It's really annoying when...

...people are inconsiderate, especially when others put in so much time and effort and some people can't even be bothered to appreciate that.

...nobody notices what you do until you don't do it.

...drivers are always in a rush and get angry at you when you're driving at the speed limit!

...you can't find a job :(

...nobody understands how you're feeling.


It's such a great feeling when...

...you find out that someone does love you

...unexpectedly, you have a great time at an event you weren't looking foward to

...you drive to a new place all by yourself!

...you receive a email/letter from a dear friend

...being in a new environment becomes a great learning experience

my thoughts @ 10:27 PM

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Have you ever had one of those days where you feel like you've gotten out on the wrong side of the bed (except I can only get out on one side coz on the other side there's a wall)? And from the moment you get out of bed, things go horribly wrong? Well, today was one of those days. Things just went from bad to worse.



my thoughts @ 3:50 PM

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We celebrated Am's 23rd at an All-You-Can-Eat steamboat and hot asian food restaurant in springvale. It was a pretty big place but looked even bigger because of the empty tables around us. The food wasn't great... was quite salty actually. I drank so much that night that I full of water and couldn't eat that much - which was a waste seeing as it was all you can eat! I've never liked those kind of places... obviously because I don't eat that much so its not worth it for me.
So anyways, by 9:30 - 10pm, we were the only customers left (but we were a big group... come on, we're from Flare! :P) which meant we had the whole place to ourselves, including that karaoke system!!! haha. Eating, dancing and singing are what Flarians do best! And what fun we had! haha They had a big screen which meant everyone was able to sing along, with or without a microphone.

The night ended when people who had work the next day needed to go home and sleep. And thanks to ning (hehe), one by one, everyone slowly shuffled out of the restaurant, into their allocated car with their designated driver and went home. Was a good night. I'm glad I went. :)

It was Am's 23rd celebration but for some odd reason, I only have photos of jel and i from that evening. haha. Rani our photographer couldn't take a decent photo of us (tho he claims it was the models not his photography skills) so we took a hundred and one photos before we got a decent one. lolz.

my thoughts @ 11:45 PM

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Things I really really need:

- black pants
- sunglasses
- hat (blue one from nike)
- a shelf
- a laminator (ok, i don't really need this one, but it would be handy!)

my thoughts @ 9:31 AM

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Special thanks to Shar who introduced me to Britney's new Midnight Fantasy perfume! I love it! It smells like a really really sweet fruit... its so yummy!!! hehe... It's sad that I'm allergic to perfume, i already have 4 other perfumes that I can only use for very very special occasions. So you can imagine, buying one perfume bottle lasts me for years! So i decided that i wont buy perfume unless i really really love it. so at the moment, whenever I walk into Myer, i always go straight to the perfume section and grab a sample of my favourite perfume. guess what my bag will be smelling of now?! :D but who knows... there's talk that it just might win a place in my room at home... eventually becoming a special bottle that sits on my dressing table :)

my thoughts @ 8:24 AM

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I finally got round to making my cupcakes. I was looking at recipes for a meal and came across this site that's all about cupcakes! lolz. Some are soooo cute. So I got inspired to make cupcakes. Mine aren't so fancy, coz I didn't have much time, but still very yummy! :D

my thoughts @ 7:32 PM

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Ok, so maybe I overreacted a little yesterday... haha... teaching IS the right path for me :)

I had such a good day today. Everything went so smoothly... well almost everything :P This experience is really going to be an awesome learning curve. I've already learnt so much about myself, about the children, about staff and most importantly, about teaching.

I've learnt that when I find something challenging... I give a whole lot of excuses to try and take the easy way out. I don't persist, I don't motivate myself to keep going, I just give up. And that's really bad. The only way I'll continue is if I'm forced to. I've had a few situations like that already but today's experience made me want to change.

After the day from hell, I had no choice but to go back and try again. No matter how much I complained to al and cam, or how much I thought about wanting to quit, or that I didn't want to be a teacher anymore... I was forced to go back the next day and face my fears of failing again. And I didn't know it last night, but it was a good thing. No, a GREAT thing.

So knowing that I had to go back again, I needed to prepare myself better. I had to think of different strategies that would work with these children, now that I had spent a day with them. Observations are soooo important in planning. Its the foundation for how your program will run. The kinder has a pet rat. Yes. A rat. lolz. Sounds gross, but it's the cutest thing. And the children love her. Her name is Sparkles... not that she sparkles on anything hehe. So anyways, I was observing how the children were carrying her around yesterday and loving it. So I thought for one of the activities I could do with them would be to make 'rat friends' out of paper. It was a really simple activity but the children LOVED it! Occupied them for a good 20mins or so. I was so happy.

And the day just got better, with one little hiccup. Even though the children were listening to me better, there was one little boy (who wasn't in my group yesterday) who decided to test me.He threw a tantrum because I wouldn't let him play with the trains anymore. But I had a very good reason for it. Did you know that children that are 4 years old know how to swear?! I was sooooo shocked. He pulled out the F word while telling off another child who wanted to play with the trains too. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard it! I was soooo angry at him. He didn't think my reasoning was valid hence he threw a tantrum. He was kicking me and screaming/crying at the top of his lungs. In such a situation, you just ignore them and let them scream. They'll get tired after a while and calm themselves down. So that's what I did. And it worked. He came looking for me after a while, still sobbing, saying that he wanted to do a painting. So the situation had a good outcome. And I think I handled it pretty well.

I also changed my routine a bit. Yesterday I felt that we stayed inside too long and the children were getting restless. They needed to just go outside and burn off that excess energy. So today I took them outside a bit earlier and let them run loose. It worked much better I thought. So that's what I'll do tomorrow too.

YAY! I'm so proud of myself. I was able to change my teaching strategies and come up with new ideas to suit the children. Which is what teaching is all about. And my efforts paid off. :) So being forced into a situation where I have to reevaluate myself and my thinking was something I needed. I may not have been so open at the beginning, but I now know, persistence beats resistance!

my thoughts @ 11:52 PM

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*sigh... maybe teaching isn't the right path for me after all...

I took my first professional day of teaching today. The first day where I was in complete control. Where I planned everything myself. Where I was in charge of 10 children. Where I had to set up communication books and boards for the parents. It was MY kinder program. And I was excited.

And everything was going great... until the children arrived.

I sat them down in a circle and after about 5 mins... they started to test their boundaries. I was constently telling them to sit properly... to come back to the floor... to use their quiet voices inside... not to run inside... to look after each other... to take turns... to use their words... to find something to do... it was exhausting! I think I might lose my voice after this week.

Then the day just got worse. It wasn't only the children that got me frustrated... but the staff as well. The director is great.. very supportive... but she needs to follow through with her words. She's always telling me to yell out for help if I need it... or that she'll get resources for me when I need them... she'll make sure things are set up for my activities because I don't know where everything is kept... but did she do any of that today? No. I had to bascially call out to her every 5 minutes asking her where things were... asking if she had the egg cartons that she said she would have for me... asking her whether they had more paintbrushes... whether I could use the board to stick things on etc. I felt so disorganised which meant the children had to sit there waiting for me to get the materials. And trust me, 4-5 year olds don't like to wait.

So the day went from bad to worse. Activities weren't set up properly therefore not appealing to the children... then the children didn't listen to me... the staff didn't seem interested in getting to know me... the children were bored and therefore misbehaving... i felt so frustrated with myself that I couldn't even control 10 children in a 3 hour program. *sigh

I came home feeling very disheartened and unmotivated, definitely not wanting to return the next day. I am disappointed in myself. And frustrated too. *sigh.. maybe I just need to sleep it off... tomorrow is a new day...

my thoughts @ 11:34 PM

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Teaching has been a passion of mine ever since I can remember. For most of my life, I have wanted to become a teacher. 13 years at school, 4 years at uni, I was so eager to get out into the real world... the working world... and apply my knowledge, theory and practice.

That time has finally come but somehow the real world doesn't seem so exciting.

I got a 2 week job to run a kinder program. When I first heard about it, I was really excited. But today when I went for my planning day, unfortunately, it wasn't what I was expecting. I thought it was an actual kindergarten centre. But its not. It's a long day care centre (i.e. childcare) that wants to implement a kinder program in the afternoon. Sounds simple enough yeah? Wrong. Not only do I have to implement this program for them... the director has never run a kinder program before so if I need help, she can't help me! None of the staff can help me coz they've never run a program either and I'm the only qualified one there to run a kindergarten program. Which is good in a way... but bad because its one of my first jobs.

PLUS (yes, there's more) not only will I be implementing a program for the first time in the centre... but it will be my very first time I have full control! Full control of the planning, full control of what goes into the planning, full control of the children, full control of my teaching strategies... and yeah, you get the point. It's such a big responsibility and I'm scared. Scared that things won't go right. Scared that the children won't listen to me. Scared that I won't be able to handle it. *sigh...

Well, too late to pull out of it now... I just gotta learn to swim in the deep end...

my thoughts @ 11:45 PM

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my thoughts @ 1:10 AM

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I love rekindling old friendships... it just shows that with some people, even though you havent spoken or seen them for ages, your friendship bond is always there.

I must admit, I struggle to make sure I see or speak to friends every now and then. And it's getting harder as we all grow up. So many different commitments, busy schedules.. definitely not enough time in the day for the necessities and a social life! lolz. But I have been making a bigger effort lately. And the response has been good. I am grateful to those friends who have stuck by me. Who have always made sure that our friendship stays strong... no matter how often we see each other. We may not know every little detail that happens in each others lives... but the significant moments are the ones that count.

A short and sweet sms to say 'hi, how are you?' can make all the difference. It just shows that people still think about you, no matter how busy they may be. I have nights where I will just lie in bed and sms people I havent spoken to in a while. And its always good to know that I have friends who do the same. Friends who are rushing about, catching planes here and there, working everyday, but still find the time to sms me using their tiniest amount of free time they have in between their busy day. I really appreciate those people... and I don't think I tell them often enough how grateful I am for their friendship.



my thoughts @ 8:38 PM

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Sometimes I don't like who I am.

Sometimes I wish I could change myself.

Sometimes I just want to be invisible.

my thoughts @ 10:01 AM

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Found this on a friends blog. Quite interesting I think. hehe.

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there is no egg in eggplant, nor is there ham in hamburger, or apple or pine in pineapple. english muffins werent invented in england, french fries in france. sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which arent sweet, are meat.

we take english for granted. but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from guinea nor is it a pig. and why is it that writers write but fingers dont fing, grocers dont groce and hammers dont ham? if the plural of tooth is teeth, why isnt the plural of booth beeth? one goose, two geese. so one moose, two meese? one index, two indices.

doesnt it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend. if you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? if teachers taught, why didnt preachers praught? if a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

in what language do people recite at a play and play at recital? ship by truck and send cargo by ship? have noses that run and feet that smell? how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

you have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goe off by going on.

english was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.

that is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

my thoughts @ 9:04 PM

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I'm happy to see my friends finding their special someone. Some more recent than others, but nonetheless, the way each couple treats each other with such love and care is adorable to watch. They all have different ways of expressing how much they care for one another... sweet gestures, cheeky comments, loving hugs and more.

But sometimes it can get hard to watch. Sometimes I wish I had that special someone to share my special moments with. Don't get me wrong... I'm loving the single life. No expectations... no obligations... no tears. But then... its also... no sweet random sms... no late night phonecalls... no romantic adventures... no one to love or be loved in return.

It's sad sometimes... but I'll get over it. I have to.

my thoughts @ 8:37 PM

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my thoughts @ 5:13 PM

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my thoughts @ 5:13 PM

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