Exhale

Confessions of a stand-in Relief Teacher.

2pm msging Mel and Sarah from the staffroom: SOME KIDS NEED TO DIE

Well its true.

To call some of the students I came across as 'quiet' would be a bit of an undeserving compliment and a euphemism. Stepping into the classroom was like entering a parallel universe inhabited by extras from Dawn of the Dead. Its one thing to encounter shy/quiet students. Its another to be met with blank looks of utter apathy and stoned expressions of soulless individuals who make no pretence of staying awake. In comparison, they make zombies appear perfectly sprightly, alert and attentive.

So there was some funny person who refused to own up to being class rep (oh hahahaha you'll never find out who I am! can't catch me im the gingerbread man!) until she realized I already knew the name of the rep beforehand. Some cocky guy who refused to respond when his name was read off the register and instead adopted a self-conceited smirk. This girl, whom I felt bore striking resemblance to the Queen of the Damned, imitating Sharon Au's dead fish look commendably throughout the entire lesson. And some girl who was in very permanent and obvious comatose, her head making violent jerks every 10 seconds. I was just waiting for it to bang against the table or on a giant stapler. *grumbles*

These are our brightest minds.

But to be fair there were some live ones among the legions of undead. And their seniors were fine. And maybe volcanic landforms aren't very exciting. And I'm not the most entertaining or assertive teacher.

But still, at least open your damn notes to page 70 when I say so!

I think I should employ a professional yeller/disciplinarian whenever I teach. Imagine the fun. Getting other people to do something I can't bring myself to do, apart from fantasizing about giant staplers and grievous body hurt. Just one look from me and said yeller would blast them into oblivion and back again. He would incorporate Teacher A's (guess who!) sheer ferocity and volume; Teacher B's penchant for deathly silences and public humiliation; and Teacher's C's elaborate bombast and acid sarcasm. What could be worse? You have got to have a dream.

posted by Jeanne @ 10:58 PM

Quote of the day: "Don't you know the first law of physics? Anything that's fun costs at least $8." (Cartman)

That's so true. I need more money.

Anyway Ms Leow was showing me this powerpoint quiz called 'Industrial Geography'. I'm not sure how some of the questions were related to Geography but in any case it was pretty interesting. Did you know for instance:

1. Michael Jordan is a University graduate with a degree in Geography.

2. The first MacDonalds restaurant opened not in the USA but in the UK!

3. The busiest MacDonalds outlet in the world is not in Shanghai's Pudong, or Japan's Ginza Square but in Moscow's Pushkinskaya square! ( I think that's how its spelt) Apparently, it has consistently enjoyed high turnover since 1990 when the Communists first allowed a MacDonalds outlet to open in the former Soviet Union.

4. The cost price of a pair of Nike shoes is $18. Nike then sells it to retailers at $36 who subsequently sell it to consumers at $72. Of this, just $2 goes to labour. A pittance!

5. MacDonalds freezes and then exports its pancakes, meat and buns to its franchise outlets all over the world.

I've learnt something new @_@

posted by Jeanne @ 12:12 PM

A curious sight today. Or rather, two.

Behind and across ACJC lay two huge but neat piles of food - fried rice and an assortment of noodles respectively - ontop of those black, metal, rectangular drain covers. They appeared to have been left there deliberately because this definitely isn't the first time I've seen food dumped there. At the same spots too! Do disgruntled spirits dwell in our underground sewage system and require weekly offerings of prawn noodles to be appeased? Such things occur in Burma and Nats (spirits) can even take the form of television sets! Well, at least according to Amy Lee.

Big waste of good food. I doubt scavenging crows can fully appreciate nice fried noodles. And what a mess! Couldn't they have at least put the food in a proper styrofoam container instead of artfully strewing it across the pavement?

Anyway, in the papers today - yet another ex-Crescent girl has bagged the Angus Ross prize! Congrats Abigail! And to Candice from the year before even though you confessed you only read 2 books during your A level year.

Money is dwindling. Wadrobe dwindling faster.

posted by Jeanne @ 11:42 PM

Random Bloggade:

Anjali ! Como estas? I'm going on with Intermediate Spanish. Are you? Tell me by this week cause I'm going to call the school up soon. And I hope those history essays are getting more lucid.

Priya You perfectly epitomize the phrase, still waters run deep...as do simmering grudges. Call you up for another bitch fest; Great catching up with you today!

Sarah Lim You have revealed a side I never would have thought you had, you the intentionally-bad interior designer and wicked wicked depraved Sim murderer! Rest assured, I have stored your Guylian chocolates safely in my cupboard and not in my tummy as you feared!

Pea You were awake! But yea you were right, it was way too early to go out.

Gwen why final fantasy?

Elaine where art thou?

K YOU. You are no friend though you always have a smarmy greeting at hand when you siddle up (uninvited) next to us in the canteen. I have seen you through 2 years and yet I continue to bump into you. You are ubiqutious. You are arrogant. You are insensitive. You are woefully tactless. You have stewed in your own self-importance for too long.

As Sarah, unfortunately, had to answer her phone and both Shuo Yan and Enoch had conveniently disappeared, I was left to field questions from you! Many questions! Because YOU were practically steering the conversation, obviously genuinely uninterested in anything I had to say unless it related to YOU! So to satisfy your insatiable curiousity and deep obsession with my higher education choices amogst other things I shall give you ALL THE ANSWERS I deem you ought to know. And then let us put a hasty end to our one-sided question-answer-esque relationship and be as Michael Drayton's Sonnet 61 Nay I have done, you get no more of me/And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart/That thus so cleanly I myself can free yadayadayada:

NO I will not let you blithely "copy my Law notes" even if I do apply for law school because obviously I don't let undeserving semi-acquaintances pilfer my stuff. NO I don't really enjoy talking to you and it was not a pleasure. NO I don't think you have a Tom Cruise smile. NO I do not like the affected voice you put on when talking to the MGS debators. NO I didn't realize it was the deadline for PSC scholarship application. NO I am not applying for any other scholarships. NO I have not obtained any other testimonials from any other teacher. NO I do not care to hear how your class did so you can say smugly at the end "But I did well of course". YES I do think I'm being mean now but YES I do think you have a personality as abrasive as a pumice stone. YES I think we should set up a mailing list so all my classmates can kindly email you their results because I don't know their grades so stop bugging me about it. YES that is chicken rice I am eating. YES make that a mailing list encompassing the entire faculty. YES perhaps you should consider going overseas. YES I do think you are a decent actor. YES you are sitting a tad too close for comfort. YES we are rolling our eyes and edging ever so slowly away from you. YES the prior conversation did die unceremoniously when you plonked youself next to us. YES we are all wondering why you're still here and not bugging your acsi students. YES we are trying to finish our lunch YES so please go away.

And so now the end must come. Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows and come let us kiss and part. Haunt me no longer with your 20 questions spirit!

posted by Jeanne @ 9:53 PM

My brother got into AC and he's taking Geog, Hist and Econs too (with Math). Oh goodie! I can vicarously relive my school days through him.

Sill idle, bored and unemployed.

Going off to Japan in April. Interning in May.

So just have to get through March. Sigh.

posted by Jeanne @ 3:03 PM

And because I honestly have nothing better to do now that I'm unemployed and idle, this blog entry will be about our Incredible and Scary Shrinking World.

No its not about globalization.


I think, that next to the word 'cadaverous', Webster or Oxford should place a picture of either Marc Antony (the above is a pretty good specimen) or Nicole Kidman after she renounced her auburn tresses.

They disturb me. One looks like he's being held together by nothing more than embalming fluid and the other resembles a very austere Victorian schoolmistress. She actually looks like a Stepford wife now with the crazy plasticky grin on skin that is positively stretched over her boney facial structure. I think, like Lindsay Lohan, she should've just stuck to her natural hair colour (or at least the one she had in Moulin Rogue) and not gone overboard with the washed out blonde hair and freaky botoxed-up forehead. Scary.

I don't have anything with stars being skinny..or slender..or Nicole Ritchie. But there is a fine line between svelte and corpse bride.

In fact its dinner now so with fresh images of Marc Antony in my head I shall definitely tuck in. Of course I shall spare you more evidence of my absolute lack of anything insightful to blog about.

But all the same. Doesn't that picture of Marc Antony bother you?? I mean seriously. He looks like Gollum.

posted by Jeanne @ 6:56 PM

Whoopeee! The results are out and the tedious wait is finally over! If I relief teach I get a pay rise now because I actually have higher qualifications! (so I've heard)

Some people mentioned I didn't look 'happy' to receive my results. I think its just my face. I look sullen sometimes when I'm really just stoned, nervous or tired. Don't mind my face. You should pretend its not there; really. I get rude shocks when people take candid shots of me mooching around and I end up looking very...unapprochable. gulp.

Anyway I AM SHORT ON CASHFLOW. I don't know where all the money went to. I do know that $10.90 went to Body Shop's coffers - undeservingly! (see previous entry) And I do know I spent obscene amounts in Watsons which has become my new haunt, and I, its new resident ghoul trawling the beauty/body section. Perhaps some went to misc expenses like..food. And Guardian water of which Gwen is always taking a swig from. And the occassional cab. But other than all that - where'd it go??

Sigh.

I think I need to keep a book of all my expenses.

posted by Jeanne @ 12:07 AM