and finally, my work ended today.

well for those of you who are still clueless,
one and a half months ago i actually tried my luck at applying as a relief teacher.
(well actually just to show my mother that i was "really" trying to find a job.)
after registering with MOE i sent an email to my secondary school and by a stroke of luck they replied the very next day with a vacancy for a teacher who was on maternity leave.

all was good,
only that i had to teach sec2 literature.
literature.
teach.
again for those who didn't know,
i stopped taking lit since sec3 (pretty obvious reason why).
and so i struggled. pretty badly i would say.

firstly, it's literature. and it's 4 classes of sec2 lit, all in my hands. even though i had the scheme of work with me, it was just so hard to teach. the scheme of work was something like "students are to read pgXXX and describe the atmosphere of the passage." like WHAT?! i mean, if i myself can't even accurately identify, how do i expect the students to do it?!

secondly, i had no prior experience at class management, nor lesson plan. for the lack of confidence, i feel that the students have missed out a lot (in terms of analyzing a passage) and i haven't prepared them enough to skillfully take on unseen prose. i'm guilty, but that's how much i know too. (google has been a great friend during the past one mth.) thank goodness there's only 2 lit periods (35mins per period) per class per week.

thirdly, i had to take a sec 1 class for lit and i think i dreaded those periods the most. 'nuff said.

i think these 3 reasons are why i felt so much unhappiness during the past 1 mth.
well along the way some teachers tried to help me (especially for matters concerning the sec1 class) and i'm really glad and appreciative. really, things with the sec1s were just so bad.

i really liked some of my sec2 classes, bunch of nice kids. :) it's such a pity i didn't get to say a proper farewell to them.

apart from lit i also took on sec3 english.
english was a different story all together. 6 periods per week, no joke!
it's tiring, because they're not exactly the kind of class someone would ideally want to teach.
i used to tell my friend, "after taking them for 1 hour you'll have no energy for the rest of the day." as bad as it sounds, somehow i think this is the class that i feel the most for. yes, it really started with me dreading days with english lessons, but as time progressed i began to feel otherwise. i will really miss this class even though it has only been a short 1 mth. they're really a good example of "don't judge a book by it's cover" :)

tell you guys a joke.
a student asked for my name and after she heard it she went, "oh. like rong rong bao!" and everyone, including me, went, "what's a rong rong bao?!" so this push and pull went on for quite some time until someone suggested, "you mean lian rong bao is it?"
this really made me laugh for a bit.
and this came from that sec3 class.
such awesome and innocent kids. always smiling.

you know, when school ends at 2pm every day i'll just go straight home to eat and nap, until say 7pm, then watch tv until 10pm and sleep again all the way till the next morning. things got so bad that i didn't feel like talking to anyone in the family, or anyone at all. i think this cycle has made me lose some weight (no eating after 6pm rule) and i'm back to the nice weight of 40kg. :) just goes to show how tiring it was.

as much as i'm glad that it's over, it was still a valuable and worthwhile experience that will live with me forever, at least as the first job that i got with my own efforts. (usually it's either working for my mom, or friend's lobang.)
i might consider teaching in the future,
but i'll definitely want my second teaching subject to be science/lower sec math.


now. it's time to play.