sleepiness

i feel like i'm a zombie now.

thanks to my late night Twilight series reading. last night i read Breaking Dawn until nearly 2 am. i was supposed to read (supposed, supposed supposed...even i'm bored with the word) Fasting Feasting, but obviously i couldn't resist Breaking Dawn, which was lying dangerously on my bed. and so, despite having Fasting Feasting with me, i put it down. and resumed reading Breaking Dawn.

by 1.07 am, i figured it out that i could still read some more. so i read until 1.45 am. even then my eyes were still alert. but i forced myself to sleep.

so today, even as i'm typing this, i look like a zombie. i'm not chirpy as usual, i look more a sleepwalker going through the routines with no emotions.

my only fear is that my chief will be disappointed with me. i can picture her face now, scolding me with arms on her hips. oh wait, that's me scolding the hooligans...

still have some time before i check into the hotel. all i want right now is some sleep.

Twi-hard

that's a term coined to mean twilight diehard fans.

okay, as my friends have stated in amusement in my facebook, i'm head over heels with robert pattinson. and so, after watching Twilight, i decided to find the DVD. sold out in Speedy shops. so i went to another shop. didn't have any, but they told me to come again the next day.

and so i did. twilight was sold out, but they have New Moon. i was due to watch the movie that night with Shidah and Lily, but i thought, what the heck. after some acid comments to them for the previous DVDs that i bought, i asked acidly (again)

"betul clear ni?"

"betul kak"

"kalau tak?"

"boleh tukar kak"

and so i went home happily. but i was not too happy afterwards when i realised the first minute that i only could see kristen stewart's face, but not robert pattinson! i could only see his body! he's headless! i was irritated to the core.

the next day i went to the same shop to return the DVD.

"saya nak tengok robert pattinson tapi nampak body je. muka tak nampak. nak tukar la"

they had Twilight and so i took it. was happy as a kid again. went home and kept hearing the background music. very loud. then i saw kristen's mouth's moving. there was no sound! but the background music was there. i fast forwarded for awhile, and it's the same thing throughout the movie!! loud background music, and no dialogues!!! arghhh!!!!

fuming, i started downloading the movie myself. that was better.

i'm supposed to be revising literary texts for my quarantine, but what i did was i went to Popular book store to buy Twilight the novel. they sold out on the first novel. so i bought New Moon. that day i went to the gym and so i had the excuse to go to Kinokuniya to buy Twilight. and i was happy. finished the book in one day. i then started New Moon, knowing full well that i should be reading Julius Caesar instead. finished the book in one day too.

just like Edward Cullen says "your scent is like a drug to me", the novels is like my drug. i'm like someone who has gone beserk. in my rational mind i know i should be revising.

let me tell you one thing though. when i started reading Twilight, it was because of Robert Pattinson. but when i started New Moon, it was because i like Stephenie Meyer's writing, and i like the way she portrays Bella and Edward. i like the witticism. though i must say that she hasn't that finesse. okay, i should stop analysing her like a literature scholar would.

so anyway, because the novels is like a drug to me (which amused my friends who know that i'm a literature snob who reads only serious literature and scorns any pulp fictions), i went to Kinokuniya once more, and instead of lingering there for one hour as i usually do, i went straight to find Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, and queued to pay.

again, i told myself that i should reserve both novels when i'm under quarrantine. so i started revising Fahrenheit 451. the book is good, don't get me wrong. Ray Bradbury is a good writer and his novel is like poetry but as i said, the Twilight Saga novels is a drug for me, and i just couldn't resist. and so, i read only 35 pages of Fahrenheit and thought that i should go to sleep. but before i went to sleep, i couldn't resist reading my bedtime story, and what do you know, i started reading Eclipse! thought i could put the book down. the next thing i knew it was 1.15 a.m. and all my friends know that i'm an early sleeper. the only thing that stopped me to read was the dull throbbing of my migraine.

i finished Eclipse in 1 night and 1 day. strangely though, after finishing Eclipse, i was ready to revise on the literary texts. and so i continued reading Fahrenheit 451. happy at last to be responsible and reasonable.

last night i started reading Breaking Dawn.... hehehe.
p.s. don't like Breaking Dawn. prefer Eclipse

hari raya potluck feast

it is well-known that my family is a boisterous family who has one great passion - food. so it is not a surprise that we had a potluck feast at kak sham's house in PJ yesterday.

kak sham told me that she's going to cook nasi tomato, but yesterday there was not only nasi tomato, but also nasi dagang! i brought my lemon cake with homemade strawberry jam and lemon cream, and no sooner had i tucked into my food, abg mi arrived and kak madihah made lasagna!! wah this is really a feast. i was the first one to scoop the goodies. (which of course, led to the others making comments about watching my weight. it's useless making comments when i'm in front of delicious food, so i ignored them) her lasagna was superb, the sauce that she made was flavourful. and when i was se'eh, and groaning that i had too much to eat, abg halim came with nasi lemak and kak dah came with spaghetti and laksa johor. i surrendered then. no more food!

while the adults were talking about everything under the sun, the youngsters were playing games. kak sham is also addicted to playing computer games and she's a grandmother of 3! so it's not surprising that ayi is already a doctor doing his Masters and yet he still watches Powerpuff Girls. no, i'm not joking.

the others went back early because of Friday prayers but i was too full and too sleepy (couldn't really sleep the night before because i was angauing over Robert Pattinson) to drive so i caught some 40 winks (probably it s 80 winks). and then it was another round of feasting again. and i groaned again. god it's a vicious but irresistable cycle.

crazy about the handsome vampire

i didn't realise the twilight mania could be this big - because i'm drawn to it myself, much to my surprise.

last year, SS's best student, khairina, who studied literature, was always promoting the movie to me. so consumed was she with the book and the movie that during one discussion she was confused between Edward and Bella in Twilight and Edward and Bella in the short story The Cinderella Girl which they had to study. "Best teacher, teacher kena tengok. Edward tu handsome teacher" how many times i heard that last year. and this was before the movie came out.

well, the movie came and went. but 2 nights ago, star movies showed it on tv, and i was determined not to sleep at my usual bedtime hour just to watch the movie. and i was hooked! Robert Pattinson is irresistable. not in the usual sense of handsome, but the character is mysterious (duh, everyone says that ) and gothic and look, most of us are attracted to dark (or in this case, pale) handsome men. it reminds me of the mania the girls had in the 80s when Ralph Macchio donned that karate uniform, tied a bandana over his head and "saved" his girl. or the craze over Brad Pitt (still there is) especially in Legends of the Fall or the craze over Viggo Mortensen as the rugged ranger / King and Orlando Bloom as the Elf archer when LOTR trilogy came out. yep, it's the same thing now.

no, it's not about the handsomeness. as i said, it's about how he portrays his character. he had me when he told Bella "I don't have the strength to be apart from you" uwaaa!!!

thank god it's the long school hols!

2 weeks ago, i couldn't wait for the holidays to be here. i even had a countdown on my facebook. but this week, with all the things happening, my holiday mood just disappeared. gone with a smoke. na da. kaput.

besides being told that i'll be transferred to the afternoon session, i had to finish off the stupid clerical work. yes, i hate the clerical work. i'm disorganised and proud of it. for me, clerical work reminds me of old accountants at work, with pince-nez on their noses, meticulously writing down numbers, and not making mistakes. i'm not like that. i'm like a fiery chef who devotes his life to the perfection of culinary art. or an artist who is passionate in his strokes creating masterpieces.

one afternoon session teacher who likes to sit at my place after i go home (because her chum's cubicle is next to mine) decided to do me a favour and tidied up my cubicle. really. the problem is, when i tried to find some particular documents, i couldn't find it. and there i went rambling like a mother scolding the children, because i couldn't find the papers.

any hoarder will tell you that in chaos, there is order. the teacher meant well, i know. but she upset the order on my chaotic table.

anyhow, though i'm disorganised, i'm good at teaching.especially when i teach literature (the LiE paper, not lit component) no, i'm not being smug. i may be a real-life but a mini version of Dr House, minus the quirks and the insanity.

there was too much work to be done. some of it was a waste of time, but i had to do it. i mean, what's the point of repeating the same phrase 33 times for a whole class? or what's the point of every teacher producing the headcount analysis, when in SS the Exam Unit does it for the teachers?(considering that it's a cluster school, and has 140 teachers).

okay i'm rambling again. but as you can see, because of the amount of work to be done, i lay awake at night feeling stressed. i could feel the nerves on my head turning sore, especially when i sujud during solat. anyway, i did the best that i could. and that's not saying much. because as i said earlier i hate, no, i a-b-h-o-r clerical work.

and even though the holiday officially started at 12.30pm for me yesterday, i didn't feel the joy. hopefully after this the party animal in me will come out.

the bad news

it's 1.25am. what am i doing up so late? actually i woke up when i heard the neighbour's car engine. then instantly, i remember the bad news that i had 3 days ago.

my head of panel told me that because there's an excess of english teachers in the morning, i'll be teaching the afternoon session next year.

when she told me this, i was trying to finish off marking the exam scripts, and as soon as the words hit me, i was devastated.

the thing that i hate most is teaching in the afternoon. i spent 12 years teaching in the morning session. in SS i was lucky because it's a single session school.in the first 2 months in the current school, i had to teach the afternoon session. i don't like it at all.

i hate coming back so late. and by the time i return home, i've no strength to muster. and besides, ever since in SS, i always taught either form 3 or the upper forms. my friend and colleague used to tell me that if any of the Old Block teachers slack in their work, they are "banished" to the New Block teaching the lower forms.

the afternoon session is like that. i feel upset, and used. i feel like i'm a ball being tossed around. never mind that i'm a senior teacher by service and holds a masters degree. never mind that i've literature students who i have to teach after school. in the end , i lost to a quite junior teacher who gets to stay in the morning session because she stays far away and can teach Geography (as they lack in teachers in the subject for the form 3 students) and that because i stay nearby and i'm single. it's back to the same reason. i hate it. and the best thing is that she doesn't know that the upstairs people considered her as a candidate as well.

i feel kecik hati. i don't mind if i'm a junior. but i'm not. so i go from being a form 4 and 5 teacher to being form 1 and 2 teacher next year. a lot of routines have to be changed next year, and i don't like it at all.

because of that, i think i may have to do something. now i understand how my Professor felt and why he resigned from the university.

the hi tea at KDE

on saturday, the kelab guru of my school held the annual hi-tea at KDE which is practically "belakang rumah". no la i was exaggerating. it takes me 5 mins to reach KDE. the theme was "mesmerising blue". initially i thought of wearing the only blue blouse that i have but after the gym workout in the morning (to compensate the feasting done the previous day), my feet sort of led me to isetan (yeah yeah blame it on my feet. just like i blamed my feet for walking into Habib when i accidentally bought some bling bling) and i bought a new blouse.

since i've taught at 3 schools so far, i can honestly say that the annual gathering is conducted in much the same manner everywhere. but then although it is considered routine, one can't help feeling amused. for instance, despite my visits to the gym and despite my "piousness" in controlling my temptation at the school canteen, i was the first one at the buffet table (yep. the first one. go ahead and gawk). i can't remember how much i ate. i just knew that the cheese from the lasagna just sat snugly in my tummy. had to do salsa after that.

and at every annual gathering, we love lucky draws. despite the fact that everybody gets to bring something home, we still groan and wait in agony for our numbers to get lucky. and, i also notice that we love to compare which table has the most gifts - the only difference is that last Saturday the teachers stacked their gifts on the table until they nearly collapsed.

oh well.

i got to bring a blender back. the 3rd blender that i have.