Busy, busy, busy

when i came back from umrah, i anticipated that i was going to be busy, what with the LCDS annual camp, and other school activities. but i never thought that once the school re-opened for the 2nd half of the year, i would be busy non-stop.

the LCDS annual camp was held a few days after the school re-opened. because of a public holiday and because our menteri besar declared one day as terengganu state holiday (since we won the SUKMA), my committee and i had less time to settle the last few things before we set off for the camp in cheneh. but we did good, the children looked smart in their LCDS t-shirts (i wore one too) we were off to cheneh. i anticipated that cheneh is a jin bertendang place (direct translation: where the djinn is kicking, meaning a remote area), and i expected it to be keras (haunted), but i dare say my students had fun, despite everything.

the place is nestled between hills and jungles and palm plantation. it's a big place, since it has a lake for kayaking, PLKN hostels and sites, obstacle course ground, a livestock nursery, the main office and the resort itself. the students only had to pay RM50 per head per day, and that covers 6 meals a day. plus, they got to sleep in air-conditioned room with water heater and tv (a joy for the soccer fans). after previous camps in tents, hostels, run-down chalets that looked like they were going to fall apart, this was a luxury. the president and the committee handled the activities, and they did this superbly. not many 17 year olds have such leadership abilities to handle societies, and so far none of the LCDS presidents has been a disappointment.

anyway, the manager of the resort and the guides told me some juicy stories about the place. despite the dread and the fear, the students love to listen to such stories. something did happen, but i'm not going to say anymore about this. besides the story of the spooky place, the students love to talk about a member who they find very interesting, but difficult to get close to, since the student's British accent is too dense for anyone to understand. what with the stories, the Anglo-malay student and the other sensational story, i'll bet the students will remember the camp till they reach the golden age.

as soon as i returned from the camp, other tasks awaited - personal favours, actually, from the "people upstairs". this is exactly why i always tell my students to do well in English, so that they will not bother other people when they have to write speeches when they grow up. at the same time, my head of panel was already hunting me for the literature in-house training *groan* and also about training the school debating team *double, triple groans*. after finishing the personal favours, i dived into training the debaters. by the end of the day i was so mentally tired as we had to think of possible POIs and answers to POIs.(postcript: we won the debate to qualify for the inter-district level, beating SMK Chung Hwa Wei Sin and SMKA Sheikh Abdul Malek, our fellow cluster school. good work people!)

and today, i was in Sekayu, for our Annual Camp. not much work to be done, but all the teachers turned up in shifts, since it's our duty to be there, else the empress would be angry.


and so that concludes the rambling for the week.