Post 14: All I Am

I was told by one of my teachers in high school that studies show the attention span of the average adult to be about seven minutes. I do not think I am an exception to this rule especially where writings blogs are concerned. I am not bored with telling people about my life, but I just do not like writing about it. I like too much to attempt to personalize details and stories and tangents to my audience. My audience is too wide to do that easily. I have thought about what I want to spend the next seven (to fifteen) minutes talking about: my identity.

How can I cover my identity in fifteen minutes? Well, I better not waste any time.

Today was a completely free day. I did not have to go to school. I did not have to pack by backpack and head off for an English camp or travel anywhere. I literally got to just stay home. That should be liberating, right? Well, it was definitely nice to not wake up to an alarm clock, but I must say that it was also a little…jarring.

I finally Skyped with one of my friends from back home, and she remarked that I was an English teacher. Well, of course I am an English teacher. Okay, technically, I am an English Teaching Assistant. Close enough. Now, what did she mean? I shall tell you.

Being an ETA in Malaysia, I don’t have much of an identity outside of my job at school. Although this is not the case for many or most ETAs, it has become apparent to me that I am an ETA in Malaysia and that is about it. Every weekend, more or less, I am at an English camp. That is English teaching work. Throughout the week, I go to school at the beginning of each school day and often stay until the end of the day. Sounds like English teaching, does it not? When students are not fasting, I usually have some after-school activity with them to boost their English skills and to keep me from having idle hands. More English teaching. In the evenings, I am occasionally invited to share a meal with my students. I comply because I love spending time with my students and also feel like I need to give them as many opportunities in this ten month period to practice their English. After all, I often find that my students learn more from me outside of the classroom than in it. Those meals out are just more English teaching.

My friend also asked how learning Malay was going. I honestly had to tell her that it was not really going anywhere. Though I pick up the occasional word here and there, I did not dedicate the time and effort that I thought I would. Though it is exciting and interesting to pick up a new language and also relieves some of the frustration of not knowing what is happening around oneself, in a small town where I have no anonymity, I ran into a problem. I must have come to the conclusion subconsciously because I needed this aforementioned friend to draw it to my attention. However, going out into the community and trying to intentionally and awkwardly carry on conversations in Malay is not really possible.

Most of my students are very shy. Some, I admit, are also a bit lazy. They do not like to try and do not like to embarrass themselves by speaking English. I mean, I understand. No one likes to be embarrassed. Many of my students would not make the effort to speak English to me if they thought I understood Malay or found out I was trying to learn Malay. They far prefer to teach me Malay than the other way around. Thus, while living in a town where everything and anything gets around (Malays are really excellent gossips as a general rule), speaking Malay is not really an option. So how am I supposed to learn the language? I can’t. Not in any authentic and regular fashion. In other words, because I am dedicated to teaching English, I have given up on one of my aspirations while being in Malaysia.

This sort of sounds like I am bragging about how dedicated I am to teaching English. That is not my intention at all. Honestly, I was rather shocked today to realize that I don’t do anything else besides teach English or do things that have to do with English teaching. Yes, I travel on some weekends to hang out with other ETAs. We talk about teaching and our students though since they encompass such a large portion of our lives. Then those other weekends, again, are English camps.

Is it wrong to be so devoted to teaching English? I mean, you may as well give it your all since you only have ten months. However, I am starting to have to think a little more seriously about my future after my grant here is up. What do I do next? I don’t know. Teaching seems like a good option, but oh what a different teaching experience that will certainly be. Can I do that? Can I go back to having a life outside of being a teacher? I think I should. I think that would be healthy. I need to go back to having a social life outside of school.

Since being in Malaysia, I started to make this mental list of all the things that I want to do when I return home. Most of them are the extra stuff – the less logistical parts of life. I know that I will need a job to pay off my student loans and that I want to go back to graduate school and continue my studies in…something. However, Malaysia has definitely shown me that there is more to life and that moments and opportunities need to be seized if they are available. When you are not a teacher, you are not supposed to use those vacant moments just to hang around and get on the internet. Do something!

Just in case you are curious, here are some of the random (and possibly unrealistic) aspirations I have for when I come home. I really do hope that I do some of them:

- learn a musical instrument (too many people have told me that I look like I play oboe; perhaps I should try it)

- take art classes (cash in on an I-owe-you-a-quilting-class gift and maybe feel some clay between my fingers again)
- travel to see all the friends and family I have missed and love so dearly
- train for and do a triathalon

- volunteer

- help with my dad’s ministry (I have made excuses for FAR too long and have known it deep down)

- study a foreign language

- dance (maybe I will take dance lessons or try those ballet exercise classes or just show up at a swing club, but I want to feel a rhythm and have a dancing partner again since that is actually allowed in the United States. Holding hands is not scandalous.)

- practice my cooking skills (I like being domestic in some fashions, and when I have all cooking equipment I am familiar with at my disposal, I want to use it to the fullest!)

And that’s my fifteen minutes! Have any more ideas about what I should do with my life or where I should do it? Feel free. Being an ETA in Malaysia has made me realize that my formative years are not over yet. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Do you?

Post 13: The Egg and I

I’m officially on vacation now.

Everyone working in schools in all Malaysia is on vacation thanks to the Ministry of Education. First they gave us Friday off then, what the hey, they gave us Thursday off as well. Of course, my students were thrilled minus the fact that they suddenly had more exams in a span of three days. Everyone was pretty squirrely today up through, of course, a special assembly for Hari Raya Aidilfitri (the big Muslim celebration that follows Ramadhan).

Well, I think I am actually going to have time to relax for the next couple of days. It feels like I’ve forgotten how to do just that after constantly being on the go for months, but the relaxation won’t last too long. MY BROTHER IS COMING ON SATURDAY! I will take the morning bus out of my little town and meet him Kuala Lumpur for yet another adventure to begin. What are we going to do? The plan is climb the tallest mountain in South East Asia: Gunung Kinabalu. With any luck and a lot of determination (and probably buckets of perspiration), we will summit this wannabe fourteener. I’m sure I’ll regret every extra kuih sagu and bit of fried food I’ve consumed over the past several months on the way up.

Speaking of food, I would like to dedicate this blog to another bit of important minutiae of my life here in Malaysia: eggs.

Eggs? Yes, eggs.

I will be the first to admit that I do not like or rather…I did not like eggs. When I was little, I remembered that the only form I found acceptable for eggs was in the coating of the French Toast my father would make on Sunday mornings. I would still reluctantly eat the middle of the French toast though because it was more egg-y than the crust.

As I grew older, I tolerated eggs a little better. I still never ordered them of my own volition. When my family would make our traditional scramble during the holidays or any other family gathering we could use an excuse, I would ask for the mix (potatoes and b***n) before we would mix in the eggs.

Sophomore year of college came around. I still didn’t like to eat eggs. If I had to, I would take a few mouths of scrambled eggs as long as I swallowed them with something else. This was the case on tours in Europe when their continental breakfasts had little to offer a gluten-intolerant human being who didn’t feel like being adventurous in the morning. Granted, I am not that adventurous with food in general. I would also eat the yolks of boiled eggs. Did I seek out eggs though? Obviously, not.

The summer of after the sophomore year of college changed my life. I spent a six-week stint in Indonesia. And man, let me tell you, I ate a lot of eggs while I was there. Indonesians like eggs. They really liked to make me eggs because of their beloved kecap manis. Kecap manis is not a gluten-free sauce that they unabashedly add to just about everything so whenever a meal was provided, the host would usually panic and serve me eggs as an apologetic substitute for the main protein. Politely, I ate them – boiled, sunnyside up, scrambled, and fried. Personally, I enjoyed when they would be a little creative with their scrambled eggs and make them really flat and cut them into strips or use them as a tortilla to wrap around my rice. Even when I could eat the main dish, many dishes in Indonesia are topped with a nice, hard, sunnyside-up egg.

Coming back from Indonesia, I thought I was cured of my disdain for eggs.

I distinctly remember one morning my senior year of college. I thought it would be nice to just scramble two eggs for myself. Just two eggs. I would not make anything to go with them. I prepared them without making the eggs too dry or turning them brown. Not bad. I took one bite. I took two. On the third, my gag reflex suddenly reacted. My body said, “I reject straight egg!” Apparently, eggs and I were still not compatible. Back to the drawing board and making sure eggs were always mixed with things and that the eggs were never EVER runny.

Well, it’s a year after graduating from college. I have long since passed the halfway point of my ETA grant. So how do I feel about eggs?

Let me tell you.

A quote from Julie & Julia: “I thought eggs were going to be greasy and slimy, but it tastes like cheese sauce….yum.”

I have watched that movie several times since being here in Malaysia, and I must say that I agree with Julie. For so long, in my life, I have found eggs greasy or, at the very least, slimy. Runny yolks were absolutely horrifying. However, since coming to Malaysia where everyone loves to leave the yolk runny on top of fried rice, I have found the “cheese sauce” quality of eggs! It brings things together in a creamy and, yes, almost cheesy way. I love that about fried eggs.

Now hold on a second, I still don’t eat eggs plain. I have yet to jump that hurdle. However, I now seek out eggs. I want my fried egg on top of rice. I want a fried egg (over a boiled one) with my nasi lemak (a famous Malaysian dish that has a sweet chili sauce, an egg, and rice steamed in coconut milk). I want telur dadar (their version of an omelet with chilies and onions in it) with my dinner. I like nasi goreng pattaya every day (fried rice in a scrambled egg pocket). My special fried rice that the canteen lady makes for me even has a fried egg on top, and it’s not right when the assistant makes it and fries the egg hard.

What has Malaysia done to me? It has done a lot more than change my taste buds which still miss American fare when dear people from back home don’t send me really expensive boxes full of baking mixes. It’s hard to put into words what Malaysia has done to me at this point. I probably won’t be able to say until I look back on my time here. It is still a good time though despite drudgery and days I just want to fall asleep at my desk in the teachers’ room. I try not to resent all the fried foods that have added five pounds to my midsection and just keep using that stationary bicycle and dragging Patricia along with me. I love spending time with my students outside of school when my schedule allows and throwing away my weekends to do yet another English camp. Life here is fun but hard and different and would not be doable on a long-term basis. Seize the day though, right?

Before I move on, I realized I left out some details on eggs and Malaysia.

Bunga telur. Malaysians like to make these really ornate bouquets of eggs for special ceremonies and ceremonies. The eggs are wrapped in tool and tied to sticks that have fabric flowers on the end. These sticks are then all stabbed into a stand and given away to guests. Sometimes the whole bouquet is given to a person.

Malaysians love all sorts of eggs. I don’t even recognize all of them, but you can go to an egg stand and buy a variety of eggs. Some of the eggs are covered in black. Some have been fermented. Some eggs are small – from little birds. Some are the rich duck eggs. Malaysians like to make their eggs super salty for some dishes. Then there are eggs in korma. How could I have forgotten all these other varieties? How dare I have a post about eggs and leave these details out? Well, now you know.

Post 12: Here Kucing, Kucing, Kucing!

I am failing at keeping a blog! If you are shocked by this fact, I feel a bit sorry for you. I am absolutely dreadful at maintaining blogs. To be honest, I’m fairly proud of myself for maintaining a blog even this infrequently. I guess I just struggle with the purpose of writing a general update for the world to see or…with the idea that anyone can read the letter (including my students) without actually knowing if anyone will read it. And then those who do read it, many of you I stay in contact with anyway so why be repetitive and redundant. Probably because I leave things out and a rant about cats doesn’t seem appropriate when I’m just on the phone. Which is why now seems like such a wonderful time to talk about cats!

Wait…what? That’s right, I am dedicating this entry to cats. Yes, many things happen in my life on a regular and daily basis some of which seem important and others not so much. Since I last wrote, my students performed at the state-level choral speaking competition and didn’t place but made me proud; I have been part of more English camps; I have had a training session in TESOL; I have traveled by bus to Mersing; I have started fasting for Ramadhan. All sorts of good times. However, these are not the reasons why I am writing today.

No particular reason comes to mind as to why today of all days I want to write to you about the cats of Malaysia, but it needs to happen. I even made a note to talk about this a few months back because felines are such a constant part of my life in Malaysia?

Do I have a pet cat? No. I have not been hosting a secret pet cat in my quarters. It’s not even against the rules like it was back in college. So think again! In fact, I wish that it was against the rule.

This is becoming very disorganized. I am going to start over.

Malaysia has a cat problem.

I am not sure why.

Will you see the occasional stray dog? Yes, but the number of stray cats to stray dogs is a ratio of maybe twenty or thirty to one. Cats are everywhere – scrawny cats of all colours.

I delight in the nasal wake-up call every morning when I walk down to the first floor and catch a lovely whiff of cat urine. It’s a delightful stench that makes my nose want to shrivel and fall off to avoid repeating the experience for the hundredth time. However, my nose, thus far, has remained attached to my face.

Shortly after this daily occurrence, I want to just click my heels together in glee when I have to watch where I step while unlocking my motorbike. The sand and gravel of the parking lot is just a giant litter box. Didn’t you know? Splendid. If a pile of sand is not an anthill which is deadly in it of itself, beware that mound of dust; it has an even more fragrant surprise in store.

Where do all these cats come from that leave aromatic treasures in my day-to-day life?

Well, the people on the first floor of my apartment building own three (or was it six?) cats that roam free and stink up the place but there are far more than those few.

Explanatory anecdote: I know a police inspector and his wife in town. They have an interesting relationship though I won’t get into all of that here. Because he works nights and she works days, the wife is often lonely. As one means to try and alleviate his wife’s loneliness, the husband gave the wife two kittens. When my roommate and I asked about the cats a few weeks later, we were told that the cats ran away because the wife forgot to feed them.

Have you ever paused to think that Bob Barker actually had a good reason o tell you to spay and neuter your pets, your cats and dogs? I never gave it much thought. Malaysia has forced me to think about it far more seriously. After all, because of little concern for breeding, there are breeding, disgusting, mangy, stinky cats running amuck all over Malaysia! They are in the garbage cans, cowering in stairwells, relieving themselves in teachers’ rooms, hiding in students’ desks, defecating in parking lots, and reproducing in the school canteens. Not to mention, they are a hazard while driving motorbikes.

Need I say more?

Oh, but I can!

Cat tails. Have you ever given them much thought? I used to enjoy watching the flick of my family’s cat’s tail. It always told me whether she was truly sleeping or faking it. Josie’s tail would flick with a very special kind of annoyance when she was actually awake but wanted to sleep. Still, I knew she wouldn’t mind if I disturbed her slumber to stroke her or cuddle with her on the couch.

Malaysian cats don’t have tails like Josie does. Most of them don’t have the same length of tail that domestic cats do in the United States. Some have no tails. Some have a bob. Some have a stumpy tail. Some tails just seem short. Others look like little clubs because they are a fat ball at the end. How do the cats end up having tails like this? I’m not sure. Sometimes, I think it is due to breeding. However, some of the tails, I swear are broken. In fact, when I was in Indonesia, I was told by a local that they had to break a cat’s tail to keep evil spirits away. Do Malaysians believe the same thing? I have never gotten it confirmed.

However, Malaysians do love these disgusting cats. They pick up the pathetic little mewling kittens which look no more than a few days old. They coddle and feed and flea-bitten, one-eyed feline wonders that dare to jump up on their plastic-covered tables and attempt to eat their scraps. Do they take any of the cats home? Do they clean any of them up? Do they make any commitment to becoming an owner of a cat and give the poor thing a better life? No.

So the cat crisis continues. I continue to leave a stinky apartment to enter a smelly teachers’ room. I continue to shoo cats away from the table and off my bag. I continue to give a head nod to the troll cat who guards the bridge I take to cross over into town. And sadly, yes, I continue to shake my head at the ETAs who take pity on strays to give them a better life for a little while only to, inevitably, desert them in a fewmonths.

Dear Malaysians, if you love cats so much, take care of them. If you don’t love them, getting rid of them does not mean introducing your un-spayed, pet-for-a-week female cat to the five tom cats yowling in the street. It’ll end badly for everyone.

The end.

Post 11: Hit the Ground Running

It’s been a while. What can I say, I’ve been busy.

Coming into this entry, I thought about the fact that sometimes I feel like Gulliver here in Malaysia. No, I’m not comparing my blog to the brilliance of Jonathan Swift’s novel. I was mostly thinking about how I wake up in the middle of the night feeling pinned down by bites of angry insects and that I have often found ants crawling all over me and all over my apartment as if I’ve invaded their tiny world. Then again, I sometimes feel very, very small and lost in the big (but small) realm of Malaysia.

Since I last wrote, I enjoyed a wonderful two-week holiday with visiting family (my older sister, my mother and my father only, for, alas, my older brother could not make it); I also started school again. I have been immersed in training for choral speaking because, that’s right, my students are going to state; and I helped to lead my second English camp.

My students did not win district. No no, they are winners only by default. For whatever reason (probably he laziness that seems to permeates the Malaysian education system), all the other schools who had claimed to have choral speaking groups decided to withdraw. So here goes nothing! This Friday! Ah!

This Friday, I will leave with my 35 children (that’s right, I managed to wrangle 35 students to stay in choral speaking though many regularly inform me that they want to quit for a variety of reasons) to go to a nearby school in Bentong and compete with ten other schools for the state title. We are easily the underdogs of the competition and, to be frank, I don’t think we have a chance of winning. Do we have a chance of not being last place? I think so. I hope so. You see, all the other schools who are competing at this level are boarding schools. Boarding schools in Malaysia are the more elite schools. Not to mention, it’s about ten times easier to gather students for practice because they all live at the school. I, on the other hand, have to hope that my students feel inclined to find some mode of transportation to the school on any given day (except for now because our principal is making us practice during school hours. In other words, I’m not teaching my regular classes; I just teach chorals peaking practice for hours on end and sweat through a baju kurung doing it). Sorry for the long sentence.

To reward my students who have definitely been working hard and are tired of choral speaking, I am baking them peanut butter cookies at this moment. I’ve made enough so that each student can have, at least, two cookies (if they’re willing to eat the more burned ones). The baking process has been incredibly slow though. I can only bake nine cookies at a time. And the whole process of baking a batch and cleaning the tray and everything (I’m using sheets of foil to expedite the process) takes about fifteen minutes. You do the math as to how long this baking process has been taking.

As of today, there has been some sad news. I had heard the whispers of it over the past weekend where I was running around like a crazy person trying to organize 110 Form 1, 2, and 3 students with the help of eleven other ETAs. For now, yet another ETA is leaving Malaysia because of irreconcilable conflicts at her school. She is the third ETA who will be leaving the program though this if the first because of problems at school. One of the others was homesick beyond sanity and the other one had a severe enough concussion that returning to the States to be observed was necessary. No one ever expects these things to happen, but at the same time, one knows they do happen. As part of the fledgling expansion of the ETA program here, the school incident has a higher likelihood of happening. The previous two ETA departures were unfortunate and unexpected also, but this one with the ETA-school conflict is a little more frightening.

Needless to say, I haven’t been in a normal rhythm here since I last wrote which is the primary reason why I haven’t written. I’ve just had my nose to the grindstone trying to power through a cold, having a blast, raising morale, organizing games, and so on and so forth. Things will probably come to a crashing halt as Ramadan is right around the bend, but until then, I imagine that my activity schedule is going to be heavy.

I’m trying to keep this brief rather than exploding with all the cooped-up thoughts I have. I keep having to run away to check the oven and my little batches of cookies. I hope to write more in the coming days.

Rest assured, I am doing well. Life has its stress and strains, but I continue to be blessed with good people who really seem to care and genuinely appreciate my presence. My PPD (district education) officer told me today that I was “one of the success stories” which was a tremendous compliment though I still have four months to have unforeseen problems. Regardless, I look to the future with hope.

Post 10: About Choral Speaking

I leave for choral speaking in fifteen minutes. It seems like an appropriate time to type up another little update and post about my life. In more general news, I have almost reached the official halfway point of my time here. It will occur while I am partaking in my two-week school holiday with my parents (and sister) as we travel through part of Thailand, touch our toes in Cambodia, and move through some of the sites of Malaysia. However, I did have a mid-year meeting with the other ETAs last week which went well, and I just continue to press on with lessons and the regular pitfalls, drama, and tidbits of fun and joy that come with being an ETA in Malaysia.

Alright! It’s finally time to talk about choral speaking.

Usually, throughout the day, my little students will pop into my room or find me in the hall to ask me if we have choral speaking. The conversation goes something like this:

“Teacher, ada choral speaking?”

“What?” I always act like I have no idea what they possibly said.

They pause as they think about how to translate before saying, “Today have choral speaking?”

“Yes.”

“Four?” They hold up for fingers to double-check that I understand.

I nod and say, “Yes, at four.” I usually hold up four fingers, too.

“Until?”

This is my favourite part of the conversation. Before I answer them, they try and bargain with how soon we will leave practice.

“4:30?” They ask hopefully though they know I will never agree to that.

“No! Students are still arriving at 4:30. We can only finish at 4:30 if everyone comes on time.”

“Five, teacher, five.” The student will plead holding out their hand with all five fingers.

“We’ll see,” I say with a smile. “If everyone is good, we will finish at five. If you are naughty, 5:30.”

“Aw, teacher,” they whine slightly though they’re half smiling.

I shoo them away knowing that I’ll see them later.

I always leave for choral speaking at 3:50pm. It guarantees that I will arrive with the first batch of students returning from their homes. Some students do not have enough time to leave school at 2:40pm and make it back for practice so some of them are already wandering around the hall. Typically, one or two of them will announce my arrival as I pull up on my motorbike and come greet me with some piece of news. They’ll inform me that another student isn’t coming or just complain to me that they are tired or hungry or that someone smells because they did not have a chance to go home and bathe. I take it all in with smiles and usher them back into the hall where there are, at least, fans.

Malaysians are stereotyped as not being punctual. It’s a fair stereotype. Though I would like to start practice at four or shortly thereafter, we usually don’t start until 4:15 to 4:30 because I simply do not have enough students to start warming up or anything else. Sometimes this is frustrating, but I am undeniably accustomed to it at this point. You must always be ready on time just in case a Malaysian feels like being punctual, but one must also be patient enough for the Malaysians who choose to show up a half hour to two hours later than expected.

Today is my choral speaking group’s last practice before the two-week break. I’m hoping they don’t forget everything in that time because they all have memories like goldfish. Sometimes this means that they forget to show up for practice. Most of the time it just means that if they do not practice every other day, they will forget the lines.

Nevertheless, I must say how proud I am of my students already even if we haven’t won anything or competed at this point.

The very first practice I had, I remember how much I was sweating. I stared out at a sea of little Malaysian faces that were squirming and uncomfortable and nervous. I was nervous too. I’ve never been a conductor or a leader or really done much in performing. I always just watch. I don’t participate. And yet, here I was needing to be the conductor of a choral speaking group and show them how to speak and perform and throw energy into their voices and do motions in sync. What a daunting task. It didn’t help when I was told my initial script was too hard and too long so I chopped it to one page. Even then, students told me it was too long. I encouraged them that they could learn it with time. Then, of course, I found out about the rules for the choral speaking performance. Now my script was too short. So I added two pages. That really thrilled the students. But bit by bit and piece by piece, we broke it down and spoke it. Often, it is still not clear what they are saying or, now that they know the words, it is just a race to the end, but we are getting somewhere.

When practice starts, I assemble my students into three groups: walrus, oyster, and carpenter. My original script was the poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter” by Lewis Carroll. It’s changed since then, but a walrus, oysters, and a carpenter still play roles. I just tell them that we are going to run through the script and hold up my fist. As their conductor (for warm-up only as there is a student conductor), I wait until their eyes are on me enough to see the count of one…two…three…

Then they are off and reciting. Some of them are dancing in place. Others look like corpses on their feet. Some like to punch one another or swing their arms like airplanes and smack the students next to them. Some still squeeze their hands together nervously. They look like a mess for every warm-up. Standing still is impossible, but I let it happen just as long as they will remember to do the motions as well as wiggle all over. This is what I get for having students from the ages of twelve to seventeen. It is a fun bunch though.

After warm-up, I do a variety of things. Each practice, I can only really focus on one aspect at a time. Sometimes, we work on memorization in the areas of the performance where the students are still struggling or are still week. Sometimes, I focus on the motions and making them synchronized and energetic. Other days, I just work on pronunciation, volume control, and speed. Slowly, they work towards a better version of their choral speaking selves.

There are regular breaks at choral speaking. There are days where in an hour, my students have managed to do the entire script twice. I would call that a bad day, and they wonder why I don’t let them leave early. However, if I don’t give them a breather to talk and wander and kick one another, they will not perform at all. Really, sometimes I just feel like a wrangler of some wild animal that is semi sentient since we speak different languages.

Nevertheless, as time has gone by, I know they understand me better. They may not like being able to understand my instructions when It defies their shy natures and the lazy personas they’ve learned to adopt after so much discouragement from teachers. We carry on though and laugh and smile and have breakthroughs in conversation as well as run into many, many walls.

That is a summary of choral speaking in fifteen minutes.

Post 9: A Day in the Life Continued

Alright, I think I am going to continue talking about my daily life in these little chunks. Especially because though I took a weekend trip with my school which was fun and has resulted in my current sick state, it can be summarized fairly quickly.

Katie’s attempt at a summary: I went on a three-day-weekend trip with some of the faculty and staff from my school this past weekend. My mentor could not attend so she sent her niece with me to be my personal translator and so she could practice her English. We took a bus there and back which blasts air-conditioning. I bought a blanket for the trip back because I was so chilled on the 9-hour-long drive up. We went to the island of Langkawi which is a popular shopping spot for Malaysians because it’s duty free. There was a lot of shopping. I bought key-chains for my choral speaking students because it’s expected that you bring souvenirs back for friends and family. We went island hopping a little bit (I swam in a freshwater lake and taught a Malay girl how to swim). I road on a cable car (you would think it was a roller coaster with how much the Malays tremble with fear). We even had a BBQ by the sea. Oh, and I slept in a room with four other Malays and there were only three twin-sized beds – COZY! The Malays shopped so much that we didn’t arrive home until 1:30am on Tuesday, and I had to teach that day (oh, and did I mention I hadn’t finished my lesson plans yet?). There.

The drive to school.

Driving to school is pretty uneventful. It’s a fairly straight stretch of road. I turn out of the parking lot and then wait at the light. Someone recently ran into the light across the street so I depend on the countdown for the intersecting traffic because I know when it reaches 30, it means that my light should be green. So I drive to school with traffic zooming by me. The road curves a little left and a little right, but nothing special. The most eventful part is probably the turn across traffic and the hill I have to climb on my motorbike once I’m in the school gate. I drive up past the hall (where we have assembly on Monday and choral speaking practice), past the field, and up and around the canteen (cafeteria) and various school buildings. I park under a little cover, take off my helmet, and usually hear a disembodied voice that says, “Good morning, Miss Katie” or “Good morning, teacher!” I’ll look around and then respond with a wave, a smile, and “Good morning” or “How are you?”

“How are you” is an extremely common phrase. We all say it all the time and read into what people’s responses are on a regular basis. In Malaysia, the reply is the most robotic “fine” you have ever heard in your life. I don’t think they even know what the word “fine” means half the time. Thus, in some of my classes, I’ve told them never to answer with just “fine” because it makes me sad. They have to say “well” or “awesome” or “great” or “tired” or something that’s a bit more interesting. Yes, I realize that we native speakers use “fine” constantly, but when we say “fine,” secondary meaning is discernible by tone. Because of the degree of fluency of most of my students, tone is still in process.

Right, so I walk between the two main buildings and climb to the first floor. I go into the office, punch my little card on the time clock that’s seven minutes slow, sign my name in the teacher attendance book and do one of two things. Option one: I go turn on the computer and the photocopiers because I have some sort of handout I want to print and then make copies of. Option two (which can also be the only option depending on the day): I leave the office, go upstairs, and take out my key to the Bilik Sal (Resource Room). I unlock the door, take off my shoes, and walk across the tile floor to where my desk is in the corner. I drop my bag, unload my various notebooks and prepare for the day. Which may include a peek down at what's happening at the morning's assembly.

Except for Tuesday, I don’t have a class for the very first period of the day so I can sort of settle in and wrap my head around the lesson I have for the day and brace for various student encounters in and out of class.

My usual day consists typically of journaling on my experiences here, reflecting on the lessons I teach, reading, documenting all my activities in the school, talking to students, teaching, arranging programs, informing students about practice, and eating or having tea at the canteen. On any given day, I do all those things with just some emphasis on one aspect or another.

When I’m finished teaching for the day or when school is out (some days, I go home early), I drive back to the apartment, change, possibly have a rest or snack or check e-mail or simply breathe in my apartment for a few minutes before I turn back around and go to choral speaking practice. I’ve described what choral speaking is, but not what a choral speaking practice is like, but that will have to wait for next time.

Post 8: A Usual Morning

It has come to my attention that, of course, my writings thus far have provided a rather porous understanding of what it is that I do here on a regular basis. Like all my other posts thus far, this will not be exhaustive, but I’ll try to just write about a little chunk of my life in the next…fifteen minutes because then I am heading out, and I’ll see how far I get in telling you a touch more about my daily life.

It begins at 5:55am. That is when my alarm clock starts blaring from the little side table beside my bed. I reach over stiffly and strike it into momentary silence. I consider whether I want to wake up just yet or risk not getting into the bathroom first. Some mornings, it’s worth being annoyed about having to wait to use the bathroom to just lie in sticky black for a little while.

What do I mean by sticky? Oh, but of course! I’m a little sweaty when I wake up in the morning. When one does not have air-conditioning and the world outside is perpetually warm, that happens. I mean, I may sleep with a sheet over me on cooler nights. Most days, I just lay on top of my stiff foam mattress and call it good as I rest my head on my stiff foam pillow. My accommodations are not complex. That is okay.

So I wake up and slowly move through my fourth-floor apartment to the kitchen. I take out a pot, fill it with a little bit of water, set it on my two-burner “stove” and start my water boiling. Every morning, I have oatmeal. Any of my roommates from university know that this is not very different from what I did there (except I might rotate with Chex or granola, but those options are not available to me). While the water is heating, I take a bowl from the drying rack, a spoon, spoon out a serving of brown sugar in the bowl, and wait for the tell-tale bubbling from the pot. I cook up some oatmeal, and go sit in a chair by the fan so I can stay cool while eating my piping-hot breakfast.

Most mornings, I get up and open as many windows and doors as I can to help cool the place down. The reason I do not keep them open all night is to keep nature out. Having lizards in the house is very annoying and occasionally messy if not just startling. It is not fun to almost step on a lizard. It is not fun dealing with lizard poop. It is also not fun when one accidently squishes or dismembers a lizard and then has to clean that up. In addition, insects that like to bite visit in the evening so sleeping is a time to be attacked. Alas, another reason not to keep windows open even if they would provide a degree of coolness. There are no screens on the windows.

Once the oatmeal is eaten and I’ve enjoyed some sleepy meditations over methodically masticating mush, I go and wash my dishes. One must always wash the dishes! Ants love to eat anything and everything if flies do not. Thus, to keep the kitchen and home clear of more things that bite the skin and crawl all over, cleanliness is definitely a virtue. I do not always succeed and then must start a bleach battle.

From washing dishes, I brush my teeth and then have some quiet time. To, ya know, be quiet.

Just before seven, it is time to don my school attire. The night before, I always select the appropriate baju kurung for that day. I cannot always be trusted to make decisions of such importance in the morning so I  pull one out of my little closet the night before. This is partially due to the fact that every Thursday, I’m supposed to wear the traditional batik to school and have forgotten in a sleepier state. Furthermore, on Wednesdays, we have special activities in the morning which might also demand different attire. With a baju kurung on and my bangs clipped back so they don’t flop all over my face and stick there as I’m sweating through my teaching hours, I am ready to head out the door.

By 7:10am, I am descending from my floor down to the parking lot.

In the “car park,” I head over the corner where they sometimes burn trash. This is where I park my motorbike, Eisenhower aka Ike. I’m not sure why a Yamaha Lagenda should be named Ike. It makes about as much sense as naming a Subaru Outback Arturo. However, with the combination of a long, dignified name and a really sharp nickname, it gives me opportunities to be affectionate to my motorbike on its good days as well as (mentally or out loud) yell at it when it feels, yet again, like being obstinate. If all goes well, I start my motorbike and head for school.

And that’s how much I can type in fifteen minutes.

Post 7: It's Choral Speaking Not Drama...Or, in Malaysia, Is It Both?

Well, I think I had my first upset at school today: choral speaking.

It has come to my attention that I’ve never actually elaborated on what choral speaking is. It’s really quite a simple concept. Malaysia invented it to help students improve their English. It is a speaking choir. Another way to look at it is as a group speech. Essentially, roughly thirty students stand on a stage and recite a memorized script along with various motions. Perhaps this sounds weird. Until I rehearsed with students at least four times a week for over a month, I thought it was weird. Now, it seems perfectly normal.

Oh, I did want to note before launching into my story about the drama of today that drama at my school appears to be cancelled. Last I was informed, the school does not have enough funds to support drama and its needs for props, costumes, and transport to any location for competitions (everything here is for competitions only; school students don’t go to see dramas). Thus, although Nicole (my fellow ETA) and I wrote a fabulous script, it will be put aside for another time.

This morning seemed roughly like any other morning in Malaysia. I woke up just before six, mentally complained that it was dark outside and that I was sticky, went to the bathroom to wash my face, ate breakfast, had some quiet time, changed for school, and drove my motorbike the five kilometers to SMK Maran 2. However, I was a bunch of nerves even before I arrived at school because my students were having their first choral speaking performance today! AH! So exciting. They had practiced hard for many, many weeks. I still remember our first practice when it seemed hopeless and all the weeks following when my numbers at a practice fluxed from ten to twenty-nine between days. It was a little anxiety-ridden to say the least, but I knew it had paid off. My students had had a rehearsal the day before with me and had sounded excellent. I mean, for them.

Realize that they start out knowing nothing. Half my students when they were asked to join choral speaking didn’t know what choral speaking was. Then, you hand them a three-page long (double-spaced) script in English and ask them to memorize. These kids can’t read the words; they don’t know what it means (not all of it anyway); half of them are too shy to speak just above a whisper. However, the last month and some have been transformative. They’ve learned words, phrases, pages! They know motions. They’re synchronized. They can enter and exit a stage in a uniform manner. These kids are too squirrely to stand still for five minutes so giving a presentation that last longer than that is very impressive. I was proud of their rehearsal the day before. I was looking forward to how it would be received.

After I punched in at school and dropped off my things, I hung around on the assembly grounds (the parking lot on the front side of my school where the students have assembly every morning before class) to start gathering my choral speaking students together and shooting them excited smiles. Several of my students had threatened to not show up on Wednesday when I told them we were going to be performing because they were so afraid. I told them that they had nothing to worry about because we had drilled and drilled and drilled so they just needed to follow Fathin the conductor (see, a conductor just like a choir). They believed me. I even said that if worst came to worst and everyone completely forgot the line or messed it up, Fathin would cue them to stop and then prompt them to start over properly. Everyone knew the plan. Everyone was okay with the plan.

Once assembly was about to start, my students marched nervously into the science lab room just behind the stage and the assembly area to warm up. I asked them to recite quietly so that everyone wouldn’t hear them before their big debut. They sounded good. People were nervous but were following the conducting cues and doing the motions properly. Some of the students were still looking at their scripts which I told them they couldn’t do, but then I had to make an exception for a couple of students who had just joined and still wanted to perform even though they didn’t know all the words yet. I allowed it because I wanted them to have the experience of being in front of people. As most of us know, when you try and perform in front of people, things can go wildly different.

Then it was time.

I climbed up onto the small stage to give a little introduction as my students braced themselves for their big moment in front of their peers. I even broke my rule about speaking in Malay while I was on stage so the students knew to back up a little (blakan sikit) so they’d have a better view of the performance. I was all smiles.

I’m their coach. I don’t perform with them. After introducing my choral speaking group who were going to be doing “The Lost Page,” I got off the stage and went to stand with the other watching teachers (with my camera in hand of course).

The students filed out. They pivoted to face the audience. They watched the countdown 3…2…1… They breathed together and said, “It began…”

I won’t bore you with two pages of script.

They performed well. A few of them were embarrassed or nervous and it showed. They wouldn’t say a line or they’d wipe their face of nervous perspiration or just fidget wildly. That was to be expected. I hadn’t drilled into them proper performance posture so much as the words figuring that once we got the words down, we could work on finessing. One thing at a time. Nevertheless, they made it through. They knew all the words. They reached the end and completed the word “sun” with sharpness. The students bowed and pivoted to exit.

That’s when it happened.

My principal stepped out of the crowd and told them to stop. She told them to go back.

I was stunned. What was she doing?

With the authority of the person with complete control of the domain, she stepped forth slowly with her rattan stick in hand ready to discipline if necessary. Her stride was slow and fluidly beneath the pink silky fabric of her baju kurung.

Then she spoke….in Malay which means I only caught some of the words, but I absolutely knew what she was saying. My kids hadn’t pleased her. Now she was going to scold them. She was going to scold them in front of the entire student body. In fact, she picked a few students out and told them to leave the stage because they hadn’t performed up to snuff (both of them were new students still holding onto their scripts for dear life). She called out others but made them stay.

With a wave of her rattan rod, she told my students to perform again. Perform properly. Be serious, she said.

I was absolutely mortified. As soon as she had stepped out, my heart began pounding. I contemplated stepping forward in front of all the students and teachers at the school and cutting the principal off. How dare she treat the students that way! This was humiliating! When students perform (well or not) you let them come onto the stage, do their thing, and leave. Then, if there is room for improvement, you talk about it in privacy afterwards. Not so.

It broke my heart to see their grim faces as they braced themselves to begin again.

“It began

In the jungle

In the middle of Malaysi—“

My principal interrupted them again. I don’t even know what it was that time that displeased her. She was standing next to the conductor so she was much closer than I was. She called on a few poor students and told them to speak louder. She compared them to other students in the group who were louder or more on time or whatever. I don’t know.

The shaming continued.

She told them to start again.

I was close to tears. I was so upset. I knew exactly what was going through the students’ minds as they tried to tune the principal out enough to summon courage and repeat again what they had said so many times. They had said it over and over again until their throats were dry and their voices couldn’t bear it anymore (two hours is a long time to practice the same speech). Other students were watching my reaction. I’m pretty sure they knew I was agitated. I put on my own brave face, walked to the back of the students so that only those performing could see me and tried to be an explicitly encouraging presence from afar while turmoil built inside.

Once they finished their second run-through. The principal had yet more to say. She walked up to one of the boys in front and called him by the name of a character from a folk tale (I found out later) who is known for being stupid and looking like an idiot. This was all attributed to how he was wearing his traditional hat – songkot. She pulled it off his head and jammed it back on. The students in the audience tittered nervously. She continued on her icy rampage for another moment or two before finally allowing the students to escape in as much dignity and formality as they could muster from the exit we had rehearsed.

I was not happy.

I pursed my lips and shuffled (as only you can shuffle when wearing a baju kurung) and headed back for the science lab where my students were slowly collecting themselves once more. I beckoned those who were lingering and lost somewhere behind the stage but not back in the room.

Upon entering the room, I saw one of the boys being embraced and consoled as he openly cried with humiliation. I felt awful and said I was sorry over and over again. I don’t know if his brain’s translation center was shut down though since he was just crying with a certain expression of helplessness. Then, taking a breath, I climbed onto the lecturing platform in the lab room (it’s just a lab table that’s slightly elevated so you can see demonstrations better). I raised my voice as loudly as I dared without having it crack with emotion (I was pretty close to tears) and asked for all the students to come closer so that we could…debrief.

As they drew near, the door opened. Who should walk in but the principal! I could not take it. I could tell by her face that she had more to say to my already-mortified kids. No. I was drawing a line. I didn’t speak up for them in front of the entire student body because I have some semblance – some understanding – of Malay propriety. However, now we were behind closed doors. She was not going to tear down my kids where I could protect them. My Malay is not good. My principal’s English is not good either. However, she understood the message of me holding up my hand and saying as nicely but firmly as I could, “Can you please wait outside? I need to speak to the students alone.” If she detected any fury, maybe she thought it was intended for the students. It wasn’t.

Now, to try and rally the troops again.

Doing it without crying was going to be impossible, but I plowed on. Almost all my girls were already in tears. Once I started speaking amidst my own tears, it just got worse. I tried to tell them I wasn’t crying because of them. I was crying because of what was done to them. Again and again, I tried to tell them that I was proud. I thought they did great. I tried to say as simply and clearly as possible that the principal was wrong. What she did was wrong. I think they understood. I told them that we would do better and could do better and that we were already great. I asked if they were okay and if I could do anything. Many just continued to cry quietly and dab their eyes on their tudongs (head coverings).

My co-teacher and mentor both said their pieces to them as well trying to be encouragements. They were far from flustered. Why? Because the principal was like this all the time. They were used to her drastic measures. When I was informed of this, I told my co-teacher (the Malay teacher and coach for choral speaking) that that still did not make it okay. He still seemed perplexed why I was so upset and teary. He said that he thought Americans were supposed to be tough. For the record, I still believe I am tough. I just cry. They are not mutually exclusive.

…Okay, maybe I’m not so tough.

That was my morning.

From there, I had to try and get all my grief out so that I would be ready to teach. Indeed, a few phone calls later, a wash of the face, and about forty minutes before my first class, I was in better spirits. My students helped do the rest. Throughout the day, as I did spirit checks with my various choral speaking students, many of them also came up to me and asked if I was alright and begged that I wouldn’t cry anymore. I had to explain over and over that I cried because they had been crying and I felt their woes. I’m still not sure if they understood.

All the same, after hearing one of my male students say that his “heart cry on the inside” amongst other things, I hope to speak to my principal about what happened today. I want to be diplomatic. I want to actually do the “ambassador” part of my job here. I am an English Teaching Assistant, but maybe that doesn’t always mean I’m teaching English. I can also teach other things while speaking English. I think a lot of teachers do. We shall see.

I hope that I have choral speaking students on Friday when we practice again despite obliterated self-esteem. The competition is still a month away. Wish us luck!

Post 6: English Camp (IN BRIEF *gasp*)

It’s about time that I say something.

I’m going to try not to say far too much in one blog post. Again. Because I haven’t been successful at that so far.

Some of you may know that I just had an English camp this past weekend. As intense a process as it was, I think that I can discuss it fairly briefly (…or maybe not).

I believe that most of you who are reading this have participated in a summer camp in some fashion. Perhaps you were a camper once. If not, maybe you were a counselor. Maybe you were part of some camp crew or donated supplies to a camp. Maybe you’ve just been that lucky someone to drop someone off at camp. I don’t know, but you can draw from any of those experiences to know a little bit of what I was involved in this past week.

Five other ETAs and I put on an English camp for students from four of our schools. This meant doing everything from providing proposals at each of our separate schools, calculating budgets, arranging chaperones, buying supplies, choosing students and getting them to actually turn in permission slips, making a schedule and inventing activities, coming up with back-up plans, ensuring that students would be fed and have places to sleep. I definitely drew on all my previous experiences as a camper and crew person. This past weekend, however, would not have been such a tremendous success if even one of us hadn’t been there for the others to rely on.

So even though I had different teachers end up driving my students even up to hours before we left for camp, us six ETAs and about eighty students along with roughly twenty chaperones/teachers/assistants stayed in the recreational area of Gunung Senyum this past weekend to give some English students a confidence boost and introduce them to a certain extent as to what “camp” means to people from the U.S. as oppose to the generic term for “camp” in Malaysia.

You see, I think many of us have come to discover that camps are necessarily as fun in Malaysia. There is an idea of fun, but at the same time, there also seems to be a lot of work in camps in Malaysia rather than fun activities. For example, when I was developing a packing list to give to my students, my teacher was surprised that I didn’t think they would need a notebook. He asked me what exactly they were going to be doing that wouldn’t require a notebook. Seriously? For Three days and two nights, you think that every activity they do is going to demand the use of a notebook? Goodness. In addition, camps and just about every other event where there are people gathered means that there are likely to be “important” people giving speeches because they can and people have to listen.

Suffice to say, our camp was not like that.

My fellow ETA, Owen, accompanied me up from Maran and my students in a happy little caravan of cars. We were in the tiny, cheap car driving up supplies and my campers’ bags.

My school arrived first at the camping area to discover what the accommodations would be like and so on. At first, I was really nervous and not doing very well at knowing how to fill time when we were waiting. It was a skill I have since worked on. You may not have realized it, but there are lots of little filler moments at camp where you need to keep students entertained so they don’t become…destructive or wander off.

Frisbees! I introduced more students to throwing frisbees which was exciting. Now, I think my students are more eager to learn ultimate (which I will actually have time for nearing the end of June when choral speaking will end).

The first night of camp was…awkward. Students were getting settled and definitely keeping to themselves between the various schools. We, the ETAs, were all just trying to sort things out for ourselves. We had made schedules and even discussed it more or less, but there was an abundance of little details that needed attention, but only after we dealt with the students.

Over the course of the evening, we made them get to know each other. We played human bingo, sang songs, and mixed them into teams for the weekend so they had to start getting acquainted with one another. It almost seemed like a bad idea at the time with how stand-offish everyone was. By the end of the weekend though, I think we all felt a bit brilliant for having divided them as we did.

As leaders of the camp, you are always the last to sleep and the first to wake up (more or less). The lights were already out in the girls’ dorm (where I slept) when I walked in. Kristina, Davina, Owen, Quentin, Blake, and I had been discussing plans for tomorrow and had finally called it quits because all the power for the lights switch off automatically at midnight.

The girls’ dorm was…not like any sort of camp I’ve been to. There were no beds only raised wooden platforms which sat on cinder blocks. Then you just lie on any mat or blanket that you’ve brought with you. So for two nights, I was sleeping on a yoga mat with just a sheet covering me, and since there were so many girls in the dorm, I was just sleeping shoulder to shoulder with two of my girls. When I needed to shift in the middle of the night, I had to be very thoughtful so as not to bump into them as I turned over. Just part of the experience though.

It was also an experience to wake up so gosh darn early to…not pray. The girls all wake up around 5:30am to begin preparations for the morning prayer. Of course, if they’re on their period they don’t HAVE to wake up, but most of them are lucid more or less. I was awake and unhappy. It had started raining when we went to sleep last night and it had rained all the way through. Not to mention, it was still going strong. Time for a plan B.

Fortunately for us, we had planned a section of mellow activities in the afternoon since we had planned to have more strenuous activities in the morning. We just flipped the order and hoped for the best.

Over the course of the weekend, we sang so many songs with the students. I can’t really say how much all the students enjoyed all the songs, but some certainly did. We taught them classics like “Boom Chicka Boom,” the “Hokey Pokey,” the “Boog-aloo,” and “Peel Banana.” Some songs were more successful than others, but we really tried to make camp memorable with our constant enthusiasm (and we were successful in that regard).

It’s interesting to plan a camp around countless prayers and numerous eating times, but we did it.

Saturday was a long day of activities with lots of running around to facilitate that things actually happened. We had to cut corners here and there (definitely not for the best), but it was the best possibility for us thanks to inclement weather and the filth which attacked the very clean Malays. They like to take lots of baths. I, on the other hand, did not shower from Thursday night until my return home on Sunday night.

But what else do you want to know about the camp? We had team competitions, more songs, and even a hike. The camp was beautiful but definitely demanding a coating of bug spray if you wanted to keep the mosquitoes away. Oh! I played soccer (football) for the first time. I, essentially, made a fool of myself, but feel like I accomplished something since I headed the ball twice.

Sunday, we had a scavenger hunt that we invented for the kids along with closing ceremonies where we awarded all the students with various prizes and souvenirs for their participation. In the end, what was left was merely to pack up and go home. That’s English camp!

Okay, I admit that I’m missing an abundance of details, but most people, I feel, wouldn’t be interested in all of those thoughts. All in all, the camp was a good experience for everyone. I learned a lot about coordinating and arranging a camp and how to make it even more successful as I look out for ideas on new activities.

This week, so far, the students who attended the camp have been talking about the camp a lot. They already want me to do another one. Little do they know that I probably can’t take them on another camp just to be fair to the other students. Nevertheless, I hope that they learned or used more English or developed greater confidence in the language. I’m not sure, but they certainly liked camp.

So this is basically yet another week during which I am sleep deprived. I think it may just be a constant state for me in Malaysia. I’d rather have that than…other things.

And that, as they say, is that. It may be brief, but what more do you want to know? I hope to write again soon.

Shout out to my dad! HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY!

Post 5: A Bit About My Holiday But Mostly About Travel Trauma

School vacation!

I’m pretty sure that whatever country you’re in, there’s something good about vacation. For my students, it was a reward after their exams (which really don’t count for anything but they take anyway), an opportunity to sleep, a chance to work part-time, and a week to visit family or just go to a city where things actually happen. For me and all other ETAs, it was time for an adventure.

After teaching on Friday, March 9, I hastened home to retrieve my trusty backpack and while away a short amount of time (ensuring that I had everything and that my backpack looked like it weighed less than 7kg) before my mentor would pick me up and take me to the bus station. Keep in mind that it takes about ten to fifteen minutes on flat road to walk to the bus station. It’s definitely doable, but that’s just far too far to walk in the Malay mind. However, it wasn’t worth fighting my mentor on so I let her take me. This turned out to be a good idea anyway because as I walked out the door, it started pouring rain.

Kak Nor and Pak Mac treated me just like their kid at the bus station. Even though they brought me there roughly a half an hour or more before the bus was going to leave, they waited until I was on the bus and out of sight. They waved me away and everything. My students who were at the bus station at the same time probably found it uncomfortable to suddenly be in the presence of two of their teachers (especially when Kak Nor insisted on sitting beside them while we waited for the bus). I admit, I was a bit uncomfortable and just had a lot on my mind about traveling. There are many steps to traveling when you don’t have a car to take you directly to the airport.

I shall elaborate. I took a bus for about two and a half hours to KL. From there, I grabbed the metro line to KL Sentral (a terminal for all sorts of transportation – taxi, train, and bus). There, I ate with Owen who wasn’t leaving until the next day and had just parted from Lauren and Holly before jumping on another bus to KLIA. It’s a good thing that…Malaysian airport security runs so smoothly because, yet again, I was cutting it a bit close.

Sorry, my flow is a bit choppy. There’s just so much to say.

I felt like I was hurrying, even though I wasn’t doing the majority of the work, all through my travels. I continued to feel antsy and hurried when I arrived at the airport just in time for my flight. But wait…my flight wasn’t taking off. They announced the departure for one flight that was supposed to take off after mine. Then two. Then three. Then four. Before I knew it, my plane was taking off almost two hours after it was intended to depart, and I knew I was in trouble. You see, I had a connecting flight about oh…two hours after I was supposed to arrive in Jakarta. Lovely.

So before landing in Jakarta, I tried to alert a flight attendant of my dilemma. She told me that I was sunk. That was not exactly what I was hoping someone would say to me at that time so I pushed my way through the line of disembarking people (because Malaysians don’t know how to walk fast) and then literally ran until I found the first member of the ground crew and flailed my ticket at him. Not so miraculously because he understood English quite well, he hurried me to a random mini-bus to get a special ride to immigration.

Immigration. I would like to blame immigration for the reason I missed my plane even though that’s highly unlikely since I landed at 12:50am and my flight was at 1:05am to Ambon. However, though the Indonesian ground crew tried to expedite the process of me making it through immigration with my visitor’s visa, the head immigration people were very unhelpful and managed to make my ticket disappear. That was an awful and most unappreciated trick.

Thus, by the time that I had paid for a taxi I didn’t want to take in the middle of the night to another terminal, it was nearly 1:30am, the domestic terminal at the Jakarta airport was closed, I didn’t have a ticket, I didn’t really have any money, and I had nowhere to go. I ended up standing in front of the closed BataviaAir office looking pitiful and pleading my case to a man sitting on a trolley with mushed packages on it. He seemed to be some sort of security man waiting for normal business hours to deliver the mail to Batavia. He spoke English and took pity on my frazzled soul. I mean, I’ve never missed a flight before. Not to mention that I was in a foreign country by myself where I didn’t really speak the language, it was the middle of the night, I felt very poor indeed, and the place I was trying to fly to only has two flights a day so I felt utterly doomed.

Oddly enough, quite a few Indonesian workers hang out inside the BataviaAir office in the middle of the night. They’re all in street clothes, but they were willing to help me after whatever the man guarding packages said. They sat me down and told me that I missed my flight. Excellent. Yes, I, in fact, already knew that. They proceeded to tell me that I could take a flight in over twenty-four hours. That’s when I snapped. I was tired and stressed. No, I didn’t lash out in sudden rage. I simply put my head in my hands and…cried a little. I felt very lost and very small.

This was another situation that proved crying only made me feel better. It didn’t get me anything more than a phone call to Brian who was my connection in Maluku and who I was trying to reach to spend my school holiday. Oh Brian, what was I thinking going to a foreign country all alone to visit a guy that happened to go to my school and have the same major? We only had a whopping one class together! Still, I had committed to make the journey to the little island of Maluku, and, in the end, it was totally worth it.

Though it cost me a pretty penny more (the life of an ETA is not one rolling in bank notes of any country’s currency), I managed to get on the next flight to Ambon just five hours after the first one that I missed. I actually almost missed that flight too because there wasn’t an announcement over the loudspeaker, but I can thank God and the common sense He gave me which guided me into feeling it was time to go through the gate. I might’ve been the last passenger on, but I was on.

From there, it was smooth sailing. I wandered through a tiny little airport and found the token white male in the vicinity with the help of many excited taxi drivers. Brian got us a ride on an ojek (motorcycle taxi – they drive and you ride behind them wearing a helmet of course) to the ferry that would take us from Ambon to Maluku and the charming town of Masohi. Not surprisingly, Brian and I had an abundance of conversation topics to discuss during all our various travel ventures. I quickly discovered that he had a very strong grasp on the Indonesian language which made me feel, honestly, a little stupid. However, over the course of the week, it helped me to listen harder for cues in a language very similar to the one I was attempting to learn covertly in Malaysia. I say covertly because I have to try and not speak any Malaysian around my students at school.

Brian’s world is so different and so similar to mine. He’s alone out there on the island of Maluku and is teaching students with a stronger grasp on the English language than my own, but he runs into a lot of the same obstacles that I do. I think Someone knew that I wasn’t ready for the solitude that the life of an Indonesian ETA entails. I will say that I was happy to make Brian a little less isolated for a week while integrating into his island life (complete with local Indonesian girlfriend whose family was wonderful and fed me and gave me a place to stay!).

What did being on Maluku look like? Well, being bed buddies with a fabulous Indonesian girl named Gita whose family treats Brian regularly like family and, by extension, treated me like family while I was there. Every meal they served me at their family restaurant (it’s built right on the edge of land so you can’t get any closer to fabulous sea) was free and fresh and delicious – fish, fish, FISH! They are wonderful people. Oh, but I didn’t mention that they don’t really speak English which meant we were dependent on my poor Malaysian/Indonesian language skills and, much more effective, Brian’s far more fluent Indonesian abilities. I really did enjoy being with the family though; they’re just such warm people as they spend their days waiting for customers to stop by and letting the salty air blow in (the windows at their restaurant have no glass so the wind comes right on in!).

Besides eating food (which is very important indeed), Brian and I went with Gita and another Indonesian ETA, Chris, to another town on Maluku called Sawaii. It’s this tiny and beautiful little place tucked into a cove. There’s a fresh water spring in the town and many of the houses in town are built on stilts so these fishing people are that much closer to the water. Literally, in the strip of…little bungalow-huts we stayed in, you could jump out your window into coral and fish-infested water (which Brian and Chris did). It actually rained most of the time that we were in Sawaii, but it was still beautiful and so so so relaxing. I think I almost wish we had been able to go there at the end of my holiday so I would’ve felt more relaxed when I came back, but I needed to relax then, too. In the gaps of the rain though, we went snorkeling in incredibly clear water, saw GIANT fruit bats and butterflies, swam around, explored little caves, and just used a blend of Indonesian and English to make sure all four of us were in the loop most of the time.

Part two of the holiday with Brian was equally fun. We said good-bye to Chris after a four-hour drive back from Sawaii (on roads that are like lava – curved, bumpy, broken, black, and dangerous), and Brian and I stayed around the little town of Masohi so he could coach debate and we could teach his classes on Thursday and Friday (Boys vs. Girls English Olympics!). I would say that his students have a stronger grasp on English than mine do and are definitely more into physical contact, but they’re still just teenage kids with their insecurities. For a lot of the students, I think I was the first American girl they’ve met or definitely had extended contact with (after all, Brian is a guy). It was fun to talk with them though a little confusing because my ear didn’t have enough time to adjust to the Indonesian-accented English.

The week in Maluku was too short to say the least. Not too short to try such weird foods as dried sea cucumber “eggs” and a delicacy of a once-a-year-breeding-sea-worm-that-only-comes-after-the-moon-sets-and-before-the-sun-rises. Still, before I knew it, I was saying good-bye to Gita’s family and to Brian with only instructions on how to get back to Malaysia. I just had to retrace my steps, right? Well…that mostly worked.

Early on Saturday morning, Brian drove me on his motorbike to the ferry that would take me back to Ambon. Easy enough. He told me to take an ojek back to the airport and not pay more than 70,000 rupiah though I probably didn’t have the language haggling skills strong enough to bring it down to 40,000 rupiah. Once I made it across the sea, I managed to get 60,000, but no one would take me for less so I hopped on behind some random Indonesian man. I arrived at the airport in plenty of time (so much time that there was no one at the ticket counter yet). When they did come, the first thing they told me was that the flight was delayed. Super. But just an hour. I would still have plenty of time to make my connection back to Kuala Lumpur.

I went through security and hunkered down to wait. And wait. And wait. And…wait. The problem with Malaysian airports is that their departure screens are totally void of updates if a flight is delayed at all or anything of that nature nor do they really make announcements over the intercom. I did notice, however, that people were starting to receive little airplane food lunch boxes labeled Batavia and thought I might be able to cash-in also. This is also the point where I discovered my plane would be an hour and a half late. When I asked the Batavia man when that would mean we would arrive in Jakarta, his answer was TRE Time. I know that my language skills aren’t always the best, but TRE Time means nothing to me in Indonesian or English, and when I insisted on an actual time, the man gave a perplexed sigh and walked away (hid really) and didn’t come back until I sat down and ate my airplane food.

An hour and a half passed. Two hours came and went. A little over two and a half hours after the original time my flight was supposed to depart, my plane finally appeared. Thank goodness. I’ll admit I wasn’t too thankful at the time because I just really didn’t want to have the exact same experience leaving Indonesia as coming to Indonesia.

My airplane touched down in Surabaya (eastern Java) where I had to switch airplanes. This was expected so it wasn’t too big of an issue, and it took off in a timely fashion. I almost left my ticket on my chair where I had been waiting though. A nice Indonesian lady brought it to me though. The Indonesians are certainly not very shy when it comes to making conversation with a girl who only understands them a little. One man in the Ambon airport attempted extended conversation with me. The little old lady in the Surabaya airport wanted to know where I was headed. Then, once I arrived in Jakarta, the flight attendant fellow wanted to help me to the other terminal (and also wanted my facebook name), but I declined both because he also needed to help the handicapped person off the plane which was just going to take too much time. The taxi man I took to the other terminal (I didn’t want to wait for the bus) also wanted to know my name and what I had been doing in Indonesia. Once I actually made it to the immigration check for my international flight, the security offered to show me around Jakarta next time I was around, and the TSA man who checked my bags for liquids was also very interested in practicing English with me. Oh Indonesians, such funny people. I love them.

My last leg of flying was not enjoyable. My flight from Jakarta was also slightly delayed due to fog, but because I had been in such a hurry, I dashed through security to the other side that had no food to consume except for…Haribo gummy bears. So I ate some gummy bears (though only other thing I had eaten recently was a power bar since I had spent most of my time in airports). Suffice to say, my food did not sit well through the turbulence on the plane, and since AirAsia is a budget airline, you don’t get one of those cute little bags “tucked in the seat pocket in front of you”. So with a hand clamped over my mouth, I made it to the vacuum-powered airplane toilet. Rainbow-coloured gummy bears don’t come back in a rainbow. I’m not sure whether that’s comforting or not.

I did not feel good after that incident. That was a turbulence first for me. My advice though is do not eat gummy bears on an empty stomach when you are stressed and are about to fly. The repercussions may be greater than you know (my stomach has been off since I’ve been back in Malaysia. Nothing traumatic but very…burbly). I do apologize if anyone reading this does not want to know these details, but they are very prominent memories.

It was about 11pm when I arrived back in Malaysia. I contacted Joe (the older brother of a Malaysian friend I have back in Colorado) for a ride. Good chap was willing to bring me back to the family house for the night. Malaysians are wonderfully hospitable also.

Thus, another bus ride later (where I still felt ill), I found myself in KL at 1am. Who did I see there? Three other ETAs hailing a taxi who had just come back from their holiday. I waved them on and headed to Klang with Joe where I spent the night before making a very quick turnaround. Next morning, I took a bus back to KL and then the monorail to the bus station where I took a bus back to Maran. So many modes of transportation!

Along the way, I spotted another ETA on the other side of the monorail station so we had a shouted conversation for about a minute which was delightful. I love all moments that make the world feel familiar. Then, conveniently, I ran into Patricia at the bus station. We ended up taking the same bus back (only after having to get off the bus that wasn’t working and onto another bus that smelled like smoke and then off that bus to get back on the first bus which was now, miraculously, working). Goodness. That’s traveling in Malaysia.

So I’m back to the usual in Maran now. It’s time to teach and find new, better, and innovative ways to make my students speak English and actually learn something from me. I’m always open to suggestions if anyone has any. This week, my principal has been trying to have my choral speaking students perform when they’re not ready which has been causing me some stress, but I’m shaking it off and moving onward.

Two highlights for the week with my students:

I was going to Tunas Manja (the local Wal-Mart) to get some food with Patricia (this was on Sunday when we had just arrived). I spied one of my students offering samples in front of the store. This girl is in my best Form 5 class, but whenever I try to talk to her, she just smiles sheepishly and shrugs her shoulders. Still, I know she must understand something. Lo and behold! Unprovoked, she delivered several completely perfect English statements. I don’t know why this opportunity worked for her, but I was thrilled.

Secondly, I was invited by one of the teachers along with some of the students to go bowling with them at the end of the month. People want to hang out with me! Okay, plenty of people have offered company to me here, but it seems like it’s often out of generally understood hospitality whereas this seems more like genuine interest in just hanging out with me. Hooray! We’ll see if it actually happens.

So that’s where I’m at right now. I’m tired. I’ve got a funny stomach that I am still slightly blaming on gummy bears. I have an abundance of teaching-esque things to occupy my mind with. It is hot in Malaysia, but I think I’m getting used to it. When I dwell on it, I miss family and friends very much.

P.S. I also am sorry for all the grammatical errors I know are rampant in my posts. I don’t go back and read them over again because I just don’t have time for the deep edits that I know would be require. Enjoy my raw thoughts despite the flaws.

Post 4: An Update and the Cell Phone Saga

It’s about time that I post again. I’m sorry. Corresponding is not a strong point nor is writing on a regular basis (I’m sure plenty of you think this can’t be true since I write letters all the time. Not so. When it comes to writing, I am resistant).

Well, as usual, a lot can be said and much will have to go unsaid. I mostly wanted to tell you a story today about a more exciting weekend that I had about a week and a half ago (the last weekend in February) in which I was able to participate in an Ultimate Frisbee Hat Tournament. But, of course, there is much to be said prior to actually attending this wonderful event which actually took place on East Malaysia (the island of Borneo).

I’ll start the Thursday before: February 23.

That had been an interesting week for me. I was past introductions and now trying to teach my first full lesson. It was an adverb game that week which was successful (I think) and hilarious. What I would do, is after reviewing parts of speech in English (which all the students seemed to be completely unfamiliar with doing in English), I would introduce and remind them about adverbs. They don’t exactly form adverbs the same way in Malay it seems so I was just introducing the basics with the idea that an adjective plus the ending ‘-ly’ makes an adjective and would just use the basic adjectives that they know or would recognize when prompted. I made a list of adverbs down the board along with a list of verbs they’re more familiar with (Ex: walk, talk, jump, sing, dance, swim, sleep, etc.).

The next step of the lesson was splitting them into groups. I would count them off 1 or 2 so they, essentially, weren’t on a team with one of their best friends. I’d explain that when it was one team’s turn, the other team would select a verb and an adverb combination that the first team would have to act out. If everyone on that team did the action (Ex: swim quickly), then that team would receive a point. In most classes, this was very easy, very fun, and good practice for the students to ensure that they really grasped the concept and that the idea stuck.

I did, however, encounter resistance for the first time. I have not explained previously how the schools are structured so I’ll discuss a bit of that now. I’m in a secondary school which is basically the lumping of grades 7th through 11th together. They call them Form 1 through Form 5. Within each form, students are divided based on test scores into high, mid, and low performing students. I would think this sounds like a good idea, but the teachers do not always excel at adjusting the curriculum to students needs and then bringing them up to higher levels. Basically, they think that if you’re a weak student, you’re going to stay a weak student. It breaks my heart a little bit and also makes my job a tad more challenging.

What is interesting then is the fact that it’s expected that students in the weak classes are tend to be a bit more rowdy and rebellious while the high performing students are all sweet little angels who will do what they’re told and excel. Not so with the adverb game! I was in a high-performing Form 2 class after having successfully performed this activity in six other classes who had varying skills. These students did not want to play. They repeatedly told me that they could not do the actions that the other team wanted them to perform (not so comfortable feeling silly) and seemed to think that the game wasn’t teaching them anything. On top of their choice to continue half-heartedly engaging in the activity, a boy punched a girl when I wasn’t looking. He got his face in a corner for a short while. I was not pleased. Why wouldn’t this class do the activity that had helped higher level students than they are?

I had all my students sit down and then spoke quietly and firmly about my “disappointment”. I never said that I was angry or that I was sad, but I asked them why they wouldn’t do what I asked them and why they thought they already understood the material. Of course, no one answered. They all just sat there and avoided eye contact. For this sort of class, I knew the kind of punishment to give them. If they thought they knew everything, they were going to have to show me. I asked them to write a sentence with every verb on the board in the past tense, third person singular and use one of the adverbs appropriately with it. Suffice to say, they couldn’t do it so near the end of the class, I asked them to stop and discussed both the punishment, and again, why I asked them to do the activity. They seemed repentant. I haven’t had a problem since.

Anyway, it was Thursday now. I didn’t teach until the end of the day, but my school likes me to be at school like one of their regular teachers. So I was in and out of my room and running around because I had to make some special adjustments in my schedule due to the fact that I would be missing Friday (I was leaving early to catch a bus to KL for my flight). All this hustling about resulted in one bad thing: leaving my backpack unattended in the resource room where my desk is. Not only that, but I left it exposed with the pocket open so that my – cheap – cell phone was visible for the great mass of students who come in and out of that room for class and materials. Oops.

Yeah, oops. Around noon that day, after spying on students who were playing hooky in the resource room and teaching classes, I went to text a question to one of the people organizing the frisbee tournament, but low and behold, my phone wasn’t there. I looked around and searched in the other pockets to make sure I hadn’t misplaced it. No luck. I told myself that I must have been careless that morning and left it at home (I have been known to do that). I wasn’t going to panic unnecessarily. You know, it may not be useful to panic, but I should have told someone. For, in the end, my cell phone was not at home, and I had to come to the conclusion that one of my students had stolen it.

How convenient that the day before I leave on a trip which will require contacting many people I lose my phone! Super duper.

Thursday night, I borrowed Patricia’s phone to contact my mentor and the people I would be meeting up with the next day about the cell phone situation. This was going to be a good trip. No doubt about that (no really, it was an amazing trip).

Friday morning, I woke up and went to the bus stop. My mentor insisted on driving me there because with her extreme concern that I am without a cell phone, I cannot contact anyone if something goes awry. The bus trip was fine, and thank the Lord that though Malaysia loves technology and cell phones, they have not forsaken the pay phone.

I contacted Owen from the bus terminal to check where he was and make a rendezvous point….I ran out of coins but had a rough estimate of how long it’d be before Owen arrived. Because I am a nerd, I started the stopwatch on my wristwatch to more accurately gauge how long it should be before Owen arrived and could meet me (approximately two and a half hours).

I decided to go to MACEE to see if they could help me with my lost phone situation. Upon arriving at the building, I was called over by security and asked what I was doing there. This was a first. I was no longer expected though like I had been during orientation so I just had to sign in. I guess I understand that I might’ve looked a tad suspicious. It’s not every day that you see a girl with a backpacker backpack on and rolled up, faded jeans and keens in Malaysia walk into an office building. No siree.

Alas, MACEE was not as much help as I had hoped because the people from MACEE I was looking for weren’t there. On the bright side though, they did have a phone I could use for free and check back in with Owen after the abrupt ending to our last phone call. I can only imagine the strange numbers popping up on his cell phone. Ha!

Now, I had more time to kill (which is not very exciting to talk about). I was really excited though when Owen actually showed up at our meeting point. Pay phone success! I will always think fondly of pay phones because I used them to effectively make contact and arrange a meeting with someone!

Owen and I grabbed lunch and waited for a cleats store to re-open. We wanted to buy cleats for the tournament because it was supposed to rain the next day, and praying in sneakers would be a disaster. We may not be the most talented ultimate players, but we didn’t want to look more foolish sliding around like crazy because we don’t have adequate footwear.

Because we waited long enough, I got to see Nicole! Hooray! It felt like so long even after a few weeks. We had a ridiculous reunion in the food court of Pavilion in which I ran at her as quickly and quietly as I could while burdened with a giant backpack and then we hollered and slow-mo hugged and caused a small ruckus that made everyone else stare. Owen stared, too.

In the process of buying cleats and being social and the fact that it was raining, Owen and I were a little behind schedule for making our flight. It was 3:40pm when we arrived where the buses were to take us to the airport. Our flight was at 5:15pm. The bus ride takes an hour in good weather. Conveniently, it was pouring outside. Still, we had no other choice and asked the man for a bus ticket. When the ticket salesman found out when our flight was, he turned us away and said we must take a taxi. Owen and I didn’t like that answer.

In the end, we took a taxi. That was a stressful taxi ride. Our taxi driver was definitely doing his best to get us to the terminal on time. Because of traffic due to weather (and because we had to drive through KL which likes to have insane traffic jams), it still took us nearly an hour to arrive at the airport though our driver assured us that thirty minutes was plenty of time for a domestic flight. I kept trying to console Owen and myself by retelling some of my nightmarish travel stories – mainly the travels in and out of London for my last trip before leaving England (if you don’t know the story, ask me or Bethany Gibson; it was a great time…to remember after it happened and we survived without having to sleep in any snowy doorways).

Security for AirAsia for domestic flights is ridiculous after what I’m accustomed to in the States. You throw your bag on a conveyor belt and walk through the sensor. You don’t have to take off your shoes, take out your liquids or even dump your water. You just walk through and keep moving. Perhaps it was that easy for me and Owen because we didn’t have machetes hiding in our bags, but it was a relief.

We flew to Sabah. The flight was like a flight in the states except that you have to pay for food and drink. I don’t think AirAsia understands the word “complimentary” or “free”.

The Borneo Headhunters were really organized when it came it ultimate frisbee and all the arrangements therein. They had a van pick us up from the airport along with some Singaporeans who were playing as well. They brought us to our hostel and had a registration party that night. The party was pretty casual. It was just people eating and finding out what teams they were on. I didn’t actually meet any of my team members until the next day. It was pretty neat though to meet people who were working in Sabah who were originally from New York, Austria, and South Africa. We also met people who came from Guam just for the tournament. Dedication! Apparently, even though there are only 180 residents on Guam (Sass, Guam makes me laugh so hard mentally), a lot of people play ultimate. Jealous. No one in Pahang plays ultimate frisbee.

The next day was the tournament. We had to rise and shine because we had to be bused to the fields and then register and all that jazz. A group of us ETAs (plus our ETA buddy, Hafiz) were all there and ready to rock and roll. Jon was on Royal Blue, I was on Green, Owen was on Pink, and Kate was on Yellow with Hafiz. Our teams became Bloody Blues, Gang Green (I suggested the name because no one could think of anything better), Pink Panthers, and Mellow Yellow. Since this was a hat tournament, all the players who had registered were asked a few generic questions about their competency in the game so that the teams could be divided more evenly. I’m still a relative novice since I’ve never played in a tournament before.

The tournament was a blast but incredibly exhausting. Three games went on simultaneously, and each game was forty minutes long with a two-minute half time. In the morning, each team (there were eight teams total) played three “warm-up” games where they could get a feel for one another’s strengths. I scored the first point of the first game which was my first point ever in a tournament! There was hope for me. However, as the day progressed, I fell back into the usual routine of just being a decent defender because I stick to my player as best I can. I did get to work on some stacking skills and things though (if you don’t know what a stack is, it’s how you orient yourself to make an offensive play). Some of the people on my team were excellent players, some were loud, some were quiet. One girl took to smacking me over the course of the day because I would dance to the music being played from one of the canopies. I only danced when a disc wasn’t in play or I was on the sidelines so I don’t know what the problem is. I also cheered like crazy. It may be why our team received the Team Spirit award. That’s what everyone told me.

In the afternoon was when all the teams were placed into brackets. I don’t want to go into detail about game after game, but mine team did fairly well. We won third place and it was hard fought. The team who placed second thoroughly trounced us in our game against them so we accepted defeat gracefully, took off our cleats, and played our game against Mellow Yellow more like a pick-up game which was great. It was okay to be a tad more goofy though people were still scolded for being hasty (I had been hasty in an earlier game. Oh dear. I’m definitely not an Ent).

It was an awesome day. I love ultimate frisbee. People are good sports or force themselves to be good sports and it’s just fun and accommodating and different every time you play. When the day was done though, I was thankful. I was especially thankful that I hadn’t had any cramps, that I didn’t throw up, and that I had no other injuries to show for a full day of frisbee. I was just dirty and tired.

I strategically placed myself near the front of the bus so I could jump in the shower first once we got back to the hostel where it’s communal bathrooms all the way. That bucket shower is one of the most refreshing showers I’ve had in a long time (which is saying something because cold showers here often feel incredible…or just alarmingly chilly).

That night, we had an awards party that was supposed to be rock n’ roll themed. I feel like I botched attendance for everyone. We arrived early and discovered I couldn’t eat the food there which meant that Jon, Owen, Kate and Hafiz escorted me elsewhere to eat dinner. Although we were about fifty yards away from the party location, it took far longer to receive our food than we anticipated (and they ran out of chicken) so we missed most of the awards and rock n’ roll competitions. My bad.

We didn’t stay out late (for various reasons). I was just tired. In the morning though, I couldn’t stay asleep. Too many mornings of waking up early has conditioned me to wake up. So I was ready to greet the day at 6:45am but waited patiently to hear sounds of others stirring. It had been agreed upon the night before that we would visit a nearby island, Sapi, in the morning before we all headed to the airport.

Cutting to the chase a little bit, we went to Sapi. It was beautiful. It was extremely small with two areas to snorkel in. I was stupid and only partially checked the snorkeling equipment I rented on the dock and only discovered there was a piece missing after sucking down multiple mouthfuls of water (the base of my snorkel’s breathing apparatus wasn’t plugged). On Sapi, there is no great coral reef, but the water is pristine and there are still a variety of fishes to look at including clown fish and parrot fish. I enjoyed seeing a school of something called ikan bilis which are often served dried and salted in fried rice or a Malaysian dish known as nasi lemak. What was also awesome on Sapi were the giant monitor lizards there. They’re like more harmless komodo dragons. You could get really close to them though we were warned not to get too close to their tails.

Our time on Sapi ended too quickly. We had scheduled the boat from our company (there are all these rivaling companies at the docks hollering for you to use them even though they cost the same amount) to arrive at 2pm. Our flight from Kota Kinabalu was at 3:45pm, but we knew from when we arrived that it takes only about fifteen minutes to drive to the airport. However, it began to be of some slight concern when our boat didn’t arrive at 2pm. No, it didn’t arrive five minutes later either. Other companies’ boats came and went and told us that we couldn’t get on them. We continued to wait. At 2:10pm, people started to get anxious. Kate called the company. They said that there should be a boat coming in the next ten minutes. It was 2:19pm. There was no boat. We started to grow a touch concerned since it does take roughly twenty minutes to ride from the island to the dock. Antsy, antsy, antsy. Then the boat came and we cruised back. I enjoyed the breeze while it lasted knowing that I was returning to another long week at school.

Kate had had enough forethought to call for two taxis to pick us up from the dock. They were there waiting for us as we scurried forward. Jon and I hopped in one. Owen, Kate, and Hafiz hopped in the other. Ha ha! They thought they were going to get a deal splitting the cost three ways, but their taxi didn’t have a meter so they were doomed to pay the price the taxi driver demanded. I, on the other hand, demanded our taxi driver use his meter so Jon and I ended up paying less than Owen, Kate, and Hafiz did. It was a small victory in a slightly stressful time. The stress didn’t end when we arrived at the airport and Kate took an exceptionally long time at the check-in desk. Turns out, she accidentally booked the wrong flight. She had missed her plane. And now she had to pay to get on our flight. Ouch. Just to observe it was a lesson learned.

Turns out that security is just as lax going back so we bopped through security just in time for all of us to catch our flight. It was a fun flight home. Children a-plenty frolicking in the aisles. They don’t keep kids under control in Malaysia the same way they do in the U.S. Note: never try and show a small child how to pop his palm against his mouth like an Indian and expect him to imitate you quietly. Owen learned that the hard way. We all heard a little Indian hollering on the plane. That little Indian also had a mullet. I touched it.

Returning to KL wasn’t difficult. We took the bus and met my mentor at KL Sentral. Of course she insisted that everyone eat (but didn’t treat us all to food this time). After that, we made our way to the bus station to head home. My mentor, because she had been visiting her children in KL, was going to take me home. Eventually, everyone was on their various buses. It was after 10pm. The drive from KL to Maran is roughly two and a half hours. The reason I didn’t make it home until 2am? Malaysians. Malaysians like to rest and make stops and eat. So even though it was one in the morning, we found ourselves at a rest stop eating and drinking. Rather, my mentor and her husband ate, drank, and prayed while I dozed in the car. I knew that the whole school week was going to be exhausting so I took every wink of sleep I could.

Sure enough, the week was tiring. I chose this past weekend not to even visit folks in Temerloh (a nearby town) just so I can be home, rest, try and organize things for school (a slow and tedious process I’m still awful at) before facing a week of exams. Obviously, I’m not taking the exams; the students are. So I don’t have to teach them. However, this hasn’t been a particularly productive week so far just because students will come and talk to me between their exam times and, because I just started drama and choral speaking, there I have to prepare scripts and practices for them. So much to do and so little time!

And this Friday night? I’m going to Indonesia! I’m going to the island of Maluku for the March holiday (Spring Break) and am visiting another ETA. That should definitely be an adventure.

Oh, I forgot. The saga of my cell phone which I started at the beginning of this blog has yet to be resolved. The Monday I returned to Maran, the assembly announced that my phone was missing. Many students already knew that my phone was gone because some of the students had been interrogated on the Friday I was traveling to Sabah. After school on Monday, I had to file a police report for stolen property at the Maran Police Station (conveniently right next to my apartment so I see them drilling every day). Tuesday, I bought a new phone to replace the phone I had had stolen because MACEE requires that I return a phone to them of equal or greater quality. AND! The latest news as of today, my mentor was informed by some Form 5 Arif students that my cell phone had been seen at an electronic shop in Maran town. Of course, no one would ‘fess up as to who saw it or how it got there, but it seems my phone may be lurking about. Oh well, I learned my lesson and just hope my students don’t feel inclined to sell anything else of mine.

This was a long post. I didn’t intend for it to be a long post. Obviously, I have a lot to say but never enough time to say it.

In other news, my laptop has essentially become a quasi-mobile desktop. My battery which already held only a minimal charge, fizzled out at the end of my orientation in Kuantan so my laptop now functions without a battery. In addition, I just dropped my laptop on the tile floor. Fortunately, it's still working, but I don't know if my five-year-old computer is going to survive Malaysia. Pray that it will. Thank you.

Until I write again!