met liming for our weekly dose of korean movies. haha april is korean movie month! so many good korean movies coming out :) The Art Of Seduction wasnt anything spectacular, but it was really funny. ha ha funny and that's good. plus, song il guk is completely charming! :)

you know, i think i've become completely addicted to my job now. it's scary, but i've somehow sailed into and past the 4th week of term 2 and it makes me very sad that there's only about 6 weeks left of this job.

i remember how it all started. liming and i were just playing around with the idea of becoming relief teachers because, according to her, the pay was pretty good. and i just happened to mention it to my mum and asked her to help me check my old primary school for any vacancies. and it just so happened that she had recently gotten in touch with the principal of skps who is so wonderful that she herself suggested i come and work there. i remember being relunctant. i didnt want to go to a whole new environment. i wasnt sure i really meant it when i said i wanted to try relief teaching. i wasnt sure i wanted to give up my newfound freedom and go back to early mornings and school days. i remember having to cancel a shopping trip to go for the VERY impromptu 'interview' with the principal. and in the span of 5 or 10 minutes, i was hired and very immediately asked to join in the work plan that was going on that very day. i remember the next three days of increduality, walking around the now familiar school grounds, trying to imagine the next six months. the utter displacement i felt sitting among the other teachers in staff meetings, thinking, omg i was just a student like two weeks ago and here i am planning lessons like a teacher. feeling completely lonely and unable to click with anyone in the staff, even though they are all really great and friendly people. and of course, breathing in a sigh of complete relief when xueying joined as well :)

then when the school year started. i remember the UTTER CHAOS. the meeting of the form class. the shock and horror at how big the class was and how noisy they could get and just how little control i had over them. the overflowing of admin stuff. learning that besides my own form class, which was already two handfuls, i had to take music and social studies for 5 other classes. watching my table overflow with books and worksheets that had to be marked.

the first month was the biggest emotional rollercoaster. i cried more in that month than i usually did in a single year. i wanted to quit like every day. but at the same time, i was building relationships with some wonderful kids, relationships i didnt even realise were so strong until the next month came around i was told of my change of duties. the second month saw me shedding alot of the work and responsibility and exchanging them for a much simpler job of co-teaching. when i first heard that, i was really upset, to say the least. it was pretty much them saying that i couldnt handle the job first given to me properly. but looking back, it was actually the truth. being a form teacher was more than i could handle. co-teaching worked so much better for me. i was able to give help individually to kids who really needed it. and the best part, i didnt have to deal with the discipline which i so suck at. heh.

third month came around, and there was yet another change. from form teacher to coteacher to internal relief teacher. every day, or sometimes week, i would be given a new timetable. in some sense i kind of like that. something new each time. and if i didnt work well with the class, well it would only be for a day. and i got a taste of teaching at every single level. from p1 to p6. from em1 classes to the em3 classes. from classroom teaching to PE (ugh).

and now, the fourth month. YET another change. now i triple task. while still being an internal relief and coteaching, i am also a regular art and music teacher. which so far, i think has been the best change. because there's an element of predictability and unpredictability in my school days now. haha

the past 3 and a half months have been such an experience. it's been both long yet fast. both a joy and a pain. is both something i wake up looking forward to and dreading at the same time. but in the end, i know i love everything about it. the school building. the students. the teachers. the office staff. the canteen vendors. the cleaners. basically everyone in the school (ok practically everyone). the classroom time. the meetings. the after school activities. the learning journeys. hanging out/eavesdropping/pigging out in the staffroom. the food (man i'm in love with the nasi lemak and char kway teow!). the trips to compasspoint. even the travelling to and fro. even the marking. even, and actually mostly, the complaining about it (haha). i think a great part of me wanting to be a teacher is because of this place. when i envision becoming a teacher, i envision becoming an skps teacher. that place has become such a sanctuary, such an escape for me, it really horrifies me that in less than two months i have to leave it and embark on a new journey in a new place as a new person.

so here i am, not even done with the job, and i'm missing it terribly. i dont want it to end. yet one reason why i like the job so much is because of it's temporality. i know, even though i feel like i want to be a teacher right now, what i really want is to continue in this wonderful situation of being a relief teacher while waiting to further my studies. being a part of this school as it is now, with the students and staff as it is RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT. i dont want the school, situation or people to change.

and this is just me. i get attached to things very much towards the end and obsess and miss it like crazy once it ends. bah this is so depressing. and shit that was long, i think i just spent an hour on this. =X