My Story Portal Competition

Sharing a piece of good news - I won the 2nd prize in the above competition - ha ha - didn't expect it as I actually cut and paste my story from my old blog. You might want to visit the website - a gallery of entries reflecting the oldest in Singapore and fond memories of the past in Singapore.

http://mystory.heritagefest.org.sg/index.php?title=My_Kampong_Days

Of course I am also still waiting for my prize from the Microsoft Academic Skill Callenge for MOE Staff (Champion for Microsoft Powerpoint) - they keep postponing the award ceremony- quite irritating as I have to be on standby next week as they can't confirm the actual date! Anyone wants to join me for next year - I will be participating in the Microsoft Word Category.

My students were also so disappointed when I told them the cheques for the 2 competitions, the new media challenge 2007 and the word power challenge 2007 (which are all from Singtel - $2000 and $1000) will come in only end of Oct or Nov - which means I can only give them in late Nov or Dec!

There is actually another competition - amazing race style with filming of . historical places in Singapore next Saturday. The problem is I have already booked archery for my Red Cross on the same day and I cannot participate. You can refer to the poster outside the computer lab for details. Anyone interested? The prizes, according to the poster, are very attractive.

Budget 2008 competitions

Encouraging all to participate in the following competitions:

Budget 2008 Essay Competition

“Infinite possibilities; finite resources”
Click on the link below for details:
http://www.singaporebudget.gov.sg/essay.html

You might also want to refer to the winning essays in 2007: http://www.mof.gov.sg/budget_2007/essay_winners.html


Budget 2008 Video Competition

“What the Budget means to me”
Click on the link below for details:
http://www.singaporebudget.gov.sg/video.html

LInk-cadet activity at Rivervale Primary

A big THANK YOU to Mrs Natarajan and Mdm Normalis for making the collaboration a success. Pretty sad that Mrs Natarajan is going to retire next year as she is such an experienced instructor. Though our initial plan was to share first aid with the link members, I think we had learnt more from her e.g. cuff bandage. After practising with bandaging, Kit Man showed the link members how to make button badges. They were very enthusiastic and eager to try out. However one of the machines did not work and they had to queue for one. I had forgotten to bring my third machine, otherwise it should be faster. After that, Mrs Rajan treated us to some curry puffs and drinks. We ended the sessions with some cheers in the field.

Areas for improvement - I must get the cadets to plan in advance more activities which we can conduct with the link members. I was told that the cadets from Compassvale arranged for a series of activities e.g. CPR, evacuation drill, blanket exercise etc. Maybe we can plan for a Telematch next year.

Click here for more photos.

I could only update the above as I suffered from severe diarrhoea and gastric pain since that night and have not really recovered since. Still feeling the discomfort as I am typing this ... update on 12th Oct.

Geography Blog

I decided to set up a geography blog - a platform for the geography students to look at the current geography related issues or just sharing on some tips on how to improve on their essays. http://olevelgeog.blogspot.com/

Making a difference

Time flies and I just realized that I had been in HS for almost 6 years now. Much have changed and the school had grown - not only in number but also achievements. I am happy that the hardwork put in by staff and students had brought a difference.

This year, our school achieved the Achievement Award (Academic Value-Added), Sustained Achievement Award for Uniformed Groups, and the People Developer Award.

I had been updating the list of achievements for HS and I marvelled at the long list which we achieved this year. You can click here to view the list for 2007.

Coming events for Red Cross

Coming events:

1. Charity Draw Tickets submission by next week - need to go after 3 students who have not submitted yet. (new update on 23 Sept - $1912 collected and submitted to HQ)

2. Promotion Ceremony after SA2 - I need to go down to HQ to pick up the badges and ranks. (might have to ask Mrs Lai for help!)

3. Malacca trip 14 to 16 Nov - what do you think of the logo I have designed for the T-shirt (back)? Exchange program with a Red Cresent unit from Gajah Berang Secondary School in Malacca as well as the Red Cresent HQ in Malacca.

4. Other events: Archery with AMK Sec (27th Oct), Link-cadet activity with Rivervale Pri (10th Oct), HS leadership camp (2-7 Nov), HS Inter-UG NCO camp (23 to 25 Nov), Unity Camp, North District Camp, Project love....

:> and :<

Heartened by the belated teachers' day card sent by Hwee Ling from Canada and a little present from Norman which I found in my locker today. Stayed back for extra lesson for 4E Geog - :> that many of them are willing to stay back to make the effort to improve their grades - 'jia you!'

Disheartened by misbehaviour from my form class - when will they learn?

New Media Challenge Movidz 2007 Awards Presentation

Congratulations to our team - we came in 2nd - same as last year! I sincerely think that they had done a good job and deserved to be first!

Click here to watch their production.

We would have done better if we had the time to better engineer the sound - the audio component could be improved on during editing.

I was quite surprised when they announced the champion. First of all, their clip was not loaded onto their group's site but one of the leader's. Secondly, the teachers actually participated in the acting for the filming of the clips. It was already a surprise that they got into the 1st round as they did not even submit the storyboard!

I was told that the school was able to send in 2 teams as their partner for the infocomm was Singtel but this.....?????

However, I am still happy for the team - they were overjoyed with the presence of Jamie Yeo again and I must say she is such a lovely and warm young lady. We will present to the students their prizes on Monday. Click here for more photos.

We were introduced to the website for local production sinema.sg by the director Randy for the film on Growing to be Royston. He also showed us the website on local production 881 -http://www.881themovie.com/# Check them out!

There is a filming competition which ends on 21 Sept - click on the link:

http://www.yourfilm.sg/Watch.aspx?id=NzNQYXNzd29yZA== I must say those which were submitted are of quite high standard. Do visit the website and learn from them.

Vote for our team in the most popular Behind the scenes and stand a chance to win a Sony Ericsson k800i. Click here for details.

New Media Challenge MOVIDZ Round 2

Photos which I submitted for the funniest moments,

click here for the photos taken.

Click here for the blog and watch our videos!

Like what the other teacher had said, it was a very stressful moment -I was timing and rushing the students to submit their work to the very last second!

Poor Jobain had to rush through the editing and definitely will be able to do a much better job if he has the time to - in fact I think we only gave him an hour to do the editing which is insufficient.

Though we reported punctually at 9 a.m., we were only flag off at 10 a.m. The director of Singapore Ga Ga, Ms Tan Ping Ping, gave the students some tips on filming and something which impressed us was that she said we should chuck away the script and unleash our creativity. A piece of golden advice indeed, as we had to make changes to our original plan such as changing the location of the canteen to the bus stop which was the surprise twist. We looked for our Marshall and found Cornie, a student from applied Science in Temasek Polytechnic. We quickly started filming at the nearest bus stop. As the girls needed some time to warm up - Kiat Yi actually had to take quite a no. of NG. Next we went back to comcentre and took the opportunity that most people had left and use the venue for our next shot which is scene 4 as both the actress need to be in their school uniform. Then Eddin and Jobain changed into their costumes (home clothes). We filmed scene 3 and thought that it was all over and brought them for lunch. Thanks to Mr Lam's sponsorship - the girls had lunch at Pizza hut. As I don't like pizza, I went to Noodle house, which is just two units away, with Mr Poon.

When we arrived at Comcentre, I was alerted by Jobain that we have not finished scene 2 and also the last shot! They got settled down quickly and started filming again. That's why Jobain could only start to edit at around 3.30 p.m. The team was so ambitious at first, wanting to include special effects, subtitles etc but couldn't due to the time constraint. Jobain managed to piece everything together and did the conversion to 3GP before uploading.

The final output will definitely be better if it is not converted to 3GP as the resolution and sound were compromised. I saw the video of one team JY and I don't think they convert it ot 3GP. I am sure with more time given, Jobain could actually better engineer the sound as it was pretty soft in some segments, especially the parts with Ah gong and Ah Girl.

Well, finally they have completed their tasks and I can't wait for the final results, which is today. I will update when I am back from the award ceremony. I sincerely hope for the best for the team as they had put in a lot of efforts! Do vote for them in the Behind the scenes contest!

Teachers' Day After-thoughts

I wasn't feeling that well on teachers' day celebration as my eyes were swollen. Feeling a bit down this year - knowing that I will be even more lonely next year (something which I will share next year). The comfort came from the alumni. 4E2 2006 even went to buy a box of donuts from Donut Factory for me. Hui Juain wrote me a letter - made my day in knowing that I have made an impact - that what I had shared with the class remained in their hearts. Of course, there were many others who came back to see us and I must say they had brought back the best teachers' day gift - that they are doing well in life either persuing their studies in ITE, Poly or JC. And of course thanks to those who posted their greetings on my blog. The Sec Ones are cute - thanks to those who had given me the cards. Thanks to Yi Rui and Afidah for making the cookies and cakes themselves as well as Aiping for more cookies.And of course, Se Chen for the little bear, Hui Ting, Janice, Yu yan for the little card and the stick of flower from Tengku. I can't say much about the card from 2E2 but I definitely agree with Felicia all of you are not a bad bunch of kids - just that some are not so appreciative. Of course we are all human, we all make mistakes but we must all learn.

Nothing much to say about my form class - still making my life miserable with 1/3 missing in action on teachers' day celebration. I will have to handle some more disciplinary cases once school reopens. The best teachers' day gift for me will be for them to start behaving and focus on their studies. They do not have much time left - only 4 weeks before their SA2. I really hope they realized the urgency. I will be seeing my Sec 4 classes for the final preparation for their Prelim in the holiday - I must make sure that they do well - Econs being the pioneer batch for 2284 and Pure Geog being the last batch for 2234. I will also be down for a full day filming for the MOVIDZ competition on 6th Aug as the students got into the final. The award ceremony will be on 7th Aug. I sincerely hope that they will emerge as champion though their ranking for Round one is 2nd. We were 2nd last year and 3rd the year before. I will update once the results is out on the 7th Aug!