male teacher also left together (&@^%#$@%$&^@%$&#@) she came to talk to me and Shumin also came to my class, so we had a little talk about how to improve my class with this Sec2 class, and she gave suggestions and said NA/NT is really vastly different from Express, and i cannot use my "Express-method" to deal with them.

Sigh it's actually rather depressing to think about this in greater depth.

Anyway after NASS, had lunch at Tampines and then headed down to Bugis for EcoTravel interview! Met into Shanti and Veron at Bugis junction, and Shanti Veron and Shumin went to Shaw Towers while i went to the EcoSphere office for my interview.

HURHUR this part is the funniest. I couldnt find Cindy, so i decided to go to the toilet first. The only cubicle was occupied. Actually at this point i should have realized it was prob Cindy inside. But i didnt. And i was calling Pong (while waiting for the toilet) to ask her where i should go, what's Cindy's number. So imagine my face when the toilet door opened and a smiling Cindy greeted me while am-chio-ing.

The interview went okay, i guess, it was really just a chit-chat session. But at the end of it, the best part about it was that, i really see that, results are not everything, and she is definitely more respectable and admirable and infinitely better than just 4As and 8 distinctions. I left her office feeling rather inspired, and i'm definitely looking forward to working with them in future. :) I hope my enthusiasm isnt short-lived.

Anyway ultimately, really, i know it's easy to say, but difficult to do, but you dont have to justify yourself to anyone, but yourself. You will understand when you understand. Today i feel the weight of the world LIFTED from my shoulders. Sometimes our minds are such terrible traps.

Ok, ending with Photo Of The Day. Kindly taken by Shanti, using my own phone, after she realized what an apt pillar this was, for me. HAHAHAHAHA?! We (4 of us) were randomly talking and walking in Bugis Junction, and to extract ourselves from obstructing the whole passageway, i just quickly walked over to the JCo pillar and said "OK LET'S ADJOURN TO THE PILLAR"

Ironically, the word that's blocked out is "rich" HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Life is great.