Happy Teachers' Day (Part 1)

Every year, on 16 May, I tend to become nostalgic. I remember the good old days when I was still in school with no worries to tend to, no concerns to think of, except for the occasional homework and the periodic exams. Life was good right up tell the end of my uni days.

This write up is dedicated to all my teachers, from primary schools to uni. Yup, I didn't attend kindie due to my parents hardship while I was growing up. It was those hard times that strengthened my resolve to study hard and excel. It is going to be a 2-part write, I reckon, because I attended three primary schools, two secondary schools and two unis.

I attended Primary 1 at Government English Primary School (GEPS), Port Dickson, NS (we used to call it Gigi Emak Patuh Satu, GEPS!). The school is now called SK Port Dickson. It was, at that time, situated by the sea. It was nice and breezy. During my time, the school had some expats children studying there as well. One of them was Gary, a tall, lanky kid with blonde hair. He was to be my classmate when I was transferred up after the first term. You see, when I first attended the school, due to the first initial of my name ("N". All my siblings' names start with the initial "N" as well. It was the trend amongst parents then, I guess), I was put into Darjah 1 Orange (or 1B). My class teacher was a fierce middle-aged Malay lady. She once threw my exercise book across the classroom because I had terrible handwriting (I always wanted to be a doctor, you see...). Anyway, I couldn't remember her name. After the first term, I was transferred to Darjah 1 White (or 1A). That was when Gary became my classmate. I remembered I was happier after that. My class teacher was a middle-aged Chinese lady (I think, somehow at that age, all my teachers seemed to be middle-aged to me now! Hahaha!). Her name was Mrs Ong and she taught us English and Mathematics. English had always been one of my favourite subjects. I finished my first year of schooling on stage, receiving the best student award!

The next year, I was put into Darjah 2 White. The class teacher was Cikgu Mustafa. He taught us Maths and BM. He taught us with some humour and simple comedy to get our attention and focus. I remembered him pulling my sideburns once for having a long hair. I had my dad to give me a haircut that evening. The next morning, Cikgu Mustafa called me to the front of the class. He told everyone of how proud he was that I had my haircut! I was elated! ( I was only 8, ok...) He also taught many of us to think on our feet. Everyday, ten minutes before school ended, he would ask all the pupils in the class to pack their things and stand up. Then he would proceed to ask maths questions and whomever could give the first right answer could go off early. I was almost always the first! Hahaha! I said "almost" because after some time, Cikgu Mustafa refused to let me answer a question first until some one else had been given the chance! He was being just and fair, I supposed.

Before I could enter Darjah 3, the family had to move to Melaka. I attended SK Jalan Datuk Palembang, Melaka, then. 

I remember that it was quite a climb for me from the school gate to the main school below!

Due to my exemplary academic records, I was put into Darjah 3A. The class teacher was Mrs Wong. She taught us English. She was not fierce, but stern. Throughout the year, I could only remember that she only hit her pupil once. The pupil in question was me, unfortunately. I could not remember the whole event, but I remembered that I was laughing at a girl classmate (I remember her name, Dahlia) for giving Mrs Wong a wrong answer. Yes, I was a tad cheeky as a 9-year old. Mrs Wong asked me to come to the front of the class and gave me a spanking with the long blackboard ruler! That was the first time I had to come to the front for a wrong reason and that was not to be the last... (Told you I was cheeky, didn't I!).

I entered Darjah 4 with a little trepidation the next year. This was because our class teacher was one Mr Lam. He was notorious to us kids as being a very stern and fierce teacher. Hence, the trepidation to get into Standard 4. Mr Lam taught us English and Maths. He had similar habit to that of Cikgu Mustafa, ie giving us pop quiz. The only difference is that rather than the quiz being done towards the end of school day, it was done at the start of the day! All would rise and stand to attention. He would ask a Maths question and would then point his finger to the unlucky pupil to answer. And he expected the answer to come out from the tongue of the pupil like switching a light! If could not give the right answer, you remain standing. If you were the last person to stand, you would either get extra Maths homework or clean-up the blackboard the whole day! It was Mr Lam's tactics that got me to memorise the times table and the divisions table. Thank you, sir!

My family had to move again the next year, sadly. Well, it was not entirely sad, come to think of it. It was sad because I had to leave the friends I had made in Melaka but it was also good because I would be making new friends with new adventures! We moved to Batu Pahat, Johor December that year.

(to be continued...need to get some work done. Or at least pretend to have some work done. Hehehehe!)

Ramblings

I wrote the poems (or perhaps ramblings?) for Midget. The thought of her swept me into a melancholic stupor during lunch yesterday...

Talk about ramblings... Midget, if you read this, as promised...

Post-Midnight Ramblings (Wed, 18/07/07)
Its way past midnight. 0305 to be exact. Can’t sleep. Tried to watch the latest Grey’s Anatomy…, blooming portable DVD player wouldn’t work. Attempted to read the fourth story in Haruki Murakami’s collection of short stories… gave up after the third page. I must be turning dense. Complete waste of time. A bit embarrassing to admit, but hey, it’s a medical thing… explainable in scientific terms.., my brain cells are… (Horror of Horrors!) s.l.o.w.l.y depleting. I CANNOT UNDERSTAND HIS STORIES!! Urgghhh! Ggrrrr…! The last 3 stories were mentally challenging (to a brain-depleting, action-know-all, suave wannabe, seen this-done that, mum-of-2). Simple writing, good flow of story, easy enough to follow… then came the ending. Utterly hopeless. It just made no sense. Zilt, Zero, Nada. Please someone, be kind enough and lend a hand. Take the book. Read it. Then tell me. Explain the relevance, dot-to-dot. Just put me out of my misery.

Mind’s working overtime. Zig-zagging away with ferocious, unrelentive tenacity. Foresee a short-circuit coming up. Fight-back time then. What’s the point of letting all these thoughts driving you in circles, slowly but surely draining your energy, zapping the last of your strength, eating you up. Take action. Even if it means driving right into a stone wall. At least it all ends.

­On BK
1. It would be funny, if it’s not scary at the same time. What are the chances that you meet someone who gets you, who’s on the same wavelength, whom you can relate to, who makes you laugh, cry, jump, applaud or freak out right on cue? Slim. What about meeting in cyberspace on the first attempt? None. That’ll be my no-brainer, positive answer at any given time. And it’s probably true, if it didn’t actually happen.
2. Married with 2 kids, same boarding school-different states, same legal background, same wicked sense of humour, same demented way on looking at things, same flirtatious over-the-top personalities. That alone could be weird enough, but get this. Same pre-marital lifestyles, also has an ex-fiancee and (also) had a post-marital almost-affair which ended early this year! Gosh! Right to the T. He could be my male version. We could be clones.
3. I’m finding it too bizarre. It’s like I’m terrified of asking, of wanting to know more, because at all times, I already know the answer. And I say, all times. Not more often than not, but Every Single Time. It all started on Skype (that good-for-nothing, silly, troublesome invention), and things spread like wildfire. Chats turned to text messages, and messages turned to meetings. Twice.
4. I can’t get too comfortable. Its Red Alert Danger from the word Go. But do I listen? Do I take heed? Do I exercise all my rational reasons and follow what my head, and not what my heart says? Maybe it’s best if I slip away. Create some distance. He mentioned something about things being on the mend with his better half. That rattled me up. Maybe I turned up at the wrong timing. Me, taking up precious time can’t be all that helpful to their curing process. In fact, it could be detrimental. Fatal.5. How now brown cow? Maybe I should just bask in the glory of the unknown. Take the forsaken path, explore the unexplored. Thing is, it’s clearly written in black and white. The forsaken path is treacherous and conniving. (Why then would it be called ‘forsaken’ – Duhh!). The unexplored terrain has been explored, and it always leads to the painful point of no return… the sad, heart-wrenching point. Facts are crystal clear. Again. How now brown cow? No guts to move on, no balls to move away? Why not use the same stone wall-hitting method? Decide. Take action. Or maybe not. Or maybe… let’s just let him decide...

(It’s the break of dawn. Time to snap out of rambling-mode and perform rightful, functional, expected, robotic duties… Fundamentals, my dear. Fundamentals).

Syabas to the present administration, thus far...

I met a veteran blogger once, way back in 2009. He came with another veteran blogger. Both of them were big-sized dudes. I mean, really big size. We had dinner of steaks and ribs. We talked about the current administration. Mind you, at that time, the current administration just took the baton from the sleepy administration not so long ago. May be about 12 months into administering the country. Both bloggers were and still are blogging on current affairs and politics. One of them is a very long time friend of mine, hence the dinner. Let's just call my blogger friend as Big and his blogger friend that came along as Giant.

During dinner, Giant asked me what do I think of the new PM's economic policies. My answer at that time was, it was still too early for me to give any comments. But, so far, I said, things seem to be turning around. That was when Giant went into his blogging mode, except that rather than writing them down, he was speaking (or rather spitting) them out. His thoughts that is, not his food. Giant said that he can summarise the PM's economic policies into two words - Alphabet Soup! He said so far the PM had only come out with acronyms for his economics policies - NKRA, NKEA, GTP, ETP, etc? What do those acronyms translate to the rakyat? What do a pakcik at a kampong in Johor or Perlis know about those acronyms? Would they alleviate his living? What about the man on the street in KL? What can those acronyms do to him? Prices of petrol is still high. The price of basic necessities have also increased. Giant said that if PM is not careful, not only the rakyat, but members of his party would also go against him. Especially with PM's 1Malaysia concept.

Giant went on and on. By the way, he is a pro-administration blogger. He said, as much as he support the current administration however, if his livelihood do not improve because of some alphabet-soup economic policies, he would not be crossing the dacing anymore in the next election!

That was in 2009. 


Last month, I had a bit of a car problem. My car couldn't start. Had to tow it to the workshop. I was also having a few meetings at the office. So, after towing my grand old Wira to the workshop, I took a cab to the office. The next day, I had to tumpang wifey to her office. And from her office, I took the LRT. Let me tell you, the last time I took the LRT was way back in 2008. I've posted about it in my "change lifestyle, austerity drives and the what nots...". And I also whined about it in my posting "change in the public transport".

So, on that day, with a surrendered feeling of hopelessness, I walked to the LRT station from my wife's office. First thing that I saw was that there was no long queue at the ticketing machines. I looked at my watch, wondering whether I was too late to join the morning office commuters or too early. Alas, I was not. Ok, perhaps there was something happening this morning that I did not know of. Bought a ticket, but lo and behold! It was not a ticket that came out, but a token! I was like, okaaayyy... Must be a new thing. Good new thing, I supposed.

I walked to the escalator to get to the platform. Not many people. Must be something big that is going on this morning, I thought. Then I read the LED display of how much longer the train will arrive. It showed "1 min 42 sec". Didn't I hear the train pulling off the station while I was at the ticketing machine? That was at least a couple of minutes ago. In 2008, I remembered it would be like forever to wait for the next train!


When the train arrived, I was again pleasantly surprised that the carriages were not jam-packed like it used to be in 2008! I arrived at my destination within the stipulated time and when I reached the office, I realised that I couldn't wait to board the LRT on my way home!


All in all, it was to be a whole week that I had to take the LRT. And it was a good one week of public transport to me!


This "new" experience with the LRT got me thinking and discussing with some friends and colleagues. I even dared some of them to take the LRT and when they did, they had the same 'feel-good" experience. It got me thinking that these alphabet-soup policies may be working! It is working for the majority of people, from the farmers at the kampungs to the clerks at the cities.


The way I see them, to the higher ups in life ie, the CEOs, the COOs, the C-suite employees and to a certain extent, even to the middle managers, the alphabet-soups policies may not have much of an impact to them on a personal basis. However, if the impacts are directed to the middle managers and lower, I would dare say that the alphabet-soup policies are working very well!


And I do hope that all these would be translated to better economic growth, more harmonious living and higher living standards. Syabas, YAB PM!

Of commas and apostrophes, the stickler in me

In literature, be it in whatever language, we must have punctuation. Punctuation is not grammar, mind you. It is part of good grammar. Punctuation helps us to pause, take a break from reading and/or writing. Yes, punctuation plays a role in writing too. It helps the writer's mind to pause and take a breather. Punctuation involves the dot or period or full stop, the comma, the exclamation mark, the apostrophe, semicolon, colon and a host of other marks. Each punctuation mark give the reader/writer different pauses, different tones and different meanings, when put in relevant strategic places in a sentence.  It helps the reader to easily understand the sentence, the emotion, the expression that the writer wants to convey

I am rambling about punctuation because I am re-reading (yes, when I didn't buy any books for the month, I'll re-read my older books. It keeps the books felt owned, I supposed) a book which I bought many years ago on punctuation. I do confess that I am a stickler when it comes to punctuation, spelling and/or grammar (not in that order, but close enough). I have told off many lesser beings, the latest was a niece who posted such crudely punctuated sentence and grammar in her FB that I guess she is either now, scared to post any new status or just regretted that she ever befriended me on FB! Hahhaha!

Sorry, Niena, but then again, if you really aspire to be in the legal profession, or any other professional career, I am quite sure you'll need a very good command of English or Bahasa Melayu. That would mean good grammar, correct punctuation  and accurate spelling. :)

I was Charmed! (Kena jampi!)

This is the part of me that only certain people know of. MO is one of them. Midget is the other. And Din and Fique. This is where I jot down my thoughts, my feelings. And right now, I feel exposed. Why, you may ask? I've just told a colleague of this blog! Damn it! I hope she keeps to her words... This is part of my sanctuary.

Let me jot down what transpired. It all started last week. A colleague, let's call her M (as in M of 007). She emailed me last week, telling me that she wanted to do a video clip on my profile. This was what she wrote:

" As part of the new company website being developed, we’ve been asked by CEO to include a few individual staff profiles in the form of 30 sec videos. We’re going to start with 2-3 first, then put more up to populate the website as time passes and the website is in regular use.

We’d really like to feature you as one of the pilot profiles on the website. If you are agreeable, could I steal an hour of your time to have a conversation with you about yourself in order to get some ideas as to how we might want to approach your profile?"

And I replied, "Let’s discuss this."

So, we went to lunch today. I actually wanted to discuss with her if it is a good idea to feature me in the video. But, alas, it wasn't to be!

She went straight to the offensive and asked me questions on my background, my aspirations for the company and her probing questions were tactful. By the end of the "discussion" she stripped me bare! Damn!

And yes, she's quite a looker and a charmer... That was it! She charmed me! I was charmed! Let me leave you with this song by Alison Moyet...