1. I knew Malaysia would help me get over my hyper-planning nature. At home I like to have some sense of control/planning things out, even though I like to think I can be laid back and flexible when plans change. Here, especially for now while I still don't have a moped or car of my own, I basically never know what I'll be doing when, or how long things will take. The biggest instance of that this week was the fact that the apartment I'll be sharing with my roommate, Kara, wasn't ready for us to move in on Thursday, when all the other Pahang ETAs moved into their new digs. For the past few days we've been staying at a rather surreal guest house called the Kim Kee Hotel. When our mentors (the teachers from our schools who are assigned to help us out) first drove us to the place, we stopped to do some essential provision shopping (read: to buy ingredients for PB&J, apples, etc. for breakfasts or lunches when we just can't stomach any more fried rice or fried noodle) to kill time until the 2 pm check-in. It's surprisingly hard to food shop in a foreign country when you know you won't have access to a fridge or any kitchen supplies for several days. With that under our belts, we headed for our guest house and pulled up to a lovely, sparkling clean place with brightly colored walls. My mentor talked to the receptionist in Bahasa Malaysia. She seemed concerned. He flipped through the reservation book. He seemed concerned. She stepped outside to call our landlady, who had booked the guest house for us as an apology for not having the apartment ready. Moments later, she returned to say that we were at the wrong guest house, and we sped down the street to the Kim Kee. It is less sparkling in appearance, to the say the least.
As I write this I'm seated on a worn, burgundy leather couch in the lobby, surrounded by cheap-looking wall-hangings with Chinese characters. According to my mentor, the place caters to Chinese and Chinese Malaysian salesmen who are here on business. This is confirmed by the mysterious emptiness of the lobby, save for the occasional guest who walks in and looks, frankly, terrified to see two white girls sprawled across the lobby furniture. The whole time that we've been here, we've seen a maximum of 4 other guests. Nonetheless, the parking lot gets oddly full at night, so someone must be staying here. As I said, Kara and I basically act as if we own the place, making the front lobby our hangout space--it's the only place you can get wifi. Our first day here, we were so exhausted that we just sat in the lobby watching the National Geographic channel, which appears to be the only English-language channel we get here. We watched a show called "Animal Autopsy: Elephant" and another one about animal attacks. Did you know that, besides humans, chimpanzees are supposedly the only animals that arrange organized, violent raids against other groups of their own species? Gentle reader, please don't ever have a pet chimp. The upshot of all this is that I ended up being a lot less settled and a lot less well-rested than I had hoped to be at my first day of school on Friday, but you win some, you lose some.
I found out today that we'll move into our real apartment tomorrow (Monday) night, so I'll have to say goodbye to the Kim Kee, keeping only my precious memories of its cold shower and odd decor.
Kim Kee lobby. Getting meta. There's my computer, which I'm currently using to write this blog, and the tea I finished long ago in the course of this monster post.
2. Throwing chronological order to the wind, I will now talk about my first day at school. It started around 7:15 am with a quick tour of the grounds. Malaysian schools have a very open set-up, thanks to the hot weather. Classroom doors and windows are always open, and the school is built around courtyards with gardens and fountains and very cheerful purple and green paint (a color combo that always makes me think of my dear friend Bridget, who had best be reading this). I met a ton of teachers, who thankfully all wear nametags so I can keep them straight, and found my desk in the teachers' lounge. Everyone was extremely warm and friendly. The principal is a rather intimidating-looking man, who would remind you of a retired boxer, but he was also very nice and very dedicated to the students. He seems to have a good sense of humor. When I first met him, I told him what a beautiful school it was. "Is it?" he replied, as if shocked. At 7:30, I stood up and gave my introductory speech to the whole school--about 500 students. I promised to teach them how to order a cheesesteak, who Ben Franklin is, and the Rocky theme song. I got mostly blank stares, but some boys later mentioned Rocky to me, and the principal later told me he'd heard of cheesesteak. So I'm going to count that as a victory. Then I had a free period, which I spent looking at materials the previous ETA left. She's pretty amazing, so having her old activities on file is going to be very helpful. After that, I observed some English classes that my mentor was holding and also a math class. The math class was in Bahasa, but it was still interesting to see how it was run. During the morning recess time, the teachers held a potluck, which was jointly for my arrival and for the departure of another teacher, who is going to a new school. (Mostly for her, I think, which is the way it should be.) The food was delicious and homemade.
Observing classes inspired a few thoughts, which are still in embryonic form:
--When students were doing exercises in the math class, they automatically seemed to work on them together and to talk across tables to each other, etc. Very different from US math classes I've been in, in which students would work quietly on individual exercises, etc. There's also much more of a tendency for students to shout out answers all at once, rather than raising their hand and waiting to be called on. As I've been told in advance, students are much more inclined to collaborate. Are we too obsessed in America with individual achievement and getting credit for our individual contributions? I, for one, always dreaded group work in school, and still kind of hate it. There you go, I've just blown my chances of ever getting a job. Not only am I not detail-oriented, but I am also a team-player only begrudgingly. Maybe I will have to go into academia after all.
--The school is mostly boys, since many girls go to nearby all-girls schools. How does that change my teaching dynamic as a female teacher? I expected to have a more even gender ratio. Also, the girls seem pretty quiet and reluctant to speak up, which of course made me want to encourage them.
--In one class, students worked on writing paragraphs based on an outline given to them in the textbook. It seemed really simple, but they had a lot of trouble with grammar and syntax. Big, recurring question in my life: How do you teach writing without nitpicking, going red-pen wild, or just rewriting students' sentences yourself? I had that problem at the prison education program, too.
--I need to learn Bahasa Malaysia, but on the sly so students don't try to speak to me in the language. They kept asking me if I spoke it, and seemed skeptical when I said that I don't understand anything. It's very disorienting not to know what's going on, so I want to put my nose to the grindstone and learn. I hope I can. I've always thought I was good at languages, and it's a relatively simple one, so I think I can do it. I think it will really help me interact with other teachers and know what's going on at school.
I'm going to observe one more day of classes on Monday and then start teaching on Tuesday. My idea of having a cooking club was vetoed due to a termite infestation in the roof of the home ec room. Oh. So now I'm supposed to run a drama club and a writing workshop and help with English society as my "cocurriculars" (or "coco," their word for extracurriculars).
3. State orientation. I almost forgot to write about this, because it feels as if it was so long ago. We stayed at a hotel that offered 6 free meals a day, which I took ample advantage of. I never did make it to the 10 pm "supper," though. Activities were great. We took some more language classes, and learned this super-infectious song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQnSM7_kssM. Seriously, it is the avian flu of children's songs. The chorus means "I love you." We did some fun bonding activities, like a scavenger hunt around the neighborhood where we had to speak Bahasa and a mini-Olympics with our mentors. The best part was coconut bowling, where we hurled coconuts at full water bottles in the hotel parking garage. Coconuts are heavy. It was satisfying. We also learned a traditional Malay dance called joget, a game like mancala, and another game that's basically a variant of jacks that you play with pebbles. As my mentor explained, "In the kampung (rural village), there's really nothing to do and no toys, so you get good at this game." Of course, for little old clumsy me, many of these activities felt like a chance for me to display my utter ineptitude at all things requiring coordination. My poor mentor was stuck with me as I muddled through games and dragged down my team's Olympics score, but thankfully she's a very sweet and patient woman. I did feel a little as if I'm a boring person throughout this process, because I don't have any fun hobbies to share with the students.
Mentor: "So what do you like to do? Do you play any instruments?"
Me: "Um, I like to read. And swim. I don't play any instruments."
Mentor: "Do you sing? Dance?"
Me: "Nope."
Mentor: "Any sports?"
Me: "No, I'm not very athletic."
Mentor: "Do you cook?"
Me: "I'd like to learn."
Mentor: "What about arts and crafts?"
Me: "Um, I'm all thumbs."
Repeat that conversation over and over, between me and different people, and you'll get the gist of why I started to feel so dull. I'm thinking I could pick up a hobby here that would help me get outside my head a little bit, OR I could just get over myself and accept that I'm not the hobbying-est, coordinated-est girl in the world, and that's the way it is. Time will tell what I decide. I've also been feeling really tired and been sleeping a lot during the day these past few days, which has contributed to my sense of being a dull girl. In my defense, I haven't slept that well at night, and, as a Southern belle would say, "Darlin', this heat is so enervatin'."Plus, without our own transportation in a city with very limited public transportation and nearly nonexistent sidewalks, Kara and I don't have much to do besides lesson plan.
4. Cross-country run
When your mentor asks if you want to get up at 7 am on Saturday to go to a cross-country run with the school, I guess you're supposed to say yes. So I did. It ended up being a lovely event at a nice park outside the city, complete with the requisite groves of tropical fruit trees, palm trees, vibrant flowers, and ponds. We started the morning with a decidedly un-strenuous warm-up exercise, which I did with a group of female students who must have been really over-heated in their tudongs (Malaysian version of the hijab), because I was sweating up a storm. It was fun talking to the girls, who mostly seemed excited to meet me, if a little bit shy of using their English at times. I then completed the run in the "teachers and parents" bracket. By completed the run, I mean jogged and then walked to take in the scenery. I'm not in shape, and of course I got so red in the face, as I always do, that all the teachers were concerned for my survival. It was a nice chance to chat with other teachers along the way, and I came in 6th out of 10 female teachers/parents. Everyone got a prize basket of snack food, which seems to defeat the purpose of running. At lunch, I sat with a group of cheeky 17-year old boys who invited me to sit down with them. Their English was excellent. Good enough to ask if I have a boyfriend and to respond to my question of, "Where would you like to go if you could visit the US?" with "Your house, teacher!"
5. General life and food things
Kimkee is near a lot of Chinese and Indian places, so Kara and I have been eating well. My mentor took us to a really cool outdoor Chinese food court with all different stalls of delicious, cheap food that is right near our apartment. Yesterday our state coordinator and her lovely daughter took us to a restaurant called Lila Wadi, which I would highly recommend to any Kuantan visitors. There's beautiful outdoor seating near the ocean and you get to barbecue your own meat on a grill at your table. They come to the table and pour chicken soup or tom yam (an unbelievably good Thai spicy broth with lemongrass) into the ridge around the little raised tabletop grill, so you can spoon it out onto your bowl and/or let the meat or seafood you're cooking cook in the soup and soak up the flavor. And to top it all off, they had mango cheesecake, which I'm going to go out on a limb and say is the best cheesecake I've ever had. I normally find cheesecake too heavy, but this was light and fluffy and heavenly. I think it was made by some sort of cheesecake angel. Ok, end of food rant. Too many superlatives.
6. Oh my gosh I almost forgot the funniest thing.
Kara hates me for putting up this photo. I didn't get any good ones at the event, though, and you need to see the set-up at this event.
We went to a super nice event at a state official's mansion. It was set up as if it were a wedding, with tables under a pavilion outside, buffet tables, and a stage at the front. The official walked in and everyone stood up in his honor. He worked the crowd, shaking everyone's hands, trailed by a 5-year-old boy I presume was his son or grandson. The kid, sporting a bright yellow Batman T-shirt, was holding onto his dad's belt loops and walking around. Then, the official invited us to eat and personally served the ETAs some veggies from the buffet. (Photo-op for his official photographer, says cynical me.) Then, we all sat down to eat while the performances began. The cutest part was that the 5-year-old and some of his little friends were standing up by (and sometimes on) the stage dancing the whole time. They seemed very used to functions like this. I wonder what their lives will be like as they grow up. The real highlight was a group of male dancers with leopard-print bandanas around their necks performing a very enthusiastic version of Gangnam Style. I had a really hard time not just bursting into hysterical laughter. Oh, I also spent the evening being a klutz, forking satay chicken off the skewer and accidentally shooting it across at my mentor and nearly dropping a knife on my friend's head. Can't take me anywhere. Sorry, Mom. There were also traditional Malaysian dances. One involved flapping your arms like a bird, and the ETAs were forced to go up to the front and dance it. As I flapped, the little Batman boy grabbed one of my hands and wouldn't let go for the whole dance. I guess I ended up dancing with one of Malaysia's most eligible young bachelors. At the end of the night, we all had to get up on stage to dance joget, which thankfully we'd learned a bit in orientation. It was a good lesson in leaving your pride behind, because once I got over the fact that I was tripping over my feet in front of hundreds of people at a formal event in an outfit that was not my finest, I actually had fun. As my mentor said when I came back to the table, "The caterpillar has changed into the butterfly." Lawl.
Spotted on a walk around the neighborhood. I like the colors. Looks so tropical.
Reading: Last week I read The Plague by Camus. Now I'm back into the never-ending labyrinth of Remembrance of Things Past. I'm up to book 2.
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