Saturday, September 30, 2006

i wanna get a haircut!!!!!!

bus stop conversation... while waiting for --1-- cab or any bus that goes to kwun tong...
M: i wanna get a haircut!!!
E,Q,S: what sort of haircut?
M: dunno. just sort of... you know... cut...
E: you know, it's sort of dangerous going to the hairdresser's when you don't actually know what you want done to your hair.
M: ...... ok....


yeah... just sort of... cut... but i want my hair cut!

more quotes from the schoolyard:

kid: did you cut your hair?
a certain teacher: yes
k: did you get tanned? (<----- getting tanned is a big thing in hong kong.... it's not a thing to do.)
t: yes
k: have you gained weight?
t: ah.... yes
k: did you shrink an inch?
t: are you saying that i got uglier?
kids: ..........

funny how observant the kids are when it comes to your appearance... i bought some new clothes on wednesday night. when i wore one of my new shirts to form class on thursday morning, the kids cheered...

and... I GOT PAID! WOOHOO!

Friday, September 29, 2006

yeah yeah yeah!




「我真係好鍾意唱歌!」
29/9/06

happy

my blogger posts are getting increasingly cryptic, especially with the names of people i work with... sorry!!

SAGC staff development day. things learnt:
K-W-L teaching strategy:
example topic- koalas- group 2 (english department)
K: they live in australia. they are cuddly. they are cute. they eat eucalypt leaves. they sleep a lot. they sleep on trees. they carry their babies in their pouch.
W: questions asked: do koalas have feelings? do they find humans annoying? are they really cute? do they fall off the tree when they sleep? what is their lifespan? do they have a hard or soft nose?

later on....
E: zzzzzzz (in full view of the BB)
trainer: how do students learn about ratios?
Me: we don't.

it's a fact. i feel nauseous whenever i'm sitting in front of a maths problem. how good is it that i'm teaching english, and not a scary subject like maths or chemistry?

more things learnt: the SAGC staff 9.9 sec sign out. after a mere wee wee there was absolutely no-one left but S, Q, and me... or so we'd thought. when we walked past the bigger staffroom we saw E perched in front of one of the computers. M: what are you, crazy? E: I'm just hanging out cos my next thing's not until 3. M, S & Q: lunch? E: cool! so afterwards, lunch with S, Q & E @ APM suzuki... fun stuff... it's nice to have fun colleagues. it's a bit like being @ MPN, where we always have a laugh at work.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

cds..... lots of cds......

Ms Cheung is a happier woman with a CD player in her room at home...
Viva a la musica!
recently played: Best of Shirley Bassey, Verve Bar Jazz compilation, Missy Higgins "The sound of White", Badly Drawn Boy "One plus one is one", Lost in Translation OST.

one month gone

i can't believe it! time flies when you're having fun and i definitely am at SAGC. thanks kids and gals for making this experience so much easier on my poor nerves.

i'm lovin' it!

Monday, September 25, 2006

Peter Jordan, I salute you!

I salute you, Peter, for being able to communicate with your students @ the HKAPA!!!
Huzzah!

Sunday, September 24, 2006

foodies unite!


eating.... what a beautiful mornin'! carmen and i went to the flying pan for brunch today. what a pleasure to eat with another obsessive foodie... it was quite a yummy brunch!

more stuff from camp







^^^^ courtesy Ms W, our resident fix-it.... we went from 1:4 ratio back to 16:9 in just a matter of seconds by way of an expert karate chop on the top of the telly.





<------ Waterbomb factory girls. Ms N ("so not environmentally friendly!") filling up 150 sandwich bags in one hour. I was the mistress of the tearing out of plastic bags, and used the pockets of my jeans as dispenser of torn out plastic bags. most efficient, we were.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Personality tests

http://keirsey.com/personality/nfej.html

... apparently i'm a "teacher / idealist" ..... i actually have no idea what that means... but anyway!

this is the test: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

paths memories

Notice to all students of SAGC who read this blog

Hi all,

Can all students sign off with your FULL NAME and your CLASS after you've commented on my blog?

Cheerio,
Ms C

weeeeeeeee!!!!!

Friday, September 22, 2006

back from camp

yo. back! finally....
1. had a great time @ camp.... our little girlie group of 6 staff members had fun in our dorm room, as did our big girlie group of 42 1D students...
2. there are now students @ SAGC who can who can read my blog so i'd better be "disney" about everything (yes, you, simmy :p )

a few things:
* i hit my head on a fan on the first night
* i dropped countless things, including my camera, my new toothbrush (onto the shower floor... ewww) and the social workers' walkie talkie
* i had a "24 hour solo" deja vu while waiting to be "rescued" by my group from the "aliens"
* chucked waterbombs made out of plastic bags and not being very environmentally friendly in the process
* while waiting for the students to walk pass prior to the whole water bomb business,
* i am no longer the biggest germaphobe in the world! i don't even come close.
* 1D is the best!

a few more memorable things:
* k's phoebe-ness
* l's sleepiness
* n's worldliness
* w's strength
* q's resourcefulness

cool!

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

ninty. ninty. ninty.

i've been correcting all my students' books---- 90, as ninety. anyone who spelt ninty got a big fat cross. a fellow hksinger named claudia alerted this to me at rehearsal tonight. thank you, claudia!!

i swear that i COULD spell before i started this job, but now i can't even spell bloody ninty.

how embarassing!!!!! what a complete brain blank! i'd better start correcting everyone... just like the "febuary" episode :(

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

ms cheung is off to camp!

signing off for the next few days... we'll be back on friday afternoon. let's hope us teachers will still be alive then! rumour has it that we'll be involved in water gun fights and the younger teachers will be attacked with water at various moments of the days.

meanwhile, my class monitoress pointed out the following to me today: "ms cheung, your undies are showing". quite stunned, i said, "thank you." i'll never wear that witchery light flowery skirt with those lovely M&S hot pink undies ever again...

and to those students and teachers who are still refer to playing basketball as "playing fanny", please stop this practice immediately.

so am i off on two days worth of holidays or two days of hell?

(elaine, being my cool form class teacher partner.)
me: we're doing group marches and stuff.
elaine: argh.
me: and we have to inspect their rooms at 7:30am.
elaine: argh.
me: and--- we have to be in the thursday night water fights.
elaine: arrrrrrgh...

bright eyed and bushy tailed..... raring to go....

Sunday, September 17, 2006

blue skies?

We've had a whole week of rain and today it's suddenly sunshine and blue skies?
must be the calm before the storm....
shan shan- stay away!!!!

Saturday, September 16, 2006

two weeks down!

teaching is not easy. i had my first teaching "flop" this week. yes, it is indeed possible to "flop" in the arena teaching. role- teacher. audience- students. reaction- snoring. Is it possible to teach grammar in an interesting way? can we perhaps write a pop song to teach our students singulars and plurals?

okay, it's not that bad. everyday, it's the little things that keep me going, even if i had been up the hill at glenaly until 1015pm tearing my vocal cords apart: the smiles i get from the students, the outrageousness of our 215 staffroom, and the kindness of the other staff members. when i almost tripped over my laptop cords for about three times on friday, the little kid in the corner said "be careful, ms cheung!" for the same amount of times. i had kids offer me their fruit from their lunches (hopefully spare and not unwanted!) :p... i had d&ms again with people, not just bullshit (blowing water). us new teachers shared our own little challenges (e.g. flash animations... dreamweaver.... software and hardware... grammar...)

i made an effort to teach without using a microphone these two weeks, but i have decided to give in and start to use my portable mike again. my voice has taken quite a battering this week with all the singing at the singers and although i have never really shouted at my students at school, a lot of people have commented that my voice has sounded decidedly huskier over these few days. it's time to get with the trend, i guess.

oh, oh, oh, WE GET TO GO TO CAMP THIS WEEK!
(fellow form teacher and happy camper) queenie: you're more excited than the students!
me: ya-huh!!!!!
it'll be a fun time cos we'll be camped up at this funky facility at sai kung. fingers crossed, the typhoon won't get to us and make our three days a soaking wet experience.

---- random thoughts 1---- the hong kong cricket girls are in pakistan, training their butts off now. thinking back, mum was probably right about not going to pakistan:
1. i would have missed camp
2. i would have a crap load of work to catch up with the week after, seeing as i'm probably one of the last ones to leave the school every day...
3. i wouldn't have as healthy a relationship with the kids and the other staff at this point in time.
so... everything does happen for a reason.

---- random thoughts 2---- we had an earthquake this week here in hong kong. it was about 3-4 on the ricter scale. i was at the hk singers rehearsal up on the hills of the hong kong island, nearer the epicentre than the rest of hong kong. bloody 'ell, everyone there felt it, and it was really, really freaky. the last time i experienced an earthquake was back when we were still living here full-time. dad was snoozing on the easychair and mum thought he was being rude and having a fun time rocking on the chair. turned out he wasn't being rude after all.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

when will it stop?

yes, the rain, that is.
The Hong Kong Observatory sure has some strange standards for their weather warnings.
A few months ago, it was T3, but the whole city felt like it's been put inside a wind tunnel complete with a hose down. The Observatory did not budge and kept with the T3 warning. There was much uproar of course on the next day.
What about today? it's been pouring down for the past few hours and does not look like it's going to stop anytime soon. so at bloody 8:00 am it decides to put up a yellow rainstorm warning! what use is that going to be?

.
..
....

on her "off" day from form class duties, ms cheung is watching the torrential rain from her office....

school piccies


My office & the lovely colleagues who work in the office.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

I'm a chalk allergic teacher.

yeh.... the chalk dust makes my eyes water, and my nose run.... it's horrible!! so i'm in the middle of a sentence and all this stuff comes out.... argh... ms lam offers her science lab goggles... i remarked that it'd be interesting to teach the subject of English in laboratory goggles.

my students still cannot spell 30 in ordinals.

goal for next week. to make sure all of my group 1 kids can spell "thirtieth", and not "thirtyth", or "thirdtyth".... "first" and not "fast" or "firth" or "frith".

you can do it, kids!!!!!

Sunday, September 10, 2006

so it's autumn!

the winds are here! the rains are here!!! ti's no longer the season for sweaty armpits and backs!!! huzzah!!!!!!

paper... paper... and papers

There's still a whole heap of paper that's lying everything in my house, and I STILL can't get rid of it all!

In other news, I've rediscovered my university days. Why? I just stayed up until 2am correcting my students' composition papers. Some already show encouraging signs while others have to work hard on correcting some bad habits. e.g. "there have three people in my family"

zzzzzzz....

Friday, September 08, 2006

Ms Cheung has marked her first worksheets.

And am madly happy with my drama club team. we have one colleague who's grade 8 piano (and has offered to transpose everything!), one who's taking her jazz dance teaching certificate exams, and another who can write scripts!

:)

oh happy day!

Thursday, September 07, 2006

CRIKEY!

(I'm using this saying especially in memory of Steve Irwin...)
CRIKEY! There's too much paper on my desk! So, i set off to the local homeware store to buy myself a $60 HKD 3 tier bookshelf that's on sale at the moment. Do you realise that $60 HKD is around $11 AUD? How cheap's that!?
We're going to camp with my, well counting my co-form teacher it should be "our", class of form 1s very soon... hopefully we'll have a great time, cos i think my form class is the best :) go 1D!!!

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

!!!!

My kids are cool, my colleagues are very cool, and i'm so far coping with the steep learning curve. because i'm coming into this job with very little teaching experience, what's happening is that i'm actually literally learning on the job. i'm lucky that i like kids and kids (in secondary school, at least) seem to like me... that's the first hurdle, i guess. i can just see this year being a good year.
good luck to soloman and your teaching career!

Monday, September 04, 2006

and then, he's gone...

RIP the crocodile hunter
RIP Steve Irwin

It's a reminder of how our lives can be taken away from us this quickly.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

學KIKI話齋

..... 4/9/06 ... 一齊努力.

pics from the youngfriends program

in the name of education...

i have ditched my 129 song collection on my mp3 player and replaced it with 8 tracks of listening tasks.
i have ditched my first national representative opportunity in cricket
i have left the HKAPA, a place of fun and friends.

in return?
My Fair Lady... singing, dancing and being generally merry for three months.
42 lovely kids in my form class
some really cool colleagues
a school musical program to take charge of.

everything in life happens for a reason and should be win-win, if you let it be that way.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

dancing!



not sure if i can actually post this picture... but anyways!!!
these sure were happy times.... love it! it took me a long time to find a good picture on their database. as you know, there's no guarantee that i'm caught pretty in a photo unless i pose for a picture. my rather strange and uncontrollable facial features are the cause of the problem.