Marriage

What is a wedding? The act of going through the process to become married. Today is an important day for one very high profile couple. Their wedding has been anticipated for years. Everything about their wedding was kept secret until today when all the world would see.


The invitees include royalty, leaders of countries and, most importantly, their family and friends. Everyone who watched the live telecast spotted many dignitaries and also celebrities.


The whole event was a big party and also an event to unite many people. Watchers outside the church and palace came from far and wide. Some even turned up a few days before the wedding to book the most suitable spot to watch for the wedded couple.

The wedding was planned by a battalion of people, guarding every single detail and ensuring safety for the couple, their family and friends, and also all the dignitaries.

Everyone awaited for the event to begin. Everyone wanted a look at the wedding gown. Everyone wanted to look at the bride and groom. Everyone wanted to have a piece of them if possible.

The wedding was held at the Westminster Abbey. The building was majestic. The whole place was made for a wedding to remember. The choir boys were angelic. The music made one feel like floating on air.



They were married. They became man and wife - or in this case, prince and princess and Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
They represented a bridge between the "old" royals, and the young generation. They were a beautiful and handsome couple. Life will never be the same for the bride ever again, not only because she is now married, but because of whom she married and therefore, whom she became.
As the whole world (almost) watched the wedding, many remembered another wedding which happened in 1981 which ended in a divorce and then death. And so everyone wishes this couple something much better and everlasting for this new couple.

And so, the fairy tale became a reality. A wedding, a marriage. We wish you both a wonderful start to a wonderful life together. May your love for each other and the faith you have for each other bring you to a life that is fulfilling for you and your family. May you remember the vow you made and the blessings you received.

There is no "happily ever after" in real life. What has happened does not denote the end of a story, but the beginning of one. May this beautiful beginning be reflective of the years to come.

I hope all who attend your wedding will be able to wish you both a happy anniversary 10 20 30 40 years from now. Your royal highnesses Prince William and Princess Catherine ... have a happy married life.

Change

This year seems to be a lot about CHANGE. Change in a lot of things. Change where it is difficult to accept and adapt to. Change that scares me a lot. Change - the only thing that is constant. Change - making life unpredictable and scary.
How am I adapting to some of the changes? Not well at all.

Of team work and selfishness

Team work and selfishness or self-centredness do not belong in the same sentence, well, except in this sentence. These two terms do not belong together, as they are as different as white and black.
What has brought about this little post is the way some students have been behaving in preparation for competitions that require team work. As usual, I have the ever difficult cheer teams to work on, but I'll write about them later. Now the focus is on the choral speaking competition.
This competition is being held in school for the Form 1, 2 and 4 classes. I have been doing very little in class as the students need to practise for the competition which will be held tomorrow. I have been observing the students. I can identify those who just do not know how to work in a team. These students just do things as and how they wish. This only shows how selfish they are. If things do not benefit them personally, they do not bother much with whatever they have been instructed to do. This causes the entire class to get annoyed and irritated with these people.

• Example 1 : All students were told to borrow baju kurung so that everyone looks uniformed as a team. There just has to be one, or even two, who are not bothered. Trust me, they just don't care, not because they cannot borrow.
• Example 2 : Because some classes are way behind in practices, they need to stay back to practise together. BUT there just have to be a few who refuse to stay back, not because they can't but because they DO NOT WANT TO!
• Example 3 : Memorising the script is not an option, it is a requirement. And yet, many still cannot be bothered to memorise. They just mouth the words, albeit wrongly.

It is so irritating to see these students not giving their cooperation to the rest of the class. It kills the team spirit

Okay, cheer. After having handled my cheerleaders for 3 years (this is my 4th year), I still see a lot of selfishness in some of the team members. I have groused over this several times. I still see it. Some people just never change. In any sport that is a team event, there is no room for individualism. In cheer leading, this can lead to accidents. And yet, some of them just do not see the need to work as a team. Their own selfish wants seem to be more important that the team's needs.

Well, we'll see how things transpire.

Dealing with incompetent people

The weekend that has gone by was a frustrating one. It was a lot of things, but frustration ruled the 2 days that I had to work.
Firstly was on Saturday, when I attended a session on teaching the literature component in English. It was held in a hotel in Shah Alam that I shall not mention.
Everything was fine until we were supposed to leave. We went down to the basement where we parked our car and found the entire basement smoky. Actually it was foggy as we could smell the anti-aedes fogging chemicals. We tried to drive out of there. It was impossible. The visibility was only about 2-3 metres. We could NOT find the exit point. I was worried about banging into a pillar or a wall. Or another car. What were we to do? I finally called my buddy who was still in the lobby, and asked her to inform the hotel security the problem we were having. One very young security guard made an appearance (he looked like he was 18-19 yrs old) and pointed to the exit. STUPID BOY!!!! Visibility was so low it was not safe or possible to drive to wherever he had pointed at. I told him that and in the end he walked to the exit and we all drove slowly behind him. All these while I was wondering what in the world made the hotel management agree to have fogging done at that time of day in a basement that does not have good ventilation. By the time I got outside, I was almost nauseated by the fumes of the chemicals. From there I drove to Bkt Kiara for the SOX event. There began my next frustration.
The cheerleaders were there on that day for a day of cheer clinic as well as other activities. I got there at 5pm. And when I got there, what I saw made my blood boil. The children were all being made to do either hip-hop, capoeira, stomping or body combat. These were all physically demanding activities. And they were all going to be in competition the next day. I duly marched to the event organisers and told them off. They argued that it was just a short session. I fought back and told them to stop. And I pulled my girls out of the activities. And I asked the girls if they had had their tea break and it was NO. I argued with those people and told them the kids were all tired out. Some were already feeling sick and dehydrated. It was frustrating arguing with those people. One of the guys leading the activities argued that it was fun and good to build up their fitness. I got mad and raised my voice and said this : If you want to build up fitness, do it weeks before, not the day before the competition! He argued that he took care of Floor Fever and Wakaka (two dance teams) and it was no problem. I told him off. His dance teams are fit, but not my girls and they were not going to join the activities and perform that night. He gave me the dirtiest look possible. Not like I cared.
Then later that night, after I had left, I found out that they only had the drawing of lots at 11pm! So ridiculous! So angry!
The next day was competition day. I got there before 8am. Then I found out more things that made me angry. Dinner the previous night was bad. There was no briefing about the competition. Breakfast was still not ready at 8am. Then when they finally started competition, it started more than one hour later than scheduled. Then I found out there was going to be a dance-off to narrow down to 4 teams. I was really upset. Why were we not told earlier?
By then I was ready to either pull out or just give up. The whole event was extremely badly organised.
What was important was not the result. We were not in the top 4. It doesn't matter. What was also frustrating was the girls. The uniform issue was not settled until Sunday morning itself. The teams did not have the drive to win. Some members were not displaying the ability they actually have.
Yes it was a frustrating weekend. I was drained physically and emotionally. When I got home last night, I could barely keep my eyes open anymore. This morning, getting up for work was tough. I wished I could just continue sleeping. I had a lingering headache. My whole body was aching. I just wanted to crawl back into bed and sleep off the tiredness of the 2 days. But I made it to work. I was zombified half the day but I managed to do my work.
Well, that was my frustrating and tiring weekend. I am glad I don't have to face those incompetent people again for now. I have to decide though, if I want to try the wildcard thing. That .... is another story and will take another blog post.