Friday, July 28, 2006
today its is... rainy. that's what i spent the morning learning, along with the kids in my class. jason did a good lesson about weather. all the classes today went pretty well, in my opinion. the kids seem to be catching on to things. the murder mystery yesteday was fun and hilarious. i was translating for ellie and had to follow her as she capered around the corridor acting like a mad person whose parents had been killed. jordan was an event in himself. he played a semi-gay dance instructor, and seemed to enjoy the experience very much. the kids were in hysterics.a couple of people are leaving to go to shenyang to visit lisa's family today. these are the people who are "jobless' for the moment cos they aren't involved in the camp and havn't got other duties elsewehere. i woudl have liked to go, but i guess my responsibilities lie here. in any case, the whole TA bible study thing is booming and i really feel that i should be here.
Posted by i confound myself at 7:02 am
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
The Last 4 Days
23/706Yesterday, everyone came back. The reunion was joyous and chaotic—a mass of people swarming the office and talking and hugging randomly. I know I make this sound bad, but it wasn’t of course—it was fantastic and wonderful to see everyone again and hear about all the amazing things they’d done over the past 10 days. It’s just that I find it interesting how quickly people forget things, and how how easy it is for us to fall into a new routine or pattern. I actually found the number of people in the room, and the amount of noise we were collectively generating, quite disorientating. I’d become so used, over the past 10 days, to seeing half that number in the room, and seeing the old, familiar faces just seemed strange. But I’m glad everyone is back. I’m glad that everyone was sent out—there’s no other way that we could have reached so many different people in diverse contexts, given our situation. It was all in God’s divine plan, and I pray that he gives me the flexibility and openness and indeed, the memory, to trust that he will do for the next 10 days as he has done in the last 10. This is gonna be God’s Amazingness At ISEC Part 2.
Oh yes, I got my laptop. I wrote to mum previously that I think that my mispackign and my little lackings which cause me so much distress here, is just God;s way of teaching me to get by without these conveniences, and to rely on Him even for the smallest and most QED-ed things. I know that my laptop is somehow, in a weird way, kind of a crutch, but as soon as I deciedded that I will get by without it and make the most of the situation, God makes provisions for me to have it.
24/7/06
God knows best. I am so glad that I decided to start today off with prayer and a bible passage, even though it was so short and so randomly done. That 10 minutes given to God, almost on impulse, made ALL the difference to my day. ALL the difference. Starting the day off with the right perspective just makes things so much more logical and proportionate. The bit I read today, our of the Upper Room devotional that uncle aaron gave me, was about how God’s word is “a lamp to my feet”—not a floodlight, He only shows us one step at a time, not the entire path—doing that will only make us fearful to go forward as we see the problems and difficulties ahead. He only shows us enough to let us take the next step, and then trust that he will provide the light for the next one and the next one. It’s all because of this simple message, that I took the announcement that I would stay in NIT to be a councellor, so well. I think that if I had not read that this morning, my response would have been so different!
I see that Lillian is going through the same problem that I went through for the last camp. I can see where she;’s coming from—I would feel exactly the same way if not for the fact that I am suddenly so strangely and uncharacteristically calm and accepting of whatever was decided for me, according to the needs of the whole team.
I’m looking forward to this new project. But at the same time, I’m actually unexpectedly sad to leave the TA job. So many times I felt that I wouldn’t be able to continue with that job, and that we were just a marginalized bunch at the beck and call of the school, exploited simply because we were there. But today, when Whitney told me that I had to go to the evening activities instead of my usual supervised study session from 7 to 9, it suddenly hit me that I would no longer be teaching my class, and that there was so much unfinished business. Ryan and I had just been in the middle of discussing a massive grammar session, and suddenly he had to take the whole thing by himself. The sense of unfinishedness is not just with the class—its with Ryan as well. I suddenly feel as if I didn’t appreciate him enough, or at least tell him that I did. If I wasn’t getting annoyed at his “play by ear” philosophy and his apparent lack of interest in doing lesson planning in any shape or form, I was just taking him for granted. But I really did enjoy his company and I wouldn’t rather have had anyone else as a teaching partner. Today when I went into the class to attempt to explain to them why I won’t be teaching anymore, he was executing the planned grammar lesson and he was a bit mad at the jokers in the back, and I could see that he had thought through what he was going to do and say, and I just felt so appreciative and glad that he didn’t need me to be around. It was a funny feeling. I’m definitely going to buy him something, just to tell him how much I appreciate him. I never realized how well we actually worked as a team, until I look at the other teams and see that we have our own way of doing things. Its just interesting to see how every different pair has their own style. Ryan and I had a lot of fun and things just click, and I thank god for showing me that I should never discount things or people.
25/7
Today was day 1 of actual lessons in the camp. It was a baptism of fire for me. Nothing could have prepared me for the challenge of teaching these kids. I guess I’ve been so used to being a TA and all the problems that come with teaching 15 to 25 year olds, and so suddenly being confronted with a class of 7 and 8s was just exhausting. There is this one kid, Harry, that has already established a reputation in the camp as the new Michael—except about 5 times as likely to be ADHD, understands not a word of English, and has an attention span of about half a second. The other kids are quite alright in comparison, except for the fact that the older ones don’t quite buy into whatever we’re doing with the younger ones, and Harry gets on lots of peoples’ nerves. The whole “I’m going to tell the teacher” and “he’s copying my work” and “he hit me” thing is just all over the place in a way that should be totally expected in a class of kids this age, but which somehow was so obvious a problem that I completely overlooked in my pre-camp mental preparation. I’m glad that we’re gonna split the class into 2—the older, more able ones, and the younger ones who seriously know close to nothing. Thank goodness also for Steve, who was a godsend today—he is the only one who is really quite capable of dealing with Harry in a stern but un-antagonistic way. I must say that I’m always blessed with partners that totally exceed my expectations and whom I don’t deserve.
Posted by i confound myself at 6:27 am
Sunday, July 23, 2006
the return!
i have decided to REVIVE MY BLOG!! the whole typing-email-updates-everyday thing was just getting way too troublesome, and earning me well deserved glares from rival computer in the ever-lengthening queue. so here it is-- for the purpose of this beijing ISEC teaching trip, i will break my long abstinence from high-tech journaling, and succumb to the convenience of updating anyone who might be vaguely interested, all at once.just for those who mite not know, i'm on a 2 month teaching cum mission trip to beijing to teach english. our team, comprising oxbridge and ivy league students, is organizing a series of 3 english summer camps for local kids. we've been here for just about a month now and have just finished the 1st camp. the next one is supposed to begin tmr, but because of various breaches of contract which are and probably forever will be too complicated for me to understand, and which seem to rid this project and chinese business deals as a whole, the nature and even possibility of a 2nd and 3rd camp seem abit uncertain. but we're just trusting that god will provide possibilities and open doors, just as he's been doing since day 1 of this project. its almost as if all the difficulties and frustrations we've run into as a team and as individuals have been placed there just to show to everyone involved that god is truly bigger than anything, anyone, any system.
i could go on forever about the things that have happened so far, but i reckon it'll be better to just continue from where my emails leave off, and so, this is all for now! maybe when i'm in a more nostalgic mood, i'll do some retrospective journalling. going for a nap now!!
