I’m back from the kelong trip! But since it’ll take me some time to upload the pictures, I’ll blog about it when i’ve got more time to.

Anyway, I went searching for bugs to practise my macro photography in the evening, and to much disappointment there were not too many insects in the garden for me to spot and shoot.

So, here’s one of the photos that I’ve captured just now: A creature that you can do without, but never fails to make its presence felt when you least wanted it to.

Edit: Added 3 more pictures. 

I’m supposed to leave Singapore in 6 hrs from now, and yet I’m still awake. Not in the sleeping mood, I guess. Bleah

Anyway, up to now, I only know that I’m going to a kelong near the east coast of Johor, and the kelong name is "Hot Boys" (??!). Not a gay resort, I hope. Will let you know about it, JH. (grins)

Well.. hope to capture some beautiful pictures of that place.. will be back on Sunday night.. Enjoy your weekends, people!  

When I saw the news that SBS is going to launch a "Flag the bus early" campaign, I almost fell off the chair laughing. Ok, I exaggerated. But come on, is there even a need to have such a dumb campaign?! It is like pointing fingers at us and claiming that it is our fault when the public buses sometimes zoom past the bus-stop even though there are people flagging for it. I don’t know how many people feel this way, but I for one think that the bus fare that we are paying is just unreasonably too steep for the service that we are getting. I can easily come out with a list of the kind of poor services that we’ve been getting all these years.

1. Driver can’t see you (flag):
Just within the past 2 years alone, I’ve succeeded in turning invisible for at least 5 times. No matter how early I flag, how big an action I made before the oncoming bus, the driver just "failed" to see me and happily drove past the bus-stop. On one occasion, I missed 3 buses in a row! Flag the bus early my f00t.

2.  Driver wants a race with you:
How many times have you chased after a bus, only to helplessly see it move off when you almost reached the bus-stop? I’m sure the bus drivers could have easily seen anyone running towards their directions, but they just simply bo chup and drove off pretending that the running person was a enthusiastic runner training for a marathon.

3. You wished the bus was not air-con: 

Air-con buses do not necessarily provide you with comfortable cool air. It is dreadful to wait for your bus for fifteen minutes in a hot noon, and then got into the bus realising that the air-con is faulty. We’re not plants, you know? Don’t make us pay money to be caged in a greenhouse.

4. Fierce coward:
This one is classic. A couple of weeks ago, I took a bus with a buddy to ECP for a blading session. As I mistook one of the bus-stop as our destination, I pressed the bell. Upon realising that it wasn’t the right place to drop off, we stayed in our seats while the driver stopped and open the door (we were upstairs). Guess what happened next? The bus driver took the trouble to get out of his seat, climbed up to the 2nd floor and shouted at me: Oei!You pressed the bell?! I was taken aback by such wonderful service, but clarified that I pressed wrongly. Don’t anyhow press ah, waste my time you know!, he shrieked again before returning to his seat. You were wasting more time by crawling up and down, I thought.

So, when I reached my destination, I couldn’t help but to walk to the driver’s seat, glanced at the bus plate number, and then showed the driver a no-nonsense face while explaining sternly that I didn’t do that deliberately and that his behaviour was totally uncalled for. To my surprise, he became suddenly so friendly and apologetic! After I got off that bus, he still gave me a thumbs-up through the window! Haha, scared I complain ah.

So, with all these problems, shouldn’t the bus company think of more campaigns to educate their drivers (those bad ones, not the friendly and helpful ones, yah? ) instead of educating us to flag that damn bus earlier?

Well, I can smell a "Lets not complain about SBS services" campaign coming. 

For the past 2 days, I’ve been searching for Korean mtvs to watch on youtube. The way Koreans shoot their mtvs is so unique, such that they look like several scenes from a movie pieced together (although the scenes are only solely made for the mtvs). 9 out of 10 sad Korean mtvs involve a car accident in the ending. As much as such scenes have become a cliche in their mtvs, I’ve never failed to feel sad at the end of the songs.

Here’s one mtv that I think is quite nice. Enjoy watching.

Anyone knows or has this song? I want it!!!

It has been a long time since I last posted a "Photography" entry, so I decided to dig out some of my past works to put it up here.

I’ve always been fascinated by how artistic photographers can be. They can always give a "make-over" to boring objects and make them look so exciting in pictures. I’ve decided to try out the abstract "smoke photography" after being inspired by some photography forumers who captured such images successfully. It was a real learning experience, as I had to do several trial-and-errors before I could get the images that I wanted.  Thank goodness it wasn’t hazy few months back, if not I would have suffocated from all the smoke contributed by the haze and the incense sticks. Haha

And the last one.. a fusion of coloured smoke

The wonders of convection. lol 

Had a blading session with my buddy today, and had another great fall down the slope.

No, it isn’t as serious as it looks. And I continued to blade for one more hour before I settled for lunch.

Physical pain is nothing. Really. 

Today was science paper exam review for the whole Sec 2 level. All students were gathered in the hall and I went through the correct answers with them, reminding them to check their questions for marking and calculation errors. Students were to state the questions with marking errors on the first page of their scripts, and hand in to me for validation after the review. Among the "error" scripts that I’ve collected were the following remarks written by the students.

I wrote "absorbed" instead of "emitted". Shouldn’t I be penalised?

Total marks for part II should be 2 instead of 3.

Calculation mistake on page 5. Should be 2.5 instead of 3.

I wrote "metals". Why do I still get full mark? 

What’s so special about these remarks? All have one thing in common: These students were awarded more marks than they deserved, and they are not afraid to lose the "undeserved" marks.

It is not like they have all scored very well and felt that one or two marks fewer is insignificant. Some of these girls actually failed quite badly, but still their conscience tell them that honesty beats academic results.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not implying that I expect the students to be dishonest. But it is always heartening to reaffirm the fact that these girls are pupils with integrity.  

A leader in every student, so says our school mission. And I can already see many of these girls showing the qualities needed in a fine leader.

Dark choco jaffa cakes and some encouraging words. Enough to brighten up my otherwise lousy day. Thanks lil sis Yaofang! You really know how to cheer people up. =)

Anyway, don’t be too upset over your colleagues ok? Have you played this game before?

I did when I was young. Just treat those nasty colleagues as ugly mini-monsters popping out of the mud hole. And get yourself a big mallet and hit their heads one by one. Can train your reaction time! Hahaha..

St Nics students are extremely happy people. Under the most stressful exam conditions, they still can manage to maintain their cheerfulness. And they’re not afraid to express it.

The following one lagi powerful. She got so excited and high to get 1000 people as the answer, that she kept smiling.. smiling.. and broke out into laughter.

Oh, and the marker (not me) responded with a smile. So St Nics teachers are happy people too.