A time to RefLecT

Alhamdulillah, it's approaching end of Ramadhan and in about 10 days we'll be celebrating Aidilfitri. This year my family will be celebrating Raya at home with all our extended family (a large one) coming to celebrate this auspicious event together. I'm truly blessed with a large network of family members and I am always glad to see them especially on such a big day like this. What moved me to include this in my posting today was what I witnessed this morning. Puan Zainon, a senior colleague of mine lost her husband this year. I caught her drown in what seemed like a very emotional space and I didn't even realise she was teary at the time. When I asked her, a teardrop rolled down her cheek and I realised I may have invaded her personal space. I felt guilty for asking but it was an honest mistake. I was so moved at that moment I started to reflect on my family and how grateful I am that I still have my parents. Even the sheer attempt to empathize with my colleague and her children would definitely make me emotional as well. This will be their first Raya without their father, and that must be devastating. Earlier this year also, we lost a very dedicated and gentle colleague, Puan Nazilah. Her struggles with a blood related disease came to an end after hours of battling for her life in the ICU. Her children are still young and small and it must be really sad for the whole family celebrating Raya without their dearest mother. Al-Fatihah to the deceased and all my best wishes for the whole family. May they stay strong throughout this difficult period.

Let's go to KL

Yeah, baby!!! Form 1 is over and done with. I would say that they did okay considering their level of proficiency. So after Raya holidays, InsyaAllah I shall proceed with my reading project with those kids. Speaking of Raya, I simply can’t wait for this week to be over so I can enjoy my time preparing for Raya and then enjoying the holiday with my loved ones. Yeay!!! I just took a few pictures from Hamidah from Form 6 school trip to Kuala Lumpur which is something I’ve been meaning to write about for it is something I’m quite proud of. Being in charge of school academic trip wasn’t easy. There are numerous procedures and not to mention letters that need to be sent to various people for permission and notification and requests and what have you. After that the process that I really dread is the numerous follow up calls that I have to make to ask if they have received the letter from my school. When it comes to this, I must say I’m truly grateful for the God-given flair of speaking to people and asking favours I’m gifted with. LOL! Here are the procedures should you want to organize a school trip to anywhere. First, decide on the place(s) and the date(s) of your trip. For this reason I actually went to the places, except for Parlimen Malaysia to meet with them face to face and ask if they’d have us at their place. I went to two faculties in UiTM; Arts and Design and Sports Science and Recreation. I spoke to the people there and they asked me to write to them. I also went to check out Les’Copaque because I thought it’d be interesting, however they are fully booked until Raya – pretty cool, huh? So I had to cancel that. Once I got back to school I started typing letters to UiTM and also finished the proposal to be sent to JPN. After all was done, I went to see my boss and asked for his approval and signature. He looked through everything and was pretty impressed by them. Next, they’re signed, sealed and delivered to the respective places. Then comes the wait, while waiting for replies I made several calls to those people to ask and remind them about the reply letters. At the same time, I asked Cikgu Rohaimi to help me contact the buses and Cikgu Rashid to help with the letters to parents/guardian and collect money from students. Actually all these happened at the same time and it was quite heavy for me to shoulder as I also have lessons to plan and students to teach. It was simply EXHAUSTING! So many times I typed and retyped students’ name list and tried to get confirmation from so many people, I felt I was getting thinner. LOL! Finally, after all was done including some unforeseen circumstances settled and a few problems resolved, the day arrived. I was really happy my BFF in school was invited and able to join us. First stop was Parlimen Malaysia. We got there at 9.45 and after showing the letter and going through security check – standard procedure, we were led into the building. It was my first time in there. A glimpse in such an important building in Malaysia was an eye-opener, even for a 25 year old like me. My students were excited too. We went to see Dewan Negara and later visited Dewan Rakyat. We got the opportunity to watch Shahrizat in Dewan Negara. Our next destination after Parlimen was UiTM but we had to stop for lunch first. The bus driver suggested Kraftangan Malaysia. We went there and by coincidence there was a Wedding Fair there. For those of you who are close to me, you guys would know that this brought sparkle to my eyes. Even though I’m nowhere near a wedding, or even a boyfriend for that matter but I just love weddings. Besides, who knows if my luck on love might change! Getting back on track, once our tummies were filled with good and inexpensive food we made our way to UiTM. We went separately according to which faculty we were going to. I was with A&D. Upon arrival we were greeted by the students who were in charge of entertaining us. A bit of refreshments were prepared for us. We had a bit of that and we were brought to the workshops available there. It was quite tiring as the workshops were scattered in a few blocks. It was also quite difficult to focus as we were moving in a large group to the small workshops. I thought it would have been better if we moved in smaller groups and each group was led by one person. At least students could really see and appreciate the artworks displayed in each workshop. The best part was the gallery. The walkway to the gallery which I thought was the connecting bridge, was decorated with pictures from the happenings at the faculty. UiTM's A&D faculty is something to be proud of. The faculty is renowned for its achievements in various fields of arts. Many well-known and even internationally recognized fashion designers were students from UiTM. I hope this visit was inspiring for the students, especially to those who are still quite clueless about their path in this stream. By the time we finished our tour, it's already evening, after that we went to Shah Alam Mosque for prayers and since it was already late we had to cancel our shopping activity. We were supposed to reach school before midnight, therefore any places that would delay our arrival had to be skipped. The students were a bit disappointed because we didn't visit KLCC - never mind kids, there's always next year. I'll do it again, perhaps a longer stay in KL would be more fun to them

Form 3 - DONE! Phew!

Alhamdulillah, I suppose this is truly the gift of Ramadhan. I managed to finish marking PMR trial English Paper 2. The best part was, I didn't sit out on Tarawih prayers and did all 23 rakaat and after a bit of snacking I continued with Section B and finished Section C right after. For those of you who have never done this job, you're in for quite a surprise if you try your hands on using the powerful red pen to mark an abundant of scripts produced by kids. Let me just explain to you the intricacies of marking paper. Once you get the papers you usually wait for the marking scheme to arrive first before opening the bundle. Once received, you'd start by reading through the answer scheme and understanding it first before you start to mark. It's very important to roughly know what is deemed as a good piece of writing which usually merits good grades like A or B, the average lot (usually ranging from C to D) and also equally important what is considered atrocious piece of writing as well. Please bear in mind, setting a clear standard for the grades is a highly difficult task because you seriously do not want to be unfair to any candidate, then again, this is highly debatable as well - especially when it comes to subjective papers which is based on impressionistic marking. Moving along, once that's sorted out you'll start your torturous journey to marking papers. According to what I have leart, markers are not supposed to dirty the candidates' papers, but since this is just a trial exam, as in not the real deal, I did make some correction to their spelling just so they'd learn the correct ones when they review their papers later (if they do). Anyhow, what markers usually do is make some markings; i.e. underline for gross error, squiggly line for inappropriate words and another sign is called the omission sign. We also use // to indicate multiple word error which means to say the sentence needs reworking because there are just too many errors. This is definitely the most painful part of marking because it not only tests your grammar knowledge, it also makes you confused whether or not the sentence is completely wrong or still can be salvaged with only a few words changed or added. Often times, the way you understand what they say is probably different from what they are really trying to say. Once that's over comes another difficult part, which is grading the piece of writing. Grading comes in 2 levels; content and language. You also consider how well the candidate managed to fulfill the task given. Have they done what they're supposed to do? I.e. write a letter, report or just write a story? When it comes to grading, grades will be distributed according to bands and each band has its descriptors or criteria but please bear in mind that no writing will perfectly fit every criterion or descriptor in the particular band, sometimes you do just follow your gut. As for me, I usually look through the piece I've marked and see how many red underlines I've made. I also consider those parallel lines on the right hand side and see if the candidate have completed the task. Then, I put a grade I deem suitable for it with a justification of why I place that piece of writing in that particular band. After that, I move on to the next candidate. That's one part of marking for one piece of answer script. That multiplied by 3 sections and multiplied by the number of scripts you have...you just created a maze in your own brain. Having marked last year's SPM paper, I remember sleeping almost the whole day upon completion of the first set of papers. It's extremely tiring. Maybe this isn't as tiring as working in the ER or on an oil rig but the amount of stress is more or less the same. The only advantage is I get to snack in between, play with my niece and rest for a bit while I do all this. No wonder they say this is the ideal job for wives and moms. Now I'm left with a bundle of Form 1 UKS and Form 4 Paper 1 Section B. Hopefully Form 1 will be a quickie, it is 1 Harmoni after all...now I need to sleep. Toodles!

Short and Sweet

Due to overwhelming amount of papers to be marked...postings will be very short until I could actually sit down and narrate my thoughts like before. This is something I like very much. Very motivating, up-lifting and inspiring. Take a look, read, ponder and be inspired...ENJOY!!! Which do u like most?

Just Wanna Say

There's a WHOLE LOT of marking to be done!!! Any helpers out there? TOLONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Walk Down Memory Lane

When I look at students in school, I can’t help but recollect my memories in school. I enjoyed my schooling years however I must admit that not everything about it was beautiful. There were times I hated school and there were times I enjoyed it so much, I couldn’t wait for the next day of school. Come to think about it, the reason why school was so much fun was because of FRIENDS! What’s life without them, right? I consider myself very lucky because I still manage to stay in touch with some of them. So, for today’s entry I shall talk about each and every one of them and the story of how we became friends and what kept our friendship strong till today

Faridah Hanim bt. Ramli
She’s first on the list because we started as close friends since we were in standard 4. Faridah and I became friends because we were classmates in standard 5. Plus, since her house was near our school I always stayed back at her house to go to extra co-curricular activities, sports practice or tuition class. Although our friendship was tested with some misunderstandings, we persevered. Now Faridah is already engaged and also working – I know you hate your job but there will be a change of luck. Best wishes to you sweetheart! Faridah is a lioness hidden behind an angelic demeanour. This is not a bad thing at all as she possesses power behind her softness. She asserts firmness in subtlety but effectively. She is so good with make-up she’s officially my make-up artiste on my engagement. I really hope that everything in her life turns out terrific because she’s such a great human being inside.

Jihan Tan
In primary school we started as friends because of Computer Club. Jihan and I were partners, sharing a desktop to complete the task of the day. She’s always been this enthusiastic, cheerful and full of life person who makes your day wonderful with her laughter. We actually only started becoming very close in SMSJ because we were classmates for a year in Form 3. Hands down, 3 Adil rocks!!! Despite the noisy boys, I had a blast in this class mostly because of Jihan. She helped me a lot in Math- the subject I sucked at, BIG TIME! And she motivated me so much and made me super hardworking because she’s so smart and I felt like I have to buck up to stay at par with her. Still I was nowhere near. When she left for MRSM in Form 4, I was pretty down. But hey, that was just a test of true friendship. Now we are stronger than ever before, especially after some difficult times we both went through. Jihan is now a doctor working in Sheffield, doing what she does best – making people’s lives better!

Fadilla Karim
My successful business-woman friend. Yes, this is who she is now. Confident, strong and making lots of cash. Kudos to you Fad! I could not have been more proud, to see you soar so great after just a hiccup in your life. What happened may have seemed like a disaster but what does not kill you, really does make you stronger. We both knew each other in primary school, but only in Form 3 did we become very close friends. Fadilla or better known as Fad, was also one of my wonderful classmates in 3 Adil. She has such a bubbly personality you just can’t help but LOVE her. She makes things happen and would go to great lengths to make her friends happy. One of the memories of school was when she treated me and a few of our friends on my birthday. Even though we just went to a cake house in SS14 and had a very simple celebration there, clad with our sweaty school uniforms, we had so much fun. Thank you so much for everything. I *heart* You…

Nurul Emelda Hakimin
Emelda knew the art of applying mascara at the tender age of 14 when I had not even own one. Despite the not-so-good reputation she had in school, simply because kids can be cruel, she’s a real good friend. She’s been with me throughout the difficult periods in my life and I really am grateful for that. We started became friends at 13, because she was friends with Naelah and I sort of suddenly became their friend. Emelda was the reason why I improved my English so much as we conversed mostly in English. This was due to her childhood education which was mostly in the UK. She just got used to speaking English and since I started being friends with her I somewhat picked that up. Wouldn’t say I’m good, but I would say that it helped a lot. Our friendship was not a bed of roses all the way, however due to that very reason our friendship became stronger than ever before. Emelda has grown tremendously inside. She’s now matured and gorgeous. She just has this air of confidence about her. I hope she will overcome any problems that may come or the ones she is going through and become very successful in the future.


*Those are some of the pictures of me and my great friends. The ones in school uniforms were single-handedly handpicked by me as they are the only ones permitted for public view.

10 Things I Love About Friday!

1. It's an Islamic holy day
2. It's the last day of the week for school
3. It's the day I can go back home
4. It's the day before Saturday :)
5. It's the day I get to see Camelia Hani and Zahir Zharif
6. I only have a 2-period lesson on this day
7. School ends at 12!!!! - heavenly
8. It's the day I can look forward to seeing KL
9. I get to have dinner at home
10.I get to see my family!!!!!!

The only times I don't love Friday is when hostel students don't go back and that means I have to stay in.

So, that's it for today's entry. Friday is FREEday for me!!!