Weekend Fun!

Saturday was spent at ChinChin's house, for Chong's Clinic new year gathering. Had ordered buffet this time round, and thanks to Dr Yuen for the treat. Haha!


We couldn't forget bout gambling, since it's still during the 15-day festive period...


Jason the "dealer"


The earlier batches of Chong's part-time staff. Felicia with Dr Yuen. Seen here with her husband and daughter. Time flies yea...


This is QiaoFen with Dr Yuen. With her husband and daughter too. Also one of the earlier batches... everyone started working during their uni days...and now all grown up to form their own family sia...


The past and current part timers of Chong's Clinic...


Dr Yuen the dealer... haha.


After Clinic gathering, went to meet up with Yongyang and Weiyong. It's Yongyang's quarter-century birthday! Happy 25th Birthday YY! Haha.


Myself with Yongyang


Yongyang and Weiyong, the brothers who had known each other for 11 years sia.... haha.

Weekend was a busy week, took up another tuition assignment, so basically now my Sunday is devoted to Chong's Clinic, tuition, and more tuition. By the time I reached home...was already 7.30pm. Looks like my official working days are Sun - Fri, and Saturday is my rest day sia.

Hahha... alrights, guess I should sleep soon. Nights.

NTUC 生活 march issue

The editorial is finally out!

Thank you 生活 and suhuan jie =)

Social Justice Challenge - Water

The topic for February in the Social Justice Challenge is Water.

Access to fresh drinking water is a huge issue in third world countries, but even rich, developed countries suffer from inadequate water supplies due to climate change.

The book that I decided to read for this month is Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water by Maude Barlow.

I borrowed this from my local public library. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get through it. It's too heavy going for me.

I did read through the first chapter, "Where has all the water gone?", in which I learnt a lot.

We all learn about the water cycle in school, and I guess we get the impression that because nature recycles water so effectively, it is impossible for us to run out of water. However, we're not factoring in the human potential for waste, pollution, and greed.

I don't think I can adequately explain the issues to you here; I just don't understand them well enough. If you are interested in water sustainability, and can settle in for an intellectually demanding read, I highly recommend this book.



Hopefully I'll do better with March's theme: Domestic Violence and Child Abuse.  

Zac

I thought you might like to see some pics of my surviving pet dog, Zac. He's old, and deaf, and cranky, so he doesn't pose for photos very well. No, scratch that, he's not really cranky, he's just lonely because he misses his brother.

Anyway, we're giving him more attention and more free roaming space to try to alleviate the boredom and loneliness. Here are a couple of pics.

Having a little nap on the cool sand.

I'm trying to get his attention so I can take his picture! You can see the bottom of my skirt in the picture. 

Autumn's Coming, and that means Uni.

Autumn, and first semester, officially begin on March 1st, only a few short days away.

I am celebrating the start of the season a little bit early by beginning to use my new handbag. I received it as a Christmas present, but set it aside to start using in the cooler months.

What's that pinned on it? Why it's the handmade brooch that Maria K. (A mind lively and at ease) sent me!

I think that it matches perfectly, and gets me in the mood for Autumn!

I'm also posting here the first draft of the first part of my first assessment for EER500. Lucky you! You get to read it and critique it for me! It's a short summary of an education department report. If you're Australian, you would have heard of the Digital Education Revolution, synonymous in many people's minds with the government pledge to provide all high school students with their very own laptop. In fact, there's a bit more to it than that, and the strategic plan outlines the government's plan to ensure a technology-rich enviroment in all schools.

XXX

Success through partnership: Achieving a national vision for ICT in schools. Strategic Plan to guide the implementation of the Digital Education Revolution initiative and related initiatives. 5 August 2008. Retrieved from http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/DigitalEducationRevolution/Pages/default.aspx

This strategic plan is the document that the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has agreed will direct the implementation of the Digital Education Revolution (DER). All policy and program decisions related to information and communication technology (ICT) in schooling will be directed by this plan.



Currently, the availability and use of ICT is highly variable from state to state and school to school. Many students have limited access to computers and online information due to computers being located in labs rather than classrooms, and broadband connections being inadequate. Access to and quality of digital learning resources is also highly variable.



The DER provides a vision for students to achieve high outcomes in a technology enriched environment. The aspirational goals of this vision are that:

• Students have unlimited access to information.

• Teaching and learning is student centric, innovative and stimulating, while being rigorous and addressing curriculum standards. Contemporary learning resources and activities meet students’ individual needs.

• Courses, resources and communication between teachers, students and parents are accessible without limits.

• Web 2.0 is used for collaboration and knowledge sharing.

• School leaders plan for ongoing improvement.



The DER commits to:

• Supporting infrastructure by providing devices (e.g. laptops), high speed affordable networks, technical support and “learning portals”.

• Providing digital learning resources and software appropriate to national curricula, including tools for safe online collaboration (web 2.0 tools) and a model for content supply, including copyright issues.

• Improving teacher capability by promoting models of teaching and learning that incorporate digital resources, applying ICT standards to pre-service training and professional development, and transferring effective practice between different agencies.

• Supporting leadership by providing training for school leaders in the development of system and school level planning for implementation of ICT.



The first guiding principle of the DER is coordination, which requires a commitment across governments and sectors to collaboration, communication and consultation; leading to coherence. The other guiding principles of the DER are sustainability and flexibility.



The strategic plan includes all the school’s systems for the use of ICT, including:

• Selection, creation, storage, retrieval and use of digital teaching and learning resources.

• Development of ICT infrastructure to meet all needs of the school, including use of ICT to support and improve its business processes, and to facilitate improved communication with the wider school community.

• Use of ICT to assess student learning, including ICT capability, communicate the data, and manage student information.

• Planning for and implementation of professional learning in regard to the implementation of ICT.

• Capacity to use ICT to extend and differentiate student learning opportunities.

XXX

 

If you are familiar with the report, I'd love to hear if you think I've captured the essence of it.

 

If you are not Australian, I'd love to hear your take on how ICT is incorporated into schools in your part of the world.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards.

Borrowed from my local public library.

**** "Poignant"

From the inside cover: "On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down's syndrome. Rationalising it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret. But Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the infant. Instead, she disappears into anoter city to raise the child herself. So begins..."

To me, this is just the kind of thing I want when I choose a novel. First and foremost, it is a story; not barrelling along at the pace of a page-turning thriller, but inexorably moving forward, revealing at each juncture more about each character and their world. The story is at times heartbreaking, as we observe David and Norah Henry's marriage slowly disintegrate as they struggle along, raising their son Paul. It provides the perfect example how, seemingly suddenly, you can wake up one morning and wonder how on earth you came to be at the point in your life that you are, without realising all the little decisions that you made each day that got you there.

It is also inspiring, as you see Caroline find strength and determination that she never knew she had, as she works to open every door possible to her daughter, Phoebe, despite being a single mother in a strange town, bearing the worry that at any time her world could come crashing down.

Having been born in 1971, I found it interesting to watch the changing social background as the twins (a little older than me, but of the same generation) grew up. The expectation that children with Down's syndrome were better off in an institution, and certainly didn't participate in school or other activities with "normal" children, is so very far from our current ideas. Also, Norah's experience as a wealthy doctor's wife, and the expectations associated with that role, are very far from anything I've experienced.

All in all, a satisfying read, with tears and laughs and plenty of drama.

Yay! A package arrived for me today from Maria K. of A mind lively and at ease.

In the package:

Paris Diaries: Tips, impressions and dispelling common myths about the City of Lights and its inhabitants by Maria K.

The Ring of Nine: A first-person account of the Leningrad Blockade by Vasily Petrovich Kuznetsov.

A handmade brooch.

Thankyou Maria, the gifts are very much appreciated. I'll get reading straight away!

Table Topics Tuesdays - Talking Trash

what possession of your spouse's/significant other's would you most like to throw away?

My husband is the most wonderful husband and father in the world, but my response to this question would have to be Do I have to choose just one thing?

Perhaps a little photographic evidence would serve me well here.

Above, you find pictures of the inside of my garage from two different angles. After my husband has undertaken a serious cleanup! Yes, that's right folks, my husband is a hoarder! He has all sorts of bits and pieces that "might come in handy". He is tidying up in preparation for a garage sale that he's been talking about since the beginning of the year. The other day he asked me what a pile of clothes was doing in our bedroom. I said, "Where would you like them? They're for your mythical garage sale." "Mythical, you say?" he answered me. But as yet it has remained mythical.

\

Below find some photos of the garage storage solutions which appear not to be working.

A few years ago, there was a TV show called "Your life on the lawn". Professional "declutterers" visited the house of lucky participants and emptied all the contents of their house, stacking it all on the front lawn. They then only replaced "keepers" in the house, and got rid of the rest. We so need someone to come and do that at our place!

Now I must reiterate that my husband is the most wonderful man in the world! 

If you'd like to play along and answer this week's "Table Topic", head along to Shannon's blog Welcome to the Nuthouse! 

I Think I have an Addiction!

Caramel latte and banana bread at my local cafe.

I'm always visiting the blogs that I follow, to see what they're up to lately. Sometimes I laugh out loud, sometimes I learn something, sometimes I find out about a book I'd love to read.

I'm particularly interested in library-related blogs, being a librarianship student at present. The video above was found at Gina's K.I.S.S. Blog Space.

Huat arh! Gambling and Lohei till 5.30am.

Finally met up with them. Mindy was unable to make it, as she was sick. Take care and get well soon yea. So instead of the usual 8, it's the 7 again. Met up at Daniel's house for Lohei, since it was the 7th day of the new year, and commonly known as the human's birthday.


Huat arh!


The 7 of us, less Mindy.


Eating non-stop, sharing Chinese New Year goodies.


Thanks to Daniel to this plate of Lohei...free. Haha.


After that, we had our gambling session. Daniel goh was the overall winner.. each of us lost on an average of $20...


The investments, haha.


By the time we finished our gambling session, time was already 5.30am...zZzzZz. And we continue to talk about our future plans, updating each other bout our current status, those heart to heart talks only 11 years of friendship will understand... =)


Home sweet home, thanks to Suhui. The rest was trying to squeeze in the car. Good thing I was sitting infront. LoL!

Happy CNY! Meet up soon yea!

Internet Back Up and Banana Cake

Yay for BigPond! My internet is back up and going strong, but my trip to McDonalds has had the effect of giving me a taste for banana cake! I had a couple of very ripe bananas, so I pulled out my copy of Best Recipes from The Weekly circa 1984 and found this recipe.

Banana Walnut Cake

125g butter

3/4 cup castor sugar

2 eggs

3 very ripe, small bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

3/4 cup self-raising flour

3/4 cup plain flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Mash bananas finely with a fork (you should have 3/4 cup mashed banana). Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add bananas and vanilla, beat on low speed until well combined. Stir in walnuts, then sifted flours and soda in two lots; mix well. Spread mixture into well-greased 20cm ring tin, bake in moderate oven 40 minutes or until cooked when tested. Stand for a few minutes, then turn onto wire rack to cool.

I didn't have any walnuts, so I just left them out. I also didn't have a ring tin, so I just used a loaf tin.

My kids like icing, (who doesn't?), so when the cake was cool I added chocolate icing.

Time for a slice :)

It seems to have been a hit; there's only enough left for a couple more slices.

As for uni, no luck yet on a reply from my subject coordinator or any movement on the forum or subject outline fronts...

EDIT: I received a lovely email from the EER500 coordinator, indicating that my initial thoughts are on track. Hooray!

Chinese New Year @ Chong's Clinic

Time now 3:59am, crazy. I should be sleeping by now...Hope I can wake up tml for work. Haha. I wasted so much time loading all these photos up. Anyway, yeah, 1st day to work in Chong's after Chinese New Year. As usual... Dr Yuen gave ang pows! WOoOhOOO!


I give you oranges, you give me ang pow. Haha.


Thinking bout spicing up the clinic. Decided to summon all staffs down for Lo Hei Session! Haha. Thanks so much for supporting my idea yea. All came except Suhui... here's Deborah and Sabrina.


Bought the lo hei (Dr Yuen paid for it in the end), eager to open it. LoL.


Clinic four big beauties. Haha. Phyllis, who just joined the big family of Chong's clinic, Adeline, Sabrina and Deborah.


Myself with Chong's seniors... my Shifu Daniel, and da shi jie ChinChin. We are both tigers. Haha... but she's one cycle older. LoL... U can roughly estimate the history of Chong's yea? LoL.


We had problems starting the lo hei, dunno wad auspicious stuffs to say. Haha... thanks to Phyllis, who bother to google online. LoL.


hUAT aRH!


Dr Yuen with Sabrina and Deborah.


The aftermath. LoL, Thanks to the girls who helped to clean up in the end. lOl.


Chin Chin and her brother, Jason


Happy family.

Alrights...back to sleep. Tml 9.30am got meeting. Yawnz.

Video of Lohei! Dunno what they talking man, seriously. Hahah...

Maccas comes to the rescue!

My internet connection is down at home. We are upgrading to ADSL2, which has just become available in our area, and apparently there is a three to four day turn-around period when upgrading. Which of course our internet provider didn't mention to us until we rang them to find out why our internet connection had been unavailable for several hours!

But never fear, dear readers. My local McDonalds has a McCafe and free WiFi connection, so I've set up my "office" and settled in!

Mmmmm... caramel latte and banana bread a la Maccas!

So, I'm sure you're dying to know what's been happening in my world lately.

Alana had her first dose of HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccination at school yesterday. This fabulous Australian innovation protects girls from infection with this virus which is implicated in almost all cases of cervical cancer. Of course, anything that involves almost 100 eleven-to-thirteen-year-old girls lining up to have injections cannot be without drama! Two of Alana's friends were unfortunate enough to faint after receiving their injections, one of them falling off the chair and onto the floor. Poor things! They have been sternly told by the nurse to make sure they have their needles lying down next time (gotta love the compassion of the nurses!). Alana even overheard one nurse say to another, "We should just make all the red-heads lie down, it's always the redheads that faint." Nice.

In more disturbing news, two of the boys in Josh's class have been suspended from school for fighting. I was shocked to hear this, and a little worried considering that Josh has been friendly with both these boys in the past. I gently suggested to him that though I didn't want to tell him who he could and couldn't be friends with, I didn't think it was really a good idea to hang out with boys that would cause physical harm to another (a third boy was hurt in the scuffle but was not to blame). Every day new stories of school bullying come to light. There is verbal bullying, physical bullying and cyber bullying to worry about. In my experience, the social world of school is something that each child must navigate for his or herself, with support from teachers and parents if there are any problems. I know that when Alana was this age, her friendship groups underwent a lot of upheaval, with sometimes almost daily changes in who was friends with who. For boys, full of testosterone and perhaps less able to talk about how they feel, it's easy for them to "get physical". It's a worry for me, because Josh is a sensitive soul who can get upset easily.

going...

As for me, I've been trying to get a bit ahead on my uni work before the semester officially begins on March 1.

I've been focussing my attention on EER500 - Introduction to Education Research. Unfortunately, I've been hampered by the fact that the subject forum is not yet available. The subject forum is how we students communicate with one another and with our subject coordinator. It's a great tool for asking questions, discussing issues, or simply "thinking out loud". I'm having trouble moving forward, because without the subject forum I feel very isolated and unsure whether or not I'm on the right track. I have emailed my subject coordinator directly with a couple of questions, but I haven't heard back from her yet.

My other subject, ETL507 - Professional Experience/Professional Portfolio,  has a list of readings and questions to consider (to be discussed on the as-yet-unavailable subject forum), but as yet no study guide to indicate what the assessment schedule or requirements of the subject are. So while I can get reading, and start to formulate some thoughts, that's about all I can do so far.

gone!