你真的默迪卡吗？

刚为着国家祷告完突然有一些很深的感触。今天的祷告事项是为着国家各个领域宣告默迪卡。可能我刚好看见一些事情（其实也不算刚好，是神的带领吧)，所以会有所反思。我在想：我们在喊默迪卡的时候，自己真的自由了吗？

真正的自由又是什么？

如果你问一般人，什么是freedom？我想大多数的人会这样答：自己想做什么就做什么。因为我以前的答案也是如此。认识了神之后我才知道真正的自由是：自己不想做什么，就可以控制自己不去做。

就好像你明知道一件事情对你不好，可是你却不能自拔，你却情不自禁，一定要做，做了又会后悔，痛苦，自责。然后好像永远都脱不了一种‘瘾’。

很多人应该在这样的光景吧。我也不例外。我还在靠着神克服着。因为知道对自己不好，所以选择要得到自由。要自由是要自己选择要，选择呼求神，才能够得着的。靠自己也能，只是效果一阵子罢了，过后你会发现你还是被同样一件事缠绕着。

今天是国家默迪卡的日子。主啊，我也要默迪卡。从我的骄傲，自我中心，依靠自己的势力，依靠别人，依靠环境里面出来。我不要从别人或者环境取得满足，喜乐，安全感，因为这些会让我失望，而主啊，你却是永远信实的神！你所预备给我的是最好的！

PS: 希望你会看见我想说的。我们一起加油好吗？

yay merdeka!

Happy Merdeka Day!

It's the end of August and I must dump all my pictures here before the new batch comes in! I'll leave the 'Happy Birthday, Malaysia' wish till September 16 I guess. After all, that's really when MALAYSIA was born!

I've never appreciated National Day hol more than this year I guess... ^^ It's a great break after long weeks of teaching or merely being in school. And it's a great reward for me after my second last observation! Last on this friday and I'll be really MERDEKA! Yeay~~~!

Taught my kids on the Independence Day topic yesterday. It was actually a last-minute decision. I had a lesson prepared for Monday observation but somehow I just did not feel too confident and comfortable with it. Then at 6pm Caryn suddenly came in and asked me bout this topic... and I thought, eh.. why not try teaching this coz Tuesday would be Merdeka Day mah... And we started preparing the lesson plan, task sheets and videos and slides together coz we'd be sharing the same lesson. Hahahaha... Sharing is Caryn, I mean... Caring rite... ^^ and thank God, miraculously we finished up everything by 12 and I managed to crumple in my bed by 1.30am... Could have been earlier if I restrained from the urge to facebook. Sigh.. self-discipline problem...

And the next morning I was thinking if I could really do well in the lesson, it'd be really by the grace of God! I'd never planned a lesson so last-minute-ly!! And without a doubt, God is good all the time!! My mentor had quite some good comments for me and there was improvement in my evaluation form! Praise be to the Lord! :D

Ooh by the way, let me just include the simple acrostic poem Caryn and I did for Malaysia... err, or more like for our kids.. :)

Malaysia

A beautiful place to live in

Lovely and friendly people
Amazing culture and traditions

'Yes, we can!' spirit

Strong and united

Independent and free

Always wonderful!

Anyway, guess how we celebrated the countdown last night?

Played Saidina! Hahaha...

We're kind of 'addicted' to it these few weeks... It's the Malaysian version (patriotic right? :P) of monopoly. Doreen bought it from a fair kinda thing in Times Square.. but ended up we're always playing with it. I think we have to buy the whole thing over from her. You know wad... I wont even touch this thing at home.. but here... when the rest are gung-ho to play, you'll just follow suit.. infectious! But a good way of bonding too.. ^^

The highest record ever: 6 hotels but no one declared bankrupt yet..

And when it's a one-sided win-all scenario, ppl could get pretty flustered. :)

And crazy enough, we have a debt book for the game... :P Caryn's debt so far has reached a record of 33 thousand. When this happens you have to be grateful that it's fakies... if not we could just jump from Jaya 33. But maybe it's not high enough ya...

Besides Saidina, another entertainment for us would be seeing cute baby Ian Ian on weekends..

He could really sleep anywhere! d^^b

I got to feed him lunch on Sunday! Yay~~! But his Daddy said I failed as a nanny... coz halfway I got so engrossed with the TV I forgot to hold his bottle properly...!! Sorry Ian Ian, the nanny's trying to improve herself k...

Ooooh he's holding his own bottle~~!! ^^ Can't wait to see him on Friday! And sniff-sniff too! Ian Ian always smells great~!! :9 *starting to sound like a pervert*

On a more.. normal note, I thank God that last night we got to buka puasa with our Cohort 4 friends for the very last time (I suppose, unless next year posting doesn't come too early)! Though not everyone was present, it was enough to make the Day a memorable one! Hopefully we could have a farewell dinner next year with everyone there! ^^

the ever pretty C4 gurls~~ ^^

KFC wasn't exactly the best place to buka puasa... coz it's packed! And there're plus minus 40 of us! But I think we still 'conquered' the whole place with our well-trained voice! ^^ Everyone has got their own TP stories to share... and listening to others could really inspire you, give you ideas, and to some extent make you more grateful of your school and kids... :D This was like an early post-mortem for us dy... And I'm really glad for Illi and Najwa who love their school so much that they're sad to leave so soon... and we're here, counting days and thinking when all this would end... hahaha... I suppose different schools give us different yet valuable experience... hopefully when we got posted next year, we'll have the same love and passion for the school like Illi and Najwa~!

The dinner ended with photo-shooting session and more salam-salaman as we'll only see each other after Hari Raya! To all my Muslim friends, Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri! And maaf zahir batin (correct right? :P)! Enjoy your holiday, and be careful on your journey back to kampung!

to the horror of the KFC staff... hahaha

and our housemates' makan session did not end there... back home we indulged ourselves in a sweeeeet icing cream cake that tasted a lot like those beautiful cupcakes... Ahh.. sinful~~!!

And there goes the Merdeka celebration! *with Saidina* :PPP

aug monthly test

Monthly test from Mon till Wed = no lesson plans! ^^

I've always envied teachers when it comes to test/exam period. Why are we the ones who are suffering... studying... trying to cram in all the notes and they just sit there (invigilating) doing nothing?

And yeah! I'm the one goyang-ing kaki now... Hahaha... the stress period comes after the test actually.. marking the papers and knowing your pupils don do well and you're the one to blame isn't the greatest thing in the world. I haven't marked my Year 4 Math papers.. but I scanned through a few of my murid harapan's papers and kept on exclaiming why? why?!! throughout... sigh.. on a more grateful note, I'll be leaving end of Sept... leaving all the dirty job to Cikgu Zul... hahah *evil evil*

This Cikgu Zul's very helpful. Haha. On Monday I entered 4C to invigilate. There're 30 minutes or so before the paper, and the kids, when greeting me 'Good morning Teacher Chooooo' purposely went high-pitch at 'chooooo~~~!' Since I still had time and had got nothing to do, I got all the 5 boys who did that to stand up and scolded them for making fun of my surname.

Suddenly Cikgu Zul came in to ask me questions on the Math papers... he was like, 'Err.. Miss Choo...'

*paused and saw the boys standing*

then he just went over and lempang SKILLFULLY...

*PAAAG~~* x 4 heads

and started walking back to me...

one of the boys grumpily said: 'Cikgu, Faruq tak kena?'

He went over and *Paaag~~* for the last time on Faruq who was too short and looked like he's sitting down even though he was standing... hahaha

Then he came back to me and said, "Arr.. Miss Choo, this one..."

as if nothing happened like that.

I was like... O.O wow sooo effective and efficient!

hehehehe.... padan muka!! :P Who asked you to tease my name, my dad's name, my grandpa's name and my moyang's name?!

Oh well, I resolve to be nicer to them... I have 2 more REAL teaching weeks to go... let's be friends and not foes.. :)

delicate jelly cake

Caryn gave her pupils a spelling test that day...

It seems that either she has to improve on her pronunciation or the kids have to acquire more vocab..

Kids can be so cute... at times... ^^

guru cemerlang

Mdm Sheerin’s training us to be specific and precise in writing lesson plans. All the details, even the ones u consider most trivial, have to be stated… and this is the result of her training…

Have you even seen 42 steps in a stage? Hahaha…

FYI, I’m not that crazy. This is Louis’ piece. Then Mdm Sheerin’s comment was: You can write ‘Teacher repeats step x to x with blah blah blah…!’

Lol~ Louis the guru cemerlang!

TP: half down, half more to go!

Has anyone missed me? :)

My absence for a whole month shows that I'm real busy ya... hahaha... come to think of it, yes I am busy, yet not to the extent of messy hair (messy room, yes! lol) and breathless moments... or not yet? But so far so good... God has been gracious, and Caryn and I were just saying the other day that well, practical is not so bad after all, at least not as vicious as they have put it. And we're entering into the 6th week! Which means 6 more weeks to go... and out of these remaining days, there are monthly test, merdeka break, Raya break (2 weeks!! yay!!), UPSR... all contributing to not having to do lesson plans!! :P

So after so long... Where did I pause my story... bout the teacher who did not like me?

Well, again by God's grace I was not placed under her supervision. I got another Malay teacher instead, humble and friendly and always ready to help! God You are good all the time! But when I see the former teacher every day I make it a point to greet her and smile, from the heart lah... and true enough when you are sincere to others, they will become nicer to you. Hahaha... Bless others no matter how they treat you and you will be blessed! Now she seems to be more amiable than what she used to be. No more cold shoulders! Praise God! ^^

I'm taking the English class of the Year 3 kids and Year 4 kids... 13 periods in all, which equals to 6.5 hours of lesson weekly! And there're of course loads of stories to be told! I think all teachers could come out with their memoirs! You know kids can just be so unpredictable and do things that you least expect! Which make your hair grow white at some point and other times, suppress your laughter because you're supposed to be angry! And it's true that they teach you more about life that you could ever teach them. It's from them that I see the ultimate pure hearts and sincere servanthood. They would 'fight' to help you carry just a pencil case. Haha... I don't know if there's any motives behind (e.g. skipping a few minutes of class or trying to please you...?) but I suddenly understand what Jesus means when He wants all of us to be like young children. And the best part, they believe in everything you say. Hahaha, well not all maybe, but most of the things!

My lecturer has come to observe me twice up till now. And I told the kids that she's coming to watch them. Well, of course it's just a half truth, but she's indeed coming to see how they respond to me right? :P Both observations have gone well, and I really thank God that the kids are not behaving too badly each time Mdm. Sheerin comes. Maybe she's got the face of a real stern teacher that the kids are a lil' afraid of her. Haha.. but it helps anyhow. All the years in college I had never come one-to-one with her concerning academic works. This time around after both reflection sessions I realised that she has really got the substance in her. Hahaha.. like Miss Illha. She really knows what she's talking about kind of thing. And when you try to improve your lesson according to what she has said you see the result... that kind of thing... So yeap, really gained a lot this time, and it's more than thousands of hours of lecture...

I have another observation coming up this Friday with my mentor. Just remember me in prayer if you... remember. Haha.. ^^

Oh guess what last Friday when Mdm. Sheerin came in to see me, I taught the kids actions of a few transports.. so I asked them.. Class, do you know how a sampan rocks gently from side to side? They excitedly exclaimed, 'I know! I know!' Then this is what they showed me...

*image from fotolia*

Me: *speechless... faints*