manuka honey

Lyn has been having a rather dry cough for a while. As her choir competition is just round the corner, I decided that something has to be done to preserve her voice. She is in Sop 1 and she complains that she has trouble reaching certain high notes. I know she is pretty frustrated as she has sacrificed a lot to be in the team. Everyday she stays back till 4.30pm except for Friday. She has sacrificed going to Singapore for EE's convocation. She was in quite a dilemma when she found out the competition will be on the same day as EE's convo.

Last weekend, went and got her a bottle of manuka honey. We were introduced to this honey by KC's late uncle from NZ. Since then, this has always been our choice if we need the best. It's Lyn's favourite honey.

It's quite interesting how someone quite unmusical as I am has a girl who can sing. Not that her voice is that great; but I suppose the training she gets helps a great deal. Her first public singing was doing a duet with Nee at Ong's wedding.

Let's hope the honey and lemon water will help sustain her voice. I must remind myself to remind her not to take too much keropok and spicy food for a while.

the Shrek song

Another beautiful song. This reminds me; I need to watch Shrek again soon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2SZ-nCBmsU&feature=related

Not all their songs are as good as the ones I've posted. The song Somewhere sung with Barbara Streisand is terrible. They sound so muffled. Don't blend too well with Barbara Streisand. But the version with Leona Lewis is better. Maybe Barbara Streisand is better off doing solo.

ll Divo and Celine Dion

I Believe in You....this is the song that has been playing in Lyn and my head for days. When you put four powerful male vocals and one extremely excellent female vocal; this is what you get!!!!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChLW07FqbLY

Whenever I hear Celine Dion's songs, I am reminded of her Titanic song. That was how I got to know her.

Parenting

Anita has disappeared from home since the threat to send her to a rehab school for dilinquent juvenilles. She had been staying with her aunt as her parents are separated. The mother has returned to her own country and the father is hospitalized. As the aunt has her own problems, Anita had been playing truant and spending time with her boyfriend. As the last straw, the aunt threathened to send her to the rehab but Anita replied that she would run away and that is what she did!

Brian was accused of stealing money from a friend. After some thrashing from the teachers, he told the counsellor that he had been embarassed and humiliated by the teachers. Since then he had not come to school and had also run away from home. If he is innocent, why should he keep away from school? After a phone call to the parent, the school was informed that Brian would be sent to another state to be cared for by a relative. Is that wise?

Carol comes to school only when there is exam, special programmes that interest her. Otherwise she would stay away under the excuse that she is unwell. She is said to have some sickness that cause swelling to the joints etc. According to the mother it is a rare sickness. When she does appear in school, she looks totally wholesome and healthy. There is no symptom of a sick person.

These are all 'kisah benar'. I am not creating some stories from thin air. Who do we blame for such teenagers?

voucher

I wrote an article for the Star Paper sometime in January this year and was promised a voucher at the Corus Paradise, Port Dickson. Today is 23.4.10 ie more than three months later and I have not received anything from them yet. I wrote to the Star paper and was directed to the management of Corus Paradise. I have corresponded a few times with the Marketing Manager, Patricia Sik who seems most polite and apologetic (bluff). In her last correspondence she said that the voucher was on the way and would arrive yesterday.(Bluff again.)

What am I to do next?

ll Divo

I was introduced to this group long time ago by Elizabeth. That time I wasn't that impressed by them as it was just a name to me but the name remained in my mind for a long time. Few days ago received a video clip of them singing Amazing Grace at the Colloseum. MY goodness!!! It was amazing....the voices and of course the men!! Now I spend lots of time listening to their songs. Interesting group. http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1785324681?bclid=1338935106&bctid=1913313052

ipod touch

I have a new toy and it is keeping me occupied every waking minute. I must stop fiddling with it but of course, the novelty of it will soon wear out.

How did this come about? I had been eyeing at Ms Liau's netbook. Thought it would be more portable for me to carry it around to read my books. Almost went to get it and then read Amelia's blogs and her many praises on the ipod touch. Oh my...I was totally bought over by high reviews. One of her messages ended with, 'throw caution to the wind...' That was it!!! I thought to myself why be conservative and always stick to what I am familiar with? Throw caution to the wind!!!

After asking around a bit, the response to it was most positive. Looks like every person whom I know who owns an ipod touch or iphone is very proud of it and has no regrets. Infact, Justine wanted me to get the iphone and not the itouch. Unneccessary extravagance for me...

According to brother, Clareen has an iphone for $C199.00 with their telco plan, of course. And itouch like mine is $C198.00. It's definitely more advisable to get the iphone then. I think Ong got his iphone for $S300.00. Just don't know why it's so expensive here.

I am at the moment learning how to sync etc. The books are definitely great. I have quite a long list already and I know more will come once I know how to download from the laptop to the itouch. Reading is definitely cooler. Am glad I didn't get the netbook; otherwise it's just like reading from the laptop except slightly smaller.

Lyn is so excited. She found the book 'Twenty Years After' by Alexander Dumas. She was itching to get hold of it after she read 'The three Musketeers'.

I'm looking forward to its every cent's worth. Thanks to KC for another useful present.

Henry VIII and his many wives

One of the perks of teaching Form 4 History is to be able to teach European History. One chapter ie Chapter 9 is devoted to it. Unfortunately it is only the tip of the iceberg. When the History text was changed to the present one; I was much dismayed because all my favourite topics were removed....the various political revolutions, (French Revolution was my favourite), slavery in America, Boston Tea Party, the American Civil War, how England became a republic (for a short while) etc etc.

In the present text, this chapter is the second last chapter in the whole text book. Of course, it would be close to year end before I enter this topic. By then I would be desperate to complete my syllabus and prepare the students for exam. Hence; not much time left to tell stories.

Anyway when I visited the Royal Mews last year, I managed to buy a set of coasters with the face of all the six wives of Henry VIII and a deck of cards with all the kings and queens of England plus their brief history. Today, I managed to print out a brief history on each of the wife http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/sixwives.htm and pasted it to the back of the coaster. I wrapped them up in plastic and will have them passed around when this topic comes about end of the year.



This is Catherine of Aragon (from Spain) who was married to Henry's older brother, when Henry was 10. Unfortunately the husband died not long after and she married Henry when he became king at the age of 18. She must be older than him by quite a few years.

Anne Boleyn; young and beautiful. Unfortunately her beauty brought her more harm than good. She was beheaded for treason and unfaithfulness. There is even a movie 'The Other Boleyn Girl' about her sister's relationship with the king. I missed visiting the Tower to see the place where she was imprisoned and later executed; much to my disappointment.

Jane Seymour who gave the king a son; Edward but she died after giving birth. This King is cursed or what? To show his love to Jane Seymour, he didn't remarry for quite a while.

Finally when he did take a bride; he was introduced to Anne of Cleves. He was first shown a portrait of this girl. When the girl was brought to him, he didn't find her as good looking as the portrait so he divorced her and put her some where in the country with allowances of course. She must be the luckiest of all...to be a free woman and wealthy.

The king being a womanizer would not be able to live his life without a woman. So he married a young girl; 17 while he was already into his 40s I believe. Catherine Howard was young and lively and she had a few scandals with some men in the court as the king was rather old and obese by then. She was beheaded for her foolishness. Poor woman. It doesn't pay to be a queen.


Finally at his old age, the king married Katherine Parr. She was said to have a lover but gave him up for the king. An intelligent woman, she was able to hold intellectual conversations with the king and those in the court. Eventually the king died and she married her lover.

All the pictures above are from the coasters. The pictures below are selected from the deck of cards.


King Henry VIII when he was much older and fatter. He was a total obese. Interestingly many kings and queens of England turned obese after a while. Too much to eat and not much to do probably. For eg, Queen Victoria. She was real pretty and sweet when she first became queen but as we know in her later years she was totally obese. The lingerie shop; Victoria Secret should be selling oversized lingerie; not dainty little things.

This is the king's only surviving son; Edward. He became the king after HenryVIII died. He became king at the age of 10 and died at the age of 16 due to tuberculosis. How sad.

This is the king's eldest child from his union with Catherine of Aragon. She became Mary I. She was a devout Catholic. It was recorded that 300 protestants died during her reign and she was labelled Bloody Mary.



The virgin queen or Queen Elizabeth I. She was the daughter of Henry VIII with Anne Boleyn. Many books, movies http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/elizafilms.htm have been made about her. What is fact and fiction can be quite gray. She is one of the more popular monarchs and did a lot for her country. As she remained single, the House of Tudor ended with her death.

Well, that is history and putting these into words will help reinforce them in my memory. Our history book does not have any of these juicy stories nor pictures. That is why getting these pictures as teaching aids are pretty good. But of course if I tell too much of these stories, the weaker students will get distracted and remember only the stories and not the facts in the text.

the system

Interesting stuff happens in the civil service and sometimes we scratch our head and think what is the logic of it?

A fellow colleague was transferred to another school without her knowledge. Hmm....cluster school principals have the power to do that. So I better shut up or else...

A new teacher was transferred in; majoring in Japanese language. Interesting....but didn't know we have students taking Japanese language. We have students taking Tamil and Chinese but we don't have teachers in school teaching them. The teachers come from other schools after school hours to teach these students.

We're scratching our head...what is happening?

sick bug in the air

I've visited two different doctors four times in the past 8 days. Infact this morning, Dr Lim jumped into my car to take a look at Dan.

It all started two weeks ago when Dan had the flu and fever. Took antibiotic and seemed alright after that. On Wednesday, he got caught in the rain while getting in and out of the car. By the time I reached home at 5.30pm, he was shivering. After dinner, he was real hot. The next day, I took him to a different doctor and had blood test done. Bacterial...what a relief.

Then when Lyn came home, she didn't look good. She was also feverish. Put her at home on Friday.

On Friday evening, mom didn't look good. Coughing real bad and hot. Took her to the doctor on Saturday. Ma was really different from the kids; she had no energy at all and couldn't make it to the toilet on time because she had no energy to walk fast.

Saturday night; ie last night...Dan phoned me while I was at a dinner. He has rashes all over. When I checked him I was shock to see him red from head to toes. In just two hours; the rashes just broke out. I spend the whole of last night waking up every now and then to check on both ma and Dan.

Thank God ma is so much better now. Dan has measles but he seems pretty active and his usual self. Thank God.

Now, I'm about to kaput. Head heavy, mind drifting off.