unbalanced

Almost four weeks into school term and the pattern in posts here is becoming very apparent - seems like most, if not all of my life as of late has to do with school in one way or other, since there's been precious little else that i've talked about.

Ironically, this comes at a time when, at least compared to practicum time, i spend at least an average of an hour less in school than i used to, something i guess is a result of not having to draw up detailed lesson plans for every lesson so far. Actually, the truth being that up till now i've not done so for any one lesson this term :p, though the tediousness that is the teacher's record book is something that i'm still coming to terms with.

In fact, the time has now come for me to be the one to urge the new practicum people to go home, rather than be the one chased home once the a/c is switched off come 6:30pm. I used to have the twelve-hour rule, whereby i make sure i leave school less at least than twelve hours after i've signed in for the day. Now, i find it hard to top eleven, though it's not so much about not having enough work to do (far from it!) but more from a reluctance to do it, and an even greater reluctance to bring it home..

My reticence towards most Chinese stuff has thus far has had to necessarily take a step back for now, in view of having no choice but to help Mandarin-speaking students translate words into English and vice versa. And after today's parent-teachers' meeting, i realized that things will only get mroe interesting since there'll be have to be a lot of communicating going on with Mandarin-speaking parents/guardians in the future - my attempts today were laughable at best... Even in invigilation duties, i was not spared - some of today's instructions for the MT listening comprehension over the radio came purely in Mandarin, which meant a lot of careful listening on my part just so i didn't screw anything up (and believe me, especially for something like listening comprehension, the invigilator can feel just as , if not more nervous, than the exam candidates, since any wrong antenna positioning or flat battery here of a wrong button pushed there can cause the prospects of a class full of students to dim significantly all thanks to you...)