Houston! We've Lost Houston!

I was in a teachers' training college in Kelantan when I heard 'Saving My Love For You' for the first time.  I was so struck by the sheer beauty of the singer's voice and effortless way she sang the song (back then there no was no such thing as a perfectly packaged singer, and people didn't care!)  that I had to get myself a copy of the cassette (no CD's back then!)  The distance from the college back then was an hour's ride by public bus since there was no other public transport.  Rickety as they were back then, I took a bus and scoured the town of Kota Bharu for the cassette, and paid through my nostrils (since I was not employed, and only lived on allowance!) for an original one; the only kind they had!

But I knew I had made a worthwhile investment, because the singer, Whitney Houston, rose to become one of the most successful and celebrated singers as far as I can remember.  She spurned hit after hit and I kept track of all her achievements and her blossoming career.

In this small memory of Whitney, I will not and absolutely refuse to write about all the difficult and bad things that she had gone through.  I will remember her for all the happiness and joy she had brought me with all her songs.  Thank you Whitney.

Pining for Attention

You are standing in front of the class, pouring your heart out, trying to get through to the students on how to go about process writing.  You have been straining your voice for about twenty minutes now, trying to make sure it reaches the students at the back of the class.  You notice a group of students talking 'grandmother stories' during that time.

It's not these students are in Form 1 or 2 or 3 or 4; but these students are now in form 5 and will be facing what is described as the most important examinations in their young lives; an examination that will literally determine their future.  However, when you see the behaviors or lack of interests of students in this particular class, you tend to wonder if they themselves realize the importance at all!

Bringing Up Children

They will be the death of me yet!  I feel so exasperated when everything I do for my kids don't seem to be enough for them.  They seem to want more and more from me, even when they know I cannot afford to oblige them.

This evening I was given the proverbial slap on the face by my youngest kid.  I will not go into details about what she did to me but suffice to say that it hurt me so much that I could faint.  What hurt me most was, I had been nursing her for the past few days, attending to almost all her needs (like giving her medicine and preparing her food for her) and fulfilling her requests (like buying magazines and comics!)

Are We Really The Best?

I was sitting in the teachers' common room this morning when I noticed a colleague marking a student's exercise.  She had been stuck on the same page of the exercise book, red pen in hand poised to make some kind of mark on the student's work.  She explained that she found it difficult to mark the exercise because the student could not even copy simple sentences (in Bahasa Melayu no less!)  She stressed that she had written all the sentences on the board and the class only needed to copy them.  She also found it difficult to comprehend why a student who is now in form one, was not able to spell (or write) well after six years of primary education prior to entering secondary school!

I was forced to lament on all the 'best of everything' that our nation has tried to achieve all these years (and some had actually been achieved!) but still has not managed to ensure that it's younger generations are able to read and write well.  It saddens me to see these students' situation in class, when the high-fliers in their class finishing their work well ahead of them, when they themselves are struggling behind.  These students, after realizing their situation, more often than not merely give up doing the tasks given to them and begin to disturb the class.

Backlog of Blogs

There is a sudden surge of interest in blogging among the younger generation nowadays.  Every day you get new blogs springing out like wild mushrooms after a downpour.  They seem to be emerging from practically everywhere and blogging about every topic under the sun.

But like wild mushrooms where some are safe to be eaten while some are deathly poisonous, the materials that bloggers write about are just as similar.  Some bloggers write about useful things like advise, life's trials and tribulations and their effects or even recipes that others can share.  On the other hand, some bloggers are mere parasites (pardon the comparison but...) they rely on other people's materials to enter into their blogs; some merely enter pictures or videos and worse of all some, especially those who already have a huge following, can merely come up with one-liner blog entries!

Farewell Potluck for Kak Mar

We had another potluck today!  Most potlucks would be happy occasions, with lots of loud chit-chats and infectious laughter.  This potluck that we had this morning was somehow a bit different from the ones we used to have.  There were those usual chit-chats and laughter but I sense that all those were done to camouflage a certain sense of poignancy that everyone at the potluck event must be having at the time.  

The potluck was held to mark the last day (where potluck in the school is concerned!) of one of our beloved colleagues who will be retiring tomorrow.  The do was specifically done for the occasion considering that Pn Siti Marzian had been a regular contributor to the previous potlucks we have had before this.  And she had never failed to make her famous "Nasi Beriyani".  Until now, I still wonder, how early in the morning she had to get up to prepare the rice and the chicken dish.