Past year papers..

It's now mid-way through the examinations, and my mathematics paper is upcoming next week. The LAST of all the Sec 2 papers, Thursday 12th October. So I'm currently busy doing up all the solutions of the numerous past year papers that I've given to my classes as a form of revision.

Sometimes I think I'm torturing myself, why in the world do I give them so many papers to do in the first place?! Now I've got to do all the papers myself so that I can upload the papers.
Initially, it was not my intention to upload detailed solutions to the papers, since all the papers come with final answers. But a few guys have come up to me to ask for them, so...I guess I'll just put it all up for the greater good. So here I am, spending my whole weekend doing sec2 papers..haha..

Came across an interesting blog post just now on a teacher's blog (not from my school).
Just thought I'd share it with my readers.. :)

Explaining 'wayang'

You know how, when you need to explain certain local terminology to a foreigner, words like kiasu, yao gui or even shiok, that you struggle to find the right words to articulate the rich and multi-dimensional facets of the word and you end up giving examples, hoping that the kwai lo will get it?

So now I think we have a new term we need to explain to our hapless friends : wayang. Used pretty extensively recently in the press, I'm sure the uninitiated needs some help here to fully appreciate what all the fuss over this word is all about. Let the English teacher here offer some examples :

1. Wayang is when your high class friends, who live in private property and hardly fancy taking walks in your crummy estate, suddenly turn up at your humble HDB flat, and offer to scrub your floor. You wonder what's their hidden motive and think, "Wa, what's all this wayang about?"

2. Wayang is when your father tells you he's going to work out a pocket money policy for you, and you go into a serious anxiety attack because he looks like he's really going to implement it this time (after all he's told the whole clan about his plan and he looks very confident it'll work and save him a bundle). Then suddenly, when you threaten to drop out of school if he cuts your allowance, he backtracks and says, "Actually, implementing the pocket money policy would be a huge administrative burden. I think maybe I won't do it after all." Then you can say, "Wa lao, if I know you wayang so much, I don't need to get so worried la."

3. Wayang is also when you sit in a coffee shop and let off steam to some of your kopi tiam acquaintances about your anal retentive boss. Then next day, you discover your kopi tiam friend has reported your remark to your boss and now you have to apologise for what you said in an unguarded moment or your career would be at stake. To which you can then utter, "Wa piang, you listen to me like a friend, now you bite me back. You very good at wayang hor?"

4. Wayang is when you change the script according to what direction the wind is blowing. Like for example, 71 years old is too old, but 83 is not. In a wayang, actors can improvise his lines as he sees fit.

5. Wayang is when you call certain people Normal, when actually what you mean is they are not Express, Gifted, Special or take a special kind of transport (like through-train). In a wayang, you give names to people so that they sound nice and it helps you to enact your story with more convincing power.

Anyone who can contribute better definitions or examples of wayang, please enlighten us so that we, as well as our foreign friends, can better appreciate the complexities of this lovely Singlish word.

Taken from http://trisha-trisha.blogspot.com/