I wake up at 7am. I wash myself in a
freezing cold shower (which can be either refreshing or excruciating depending
on if we used the fan/aircon the night before) and I eat breakfast, so far
which has been peanut butter and banana sandwiches with fruit juice. I then
head off to work at 7.30 in a tuk-tuk with Max, Victor and Will. Max and Victor
get dropped off at their morning placement, Lakeside School, while Will and I
head to the Youth School. This is the first of the three schools we work at.
12 hours later we're heading home
from our final placement after teaching a total of 7 hours (7 different
classes), a traveling time of 2 and 1/2 hours and 2 and 1/2 hours of breaks. We
then have to cook dinner - 8 people in the kitchen takes almost 2 hours - and
do any laundry necessary. Then we plan our lessons for the next day. If we have
time, we then chat or read or play cards, listen to music...
Needless to say, we live a pretty
hectic life here in Cambodge.
My thoughts overall? Well, I'm presenting
a rather mediocre-negative viewpoint on the whole matter. It is rather a busy
day. Yet what I find the most interesting, the most a-MAZE-ing (I input the
'MAZE' as opposed to their incorrect pronunciation 'ah-MAZ-ing' here) is how
whenever I have a moment to think, I realise and am somewhat surprised by my
own constant elation. Every second of every day, I am practically drinking in
the experience as one of the most thrilling I have ever encountered.
An easier to understand example is
when coming home from each work placement in the tuk-tuk, everyone around me
silent, I'm just grinning to myself as I think of the next thing there is to
do, the next kid there is to teach.
A sum up: I LOVE IT.
It's currently 12pm on Wednesday 18th
August, and Will and I have just held our first two classes! They went
relatively well though I admit some improvising was definitely in order. We are
rather proud of our progress with the older kids, with whom we managed to cover
introducing ourselves as well as likes and dislikes.
Just want to express joy from not
having embarrassed ourselves with our bad knowledge of teaching yet! Yay!
- Juliet; the blossoming
wisdom-giver.
Glad to see you're having such a successful time in cambodia!! speaking from experience sometimes when you get into the real thick of it it can bog you down sometimes, the hard work I mean. But if you just push through it all becomes worth it in the end.
ReplyDeleteRemember to get some travelling done while you're there! xx
Thanks baby! Love it that you are commenting :) it's been a shaky first week but now we've just got office work tomorrow and so we've got a welcome few days break really.
ReplyDeleteWill definitely be travelling! And coming back to singaling in Oct. You'll be at NYU by then?
xxx