The End Is Nigh?

A lot of people have intuited that in the future we will be forced to live indoors, it spawned generations of preppers.

The reason for it have all seemed to be along the lines of war, man made catastrophes. Some have pitched biological warfares. Now it seems the reason would be a pandemic. Not so exciting as a zombie apocalypse, but it certainly is dangerous enough to force us into our homes.

My out take from all of this hits closer to home, I am an educator and I have always believed that we should prepare our kids for the future. When all of this occurred, we could immediately see how people with (medical) skills are in high demand. Through the ages it has always been so. But more so now that its is people who can make things, who can create, defend, heal… These are the people that matters. So what should we do?

Skills, that is what we should do. Focus on creating a generation with hands on skills. Through our TVET programmes. We have to realise that knowing how to sing won’t get food on the table. We can’t all offer conveyancing services, but those who can build those buildings, who can automate said buildings, these are the people that will always be in demand.

Let us not say anymore that TVET is a last choice. It should be our first choice in creating a future ready generation.

Think Tank Meeting 2015

Was invited to the English Co-Academic Activities Think Tank Meeting couple of week back. As a result I attended a day long meeting. Main agenda of our meeting today was to discuss the concept paper of Poetry Recitation and Scrabble competition. Specifically to include the secondary schools in the competition.

After going over the concept paper back and forth so many times we finally came out with the revised concept paper. Both competition had minor changes, most of it is to ease the running of the competition and also to clarify a few issues and to address feedback from our colleagues.

Hopefully the changes are beneficial for everyone and will make the competition more enjoyable and able to achieve its objectives and aims.

Links for the concept papers are below.

*the concept papers are not considered final nor official until it is from the moe or its website, it is just here to spread the news about the 2 new categories.

Adieu

bit.ly/EnglishCo-A

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Themes for national level poetry competition 2015 (primary & secondary)
1.beauty
2.freedom
3.hope

The 5 Cents Story

Dear KFC Malaysia, Burger King Malaysia, McDonald Malaysia, Kenny Rogers Malaysia, and all other chain restaurants.

What is your SOP when your cashier doesn’t have the exact change in the register? What should they do?
Because for as long as I can remember when dealing with unavailability/shortage of 5 cents. They chose to keep quiet and instead short change me.

When confronted, they either make a shocked face (too many times) then produce the 5 cents.. or even give me extra 10 sen because they truly don’t have the 5 cents in the register. when asked what is they problem. they say it’s no fault of their own, its the bank. The bank can’t provide 5 cents to them.

All i can suggest is, change your pricing structure if you just cant get the 5 cents. Because truly its sounds so stupid, you make a tonne of profit but cant give your customer 5 cents? discount your customer the 5 cents if you have to.

Reposted to FB and forwarded via contact forms of the relevant companies.

Format Pentaksiran Tingkatan 3

PBS
Pentaksiran Berasaskan Sekolah

Finally after months of waiting the official format for PT3 is here. I can only comment on the English paper format. It is almost the same as the one leaked previously. Except with a few twist. For one thing, the sample for section B which is information transfer is easier for the student versus the leaked sample. As it follows what is usually is in the text book. Another thing I noticed is the inclusion of a small section for poems and novels. Many teachers have spoken about the exclusion of literature in the leaked version.

The number of essay have also came down. If looking at the leaked sample there is a total of 3 writing tasks (50 words, 100 words and 150-200 words essay). The official format only have a 50 words short response essay, and another 120-150 words essay in section D.

All I can say that is I’m quite happy with the format. Not many repetitive task as compared with the leaked version.

Latest  English Format vs Leaked English Format

 

For the rest of the documents please use the link below.

Format Instrumen PT3

Instrumen Contoh

 

Patience Is A Virtue

A Patient Spider
A Patient Spider

 

We wait and we reap,
what we sow in heaps;
for patience is a virtue,
that pays and it is true.

Happy Chinese New Year 2009

Happy Chinese New Year to everybody, celebrating or not. Me I’m just enjoying the extra long holiday. Malaysians are crazy about holiday. There are 100++ days that Malaysian do not work. So how are we going to achieve that developed country status if we love holidays that much. A question to ponder on I suppose :p
One thing that I hate about this type of holidays is the jams. Its long enough that ppl wants to go back to their village/parents’ home but short enough that they all do it during the same period of time. Plus all the kenduri make it all the worst. Jams are ok to me if its in big city with multiple routes to use, but jams in small roads just don’t work for me.
Combine that with idiot drivers? Road bully? Road Hog? Hell on road! So my advice to those idiots from KL or wherever plz don’t drive as if u are still back in KL, do have some manners. Leave ur nasty habits back at wherever you call ur home/place of work/whatever.
We have enough issues coping with the jam what with u lot coming back, don’t make us sumpah2 u some more.
On that note Happy Chinese New Year, be safe on the road!
Adieu :devil:

51st National Day

Today is our nation’s 51st national day, yes I prefer the word national day as opposed to “independence”. Why?
First of all I truly believe we have not even one bit loosen the shackles that was left by our colonizer.
Our minds and our lifestyle is still tied to the old ways as dictated by them.
Second one is, because Malaysia was only born years later on September 16, 1963 as such the 51st Merdeka is only of the States of Malaya.
This year the theme is “Perpaduan Teras Kejayaan” as the saying goes, “bersatu kita maju, bercerai kita roboh” or “united we stand, divided we fall”. A most suitable theme when there is much tension and emotions running wild in the country.
Peace my friends,
Adieu :rose:

The University Feedback

An issue has been highlighted recently by our media, this concerned our PM wanting feedbacks from Malaysian that have studied oversea and what they saw there that could be applied to our university and improve it further. This is somehow related to the concern that our universities are not favourably ranked by the world. Our ranks usually starts in the hundreds and usually UM our oldest univ getting the better rank.
The highlight was that the ranking systems focuses on the product (students/graduates) and the manufacturers (lecturers). How good/ready are the students when they leave the univ and how qualified are the lecturer plus how many researchs/advancements they have done.

Continue reading “The University Feedback”

Why Are You Here?

Warning : If you are caught using my writing as a basis for your Pernyataan Hasrat, don’t blame me if you don’t get into the course. Get a valid reason or else drop the idea of being a teacher at all!
Why are you here? why did you join up? why do you want to be a teacher?
Those are among the questions that will be asked during the interview and later on by your lecturers. Trust me when I say that the interviewers are much more forgiving when it comes to you giving stupid answers as they are just going to fail you with a smile (yes the interviewers usually smile all the way through the interview which is unnerving.)
The lecturers on the other hand are not as forgiving, cut the crap of serving your nation (berkhidmat utk bangsa agama dan negara). Most of them will smile and afterward bang u real hard for trying to lie to them. Don’t tell them u really believe in serving, they know you are actually lying and it is actually because of the perks a teacher will get. Just tell them the truth and u might get out of it unscathed.

Continue reading “Why Are You Here?”

Decisions, Where Do I Want To Go?

Most people after knowing that I’m about to become a teacher would ask some of these questions, “Why did I want to become a teacher?” sometimes more specific “Why did I choose to become an english teacher instead of a biology teacher?” or the inevitable, “Where are you going to ask for your posting?”
The question that I’d like to highlight is ‘where’. My answer would definitely be “somewhere close to home”. Then they would all lament about my obvious lack of wisdom to choose somewhere close to home. I digress, home is always better, and for me the best place to be.
They would say that it is better to go to Sarawak or Sabah, and earn more ringgit, as the pay is higher because of the oversea allowances. I would really want to say, “what is there in more money” and risk sounding like a hermit. But to be true to myself, I’d answer yes more money from allowances, but how much is the plane ticket? Would you just go back home once a year? or more? Not so much savings now eh?
Then most probably they would say that I should go to other places and experience life there. The thing is I love to travel and I hate to say it, but I’ve been almost to all of the states in Malaysia excluding Sarawak and Johor and also to Japan and Saudi Arabia. But then again I love to travel, thus I’ve always gotten myself on all-expense-paid trips. How? Plain lucky I guess đŸ™‚ But I’ve never had the desire to stay long.
The truth is, most of the time when people laud all the benefits of working/staying far from home, I would just keep quiet. No point in telling them what I think, when all they would care is their own opinion. Even more so when the fact is they themselves have never had to stay/work far away from home. I have a friend who works far away from home and is always happy to just get a break to go home. (isn’t that so amran? :p)
But lets not stop at that, let me tell you of a little comparison. When I was staying in Penang, I usually wake up to the sound of crows going “akk akkk”. It was also the same when I was in Klang, crows everywhere. Now in Cheras, it would have to be the early LRTs that sometimes wake me up. But at home, I wake up every morning to the cheerful sound of the birds, not crows certainly. I feel refreshed not stressed.
Then there’s the case of money, here in Kelantan the cost of living is low. Dirt cheap low in fact, more so if I stay with my parents. Then again a small terrace house cost only RM300 per month or so. In penang that small terrace house near the town would fetch as high as RM600, or perhaps higher in KL. How can I not be persuaded to live around here?
To be fair, if I get posted somewhere else. I wouldn’t really mind, it is always a good experience trying to get accustomed to a new surrounding. And I think, I am fairly good at adapting myself considering the fact that I lived in Penang for 5 years without any problems.
At the end, its not about where I want to go, but where I am forced to go. đŸ˜€ :devil: