Replace?

My personal notebook, Asus, suddenly shut down today. Thinking that I had depleted the battery without realising, I plugged in the power charger. My notebook gave a warning message for its battery pack. The message asked for me to consider replacing the battery as it was not charging up at all. 
This notebook has been with me since 2011 and it is still working fine. Wonder if I should just replace the battery pack and use it for another 2-3 years? 
PS. My office notebook has been with me since 2009 and I am still using it! :)

Cat Therapy

My girls and I were invited to our neighbour's house for lunch. We are always delighted to accept her invitation. Not only for the good food she often serves but also for some cat therapy lol. :) She has three cats which we absolutely love. The cats are now quite used to seeing us at their place and would linger around. One of them, Mau would now even cuddle on the girls' lap to nap! :) 

Wonder what's for lunch?! - Mau and Magnet (missing Magpie)

Why are you outside?

Why are you outside??

Why are you STILL outside?!

Since you are inside now, I forgive you.

What are you looking at?

Cat nap! :)

Mau is getting a massage therapy :)

My "Strong" Sight

I laughed really hard when I saw the results! :D Yes, I often look at things very intensely. But often, that's because I am too lazy to wear my astig glasses lol. :P 
But there are some truth in the assessment. I do have an eye for beauty and often the price can be quite "beautiful" too. :P

Your Strongest Sense is Sight

You are a highly observant person, and you naturally take in the world around you. You notice every detail, and you have an amazing visual memory. A picture can stay in your mind for decades. You have an eye for beauty. Even if you aren't artistic enough to create beautiful things, you can appreciate them. You love color and design. You have an eye for aesthetic details but also for grand panoramas.

What's Your Strongest Sense?

Blank Space by Taylor Swift & Greg James

This is a lip sync video of Taylor Swift's Blank Space by Greg James and Taylor Swift herself! She has such a great sense of humour! :) 

 Blank Space by Taylor Swift & Greg James (uploaded by BBC Radio 1)

Penang 2014 Posts

I have finally written up the posts and uploaded all the photos for our Penang 2014 trip. Thank you for your patience! It is greatly appreciated.
For the ease of your reading, the links are available below.  Enjoy! :)

8 November 2014: Day 1 Penang 2014: We are in Penang!
9 November 2014(a): Day 2 Penang 2014: A) Lost in Penang
9 November 2014(b): Day 2 Penang 2014: B) Penang Street Art I & Georgetown Shops
10 November 2014(a): Day 3 Penang 2014: A) Found in Georgetown and Beyond
10 November 2014(b): Day 3 Penang 2014: B) Penang Street Art II
10 November 2014(c): Day 3 Penang 2014: C) Pinang Peranakan Mansion
11 November 2014: Day 4 Penang 2014: Shopping
12 November 2014: Day 5 Penang 2014: Free & Easy
13 November 2014: Day 6 Penang 2014: Going Home/ HOME!

Hopefully my blog posts of our Penang 2014 trip can give you some ideas of what you can do/see/eat in Penang. :)

Home-Cooked Food

It is wonderful coming home to delicious and healthy home-cooked food cooked up by my mother! :)

Taiwanese-style noodle soup for today's lunch

Home-cooked buffet for tonight's dinner :)

Heart in Taiwan

My mom has been glued to the tv watching the elections of mayors in Taiwan which took place today. Although she has left Taiwan over 44 years ago when she married my father, she is still very much in tune with what's happening in Taiwan, especially the politics. She managed to predict most of the wins in the different counties and cities! Oh by the way, she is green. Taiwanese will know what I mean lol.

My 1st Sole-Authored Article!

My first sole-authored journal article has been published in an international education journal, Education 3-13! I am over the moon! :) The article, which is based on part of my PhD about students' self-assessment ability, has been published online on 24 November! The acceptance of my manuscript is also the best birthday present thus far as it was accepted for publication on 27 October. :) 

For those of you who are interested in assessment, here is the link to the abstract of my article: I can assess myself: Singaporean primary students' and teachers' perceptions of students' self-assessment ability

It is still pretty surreal to see my name on a journal article! Lol :P

Happy Birthday, Dinh! :) :)

Happy Birthday to my lovely sis-in-law, Dinh! 

Stay young and funny forever!!

Hope you have a great day and lots of pampering from the boys!! 

Lots of love from all of us in Singapore :)

(Source: www.birthdayb.com)

Submitted!

I finally decided on the order of the schools after several days of mulling over. I finally submitted Marieann's S1 options via the S1 Internet System just a few minutes ago! :)
However, this afternoon I had a phone call from her school chasing me about Marieann's S1 options submission. 

Admin: You haven't submitted the S1 Option form.
Me: Not yet.
Admin: Do you know the deadline is tomorrow..
Me: Yes 3pm tomorrow. 
Admin: So you know. When are you submitting?
Me: Tonight! I will submit tonight!

I felt like a student who was being chased by the teacher for her homework! :( I know it is good intention on the school's part to make sure parents don't forget to submit the S1 options with the phone call(s) but it was pretty stressful.
Hmm, if I still didn't submit tonight, will the school call me tomorrow? YES I think so. :P

Happy Birthday (in advance), Azlina! :)

Our colleague/ friend, Azlina's birthday is 27 November tomorrow. However as another colleague/ friend won't be in tomorrow, we decided to surprise her today. Although we wanted to surprise Azlina with a surprise birthday celebration, we didn't quite pull it off lol. Azlina could sense we were up to something. It was good sport of Azlina to act surprised for the photo haha. :P 
Happy Birthday (in advance), Azlina! :)
May all your dreams and wishes come true! :)
Hope you have a great day tomorrow!! :) 

Being a good sport and acted surprised for the camera lol

Made her wish! :)

Learning Journey to Australian International School

My workplace organised a learning journey to Australian International School. 
It was very educational as we were given a tour around the pre-school where we saw how the pre-school was set-up and how the pre-school students learn. After the pre-school tour, we had a presentation on the structure in AIS as well as the kind of curriculum conducted in AIS from pre-school to Year 12. For me personally, it will be interesting to learn more about their assessment as well as their pastoral care in AIS. :)

Which Order?

Mulling over what should be the order of the secondary schools chosen. Having problems with which schools to place for choices number 4 to 6. :(

Decisions

Decisions, decisions, decisions. 
I don't remember it being this difficult when choosing secondary schools for my own secondary education. Argh. 

Open House

For me, "open house" usually means a house/ apartment, which is for sale or rent, is available for inspection by prospective clients or a party at someone's home which is open to visitors. Today, "open house" means visiting a school that has opened its doors to the public for visits and observations. Today is the first time I visited a school's open house. In fact, there were a  number of secondary schools' open houses happening all over the island just for today. Their open houses are timely as it is one day after the PSLE Results day. There are plenty of factors to consider when making the selection of secondary schools. It is often best when you can see for yourself when the secondary schools offer before you make your selection of schools. 
We only made it to one secondary school's open house. :P  

PSLE Results 2014 Release Day

From 11am onwards, 42,336 P6 students (and their parents) were at their respective primary schools to collect their PSLE result slip. I was at SCGS just after 11am as I was engrossed in my work until 10:30am so I missed a bit of the principal's speech. Oops :P 
There was no crying, no disappointment, no anger with Marieann's results as they were within my expectations. Being the educator and educational researcher, I have some pretty hard choices to make, together with Marieann of course. Wish us luck. 

Happy Birthday, Liyana :)

We celebrated our colleague/ friend, Liyana's birthday! It's always so fun to celebrate birthdays at work! All the planning and secrecy lol. :P 
Happy Birthday, Liyana. 
Hope you have had lots of fun. May the coming year bring you lots of surprises (the first was the "chilli-flavoured" brownie haha :P) and may all your wishes be fulfilled! :)

Seeing Stars

I am seeing stars with Interstellar which is a sci-fiction adventure movie! Lol :) For the geek in me, it is a pretty awesome movie and all seems really believable and possible! :) Wormhole, black hole, space travel, time (fourth dimension), gravity (fifth dimension), ... Can be pretty mind-boggling with all the science/ physics talk but really entertaining as well. If you are a sci-fi fan, you shouldn't miss Interstellar! 

Interstellar official trailer 3 (uploaded by Inerstellar Movie)

School Workshop

It has been a long time since I last conducted a school workshop. I co-conducted the workshop for teachers with two other colleagues today from 1-5pm. It was fun. Looking forward to the second part of our workshop on Thursday. :) 

Overloaded

My first day back at work after my Penang holiday and I have been attending meetings non-stop from morning 9:30am till 6pm. It was my highest record ever of 5 meetings a day! By the end of the 4th meeting, I was already pretty zonked out. :( 
I think I need another break lol. :P