A little update (edit: not so little after all)

It's almost one week into the new job and I must say it's been positive so far. I haven't starting lecturing yet, though; it's 2 weeks to the start of the term and I have to make use of this short period to familiarize myself with the 3 modules that I'm supposed to teach for the first half of 2005.

The school that I'm teaching at is a private one, i.e. for-profit. Now that I'm inside, it's interesting to see how tightly run the outfit is, compared to a government-funded entity. The manpower is really lean - a total of only 30 full-time staff (including admin staff but excluding the part-time and free-lance lecturers). The admin staff strike me as smart and focussed - a number of them are involved in business development, typically short professional courses that are aimed at the financial sector.

In the organization, other lecturers and myself alike - we're like the service providers. This is primarily a service organization (although it sells textbooks too), and it's simply: education as a business. But my work mentor couldn't stress enough the importance of respecting education as a profession...adhering to strict standards in the quality of the teaching, which is also thinking long-term for the business anyway, instead of achieving short-term success. I like that.

I'm grateful for my work mentor. He's been a very good source of assurance. From the way he has guided me so far, I can see why he has been such a successful lecturer with the students. And gosh, I'm so glad all the lecturers share notes with each other, with no qualms. The mindset is, if these are good notes, share. If it helps the students, share. Cos then it helps the bottomline too. Maybe it's not so bad that education is a business after all.

I'd like to come back and read what I just wrote, maybe 2-3 months from now. I hope this level of enthusiasm stays on with me. I take my work mentor and other lecturer colleagues as good indications of how that could be possible.

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2 days to The Worst DVD! (Gosh, that does sound weird, ain't it? hahaa.. *turns serious* of course i hope it doens't live up to its name...*breaks into a grin again*) Hope the Xmas mail won't delay it too much. I'd be happy if it reaches me before Xmas, but if it doesn't, at least before the New Year!

Faye's Live DVD is wonderful. As per most Taiwan/HK DVDs, the screen clarity and features are nothing to shout about. But it's seeing Faye and the band hem it up live - that's what makes my day! KC and i were in the DVD! O_o; It's scary. There was this one shot of us which I keep wishing they never took.

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It's frustrating but I'm not able to complete the Japan Oct/Nov page by 22 Dec, which was the date I wanted to put it up -- complete. Nonetheless, I think I'll still go ahead with launching it on 22 Dec, except that the trip journal will only be until Day 4. Looks like it's suffering the same fate as the Taiwan Sept page...=_=;

And also from now on I won't be announcing any new updates for the mucc page. People who are interested can check that page periodically.. I figured people who aren't interested in mucc won't go in anyway, which is cool.

Don't really know what it is about having a blog that spurs me on to continue like this... I guess I'm glad there are people who actually do come visit this blog. Thanks for listening. m(_ _)m