Wednesday, January 27, 2010

the 1st anniversary and teaching

25th january marked the 1st anniversary of my mother's passing. though the thought of it makes me glum, i can't help but think that Allah has also given my family joy, because my close niece Gina gave birth to a baby girl on the same day.

because of the anniversary, we held a tahlil on saturday night at abg zaki's house. the food was superb, since he catered from Al-Rawshah. we had mutton and chicken mundy rice that night, which was not good news for those who have high cholesterol level. the theme of the main meal might be arabic, but the dessert was western influenced - since intan was trained in London, so we had tiers of profiteroles (cream puffs) and tartlets, while janna made english trifle.

there are times when i think of my mother, but i don't feel as sad as before. yes, the death of our parents will affect us in the most profound way, but truthfully speaking, we should also celebrate life. at the time i'm thinking of this, the image of my 4 month old grandnephew Aidil comes to my mind - a sweet-natured baby that just melts anyone's heart.

in school too, though i'm busy and lamenting the amount of work to be done with no-compromise deadlines (and still frustrated with the amount of work given in an any typical wilayah school), i find joy in teaching the students. i'm grateful for my head of panel who understands that it is not easy to "fall" from teaching the upper forms to the lower forms. she gave me form 2 classes, and one of them is the best class. i'm happy to be able to teach them the way i taught in SS. and i know they're happy too, judging from the enthusiastic response after i taught them how to make their essays interesting. good students always love challenges. and i'm happy to oblige them. the other two classes are okay, and i also teach the classes which have slow learners. it's very challenging too, when 3/4 of the class can read and the other 1/4 can't really understand what you're saying or what they're reading. which is why i told my head of panel that i'm conducting a personal project - a reading programme. my students will read books according to their level of proficiency, which i hope in time will help to speed up their reading, expand their vocabulary and to have the confidence to speak.

sounds easy? not really. but i know that i'm born to be an educator, and so i will enlighten the young ones's minds.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Busy n busier

this week has been the busiest for me, until it affected me. i'm down with fever, and even though there are tonnes of work to be done (literally) i had to take an MC or drop dead at school (not literally i hope). plus, anyone who hears my voice knows that i'm sick.

i was on the verge of breaking down during the course yesterday, but i had to force my body to wait just a bit longer since i had to get all the necessary information before we conduct the in-house training for the other english teachers at school.

that's just 1 worry. there's the cross country race tomorrow. i'm the team manager since i'm the ketua rumah. how am i supposed to call the little ones if i cant shout? then there's the SMM where i've to key in the students information. which obviously i can't do now that i'm sick. that's supposed to be due on tuesday.

i'm tired of doing the clerical work. in fact, i think there's a lot of clerical work to be done in school compared to the actual teaching. so why are we called teachers in the first place?


Thursday, January 14, 2010

The Afternoon Session

the migration from the morning to the afternoon session is not that simple.

you have to be prepared mentally and re-adjust all your routines. i was just about to do that when all the other "duties" beckoned and forced me to forgo my gym visits. so my schedule went haywire. not to mention i also went haywire.

i'm head of one of the sports house (hate it!) and the teachers in my house were telling me to do this and that. the last thing i wanted to do was to go to school as early as 8am... you have to remember by the time i leave school, it'll be close to 7pm.

i'm also the treasurer for the kelab guru. the president of the club was smirking last year when he distributed the ballots for this year's committee, since he was positive i would make it to the committee. it irritated me to see his smirk, because in my 12 year service i've been in the committee of kelab guru 3 times (one of the presidents died while in service), and plus this year, it's my 4th. and by the way, i'm hopeless with numbers. they must be daft for choosing me as the treasurer. and the responsibilities of the treasurer at my school is a lot!

so i went and still go through the days in a daze. too many things to do.

on the bright side though, the teaching is okay, because i'm teaching the younger kids. but that also means i've to bear with their childish antics. the first class is a reminiscent of SS students and i'm so thankful for my head of panel for slotting that class for me. but the rest, well...that's a different story.

in summary, surviving, but wishing that i could be teaching somewhere else.