Dead Wasp

Found a dead wasp. Took some pics of it. Check out the album.

lens

just bought myself a pair of lens i.e the 28-75 2.8 and the 17-35 2.8-4. I will be trying them out soon.

flickr

added more pics to my www.flickr.com/qathirah account but could not create more sets. maybe i should just stick to multiply.

flickr

added more pics to my www.flickr.com/qathirah account but could not create more sets. maybe i should just stick to multiply.

flickr

Just set up a flickr account the other day. Being a digital immigrant, still have yet to be very comfortable with the site. Anyways, I've uploaded three pictures from my trip to LKW and BKK. The website url is www.flickr.com/qathirah I think.

Today is the second day of school and I've got a very nice bunch of pupils. Very timid though. Would love them to be more outspoken. Oh well, they should have their own quirks and I guess it is only a matter of time before I get to be more familiar with them and their quirks.

Have started marking Science and Mathematics. Will focus on English today. I hope I do not lose anybody along the way. To all, here is wishing all a Happy 2008..

Sigh, HE briefing in another 20 minutes. Left the house even before Adam woke up. What a downer...

Bangkok

Just came back from Bangkok on the 12th. Actually went to BK and then back to KL and then to Langkawi. Loved Langkawi! Loved Bangkok too. Really was lucky cuz it was the Thai Kings birthday and the whole country was celebrating. Makes me feel like I was in a wild birthday party event!. Anyway, will update with more pictures, but just wanted to share the sight of pink taxis, really took our breath away.

I'm now at home waiting for the postman to deliver a package to me.

19 dec 2007 1409

Spaghetti

I cooked today. I cooked lunch. I cooked spaghetti. I made a friend during PSLE marking, Jeanne and we were discussing about food. I mentioned that I kind of am getting bored with bottled source, and she suggested a basic combination of olive oil, english spices, garlic and salt. I could not remember what she said actually and I did not note them down, so today I guess I started with what she told me and I'll move on from there.

So to start it off, these are the ingredients...
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
enough olive oil to coat your spaghetti causing it to have an oily texture
mccormik italian spices (not promoting the brand but it worked for me and I don't know of any other brand, bought at NTUC punggol plaza)
red onion, chopped
mccormik spicy spices mix
two eggs
a can of ayam brand tuna with mayonaise

What I did.
Firstly while heating the olive oil and boiling the water for the spagh, I chopped the garlic and onions
Put in the onions in the olive oil, followed by the chopped onions.
Stir, if not the garlic will burn, very delicate these things
Add in the spices, noticed I did not mentioned Salt
Put in two eggs but try not to stir or scramble them too much or it,ll be too mushy.
Open the can of tuna and heat it with some cherry tomatoes, whole.
Slice or quarter some cherry tomatoes and placed it in the olive oil mix.. I'd squash them when they are in the pot as this will force the juice out, thus adding some flavour..

Once done, it took me less than 5 minutes wait for the spaghetti to cool,
Remember to add some olive oil and salt in the water, why? I don't know but it was mentioned in the packaging.

Pour the olive oil based sauce and the tuna over the spags, and mix.
Voila...

Heh heh

If you've tried it, let me know how it turns out. You have anything to share please do...


Thank Jeanne

Oh, my kids exams starts tomorrow...Sigh
20th October 2007 2235 hrs

PSLE marking

Today is the 19th October. I've just reached home after 4 days of PSLE marking. Went to Radin Mas Primary School all the way at Lower Delta Road. Had to leave at 6.40 every morning, Sigh.
Made many new friends there. Many good friends, Freda, Aishah, Salina, Jeanne, Seetoh and Faizal. Went to Seah Imm Food center for lunch the first day and could not find car park. Went there with Faizal, Jeanne, Salina and Aishah. Went to Vivo Banquet for the second day lunch and this time Freda followed too. On the third day, Seetoh followed to Vivo Chicken Rice Shop. Not bad...love the company. As for the food, it can be had again, but not the company. Hope I will be able to see them again. Sent them an email just now. Hope they will reply.

Just like the song, by Nickleback, you make me feel how I really am.

Need to go to a colleague's place later and then later at night, go jalan jalan with the gang from holy. Sigh so many friends, all going and coming, can't find one that will just stay.

Term 4

It's term 4 already and I feels excited and fearful at the same time. Why? Many factors or reasons. For one, there are only four weeks to teach this term but the workload is for a ten week term. Haiz!

Su just got herself a macbook, white with 2gb of ram. Courtesy of her school. Don't know about you, but after sooo long tinkering with wintel pc, you just want a computer that does not hang as often. I mean you just want one that works without you doing the works ever so often. Tried out her macbook and felt like I want one for myself. It's quite cool to switch it on and less then 30s, you are ready to be on the net.

I have many computers at home. A pentium 4 dell, a pentium, the chip after pentium 4, Acer, a G4 mac pro, the one I'm using now, a fujitsu in the office and my wife mac book. It's not that bad. Used my computers for word processing, excel spreasheets and image file management and listening to music and of course, surfing the net. But, a computer is a computer and if you had to ask which is better, get one that suits your needs, although a mac is nicer....

The week long holidays has just ended. I had remedials and suplementary every day and I'd only enjoyed the holidays on the last Sunday, i.e yesterday. We went to Bukit Batok CSC and I went in the wave pool. It was fun. Scary, but fun. Scary, er well a 35 yearl old man who can't swim don't take too kindly to wave sweeping you off your feet every few minutes. Adam was laughing at me! Yeah, but he had the float on!

After that, we had lunch at Siam kitchen in lot 10, CCK. Not bad. We could have enjoyed it more if Adam didn't have a stomachache and wanted to go to the toilet, the toilet all the way in Woodlands! Anyway, we had the serve buffet. 15 dishes for $14.99 per person. And we could have more for free. We didn't manage to. The food was nice. Not as fiery, but delicate.

We went to Woodlands after that. Wan was assembling something, with castors, and I just wanted to go to sleep. I did manage to get a few moments of sleep. And after that we went to Pasir Ris for a bit of horse riding! Well, Adam and Wawa went for the rides while the bigger people just watched and waved enthusiastically.

We went to Bedok Corner for dinner. Dad came on his own and we had ikan bakar ikan pari, The sauce is not as burnt as I remember when I had the dish at Clark Quay, but it was very savoury. Cost $10. I had chicken chop, Adam and Wawa had fish and chips, Su had seafood hor fun and she being the sea food horfun specialist, did not quite like it. Tini had mee goreng mama and dad had tahu goreng with fush noodles. Mum did not have anything though. She was the one acting as the clean up person, usually a position reserve for me. heh heh.

O.k tomorrow is a new day and I have supplementary at 10.30am.

10 September 10.39 pm

Irsyad's Birthday

Today was irsyad birthday celebration. I had a role to play in it and I was proud about the roles too. Beside the usual errands that I have to do, I was also roped in to do the filler activities. It was fun doing it and it sure was fun watching myself on the video. Maybe, if I could convert the clip to quicktime, i'd guess I would put it up. Overall I guess I enjoyed the party. I can assure you that Irsyad's mum and grandmother did do a hell of a lot of preparation. The games they played was basically things to do with balloons with vouchers for prizes inserted into them. There was also a game for mum's and preschool children. My son, Adam, came in third though and there were prizes for only first and second... Sigh

Tomorow, my wife will be having her convocation. She'll be receiving her master degree. I'm really proud of her. I wish I could live up to the standard she has set. I think I'll wear a tie tomorrow.

Can't seem to finish work!

Aaaaargh...Can't seem to finish them. There is always some more lurking around. Anyway was on MC yesterday. Got a cold and my body ache like crazy. It still does today.

Completed a workshop on English Oral Communication today.

Driving License

Me wife just got her driving license today. She drove the car to and back woodlands, my in law's place. Not bad. A bit slow, but not bad. I a lot of screaming though. My bad...
Did I mentioned that she is going to be awarded the STU gold medal for outstanding student in her MEd course? Cool huh?

Desaru

Just uploaded some pics when we were in Desaru. I think this was December 2006.
1.51 pm

OSS

...that mean open school syndrome. A phrase coined by my friend, colleague, Jamey. In a few hours, it'll be back as per normal for me. Pupils, reports, the very mundane life of a teacher. Never thought I'd say it, but I feel as though I've lost it.

Sigh...

Anyway, here are more pictures of our trip to Genting. The picture was taken while I was in one of those gondolas. We were on our way down. In the background, you can see one of the hotels or apartment blocks. The ride took about 25 minutes one way. Although, its not as quiet as the ride in Langkawi, it sure was scarrier. At the bottom end of the ride was a bus station. I was told by my neighbour that many would take a bus from Larkin to the bus station at the bottom of the hill and then take the cable car up.
To get to the cable car station from New World Hotel is not difficult. The cable car ride is called Skyway and you just need to follow the many sinages. The route to the cable car station is covered.

O.k got to end here. Can't go to sleep.
0023, Monday 25th June.

Genting part 2

O.k, today is the last Friday of the hols and my leg has swell up again. Sigh.

Anyway, just to continue, the rides in Genting are nice. It seems well taken care of, the queue was manageable and the staffs were strict on safety requirments (minimum heights etc etc). O.k here is photo of the indoor theme park. It shows the Mary Brown restaurant where we had our first lunch.

10.07 am

Reports of Genting

Its was my, er well all of us, first time to Genting Highlands. It seems odd but Genting Highlands must be the oft visit site by Singaporeans. Everybody I asked has been to Genting, at least once, while some has been there so many times, that they provide interesting tips while you are there.

Anyway, this is our first time and there were 8 of us.

Transport there: We went there by bus and we booked our return trip plus the hotel room from Grassland. Here is a tip: go to the Golden Mile Shopping Complex and book your trips there. You'd have more choices, in terms of hotel rooms and also the type of buses. I'm not saying Grassland's buses and services wasn't good, but it's better to have choices.
Anyway, we paid $148 per person except the kids who paid only $83. $148 or $296 will give you two return bus tickets to and from Singapore and a hotel room with a hotel room with two twin beds.

Accomodation: Just so happened that our hotel is called the First World Hotel and it is one of the newest hotel. We stayed at level three with our three rooms next to each other. Me, Su and Adam had one room, while Wan, Irsyad and Yan slept in another while Risa and Tini slept in another. The hotel is the colourful building in the background in the picture at the top.

Food: Food is so expensive! There are the usual fast food restaurants, and some specialise restaurants plus a food court. Personally, I did not go to the food court but a packet of chicken rice there cost about Rm$10.00. Phew! What about eight McDonalds hash browns + 2 coffees? It cost me some RM$32! Wow. Here is a picture when we bought our last lunch during our last day. Hmm, if I remember correctly it was a chicken foldover meal, three cokes, three kids meal , a mc chicken and a fillet.

But believe it or not, I enjoyed my self. The ambient temperature was around 19 degress Celcius. Which I thought was quite cool! But it sure was very cold at night.

O.k will include the highlights in my next post.

1.33 am

1st Of June

Today is my birthday. I'm 35 now. Its been a short 35 years. How I wish I could go back in time and re do the things I've done. I've so many fond memories of my 35 years. Perhaps the most fond memory that I have would be the first day I started teaching. Yup! That was in April 1996. I was teaching a primary 22 in Groffiths Primary School. That was when i was a young punk...ever so impatient...I'm still enjoying myself. It has been a long but fruitfull 11 years of teaching. I remembered the day of the solemnisation of my marriage. I lurve that day. I lurve the night more! heh heh...

Now I'm happily married, a father to a son, an owner to a hyundai trajet, a five room flat in punggol and am still teaching, albeit now in compassvale primary. Made many new friends and love every single one of them....Oh well. Love life, live it!

Salman
friday 4.58 pm 1 june 2007.

I can't understand this

As any of you readers might already know, I'm a teacher and have been enjoing it for more than 10 years. I love doing it and I love love doing it all this time. But something happened today that really rocks my world and make me fel flat!

Today is Wednesday and as in any other Wednesday, its either Staff meeting or Departmental meeting. So today, it was the later. Now during today's meeting, we have to update each other on the progress of the programmes that we are in charge of. So we had to go round table... I was fine. No problem except with some of concerns raised about seashore life program.
It was fine, until my no2 came and told us about the upcoming workshop for parents this coming Saturday. I thought, hey, thats great. What a wonderful idea! It was wonderful when one of my colleagues opened up his mouth and asked if they could include parents from the P3 as well. Gawd! What was he thinking? And so the inevitable response came... My No 2 look at me and ask me to look into it! O.k fine..it is still a good idea but something not right here...

And then, we were back in the staffroom... I had a minor conversation with that esteemed colleague of mine...I ask him to elaborate more on his idea, which he did until, I asked, "do you think we really need this talk for the parents?" And he replied," Actually I'm only doing this to increase my portfolio!" WTF? I love teaching, and damn if I'm going to let this chosen profession of mine be tarnished with people who do things for the sake of just doing it... So I advise hi, if he think that there are more that he could do, why don't he approach other members of the committe and offer his assistance. His reply astounds me..."I think I'm expected to lead." So I invite him to lead and his responds, dumbfounded me..."no lah, why don't we share the credit?" Aargh!!!

So tomorrow, I'm calling a meeting to see what the other teachers in the level would say...

11th April 11.51pm (time from my pre-own mac dual g4s)

Science Center

Went to science center just now. They have a new exhibition hall, titled iSpace... Very nice! Highly recommended. There's an exhibit where you can be Tom Cruise as in Minority Report...LOL

did it...finally

Did the Science supp worksheet...two days in advance...Hooray, one of the first things that I manage to complete before I actually need it..

Today, I'm going to pick up a leather office chair which I got for $28 at yahoo auctions. Also getting a pair of computer speakers. And then I'm going to look forward in getting the power mac dual g4 1.42 thingamagertz...Will cost me 1.5k but it'll be the start of me having and using a mac...

Wish me luck...

25th March 2007
12.21 pm