Confirmation of Chess Activities MSSM

The dates of chess tournaments have been confirmed. The district selection will be on the 9th - 11th of February at SMK Tengku Bendahara, Jerek, while the dates for state selection will be on the 19th - 24th of February in Jeli. After that, the national championship will be held in Selangor on the 16th - 20th of March 2009. I am training my charges so that at least one of them will represent the state for the national championship, although I don't mind if any of the district players (also under my charges as the district head coach) gets the call. Last year, one of the students from Gua Musang district manage to fly the state flag at the national championship in Melaka.

School Chess Player Selection

Today, I finished selecting the students to represent our school in the upcoming district tournament. Not many students were present, but some of those have the talent to compete. But first, I need to polish them before there are ready for tournament play. Unfortunately though, only one female student came. This situation is the same as the national scene--there is simply not enough female chess players. If there is any, they would stop after they got married. Many examples can be quoted, but suffice to say that it is a sad scenario for Malaysian chess.

YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE

When you walk through a storm

hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm is a golden sky

And the sweet silver song of a lark.
Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown.

Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never, ever walk alone.
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart

And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never, ever walk alone.

Chess Club is No More

This new year brings sadness to SMKTIP(2) Chess Club. Apart from being a club, it is now regarded as only a sport, thus no chairman or committee members are required. On the bright side, it is good for us that no annual meeting is needed. But, the downside is that it is hard to organise programmes, internally or externally, when there is no board members to do the work. However, for me as the advisor, or now called as a coach, I welcome this change as I have so many things to do. Handling a club requires more of my time than coaching a sport, which merely requires finding the talents and grooming them to participate in tournaments.

Gender Imbalance

This week, two more teachers got their transfer requests fulfilled. It so happen that both of them already served more than five years in Gua Musang. This leads to gender imbalance of the remaining teachers in my school as all those who are transferred here are females (10 of them), except for one from Cameron Highlands, while those who got away from this school are more balanced (6 females, 7 males). It is hard to put the male teachers to all the important tasks, therefore female teachers have to be more independent when given the task to head some departments. Again, I am given the job as the ICT teacher, as well as the manager of the students' data system (SMM).

First Day of School

Today is the first day of school in Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah. Without the business of registration, which was done yesterday, the PNP should have started. I am given the task to teach English to Form 5 Tekun, 5 Prestij (the last of all the form 5 classes), 4 Sejahtera and 2 Sejahtera. I am also given one Moral class. I never teach Moral before, but there is always the first step for everything. When I was in class 5 Tekun, one officer from the JPN came to observe. I was not shocked, as it was already told in the first meeting yesterday that there will be somebody to ensure that classes starts on the first day of school. He sat at the back for a while, took a picture of me teaching with his digital camera, looked at my lesson plan, then got out through the back door after waving to me to go on with my lesson. Luckily I finished writing my lesson plan, or else there will be talking to after that. Lesson plan is the most important thing to teachers, failing which could be fined for a sum of RM500 - RM5000.

First Teachers' Meeting and Registration of Form 1 Students

Today, Form 1 students from feeder schools registered their names. There are 9 classes opened for the new students namely 1 Khas, 1 Teguh, 1 Iltizam, 1 Proaktif, 1 Sejahtera, 1 Tekun, 1 Ikhlas, 1 Prestij and also 1 Sukma. After that, they went to the 4th floor to take the textbooks. This is to ensure that tomorrow's PNP will be smooth as silk. It is refreshing to look at those innocent faces, who are new to the surroundings, wearing their new school uniforms to the school.

After the registration, there was a meeting for all the teachers where the principal and all the senior assistants gave their speeches. It was told that 5 of our students got 8As in their PMR. This is a school record! My mentee only got 7As and a B for Sejarah. Nevertheless, those students already made our school proud. In this meeting also all the teachers got their teaching schedules and school tasks. I was assigned to teach English for Form 2, Form 4 and Form 5 students, together with a Form 2 Pendidikan Moral class. Tonight, I have to prepare my first lesson plan.