from my garden...

I love being in the garden in the evening or early in the morning before I drive off to work. Just feel very peaceful looking at my potted plants. Lately life has been draining me from this little pleasure....I didn't even notice that the passion fruit had flowered and there are fruits!!!

The passion fruit is a creeping plant. Four sticks (some from KC's collection) are put up and Nelda pulled strings across the poles from one end to another. This structure is above Ma's vegetable patch. Ever since she fell sick, there are no more ladies finger or any vege in her patch. Now we have a pineapple plant, pandan, mint, basil, serai....above is the passion fruit creepers.

This evening was pleasantly surprised to see the fruit...two infact. The above picture is the bigger fruit. Now to wait for the fruit to ripen and hopefully we get to harvest lots of them.

This pot of lilies hardly bloom. Last weekend saw two blooms and two buds. Really rare. Maybe the fertiliser which I'm using now works better. Used to have a large patch of spider lilies in the old house which are so much hardier compared to these daity lilies. The flowers definitely brightens the garden.

Reminders that I need to walk in the garden more often and talk time to smell the flowers. What's the use of having a nice garden with lovely flowers if I have no time to enjoy it.

The Other Sister

This movie is a totally different type of romance. Two mentally challenged people fell in love and how does the family reacts? It's not often we get to see something like this and I think it was really well done.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQvy4mzAv4M&feature=related

Spent my whole Sunday evening watching this and no regrets at all even though I had to skip the hill (it was raining anyway). I have come across quite a few of such people both in school and in church. How do I react to them...makes me think.

I like this show because it brings forth two issues that I never thought of possible for such people...indepandence and dignity. Great movie to move the hearts and minds of the stereo-typed society.

pedometer

I've installed this application in my iPhone and I find it very useful. It may not be totally accurate but at least whenever I climb the hill it shows me how I am doing each time.

This is the reading from today's hike up Kepayang Hill. 5017 steps in 85mins; covering 3.7km. I really felt good achieving this. Going up took us 17mins, then we went straight down to the quarry. Reached there in 10mins. Then we went up again. Wow....it was difficult at first as the body was trying to adjust to the weight on the back as we climbed uphill.

Reached the roundabout 13mins later and headed right....downhill. We decided to take the most challenging route up again....Rocky Mountain. Two guys ran past us...really fit. And we thought we were very fit....as we huffed and puffed uphill...most difficult. Had to stop a few times to rest and drink. Reached the 20mins later. The sky was dark....no time to rest...so off we went downhill again and reached the car in 15mins!!!!

Our collection of stones....now we carry empty bags for the first part of the hike. Pick up stones as weights for the second part. Bring the stones home to be used to decorate the garden!!

Cupcake

I received a valentine gift today. Dan bought three cupcakes from school for rm5. He gave each of us one for valentine. Really thoughtful of him.

kerja bodoh

I think I'm really a fool most of the time....work stupid and not smart. Today we just received the SMM forms where we are to update the students data online. The dateline to complete it is 23.2.12. Being a super fast and effficent self (no need to pat my back....in other words I'm plain stupid), I think I could be the first in the school to reach the website and trying to update the data for my class.

Lo and behold....when the namelist appeared....not my students!!!!! What whoever in charge of the data did was ... just put the namelist of the students from 3Sigma last year to 4Sigma this year. But students go through a major shuffle in Form 4....there are only like 5 girls from 3Sigma last year who are in my 4Sigma now. So what am I to do???

I have to move the girls out from my class to their respective classes. But how on earth am I suppose to know which class or even school they have moved to??? Tell me whose job is this? Mine or the data teacher's job???? I was informed to update the data of my students which I know who they are and I have their data with me. But what am I to do with students who don't belong to me?

Now that I have sent some students out of the class, I have to wait for the other teachers to send my students who are residing in their class to my class. I can wait forever till 23.2 for this to happen or not happen and the whole system get jammed up because suddenly everybody is trying to complete their work.

Even right now....the silly website is slow and acting up. Every time I click, I need to wait for a minute before I see the next page. Then I have to click again....then the page goes blank and says 'tidak dapat hubungi pangkalan data' etc and I need to refresh. That's why I have so much free time in between to blog and spill out my frustration.

Woe to teachers today who not only teach but have to do stuff like this....at home (not even in school).

Are teachers elsewhere facing this or is this happening only in my school?

Coffee

I'm a coffee addict and I like my coffee kau!!! I love going to different kopitiam to try out their coffee. I go back to the same kopitiam each week because of its coffee. The coffee that I love most is kopi kiam c. Where else can this coffee be found, I wonder??

Nine levels

Going up kepayang hill is not just going up and coming down. Kc and I have moved on to exploring the hill. There are many many routes up and down this hill. Now that we are more familiar with it we have been taking routes we have not taken before.

One of it is 9Levels which we used to pass by. It takes us all the way down to a quarry where there are slabs of stones like marble. We use another route to go up again.

In another exploration we found Rocky Mountain. A tougher route, the soil is sandy so it's slippery. The terrain is rougher and steeper. The view at the top is the best do far.

Then there is the Cd Route. The entrance to it is marked by a cd. It was tough at first but now I find it quite easy.

Finally the Faces Route. This one has big rocks which look like faces.

When I'm exploring I would remember my hiking kaki...my brother. Miss hiking with him.

sticks...

Sticks and more sticks.....
Almost every time KC and I go up the hill, he will come home with a stick. He just loves picking up strong and sturdy sticks...for no reason. The collection has grown and he is very proud of them. Not too sure where we will store them in future.
According to him, some of these sticks have characters. Only he knows what character they have!!!!

Using his rusty blade to smoothen a stick. I must say that some of these sticks are quite smooth and easy to hold as walking sticks. When we grow old, we will have ample supply of walking sticks!

It's funny how he carries umbrella as walking stick up the hill but not one of the sticks he has. But when he comes down the hill, he will have an umbrella and a stick.