Typical Week at School...and a Personal Revelation
So this week at school was pretty typical. I was completely exhausted and overwhelmed on Monday, but with a tough schedule of four classes that day time flew by. These past few weeks have also been a little more enjoyable because I'm trying to teach the kids the Cup Song for my performance for the Teacher's Day in May. I figure the Cup Song is a good choice because, 1) it is easy to teach, 2) it is active and the student's enjoy doing it, and 3) I don't have to do anything for the performance (theoretically that is). It seems that in Malaysia singing and performing is the norm, even if you are bad. That is well and fine for them, but I don't really play that game. So The Cup song is a logical choice for me. Plus the students are really loving it. There are a few who are really excelling at it, and I can tell they get frustrated when we go slow and I have to teach the other students, but hopefully in a week or two everyone will be caught up and at a similar level. So far I have taught it to all my ELPS groups after school, including the Form 5 group. In fact, many new students are coming to the groups just to learn the song and movements, which is great. The more students I am able to involve, the better the performance will be. I have also taught the Form 6 class, and hopefully with them involved they will help the younger students take it a little more seriously and amp up the prestige a little...at least that is what I'm hoping.
We also had our first ever movie night at my school, and it was a wonderful success. We had a little scare with Rozita's computer not being able to read the DVD, but we were able to borrow another teacher's computer and use that for the night. For the movie, we showed Wall-E, which about half of the students had seen. I was afraid it would be a little too...child-ish for some of the students, but about 50 attended and they all laughed at the right places and seemed to enjoy it. At the end of the movie I asked some trivia questions, and the first student to answer correctly got a package of chocolate chip cookies. Only a few of the students were able to answer correctly, but they were rewarded. One student, Albar, is quickly becoming my favorite. He is super quiet, and one of the younger students, but he has a quiet determinism to him that reminds me of myself. He was able to answer one of the questions correctly, and I was definitely glad to give him a cookie for that. For the next movie night I'm thinking of showing a film that may be a little less well-known, like Madagascar. There are a lot of films I'd really love to show them, like Hair Spray, but things are so strict here I'm not sure if that would be considered appropriate. Either way, I have plenty of cartoon movies to last the whole time I'm here, assuming we only do one Movie Night a month.
This weekend I also had my first experience going to another ETA's English Camp. I traveled to Kuantan, which is literally half an hour away, and went to Mark's first English Camp. It was actually pretty fun, and definitely an eye opening experience in more ways than one. Firstly, I stayed at Mark and Adeb's apartment Friday night, with Stephanie and Cassie, who are two other ETAs. Within the first few minutes I could quickly tell that Adeb and Stephanie had something more than friendship going on- she was staying in his room and both her and Cassie seemed to be very familiar with that apartment. In fact, Cassie (who I really do like), said they basically come here every other weekend. She seems very nice and I really have no trouble talking to her at all. Stephanie on the other hand, intimidates me greatly. I'm not sure if it's because I get the vibe that deep down she really doesn't like me, or if it's because she annoyed the crap out of me during orientation. Either way I'm not comfortable around her and I admit that I actively try to avoid her as much as possibly. She's one of those cool alternative girls that I can spot in an instant, and acts, to me, as if she is above everyone else. Cassie is also one of those cool alternative girls, but she is very chill and down to Earth, and puts me at ease.
Enough of that...the camp itself was pretty laid back and relaxed. There were four stations in the morning, two before snack and two after. I was in charge of a game called traffic jam, where students are lined up facing each other with one empty spot in the middle. Students in both groups have to make it to the opposite side of the line by jumping another player to an empty spot or by moving to an empty spot in front of them. The catch is that a player can only move forwards and they cannot jump more than one player at a time. Thankfully Mark was able to explain it to me the night before and show me the pattern, and I think I did an alright job of helping his students through it. The English level of his students was actually pretty high compared to what I'm used to, so it was a nice change of pace. Also along those lines, being able to observe his students and compare them to mine was very interesting. Overall his school has a lot more diversity than mine, and again the English levels are phenomenal. Another glaring difference is how pious or conservative his students are with each other and with the teachers and other ETAs. Most of his students came to school with pretty relaxed clothing, some skateboards, and instruments. And when the students left, a lot of the Muslim boys shook my hand...which was definitely a surprise. Overall, I really enjoyed his students and being able to interact with them. It is amazing how different they are from my students, and they live less than an hour away from each other.
Another observation I made while at the camp was some type of personal revelation. I am not ashamed to say that I am sick of constantly being the awkward person who is the loner of every group I am in. All the other ETAs at the camp were dancing or playing instruments, or even playing sports with the kids or with each other. I don't like to dance around others I'm not comfortable with, I don't play an instrument, and I hate sports. Why am I constantly surrounded by others who seem to be so worldly and talented, while I'm stuck sitting on the side lines watching other people be the center of attention. And it's not like I want to be the center of attention...I'm just tired of watching other people be so good and happy at being the center of attention. One saving grace is that only a handful of the students there were even remotely interested in dancing or playing an instrument, and like me just looked on in either boredom or envy. Eventually I got tired of watching and not being included, so I found some water bottles and some bored students and started teaching them the Cup Song, cause that's the only thing I seem to be good at. It was also painfully obvious how cliquey the other ETAs are with each other, and how easily they seem to be able to converse with each other. I don't think I have ever been that way- I'm pretty great at small talk, but once the topics of the weather run out, I'm pretty much silent unless thrown a life line.
Towards the end of the camp a few of the ETAs decided they wanted to go to a beach and possibly rent a little house for the night, and Mark was really nice to invite me along (he was probably the only one to think of it), and I first I said I'd love to go- I told myself to get outside of my comfort zone and do something spontaneous for once. But who am I kidding- about an hour later I was so tired of being around people that I just wanted to go home and relax. So that's what I did. And it's wonderful to come back to a roommate who is basically like me in a lot of the ways that matter. We're perfectly content to just sit quietly together working on our own thing. Thank God I don't have a roommate like Cassie or Stephanie who are constantly on the go and need to be around other people. Going away like that, even if it's just for a day, really makes me appreciate my situation and how well everything worked out for me so far.
We also had our first ever movie night at my school, and it was a wonderful success. We had a little scare with Rozita's computer not being able to read the DVD, but we were able to borrow another teacher's computer and use that for the night. For the movie, we showed Wall-E, which about half of the students had seen. I was afraid it would be a little too...child-ish for some of the students, but about 50 attended and they all laughed at the right places and seemed to enjoy it. At the end of the movie I asked some trivia questions, and the first student to answer correctly got a package of chocolate chip cookies. Only a few of the students were able to answer correctly, but they were rewarded. One student, Albar, is quickly becoming my favorite. He is super quiet, and one of the younger students, but he has a quiet determinism to him that reminds me of myself. He was able to answer one of the questions correctly, and I was definitely glad to give him a cookie for that. For the next movie night I'm thinking of showing a film that may be a little less well-known, like Madagascar. There are a lot of films I'd really love to show them, like Hair Spray, but things are so strict here I'm not sure if that would be considered appropriate. Either way, I have plenty of cartoon movies to last the whole time I'm here, assuming we only do one Movie Night a month.
This weekend I also had my first experience going to another ETA's English Camp. I traveled to Kuantan, which is literally half an hour away, and went to Mark's first English Camp. It was actually pretty fun, and definitely an eye opening experience in more ways than one. Firstly, I stayed at Mark and Adeb's apartment Friday night, with Stephanie and Cassie, who are two other ETAs. Within the first few minutes I could quickly tell that Adeb and Stephanie had something more than friendship going on- she was staying in his room and both her and Cassie seemed to be very familiar with that apartment. In fact, Cassie (who I really do like), said they basically come here every other weekend. She seems very nice and I really have no trouble talking to her at all. Stephanie on the other hand, intimidates me greatly. I'm not sure if it's because I get the vibe that deep down she really doesn't like me, or if it's because she annoyed the crap out of me during orientation. Either way I'm not comfortable around her and I admit that I actively try to avoid her as much as possibly. She's one of those cool alternative girls that I can spot in an instant, and acts, to me, as if she is above everyone else. Cassie is also one of those cool alternative girls, but she is very chill and down to Earth, and puts me at ease.
Enough of that...the camp itself was pretty laid back and relaxed. There were four stations in the morning, two before snack and two after. I was in charge of a game called traffic jam, where students are lined up facing each other with one empty spot in the middle. Students in both groups have to make it to the opposite side of the line by jumping another player to an empty spot or by moving to an empty spot in front of them. The catch is that a player can only move forwards and they cannot jump more than one player at a time. Thankfully Mark was able to explain it to me the night before and show me the pattern, and I think I did an alright job of helping his students through it. The English level of his students was actually pretty high compared to what I'm used to, so it was a nice change of pace. Also along those lines, being able to observe his students and compare them to mine was very interesting. Overall his school has a lot more diversity than mine, and again the English levels are phenomenal. Another glaring difference is how pious or conservative his students are with each other and with the teachers and other ETAs. Most of his students came to school with pretty relaxed clothing, some skateboards, and instruments. And when the students left, a lot of the Muslim boys shook my hand...which was definitely a surprise. Overall, I really enjoyed his students and being able to interact with them. It is amazing how different they are from my students, and they live less than an hour away from each other.
Another observation I made while at the camp was some type of personal revelation. I am not ashamed to say that I am sick of constantly being the awkward person who is the loner of every group I am in. All the other ETAs at the camp were dancing or playing instruments, or even playing sports with the kids or with each other. I don't like to dance around others I'm not comfortable with, I don't play an instrument, and I hate sports. Why am I constantly surrounded by others who seem to be so worldly and talented, while I'm stuck sitting on the side lines watching other people be the center of attention. And it's not like I want to be the center of attention...I'm just tired of watching other people be so good and happy at being the center of attention. One saving grace is that only a handful of the students there were even remotely interested in dancing or playing an instrument, and like me just looked on in either boredom or envy. Eventually I got tired of watching and not being included, so I found some water bottles and some bored students and started teaching them the Cup Song, cause that's the only thing I seem to be good at. It was also painfully obvious how cliquey the other ETAs are with each other, and how easily they seem to be able to converse with each other. I don't think I have ever been that way- I'm pretty great at small talk, but once the topics of the weather run out, I'm pretty much silent unless thrown a life line.
Towards the end of the camp a few of the ETAs decided they wanted to go to a beach and possibly rent a little house for the night, and Mark was really nice to invite me along (he was probably the only one to think of it), and I first I said I'd love to go- I told myself to get outside of my comfort zone and do something spontaneous for once. But who am I kidding- about an hour later I was so tired of being around people that I just wanted to go home and relax. So that's what I did. And it's wonderful to come back to a roommate who is basically like me in a lot of the ways that matter. We're perfectly content to just sit quietly together working on our own thing. Thank God I don't have a roommate like Cassie or Stephanie who are constantly on the go and need to be around other people. Going away like that, even if it's just for a day, really makes me appreciate my situation and how well everything worked out for me so far.