Something just made me think of the very short teaching experience I had after my A levels.

Prior to that I’ve heard that some teachers didn’t like to take the top class(es) in school, but at that point of time, I didn’t quite understand why. “What’s so bad about taking the good classes?” I thought to myself. After all, doesn’t it make your job easier since it is more likely that the students can understand what you’re trying to teach them? And generally speaking, you won’t have to push them so hard to make them study as well, since most of them will do some studying (or at least the homework) on their own.

It was only until I relief taught that I realised that that wasn’t all that mattered. From my experience, stepping into the top few classes felt so different from being in the other classes. In a top class, there are students who will listen to you and give you respect. At the same time there are others whose attitudes seem to imply that they don’t really need you around since they can read up on their own, and to them, your knowledge probably isn’t much more than theirs. Perhaps its because of this group of people that I get some of the “cold and aloof” kind of feeling in those classes. In the other classes, sometimes the students are more rowdy, and it can be quite difficult to get them to listen to you. But in these classes, the students seem to feel more human, and it’s these students who come up to you when they see you around, and ask you if you remember them even if you’ve only been into their class once or twice.

After that experience, I think I might better understand why some teachers would rather not teach the top classes. If once day I end up as a teacher (which is unlikely, at least at this point of time), I think I’d feel the same way to. Arrogance, disrespect and the like bother me, and I’d rather take up the challenge and teach a bunch of students who are “more human”, because at least that gives me the motivation to help them understand the topic being taught. To me, even if I get to teach a top class, I probably won’t feel very satisfied if they do well, because they’re supposed to be diligent, if not smart, and their attitude makes it seem as though don’t really need me anyway. Ask me what I remember from my short teaching stint, and I’ll tell you that it’s the times I spent with these non-top classes. Even though I had a tough time teaching some of the students, the attitudes of the others, as well as the small things they did, made me feel heartened, and that at least my presence meant something to them.

(Of course, not all the good classes are like that, and what I’m saying here is solely based on my experience. I guess that perhaps something like this is more common for schools that are on the higher end of the ranking tables, and those that are so well known academically that they don’t have to be ranked. I’m not implying that every top class is like that, ok?)

Yesterday’s communications tutorial was about interviews, and I think I’m really not very good at it. I just wanted to laugh throughout the whole thing! Perhaps it because we were interviewing our peers, and I know that it’s just a mock interview sort of thing. In any case, the interview questions weren’t easy to tackle! I’ve never gone for a really formal interview before, and I wonder how that will be like…

We seem to get randomly grouped pretty often in communications class. I’m not strongly against that of course, but given a choice, I will always choose to work with people I know. Even until now it takes me a while before I get used to working in a group with people I don’t know. I feel very self-conscious when I first work together with new people, and I always wonder if something I said sounds very silly. And because of that sometimes I end up not speaking up often. But after a while I feel a lot more comfortable, like with the people in the group I did the case study with. I should really learn to become more comfortable around people I don’t know that well, because there will be a lot more occasions where I have to work with them.

I’m teaching during sunday school again tomorrow, and both of my partners have abandoned me are not around. It’s the second time (first time being last year) where none of my partners around and I have to take the lesson alone. Hopefully everything goes fine, and the guys won’t be too rowdy. I’m glad that my class isn’t one of the very quiet ones, because I’m already a quiet person myself. I don’t want to be the only one talking throughout the whole hour! It’s nice that they’re asking questions as well, even though some of these aren’t easy to answer. Must go and look through the lesson plan for tomorrow again later.

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The 3-day long Chinese New Year holiday is coming to an end, which means having to get up bright and early for school again tomorrow. Thankfully the next 3 days are really slack! I start at 9.30am tomorrow instead of 8.30am (which means another hour of sleep!), and there’s no lab on thursday and friday! Then it’ll be recess week next week. :D

As with every year, the first day of the new year was a really busy day. Off to church in the morning, then to my uncle’s house (paternal side) for lunch, and my grandma’s place (maternal side) for dinner. The paternal side of my family is getting bigger and bigger each year! My Dad has 9 other siblings, and out of the 10 of them, 8 are married. And on the average, those who are married have 2 kids each, and Christina and Nat are married (cousins), and Christina has 2 kids. Add that up and there’s 40 people (did I count correctly?)! Even though there are usually a few people missing each year, it’s still a lot of people! To be honest I can’t remember every one’s names, and I’m sure non of my relatives can either. So this year my uncle actually typed out every one’s names, reintroduced every one and made us take pictures “to keep track”. Who know’s what programme we’ll have next year?

Another uncle was showing us videos from his trip to Hainan, China, which is where my grandparents came from. While he was there he met up with my extended family, and they visited the graves of all my ancestors. The land they have for burial purposes is huge! Saw the ancestor home as well, which is quite far off from the city area. And lots of fire crackers going off (it was Chinese New Year then). The uncles were talking about some family thing, something like 5 generations form a clan? Anyway I’m not very sure what they were talking about, but in any case it seems like Linus (eldest male cousin) can inherit some of the land the family has in China, and the uncles were joking about buying water buffaloes to develop the area. But there’s talk about heading over with my oldest uncle in June to look at the place, so who knows what will happen then…

While there always seems to be new additions to the paternal side of the family each year, for the maternal side there’s always just the same few people. But my youngest aunt is back this year! When I saw her, for a moment I was wondering who she was, because I totally didn’t expect to see her. The last time I saw her was about 10 years ago! 10 years really does make a difference… The house hasn’t changed that much all these years but every one has aged. How quickly time flies…

I was showering just now, when I realised how obvious the veins on my wrists were. I can clearly see 4 of them running down my wrist, and 2 are purplish while the other two are blue-green. And I can see my blood stop flowing when I press on them! The blue-green “line” just disappears, and then forms again once I stop applying pressure. (The problem with being a Bio student, is that when you see things like these, you start describing it in detail.) I don’t remember being able to see them this clearly. Is it normal for veins to be this obvious? I think if I accidentally cut my wrist one day I might just sever my arteries as well, given how close my blood vessels seem to be to my skin.

When I apply lotion to my feet, I usually wear socks so that I won’t end up dirtying the floor or slipping on it. If for some reason I need to take it off, I usually place it on my bed frame so that I can find it easily. When I last changed my bedsheets, I was trying to find the pair of socks I had placed there, but somehow they seemed to be missing. So I thought that my mum had thrown it away, because that was one of my older pair of socks.

Today my mum made me change my bedsheets (I thought I just changed them recently!), and when I took off the old bedsheet, there were my socks! I had been sleeping on them for days without realising it. -.-; Reminds me of the time I was searching for my glasses, only to find them stuck in the pillowcase. How come I didn’t spot them when I last changed the sheets?

It’s Chinese New Year’s eve today, but somehow I don’t feel in the mood to celebrate this time round. I remember that when I was a kid, I really enjoyed Chinese New Year, because it meant playing with my cousins, eating all the new year goodies and of course, receiving red packets. But as the years go by, I look forward to Chinese New Year less and less. Perhaps that’s also because in recent years, you don’t really feel the festive mood around here, or am I just the one not feeling it?

The week leading up to Chinese New Year is always a busy one for many people, because it means having to spring clean, buy something new to wear, stock up on food and so on. I don’t understand why my mum has to replace so many things with new ones. The other day she came home with new kitchen knives, new chopsticks, new chairs and a new dustbin. Do we really need new ones? There’s a whole lot of new year goodies at home as well. Since we’re usually the ones going out to visit others, I don’t see why we need so much food. I certainly never mind having snacks to eat, but every year we get so much that I end up having to eat them up after new year. I really hope that I don’t have to eat all the leftovers this year. Except the pineapple tarts. I can never have enough of those. XD

As much as I am not in the mood to celebrate, I still have to visit my relatives tomorrow. So I might as well try to be more happy about it.