Sunday, June 03, 2007
Crawl and Hop
Last week, work was quite eventful.
Tuesday:
The national hockey team came to the school to have a friendly match with the kids from the cluster schoosl. They played right outside the science lab so I got to see a bit of it. Hockey is a fun sport to watch and the national team dudes are good. I was impressed with their sleekness and pace. Ok, that statement may not be very reliable because firstly I don't watch much hockey so I can't compare them with other class acts. Secondly, they are playing against 10-12 year olds (though there were like 5 national team guys playing against 10 over kids. Hilarious.) so it was no surprise they played better. I would probably be a bit more star-struck if it was the likes of Aide Iskandar and co. who came. The school's hockey team has a top-notch coach, nice jersey kit and seemingly good equipments. All the soccer team (if there is one, that is) have is a bald-patched never-been-maintained field pitch. Such fairness. Hah. Apparently, the school is pretty big on hockey. Both the girls and boys team won first in the national school competition and they have training session almost everyday.
Previous Thursday and Friday, following Tuesday and Wednesday:
The P1s had a workshop as an introduction to science. It includes bringing them to the school's ecogarden and viewing plants and organisms from the ecogarden using the hand held microscope, magnifying glass and stereo microscope. I assisted the teachers in conducting the workshop. The P1s are such a cute bunch of kids. Cheeky, naughty and unnecessarily noisy. But cute. The organisms used for viewing includes toad, centipede, earthworm, snail, watersnails, tadpoles, fishes, spiders. Bigger animals like the toad, snail and centipede are placed in a closed container. Water animals are placed in small cups to be viewed under the stereo microscope. It was not only the kids who were excited, the teachers and myself were also a bunch of jakuns - going ooohh, waahh and aahh when viewing the organisms. The species are really really interesting I tell you. Under the stereo microscope, you'll get to see the scale details and colours of fishes and tadpoles while they swim around. The plants were also equally interesting. And one of the teachers even managed to get some watersnails eggs. Awesome stuff. The eggs are at different stages – early stages are those with one black dot in the egss. more mature stages are those with fetus-like shape in the eggs. At times we can also spot the heart beating. God is truly great. Every living things have their own feature and details for adaptation. It's amazing.
At the end of the 4-day workshop, we had about 3 animals dead. The kids were pretty violent la. They keep shaking and turning over the containers and spilling cups of tadpoles and fishes. It's not even funny.
Overall it was a great experience. I love this part of the job - constantly learning new stuff.
The picture of the big toad is not clear as i was 7 feet away from it when i took this picture. Yes, it's in a container but it still eekks me. It kept jumping and stretching its dangly arm up to push away the cover. And those small toads - a few still had tails on them. So cool right. Must be the stage before becoming mature adult toads.
Took this off the stereo microscope. See those fetus-like things inside the sacs? Those are the to-be little water snails!
Thursday:
I actually had to stand in for the science HoD and look after her P6 science class. But she was around that day so I just had to assist her with the activity. Eeekk, the P6 kids are quite a challenge. They can get rowdy but this particular class is not that bad.
Friday:
The science HoD invited me to follow her and her science class to Snow City and Science Centre. I was reluctant to accept the offer at first but i don't have to pay for the admission fee and I figure she would need help to look after the kids so I tagged along. Furthermore, by following, I only had to continue working in the lab for another 2 hours. heh.
Snow city and science centre was fun! My first time there ok, so pardon my jakun-ness. However the best part is observing the kids' behaviour. It's nice to just lay back and watch the kids. There are so many different characters. Probably a bit like our classes back in primary or even secondary school. You have:
(a) The joker. This guy fooled me and his teacher when he crouched over and 'cried'. He made it so real la. I seriously though he was crying but when the teacher tried to lift him up, he suddenly got up and laugh. Bleuk. And he is quite a nice guy. One of few who came up to me to talk. He even showed me a magic trick, involving levitating.
I like jokers. Ask me to choose between a good looking guy with almost 0 personality like Tom Cruise and a not necessarily dashing guy but funny with plenty of wit and personality like Jack Black, I'll pick Jack Black, dude!
(b) The teacher's pet. They are present in all classes, don't they? Always sticking to the teacher and only stayed away when the teacher had to pee. I have nothing against teacher's pet. If anything, it is good to have a close relationship with your teachers. No, not because it'll earn you undeserving extra marks for your tests. But by getting close with your teachers, you'll be more comfortable to approach him/her when in doubts academic-wise.
(c) The Handsome Bad Boy. Wah, this guy is a heart-breaker in the making. And it was obvious he is not afraid of me la. Told him to sit down in the van but continuously refused to listen.
(d) The nice, caring girl. When one of her friends got hurt due to the slide in snow city, she constantly ask how the other girl is doing and whether she's alright and stayed with her till she felt better.
(e) The couple. Primary kids should be officially banned from getting attached. Because even if the couple themselves are not very immature, their friends are. The friends constantly teased the couples - its freaking annoying.
(f) The young businessman. This guy sold trading cards to his friends. Apparently he has a huge album full of cards. And he openly conduct his business in front of me. I was sitting beside him in the van and the friends will be like:
Friend: "eh how much are u selling for this card?".
The Businessman: "uhh..$2"
"wahh..so cheap leh. You should sell for $3. This card hard to get."
"I sell cheap la"."Ermm ok maybe I sell $2.50".
"Okay, that’s at least better"
Weird right. Nowhere else would you find customers asking sellers to up their prices.
Illegal business - The teachers I think are aware of this but im not too sure if actions will be taken.
(g) The clique-y girls. They always stick to each other. When I talk to them they will only give me one-liners.
(h) The wandering loner. This guy reminds me a lot of Mr.Bean. We'll be doing head counts and realised one person is missing. And he'll be 15 feet away somewhere.
(i) The geeky, noisy, mushroom-head guy. The main guy who keeps teasing the couple. For someone who is small-built, he has such a super big mouth.
I'm sure each and every one of us falls into at least one of these categories at some point of our lives. I was a bit of (d) and (g) in primary school.
Saturday:
The school had their open house. I think I was initially not involved but thanks (or rather no thanks. heh) to dear Muhaini (She's a special-needs officer in the school. such a great lady.), I land myself a duty. I was in the walkie-talkie team with Muhaini and a few others. My first time handling the walkie-talkie! Another jakun moment. It was pretty fun. and I got to know more teachers through that event.
So the week has been fun. It's the school holidays now but I still have to resume work as per normal. With no upcoming enrichment programmes, work will be rather dull. Not complaining though. At least my bank account is growing, even though it starts shrinking back in a few days.
Tuesday:
The national hockey team came to the school to have a friendly match with the kids from the cluster schoosl. They played right outside the science lab so I got to see a bit of it. Hockey is a fun sport to watch and the national team dudes are good. I was impressed with their sleekness and pace. Ok, that statement may not be very reliable because firstly I don't watch much hockey so I can't compare them with other class acts. Secondly, they are playing against 10-12 year olds (though there were like 5 national team guys playing against 10 over kids. Hilarious.) so it was no surprise they played better. I would probably be a bit more star-struck if it was the likes of Aide Iskandar and co. who came. The school's hockey team has a top-notch coach, nice jersey kit and seemingly good equipments. All the soccer team (if there is one, that is) have is a bald-patched never-been-maintained field pitch. Such fairness. Hah. Apparently, the school is pretty big on hockey. Both the girls and boys team won first in the national school competition and they have training session almost everyday.
Previous Thursday and Friday, following Tuesday and Wednesday:
The P1s had a workshop as an introduction to science. It includes bringing them to the school's ecogarden and viewing plants and organisms from the ecogarden using the hand held microscope, magnifying glass and stereo microscope. I assisted the teachers in conducting the workshop. The P1s are such a cute bunch of kids. Cheeky, naughty and unnecessarily noisy. But cute. The organisms used for viewing includes toad, centipede, earthworm, snail, watersnails, tadpoles, fishes, spiders. Bigger animals like the toad, snail and centipede are placed in a closed container. Water animals are placed in small cups to be viewed under the stereo microscope. It was not only the kids who were excited, the teachers and myself were also a bunch of jakuns - going ooohh, waahh and aahh when viewing the organisms. The species are really really interesting I tell you. Under the stereo microscope, you'll get to see the scale details and colours of fishes and tadpoles while they swim around. The plants were also equally interesting. And one of the teachers even managed to get some watersnails eggs. Awesome stuff. The eggs are at different stages – early stages are those with one black dot in the egss. more mature stages are those with fetus-like shape in the eggs. At times we can also spot the heart beating. God is truly great. Every living things have their own feature and details for adaptation. It's amazing.
At the end of the 4-day workshop, we had about 3 animals dead. The kids were pretty violent la. They keep shaking and turning over the containers and spilling cups of tadpoles and fishes. It's not even funny.
Overall it was a great experience. I love this part of the job - constantly learning new stuff.
The picture of the big toad is not clear as i was 7 feet away from it when i took this picture. Yes, it's in a container but it still eekks me. It kept jumping and stretching its dangly arm up to push away the cover. And those small toads - a few still had tails on them. So cool right. Must be the stage before becoming mature adult toads.
Took this off the stereo microscope. See those fetus-like things inside the sacs? Those are the to-be little water snails!
Thursday:
I actually had to stand in for the science HoD and look after her P6 science class. But she was around that day so I just had to assist her with the activity. Eeekk, the P6 kids are quite a challenge. They can get rowdy but this particular class is not that bad.
Friday:
The science HoD invited me to follow her and her science class to Snow City and Science Centre. I was reluctant to accept the offer at first but i don't have to pay for the admission fee and I figure she would need help to look after the kids so I tagged along. Furthermore, by following, I only had to continue working in the lab for another 2 hours. heh.
Snow city and science centre was fun! My first time there ok, so pardon my jakun-ness. However the best part is observing the kids' behaviour. It's nice to just lay back and watch the kids. There are so many different characters. Probably a bit like our classes back in primary or even secondary school. You have:
(a) The joker. This guy fooled me and his teacher when he crouched over and 'cried'. He made it so real la. I seriously though he was crying but when the teacher tried to lift him up, he suddenly got up and laugh. Bleuk. And he is quite a nice guy. One of few who came up to me to talk. He even showed me a magic trick, involving levitating.
I like jokers. Ask me to choose between a good looking guy with almost 0 personality like Tom Cruise and a not necessarily dashing guy but funny with plenty of wit and personality like Jack Black, I'll pick Jack Black, dude!
(b) The teacher's pet. They are present in all classes, don't they? Always sticking to the teacher and only stayed away when the teacher had to pee. I have nothing against teacher's pet. If anything, it is good to have a close relationship with your teachers. No, not because it'll earn you undeserving extra marks for your tests. But by getting close with your teachers, you'll be more comfortable to approach him/her when in doubts academic-wise.
(c) The Handsome Bad Boy. Wah, this guy is a heart-breaker in the making. And it was obvious he is not afraid of me la. Told him to sit down in the van but continuously refused to listen.
(d) The nice, caring girl. When one of her friends got hurt due to the slide in snow city, she constantly ask how the other girl is doing and whether she's alright and stayed with her till she felt better.
(e) The couple. Primary kids should be officially banned from getting attached. Because even if the couple themselves are not very immature, their friends are. The friends constantly teased the couples - its freaking annoying.
(f) The young businessman. This guy sold trading cards to his friends. Apparently he has a huge album full of cards. And he openly conduct his business in front of me. I was sitting beside him in the van and the friends will be like:
Friend: "eh how much are u selling for this card?".
The Businessman: "uhh..$2"
"wahh..so cheap leh. You should sell for $3. This card hard to get."
"I sell cheap la"."Ermm ok maybe I sell $2.50".
"Okay, that’s at least better"
Weird right. Nowhere else would you find customers asking sellers to up their prices.
Illegal business - The teachers I think are aware of this but im not too sure if actions will be taken.
(g) The clique-y girls. They always stick to each other. When I talk to them they will only give me one-liners.
(h) The wandering loner. This guy reminds me a lot of Mr.Bean. We'll be doing head counts and realised one person is missing. And he'll be 15 feet away somewhere.
(i) The geeky, noisy, mushroom-head guy. The main guy who keeps teasing the couple. For someone who is small-built, he has such a super big mouth.
I'm sure each and every one of us falls into at least one of these categories at some point of our lives. I was a bit of (d) and (g) in primary school.
Saturday:
The school had their open house. I think I was initially not involved but thanks (or rather no thanks. heh) to dear Muhaini (She's a special-needs officer in the school. such a great lady.), I land myself a duty. I was in the walkie-talkie team with Muhaini and a few others. My first time handling the walkie-talkie! Another jakun moment. It was pretty fun. and I got to know more teachers through that event.
So the week has been fun. It's the school holidays now but I still have to resume work as per normal. With no upcoming enrichment programmes, work will be rather dull. Not complaining though. At least my bank account is growing, even though it starts shrinking back in a few days.