feeling sicker and sicker as the days go by. like one of my colleagues said, we will get over with the day. i feel the connection with my boys growing and ebbing, i wonder why. 2d is still as rowdy as usual, but when evelyn isn't around, the boys run amok. sigh. more than 25 minutes just attempting to get them to sit for a while, so that i can begin telling them the game and the rules.

on good friday morning, i rode bt with julia, seow, zhiming and baddabing. zipped off to toa payoh thereafter.

yesterday, i went back again to try bt again with aqueous, and after a coaching lap, she waited for me while i tried to rush through one more lap. on this second lap, i finally managed to clear the climb just after echo valley... the feeling was WOW!

went for the chek jawa guided walk yesterday, with hs, angela, genny and one of wee nghee's colleagues. generally smooth going - but i sure hope my guiding style won't be that boring... we had our "intellectual/idiotic talk session" after that, and we had great laughs here and there. seems that yours sincerely would be volunteering time to the cause of wildfilms...

this sounds like a fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get close to the cable pullers (most photographers hate them), fellow members of the press and so on. heck, how often do you expect to come across such a big event held in singapore, short of the wto conference back in the mid/late 90's? somemore, it starts on friday, 1st july, and ends on sunday, 10th july, where the maximum disruption to schoolwork would be like only six days?



besides, it's the olympic movement, which is an inherent in-our-blood kind of thing for most pe people!

if i could, i would slap the living day and nightlights out of some boys, for their defiance. there was this boy, whom when i asked nicely if he would stop misbehaving, and running around to other classmates' places when i'm in the class, just plainly refused to answer, to nod nor to shake his head. when i brought the class back from the hall to the classroom, he ran and chased another classmate all over the school, and that's on a day when we had visitors to the school. i told him, i don't mind if i look like a fool and not having full control of the class, but don't make a monkey out of himself, but when i talked to him up close, he would shift his eyes and avoid eye contact with me.

i'm getting more and more aggressive now. teaching is NOT the calling for me. anyway, i'm on sick leave today. just one day back to school after a one week break can get me back to this. i'm looking forward to getting out of the ministry and do something else.

went out riding at bt and butterfly with julia today. other than contrasting colours of our bike components, i discovered that:

1. egg mcmuffins taste great when you're hungry (and not)
2. iced lemon tea, not served cold, still tastes great on a ride
3. 2.1" ust tires can be a drag to cycle from place to place on road
4. 80mm of travel at about 52psi is more than enough to go around, with about 10mm spare travel left
5. the forx does steer a heck lot better than the old spyder
6. julia is a good climber, but lousy descender.
7. maxxevv can spot people who he thinks look like me

operation foxhunt was a success. the objective was captured at my favourite bike haunt around my area. here is a piece of photographic evidence of the successful mission -



next up, operation wheelset and operation juicy 7. agents, be alert!

i was pleasantly surprised to see beivied and siaoon signing up as new chek jawa guides - yippee! at least i have two more kakis to chit-chat about underwater photography...

also, i had the pleasure of meeting silverfish at the guided walk, too!

how long does it take for one fork to come in? again kian hong has proved its crummy service. theodr already had his installed to his bike by sunday morning when i saw him... so why the heck hasn't tiong hin received its stock although it's so much closer to the kian hong premises?

wasting my time waiting at tiong hin the past two days. if i still don't get it tomorrow, i'm going to call them up on thursday morning and give them a ticking off they won't ever forget. and that's not even including the multiple times the arrival date has been pushed back...

went over to the duathlon to take photos for friends - and that was quite a number of them! and that's not yet including the tgp brunch riders...



went over to suntec for a short while on request to try shoot the cheerobics (which i thought the organization was sucky), and went over as i planned earlier to downtown east to shoot the bmx preliminary rounds...

today probably marks one of the days where i had the most actions as a type a personality.

i brought my class over to the shared basketball court, so i'd asked the secondary school boys to clear the space, since i was using that very space.

as the last few boys cleared the basketball court, someone said in a stage whisper, "lousy teacher". i'm certainly not a fantastic teacher, but i was ready to catch the gutless chap who muttered that aloud. this other lady came over from the side of the secondary school, either she's their teacher, or a relief teacher - to probably to cool down the suggestion, she said that probably the chap was just joking.

if that was a joke, i'll probably go mano-a-mano on the idiot who said that, and was gutless to admit it. pardon me, school IS making me more of a type a personality. surprisingly i wasn't like this in national service. i wonder why too.

anyway, three years from now, it's surely a career change for me.

received a complaint letter from a "sad parent" today. the fuckhead didn't know the frustrations of taking on the best class - when i wasn't trained in teaching english - all those little things etc.

i wish that i could quit right now. i'd rather be a freelancing chap in other lines, at least it's only adult idiots at times we need to deal with, instead of a large proportion of screwed-up, ethicless kids and triggerhappy parents. and a scheme of work that was promised to be ready, but never was.

i'd probably go back home, and find out the clause etc, for stopping teaching early. it's not just teaching kids - it's not the work that i expected, even though i did relief + contract's worth. i can't understand why the boys can be animals here too.

ah, fuck it.

saw sue-anne yesterday after i just popped out of orchard mrt's turnstiles.

bought myself this mountain bike magazine's complete guide to mountain biking skills for $29.95, as well as bike for $13.80. will sacrifice pages of the magazine to decorate my class...



was at the saca road race this morning, met up with rocketeer and hamsterchick, both of whom were very animated characters. actually, i talked once to rocketeer during a thomson ride, just that i didn't know it was him all along!

regarding the livestrong bands that i have, i need to find out the number that i have left. i don't want to sell and sell and sell until i don't have enough for myself. will only be able to check out the number left tomorrow, when i get back to office.

the package from handbag has finally arrived!



just met with jia hui and passed her two.

hmm. there's seemingly something to cheer me up. now when i wear the livestrong band, i remember - "i only have good days or great days."

fucked up.

it has been since quite a while that i used this word openly on this blog of mine, but i thought i should get things off my chest.

yesterday during this workshop where there were no trainers, but instead only a vcd being played (three, to be numerically correct), there was this moment where the fellow staff inside the av room were yakking and yakking, when i was personally interested in the topic - storytelling and how to apply it in class. i was right at the front of the av room, playing the vcd on the laptop in there, and then it just so happened that the recorded volume in the vcd was reaaaaally low, probably to prevent sound clipping from happening. just when the topic got interesting, the general noise coming from the fellow staff was drowning what could be heard from the speakers - even if you strained hard to listen - so i thought too much was too much, and i blurted, "can you all keep quiet? i sitting at the front and i can't hear a damned thing!"

so seemed that some fellow staff took offence and highlighted it to my r.o. who shared this with me. hullo?!?!? even if you're teachers, so what if you guys are making noise? it has to stop! apparently the touchy part was the word, "damned". uh, it's a proper english word, it isn't a swear word, and it's an adjective (or adverb?). and i didn't direct it at any one person, so what the fuck in the world is there to get touchy about? be glad that i didn't use more flowery language then! with the kids, if they make noise, do you carry on with lessons with noise and so on? and i'm not expecting dead silence; i'm only asking for a decent level of communication noise. guess how fucking pissed i was, when i was sitting at the front, and people teachers were making so much noise!

SIMPLY FUCKED UP.