Annoying Week

Yesterday and today are very irritating. I had to rush errands yesterday afternoon. I left my Parker pen in Amoy Quee Camp! Either East District Office or Guard Room. It's the cheap Parker -- mine's dark red and silver, as the students will know. It was a Teachers' Day gift -- not expensive at all as you can get one at $6.90 before Teachers' Day. And I had just taken it out from cold storage before the holidays to use...

And I am rushing many things as usual, and more things are coming up, which is very irritating.

Oh, and on Monday, I passed one and failed-borderline the other specific cancer marker test for ENT NPC. This means there is a 1% chance that I currently have a malignancy. So I'll report in every 3 months to check. Effectively, I'm cleared for now!

But there is the other one, GE colorectal cancer...

Toilet Painting and Screening Tests

During the Happy Toilet painting, one of my class' girls mentioned about the boys toilet being dirtier because they boys do their minor business standing and thus cannot possibly keep the toilet clean.

These articles here shed some more light on the issue...

http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=3373
http://www.twisstedswisster.com/2008/06/should-men-pee-sitting-down.html

The Japanese and Swiss keep their toilets clean.

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I went for my specialists' appointment today...

For ENT, the doctor thought it was unlikely to be cancer since I was asymptomatic. He did a nasopharyngeal endoscopy under LA which did not find anything. Blood was drawn for a repeat test using individual markers which would be more conclusive. I'll be seeing him again in two weeks.

For GE, the doctor thought that it was unlikely to be cancer because I was asymptomatic. No palpable masses and not even a FOB test. He himself would not trust the CEA test anyway, since it was only a borderline high. He ordered a repeat CEA and uric acid blood test (borderline high) as well as a chest x-ray to rule out chest infections. I'll be seeing him again in a month's time.

The Power of Facebook

Now I can see that Facebook is very powerful. I just signed up and I immediately learnt that a JC classmate just passed away on 8 June 09.

This is very interesting... Please cry.

June Holidays 09

I have no holiday this June!

Things to Do

Academic
Mark practical books. (started)
Prepare CME admin.
Mark workbooks.
Mark SPA Skill 3 (DONE)

Practical Coursework
Mark Practical Coursework. (DONE)
Prepare mark list. (DONE)
Prepare Comp Matrix. (DONE)
Prepare teacher's answers. (DONE)

Course
Balanced Scorecard Course (DONE)
Data Logger Course (DONE)

Admin
Call parents to check for Internet and PC availability. (DONE)
Update data on PC and Internet availability. (DONE)
Call 3 parents of failures. (DONE)
Call 2 parents for Physics. (1 done)
H1N1 admin (DONE)
Prepare Olympiad admin package. (DONE)
Send student leader nominations. (DONE)
Class committee final structure.
Supervise Happy Toilet drawing (DONE) and painting (DONE).
Work Review admin. (DONE)
Balanced Scorecard Dept Plan (DONE)
Finalize EL Dept ISPL (DONE)
Clear mailbox to 50%.

Teaching
Teach extended programme 4E1 and 4E6. (DONE)
Remedial groups for 4E6. (DONE)
Remedial groups for 1E2 (1st done) and 1E3.
Remedial groups for 4E1.
Remedial groups for 3E5. (1st done)
Teach 4E1 extra lessons. (DONE)
Teach Olympiad group. (OVER)

NCC
Follow Spec Course II (DONE) and Spec Course III last day. (DONE)
Finalize NCC admin. (started)
Finalize NCC Leaps points.
Finalize Camp admin. (DONE)
Attend Camp. (DONE)
NCC photos (DONE)
Supervise the NCC Room move. (DONE)
Create leadership form (DONE)

Resource Generation
Finalize Sec 3 online project rubric. (DONE)
Finalize Sec 2 video rubric. (DONE)
Finalize Sec 1 eLearning. (DONE)
Finalize Physics poster.
Do Physics eLearning (2 weeks) (DONE)
Do EL eLearning (writing) + HBL (2 weeks) (DONE)
Finalize Sec 1 EL SOW. (DONE)
Finalize Sec 1 EL Food unit. (DONE)
Finalize Sec 1 EL Supernatural unit.
Speech Day Programme Book (DONE)

Others
Tidy car.
Tidy table. (started)
Do serious dating that we cannot do during term time. (DONE)
See cancer specialists. (DONE)
Send car for servicing. (DONE)

I attended a Physics Sharing at TJC yesterday, conducted by a TJC senior teacher. And that's the difference between a JC teacher and a secondary school teacher. Almost all of the secondary school teachers there had weak Physics concepts and did not know most standard misconceptions or explanations. (But I'm a trained JC teacher...)

And he also mentioned that sometimes what teachers do in secondary schools is quite strange. For example, there was one school that took students out to experience an MRT ride to see inertia at work.

Yes, exactly. If you ask me, almost all students would have experienced that before. And experiencing it does not help you to understand or explain about it. The real reason why secondary schools do it is that it looks good. It is fashionable to have out-of-classroom lessons.

And he also mentioned that while Temasek Academy (IP) students do a lot of interesting lessons (THINK ©, PBL, Inquiry), the JC students actually don't because they are more focused on the A Level exam and preparation for university rigour. For bread and butter results, direct instruction of concepts is the way to go.

Over the weekend, there was a series of articles in the ST on MFA overseas offices. And there was an article on the embassy in Indonesia.

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Anyway, career teachers (not Ps, VPs, HODs and others) seem to have short lives. Many of my primary school teachers are dead. And apparently, a study in the UK proves that career civil servants (non-head) have short lives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehall_Study