Thursday 31 March 2016

Tuition every Thursday

I realized I've always been blogging about school and other stuff... and rarely on my tuition job!

So today, I'll like to spend some time posting about certain interesting things that happened in my work. XD

Today, Lynn (parent of a child I am currently coaching) was happily telling me how her daughter has scored well in her composition and her teacher even wanted to photocopy her composition and share with everyone in the class... As she continued to rattle on how glad she was because Reanne's weakest component had always been Chinese composition... I suddenly interrupted and said: "That piece of composition... I did it with her during tuition!"

Her lit-up face suddenly toned down drastically and she screamed in a seemingly amused manner: "REANNE!!!!!! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME TEACHER BOON MAY TAUGHT YOU ONE!!! GRRR! MAKE ME HAPPY FOR NOTHING!" 

Hahaha XD Her reaction was so hilarious! 

I also went to teach Jovan today. He is a mischievous, inquisitive and cute primary 4 boy whom I have been teaching for 1 year plus for now... I always laugh at him narrating his stories with lots of sound effects. He always like to ask very weird, you can say out-of-the-box yet hilarious questions... 

I remembered once.. our conversation went something like this:

Jovan: Teacher Boon May, how do you know a person is a boy or girl?
Me: There are a lot of ways to see it. Obviously for your age, the hair length would be the most obvious characteristic to determine a person is a boy or girl, right?
Jovan: But teacher! I have this Indian classmate who has long hair but he tells me he is a boy. 
Me: Ahh, then maybe you can see if he goes to the male toilet or the female toilet?
Jovan: But teacher! Maybe my Indian classmate is a girl but this Indian classmate just wants to go to the boy's toilet?
Me: Easy! If he is using the urinal, the thing that boys pee on in toilet.. then he must a boy because he can "aim" his urine there. Girls cannot "aim" when they stand up and pee! 
Jovan: Teacher, you are wrong. Guys cannot aim when they pee one. Like me ah.... when I pee... "WOOOOOOO" the pee everywhere one!!!

Hahahaha. I swear the way he described the sound effect in a very animated manner was really so cute and funny =D

Today... I got a shock when he asked me if I had a "gang" when I was in primary school because he has a "gang".

I laughed and said: "I wouldn't say I have a gang, but I would say I have groups of friends! Jovan, gang is usually used to refer to a group of people who do bad things, really bad things, like hitting innocent people."

While he nodded and seemed to completely understood what I meant.. He still continued using the word "gang" to describe the group of friends he had in school and all the mischief they had been up to.. as though he loved the word "gang" so much... Lol.. Kids XD



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Share a song that I heard from a busker outside Yew Tee mall today...
Was actually running late for my work but this song managed me capture my attention. Ended up, I stood there to listen to the entire song and was so satisfied with the song that I went up to contribute some money to the busker haha.




Well.. why I was so intrigued by this song was because... if you listened to the song, you would realise.. the lyrics are really depressing. And somewhat they relate to my life experience a lot.

YET...

That happy melody and the way the song is being sung... are a complete contrast to the depressive lyrics!

"Just like the flowers, I'm growing wild" - this part of the lyrics seem to illustrate an implicit meaning together with the melody associated with positive connotations. This is the part I like the most haha.

Amazing ((:


As I was slowly passing 
An orphan's home one day, 
I stopped for just a little while 
To watch the children play. 
Alone a boy was standing 
And when I asked him why, 
He turned with eyes that could not see 
And he began to cry. 

I'm nobody's child, 
I'm nobody's child. 
Just like the flowers 
I'm growing wild. 
 no mummy's kisses 
And no daddy's smile. 
Nobody wants me, 
I'm nobody's child. 


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Happy things worth remembering/mentioning:
-Mimi accompanied me to eat at my favourite Xin Wang Cafe after work today! =DD (Our jolly "hello", remember? Hahaha!!)

-Rai agreed to lend me his DSLR so that Derrick and I can film a short video to try to apply for being a travel intern next Monday! =DD

-Next Friday is coming! And that means I get to meet my girls soon. Miss them so much

-Week 11 of university. Heading nearer to the end of everything and this means... 3 MONTHS OF FREEDOM!

-Done GER1000 executive summary with a bunch of efficient groupmates on Wed ((:

-Teacher gave really useful insights on my NM2101 assignment so I have a clearer vision on how to approach it

-Parent from my tuition (Eugene) bought me a handphone stand that can be mounted onto my motorcycle. SAY BYE TO BEING ALWAYS LOST WHEN I TRY TO GO TO A NEW PLACE.

-Was so hungry and sleepy yesterday after a long day in school but I got a pleasant surprise when ZW drove down to dapao me some really delicious food =DDD




Wednesday 23 March 2016

Why we should speak up

Last semester, one of my professors asked for feedback openly in class. Thinking that since she values feedback so much that she could ask in class, I gave an honest negative feedback in front of my classmates. To my horror, she immediately snapped and some people in the class even made sounds like "orh hor..." which kind of made the entire atmosphere even worse.

I went back, pondered about what exactly did I do wrong - was it misunderstanding? Did she interpret wrongly? Or did I just phrase my feedback too flagrantly?

Later on, I couldn't stand the feeling of leaving things hanging (since now we are in bad terms but we still need to see each other in tutorial classes). So I took the initiative to clear things up with her and offer my apologies.

Thankfully, she's cool and over about it.

In fact, our relationship became way better than any typical student-teacher relationship in university after that.


Now.. that's not the point of why I am talking about this incident in my post today....

To get to the main point.. let me back track a bit..

During the period when I told my friends about this incident - I remembered very vividly some of my friends said, "Boon May. You need to learn to live in the reality. You should only bootlick the professor, never argue back and ask less questions so you won't annoy him/her so much."

What they had said struck me. Not because I feel that what they say were true and I should change the way I am to "adapt to the reality" but.. because what they say were strongly against my consonance.
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Firstly, I don't bootlick, and have never booklicked anyone else in my life before. I think that it might be due to the some high ego in me that I never booklick others.. This can be a big disadvantage in my life.. I know that long ago - but I won't concede. Because I always feel If you can build good relationships with others through sincerity and goodwill, why do you have to booklick?

Another reason is that I grew up treating everyone the same and this isn't something that can be changed within a day or so.


So yeah. Bootlicking is a big NO-NO for me.


Secondly, if something is wrong, I will always speak up. Some people see this as "arguing back" but to me, there is a fine line of difference in these two.


Thirdly, I always believe if we don't know something, we should always ask questions. Or else we will not get anywhere. Even if after asking questions, we may not get the answers we want.. we may appear stupid..


But the thing is, at least after asking questions maybe from person X and person X couldn't give the answers we want.. we would now know that we have to find other ways to get answers.

It means we are taking a leap forward and becoming clearer to where we should get our answers, isn't it?

This brings me to the point I want to talk about today - Asking questions.

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This semester, I met the toughest, most sarcastic and most unhelpful professor I have ever met in my life.

Every question I posed to her was rebounded back with sarcastic or harsh comments.

It is no wonder nobody has asked her questions during and after class except me all the times.


While I have to admit, sometimes I do ask questions out of convenience.. But most of the times, my questions are really legit.

I remembered doing something really meticulously and wholeheartedly.. spent the entire day and came up with something to show her and asked if what I have done are alright. and I got the harshest reply from her in something like this: "I won't entertain things like this. Why are you spending so much time doing some thing that will waste your and my precious time? Please make use of your time wisely."


First, my heart sank. And then later, I got angry. I felt like... all my efforts have gone to waste. Instead of providing me constructive feedback, why did the professor have to sound so mean? My dislike for this teacher started to build up.


I started to doubt myself - Am I really wrong in asking questions? Because every time I ask a question, all I get back from her is a harsh or sarcastic remark and it felt like I got slapped in the face every time and it hurts.



Until today.

We were supposed to have a make-up class at 2 p.m. today. Having been released from my second tutorial early, I decided to go for the make-up class half-and-hour early.

To my dismay, I found out that this professor I dislike also went early.

"Should I just leave and come back at 2pm?" this question sprang into my mind.

"No, let's just have a talk to her and see how it goes," I thought.

And so..

I greeted her, sat beside her and we chatted for 30 minutes.


To my surprise... her demeanor when she talked to me 1-1 was so different from how she was usually like in class - that angsty and sarcastic tutor whom perpetually seems to have this "come near me and you will get it from me." that kind of aura.

When she spoke to me 1-1, she was cheery - all smiles and courteous.

Somehow, she knew that I was working and studying at the same time (which I don't know how come she knew) and asked how I was coping with my studies.


I replied, "Average" and what she replied me was something I have never expected coming from a professor...

"Coming from my experience, results are really nothing. Really.


"Remember the two things that you would always need: First, you must be able to accept feedback.. feedback from anyone, your boss, your colleague, your partner, whoever. Second, you must be thickskinned. Very thickskinned.


"And you know what Boon May? From my classes I have with you... the way you dare to ask questions... I can see you are a very strong girl. And I'm sure this will bring you a long way ahead even after you graduate from university. Believe me."

I was speechless when I heard her saying that.


My impression of her took a reverse turn drastically.


From what she said about "must be able to accept feedback", a sudden realisation came to me -
So all along... she was being mean for this reason!


She wanted to train her students to be able to take criticisms and be more resourceful.


And.. all along, I felt like I appeared stupid in her eyes because of her harsh comments.

Yet I was so wrong.


Contrary to that negative and silly interpretation of my side, I appeared to be "strong" to her for daring to ask questions.


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So... this brings to the conclusion and the morale of why I want to share this experience of mine..


Sometimes... why we choose to be passive - because being passive is within our comfort zone. We don't get hurt, don't appear silly and in fact, we appear like we know everything.

But actually, we have a lot of things we do not know. But that's okay -

And it's okay to appear silly to ask questions even if these silly questions might hurt us. Because we learn. We learn to ask better questions. We learn that if we can't get answers from asking questions from a particular someone, we can always be resourceful and get our answers elsewhere than to be stuck at the same stage. And most importantly, we learn to accept negative feedback so that they won't hurt us anymore.

Because ultimately.. I strongly believe we will become the clever one emerging from all those people around us who think we appeared silly.




Ending off with this quote that I concur with =)

Tuesday 15 March 2016

So tired & missing sweetheart

5.58p.m. now. Currently in NUS Biz Library.
Going for work soon.

Have to interview communication manager from AWARE after work.
Gonna finish up my infographic by tonight.

2 more days to my official 1st year of being a licensed rider in Singapore.

Need to settle the renewal of insurance and road tax tomorrow~
Still can't find any documents regarding my motor insurance T_T

Been so busy






Sunday 13 March 2016

Diligently living my life

Guest speech on 10 March 2015:



A picture taken with my Responder Critique, Simon and my tutor, Miss Cardoza! :-)




A picture captured by yeeting when I was speaking XD



Dinner with Xin ting at Breko's Cafe :)















I'm so honored and happy to be given the chance to speak as a guest in one of the GEM2027/GET1008 lecture! Still can't believe I did it anyway =DDDDDD

Not sure if anyone heard of this saying before, but one of the greatest fears for people is actually public speaking!


For myself personally... I used to be such a timid girl back then in primary school who don't even dare to raise up my hands and ask if I could go to the toilet....

And then...
10 plus years later... I actually gave a guest speech to 150++ people which to me... is such a great achievement. T____T

I'm so so thankful for everything and for everyone who supported me.
Will never forget this <3


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Single Parent's Day on 12 March 2016





















Went down for Single Parent's Day event and listened to some of the speakers who talked about their stories.. Can't help but to go to one of them and hugged her! Rai captured the image of us talking to each other after the hug haha ^

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Volunteered for ChariTeach photoshop and spent my day (9am-5pm) learning the various techniques in Photoshop~~ =D


A poster I've done with the guidance of the instructor~ =D

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 You know... there'd people out there trying to break you, but...
always remember, how you perceive yourself is more important than how they perceive you.
<3
Always remember this: You're AWESOME

Sunday 6 March 2016

NM2101 midterms tomorrow

Study plan for NM2101 midterms for 6/3/2016
1. Familiarize the key terms in the textbook
2. Memorise the more important key terms in the textbook
3. Read the required chapters in the textbook. (Understand briefly what is covered there)
Chapter 1 pg 3-21
Chapter 3 pg 47-70
Chapter 6 pg 108-130
Chapter 8 pg 155-163
Chapter 4
Chapter 7 pg 142-146
Chapter 8 pg 173-178
Chapter 14 pg 293-307
Chapter 17 pg 375-376
Chapter 9 pg 185-200
Chapter 10 pg 201-216
4. Read lecture notes & mind maps again
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
5. Review tutorial questions
Tutorial 1
Tutorial 2
Tutorial 3
Tutorial 4
6. Review forum questions
Question 1
Question 2
Question 3
Question 4


7. Write down the concepts/materials in a paper that are likely to come out tmr based on teacher’s hints

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Where are you Mimi, I'm worried.