recalled my invigilating duty last week. invigilators reach earlier to distribute the papers. i did a quick job, as usual haha.. most people would walk down between 2 rows of tables and distribute the papers on both sides. it saves the effort of walking an extra time, but i still think it's not that great a strategy. it takes too long to distribute on both your left and right hand side. if you can walk, might as well just distribute on one side while you walk down cos it's a LOT faster that way. so needless to say, haha, i did the job fast. the chief invigilator gave some instructions to us, but nothing i didn't already know. i specifically asked him whether the students are allowed to have their mobile phones on the desk. NO. great haha.. bags? on the sides. air con? yea... it'll be turned on soon... when the doors were open the students flooded in. a large number of my monday class students were in my invigilating section and it was fun to see them. some of them were delighted to see me there and greeted me with a huge wide smile. some are glad to see someone they can freak out at, and they rushed up to me and asked if the paper was difficult, had i seen it yet.. haha.. poor kids.. most of them were just happy to see that i recognized them, and gave a polite but delightful smile. as they settled down i started to fully appreciate the need for invigilators, and the junior invigilators came to understand what they needed to do. i went around checking where they placed their belongings. bags at the side please! mobile phones on the floor! haha... A LOT of them just placed their bags at their desks despite the instructions. when the junior invigilators saw me making rounds, they started doing the same. good job! a student requested for some scrap paper to level his wobbly desk and he is lucky he asked me, or it'd never happen.. here's the boring part, invigilating and roaming the students while they're all deeply engrossed in their test. as we walk around and take attendance, we take note of their calculators (check if they're programmable or graphical - not allowed) and whether they have anything they shouldn't have with them. generally ok, but here's something i found. a student brought it a tamagotchi. *faint* it's a maths test, why would you need to bring in your tamagotchi of all things? at the end of the test we went around to collect the papers. i did that very slowly cos i wanted to make sure that all of them have shaded their matric numbers already. as i collected the papers i was disappointed to see that some of them had left an mcq question empty. WHY?! just shade anything, there's a chance it could be correct you know... you won't get penalized for a wrong answer anyway.... tsk tsk after the scripts were counted and they could leave, i braved the frantically leaving and packing crowd. making sure they've brought all their things with them. this is like a treasure hunting session i tell you. we found numerous matric cards which we managed to return to the students by quickly announcing over the speaker and asking the student to come forward and get it. but the biggest haul of the day has got to be the mobile phone we found. one student left his phone behind, and i was tasked with tracing the shrimp and returning it to him. damn. initially i tried calling the mom, but the mom didn't pick up. called his last call friend, found the name, told the friend to tell him to call back this number to arrange picking up the phone. it was only until i got to the bus stop that he called when he realised he left it behind. silly boy... i told him to collect it the next day during MY tutorial class in engin. heh. when i got to the train station his mom called from home, and imagine her shock when a stranger picked up the phone instead of her son. haha.... but she was glad to know i'd be returning the phone. the next day he came to my class, tsk tsk, poor manners, but i didn't make things difficult for him. not TOO difficult anyway. hey, it's only right to veify that he is the owner right? i made him recite his home number before i gave him the phone. did he say thank you??? posted by Yee 10:51 PM . . .
i went ice skating last tuesday. it was alright, relatively fun. i don't need to have a lot of friends going together. in fact, i think it's perfectly plausible for me to go alone, skate a an hour or two, and then leave and go home on my own. but people would find me weird. that day i went with yy, just the two of us. she'd always try to get a whole big bunch of people first before going, but this time she couldn't find anyone. it's strange. despite the longest time she had to go around asking, actually no one came. last time it seemed that she knew so many people who could ice skate, but they were apparently just too busy to go. turns out, people just aren't interested in ice skating at all. i like going cos i just enjoy it. why don't people like it? i find it quite therapeutic to just keep gliding on the ice, despite the fact that i can't even stop (of my own accord; crashing and friction doesn't count). i had also asked around, but last tuesday most of my colleagues weren't free so they didn't go. and 626 sort of sprained her ankle so she couldn't go either. but really, i prefer it that only the two of us went. at least we can chat properly. she told me about how her beijing trip went, and i thought it was pretty enjoyable listening to what had happened and what she saw. imagine if a whole bunch of us went together, then i doubt we would have been able to talk at all. yesterday i asked the rest of them again whether they wnted to go ice skating next tuesday. jj and xh said yes immediately. i asked lx and she was surprised i still wanted to go just one week after the last trip. i wonder, why is that even an issue? it's not like it's tiring. and the place is going to be shut down soon. if we don't go now, when else? i tried to get more ppl to go, so i asked the sma kids as well. they were ok with it initially, but after that they realised they have a class at the same time so they can't go. lx suggested that we ask dxc along since he is from the north and most probably knows how to skate. well i asked, but turns out he's not interested at all. apparently, knowing how to skate is different from skating well. erm, yes, then don't go. you have plenty of chance to go in your hometown, unlike me here in singapore. i'm going to go a few more times before the place closes down. actually they planned to go swimming this week. we agreed on a tuesday, that we'd go on thursday. wednesday was a public holiday, then by thursday it seemed they totally forgot. don't bother talking about swimming, they weren't even around that day. hello? i brought all my stuff all the way from home and you folks don't even turn up? what a waste of my time and effort. so disappointing. and i was rather pissed off too. well actually, more than just a bit. i was mightily pissed off. if you can't go then shouldn't you at least inform me earlier so that i don't have to bring all my stuff? you couldn't just have done that? dammit. and now you still talk about swimming next week. forget it. i don't want to do that again. i'm telling you, if they back out on tuesday, i think i'm still going to go. i hate all this last minute back outs. i've made plans, and if things can go according to plan, i don't see why we shouldn't just do so. of course, you could say that i'm being very inflexible like this. but why should you be so fickle in the first place? how hard can it be to stick to your plan? why must you change your mind at whim? i hate that even more. i think i demand this of people. don't change your minds at the last moment. not unless you have a perfectly good logical reason for that. the world doesn't spin just for you. don't expect people to change their plans (i mean the ones that have been made, not your desires) just to suit you. it's highly annoying. posted by Yee 5:04 PM . . .
why did the leaves turn yellow? they were usually green, maybe not all, but the bushes were always green, and the bright green shade too. but yesterday night, they were all turning yellow. why? is it because spring is gone? posted by Yee 4:58 PM . . .
it's pretty sad how i don't ever dare to keep a diary. is there any way that's possibly safe for you to keep a record of your innermost thoughts and not worry about others getting hold of it? i seriously doubt so. but is it over-paranoia? i know why people keep diaries. i would like to do that too. but i don't think i will ever dare to. posted by Yee 12:04 AM . . .
do you have a song to make you sad? i always thought "the winner takes it all" by ABBA was a pretty sad song. listening to it alone makes me sad. but that was nothing compared to watching meryl streep perform it on mamma mia! the movie. i dare not exaggerate too much. after all, the movie is a funny one, the feel good happy kind. but when she did that song, watching her, hearing her, it was close to heart wrenching. just almost ya?... do you have a song to make you sad? i have. i don't know why, but listening to John McLaughlin's "So Close" makes me extremely sad. very. maybe songs are exceptionally sad (sadder, if you will) after you've watched it in some context. do you have a song to make you sad? posted by Yee 5:33 PM . . .
