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I meant to write an entry some time ago but didn't get to... spent quite some time to work out some backlog FriendMark pages instead. Now I have a little time... so I shall try to recap and summarize what's been happening. I'm currently typing this out of a double decker bed (am on the top deck!) at a hostel in St Kilda... Melbourne! Brought a group of students here for a week-long learning journey. Will write a little on that for the later part.

After the cross country, I fell sick; kept on sneezing... had to miss Thursday's lesson and ended up seeing the doctor on the Friday. Was well enough to meet up with the Kakis nonetheless that evening for a get together dinner at Kim's Family Restaurant - the amount of side dishes given to us was quite unbelievable! It filled up two tables! Haha... we proceeded to Old Town after that to chill and played a few rounds of Monopoly Deal in which I won a set. Nice game! :P

Went for lesson on Saturday; Char had marking to do so she came along with me and parked herself somewhere near. We had lunch together... then I returned for lessons again. We journeyed to town for dinner and caught "Dear John" before heading back home. Sunday was Aunty Witwit's day off, so I headed back to my parents' place to take care of mom for the day. Brought her out to the living room to watch some television shows... glad to see that she's able to lift her head up straight initially to watch the shows. :) Had a very late dinner with Char... and that day being the last day of Chinese New Year and Char having the craving for a last yusheng, we went to Cold Storage very last minute and found heavily discounted yusheng ingredients! And so... we ended our day with quite a substantial amount of yusheng in each of our stomachs. :/ Hahaha...

Attended the Education Conference that my school organised on Monday and Tuesday. Everything that was touched upon on the keynote addresses on authentic and collaborative learning struck chords within me. It made me feel really privileged to be able to have gone through such processes back then when I was wearing the uniform ten plus years ago, collaborating over the internet with students from all over the world to create meaningful resources for others. I was compelled to send an email to the current organisers of ThinkQuest, the competition which took me places (digitally, geographically, socially), to see if things could be done to bring back the culture of cross continental collaboration (which has been lost these days)... hopefully I'll get a reply one day!

Attended a Youth Seminar and Workshop series organised by National Youth Council and Students Care Services on Wednesday... I was really inspired by the sharing of two youth workers working with CARE, an agency that does on-campus activities with students. It rekindled that part of me that really wants to work more closely with youths... but somehow I find myself asking if I really can make the cut. I confess that my introversion usually takes the upperhand; it makes it hard for me to know others, to connect, to share, let alone share heart to heart and rebuke if necessary. But it's something that I really want to do on the other hand. I wonder which will come first - my introversion gets adjusted accordingly... or the wanting dying out?

Accompanied my younger sis, Dori, to hospital for her quarterly bone marrow test and checkup. She has been on steady remission since going on the new trial drug for her leukemia... the latest report is good. Thank God! :) Her friend came along as well... and we moved on to have a late lunch after everything's settled. It was there while eating when I received a phone call from my deputy principal. He said that there had been an emergency and the colleague who was to go for the Melbourne trip couldn't make it last minute... and based on suitability, I had been called forth to join in the trip to charperone the group of students. Actually till now (halfway through the trip) I still can't quite figure out what he meant by suitability... anyways.

And so that's why I'm where I am right now here in Melbourne. Friday was the release of the 'A' Level results. The school did well and a half day was declared (I knew from my colleague that another half day was declared today?!). Really thankful that Char had a short day that day - we had lunch together before heading back for my packing. Then we were off to the airport...

The flight was about 7 hours long or so; we arrived at the Melbourne airport at about 8 plus in the morning. We travelled straight away to the west of Melbourne to Apollo Bay, visited the Twelve Apostles and eventually stayed at a hostel in Port Campbell for the night. The next day on Sunday, we went on more geographical sightings such as the London Bridge (which I liked best so far!), the Tower Hill and the Wind Farm. It was only Sunday evening when we arrived back in Melbourne.

Melbourne has been experiencing a season of drought all this while... and what happened was that over this particular weekend, there was this superstorm of sort... and it rained hail as well. It was only when we arrived that I heard that many parts of Melbourne had experienced quite a bad bout of flooding over the weekend... and we missed every bit of it! Over the next few days it rained here and there... but most of the time we were either inside buildings in the midst of program or we were already done for the day. Not bad orh!

The students started their programme with the University of Melbourne on Monday. There's this time on Wednesday and Friday when they are allowed to roam the Melbourne Central mall... and on Wednesday they are to get back to the hostel from there themselves. Which meant the need for a little recce-ing... Monday I did it on foot. It was quite a walk to the city centre and back to the university actually... but it was good opporunity for a little exercise. Speaking of which, I actually promised myself not to gain any weight over this trip... so far so good! Today (Tuesday), I learnt to take the tram back to the hostel from the mall. Tomorrow evening should turn out fine *crossing fingers*.

I had the opportunity to know and chat with some of the students along the way... but I must say that somehow that 'fire' in me has simmered down quite a bit. I remember that I would take every opportunity to communicate, even if it meant stepping out of my comfort zones to chat and connect. I find myself asking if I really have anything to offer... like, would it have mattered? Is it necessary? From time to time (I know I'm starting to sound melancholic... don't worry I'm absolutely fine and sober hahaha) I really do wonder, that even though I wanted to do what I did, how much of that actually mattered and helped the other party?

I think I found the answer in part while visiting the ANZAC Memorial Shrine today... carved on a slab a part of scripture from the book of John:

It read to me: Do so anyways.

Mmm. (: Okay... time to wrap up this entry. Apologies that it's kind of long; I want to make it a point to jot down what's been happening each day so when I do get the time to reread my entries I'll be able to jog my memory faster. In any case, my memory really has been failing... sometimes when I tried to remember what I did the past couple of days I would end up with a blank in my mind. :( So yes, I'll try my best to jot things down more regularly!