Devious is the name of the game

I have this habit of changing topics whenever people talk of things that I’m not interested in. For example, when so and so talk about his or her family, I tend to pt in a joke or talk about something else even if so and so is in the middle of talking. Mind you, I’m pretty good at creating diversion unless the so and so ploughs on with his story and then I plough on with mine.

People could figure out what I was trying to do back then. Now that I’m getting better at it, it’s hard for them to realise what I’m up to unless they stop their own chatter and observe the flow of the talk. As nobody listens to everybody, this behaviour of mine can go undetected.

Devious is the name of the game.

Drama in the meeting room

Talk about drama in the classroom! Forget it. Drama in the meeting room is more like it.

My school recently had a full blown drama at a meeting. What started off as a regular meeting quickly escalated to a full course ____ (I don’t know the right word for it.)

Nearly every teacher was present. Instead of focussing on the topic at hand; some teachers just don’t know when to ‘promote’ their own merits. Later, some teachers began to pinpoint others’ mistakes/wrongdoings. Soon it turned into a telematch or tug-of-war between A and B. C and D followed suit. Some even egged others on. How childish can you get? I wanted to cringe and get out of there there and then. I could not even proceed to another page of the book I was reading. The upshot of it all that nothing was achieved and we had to do our work (by asking, etc.) the next day instead of being briefed on it. Everyone ended with egg on his face. What a mess!

The irony was that I thought if the school have to participate in drama competition next year, our teachers could do a better job than our students.

-‘All the men and women are merely players, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’.-

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What a sneak

We have lowdown; sly and shifty ways of doing things. It all boils down to being sneaky. No one can find fault with it though. Everyone at one point or another probably did something sneaky to avoid troubles; have better opportunities; narrow down competitions; have fewer competitors.

Let’s just say that some of us are smarter than others at doing it. They go undetected probably because they don’t broadcast their actions and they sort of do it silently.

Those who ‘fail’ at it probably did tell others in one way or another or they did it too obviously.

Yeah. All I can say is sneaky is an art done subtly.

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The origin of Manglish

The Singaporeans call it Singlish but we do have our very own: Manglish. Now you might think it’s derived from Malaysian English but think again.

My brother knows when I have a bad day at school. He concludes that since my students abuse English whether intentionally or not; it might as well be called Manglish because they ‘mangled’ the language.

School jargon

These words if somewhat out of place are brief and precise.

Words used	Meaning
Jaga	School guard
Have you been to the canteen?	Have you eaten breakfast /lunch/whatever food they are serving for the function today?
lab	Science laboratory
Kipas/lampu (fan/lights)	Please switch on/off the fans/lights. (depending on the situation)
whiteboard	Someone had better clean the whiteboard now or else…

Curiosity kills the cat¹

My mum used to own a cat when she was young. As cats go, he was an inquisitive fellow. He loved checking out things. My mum’s family at that time ran a food stall and even brewed dessert drinks. This cat preferred leaping from one hot pot to another despite remonstrances not to do so. So, that’s the end of the cat – inquisitiveness killed him.

Moral of the story: Look before you leap.

I think the person who came up with this saying¹ probably spends time observing nature really a lot. That’s why many proverbs and idioms are handed down through the ages as there were not much entertainment in those days.

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A bookworm

What defines a bookworm? He or she is a bookworm if he/she does any of the following things:-

a) always spends time in a library/bookstore (not for study only)

b) finds a book unputdownable

c) have trouble choosing books as if in a shopping mall

d) probably deaf to everything else around him/her

e) temporary blindness as well

f) finds books more interesting than the tv

g) have the tendency to bite off a bit of the book he/she is reading (the real mccoy!)

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Very punny!

This is one of my favourite:

A hole was found in the wall where robbers had fired. The police are looking into it.

puns are cool

puns are super cool

puns are full

of fun.

puns are full of rhyme;

puns are for great fun time.

I love puns.

Nothing beats puns for laughs; anytime, anywhere; anyhow.

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Cats are cleverer than students

There is a certain ring to the truth of the title above. Take for example, a stray cat (long time resident in my area) which was found to be searching amongst my garbage was told off for its behaviour. A firm ‘No’ and ‘down’ and other words in between are sufficient enough to make it understand ENGLISH. How can students say they don’t understand the language when a cat clearly can do so? Beats me.

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It’s a colourful world

Yup, it is. Whether we mean it figuratively or literally our world is filled with colour. Even the shows have got it like ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ [everything comes in shades of gray].

If you’re in the pink, it means your health is pretty good and if you’re pinched black and blue (it’s true literally as well!), you definitely look unsightly for a while till the bruises disappear. If someone or something has a greenish tinge, it’s probably visible although slightly. Being purple in the face can mean you’re so enraged that you simply can’t wait to give them a piece of your mind. The idea of blue in the face differs from you look blue. The latter means feeling down while the former indicates that you’re possibly feeling cold.

There’s nothing wrong with having yellow skin [of Chinese origin] unless you have the yellow fever or you’re accused of being yellow (i.e. cowardly). Meanwhile, the whites [Caucasians] and the redskins [Red Indians] have skin colours as seen. If you’re nicely browned; you’re doing great with your summer or suntan. Of course, the same cannot be said for lobster-red skin.

It is also best to get out of someone’s way if that someone has a black look on his face as he is liable to vent his feelings on you. It has been such a nice moment colour-coding this article. You might want to put it in black and white.

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