Two of my students got HFMD - hand foot mouth disease, which is reputed to cause painful ulcers and blisters around the three named body parts.
HFMD is caused by the Coxsackie virus and Enterovirus 71. The throat and tonsils develop small ulcers while the hands, feet, and diaper area are affected by a rash with characteristic vesicles (very small blisters). This is usually a mild illness with the rash healing in 5 to 7 days. HFMD is spread from person to person by direct contact with the nasal discharge, saliva, faeces and fluid from the rash of an infected person. Both adults and children can be affected, but young children below five years are particularly susceptible.
I really didn't know that adults can get. My students' parent also got the disease, which she said is very very very painful. Ouch.Symptoms
* fever
* sore throat
* ulcers in the throat, mouth and tongue
* headache
* a rash with vesicles (small blisters-- 3-7 mm) on hands, feet and diaper area. The vesicles are typically on the palm side of the hands the sole side of the feet and very characteristic in appearance
* loss of appetite
Treatment
There is no specific treatment for the infection other than symptomatic relief of symptoms.
Treatment with antibiotics is not effective and is not indicated. Acetaminophen can be used to treat fever. Aspirin should not be used in viral illnesses in children under age 12 years.
Salt water mouth rinses (1/2 teaspoon of salt to 1 glass of warm water) may be soothing if the child is able to rinse without swallowing. Ensure an adequate fluid intake because swallowing may be painful. Extra fluid is needed when a fever is present.
Take care guys and girls! Don't use HFMD as an excuse to skip your mid years!
Mid year exams are coming close. For those taking the exams, PLEASE don't start last minute!
I think for some fortunate ones, there are still 1 or 2 weeks left before the great battle begins, so do start NOW and not later :) Haha, even though I said that, I still think mid year for graduating students isn't that impt. What's impt is the prelims and eventually the Os :)
Good luck!
ps. for those with questions, do ask freely at the kungfucats forum. To go there, just click on the little 'Forum' button below the header
So far, nobody posted any questions on my kungfucats forum. Quite discouraging, actually, as it's meant as a venue for students to ask me questions free-of-charge. I recognize that students spent quite a lot of their time on the internet and msn-ing each other, hence this kungfucats forum is set up for their benefit. So far, only one of my student, under my co-coercion, did post one question.
So what are the possible factors for this?
1. Lack of publicity
2. Lack of motivation as exams are far away
3. Can't be bothered
I hope less students will be no.3!
I realised that there is a lot of changes in the syllabus that I need to be aware of.
These are the ones that I'm aware of:1. For A.maths, there is a new chapter called plane geometry. It's reputed to be so difficult that even teachers have problems solving them. I looked through my student's notes and indeed...I agree with that statement.
2. Again, for A.maths, relative velocity chapter is finally removed. This had been a bugbear for many students and schools because it's very hard to teach it properly. In fact, I've heard of countless schools where this chapter is totally skipped as the teachers agreed that students 'can still get A if they didn't do this question'. Quite lame actually.
3. For E.maths, the syllabus became simpler and shorter. I was delighted at how many chapters are being taught in Sec 3 and Sec 4. Matrix had been re-introduced back into this subject, which is perfectly fine because of the simplicity of that topic. Some minute statistical things are added, like standard deviation and what I call the 'candlestick' chart. What's even more important is the introduction of calculators in both Paper 1 and Paper 2!
Nobody knows how good/bad that is, as the first batch of students taking this new syllabus sits for the O'lvl this year.
4. Transformation had been totally removed. From now on, no students will know the finer details of what is translation, enlargement, rotation, stretching and shearing. I had such good worksheets on these...haha, oh well :)
5. For chemistry, Contact process had been removed. I didn't see it anymore in recent textbooks. It's interesting why Haber process is still included and Contact process, which is the manufacture of sulphuric acid had been removed. Perhaps there is this equilibrium thingy that needs to be taught for the Haber process but not for Contact process. Anyway, not so much changes in this respect.
Well, looks like I need to pay more attention. Unlike other syllabus changes, this time the changes are more revolutionary, especially for the maths part.
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In addition, Locus is also thrown out of syllabus. That's sad because I've seen locus since my times!
Felt quite honoured after I received a phone call from someone :)
I was asked to teach in a private school called SSTC, which is preparatory school for O'lvls and probably A'lvls students, mostly from overseas. I couldn't accept the offer though, but nevertheless was honoured to be called because:
1. It testify my reputation as a shamelessly self-proclaimed good tutor
2. I highly suspected that my foreign student from Indonesia had recommended me, since he's from the same school too. Haha, I suppose that's another personal testimonial for me :)
Thks for all offer, though I'm too busy to take it up and had something bigger in mind than teaching that :) Keep you in the dark first :P
I was eating lunch at a coffeeshop near my home when I saw my old discipline master from my secondary school.
Okay, he's not that old, but he does look haggard - nothing like the figure of authority he used to cut back in my secondary school. In the past, my secondary school is a 'gangster' school where police cases and public canning are common events happening on a weekly basis. I still remembered the time when I went to school one day and got a big shock - my PE dept was in flames! The fire was huge and black smoke was coming out furiously from the department. Amazing huh? Apparently I learnt that someone from the school is the arsonist.
Back to that discipline master. I didn't went up to him to talk to him. Seriously I doubt he remembers me since I do not have any class under him. He did knew my brother though, so perhaps by 2nd degree of separation, he might faintly recall this low profile student. Having seen him aged visibly, I also came to realise that time really flies.
I thought about my own situation. Years later, would any of my student whom I saw on the streets bother to tap my shoulders and say hi?
