Never Give Up

This afternoon, I saw a movie called 'Marley and Me' and actually the film is based upon the novel version which was published in 2005 and I read the book during last summer. There is almost pointless to compare the book and movie versions as the former usually outperformed the latter. For the movie version, a number of episodes has to be twisted and everything single detail that happens in the book may be squeezed to very different form in order to make the pace of the movie much faster and appealing to audience.

Back to the story, the film is about a couple, both journalists, who were newly wed and attempted to raise a dog before considering taking greater responsibility to raise their own kids. Having visited a farm, the coupled decided to purchase 'a bargain dog' which is a breed of Labrador Retriever. It was the beginning of the couple's nightmares. When Marley was home, he could ruin everything one could imagine, chewing sofa, scratching the floor, breaking the window and eating the whole remote control! He was extremely devastated to the thunderstorm and reacted extraordinarily abnormal. This little devil no doubt gave a lot of troubles to the couple.

Finally, the couple had 3 kids. While raising Marley and 3 kids, the couple felt very frustrated and tired. Once, they were determined to give up and did not want to keep Marley anymore. Having a second thought, the couple thought it wouldn't be a complete family without Marley despite his naughtiness and misbehavior as he witnessed the growth of the family. At last, they stayed with him until he passed away. The story is obviously a sad one. However, the underlying message is pretty clear that in our life, things are always difficult and sometimes insurmountable. If we insist on overcoming them, we will succeed eventually!

A long day

At 9 this morning, I arrived at the office and prepared my lesson, simply studying what I have written on the PowerPoint. At 10, a student came and asked me something about her assignment. At 10:20, I went straight to the classroom. The lesson went on until 1:30. Having finished the third session of Language Assessment, a few Yr. 4 students asked me some questions about their final year thesis.

By the time I went to the office, it was 1:50, I then had a quick lunch. Nothing good was on the menu, mainly leftovers. I decided to have some noodles. At 2 pm, I browsed Blackboard to see whether my students posted their comments on the Forum as I usually uploaded some questions and invited discussion every week. More and more students have participated in this activity. After responding to a few entries, I went straight to a meeting about the NSS professional development course. This is a quality assurance meeting for all colleagues who teach the course. We mainly reported our feedback and shared some teaching ideas. The meeting lasted for 1 and 1/2 hours.

Around 4, I thought I could start marking the assignments. However, one of my colleagues called me and he wanted to talk to me about some issues on staff appraisal. Then we had a chat for about 45 mins. It seemed to me that he was not happy working in IEd. A lot of complaints!! Finish my work as a councillor. I went back to my work and started marking the last three assignments. At 8:45, I finally finished and entered the marks in an Excel file. I left Tai Po.

About 9:30, I was home but felt speechless as the day was REALLY long. No sooner did I finish my dinner, then I forgot my doctor appointment at 8pm. I immediately called Dr Law to apologize for my absence and I asked if I could make another appointment the following day. She said, 'Why not?' Now, I should get some sleep. Good night.

Back pain

During the last two weeks, I worked non-stop for preparing lessons and marking assignments . Yesterday, my back pain and stiff neck came back and I realized perhaps I kept sitting in front of the computer for too long. My family doctor told me to move around or stretch my arms and legs every twenty minutes. It is a very good suggestion but how I can remember to do so unless a timer is put in front of me. To relieve pain and ache in my shoulders and back, I took pain-killers three times a day and applied Salonsip gel patches to the affected areas. It's so painful!! I even found it hard to stand straight this morning. I pray to get well soon as I need to give my second lecture on Monday. Keep my fingers crossed....

In Celebration of Rosina's life

This afternoon, I attended a gathering organized by Steve Andrews in celebrating Rosina's life. The event was held in form of buffet lunch and invitations were sent to all past students of Rosina including BEd and PGDE students since 1998. I saw a lot of old friends there such as Blanche, Michael, Simon Chan, Simon Sharp, Maria and some teachers who taught me before including Margaret, David Bunton, Leo, Suzie, Amy and so forth.

The purpose of this occasion is to bring back good memories of Rosina and the function started off with cocktail and then slide show which featured the life of Rosina. The pictures since Rosina was four were shown. After the slide show, seven guests gave their speeches to share with the guests the sense of humor Rosina had as well as how much she loved cooking. Then, several past students of hers talked about some interesting anecdotes happened when they were studying Yr. 3 and Yr. 4 with Rosina. While Gary was giving a speech, some of us were in tears because Gary knew Rosina very well and what he mentioned was really touched such as the jokes of shipping Amazon cookery books for Rosina from the UK and all faculty gossips. Lastly, when Amy concludes Rosina's life, I was impressed with one sentence she spoke, 'She did not die.' I guess it is right to say so. I always think of her especially those words in which she taught me how to be a good teacher educator. I will remember these words forever.

Although the event was a bit sad towards the end, all guests knew that if we were upset, Rosina was not happy because she liked partying. In order to celebrate the life of Rosina, we should be cheerful after we parted company and remember how she fought the batter with a larger-than-life attitude.

A New Semester

The first week of Semester 2 has started already. So far, I have met two groups of students I teach. They are BEd Yr. 3 and BA Yr. 4 years. For the former students, I teach their tutorials plus two lectures and for the latter group, I teach them all sessions. Students in these two groups are quite different in terms of their learning styles, personalities and career aspiration. That's interesting. Well, we had a good start this week. Hope they enjoy the modules like me.

Cafe de Verseau

Joyce, my sister-in-law started a coffee shop named Cafe de Verseau two years ago. The cafe is located in a shopping mall in Mongkok. This evening, we paid a visit to this very trendy cafe. In the meantime, we celebrated Grace's birthday though hers is on 20th.

Joyce recommended one award-winning dish to us and it is actually a chicken roll with instant noodle. She told me that the chef was very creative to design this mouth-watering appetizer out of some ordinary ingredients. This appetizer is indeed crispy and delicious. We also ordered some drinks and had great fun there.