l'chaim!
The past few days have simply been too fun/eventful for words. Having said that, I shall now make a paradoxical attempt to put them down in words:
Friday saw the most emotional tuition session I've had so far. The kids' PACT results were coming out that day, and I could sense the atmosphere of dread the moment I stepped in. For once they were excruciatingly quiet, some of their faces tear-stained even. And they never stopped crying. For two hours I struggled to find words of consolation for those who had broken down in tears, while trying to teach those who seemed to remain impervious to the whole thing. I didn't know if that was a sign of confidence or resignation to fate. (but soon found out that it was the latter) A part of me wanted to say to them, see, I told you to study hard when it mattered but now it's too late. But of course I didn't.
Saturday began with a talk at NUS, then I joined my family at Parkway for lunch. Parkway was having some anniversary celebration thing going on. The day then ended with band practice at Tovya's place, and a huge dollop of drama. Jeremy had this argument with Larissa halfway through the session and (as usual) I suddenly became a relationship expert, an Aunt Agony of sorts. It doesn't take much to give advice in these situations though-just the clear mind of an onlooker. I'm glad they're okay now.
Went to Menotti's on Sunday to celebrate..I don't even know what we were celebrating anymore. These days the we jump on any reason to celebrate. I ordered spaghetti aglio olio, which turned out to contain enough salt to make the Dead Sea float. However, the hazelnut gelato sort of made up for that little inconvenience. And then it was karaoke at Ten Dollar KTV Club at Chinatown - not the most glamorous of KTVs but boy was it a good deal - 5 hours of karaoke, free flow of drinks and a bowl of shark's fin soup at $10. Only Soon Heng has incriminating evidence of the lunacy that ensued in the KTV room. I hope he doesn't distribute it too freely.
And it was a good thing I managed to recover most of my voice by the next day, cos I was meeting up with Jacq. We were lucky to witness the contestants of the Subaru Challenge over at Ngee Ann City scramble for their breaks. Suffering is a spectator sport. We then watched Rendition, which was unnervingly similar to the stuff we read about at work. Don't get me wrong, it was an excellent movie..story well-told..but it just reminded me too much of - whoopscan'ttellyou. I love how they used time distortion in the movie. Oh and I love Cathay cinemas now..their tickets are cheap on weekdays and there's a 12% off for UOB cardholders AND they don't check our age! We then hung out at Orchard Library to explore FLStudio 5, which Jacq might use for her IS. Or to compose music for fun, if nothing else!
Yesterday. Returned to work and got this really last-minute piece of work due Friday dumped on me. had to do a duty swap and now I'm working Deepavali. Veery convenient for bosses to hang on to an assignment and then unload it on an unsuspecting lowly NSF, messing up his personal life in the process. But still, good thing about this unit is that you walk out the door leaving the baggage behind. And leave the stupid assignment behind I did as we headed to Bugis for ma la huo guo - once again to celebrate - Soon's bday/ORD. Then we went to Aston's bro's bar for drinks/pool. Both Soon and Aston agree that ORD s overrated - at least in our unit. For one thing, you get to clear leave towards the end so when the day comes you don't feel that much more liberated than you already are. For another, our job isn't all that bad after all. At least it's interesting.
Friday saw the most emotional tuition session I've had so far. The kids' PACT results were coming out that day, and I could sense the atmosphere of dread the moment I stepped in. For once they were excruciatingly quiet, some of their faces tear-stained even. And they never stopped crying. For two hours I struggled to find words of consolation for those who had broken down in tears, while trying to teach those who seemed to remain impervious to the whole thing. I didn't know if that was a sign of confidence or resignation to fate. (but soon found out that it was the latter) A part of me wanted to say to them, see, I told you to study hard when it mattered but now it's too late. But of course I didn't.
Saturday began with a talk at NUS, then I joined my family at Parkway for lunch. Parkway was having some anniversary celebration thing going on. The day then ended with band practice at Tovya's place, and a huge dollop of drama. Jeremy had this argument with Larissa halfway through the session and (as usual) I suddenly became a relationship expert, an Aunt Agony of sorts. It doesn't take much to give advice in these situations though-just the clear mind of an onlooker. I'm glad they're okay now.
Went to Menotti's on Sunday to celebrate..I don't even know what we were celebrating anymore. These days the we jump on any reason to celebrate. I ordered spaghetti aglio olio, which turned out to contain enough salt to make the Dead Sea float. However, the hazelnut gelato sort of made up for that little inconvenience. And then it was karaoke at Ten Dollar KTV Club at Chinatown - not the most glamorous of KTVs but boy was it a good deal - 5 hours of karaoke, free flow of drinks and a bowl of shark's fin soup at $10. Only Soon Heng has incriminating evidence of the lunacy that ensued in the KTV room. I hope he doesn't distribute it too freely.
And it was a good thing I managed to recover most of my voice by the next day, cos I was meeting up with Jacq. We were lucky to witness the contestants of the Subaru Challenge over at Ngee Ann City scramble for their breaks. Suffering is a spectator sport. We then watched Rendition, which was unnervingly similar to the stuff we read about at work. Don't get me wrong, it was an excellent movie..story well-told..but it just reminded me too much of - whoopscan'ttellyou. I love how they used time distortion in the movie. Oh and I love Cathay cinemas now..their tickets are cheap on weekdays and there's a 12% off for UOB cardholders AND they don't check our age! We then hung out at Orchard Library to explore FLStudio 5, which Jacq might use for her IS. Or to compose music for fun, if nothing else!
Yesterday. Returned to work and got this really last-minute piece of work due Friday dumped on me. had to do a duty swap and now I'm working Deepavali. Veery convenient for bosses to hang on to an assignment and then unload it on an unsuspecting lowly NSF, messing up his personal life in the process. But still, good thing about this unit is that you walk out the door leaving the baggage behind. And leave the stupid assignment behind I did as we headed to Bugis for ma la huo guo - once again to celebrate - Soon's bday/ORD. Then we went to Aston's bro's bar for drinks/pool. Both Soon and Aston agree that ORD s overrated - at least in our unit. For one thing, you get to clear leave towards the end so when the day comes you don't feel that much more liberated than you already are. For another, our job isn't all that bad after all. At least it's interesting.
posted by kangwen at 3:13 AM
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