hello all. hope everything's fine. congrats again to callista for the successful appeal. yes callista, agencies are pretty unreliable, you actually have to do most work yourself. anyway, have two worries on my mind.

1. i'm afraid i'll miss some deadline or another, being unable to receive and go through all these uni letters personally. hopefully not, though. has the registration period started?

2. i'm currently trying hard to persuade my parents to let me stay in the uni hostel. i've asked my brother to intercede on my behalf since they refused to talk to me about it.

well other than that, i'm fine. my course is coming to an end. one more week. i'm kind of sad about it. i think i've learnt quite a lot, though. we're doing a lot of grammar these days. my favourite. yea. but kind of challenging, too.

btw if you guys have time, listen to this piece 'Ballade no. 2 in B minor' by Liszt. it's wonderful.

hey peeps! first off, congrats amenda for nearing the end of your job stint or in other words your liberation:P today i have 3 things to blog abt haha


Exploited
...at the place where i volunteer to teach. even though it is at my own will that i volunteer, im beginning to feel i have been exploited as cheap or rather free labour. i've just received my new teaching schedule and i can't believe i have been given 11 classes a week. given that im committing 3 days a week, that works out to be abt 4 classes each day - almost w/o any break in between save for a 45 min lunch (which i believe is a right). even though i really don't mind teaching, im beginning to suspect if they have used my services too liberally.

first of all, 3-4 classes a day - am i as good as a full time teacher there or what? in fact, im not even sure any teacher actually teaches that many classes a day considering the length of a school day there is pretty short, and each lesson is pretty long.

also i can't understand why i have been given an additional subject to teach (geog). for a brief period of time, amanda taught this subject and i know now that she isn't available to do so, they need a replacement. but why me? surely there must have been someone who taught before amanda right? so why can't they revert back to that arrangement? i am inclined to think the teachers have been given a much lighter workload at the expense of volunteers (in particular, me).

i know complaining abt the work has no place in volunteerism. but i just find it ridiculous that this certain establishment has to rely so much on volunteers

Bad Service
long time ago (immediately after the release of the A level results), i went to apply for a few australian universities (unsw, uwa, uni of adelaide). at that time i was told all application fees will be waived by the agency, and i only had to pay for certain aptitude tests that were required by 2 of the unis (namely uwa and u of a). so i paid to sit for uwa's test, the ISAT, in april, as soon as i could. it says on the ISAT website that results will automatically be sent to the relevant universit(ies) that we have indicated we are interested in when we applied for the test. i got my results in may, thinking that my application would automatically be advanced. meanwhile i thought the agency would ring me up regarding payment of university of adelaide's test closer to the medicine deadline. but this was not the case as i have just found out.

as the deadline for medicine applications across aus approached (june30), i got worried so i rang the agency and enquired abt my applications. it was only then that i found out i was expected to
go down personally to the agency to make payments for both uni of adelaide's test (known as the PQA) and the application fees (whatever happened to the waiver?). so anyway i decided to just pay as soon as possible which i did the very next day.

at the agency, i also asked abt my uwa application. one of the staff told me to email my ISAT results to my agent (who was not present then) who could then forward it to uwa. i was puzzled because recall that on the isat website, results will AUTOMATICALLY be forwarded to the relevant unis) i decided to talk to my agent personally via email so i left the place w/o probing further. the staff didnt seem to know the procedure very well anyway.

so as i am typing this, i have just received an email from my agent that to proceed with my uwa application, i am to make payment once more for the application fees for uwa (this is another AUD100, and another failure to fulfil their promise of a waiver at the very beginning).

but whatever. lesson learnt is dun be over reliant on agencies like this.

On a happier note
appeal to nus fass successful:) Praise the Lord!

oh no...

hey everyone,
This is bad...just when i thought that today would be my last day at work,they asked me to extend my work period to the end of june.It's only 2 more weeks,they say.And they still have quite a lot of unfinished work.So they kept on persuading me,and i found it really difficult to reject.I think the atmosphere would have been quite awkward if i had said no.In the end i agreed to stay for a week more...It's not too bad i guess,at least 1 week is better than 2...

in case everyone's thinking i'm holiday-ing, i'm not. yet. i have classes. it's from 8.15 to 12.45 daily. so it's about 4 hrs. that's not much longer than my classes in GI singapore. but the daily thing.. yes it's quite a lot. and i have homework everyday. that's hard for someone who never did her weekly homework.

today was market day. the market days in this town are wednesdays and saturdays. so the teacher made us go to the market and interview people about their diet, health, organic and GM food, etc. i bought a small pot of mini blue-violet-ish flowers :) cos i have practically no friend here so i want SOMETHING to talk to. lol. nah i just like flowers a lot. i'm not good at this, though, i don't have green fingers [remember in sec2 i was the rep and all the plants freaking ROTTED?? not really. they just attracted a lot of ants and didn't grow :( ] so i hope this one has a better fate. it's called Lobelia. i didn't name it. lol. i mean that is the genus. i researched a bit on wikipedia and found out its english names include Asthma weed, Pukeweed and Vomitwort. some names.

Cats and holidays

Hey everyone!

I think the concert is too expensive for me. :P
Hope you guys enjoy your time there! It looks interesting.

I'm so envious of you Florencia...I don't get any holidays till December :(
Good food, cool weather, a stay with a cute cat and conversations with a WWII senior! Sounds like an awesome holiday!

Speaking of cats...I've been thinking about getting a pet cat recently. A brown one which would sit on my lap while I play computer games and scatch my chair while I read books. And maybe I could even condition it to come to me whenever I ring a bell or something.

However, my mum hates cats, so I don't think I'll be getting one anytime soon. She did mention that if I quit World of Warcraft she would get one for me though. But thats not going to happen anytime soon either! So I guess I'll stick to playing with virtual pets and monsters for now. It is cheaper anyway...

I'm blogging from work as usual, so I guess I'll go back to slacking now.

Nordrassil

yo flo! while im sitting where im seated typing this (hence eating into my bedtime), you've probably just had your dinner or having your dinner or going to have your dinner. hope Deutschland's (pronounced doitchlarnd?) treating you well.

moving on, is anyone who'll be in Singapore on the 28th of June interested in catching a dance performance at the esplanade? details are below:

Here's the synopsis from SISTIC:

"B-BOYZ & BALLERINA (KOREA)

Pulsate to the energetic and high-octane performance by B-Boys Theatre, one of Korea’s world renowned leading new wave hip-hop dance theatre. Formerly known as ‘The Ballerina who loves a B-boy’ and now renamed, ‘B-Boyz & Ballerina’, the performance shows how a ballerina assimilates to street dancing after she falls in love with a b-boy.

Feel the exuberance of the energetic 19 b-boys and b-girls and cheer them on in their frenzied, skilful freestyling displays of hip-hopping and break-dancing. Join in this hyper rousing dance fiesta where you will be spell-bound by the Technicolour street fashions, joyous soundtrack and the gravity-defying floor routines of windmills, L-kicks and more.

A sell-out show in Korea and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland, it will tour America, Japan, China and Spain after Singapore. Be part of this international sensation which promises a truly entertaining experience not only for the youth but also for the whole family! "

So far, apart from me, laiyeng & amenda have expressed keenness. We're looking at the matinee show (3pm) and at the discounted $58.50 ticket for group purchase (min 4 ppl). So do inform me if you're interested so I can go get tix ASAP before they run out!

i actually had lots of things in mind to blog about initially but alas memory fails me (as it always does).

ciao for now.

ps: i actually intended that sell your GC blog to be an avenue where jc graduands and jc students-would-be could buy and sell their calculators. but figured a blog is not an appropriate medium so i discarded the idea altogether. trying to be entrepreneurial here