RBJTimban’s Crib

I simply left my earlier post unedited, just to remind myself that I am coming back to WordPress.

2005 – my car-pool mates (i.e. Nicholas, Fedmek and Agnes) and I were still attached to OUM. Twice a month, and trips were killing us. Last year, which was our 1st year, we did not know that we could apply for slots adjustments. We had to hit the road from Betong as early as 3 a.m to enable us to attend the 8 a.m. tutorial. Prior to 3 a.m. none of us could catch our sleep as early as 1 a.m. So, just imagine that – slept at 1 a.m., woke up at 2.30 a.m., and started the journey at 3 a.m.! It was an average of 4 hour driving. Lack of sleep but had to focus our minds on the road. In the evening we used to make our way back home at around 4 p.m. Sometimes it was earlier, but most of the times – as early as 5 p.m. By the time we reached Serian town, it it was already dusk. Driving home for another 3 hours. Simply imagine, when we reached home (Betong) our families were asleep. We used to joke – “leaving home (heading for Kuching) in the dark, and reaching home (Betong) in the dark too”. As time flew, we managed to seek help from the admin on adjusting our tutorial slots so as to enable us to catch the second slot which began at 10.15 a.m. The admin nodded and on the rest of the tutorial days, we hit the road between 6 – 6.30 a.m. Everyone felt relieved. Everyone slept as much as he/she could the night before.

2006 – My third year in OUM and the courses got tougher than the previous years. Yes, it got tougher. We had to read and write for our TESL major courses (i.e. introduction to reading, writing, speaking and listening, and on teachings of reading, writing, speaking and listening skills). Reading alone would have ‘killed’ us, but assignments and short notes had helped us very much in our exams. That is learning. To understand better, one must read and write, or at least scribble. By the way, despite having this blog, it has been my habit for not preparing a draft prior to publishing, or rather, presenting. It has been my (poor) habit to start my writing and end it just like that! Any reader would notice that there are numerous mistakes and errors in my postings but let us conclude that, these postings are merely spontaneous and have meanings (or messages) in them. Let’s disregard the grammatical elements. It was not intended to offend the beautiful English language but rather delivering the gist of the post. And, that was why I have tried to observe and preserve the proper grammar usage as much as I can.

Year 2006 too saw how my daughter, Fionula, had showed her determination sitting for her Form Six exams. My wife and I had always encouraged and motivated her all throughout the year, alongside her younger siblings (i.e. Trevor, Timothy and Theophilus). Assisting her with the Malaysian University English Test (MUET) subject was easy, since I am a TESL student myself (oops! sorry, this is not a show-off). I found that she improved a lot in that subject as my wife and I had always checked her report card regularly. She used to score good marks for the subject. Unlike writing, teaching the language with the text-book in your hand is pretty much easier, where all the ‘rules’ of the language is at hand. You’ll look professional especially when you ’spice-up’ the facts in the book with a bit of elaboration in you own words! Sounds great, is not it?