Work's Over! Play Begins! (or continues...)

Yep, the four-day course is finally over. Learnt many interesting lessons, met many interesting people. It's really refreshing to have a group made up of professional coaches, HR personnel, IT people and Executive VP of a college. It was awesome to hear and learn from them!

Well, tomorrow, it's back to San Francisco... and final shopping! Yeah! Can't wait to get back to Singapore and enjoy all the stuff I am buying!

Back to work...

Yeah... Fun's over... at least for the next couple of days. I'm currently in Sonoma, a little out of the way town in Napa Valley (north of San Francisco), attending the Leadership Challenge workshop. Today was the first of 4 days and 'phew' talk about tiring. we went all the way from 8am to 5pm and I must say it has been quite insightful doing an evaluation of my leadership style. It's very interesting to see what are other people's perception of what my leadership style is. Gives me plenty of opportunity to reflect. It's another three days to go.. then back to shopping in San Francisco! I think I am going to have a problem with my luggage at the airport... so many things to buy... so little luggage allowance!

Ho-hum...

Godzillafest was a letdown. I spent almost 30mins trying to locate the place (which was somewhere in Japantown) and finally found it at some small gymnasium at the Community centre. But... boy was it a disappointment! There were only like 5 tables selling lame Godzilla stuff and one projctor showing... nothing! sigh...

I spent the rest of the day on the public transport. Rode the tram from beginning to end... and to the beginning again! Sounds aimless... yeah... it was. But in a nice, relaxing kinda way.

When I got back, I was really glad to watch 'Adult Swim' on the TV. Relax, it's not some porn thing.. It's the mature Anime programming. It was totally shiok! I watch Full Metal Alchemist (although it's only the third episode, but the English version was really good) as well as half an episode of Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex... half cause I was so tired I kinda just fell asleep. It's so sad that Singapore has nothing like this. The closest is the new Arts Central one hour section showing some anime (which I wasn't able to watch before I came to US). Sigh.. to have a Sci-fi & Anime channel in Singapore!

Shopping Frenzy

Today was great. I spent the whole day at the Great Mall of the Bay Area. It's a really huge mall with over 200 shops. If I'm not wrong, it used to be a Ford factory. To get there, I had to take a BART (kinda like the MRT) to Fremont then look for the bus to get me to the Mall. Altogether, it took me about 35 mins by train and 25 mins by bus to get to the mall. It was kinda exciting, cause I relied on public transportation to get me there.

I LOVE the shops there. Although I spent close to 6hours there, I barely visited half the shops! But, I've got to the critical shops like BIG DOGs where I stocked up on new T-shirts. Also managed to get some shoes. I simply love the shoes here, BIG sizes to fit my BIG feet. I was spoilt for choices unlike back in Singapore where I had to hunt for size 13 shoes.

Tomorrow, I plan to go for this Godzilla festival.. sounds fun, eh!

Raining in San Francisco

Finally here... San Francisco... It's been more than 4 years since I visited the US and I must say I was very excited about coming to the US after all this time. The long plane ride here was really quite bearable, thanks to the improved Krisworld system on SQ. Wow... I was quite impressed that we can now start the movie any time we like instead of following a fixed schedule last time. There were so many movies to watch and Nintendo Gameboy games as well. Must say this is quite an upgrade!

Visiting San Francisco is almost like going to a familiar place. I've been here so often that I find it quite easy to find my way around the place without even a map. Unfortunately, the weather has not been kind and I am getting a bit of jet lag so although it's only 6.20pm here, I'm pretty much ready to sleep.

I'm looking forward to visiting the Exploratorium tomorrow and I have to see how I can mak a trip to the Great Mall of the Bay Area... my favourite mall in California.

Well, think it's just abuo time to hit the sack. Nite!

Camps camps camps...

The CCAL camp was not too bad. Gave me the chance to get to know some other Sec 3 leaders instead of just the prefects. But I will be frank and admit that the lectures were a little overwhelming. There were many things which we wanted to do with the CCALs, but I think sitting through hours of lectures really makes it tiring and sleep-inducing. Well, it's the first time we're covering the Leadership Challenge model and I guess we're learning how best to teach it to the CCALs. I'm sure next year will be better.

Prefects' Retreat from 6 to 8 Nov was really fun. I had a good time there too. I think it was a nice balance of fun activities and serious ones. I think I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. I really laughed until I had a bit of a throbbing headache! Generally, this batch of prefects are a really fun lot. Hope they really enjoyed themselves as much as I did.

Then we had PSL training today. I thought this year's training was pretty good. It was relevant and I think we covered more topics on how the PSLs can handle the new Sec 1s. I do feel sorry for the prefects... three camps in a row... CCAL, then Prefects Retreat and PSL. Phew.

Well, as for me, I'm finally off to my favourite country.... USA! I will be leaving on Thursday morning and will be staying there until 24 November. It will be fun for me to try and log on to talk more about my trip. Hope I can find some time and a nice Internet cafe to do it.

Hope everyone is findig time to relax and do things differently during the holz!

I Hate Games.

Yep. You heard it right. I hate games.

I hate them cause I don't have time to play them.

I hate them cause when I play them, I don't have time to do other things which I am supposed to do.

I hate them cause when I start, it's so hard to stop.

The holidays have started and yet I haven't even turned on any of my consoles since then! Last Saturday, I actually tried playing a demo of Warhammer: Dawn of War and once I started, it was 2.5 hours later that I stopped! And that was only one level! Sigh. Where got time to play?
Sigh. I hate games.

Holidays? Heh... Not quite yet..

It's been almost a week since the 'holidays' started. Believe me, the quotation marks are well deserved. I can't believe how hectic it has been since the holidays started. Yeah, you heard it right... HECTIC.

On the same day that the school ended, I had to attend a meeting from 2pm to 6.30pm. The next day, I had to attend meetings from 8am to 12 noon then 8pm to 10pm. On Friday, guess what? Another two meetings! One from 8am to 1pm and another from 2pm to 4pm. Exciting eh? Meetings are fun. We LOVE meetings! Of course, on Saturday, there was the Parent-Teacher Meeting, which didn't go too badly actually. I was pretty much burned out on meetings.

This week hasn't been much better so far. With the CCAL camp going on, my first two days were spent taking part in it and burning late night oils to prepare my session for the camp. Not sure if it was interesting to the CCALs. Tried not to make it all talk talk talk... hope i was somewhat successful.

Well, another three days before Prefects' Retreat. I'm kinda looking forward to it cause it's supposed to be one where everyone gets to relax. I don't think things will ease up until the end of Nov.

The End...

YEP! It's finally here...

The End of the school year... no more lessons! But frankly, faced with meetings, camps and courses, school will pretty much will go on at least until the end of November. It has been a busy year. Interesting, but really tiring. I can't wait to really kick back and play some games!

Distractions. Yep, with the end of the common tests, there have been many many distractions. It's been more than a week since I last blogged. I hang my head in shame. There goes my commitment to blog regularly. Well, I can always try again.

The common tests have come and gone. Some of you have been asking what I felt about the common tests. Like I said, I think there were some students who could have definitely done better. It was a little disappointing to see some students failing what I considered a reasonably easy test.

Rafflesian Spotlight was fun. I think the soloists were really really good. I know some students said it was unfair that Kaiyang won, but frankly, it was the students' votes which really decided everything... so the only people to blame are really the students themselves! The judges were also hilarious. Nothing can beat YH1 giving Kaiyang her extension number during the comments by judges.

Prefect Elections are over. By tomorrow the school will be informed about who the newly elected prefects. My hearty congratulations to those who have been elected. The worst part of the job is having to inform the nominees who did not make it. It really breaks my heart... I was also a little disappointed with a group of sec 3s who were apparently out to disrupt the whole elections. It's sad that they found it more meaningful to cast spoilt votes and try to spread the same sentiments to their batch mates.

The last thing I am going to write about is.... I've finally bought a new computer! Yeah! It's a Dell Inspiron 8400. Not the very best, but I think it's good enough. Pentium 4, 3.0GHz, 512 Mb ram, 160Gb hard disk.. Whoo hoo! Now I can play ALMOST all the new games!

OK, then, hope to blog a little more regularly. Until next time... Live Long and Prosper...

Watched SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW yesterday with my class. I really liked the robots and vehicle designs. The fella is really creative. But, I didn't like the grey tone of the whole movie. Yeah.. I noe it's supposed to be like that, but I just find the whole movie so dreary. Nodded off a few times.

Today, I went out with two of my former students from my previous school. It's really nice to meet up with them again for a meal and a movie. I'm glad they've 'evolved' into my friends. It was nice to hang out a the cafe and just talk about rubbish. Oh yah, we watched 2046. Unless you are a diehard Wong Kar Wai fan, avoid this movie like the plague!!! It's so bad... the three of us kept wishing for the movie to be over. Really wish I knew what the movie was about! As a reviewer said...the director can spend minutes showing smoke coming out from a cigarette... oooooo... how exciting eh?

Life's so fun... mark, mark, mark, mark, mark.....

I've not blogged for a few days... not cause I'm particularly busy, but I think it's more cause I've been quite slack.. :-P It's the usual calm before the storm. As the students (or at least most of them, I hope) busy themselves with the common tests, I can take a breather and wait for my papers to come in on Wednesday. Then, as they unwind with their post-CT activities, I will pretty much be holed-up in my room, slogging at the scripts, trying hard to find that extra mark to give..heh heh.

Well, the weekend was quite uneventful. My friend's husband who just came back from Australia, helped me to buy a DVD which I had been searching for for a long time. It's the pilot for a new series 'Battlestart Galactica' which is based on a TV show of the same name which first appeared on TV about 25 years ago (yes.. I am that old... sigh). The new series is really good. They managed to work in many things about the old series into the new so there is enough connection for people like me who watched the original version. The 'Vipers' are one of the nicer space fighter crafts I've seen. Battlestar is very often compared to Star Wars as it came to the small screen very soon after Star Wars started. For those who are really keen, you can find out more at this site: http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/

I'm looking forward to the holidays. There are many DVDs that I have been stockpiling to watch. I've got Full Metal Alchemist and Rahxephon, two sets of anime which will take up a big chunk of my time. Of course, it'll all have to wait until the common test papers are marked. Sigh. One more day of freedom for me.

It has been a while since I read a chinese comic. On Wednesday, I was at the comic shop in Thomson Plaza when I saw a copy of RAHXEPHON. Earlier on, I had read that the anime was very good so I thought the manga should be quite interesting. Furthermore, the whole series was only 3 volumes long. So, I thought, what the heck. In the end, I found that I really enjoyed the manga! It was similar to Evangelion in many ways but it was unique enough to be different (uh.. did that sentence make sense??). I quickly went back and bought the remaining two volumes and I've almost finished reading them. It was fun to read a serious story with the occasional 'funny-drawing'. Those of you who read japanese comics will know what I mean. Now, I'm really tempted to buy the anime. BUT, I think I'd better control myself. I still have two DVDs of Full Metal Alchemist to watch and not forgetting... the dreaded CTs will be coming in soon for marking... I think I can look forward to some holiday anime viewing!

I remember when I really loved japanese comics. The very first ones I got hooked on where the old Astro Boy comics! I remember reading them when I was in primary school. The next big series that I got hooked on was none other than Dragonball! Wow... that one was really good. I remember buying the whole set, almost 40 books if I remember correctly. It was a really good series, the action, the humour, the fantasy elements all came together very well. There were some other series, but for the last few years, I didn't really read any japanese manga but kept to american comics. Looks like it is time to start catching up again! Anyone have any good manga out there to recommend?

Monday. I wonder why God made Mondays. Wouldn't it be cool if we skipped Mondays and proceeded on to say... Wednesday? Then it would only be three days before the weekend again! Actually, instead of a 5 day week, I'm actually more supportive of declaring Wednesday as a day off. Think about it... School on Monday and Tuesday, then break on Wednesday. Then School on Thursday and Friday and CCA on Saturday. Great idea, right? There can be a day to rest in the middle of the week!

Today's lunch talk was not too bad. Talk was so-so, food was good, company was fun. My heartfelt thanks to the cherry overload from the people at my table. I don't think I've ever eaten so many maraschino cherries at one go... talk about a sugar overload.

There must be something which the TV stations have against Sci-fi shows. The shows are always screened at weird times like past midnight or on a weekend afternoon when most people would prefer to be out of the house rather than inside. The stations then say there is no demand for such shows and stop purchasing them. It's a pretty vicious cycle. Enterprise is one of the victims. It's shown on Sunday afternoon at 1pm, when most people would probably be out for lunch. For the non-sci-fi lovers, Enterprise is the latest incarnation of the Star Trek series. I long for the day Singapore has a Sci-fi channel like in the US.

Anyway, I watched two episodes of Enterprise today (recorded last week's but did not have time to watch earlier). While the stories were ok, I can't help but notice they must start every episode with a massage scene between T'pol (the female vulcan) and Tucker (the hormone-raging male). It's quite funny. Really using sex to sell the series. I think it's just a really cheap and low-class way to get more viewers. But I guess as long as sex sells... they'll keep doing it.

If you're interested to find outmore about Enterprise, here's a site you can visit: http://www.saveenterprise.com/

The prefects had a farewell gathering for the Sec 4s today. It's a little hard to believe, but I have already worked with two ripb excos... and been in the job for two years. Time really flies. Especially in our school. Each day zooms and sometimes, it's near impossible to stop to catch a breath. This batch of Sec 4s were only Sec 1s when I taught them when I first joined the school. Yep, 4 years since I joined. Like I said, time flies. The farewell was fun. Food was good and we basically relaxed and had a good time. Only 3.5 weeks to the holidays. Can you believe it!??

Went Takashimaya for a walk after the movies. They were having a 3-day 20% sale! Saw the Zoids Blox going at 20% off so decided to buy one to take a look. My brother had told me they were quite cool. Hope it turns out right.

It was nice to have a day off. After 4 days of conducting interviews, the day off was very much welcomed. I went to watch two movies, WHITE CHICKS and SAVED!. Met a student with his, uh, 'special' friend. Heh heh.. wat luck eh? Meeting a teacher when you are out on a date. :P
WC was ok.. not as funny as I had expected. But Saved! was really quite good. The only reason why it's rated M18 is becoz it's pretty much a christian satire. I think some christians might be offended at the way it makes fun of the christians in the movie, but seriously, I think christians should watch this movie to see how being a fanatic can really be a big joke! In the movie, the teenage girl decides to have premarital sex with her gay boyfriend becoz she thought she had a vision of Jesus (who was actually a pool attendant divinginto the water to save her)! It's quite silly, but I think it's a good reminder for christians to see how sometimes we can take our faith to a ridiculous level.

I've not been to Orchard Cineleisure for a long time. I generally dun like to go there coz it's often crowded and I dun really like the seats there. Well, I finally went there today coz the show I wanted to watch was only showing there. I saw this really nice statue of spider-man on the wall next to the escalators. Really quite cool. Have you guys seen it before? Noticed anywhere else with interesting statues? Tell me and I might make a trip there to take a pic!