After one week in school, I'm home again, which feels pretty darn good I tell you! After leaving school for so long, I never knew I'd hear my mum say those words again, "so, how was school?" but my answer.... it's pretty okay actually.
Yeah, in some ways, it was exactly like how I imagined it would be. Especially the kind of life I'd be living that's wrapped itself around school. Around work. Every day I go to school looking like a zombie panda bear in a head scarf. Most days I wake up at 7.30am, switch on my laptop and get straight to work. Then I iron my clothes, shower, get dressed, try cover up my zombie panda-ness, gather my lesson plans from the pile of mess on the floor, pray to God I don't forget anything, wait for my partner, and go to school. Then its relief, relief, class, relief, and home time. But we go buy dinner first, get a little lost finding our way back home, shower, dinner, and then its plop! back in front of the laptop planning tomorrows for lesson. Then I get tired and my brain just sort of shuts down and I'm in bed by 3.00am. The up again at 7.30 and it just starts all over again. my life on loop.
But I guess I'm still thankful for everything else. I've got the best school around here. The teachers are awfully nice and very helpful. One teacher, from one of the teachers whose class I'm taking over wont stop feeling sorry for me. Every time I see her, or bump into her, she'd say, "pity you..." or "kesian aaa." and then she'd tell me to relax. Neither one of the teachers whose classes I'm taking over even bother seeing my lesson plans before I teach. They say they trust me enough that I'll do a good job. The most they want it a less than 10 lines on the lesson to copy into their record books. I'm still pretty shy though and I'm finding it really tough to put myself out there and socialize with the other teachers. Though they're very nice and super friendly, I can't seem to follow much on what they're talking about. One time I was sitting in the canteen, they were talking about babies and breast pumps and whatnot and I was just sitting there, feeling like a lost puppy. But besides that, being socially awkward, I'm still very grateful to be here.
The students too are a reason why I like it here. They respect the teachers and I guess the only real problems I have are the noise level, and the difficulty in teaching students who have a hard time understanding English. Oh, I'm a little pissed that we only get one measly hour allocated for English per lesson. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH TIME! I swear! There's no point in whizzing through lessons if in the end, the students don't learn anything. Plus, I definitely need more time with the low proficiency students.
I've been given two classes to handle. One Form 1 class, and one Form 2 class. Both my classes are the smart classes so the students are pretty well behaved. Most are just reluctant to speak and have low confidence in presenting in front of their classmates. It's still early though so I think they just need time. My Form one class is awfully cute. I see they enjoy the lessons but they are still pretty low in proficiency but I hope to do something about that. They're smart, polite and, listen to what I say though they may not always understand everything but I'm sure they'll get better.
Some of the classes I have relief-ed for are pretty okay too. Most times they enjoy playing hangman with me. One class begged me to teach them. The students I have relief-ed for actually greet me, wave and say hi when they pass me in the hallways which makes me feel pretty glad that they don't hate me and still remember me even though I have just relief-ed them once only.
I think some of the funniest most memorable moments so far was when in one class, we played hangman and the class got 'hanged'. Turns out it was cz I spelt platipus. Adoiii... English teacher lah sangat! That was my first day on the job, first class too -_____-" Then there are those stairs heading to the Form 2 classes that I never fail to miss a step and nearly fall. OhGodno don't let me fall in school! The other day, this girl asked me after class, "cikgu, cikgu orang mana?" so I told her, "saya orang Shah Alam je.." and she was just like, Ohh.. so I asked, "Kenapa? saya ada rupa macam orang tempat mana-mana ke?" and she replied, "takdelah, ingatkan cikgu orang putih. Cikgu cakap macam org putih je." And I was just like "hahahahaha! taklah! saya melayu je" Haha! oh, one time forgot my roll of mahjung paper and left it the teachers room in the canteen and had to run around frantically looking for it. That was stupid. Then there was this one time, it was in the first class too that this kid said to me, "cikgu, cikgu comel lah" and I was (suddenly) deaf and she had to repeat it like 3 times before I actually got what she was saying, and then for the more embarrassing part, I kinda laughed sheepishly, like a fool cz I was embarrassed. Oh maluunyaaa!~
Well, that's all I have for one week of back to school. Tomorrow is Sunday, but I have to start planning my lessons for next week if I don't want to be a zombie panda again. Life is going to get tougher, I know. I'll be making bigger messes than this so I'm trying to get as organized as I can right now so that if things do go wrong somewhere along the way, I'll have something to fall back on. So, till then guys! tata!
at the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.
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words left unspoken.