Goodbye, Mr substitute teacher

Was supposed to write this post last night but ended up sleeping instead ahaha.

So yesterday, my classmates and I had to say goodbye to our substitute teacher who was with us for about 2 months(?). I'd say it was a bittersweet experience though I can't speak for the rest of my classmates.

The first time we met him was in the beginning of the year during our civic class. Apparently our civic teacher took a hiatus from teaching so before she came back, we were stuck with a substitute teacher. Nobody took him seriously as he was only a few years older than us which makes him sort of like a senior rather than a teacher. It didn't help that he acted more like a senior than a teacher.

Over the lessons, we'd began to learn some things about our sub, like why he wanted to become a teacher, how he was coping in this new environment, his back-stories as well as get some insight on his life as a student in college. We also had the pleasure of witnessing how our sub struggles to speak English, how goofy he actually is and how similar he is to us, being only a few year older and a college student. I remember him saying how scared he was of the teachers here and how surreal it was to be in the teacher's lounge as a teacher as opposed to a student. He described the feeling as " a student trespassing on teachers' territory ". We all had a good laugh.

After a few weeks, our civic teacher came back and it was time for him to leave. However, we didn't send him off like we did yesterday because we barely spent any time with him ( we only had 2 civic lessons per week ) so there wasn't really any will to send him off since the connection between us and him was quite thin. Besides, he was still going to be on school grounds so it's not like we weren't ever going to see him again. 

Little did we know that a few months later, he would be back in our class again, this time substituting for our maths/add maths teacher who went into labour and was going to be away for 3 months. Ah, I still remember that day. When he came in, he told us that he was furious at his friend ( who was also a substitute at our school ) for going to Singapore thus leaving him with the task of teaching us maths and add maths. It was a funny sight to see because his goofiness was showing as he spoke. We couldn't help but chuckle.

Because maths and add maths were way more important than civic, we had more periods of them. So basically, we got to see our sub 4 days a week over the past month which is longer than the time he subbed for our civic teacher. 

Eventually, I think every one of us got used to the idea of seeing him every week that when the inevitable came, some of us were unwilling to see him leave, especially since our maths teacher is an uptight person who boasts about her intelligence at every chance she gets. Having him around was easy-going and fun, and it made the days at school more bearable. I'm pretty sure that once our teacher comes back, all of us will revert to our miserable selves all the while getting stressed over our teacher's incompetence at teaching properly. Seriously, the lady expects us to answer difficult questions after only teaching us the basics. 

And even though our sub is not as good of a teacher as our maths teacher, I still prefer him over her. I'm quite sure that I'd rather have a humble teacher than an arrogant one. Having to endure lessons with arrogant teachers is really distasteful and it also makes the learning experience quite unenjoyable. Also, I do attend tuition classes so it's not like I'm going to fail maths or add maths if I don't learn them at school.

Moving on, yesterday we had our first 2 periods and last period with our sub. We studied a little for the first 2 periods but during the last period, we pleaded with him to not teach and instead focus on saying goodbye. That's exactly what he did. Our last 30 minutes with our sub was spent with people giving him rainbow looms as farewell gifts and having a few pictures taken with his phone. 

When the bell finally rang, all of us stood united and said "thank you, teacher" to our sub for the very last time. This time, he was leaving our school, so it meant that we weren't going to see him on school grounds anymore. 

In conclusion, I'm truly glad and thankful that I was able to experience such a wonderful experience during my short period of time in this class. I have seen some teachers come and go with my old classmates but those experiences can't compare to the one I had the pleasure of experiencing yesterday with my new classmates. The atmosphere was lively and cheerful and I felt that we were all united as a class in contrast to when I felt really out-of-place during my previous experiences. I hope our sub enjoyed his time with us just as much as we had enjoyed our time with him. 



Goodbye, and good luck.

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Just because~

REALLY short update 

I had to include this in my blog because rarely do I see a boy read a novel- let alone a popular romance novel.

I'm sure judging by the colour of my font, the title of that popular romance novel must be popping up in your head already. Has it not? Well then, let me give you a hint.

Okay? Okay

No? Fine. It's "The Fault In Our Stars". 

My friend and I saw my classmate-who is a boy-read tfios in school yesterday, and it was a surprising sight to see. To say that he wasn't made fun of because of that would be of course, false.

His friends were teasing him about reading tfios but much to my amazement, he didn't give a shit. Nu-uh, the dude just continues reading on like nothing had happened once they finally left him alone. 

Now THIS is something I would like to see almost everyday. I mean, why can't there be more guys who would rather sit down and read a book-any book-than make noise and play around in class? Honestly, that would be a pleasurable sight to see.

I give my classmate two thumbs up for just being awesome~! :p

UPDATE 08|08|2014 Till now he hasn't finished reading the book yet, but the point is that he's still reading it! 

UPDATE: 17|08|2014: I heard two other boys in my class discuss about "The Fault in Our Stars" the other day. One of them was talking about how his eyes welled up with tears when nearing the end of the book but he didn't actually shed any tears. He kept insisting that he did not shed tears. 
Boys and their masculinity.

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The lost chance

I'm writing this post with gritted teeth because I still, CANNOT BELIEVE what my mum said to me last night. 

She started by saying "hey jo, do you know that movie, our fault in the stars?" and I replied "you mean the fault in our stars right? yeah".

"Well, I managed to win 2 free tickets to watch that movie tomorrow-"

*cue me looking all hyped and freaked out*

"-but I gave them away to my friend."

*face drops* "You... what? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?"

"Because I won't be able to watch it tomorrow."

"I COULD HAVE WATCHED IT."

"What makes you think YOU could have watched it?"


*cue me kicking things and muttering curses under my breath when my mum leaves the room*


Basically I'm still quite pissed over this. She could've chosen to keep this a secret from me but noooooooooooo, for some reason she decided to tell me this when in fact it not only managed to crush my hopes and ruin my night but it also didn't bring any benefit to me whatsoever. Pfft.

Anyway, it's 2:05 in the morning and we have to go to Penang tomorrow so I have no idea why I'm still up. I'll go now. Goodnight.

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A short update on my life 16|07|2014

Now things are finally starting to get interesting this week!

Tomorrow, lil' cousin bro ( he's only a year younger than me ) is going to come to our house, sleep over and then we'll head for Penang the next day. And yes, I am skipping school on Friday because I say so.

Once we reach Penang, I have no idea what we're gonna do. Hm.. sleep maybe. We're not staying at a hotel because we're going to stay at a homestay with the rest of the fam.

On Saturday, we'll be busy with the uh, wedding stuff. Pre-wedding dinner traditions, pre-wedding dinner preparations, the actual wedding dinner, ya' know, the usual. 

Andddddddddd we'll go home on Sunday. Huh, this really is a short update.

Oh and before I forget, my awesome friend decided to draw Death Note's L as a late birthday present for me~ She is awesome at drawing ( even though she's denied it every time it's been brought up ) and I believe she will not let me down. After all, L is my ultimate anime/manga bias and she knows it *____*. I realllllllllllllly can't wait to stick that drawing on my board!

That's it for this short update~ 

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My English Oral Test

I managed to face one of my fears yesterday all thanks to my English teacher.

It all started last Monday when my English teacher suddenly decided to make us sit for our yearly oral test again. ( We have oral tests 2 times each year ). The first oral test was a failure for reasons I'm too lazy to state but at least I did it in front of the teacher so it wasn't as nerve-wrecking.

This time though, we were supposed to do it in front of the entire class. Cue the "fml" thoughts in my head. The announcement was so sudden that it took a few minutes for it to register in our minds. Once it did, everyone went into panic mode. Our teacher gave us 4 days to prepare for our oral test. We were supposed to give a speech on "random acts of kindness".

Finally, when it was time to sit for our test (Friday), we waited nervously for our teacher to call our names at random. Occasionally someone would volunteer to go up there and save all of our butts by giving their speech thus lowering the chances of others' names being called out. Thanks to them, and the people who were called out, English period soon ended and the rest of us were "safe". Before we left, our teacher told us that we were going to be doing a summary next Monday which was yesterday. And I'm sure you and I both know by now that that didn't happen.

Apparently, she had conveniently forgotten that we were supposed to do our summaries yesterday so she was unprepared. "Never mind though," she said, she was going to make us give our speeches. Upon hearing this, I went frantic because I was SO SURE she wasn't going to make us do it that day. I had it all planned out, we were going to do our summaries yesterday and during her next period which is on Friday, I would skip school since we were supposed to go to Penang so I could avoid giving my speech for as long as possible.

Things don't always go according to plan.

Long story short, after frantically pulling out my speech, almost hyperventilating, listening to a few speeches, I was eventually called out. The funny thing is that when I went out and greeted my teacher, she noticed how nervous I was and kindly told me to stand behind the desk so that I could hold onto it when I felt really nervous. She also advised me to look towards the back of the class so that it would seem like I was making eye contact with people. After that, she signalled me to start.

And when I did, it was a mess. I stuttered, stopped mid-sentence, completely forgotten my lines and I couldn't stop fidgeting my fingers. I laughed awkwardly at times and wished that the ground could open up and swallow me whole right then and there. But it didn't, and I continued. A few minutes and 3 stories later, my teacher told me that I could end my speech. I was thrilled to hear that and I quickly did as told. 

All in all, I haven't managed to conquer my stage fright but I did face it. It was a horrifying, nerve-wrecking experience, but necessary nonetheless. It's all part of the growing up process.

Eventually I found out that I'd gotten an "A" for the test, which is great but judging by the way I'd given my speech, I sort of feel like I don't deserve it. Oh well, I guess the saying "we're our own worst critics" is right after all.


Much like in my speech, I'd like to end this post with the same quote by the late princess Diana:

"Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you."

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The complicated world of the anime fandom

Before I start, the reason why I've been posting stuff more often is because I want to be able to look back at this blog and relive all of the memories I've had this year to convince myself that this year was a year well spent. Plus I'm pretty sure I'll be missing this year when next year comes, ahaha.

So remember how I said I wanted to re-connect with my other friends? Well there's this friend of mine who shares the same interests with me. We both like Sherlock, we both like books such as The Fault in Our Stars, we both like Kuroko no Basuke.

Speaking of Kurobas, this is one of the reasons why I wanted to create this blog post in the first place. So whilst spending time with my other friend, let's call her A, I tried to bring up some stuff we share in common to kind of get to know each other a little more. You see, lately I've been watching "Death Note" (yeah, I'm pretty late) and believe it or not-I'm hooked. It's like my new drug if that makes any sense. Deciding to just go for it, I asked her if she watched it too since she's an anime fan so I pretty much assumed that she did. I mean, what anime fan hasn't watched Death Note, am I right?

I was wrong because she replied with a "no". The convo didn't end there though, oh no. She said she's heard of Death Note before and knows all there is to know about Death Note. It was then she proceeded to tell me about the "ships".

Oh boy.

She told me there were Light x L ships and L x Light ships ( which she said was unacceptable for reasons I couldn't comprehend even now ) and when I mentioned Kurobas- the ships didn't end there. Oh no, she went on and on about the different ships they had and I basically ended up in a confused- and sort of disgusted- state. 

Ew, just.. ew. To me, I ship the characters as brothers ya know, like a hyung and dongsaeng relationship, not friends with benefits or bf x bf.. 

After the talk I had with her, I've realised that I should be careful when mentioning ships because my definition of ships is different than others and I definitely know that I do not want to go through another torturous conversation like that ever again, nope thank you very much.

|| Side note:

• I don't ship anyone with anyone in Death Note.
• I ship ( again, hyung & dongsaeng ) Akashi and Kuroko, Aomine and Kuroko in Kurobas.

To say that I didn't go out of that conversation with a clean and uncorrupted mind would be false. Nevertheless, I was able to learn a thing or two about the complicated world of the anime fandom which means that that whole conversation wasn't exactly pointless and was quite knowledgeable if I do say so myself.

EDIT 10 | 01 | 2018: OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD

JUST DROPPED BY TO SAY THAT YA'LL CAN SHIP WHOEVER YOU WANT TO SHIP. I wrote this wayyyyy back then and obviously present me has a different view from past me.

I mean, I still don't ship the characters that way, but anyone else is free to do so and tell me. When I wrote this post, I couldn't even accept sex scenes in Young Adult novels yet majority of the books I read now contain ( albeit non explicit ) sex scenes and I'm fine with that.

Lol @ the "uncorrupted mind" part tho. 

Again, not going to delete this because I want to be able to see how much I've changed in the future.

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Biology

Today I am going to blog about what happened yesterday during Biology class.

See, we were supposed to bring leaves to school yesterday for some reason that wasn't disclosed beforehand but the problem was that: nearly ALL of us had forgotten to do so. The teacher had forbidden us to pluck the leaves of our school's flora because-and I quote- "the school is lacking in leaves". Yeah right, it's not like there aren't a lot of trees and potted plants in the school or anything, nope. Our school still lacks..leaves.

Unfortunately for her, we weren't the type of people who would rather take the fall for our actions than not take advantage of what was already in front of us in order to avoid punishment. So everyone started to pluck. And I was one of them. It was shameful act, I admit but nonetheless, I had a butt to save. 

Actually this wouldn't be a huge problem if they'd done it discreetly instead of laughing and talking REALLY LOUDLY when committing the crime. Seriously, you'd think a thief would be stupid enough to break everything in his/her way when stealing something to avoid suspicion. I laugh at my classmates' carelessness. 

I of course, chose the smarter route and quietly plucked a leaf. If everyone were like me then maybe- just maybe- we'd avoid getting noticed. But that's not what happened now is it.

As you'd probably guessed by now, we received a lecture from our teacher once we stepped foot into the Biology lab. She started off by asking if there was anybody amongst us who plucked their leaf from outside of the school's compound. Only 2 students raised their hands. Heh.

Then she asked the people who didn't have a leaf to stand up. 2 people stood up. After that she  proceeded to ask the people who plucked the leaves inside the school's compound to stand up. Needless to say, a lot of us rose up from our seats. And the lecture began.

"The plants are man-made - wait, not man-made but planted by humans, do you know what I mean? They didn't exist naturally unlike the trees outside."

"Why can't you all follow orders? I said to not pluck the leaves of the school's plants."

 "Our school's lacking in leaves."

I can't recall the rest of the lecture but I hope you get the point: Plucking the leaves of the school's plants is unacceptable whilst plucking the leaves of plants outside of the school's compound is certainly acceptable. As if they won't grow more leaves.

Next, the teacher was contemplating on whether or not she should punish us but soon let us off with a warning. I can't speak for the rest of my classmates but I for one will definitely take heed of her warning.  She is not someone you should mess with or take lightly that's for sure. I have been fortunate enough to not receive any of her punishments but I can tell you, I've witnessed them and they are embarrassing. Really, really embarrassing.

Annnnnd that's what happened yesterday. I have to confess that this was a really fun er, thing or scenario to experience and I look forward to whatever scenarios awaits us in the near future. 



We don't have much time left...

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Stuff I won from giveaways

So this year I was fortunate enough to win two giveaways hosted by fellow kpoppers on a site called "Gurupop".

Beware though that the giveaways hosted now aren't as trustworthy as before so I'd be careful when entering giveaways. Just last month I entered a giveaway and it turned out to be a scam! What's suspicious though is that the host said I'd won the prize and asked me to e-mail my address, not only a few days before the end(?) date but also when it was proved that the giveaway was a scam. So once again, be careful. 

*Also I'd like to thank the person who prevented me from giving out my address to the host by telling us about the scam. I was so happy when I saw the message claiming that I had won that I'd almost sent it. Had I not been suspicious and saw that post when I went to double check, I would've given out my address.

I would also like to thank the hosts of the giveaways for giving me such a wonderful opportunity to win some merchandises.

Without further ado, here are some pics! 

[ RECEIVED DATE: 11-01-2014 ]

[ I couldn't post the outer packaging as it had our addresses on it ]

[ The contents of the package ]

[ Beast ]

[ TOP: Xiumin, BOTTOM LEFT TO RIGHT: Suho, Baekhyun ( EXO ) ]

[ Back ]

 [ RECEIVED DATE: 19-02-2014 ]

[ Had to blur the background ]

[ CONTENTS: Japanese mask, Jay Park stickers, B.A.P card, (former member) UKISS Dongho card, Luhan Growl (Kiss ver) card, infinite logo necklace ]

* READ THIS: PLEASE do not use these photos to scam anybody. *

That's it! I've only won 2 giveaways so far, and judging by my last experience, I won't be entering in one for a very long time because I don't want to get almost-scammed again. Once again, I hope everyone would be extra careful before entering any giveaways. Thanks for reading!

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SCHOOL

I've decided to post pics of my school because I feel like a blog without pictures is kind of empty.
Pictures are what makes a blog post entertaining, am I right?
So without further ado, I give you pics of my school~
[ Of course I am going to refrain from mentioning the name of my school here or I'd be in big trouble with the school board ]

[ I know I know, it's out of focus BUT I had to either act fast and snap a pic or not at all because the teachers were rushing us to line up ]

[ DATE: 17.10.2014 The day when Japanese students came to our school ]

[ DATE: 30.06.2014 The day when we were supposed to take pics for our project ]

[ I apologise for another out-of-focus pic ahaha ]

[ On the bright side, this way I didn't have to blur it myself ]

[ DATE: 27.06.2014 The day we had to collect our report cards ]

[ Outside looking in. The doors were locked so I couldn't get in yet ahaha ]

[ DATE: 27.06.2014 ]

So that's about it I guess since we are technically NOT allowed to bring any electronic devices to school. The pics were taken when I managed to smuggle either my camera or my iphone onto school grounds ahaha. 

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A rant on pronunciation

HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE "TUITION"?

Being as curious as ever on a lonely Wednesday afternoon, I did what any "normal" teenager would do and went through the pros and cons of living in a country where English isn't as prioritised. 
Upon minutes of thinking, it eventually led to me wonder about the differences in pronunciation between British English and American English. It was then I stumbled upon the word "tuition".

... 

"How DO you pronounce it?" I wondered. 

Well, according to oxford dictionary, it's pronounced as TU-EE-TION whilst I on the other hand have been pronouncing it as "TIU-TION" this whole time.
Oh gosh, so you mean to tell me that I've been pronouncing it wrong this whole time!?
It may not mean much to others but to me this is quite embarrassing. 
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH THE FRUSTRATION OF IT ALLLLLLLLL.


TU-EE-TION.


UPDATE 02|09|2014 : So today during Biology, we were discussing about mutualism amongst living organisms (duh). When it came to the clown fish and sea anemone, I was thinking in my head: " Ooooh I remember this, it's nemo and the sea a-ne-mo-ne," I was shocked seconds later to hear my teacher pronounce it as "sea a-ne-mone". Mind you, I get really embarrassed when I mispronounce words so to think that after all these years of pronouncing it as sea a-ne-mo-ne instead of a-ne-mone ( which I thought was the correct way to pronounce it at the time ) made me want to go back in time and correct myself from the get-go that sea anemone isn't pronounced the way I pronounced it.

HOWEVER, after consulting my good friend google search, I discovered that all those years of watching re-runs of "finding nemo" proved to be beneficial as I was pronouncing it the correct way after all. Ah, it feels so good to be right.

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