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.