Beamish Museum, Durham: A living museum

It was summer 2010.   Kam had the courage to drive an old red Nissan owned by one of our friends to Beamish Museum.  It took us around 45 minutes from Bowburn.  We had to pay GBP13 per entry.  Since we were Durham University students, we thought that we could get a discount, but, nope.  No exception here.

When I was in Durham, I went to several museums in Bath, Bristol and Nottingham and castles cum museum like the Edinburgh castle.  But, nothing prepared us when we went to Beamish museum.  It was surreal.  The staff who work there wear costumes and whatsnot.  It is a nice experience to be able to go to an open space museum.  I took many pictures but unfortunately, I wore something which was not shari’ah compliant 😀 

There you go, I only post one picture here.  When we took this picture, the three of us was at this primary-cum-secondary school.  They used wooden-slab and chalk to write, instead of using paper based exercise book.  Beamish was an old coal mine.  So, it has an actual village equipped with facilities like a church, shops, a bank, living quarters for the workers and such.  Summer is the best time to come here if the weather is nice.  We went there when the weather was nice and perfect for summer (i.e. no rain).  So, we had a blast!  This was the year before Kam and Fiqah finished their study.  

 

Using song to teach grammar_Part 1

When I did my Latihan Ikhtisas, I used songs to teach grammar.  It is normal in other schools, but in my school, the teachers are skeptical to use English songs to teach grammar.  Why?  This is a school which emphasises on religious studies.  But, what a heck! 

This is not a love song.  This song is famous (well, coincidentally, the movie “Bohemian Rhapsody” was premiering at the time when I taught the form 4 using this song).   Alhamdulillah I am not the typical teacher and they never consider me as one so when I did something “unusual”, the GPK and principal just let me off the hook   😀 That’s the perk of being a lecturer-cum-teacher at school.   

But, I am not the Miss Goody-Two-Shoes teacher.  So, I did use a breakup song and “motivational cum uplifting” song to teach grammar.  😀 .  

When will it end? Please do something. People are suffering

It was raining heavily at my place in the late afternoon yesterday.  I could not help myself from thinking about my aunt and cousins in Pasir Gudang.  Are they ok?  My aunt decides to stay for a while with one of her daughters at Larkin.  One of my cousins went back to Kluang (to take care of his mom) with his wife and a son. 

But how about the rest of residents who could not have any option to move or stay away from Pasir Gudang area due to various reasons?  From my observation (I am not an expert in this though), the air quality becomes worsen every time there is rain.  I am not blaming the rain.  I am blaming the people who cause this pollution due to their reckless act.  The rain is Allah’s blessing to show how bad things are than it is assumed.  It is bad.  Really bad.  

When they closed the schools last week, it was reported that only 16 schools were ordered to close.  Well, that’s not the case.  The school that I went for my Latihan Ikhtisas also was instructed to be closed.  I hope things are getting better.