Imagination Can Save Your Future

I read sometime ago that the profession that uses the most imagination is a teacher. How true, but to make it more specific, you should ask 'Which teacher?"


Believe it or not, I use A LOT of imagination in my classes. For example, last week in the lab, teaching the properties of water.


"Can you tell me some of the properties of water?" and silence befell the entire room. This is the usual reaction when we teach the last classes. Too dumb or too lazy to answer. Always rile me up.
"Now imagine having a glass of water in your hand," I lifted a hand up, while holding my imaginary glass of fantasy water.
"RAISE YOUR GODDAMN HAND NOW AND PRETEND YOU HAVE A GLASS OF WATER OR I'LL GUT YOUR NEXT EXAM RESULTS!!!" a loud voice and a threat to their immediate future usually does the trick. All students now have that metaphoric glass in their hand.
"Now tell me, what can you SEE, SMELL and TOUCH from the water in your glass?" and I got answers at last.


See? Forced imagination is good for yer health!


(I can EASILY take a beaker and fill it with water from the nearest tap, but I didn't. I believe in the power of imagination. A good teacher must have incredible imagination to fill in those unique gaps inside every student's mind)  

Of Blue Skies and AIDS

My Indian blogger friend, et said he was so envious of the blue sky at the beach, even nearing dark in the previous post. So to spite him further :) , and to amuse the rest of you, I am presenting some blue sky pictures I took in school. These are taken with my Sony DSC-H3 digital camera (loving it!). The pictures in the previous post were taken with my mobile phone's camera, LG-Cookie. So they are not as sharp and colourful as my Sony's.

This is near the entry of my school. I snapped this pic first when I saw the sky was exceptionally cloudless and blue. Beyond is the school field.

Thirty degrees to the left of the first pic. Please notice that I prefer to take pics without anybody in them. Shots with people should be full of people.

And this is the elevated platform / rostrum where the teachers sit on chairs for the morning assembly. The school buildings are orange in colour. This picture would be perfect for the front page of this year's school magazine, but I decided not to front this idea. Not like they are paying for my services as the school photographer anyway :P

On a darker note; Somebody I knew admitted in his blog that he is now HIV positive. He had suffered extreme pressure from his peer - the vicious gossips, the patronizing look etc and he had enough. So he tells everybody that yes, he got AIDS and please stop hurting him further. His partner left him a couple of months back, he lost his job and the future is interestingly bleak for this fellow.

I DID advice him not to sleep around like a common slut, but you all guessed pretty well that he ignored my well meaning intention. Now, all I can do, all we can do is watch him dying from afar. Encouraging words, consolation and hugs are not going to help where he's heading.

I did try to help, and I so despise people who asked for help when we said NO in the first place.


What would you do?   

At The Beach AGAIN for Iftar

And yesterday evening it was raining cats and dogs..... A couple of friends had promised to accompany me to the beach to break fast earlier, but as the weather continued from bad to worse...


"I think we should cancel the outing, it is raining so hard here," my friend said via cellphone.
"And what makes you think a bit of wet weather can stop any of my plans?"
"But it's RAINING! There would be very few people at the food bazaar and the beach."
"My point exactly." I hate crowds.


I love rainy days. I think I told you people many times before. :)


The rain continued pouring like some huge waterfall from the sky. We had to buy our food in the heavy downfall from smiling vendors, safe and dry under their canopies and tents. I had to act sensible by using an umbrella, but fiddling with one while buying stuff was so hard! I'd prefer to be umbrella-less, but people might point; Who's that fool without an umbrella in this hellish weather?


Being popular is not a priority.

The two friends accompanying me to the very wet beach. I decided to break fast at the same place like before. We had to wipe the platform dry with a rag before sitting.

The sky after heavy rain. Where the hell was the sun?!

At last it showed her pretty face later in the west. My big friend was busy capturing a video of the waves.

Strange formations of clouds at dusk. And no one else to share it with (only the 3 of us at the deserted beach)

East Coast West Coast

I was with a friend at the beach this evening, waiting for the sun to set to break fast (yes, it is the Islamic fasting month already, Ramadan). As we watch the orange orb falling slowly amidst the clouds near the horizon, he asked me;
"Why I never see the sun sets in Mersing?" Mersing is his hometown.


I raised my eyebrows. 
"You didn't pay enough attention to your Geography teacher in school, did you?"
"And what's Geography got to do with this?" his nostrils flared.
"We are at the beach of Malacca, in the West. Mersing is on the OTHER side, in the East. The sun rises in the east. Japan is in the east, so it was also known as 'The Land of The Rising Sun'. Remember this lesson."
"Yes, TEACHER."


It is nice to make things right (in people's head) :)

  The sun sets at the Straits of Malacca. Gorgeous.

My friend taking the picture of the setting sun. His plastic bag filled with cold lychee drink was hung at a nail by the wooden post.

The beach was deserted at dusk. Oh well, it is quieter this way. And look at my dusty and dirty car! 

Canteen Day @ When You Let An Evil Genius Handle A Business....

It's picture blogging time! We had a slew of activities to participate for the Co-Curriculum / Technic Week. Students and teachers spent a lot of time having fun (meaning, no serious teaching took place).

The football match between classes, 10 minutes for each game. But the picture above.... The Teacher's Team versus some 15 years olds. I didn't participate - mainly because I hate football, and secondly I have no interest to be sweaty after an activity. Teacher's Team won 2-0.

Look at the 'raptured' faces of the singing competition judges. This was a huge attraction for students (the reason why most students are silly, they already had their minds full with songs....)  I have no interest in this activity too. If I want to hear a good song, I'll buy the cd or even better, download it illegally :P

My fav part of the week; Canteen Day! These are my slaves servants free helpers for my stall. Another female teacher and I managed the stall, but mostly I did the whole bossing people around. We sold assorted nuggets (chicken, crab, cuttlefish), steamed sausages and fried chicken.  

Look at the loser competitors next door.... Unlike mine, which sold high calorie and cholesterol choked food, these people had fruits and salads for sale at their stall. Look at the pain in their faces as they never come close to half of my customers. Mwa ha ha ha! (evil laugh) And you still wonder why McDonald's and KFC rule the planet..... Fried stuff people! Oily food is KING!

But these fools competitors came second after us in revenue.... Burgers.... I do not have the facilities to create burgers or Crispy McEvil will be one in the menu for sure. I was told that their burgers wasn't that good anyway :P

  And finally, LOOK at the hordes of students at my stall! And look at the face of one, enjoying our steamed sausage. Many of my patrons were indeed brain-washed to buy from me. "Buy or ELSE!" that's the evil business motto. But heck, it WORKS! Some even bought over and over again. Maybe the food was really good, or maybe my magnetic charm. If I can use this power to persuade people in business, I can do great wonders in politics then....


Who wants me to be their new MP? :angel

The Things Girls Would Do....

In my personal book, female students are more dangerous than boys. In this Muslim country where religious correctness is always paramount, there are different unsaid rules in engaging both sexes. For female students, unrelated males are not supposed to touch them (willingly or not), no screaming abuses, no heavy punishment etc towards them. Female = fairer sex = weaker half.

I call this a GARGANTUAN hill of bull excrement. (Yes, I support equality in all).

Because of these 'privileges', many young females today are every bit the social trash of the society. Because of the 'no touching rule', many girls have stuff they are not supposed to bring to school. Stuff like handphones, make up, perfumes etc.

And some of you might scream at the barbarity of this. "Let the kids have their make up in school! Have you no heart?! My teachers let us wear perfume!" etc etc.
Here, every student must be in school uniform. The meaning of UNIFORM should be suffice to rule out any objection. Unmonitored creativity in clothing, smell and look paves a path to Chaos.

Anyway, we had a spot check this morning and a great pile of confisticated make up and cosmetics was produced from the girls. I had fun crunching a huge amount of mascaras, cheap perfumes, compact powder etc under my heavy construction boots of power.

Many girls hid forbidden items anywhere they can think of. Some tried to bury / throw stuff on the school field where they were held before check up. Some put items inside their underwear and bras (despicable!) A few passed their things to girl prefects for safe keeping. UNFORTUNATELY. The items found on / in the field were vehemently stamped on by yours truly, and the pieces went into the dustbin. The items in underwears and bras were all found by female teachers who has EVERY RIGHT to touch girls in this special occassion. And one female prefect was caught handling her friend's mobile phone, she will be demoted soon.

Anyway, let me show you the piece de resistance....  Mobile phones on rice! A couple of girls decided to put their gadgets inside their packed breakfast. The rice was still very hot, I wonder if the phones still work after that. But this ingenuity was lost because my prefects were very thorough in going through people stuff :)

 Oh, by the way, the girl with the braces is a prefect. She just posed for the picture for me.

Before You Guys Think I Am Dead :P

As the tough guys would say; Suck it up and join the battle! We need no wuss.
I am no wuss, but being extravagant is always a good way to be the target yourself. Anyway, my sulkiness is ancient history (last week). I have a replacement for my broken vessel of love, but UNFORTUNATELY I cannot tell any of you here. God knows how many of my students are reading this :P

Two days ago, as I was driving to the cinema.... an accident occurred scant 50 metres in front of me. An old Indian man was ploughing / pushing his ancient black bicycle across the street when a small white compact car sped by and fully hit the back tyre of the man's bicycle!!
The aftermath was hillarious :O  Many would expect the poor man to be flung on the road, his bicycle became twisted metal. No, nothing happened to the man, nor his bicycle! But the front bumper of the car was RIPPED wide open and fell on the road!!! HA HA HA HA HA!
I laughed out aloud because the driver of the car galled me; he sped off, escaping the crime scene. Maybe he thought he had caused harm to the old man, but how wrong a criminal mind can be. Serves you good for being reckless on the road and stupid to boot.
As for the old Indian man, he didn't look shaken, only a bit annoyed and continued his way across the street. His bike was not even dented a bit.
Now that's quality ancient stuff :) I wish I can take a picture of the bike. It's one of the old black bicycles manufactured predating Independence. Very rare now on the streets.

On a lighter mode, let me show you a piece of polar bear fur I have in my possession.

    It's so bloody fluffy! The polar bear must be so fat and furry! Die polar bears, DIE!!

It's a kind of a mini rug, on my bed. The fur so luxurious to touch. Must have a bigger one soon...

Hold your horses boys! Before you (animal lovers) disown me for being a fur freak, I am just JOKING. It's not even real fur. It is actually wool spun to create a very furry rug. I love polar bears, ok :) I used to have a huge polar bear as a child a long time ago. I bought the rug from IKEA 3 weeks ago. :angel 

Shopping therapy is a good thing.