Good at English = Able to Make $$ (And who wouldn't want that?) :)

English Language has "power"! It has great economical value and thus, it is of utmost importance that everyone aims to master English Language. Pay close attention to it and actually LEARN IT -- look up the dictionary when you come across unfamiliar words, learn new vocabulary, check out how words are accurately pronounced, read more books (especially literary texts)... Immerse yourself in the beauty and wonder of the English Language and you will benefit in more ways than one. One of the ways is that you get to make a living! :) How COOL IS THIS? :) :) *beams*

Nowadays, there are plenty of jobs that allow you to work from home. Here is one that you can apply for in Singapore:

Writer/Online Content Editor/Blogger 

Writing is a critical skill that 99% of people are capable of doing, but only about 20% of people actually enjoy doing it (or do it well for that matter). If you’ve got a passion for writing and have the flexibility to cover a broad range of topics, you can definitely land a writing job that doesn’t require you sit at a desk all day.

On the upside, you have the freedom to write from the comfort of your own home without dealing with the horrible morning commute or prison-like offices. On the downside, you really need to stay on top of tight deadlines. Otherwise, you might not be a work-at-home writer for long.

Requirements: Varies, as some jobs might not care about education level, while others will require a degree and several years of working experience. But one requirement most writing jobs have in common is that you should write proficiently in English.

Skills: Varies, as some jobs require content management system (CMS) experience, search engine optimization (SEO) experience, knowledge of a foreign language, etc.

Salary: Varies, as some jobs might pay you on an hourly basis ($5-$15) or a monthly salary ($1,000-$3,000+).

Source: http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/3-jobs-actually-let-home-160000113.html (All information is credited to the original writer and the website stated. All information is used respectfully.) 

100 Books Everyone Should Read Before They Die

By Megan Willett | Business Insider – Mon, Feb 17, 2014 7:20 PM SGThttp://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/100-books-everyone-read-die-112000951.html 
The information found here is taken from the above webpage and the author is Megan Willett. Information is taken to be shared respectfully. No intention of copyright infringement. All rights go to the original websites and author(s). 

Amazon book editors have just released a list of their 100 Books To Read In A Lifetime.

Many of the books are 20th century classics or recent bestsellers — the oldest book on the list is Jane Austen's 1813 masterpiece "Pride and Prejudice." It also spanned multiple genres, with adult fiction, nonfiction, children's, and young adult novels such as "The Hunger Games" and "Harry Potter" making the list.

“With 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime, we set out to build a roadmap of a literary life without making it feel like a homework assignment,” Sara Nelson, Editorial Director of Print and Kindle Books at Amazon, said in a press release. “Over many months, the team passionately debated and defended the books we wanted on this list. In other words, we applied plenty of the bookish equivalent of elbow-grease, and we can’t wait to hear what customers have to say about our final picks.”

Check out the final list of books in alphabetical order below.

1. "1984" by George Orwell
2. "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking
3. "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers
4. "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah
5. "A Series of Unfortunate Events #1: The Bad Beginning: The Short-Lived Edition" by Lemony Snicket
6. "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle
7. "Alice Munro: Selected Stories" by Alice Munro
8. "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll
9. "All the President's Men" by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
10. "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt
11. "Are You There, God? It's me, Margaret" by Judy Blume
12. "Bel Canto" by Ann Patchett
13. "Beloved" by Toni Morrison
14. "Born To Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" by Christopher McDougall
15. "Breath, Eyes, Memory" by Edwidge Danticat
16. "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
17. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl
18. "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White
19. "Cutting For Stone" by Abraham Verghese
20. "Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead" by Brene Brown
21. "Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 1" by Jeff Kinney
22. "Dune" by Frank Herbert
23. "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
24. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream"by Hunter S. Thompson
25. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn
26. "Goodnight Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown
27. "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
28. "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
29. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling
30. "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
31. "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri
32. "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison
33. "Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth" by Chris Ware
34. "Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdain
35. "Life After Life" by Kate Atkinson
36. "Little House on the Prairie" by Laura Ingalls Wilder
37. "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov
38. "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
39. "Love Medicine" by Louise Erdrich
40. "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl
41. "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris
42. "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides
43. "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie
44. "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis
45. "Of Human Bondage" by W. Somerset Maugham
46. "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac
47. "Out of Africa" by Isak Dinesen
48. "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi
49. "Portnoy's Complaint" by Philip Roth
50. "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
51. "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
52. "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
53. "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin
54. "The Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton
55. "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon
56. "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
57. "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak
58. "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz
59. "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger
60. "The Color of Water" by James McBride
61. "The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen
62. "The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America" by Erik Larson
63. "The Diary of Anne Frank" by Anne Frank
64. "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green
65. "The Giver" by Lois Lowry
66. "The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman
67. "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
68. "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
69. "The House At Pooh Corner" by A. A. Milne
70. "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
71. "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
72. "The Liars' Club: A Memoir" by Mary Karr
73. "The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1)" by Rick Riordan
74. "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
75. "The Long Goodbye" by Raymond Chandler
76. "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11" by Lawrence Wright
77. "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien
78. "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales" by Oliver Sacks
79. "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" by Michael Pollan
80. "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster
81. "The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel" by Barbara Kingsolver
82. "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York" by Robert A. Caro
83. "The Right Stuff" by Tom Wolfe
84. "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
85. "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
86. "The Shining" by Stephen King
87. "The Stranger" by Albert Camus
88. "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
89. "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
90. "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle
91. "The Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame
92. "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel" by Haruki Murakami
93. "The World According to Garp" by John Irving
94. "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion
95. "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe
96. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
97. "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption" by Laura Hillenbrand
98. "Valley of the Dolls" by Jacqueline Susann
99. "Where the Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silverstein
100. "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak

What an IMPRESSIVE list! How many of these books have you read? :) I'm pleased to find out that I've read quite a few of them and now, I intend to get my hands on a few more of these classics as well as 'must-reads'. Have fun diving into the wonderful world of books where your imagination is nourished and can take flight! :) 

Truly Awesome! Truly Happy!

As a teacher, I am always truly delighted when my students tell me that they did well in their examinations! Such good news never fails to make me squeal in pure joy! :) *beams at my students who have tried their utmost* 

I am proud to announce the stellar results of Secondary 4 (2013) [O Level]. 

Class of 10 Students: 2 - A1s, 1 - A2 and 7 - B3s! 

Private Student A: A1 for English and B3 for Combined Humanities (English Literature and Social Studies). 

Private Student B (N Level): A2 for English and B3 for Combined Humanities (English Literature and Social Studies). 

I thought that a few of them deserved better scores and expected a few more A1s and A2s but I know that all the students gave their all in the examinations and I have to applaud all of them for their effort! Good job!! :) 

Additionally, other than doing well for English Language (which is compulsory in the computation of L1B5), they did well on the whole! *cheers*

Their O level scores range from an impressive 7 points to a very good score of 16 points. They are off to a fabulous new chapter of their lives as either JC students or POLY students and I sincerely wish them all the best in all their endeavours and new adventures! Rock on!! :) 

What Makes Me SMILE Before I Fall Fast Asleep

Belated post to congratulate my students who took their Primary School Leaving Examinations in 2013. 

Primary 6 (2013) Class of 8 Students: 2A*s, 5As, 1B (for English Language) 

Primary 6 (Private Student A): A* for English

Primary 6 (Private Student B): A for English (Should be a very high A, because the student passed with beautiful flying colours!) 

Congratulations my Primary 6 cohort from 2013!! :) Well Done!! 

Firmly Flexible & Flexibly Firm

I LOVE OXYMORONS!

oxymoron:
(noun) a figure of speech or expressed idea in which apparently contradictory terms appear on conjunction. 

As a teacher and a parent, I have come to realise the importance and need to be Firmly Flexible and Flexibly Firm. 

As much as we, teachers and parents, want to give students and children the leeway and freedom to do what they want, when they want to but youngsters are youngsters and they need boundaries. While being firm with them, we need to bear in mind that there are times where flexibility is definitely required and should be 'executed'. 

Let me know what you think about being Firm and yet, Flexible :) as well as Flexible and yet, Firm. 

Such a BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL Dress!

A combination of sky blue, tiffany blue and sea blue were specially selected for they complement Dawn’s fair skin well. This dreamy gown was fully handcrafted to achieve the natural textures of roses and waves, as well as seamlessly blend all 3 shades of blue. 

Read more about it at www.jessicacindy.com/journal

[All credits to JESSICACINDY. Pictures and information belong to original creator - JESSICACINDY. Please note that images and text above are not mine. Please refer to original site.] 

I received this email from JESSICACINDY and immediately, I was AWED by the breath-taking sight of this absolutely gorgeous creation! I just had to share it with one and all!

Isn't this dreamy confection one of the most beautiful dresses ever? :) I would totally love to wear it for a grand occasion! WOW! :) Plus, blue is my favourite colour too! Sweet! 

a word that i love

There are countless words out there that I love because they have such interesting / lovely / special / cute... meanings and connotations. One word in particular that I love is "painkiller". 

I have super low threshold of pain and firmly disbelieve in suffering, what I consider, unnecessarily. When there is pain, KILL it. Kill it fast! Now, you tell me, how apt is the word "painKILLER" when it comes to murdering that horrid, pulsating, hair-wrenching, tears-coursing-down-face-uncontrollably PAIN? 

Painkillers are AMAZING! 

Before popping a painkiller or two or three...: I'm going to KILL myself! Argh! *Rolls on the floor in complete mind-blowing agony*

After popping a painkiller or two or three or more...: Ahhh... Am I in heaven or what? *slurs giddily* 

PAINKILLERS for you? Oh yes, please!!!