Batam 14th and 15th Dec 2006

Went to Batam for a 2D1N trip and the tour guide brought us to the temples in Batam before checking into the hotel.

Stayed at the Panaroma Hotel. The service was good and the rooms were pretty comfortable. If you do go to Batam, I will recommend Panaroma Hotel if you do not need a good swimming pool. The pool was small and deserted and looked quite dirty. 

I heard the one at Planet Holiday is much bigger and maybe I will try that in my next trip to Batam. Never order the room service - the food isn't nice and is at least 4 times more expensive. It is much more worth trying the food outside the hotel. We went to this stall near the hotel. I love the Goreng Pisang (banana) and Tahu Goreng with Ayam(chicken stuffing inside beancurd and then deep fried) - It only cost RP75,000 ($1.30) for a box for the Goreng Pisang and RP120,000 for the box of Tahu Goreng Ayam (around 5 pieces) - I thought the price was for one piece and was shocked that they gave me 2 boxes! The stall is near to the Hotel with a big banner Goreng Pisang Crispy. I will really miss that! There is another food stall next to it and we ordered the mee goreng which was simply delicious and remarkably cheap at RP6,000 ($1)! I ordered the mee goreng in the hotel and it cost me RP40,000 ($7)! - the same for the fruit juice ($7)!

We were quite disappointed with Megamall - though it is big - it offers almost the same products as Singapore. We took a cab to Holiday Plaza instead.

I bought alot of shirts and pants for my sons - 10 sets and one for myself and a pair of pants (POLO) for my husband. They also had fun in the rides and games in the mall. If you want to buy cheapstuff and DVD - go to Lucky Plaza and Centrepoint. My son took their meals at the MacDonald at Centrepoint and we went to the restaurant on the second floor. I can't remember the name of the restaurant but they served good Nasi Goreng (Fried rice) and Nasi Kuning (yellow rice). The otah is nice but a bit hard - the Otahs are served on every table and the restaurant will charge you only if you eat them.

My next trip - 4D3N stay in Sijori Sentosa - will update when I am back.

My son's drawing

Chris drew the 2 pictures using the software paint!



Ian drew this using the software paint!

Pasir Ris Park 4 Dec 2006

I must really recommend adobe kodak gallery - sign up now for free. Upload is fast and u can even edit the border etce - like the ones above. http://adobe.kodakgallery.com/Welcome.jsp

Look at my photo gallery for the pictures I took at Pasir Ris Park. http://adobe.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=16n5tjhb.dv87h6j&Uy=-ipxafh&Ux=1

Pasir Ris Park

Providing the map of Pasir Ris Park - do visit the place - lots of things to discover other than the pony riding I mentioned. Go on the broadwalk and discover the creatures of the mangrove swamp. Rent a bicycle - go to the beach or go fishing in the fisherman village. You can spend a whole day there.

Family Outing

I just realized how little time I had been spending with my sons. Feeling a little bit guilty as I had not taken their photos for a long long time! I brought them to the Singapore Expo and Pasir Ris - I must say they enjoyed themselves.

Red Cross Camp

I felt so exhausted - completely drained. However I must say I am proud of the Camp Exco - from planning the activities to carrying them out. The cadets were also most cooperative. I hope they had all learnt from the camp and I can really see the development of our student leaders.

The only setbacks were that we could not have the outdoor cooking session due to the downpour. Some of the girls fell ill on the very first night - but I must applaud that they fought on and survived the camp.

I fell sick on the second night and thank God Mrs Lai took over with the instructors Mariana and Sharlyn. I went home and returned in the early morning.

I have applied to join the future schools and will be going for the interview on the 6th December. It will be a good chance for me to develop my interest in IT but I am going to miss the Red Cross if I do leave the school. However, they will stay on in my heart and I will always feel close to them.

Every Second Counts Competition

Sharing another piece of good news - one of our Red Cross teams won the 2nd prize in the 'Every Second Counts" competition organised by the School of Health Sciences, Ngee Ann Polytechnic on 7th Nov.

A total of 235 students from 16 schools and 25 teams from various Uniform groups including NPCC, girl guides, St John Ambulance Brigade etc took part in the competition. In the earlier part of the event, the students were taught CPR, measuring blood pressure and feeding the patients etc.

I think all our cadets were happy that they had participated in the event as they had learnt something new. During the competition, one of our teams told me that they actually scored full marks for four components out of the five for the competition. However when they announced the results, the team did not win anything. I was a bit suspicious and asked the organiser whether I could look at the score - not because we are sore loser but I wanted a fair appraisal of their performance. Sure enough we noticed something was wrong with our total score. Mrs Lai actually detected that they entered the formula for the spreadsheet for our team wrongly and one component was not added at all. The organiser held a meeting and rechecked the marks - confirming that our team actually scored the second highest and our team should be awarded the 2nd prize. I am glad they rectified the mistake quickly and sent the trophies to our school. As mentioned many times, I have always been proud of our Red Cross Cadets and strongly believe in their ability to excel!

You can click on this link to see some of the photos taken: http://adobe.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=16n5tjhb.jwhlvtr&Uy=8pkj11&Ux=0

Sick Earth Dying Geography?

Sad to say this - our earth is sick and we need everyone to make an effort to make it better again.

Just look at how our air is being polluted by the forest fires in Indonesia - if we don't do anything now - it would be worse in the future. Not only does it harm our health, it can be very damaging to our economy especially when we talk about its impact on tourism. A news article highlighted recently that air pollution could also affect our status in attracting foreign talents. The impact is simply far greater than what we could actually see.

Up till today there are still hotspots in Indonesia and the haze problem will continue to exist till end of next month. Just look at the smoke haze map today! Click on the map below for a bigger image.

You can also check out our air quality (PSI readings) on this website: http://app.nea.gov.sg/psi/

Check out this website on the 50 things you can do to help reduce air pollution: http://www.airinfonow.org/html/activities.html

Looking at the climatic history of Singapore, the air should be cleared by 25th Nov as the wind direction changes. Check it out at http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/48698.html

I am also quite saddened by the fact nobody opted for pure Geography for next year's Sec 3 level. Is Geography going to die out soon?

I still strongly believe in the importance of Geography and like what I had mentioned to my students "Geography is everything". In learning Geography, one acquires an investigative mind, looking at how the environment has affected us, as well as how we had affected the environment. For the thousands of students whom I had taught Geography to, I am sure you would have found it useful in your life. As you travel, you would have marvelled at the wonders of the Earth's natural landforms and with Geography you would have understood its formation better. Thinking of buying a bungalow near to a beach? Think twice as global warming would actually mean a rise in sea level and coastal flooding could actually mean the destruction of coastal settlements!

Though I was trained in both Economics and Geography, I had been teaching Geography all these years and had developed a stronger passion for Geography. I am simply reluctant to let it die out... but I am so helpless. No doubt, Economics is a very useful subject and I am sure it will benefit many students as half the A level student population in Singapore actually take Economics at A level. I am glad that it is introduced to the students at O level. I have even created a website for the teachers and students to share resources on O level Economics: http://geocities.com/olevelecons/

I will be preparing myself to teach the subject next year ( getting a bit rusty as I had not taught that subject since 1991 after my teaching practise!) There are actually certain parts in Economics that are very Geography based. In Geography, we learn about resources. In Economics, we actually learn how man make use of those limited resources. Certain topics such as the types of industries are similar in both Economics and Geography.

RCY North District Youth Officer Sharing session

I did a sharing together with Mrs Lai on the Red Cross Activties which we conduct in our school and how we managed to get a Silver for the Excellent Unit Award for the last 2 years on Sat 7th Oct.

Mrs Lai went through the 1st 5 criterias and I went through the next 5 criterias for the EUA. This is the powerpoint for EUA which we had presented. Just wondering whether I appeared as nervous in front of so many teacher officers? Well I had Mrs Lai's support!

I also devised a spreadsheet which the teachers can use to calculate their scores to check whether they are able to attain the Award and I posted it up on the Red Cross website. This is the Excel Spreadsheet I devised to calculate the EUA points. It was also the official launch of the North District RCY Website I also helped them compressed and posted a video on the North District Camp on the web: North District Camp 2006 Video .

Recalling back the days when I actually volunteered to take over Red Cross - I was formerly in-charge of the Green Club and I must say I did not have the Green Fingers and I had no interest in it. The teacher-in-charge of Red Cross then was leaving and I went up to Mr Khoo to volunteer to take over as I was formerly with the St John Ambulance Brigade. I struggled over the first year - however I was fortunate to have very responsible VIs - Annie and King Wei. 

Recruitment was good and our unit grew to be over 100! I appealed to Mr Khoo for an assistant but the ones assigned to our unit left very soon (hardly a year), I think our unit was very fortunate to have Mrs Lai being assigned as the other teacher-in-charge. Before she joined in - we only managed a Bronze award for the Community Service. I was too overwhelmed with work alone and could not really see into building up the cadet's proficiency in getting the badges. When she joined in the unit, the two of us went through the Youth Officer course and we passed the SFA. This actually contributed to part of the score for the EUA. We also work together on many of the activities as well as the camp.

I am proud to say that all these paid off as we acheived the Silver Award for EUA as well as the Gold Award for Community Service for the past two years. I am happy that we attained the awards as it would benefit our cadets in their CCA points. As mentioned earlier - I feel a lot for our Red Cross Unit - I always feel that our cadets are angels who are willing to volunteer their help for community work and are able to contribute to the good of our society as first aiders.

I would like to say a big thank you to Mrs Lai and also that I am proud of our HS Red Cross unit.

National Interschool Media Challenge 2006

At today's award ceremony - our team came in 2nd! Our students won $2000, $250 voucher and 5 Nokia N80 3G handphones. I mentioned I won the motorola v3x handphone in a contest but so far the motorola executive has not contacted me - it is really a far cry from the handphone which my students won today. Basically the N80 can be used to surf the net more effectively - how I wish my prize is the Nokia N80 instead. It cost more than $700 each and I don't think I want to pay so much for one. Anyway, my hubby's phone broke down - I am planning to give him the Motorola which I have won - just wondering when that will be!

I must confessed that I am pleasantly surprised that we came in 2nd, overtaking Nanyang Girls who was the champion last year. We came in 3rd last year. I supposed our girls did a better job by focusing on caring for our community. I think Jamie Yeo mentioned about our blog on the care for the elderly.

I am also happy that our girls have decided to contribute half of their winning cash to charity.
I would like to congratulate Peijun, jialing, kiatyi and Naomi again..... hopefully our team will win again next year!