Training ya-da ya-da

I had been to two training courses two days in a row including today. Seriously speaking, i really prefered yesterday’s training course which lasted only about 3 hours.

Let’s look into the details for the course yesterday:

The trainer is good and humourous. He sets aside a good amount of time for team discussions and gave a good summarisation at the end of each 0.5 hr segment. Yes, i
really agree that we remember the key points well at the end of each segment. In between the segments, we have one nice tea break The good thing is, he ended the
training earlier than the stated time!

The training today:

Quite lengthy. I was rather quiet and unresponsive in the whole training today. Not because of my selfishness or watever reason, but the questions posed by the trainers seems confusing. I dunno where to start contributing. Now i actually empathise how my students sometimes feel in class.

The whole course takes up to a total of 8 hours. Lots of time seemed to be spent on discussions and more discussions without any goals in the mind. Even the conclusion sounds confusing.

What i do learn from today’s course is basically this: ‘If you can’t convince someone with your ideas, confuse them’ Of course, it doesnt really mean that the full 8 hours was totally wasted.
A few of the topics actually seems down-to-earth and interesting, at least to our school context. For example, we discussed about ‘content in classrooms’. Are teachers giving too much content to students? Is this really necessary? What kinds of teaching style is the best? An example: Learning through solving real-life problems or just memorising and regurgitating everything from textbooks in an exam? If i were to take one ‘A’ student from each of the category, which student will have a better quality of ‘A’?

Think about the above in your free time. You can also ponder over this: how much of the information spoon-fed to you in your elementary school life are actually applied to your working life? How much of the information did you really remember after you have completed your PSLE or O’levels? Frankly speaking, i only remember selective information. In fact, i learn more from on-the-job trainings outside. The rest of the information — my apologise to all my teachers in my life.

Gift from Sarawak

From hubbie’s brother and gf. So sincere of them This is not a fan, they are actually bookmarks.

Marriage

I was reading this article this morning after receiving a sms from my sis: Purpose of Marriage.

Marriage is a life commitment that was to be made after serious considerations from both parties. Different people have different views about marriage. SOme people married because of peer pressure, family pressure and of course they could be simply have no choice since their marriage might be decided by parents.

Most people married because they loved their spouse and is willing to spend the rest of their life time caring for each other. Though this can also be done without getting married but some might fear insecurity due to the null status in society. But whatever it was, i am sure both parties played a great part in deciding whether to settle down in life.

My parents have been married for almost 27 years (well, based on my age i guess ) and life has never been rough till the recent few years. I am not sure why but it seems they could not longer communicate as well as they did many years ago.

Though i am only 1 year into my marriage, in my own opinion, as a couple grew up together through the years, the following two characteristics tend to change along the way (as least this is what i see in my own parents/friends/colleagues):

1. Character changes (some grew better, and some grew more stubborn and opinionated). What happened to the lovey-dovey sweet talks like ‘Honey’, ‘dear’ when they are dating? Maybe they no longer find it a need to maintain all these since they have already gotten the girl/guy for this long or they are just simply bochap a.ka ‘can’t be bothered’

2. Financial views (some became more money-minded, some became more generous). Most couples quarreled over the famous symbol known as ‘$’. Yes, factors like having a new-born, illnesses, aging parents, household expenses, career unstability and also child education makes the greatest effect on this change in view.

So what’s all these gonna do with the sms from my sis? Oh well, the message is quoted like this:

Sis, mum was criticizing dad’s bad character right in front of the relatives now… sigh… what a shame….

Actually i was pretty upset when i see this sms. This is not the first time my parents acted like ‘kids’. They dun see the importance of giving respect to another fellow human being and also dun see the need to give in to one another at times (Thought this is what marriage is all about?). Rather, they chose to go into cold wars and even direct insults whenever they have disagreements just like this time. There are a few times when mum even suggested staying separately in the future to me (thank goodness not in front of dad).

Hope things will just get better one day.

Day 7 CNY

Day 7 of CNY 2007 is really unforgettable. After having our special ren2 ri4 lunch with my family, we moved on to the Rainbow fish shop at Serangoon North Ave 2 to purchase an auto-fish feeder. We cant leave our fish to die when we go for our 2 week overseas trip in March right so we have to get one feeder to do the job.

Before we went back to our home nest, we decided to drop by one of the Seletar Fish farms. We had been living in the vicinity for so long and yet we have not even drop by the farms. (Never knew it existed!) We have gotten ourselves 50 Rummy Nose tetra fishes at a cost of only $10. Good deal right?

SIde note: OUr fish tank seems to be a bit overloaded with fish after pouring in another 50 new members. Hohoho…

Day 5 CNY

How time flies and now we have already reached the 5th day of the chinese new year. This new year was rather quiet as most of the relatives are either abroad or our visiting timings are just not perfect. Do think i’ve failed to even wish those meet-once-in-a-year relatives a happy new year. Sigh… wat happened to all the customs?

Not all was foiled though. I got to meet my hubbie’s malaysian relatives this time round. Woke up real early on CNY Day 2 to catch a bus into Johor. Though almost half a day was spent on travelling, i was glad to be able to pay them a visit this year.

Though only married for one year, i have people urging me to give them a Piggy-Year kid. Is it a MUST for married couples to have kids? Hehee, we will see.

Have a happy chinese new year everyone!