Relief
"The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped."
These words comforted me alot this morning when I was frantically revising through my notes on the addition of rational numbers in Chinese. I'd been preparing my lesson for a few days, although I'd not done as much intensive preparation as I would have liked to, and had spent a ridiculous amount of time making the powerpoint with the little character which I called "Xiao Dou Dou" (The Little Pimple) moving above the number line to specified spots.
Then yesterday I called a very obliging Kenny and spent the whole night giving him my lesson. I am sure he must have been tired of it, but he was very patient and corrected alot of my Chinese and gave me new ideas and phrased my complicated, convulated sentences simply. I was very, very grateful when I hung up, with a piece of paper full of his suggestions and changes. There were some times when he had to repeat a sentence three or four times so that I could get it down, and this he did so patiently and willingly that I was very thankful.
This morning was a blur of waking up at 630 and having breakfast in the school canteen (poridge with salted vegetables), reading my Bible (Saul making last-minute sacrifices before a battle! NG) and last-minute frantic memorisation of stuff. Then before I knew it the class was filing in for their lesson and their earnest faces were upturned, attentive, adorable. They were very enthusiatic and answered my questions in chorus (quite scary) and a model class overall. I'm not sure whether the school gave me a very good class on purpose, but everything turned out alot better than I thought (especially with Kenny's suggestions, which I put into use) and I was very relieved after my lesson.
After that I passed a few of the pupils in the school grounds and couldn't help grinning at them, and they grinned at me too :o) It's moments like these when I'm very sure that I couldn't do anything else but teach, and am motivated to do my best and be an excellent teacher.
In the afternoon we had a talk with the school's younger teachers, who've only been in the school for less than three years, facilitated by Mr Zhu. It was good learning from them, and I'm sure it was mutual. They called these talks/ exchanges "jiao liu", which means interaction and learning and beginning a friendship all in one. I hardly believe how much they want to know about our country, and how much they want to visit. I guess we take alot of things for granted in Singapore - the lack of corruption, the safety, the lack of natural disasters (we're in the middle of a near-typhoon here), the beauty and convenience of everything, and the opportunities and high standard of living. We may think life in Singapore is stressful, but from what I've seen here I don't think we've much justification for our complaints, oh no, because life here is even more stressful - there is pressure from everyone to do well and to make good, and pressure from the whole concept of "face" - people can work so hard just for the sake of saving face. Which, in a way, is not a bad thing: like I said, the sense of excellence here is something that I want to bring home.
I'm thankful that, even though my Chinese isn't very good, it's at least usable and I understand and know enough to be able to appreciate the people and personalities here. I like talking to a person in his native tongue.
I think language can be such a huge barrier to understanding people. If you were to speak to someone in a language he wasn't familiar with you wouldn't be able to understand him fully. And although I can't express myself very well, I understand enough of what people say (or specifically Mr Zhu, whom we were talking to for hours after the "interaction with the younger teachers") to be able to appreciate the noble ideas and the maturity of the person expressing them, or to recognise a similarity in them to myself - a drive to excel and a sense of fun. I'm always so pleasantly surprised when I meet someone of another culture whom I can identify with so well; it seems to show that the world is smaller than we think and that people are not that different beneath all the trappings of culture and customs after all.
I wish my Chinese was better; some of the teachers here say that we sound like people from Guangzhou who don't really have proper inflection of tones! Ah well, that's the curse of being a Singaporean - not quite precise pronunciation of English and even less precise knowledge or pronunciation of your mother tongue! Still, though, I hope my Chinese improves enough to be able to express what I really think and feel clearly and accurately one day. Then we'll really be able to "jiao liu" and learn from each other, and get to know each other more.
These words comforted me alot this morning when I was frantically revising through my notes on the addition of rational numbers in Chinese. I'd been preparing my lesson for a few days, although I'd not done as much intensive preparation as I would have liked to, and had spent a ridiculous amount of time making the powerpoint with the little character which I called "Xiao Dou Dou" (The Little Pimple) moving above the number line to specified spots.
Then yesterday I called a very obliging Kenny and spent the whole night giving him my lesson. I am sure he must have been tired of it, but he was very patient and corrected alot of my Chinese and gave me new ideas and phrased my complicated, convulated sentences simply. I was very, very grateful when I hung up, with a piece of paper full of his suggestions and changes. There were some times when he had to repeat a sentence three or four times so that I could get it down, and this he did so patiently and willingly that I was very thankful.
This morning was a blur of waking up at 630 and having breakfast in the school canteen (poridge with salted vegetables), reading my Bible (Saul making last-minute sacrifices before a battle! NG) and last-minute frantic memorisation of stuff. Then before I knew it the class was filing in for their lesson and their earnest faces were upturned, attentive, adorable. They were very enthusiatic and answered my questions in chorus (quite scary) and a model class overall. I'm not sure whether the school gave me a very good class on purpose, but everything turned out alot better than I thought (especially with Kenny's suggestions, which I put into use) and I was very relieved after my lesson.
After that I passed a few of the pupils in the school grounds and couldn't help grinning at them, and they grinned at me too :o) It's moments like these when I'm very sure that I couldn't do anything else but teach, and am motivated to do my best and be an excellent teacher.
In the afternoon we had a talk with the school's younger teachers, who've only been in the school for less than three years, facilitated by Mr Zhu. It was good learning from them, and I'm sure it was mutual. They called these talks/ exchanges "jiao liu", which means interaction and learning and beginning a friendship all in one. I hardly believe how much they want to know about our country, and how much they want to visit. I guess we take alot of things for granted in Singapore - the lack of corruption, the safety, the lack of natural disasters (we're in the middle of a near-typhoon here), the beauty and convenience of everything, and the opportunities and high standard of living. We may think life in Singapore is stressful, but from what I've seen here I don't think we've much justification for our complaints, oh no, because life here is even more stressful - there is pressure from everyone to do well and to make good, and pressure from the whole concept of "face" - people can work so hard just for the sake of saving face. Which, in a way, is not a bad thing: like I said, the sense of excellence here is something that I want to bring home.
I'm thankful that, even though my Chinese isn't very good, it's at least usable and I understand and know enough to be able to appreciate the people and personalities here. I like talking to a person in his native tongue.
I think language can be such a huge barrier to understanding people. If you were to speak to someone in a language he wasn't familiar with you wouldn't be able to understand him fully. And although I can't express myself very well, I understand enough of what people say (or specifically Mr Zhu, whom we were talking to for hours after the "interaction with the younger teachers") to be able to appreciate the noble ideas and the maturity of the person expressing them, or to recognise a similarity in them to myself - a drive to excel and a sense of fun. I'm always so pleasantly surprised when I meet someone of another culture whom I can identify with so well; it seems to show that the world is smaller than we think and that people are not that different beneath all the trappings of culture and customs after all.
I wish my Chinese was better; some of the teachers here say that we sound like people from Guangzhou who don't really have proper inflection of tones! Ah well, that's the curse of being a Singaporean - not quite precise pronunciation of English and even less precise knowledge or pronunciation of your mother tongue! Still, though, I hope my Chinese improves enough to be able to express what I really think and feel clearly and accurately one day. Then we'll really be able to "jiao liu" and learn from each other, and get to know each other more.
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