I’ve been really busy over the past few months! Sorry for the lack of updates; work has been relentless yet rewarding. Here’s an overview of some of the things that have happened in the past few months:
Perhaps the most exciting development this year for me is that I have started to conduct Singapore Math Olympiad training workshops! I’m really grateful for the opportunities to provide Olympiad coaching for interested students at Eunoia Junior College and Hwa Chong International School. Not only is this an chance to go back to school to teach students, without having to commit to it as a full time job, but it also allows me to teach something that is a lot more exciting than the usual school mathematics curriculum, and gives me free reign to scope my syllabus and design my materials as I want them, and of course it gives me a little bit of side income apart from private tuition as well. Olympiad lessons with the two schools have currently come to a close, and I will discuss more about my overall experience in detail in another blog which I would (hopefully!) write soon.
Tuition slots have been filling up as well. I have opened 8 slots for this year before the Math Olympiad season, and all 8 slots have been filled up since March. I have kept my Thursday and Friday lesson slots closed for the past few months due to the hectic preparation for Olympiad lessons, but will once again be opening these two lesson slots up from the week of 10 May 2021 onwards. I need a couple of weeks of rest and recreational before I jump straight back to a full schedule!
I haven’t blogged about A Level results release yet, so here’s just a quick mention. Of course, as usual I had a wide range of results from my students. We got some As, of course! Particularly proud of one of my students who was a JC2 repeat student, having obtained C for H2 Math in the previous attempt, but this time round getting an A. Of course, I also have a couple of students who didn’t really perform up to what they really wanted. As a tutor, this never feels good, and I do reflect and try to make adjustments so that we avoid this situation as much as possible. From my follow-up with them, they still managed to get into a decent local university course though, so that’s the good thing!
On the personal front, as I have reached 35 years of age, I am now eligible to apply for resale HDB flats. I have been searching for flats on-and-off these few months, particularly something which I can both live in, be conducive for teaching tuition, not too inconvenient for public transport, yet priced reasonably. If I do purchase within these few months, I should be able to get things settled and move in by the end of the year. I may also consider to hold off the purchase for a while and focus on earning more dollars. Will update when there’s progress!
That’s more or less what happened over the past few months! I’ll be writing more about Olympiad teaching and other things hopefully soon, now that I have a bit more time to spare, so do come back and read next time.
ZhengMath 