How can I not love them?

Natasha told me the other day about her Chinese New Year Celebration. It's always nice for her because she gets to go on a plane to Singapore to celebrate it. After telling me all that, she suddenly told me this...."Teacher, do you know that I am actually Indian?" she went on and on about it....."I was born to an Indian family and when I was at the hospital, Elaine and Gerard came to take me to a better home. That's why I am with a chinese family now." I knew all along that she was adopted....but I choked hearing that but managed a smile and said "Elaine and Gerard must love you so much Natasha!!!" She nodded.

5 of my students, Sarah, Sofiah, Muhammad, Darshen and Ganeshwary were sitting at the new library. Seeing that they were sitting down quietly, I approached them and asked in general if they like the new library corner? They all looked up and smiled and nodded....and I told them that they can sit around and even lie down if they want when they're reading. Hearing me saying that, they all automatically lied down all together and giggled. It looked kind of funny when children of all sizes lying down like that at the same instance.

How naughty can a child gets????

Of all my Kindy students, this boy got the most photo shoot! That's because he's so very cheeky!!!! Yesterday he played with the blinds and did some sketches on the table. He's a buddy to all the little girls because he'd always introduce himself to them. With the boys.....I've yet to see.

Year of the Boar....

Today is the second day we've opened our newly renovated classroom. I must say I was happy about it. I was busy ushering the children everywhere so that they would not miss a single thing. I even showed them our toilets. A few parents came in too.

Today Natasha cried because I wasn't looking at her the minute she stepped in. Once she was consoled, she was the loudest !!!!

"Ketul" was his naughty self today. I had to threaten him to shut off the lights.

I can't help it......my chinese horoscope said that this year, is not really a good year for me. I am suppose to be an angry person this year. I must prove them wrong!!! I hope the students will help me through all this.

Quiet day

Today was an easy day. A lot of the students are still in holiday mood. I had a good exercise walking from the Maths area to the English area and back to the Maths area. I managed to get some things organized at my corner. I just love my new corner.

Inesh and Ishan decided to take up English for March. I tested Ishan first. On one of the test, he had to read a sentence and match the picture with a line. When he read "Bob is throwing a ball", he was expected to match it with a picture of a boy throwing a ball. However, he joined the sentence with a picture of 2 cats chasing a mouse. So, I asked him, "Are you sure this is Bob throwing a ball????" He said yes. I asked why, and he said because when Bob throws the ball, the ball goes up in the air, and the cats and the mice were chasing the ball. So I left it that way.

Inesh refused to be tested, but when he saw Ishan's test, he made a comment. He said..."That's EASYYYYYY!!!!" So I managed to test him and was happy to start English on Monday.

What I did today!!!

I put up a new Library Corner and created a new English Area.

Happy Chinese New Year!

I had no idea how lost i'd be not being in the centre for more than 5 days. Thank god for my long drive up north yesterday. Today, I did a lot of printing for the centre. Signs, charts and posters. The ink in my printer needs replenishing now.

I want to create a better environment for the English area. Thinking of starting work tomorrow. I wish I can sleep at the centre for one night. I'd bring my sleeping bag and just chill out there all by myself. Sounds cool huh?

A few of my students were nice enough to ask me if I'd be going anywhere during the long break.

Starting on Thursday, I'm going to train my team leaders to take care of my Feedback. It's time to let go some of my important tasks. I want to c0ncentrate on my kindy students and also meetings with parents.

Renovation Done!

The renovation is done. The students haven't seen it but I can't wait to see their faces on Thursday.

The pre kindy room is new. the concept would still be the same. students will sit on the carpeted floor.

Everything will be within reach. I have all their pictures pasted on the glass window on the way in.

It's more for getting to know who's suppose to learn in that room.

Our English department conquers all the back area. It's still not fully ready, but we'll have all the CD listening, Reading Aloud and the library will be in there. Two teachers will be in charge there.

The Maths area is bigger now. The whole of the front area will be all about Maths.

I even bought colourful pictures of fish for the girls' toilet and teddy bears for the boys' toilet. they're all to decorate the tiles.

I'm tired now...but happy.

Renovation

I'm now at the centre and in the middle of what I would call, a ransacked centre. Everything is everywhere. That's because we're in the middle of our renovation. I hope this is the last one!!!

I have been here from this morning and now, it's almost dark outside. They have to finish it today because everyone wants to go back to their hometown for Chinese New Year celebration. What a way to celebrate.....newly renovated centre!

On Monday and Tuesday, we were busy telling all the students not to come to the centre on Thursday and Friday because we'll still be rearranging our furniture.

Sonya Raj suddenly asked me "Are you going to renovate your toilet????" We're in an old building where we have cracks on the tiles in the toilet and we do have some water stains (that needs to be removed). When I told her we're not, she suggested that I should. Coming from a 7 year old.....I'm considering on doing it on my own.... Ms Handywoman.....that's me!!!

Do I understand English?

Anna will be coming in tomorrow morning. She is never late. In fact her mom is amazed that she will always wake up on time to go for classes on Monday and Thursday. I enjoy having her too.

The other day, she was telling me about her grand dad. It went like this... "When my grand dad was in Malaysia, ..... " I asked her...."Where is he now?" "He's dead!" "But when you said when he was in Malaysia, where was he when he's not?" She had a puzzled look. After awhile..she said "He's dead!"....OK!

Another Renovation

Running a centre keeps me active. I'm again looking forward to another change at the centre. We're going for another major renovation next week. It's going to happen on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We're even closing the centre.

This time, the whole of the back area will be used for English and Kindy Area. Our Maths area will big.

I can't wait to see tha changes.

English Teacher Dilemma

There she goes again.....my English teacher.

This is truly a funny case. I hired her on the 22nd of January, that same afternoon, she told me that she should start in February because she has to settle a few things. She just stopped working and didn't have the time to do the things before she started. Before she left, she signed the Offer Letter, to confirm her acceptance for the job.

On the 2nd of February, she came to work. Everything seems alright.....but....yesterday, she knocked on the door of my pre kindy room when I was teaching and told me she's got a terrible headache. Somehow from the way she said that..she looked like she wanted to tell me much more than her headache. I asked around if she made any remarks about her headache. No body knows.

Anyway, this afternoon, during lunch, she sent a text message to my assistant asking what's the best time to call me. From there, I knew she wanted to stop.

She called and started telling me how much she can't stand the heat in the classroom. She claims that where she's seated, it's just too hot and because of that, she has to stop.

Sometimes I wonder if all employers go through what I have to go through. At times I feel like I'm acting like a sister to all. When one's maid ran away, I have to make way for her to work part time instead of full time. When one's mom had to go for Haj for 40 days, I have to grant her one month unpaid leave, when one was called for an interview, I have to start preparing for a replacement, when one had to shift house due to financial difficulties, I had to act like a loan shark!!! giving her enough to start a new life. In the middle of the loan payment, she had the cheek to ask me to release her, so that she can work for another centre.

In my next life.....I only want to be an employee. Giving the same kind of problem to my employer....ooops!

My Pride and Joy!

I always talk about my pre Kindy class... here's why!!!!

My 23 year old student who had brain tumor (Anna) is making a lot of progress. From the time she came in, she's progressed from counting dots (1-20) to recognition of dots to counting 1-120 to being able to fill in the blanks with missing numbers. Soon she'll be tested and will start on addition 1!!! I'm quite excited for her.

To me, the two days she comes in is like a therapy session for her. She is quite moody at home I was told, so I wanted to help her with that as well(if I can). A few weeks ago, I told her that I get moody at times too and hearing that, it makes her realize that I'm also normal. So she listened to me. I told her I think of nice things. I told her I like to think of nice places where the air is cool, the wind is just nice. At times I think of ice-creams, nice caramalized apple or strawberries. I even think of all the smiles I get in the pre kindy room every day.

On Thursday, she told me that she had a fight with her sis. in the end she had to tell Dear Sis to think of nice things...like what she was told by me. I asked her what caused the fight. She said her sis said she's lazy and not working and not doing anything. She turned around to her and said that she has important things to do....like her homework given by me.

It's quite sad at times thinking how a child, trapped in a 23 year old body, and people, not even their siblings, are not taking that seriously.

Here's to Anna......I wish happines to your future and for you to be able to feel what it's like to be a real adult. I also wish that one day, you'll be treated as a person capable of doing good deeds to the people around you.

I'm proud to be a teacher in Malaysia!

It's Sunday. The week went by smoothly. I enjoyed the Public Holiday on Thursday. In Malaysia, we enjoy a lot of Public Holidays. First of all, there are 3 major races. So every celebration or festivals will be a holiday. We do have minorities at the centre who celebrates other festival that we don't even celebrate. Gawai Day, Guru Nanak Day, Ponggal Day, Greek National Day, Korean National Day, ... and the Japanese, they have other festivals... coming of age day, golden week.... and because we have different races at the centre, we have to keep track of all these at times because we do wish the students.

The International Schools students will sometimes come in their Indian suit during Deepavali (or Diwali). Even the Koreans or Japanese would wear them. It's nice to see.

I love Malaysia because of the vast diversity in culture and colourful history!