Good Day

today was a good day at work. tiring and in some ways blur but good. was almost late for work -- went to bed 2:30am and struggled to get out of bed. hehe. was still in time though i missed breakfast.. which was ok because lunch was bak kut teh! woot! good stuff. God is good. hehe.

anyway, ran about with a packet of pocky because i couldn't get myself to say no effectively and firmly enough. but it was alright. i mean, i usually don't snack but i went around giving pocky to kids who'd finished their lunch and haha, i'd say the lunch went pretty well. they were going crazy over it. haha.

homework time was pretty amazing even when i had to take the class solo.. can't remember why but i was alone. then i just told everyone that they can talk BUT if i can identify the voice, that person gets IT time reduced. good tactic but execution can be better. the idea is to really bring down the hammer on the first person to exceed the line, even by a bit, but i was too focused on helping some of the kids with their homework and.. yeah. i'm not sure where or when it started but i just don't notice the background noise when i'm concentrating. end result -- a lot of names on the board but hey, it was amazingly quiet compared to the usual chaos. hehe.

gretel also gave me a fairly loud *complete* sentence today. something along the lines of "timothy doesn't want to give yvette's brush back" plus a few more words i didn't catch. wow. she must really care about yvette to speak like that. i mean, it was audible. i wasn't specifically listening for it and i could still catch her meaning. wow. i mean, it's like jenny volume. soft, shy, but clear within a small radius. i feel really blessed and honored, really, thinking about it. one of my fellow teachers hasn't even heard her speak before and i've already gotten plenty of talk-time. mostly from making her read homework questions together with me but also some of the fun times when she forgets that i'm a "teacher". hehe. her throat-clearing can also be surprisingly loud. as in, whoa, gretel can make such a loud noise?! i have a vague suspicion that she's doing it on purpose. hehe.

caleb almost cried on me today yet in the end, he did his work. it was tricky but i felt i handled it well. i gave him a choice to do some of his work and get some playtime in later or just sit beside me while i help gretel with her homework. it was really give and take. i think i got conned by his school bus argument but given how emotional he was feeling, it's entirely possible he forgot his dad was picking him up. anyway, he went from, i don't know how to do, don't know to do, can never learn how to do to just needing to confirm his answers with me. i consider that a great success even if he only did 1 question without any input from me.

and speaking of helping. wah. gretel almost defeated me but for the grace of God. she is... one tough cookie. from 4:50pm till 5:55pm, she did a grand total of 2 math questions. ouch. most of the time was spent just her doing her sway. wow. what endurance. i thank God for yvette -- i have a strong suspicion that it was her argument that she was willing to sacrifice her playtime to be beside gretel, her constant encouragement for gretel to be willing to learn and to do.. ok, i'm convinced it was yvette that got gretel to finally do the question. i mean, it took her about all of 20 seconds to write out the working and the answer for the question. she must really, really hate doing math. she's likes english and chinese though. something to take note of. =)

and yeah, i was ready to give up at 6pm. it's torture for both gretel and i to just sit there, me intermittantly trying to teach her, encourage her, blah blah blah and her for the most part, doing her silent sway with roving eyes. oh she has pretty eyes by the way. i noticed after i cajoled her into more eye contact. hehe. yeah, i feel really blessed that she would still feel comfortable around me -- we've had more than one of these "torture sessions" before.

also had a good chat with ling lao shi. i had a feeling she really knew her stuff and now i know for sure she really knows her stuff. got a few tips, few insights, and some encouragement. what teachers really need is ai xing and nai xing and she says i have both. good stuff. =)

if you haven't gathered by now, i adore these kids even though they can really manage to both irritate and wear me down. thank God for giving me such a good training environment. i've got lots of improvement to go, but i've improved a lot.