No title so I'll just call this "25 Jan 2007"

I was faced with 2 options when I woke up this morning:

1. Go to school, come back feeling feverish, skip PA tuition

• Pros I might get a full attendance cert at the end of the year, which can help me a great deal, since my co-curric is horrendous; I wun miss out on math paper 1; I can complete whatever hmwk I have in class and really rest when I come home; I can rest till the next day after coming back from school;
• Cons Ms Heng might teach on Section E of the non-linear text to linear text transition and I'll be so blur since my school PA teacher is as horrendous as my co-curric; I'd have to wake up at 5.40 am and only come back at 3.05 pm
  

2. Stay home from school, feel better, go for PA tuition

• Pros I might learn something new at tuition and prob not get lousy marks for PA in the upcoming test; I only have to get out of bed for 3 1/2 hours
  
• Cons I'd have to force myself to drive to Bachang in the middle of the afternoon after staying in bed the first half of that afternoon; I'll miss math paper 1 and have to catch up on two days' worth of hmwk when I'm back in school
  

I chose to go to school.

Qi would tell me to stop planning so much. Yeah. I should stop. I promised the group anyway. But it's really really hard not to. Sigh.

Must change!

We had Speaking for MUET today. Group members:

• Ming Suan (kaki tido in class, badminton pro)
• Wai Kee (sits behind me, badminton pro)
• Sinn Ting (CF treasurer, volleyball pro)

Looks like I'm the only un-athletic one -_-

Teacher let us choose which candidate we wanted to be.

Individual Tasks:

• A Women's role in sports, examples of local or international female athletes, and why their participation in sports is important
• B Women's role in politics, examples of women who have succeeded in this area, traditional precepts of women, and how they hinder women from being political successes
  
• C Women's role in business, and how women incorporate their skills into their other important roles: wife, mother, daughter, friend.
• D Women's role in education, their contributions to education and something else which I can't remember heheh

Group Task: Discuss the changing roles of women in this new millenium.

Ming Suan chose B and Sinn Ting chose C. Wai Kee let me choose first. I chose D. There was silence mostly, throughout the individual and group tasks. I tried to prompt them during the group discussion:

• "Ming Suan, what do you think? Do you agree?"
• "Wai Kee, you mentioned the achievements of women like Nicol David and Wong Mew Choo in sports, but I didn't really understand how their participation is actually important, to women, particularly. Do you have any ideas about that?"
• "Sinn Ting, I like what you said about how women can be more tolerant with their husbands because of their experience in management, but can you elaborate further with some examples? What exactly did you mean by that?"

But the result was almost always silence. Except in Wai Kee's case, where he promptly replied, "I really got no idea lor!" And laughed. We laughed also la.

I really really want to help them cuz MUET is really really important in applying for a local uni in m'sia. And I kinda understand their situation cuz I used to feel the same way when I was in chinese class. Somehow when I'm faced with a language that's not my first language, my mind becomes void of all ideas and huraian. I tried to give them some points during the discussion (teacher was busy with another group anyway), but as Ming Suan said, there's still the language & vocab problem. Hmm.

So I taught them a cheeky tactic.

The commencing of the group discussion is open to any one of the candidates. Since we probably wouldn't be in the same group in the real exam, I told them to look out for whoever had the best command of english in the group. Promptly start the discussion by restating the topic title, and repeating a few of the candidates' lines. Then turn to the English fella, and say, "What do you think?" or if they're afraid of being too obvious (we get marked down if we ask too much of the what-do-you-thinks), they can say, "Candidate X, you have a funny look on your face. Are you disagreeing with me?" Usually the English fella will try to help the others, so he'll probably play along. Then whatever he sez, the rest can just copy paste lor. And just nod nod and agree when he sez something. Then keep prompting the others to speak, and they'll get marks for leadership.

Of course it's a gamble la. Sometimes we get mean english-ed people in the group who just want to get Band 6 and ketepikan everyone else in the group by hoarding the discussion. And also sometimes we get a group that's purely chinese-ed. And sometimes we panic and get tongue-tied during the whole discussion.

But no choice la hor.

I'm glad I went to school today.

Oh ya. Today the muslim guy (always hiding somewhere.. never see him before.. only hear his voice wan) was reciting his prayers again for the whole F6 quad. I can't understand why they must mumble. It's like taboo to speak properly. Never mind that.

Anyway, he was mumbling something about "ampunilah dosa kita, dosa ibu bapa kita" and a whole bunch of other people's dosa. And very detailed wan noe. Got list out all the dosa wan. I was thinking, "These people... always asking for forgiveness... like so takut dosa liddat...", and then I realized that Christians are supposed to be like that also. Though not ask for forgiveness cuz scared kena hukum la. And I thought to myself: These non-Christians, who don't have the truth, ask for forgiveness everyday. Literally everyday. Sometimes I don't confess my sins seriously, and I just do it cuz it's been drilled into me that it's harder to actually communicate with God when there's still the barrier of unconfessed sins. These Muslims are asking forgiveness from a cold, distant god. I have a God who's so close to me that He can whisper and still be heard! It shouldn't be so difficult to confess my sins to Him.

I felt that I was put to shame by these Muslims today.

Must change!