sank

do i care?

i had one of the busiest days in school.


one of the girls in my class got kicked out from school.

then, the student who wrote 'read bismillah before eating to prevent development of cancer cells' was kicked out from school.

and the student who wrote about bowel movement has also been kicked out from school.

i am their form teacher.






and all happened within 2 weeks.


i am having a bad sore throat.

most of my students barely passed their bio and they ARE happy and satisfied.



i'm tired.

contradictions

You only know what I want you to
I know everything you don't want me to
Oh your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine
Oh you think your dreams are the same as mine
Oh I don't love you but I always will
Oh I don't love you but I always will
Oh I don't love you but I always will
I always will

I wish you'd hold me when I turn my back
The less I give the more I get back
Oh your hands can heal, your hands can bruise
I don't have a choice but I still choose you
Oh I don't love you but I always will
Oh I don't love you but I always will
Oh I don't love you but I always will
Oh I don't love you but I always will
Oh I don't love you but I always will
Oh I don't love you but I always will
Oh I don't love you but I always will
I always will
I always will
I always will
I always will
I always will
-Poison and Wine, by The Civil Wars-

we all need

can't fight biology.

*gee, it's the title for Grey's season 7, episode 4*

and so, as i have predicted -- bio results is a hell of disaster.

paper 1 - majority of them gets 20 something over 50.

paper 2 - i am halfway through marking their papers. maybe there will be a few of them (can count with fingers using EITHER my left, or right hand) get 50-ish over 100.

paper 3 - hoho, majority gets 20-ish over 50.

i have discussed the above questions 3-4 times ever since we covered the chapter on Enzymes, right until before the bio papers.

basically, the question asks the students to explain why the *smart* housewife marinates cutlets of meat with strips of papaya and put it in a basin containing warm water.
use your brain to apply some knowledge of biology - cutlets and strips is to increase surface area. papaya contains enzyme papain that can tenderize the meat.
warm water is to provide optimum temperature for enzymatic reaction.

easy, right?
gosh, there are still students who couldn't answer it correctly,
giving me ALL SORTS of crap.
like the example given above -- she answered in a way as if she is preparing some cooking recipe.

the question above asks for ways to prevent development of cancer cells.
what can i say?
i can't deny the existence of divine power, can i?

this student - i don't know how much he has learned or remembered over the past 10 months studying biology.

his papers are one of the easiest to mark, together with a few more of them.
cross. cross. cross. and cross.

but i know he remembered one important thing i told them during one of the lessons,
and i am sure it will stick with him for the rest of his life.

the meaning of bowel movement and pass motion.
oh crap.

the marks for the whole bio paper? i think they can barely get a pass for it.

i am just a docile house cat

*ouchh... *

i'm alright, don't i seem to be?
cat pic #2
***

yesterday was a weird day. today was a weird day, too.

i am in such a state where i am feeling utterly defeated by circumstances of life and people around me.

everyday i go to school, i am reminded of how terribly i failed.

"Failure teaches success," says the slogan of a form 4 class.

when i enter my math classes, i see the word failure all over their faces, like how people see food -humans everywhere when they are trying lose weight by denying themselves the most important thing to them. it's like i have failed to enable them to perform well in maths. when i mark their exercises, i don't just see their correct/wrong workings and answers, i also see the word failure all over the pages. some of them always give me ridiculous answers. and i always wanted to give them a good scolding. as i marked the exercises, i thought about the things i want to lash out on them in the next lesson. however, when i went in to the class, i purred like a cat instead of roaring like a lioness (or tigress, whichever will do). i failed to even scold them.

at the end of every lesson, most of the time they are able to answer the questions i give them. isn't that a fair indicator that they have at least understood the topics? but their maths results sucks like mad for my standard. monthly tests results sucks. mid year exams results also sucks. recent mock test results also sucks. fair prediction - it will be the same for the coming final exams. it's as if i haven't done anything in the past many months. it's as if i have been fooling and playing around and going on a miserable long holiday in such a terribly faraway land. and apparently i am guilty of a new charge against me - there is NO (or minimum) freaking correlations between the reflections in my lesson plan with their ridiculous maths results.

there's this girl who tried to bodek me in the beginning of the year. she once told me she used to do well in maths, between A and B. but her maths results in form 2 is never good, she has never gotten at least a B so far. and now when i look at her face, all i see is a face with wandering thoughts and lacking of interest. did i just kill her interest in maths within a year? 2 or 3 of them have been failing most, if not all the tests and exams. is it my fault that i didn't reprimand them for doing badly? is it my fault that i allowed them to learn on their own pace which is painstakingly slow?

what should i do?

the same thing happens for bio. not to mention, science.

the form 4 had their bio papers today. last night and last thursday night, i went back to do revision with my class and some students from other classes joined us too. yes, i have to admit that i have seen the questions because i was the one having the softcopy and getting it ready for printing. i didn't purposely drop hints on the questions coming out. the students asked some good questions and we discussed the facts and the answering techniques. and yes, some of the questions they asked really did come out. and therefore to some, it seems like i leaked out the questions. my fault, again.

even if what i did is considered as leaking out questions, my class still didn't do well.

i failed to speak the maths lingo, or the bio lingo or the science lingo that can register in their minds.

am i expecting too much?

i really felt defeated. purposeless. void.

oh sigh.

invasion

you invaded my thoughts.

Ready, or not
I hear a clock tock-ticking away
Though I'd ask for those hands to stay in place
And time, my friend
I see your face hard traveling, beside mine
Etched a line
A crease I find when my smile fades

And all you really want is so clear
And all you really want is so near you
Well maybe what you want is right here

So ready, or not, I found a clock that I'd hid away
And I looked it straight in the face, this time
And time, my friend
I'll know your face through every bend of the way
I'll ask you to stay and lend me your hand

And all you want is everything beautiful
And all you want is every little thing
Everything little dream you had
All you want is everything beautiful
And all you want is one day, one day

So ready or not
I hear the calm tock-tick of a clock
A friend the whole way
- Everything, All At Once by Correatown-

you and me,
we just need that one day
of indescribable beauty for two souls.

maybe someday

forcing your way through.

it's important to be at the right place at the right time.

i have tried very hard for the past 9 months.

you can go
you can start all over again
you could try to find a way to make another day go by
you can hide
hold all your feelings inside
you could try to carry on when all you want to do is cry

and maybe someday we'll figure all this out
try to put an end to all our doubt
and try to find a way to make things better now that
maybe someday we'll live our lives out loud
we'll be better off somehow, someday

'Cause sometimes we don't really notice
just how good it can get
so maybe we should start all over
start all over again

maybe that's just not me.

let's trade shoes

i guess we would have to walk a mile
in each others shoes at least
What size you wear? I wear 10's
Let's see if you can fit your feet

In my shoes, just to see
what it's like, to be me
i'll be you, let's trade shoes
just to see what it'd be like

to feel your pain, you feel mine
go inside each others mind
just to see what we'd find
look at shit through each others eyes
-Beautiful, Eminem-

*

36 to go. the counting down and complaining make me look like some kind of ungrateful idiots. haha. there's nothing much in school, except covering the work left behind by some people, doing some revision with the math classes, marking papers.. planning for the hospital visitation in November. Math revision has been super disastrous.

treat them with as much respect as you can muster,
teach with as much passion as you can find.
- shen -

i'm trying my best.
they make me feel like i'm a big time failure. yeah, i think that's the word for the year.

*
old pictures of you and me
when we were young and were free

my laptop died and resurrected for the second time. everything within it is gone. gone. i don't even want to describe how angry, how frustrated i am. sigh.

i need something to keep my sanity.

still counting

the past. the present. the future

time is an illusion.

42 more days.

your quiet eyes

He Had Such Quiet Eyes
by Bibsy Soenharjo

He had such quiet eyes
She did not realise
They were two pools of lies
Layered with thinnest ice

To her, those quiet eyes
Were breathing desolate sighs
Imploring her to be nice
And to render him paradise

If only she’d been wise
And had listened to the advice
Never to compromise
With pleasure-seeking guys
She’d be free from ‘the hows and whys’

Now here’s a bit of advice
Be sure that nice really nice
Then you’ll never be losing at dice
Though you lose your heart once or twice

train of thoughts

that's just your ego, trying to make sure it stays in charge.
This is what your ego does.
It keeps you feeling separate,
keeps you with a sense of duality,
tries to convince you
that you're flawed and broken and alone
instead of whole.
~Eat Pray Love~

i should stop listening to that voice in me that is pushing me to be a hero and be all self-sacrificial, blatantly disregarding what i am feeling, what i am going through. That voice has the support of the pro-calling allies. i began to realize that it's my ego that forced me through the years.. the ego that says to me that this jia can do all that is required of her... 'send me and i will go...'
in a way, it's like i'm choosing my own sacrifices.. i thought i can do it, i can see myself through. and in the end, i got slaps on my face and my cheeks are red like tomatoes... i failed. and then this ego tries to convince me to stay put with where i am, giving me all sorts of reasons and justifications.. so that i will choose to stay and not be ridicule by people who will laugh at my failure to pull through the teaching stint. This is like a huge revelation to me when i was on the way back from Tawau airport to LD almost 3 weeks ago.

***
where have all the good times gone?

i know the best is yet to come. those are just good times.
but given such a sentimental melancholic like me, most of the time is spent on reminiscing the past. big chunk on worrying about the future. only a pinch of it is rooted in the present.
how pity that can be!

***
what would you do if you knew that your emotions are eating you from the inside out?

i was driving back from town this afternoon. driving alone is like taking a dive into the swimming pool. the mood plunges deep down into the waters like some professional divers, just that the mood doesn't quite know how to work its way back to the surface.

****

I stare at my reflection in the mirror. Why am I doing this to myself. Losing my mind on a tiny error. I nearly left the real me on the shelf. To lose it all in the blur of the start. Seeing is deceiving, dreaming is believing. It's okay not to be okay. Sometimes it's hard to follow your heart. Tears don't mean you're losing, everybody's bruising. Just be true to who you are.
~Who you are, Jessie J Cornish

we remember 'moments'

our moments

tell two persons.

Her fight against sex slavery.

I got to know about her work from the book Half The Sky and found the video of her speaking in TED.

"Don't tell me 100 ways how you cannot respond to this problem.
Can you ply your mind for that one way that you can respond to that problem.?"

~ Sunitha Krishnan