Lazy Holiday

a lot you can say about the lack of updates - one being that I am on a week holiday and switched to lazy mode as soon as I rang that old school bell Friday before last :P another thing is that fasting month started the first day of holiday so I pretty much have spent my day lazing around, and trying to beat the computer at scrabble.

My Gruffy also is fasting - his first time ever and though I insisted that this would be his trial; meaning if he needed to break it and drink water (he gets dehydrated very easily) he could. But looks like he's gonna make it through the one whole month and I am very proud of him. I feel really sad and bad cos I am not with him throughout his first time at doing this, but I do try to be as supportive as I could.

Other than that, I've used the holiday to pick on my little nephews and nieces and also play the big authority figure they scur away from each time I put on the mean face :P I also managed to catch up with Aman and Lilo who are back for summer hols annd will be back for good next year. Looks like Gruffy and I will need to pay for accomodation when we go on our Euro Trip cos there'd be no place to crash hehe before anything, I still need to convince Gruffy that backpacking around Europe like that would be fun - right after I convince him to go on the upside down roller coaster at Universal Studio.

So as you might have guessed, I seriously have nothing interesting to write about. I am still mourning over the death of my cat, which I will write about once I am pass that. I am gonna enjoy my last day at home cos I am heading back downsouth tomorrow. And guess how am I gonna enjoy it?

That's right. Sleep like there's no tomorrow ;)

Go For It

Have you ever wanted to do something or wanted something or wanted to be something and told someone about it? It's almost always the case that someone would say, in a very supportive tone for you to "Go For It"

and that's the kind of encouragement that we usually need even if that specific something may seem so out of reach. But because of the encouragement and the support as well as the understanding, we're less afraid to "Go For It".

But what if the situation is slightly different - you want to go for it, but you don't have the means to do so. You told someone about it, they said "Go For It" but you can't go for it because there's no way that you can.

Do you talk it out more or you think it's best to just let the topic pass and soon enough it will never come up again - more like hopefully you'll never think about it again.

What would you do?

be grateful,use it well

Lately I watch lots of tv shows. Ok correction, I flick through the channels lots and only watch few that I love. It was during one of those flicking-the-channels I came across Oprah's Big Give and now it's one of my favourite show to watch. Fine, I know it's an old show and the one's showing on Hallmark is a rerun, but I didn't know about it until, well couple weeks ago. For those of you who don't know, Big Give is a reality show where 10 people compete to give big. Each week Oprah would provide a certain amount of money or something like that and the contestants would have to use the money given well to help those who really need it. They could even use the money to raise more money, which of course would work to their advantage during judging. The panel of judges would then judge them based on how big their help was and look through other criterias. The contestants went into this competition with the purest intention to find needy people and help them without getting anything in return. What they didn't know was that Oprah was gonna give 1 million USD to the winner (500 grand for the winner and the rest to be donated).

So I like the show because it's so good knowing there are people out there who enjoy helping others for the sake of helping and not because they want to be rewarded. What I like best about it is how it showed that tons of schools in the US lack funding for a lot of things and the teachers try their hardest to find money to improve the condition of the school as well as to help the kids, even when they have to fork out their own money. It was like a wake up call for me that there have to be schools like that here in Malaysia. Schools that are in the rural areas or even schools that are too big with tons of students to handle - each school is bound to have difficulties in managing the kids as well as the quality of education that we offer our students.

Obviously there isn't an Oprah in Malaysia who can give out money like that and I cannot talk on behalf of every school because I don't know what problems they have and whether the situation is different or similar or whatnot. But I know what's going on in my school, or at least I know as what I was told - that we have the money to add resources for each department/subject in that school. Every year the government (from what I have been told) provides a certain budget for each subject that can be used to buy resources, books, tools and other things like that can be used to improve the school and its quality of teaching and learning process.

All teachers need to do is write up a proposal on what they plan to buy, of course it has to be educational, the asking price and get the headmaster or principal to approve it. Once things have been bought, remember to keep the receipt so that can be handed over to the financial clerk so it could go into that year's budget. Teachers also need to catalogue and file the things that go under their department to make sure that those things bought are well taken care of and could be tracked even for years to come.

The budget might not be able to buy the school say...even a computer or build a new playground but it could buy books, references, teaching aids, improve school's compound so it's safer and tons more. But like everything else, if our hearts are not in it, then we'd always find excuse why it can't be done - that cost too much, better use that money for something else, yadda yadda yadda. And it is also amazing how the money are considered put to waste when they are suggested to be used to buy books because the kids would not know how to appreciate them. I am new in this teaching business so I might be wrong but I am guessing if the teachers didn't educate and shape them to learn to appreciate things, then who should take the blame?

Big responsibility, right? And that is something abstract that is pretty hard to find a party to blame because in reality I think it's everyone's responsibility and the blame game should not be played at all. But when it comes to handling money that is given for the purpose of making sure these kids get the best education they can, well you can get caught red handed if you decided to trick your way around to use the money to support things of your interest. Think people don't know? Well think again.

What we have and what have been given to us, we should be grateful for it and most importantly, use it well.

Up up and away

I enjoy storytelling. Not the gossipy kind, just the plain old storytelling. While I did grow up watching tons of tv shows and cartoons of multiple colours, the thing that I looked forward to at the end of the day was bedtime stories. As a result, I am now an adult with a pretty wild imagination – not the dirty kind haha just a form of escapism that is filled with the sort of innocence that I reckon most people start to lose once they hit puberty.

I am currently teaching English in a primary school and I conduct storytelling session with my kids once a week. This is when I get to tell the story as well as getting them to take part in predicting outcomes or act things out. When I tell stories, I always believe that if I see it, the kids will see it – imagination shouldn’t have any form of boundary as long as I could take the kids back to reality once we are done and need to put it on hold :)

While I do love my job and working with kids, one thing that I have always wanted to do (it’s been improvised every now and again) is to have a little bookstore that offer a large selection of children books. The books would obviously be for the kids to read while sipping milkshake or have yummy cupcakes but ultimately I want my bookstore to be the place where kids could be introduced to storytelling and enjoy it the same way I did (do).

Every day I would dedicate few sessions for this purpose and also use this time to interact with the children. Of course once the major agenda has been done and well accomplished I’d probably start other programs or sessions but spreading the love of storytelling is my goal. I realize that most parents work till late hours and some kids never got the chance to be read to. So I’d like to fill in for that part. If I had the means, I would have opened up that bookshop now, but I believe I need more knowledge so I am putting that dream on hold for a while till I am done with my post grad.

Like I mentioned, I have always enjoyed storytelling. But never I thought it’d be one thing that I would consider as a career. Thanks to my storytelling lecturer when I was in Australia, Howard Cassidy who always encouraged me to try new things and took us to school and told stories to kids, it is now one thing that I really want to get better at and learn more and share it with every other kids in the world. That bookstore dream has always been there because I love reading but Howard came along and inspired me to do what I enjoy best and now it is my ultimate dream to be the best storyteller like he is.

I enjoy good cartoons and great animation, but I am very sure it can never beat the kind of animation that is going on in my head when I read books or telling a story. Like I said, I let my imagination runs wild, wilder than a flying house set for a great adventure. But I am still learning, so how about free passes to watch Up! to enrich my imagination? :) All in the name of educating kids today who will build and invent great things that based from well, that imagination they once had!

*as you could read, it's nothing really amazing. Anyone could write about their dreams and their life goal - I am just one of them and you definitely are one of them too :)

things you want, things you can't have

There are tons of things that I want - some are possible to work towards it and others are those that I have to miss because they don't come by often; when they do, I have to say no due to reasons I don't even know why I came up with.

Like the premiere of UP.

I have decided I am not going. The premiere is on next Tuesday night in KL. I'll be downsouth and though I could take Wednesday off and drive up after school on Tuesday arvo, I'd be dead tired. Of course being able to meet Cyan and watching good animation would take away that..and a break from work is really what I need.

But I need to be saving money and sticking to frugal living - plan for the worst, hope for the best. Going back up would cost petrol and toll and whatnot. I spend less than that for food for a month - that's just because groceries here are cheaper and I don't eat out nor eat a lot for that matter. Maybe this frugality would seem to be the opposite of my recent spending on a new phone - it wasn't in our monthly budget. So it's a totally different part of few allocated budget(s) I have for myself.

So I guess I'll email Nuffnang tomorrow or something to inform them I can't go so they can give my tickets to more deserving-in-KL blogger. It sucks, but can't have everything now can we.

On a more positive note, I could go watch in JB for only 10 bucks :)

Testing

Pixelpipe testing

UP anyone?

so like couple weeks ago I came across Nuffnang's co founder Tim's post about giving away premiere tickets to watch UP. In order to kind of win a pair of tickets, people would have to tell him what they've always wanted to do in their lifetime and why. After reading that post for the first time, I told myself "nah, I can never write anything good about what I want to do" etc. Regardless, I started writing up about the topic and actually finished it. But I didn't think it was good enough to be sent and I guess I was scared about the possibility of him thinking I am a weirdo or a loser or something - come on, we're talking about Timothy Tiah who is undeniably successful at a very young age. There was no way I could impress him with my tiny puny dream.

So I saved my entry and just left it at that.

That night I told Gruffy about it and he said I should just submit my entry. I emailed it to him and asked him what he thought about it and he still said I should just go ahead and submit it - which I did. Honestly, I didn't think that my entry would leave any strong impression and when Tim replied to me and said it was the first time that someone shared a dream like that with him, I still thought he was just being nice. He does seem like a nice guy after all. Secretly I hoped I won so I kept checking his blog to see if he's made a decision. When he finally did and said that the chosen winners would receive an email from Nuffnang in the next few days (with 1st August being the last of the next few days he mentioned), I eagerly waited for that email to reach my inbox.

Came Saturday - no email so I told Gruffy I didn't win. Of course, being the biased fiance he is :P he said that I should have but it was ok. He said he was proud regardless. I also told him to download the movie once it's out on dvd so we can watch it when I go back to Florida this coming holiday - I was sad but I have already accepted that there was no way I'd win cos my writing isn't good. And probably didn't convey what I really wanted to.

It was totally out of my head and I haven't thought about it since Saturday but I came home today to find an email from Nuffnang saying I got the invitation to watch the premiere!!! I was kinda shocked and kept asking myself "I won?" and seriously couldn't believe it cos today's Wednesday and I thought there's no way that email was legit - but it was! So I told Gruffy that maybe some people who won couldn't attend or something so they decided to give the tickets to people who submitted entries or something. Regardless, I got them!

I know that some might think "it's only premiere tickets, what's the big deal?". But it means the world to me that there are possibilities that people actually think that my dream is as big as anyone else's and that my writing managed to convey that. It may just be premiere tickets to you, but it's potential clients who might send their kids to my bookstore for some good storytelling fun to me! (maybe I'll share that entry about my dream that I submitted so you guys would have a better idea :)

But whatever it is, I'm going to the premiere screening! I wanna take Cyan with me but she hasn't replied - must be a busy day at work. And it doesn't matter if my entry was second or third best or what, I am glad I submitted it and gained a little bit of confidence - thanks to Gruffy who has always been supporting me and my writing, as well as always motivating me to chase my dreams :)