This Monday not too blue

Staff meeting was cancelled last Thursday so happy me went home after class for the Easter break. Time at home i.e. happy time always seems to fly by. I'm back here again in my personal hell after a 6 hour journey yesterday. 

Okay.

1. It's not that hellish anymore. Just gotta suck it up and live with it. I constantly remind myself how lucky I am to have a) a job, with the (partial) perks of a civil servant b) companions who feel equally reluctant about going to school each and every morning c) and those who also have not yet started doing their lesson plans hahaha.

2. Plus, not so happy days do also fly by. It's been more than a month. Within this month, I've gone home thrice, upgraded my data plan to 7GB, witnessed the going of the washing machine back to its owner, except I didn't actually witness it, they brought it away when I was home. Need to buy hand cream now, with writing on blackboard and handwashing added to my list of almost daily chores. 

Brought an avocado from home, woke up at 6, then 7, did my laundry, then made breakfast. BUT the avocado was too raw and it tasted bitter, so bitter that I wonder if it was set out with the mission to ruin my day. Stupid avocado. At least it was quite photogenic. Okay, forgiven.

Have a great day ahead while I wallow in my own sadness lol not really. I'm gonna finish watching The Originals and maybe grab a book, OR start doing lesson plans. 

 

And yeah, you'll probably see another photo similar to this appearing in my Instagram soon enough. Can't afford to look through each and every photo like I usually did but at least I can afford the luxury of uploading photos okay melody just stop you're getting long-winded 

Red pens: my holiday routine

If you're ready for the rants of a bored and boring English teacher currently having a holiday-is-gonna-end crisis. 

So most of the time I've been home marking papers, and constantly on my phone, using all the wifi I get to use. 

I have three classes worth of English papers to mark, and this morning I finally completed the Form 2 classes.

Have a look at their standard. It is that bad, so bad that I cannot even give any marks. Most of their marks fall in the range of below 20. 

I was so rudely waken up by reality. For all the lesson plannings and simulated teachings that I had gone through in uni, proficiency level was always intermediate. I never had any idea on how bad the weak could go. 

And as I moved on to the Form 4 class, I was half expecting something better. But no, out of the 23 students, 6 of them sent in blank papers. As for the rest, I'm still in the marking process, but many of them only copied the question, and that's it. 

I must admit I am facing a culture shock. Never in my life have I ever experienced this. Even the weaker classmates/students I have ever had made effort. But these students, they don't seem to care. Am I and are my generation and peers too results-oriented? I don't think that's the case. It's the attitude towards education. I can't believe I'm saying this. 

The teacher who passed me the papers told me it's gonna be easy go mark them, because most of them don't do it. True, it is so much easier and faster, but it is at the same time so saddening. 

I had wanted to choose option 1, I find it really easy to block out any good thoughts about the school and its students. I know this is bad, I'm still hating how this turned out to be my life for the moment, so much that I channel all my hatred and anger towards the innocent students. I know very well that it is very wrong and selfish of me. But option 2, am I ready for this challenge? Just thinking of it makes me exhausted.

On a sidenote, that moment when your students who supposedly do not care about exams and results have better handwriting than you do. Hahaha. Call me sifu cakar ayam.

Prank of the year

As I am typing this post, yours sincerely is sitting in a car, heading back to Kuching.

*UPDATE: now typing from home*

So yesterday morning, I reluctantly woke up, reluctantly prepared myself, reluctantly made myself my oat breakfast, reluctantly put on my baju kurung, and even more reluctantly went to the school. Punched in and we sat outside the office, waiting for someone to assign us some idiotic task, but it was decided we go back to the quarters at 8:30am if there was nothing to do.

As we walked into the office, one of the staff called us over and said: 

"Hari tu tak bagitau ke? You orang boleh cuti sudah. Jumaat nak bagitau tapi tak jumpa kamu," 

I know I should had been overwhelmed by happiness, but my first reaction was what the hell. Really? What's the purpose of a telephone? I couldn't help but feel mad at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. Did they think that we stay just next door? Is this their sick sense of humour? I was lucky enough to have my parents send me in as dad's working car is being sent to repair, another interim stays in Sarikei, near enough, but my roommate is from Miri. She took a bus from Miri the day before, mind you, it's about 10 hours, and RM60 per trip. Dahlah masih tak bagi gaji. *roll eyes till Pluto* 

Now where's the camera? 

Then, we went back to the quarters, packed and left for Kuching again. 

We kept telling ourselves there must be some silver lining behind this, so

1. The owner of the unit left her iron on, since Friday. Thank God I brought my roommate's bed over because parents were putting down in our room (I share a big master room with my roommate, the unit owner has moved out, so her room is empty). I cannot imagine if the iron was left on for the whole week. (SO SILVER RIGHT THIS LINING?)
2. I bought 2 bars of chocolate which were on sale, planning to bring them there, where I need as much artificial happiness as I can (not really exaggerating lol). BUT! Mummy left them in the fridge, so when I was unpacking, you can imagine how disappointed I was. Now that I get to go home again, I can bring the chocolates again! WHEEEE (ALSO QUITE SILVER!!)
3. Road trip with parents YAYYY. Also, food hunt in Sarikei, Sibu and Sri Aman.

Tomyam Big Prawn Noodles @ Glory Cafe, Sarikei, RM27

there were about 5 big prawns inside, all very fresh, and the tomyam soup was yummy!

Coconut Pudding @ Glory Cafe, RM7.50

A little pricey in my opinion, but it was so so good! I think I can finish one on my own.

Famous Satay Mee @ Sri Aman, RM I FORGOT haha

Daddy had this about 20-30 years ago when he went to work in Sri Aman, and couldn't forget the taste up until today. Some time ago, people started posting about it again on Facebook, and daddy had been wanting to try. Unfortunately, the original owner of the business is off on Mondays, so this was a bad replica of the original satay mee, which daddy had been missing all these years, lol. I am pretty sure we (or at least daddy and mummy) would be back again for it now that they have found the place. 

I have papers of 3 classes to mark. I am too lazy to start. Err. Happy holiday wheeee!

now in Kuching!

1. Melody

2. ChinaHouse

hope you managed to catch what I was trying to do up there. so yay! By now I've spent more than 24 hours at home. Today was a whirlwind of shopping (for food, and food, and things for me to cook more food), and eating, and spending time with my yaoyao. I am tired, so tired that I feel weak, and don't you know what they say? Sleep is for the weak.

BUT! Just let me blog from my laptop for once, after such a long time. Even the laptop is feeling refreshed, being connected to WiFi once again. As I mentioned before I actually have a lot to talk about the students, but I am so fed up with everything related to that school, and the thoughts that I have penned down during those moments of frustration are being left lying in my diary back in my bigass wardrobe in Meradong which has less than 10 sets of clothes. Therefore, here comes some crap. CHINAHOUSE IS NOW IN KUCHING AS WELL! Wheeee

those in the background are boxes used to store Chinese herbs, I wonder how long it took them to start up and collect all these vintage trinkets.

Identify the characteristics of a typical Instagram coffee-hop photo:

1. Daniel Wellington watch.

2. iPhone, preferably iPhone 5s and above.

3. Fancy cakes, and probably coffee with latte art.

Basically the whole photo is shouting attention seeking instagrammer. So I didn't upload this one lol. 

so we ordered the Tiramisu with alcohol, and another chocolate based cake, named Chocoholic.

"I hate the school" the Tiramisu is not as yummy as the one in Penang. Maybe because the first cut is always the deepest.

here I was, ChinaHouse, and Kuching.

I would definitely go again, there are SOOOO many cakes.

My Mondays are officially blue

Week three, work starts coming in. 

Finally got our timetable. Was supposed to teach PSK (sivik) which I had never taken, but got changed to become a PSV teacher instead. This change, I highly suspect, is due to my doodling in the staff room out of boredom, not complaining though. It might be fun right hahaha.

*please refer to the timetable above *

See the PLC every Monday? It is something like a panel meeting with all the English teachers. Sometimes, someone from the education department will come as well. They do many things like working out lesson plans together, observe lessons and some more that I'm yet to find out. And guess what, there will be surprise observations from the education department from time to time, and teachers are rated! So it's practical once again. #damn 

I have a lot more to say, but this was drafted yesterday, before my mood was violently ruined after being told we do not get holidays. At least not this midsem break. I was looking forward to it so much, it was almost the mere positivity and hope I was holiding on to. And now they say we have to come here every day, just to punch card. "Lepas tu you boleh lah pergi minum minum" NO. I DON'T WANT PERGI MINUM WHATEVER I JUST WANT A BREAK AWAY FROM THIS SHITHOLE.

IF I DON'T GET MY MID YEAR BREAK IN JUNE, THAT'S IT. I QUIT. 

I'm only compromising because of long holidays anyway. 

White face red lips

I'm I'm bored. So bored that I sempat go toilet take selfie. My only sit-in today is at 1040, at this rate, my phone might run out of battery by time I go to class. There's really nothing much to do, yet. 

Yea this is the toilet selfie whatever lol. Guess I'll just have to appreciate now that I can still be so free. I've gotten to know what I'll be teaching, English, Sivik and PJK (really?). 20 periods a week, guess it's acceptable. I kinda miss CHS, the students, the teachers, the whole environment. I guess I need quite some time to adapt to a less Chinese environment.

Anyway the above is just a very boring rant of mine. The purpose of this post is just for me to past time, and talk a lttle about Memoirs of a Geisha that I finally finished reading.

I actually brought this and Brida for some female self-empowerment or something lol. (Because I cannot let myself become contented with just this! I'm extremely afraid I'll become a boring person) But as I read the book, I realized how far it deviates from my initial assumption. Totally opened my eyes to another new culture and new world: the life and thoughts of a geisha. True that Sayuri lived almost her whole life waiting for a man, whom she would never have gotten if not for her persistence and the tough decision that lead to losing her very much good friend. But the suffering geishas had to undergo, not sure how much has it changed since then. Why didn't I buy this book any earlier?