Students graduating

The program that I am teaching here is a basic English program that is supposed to take 6 months. As a consequnece, this week, two of the classes I have been teaching for the past 6 months have finished the program and will be graduating. Part of me goes: Yeyyy! We’ve made it! The other part goes: Nooo!!! I like you guys! You’re nice and fun! What will I do without seeing you every day???

The more I do this job, the more I admire and respect teachers all over (and yes, mother, now I understand you better than ever). And it’s not just the work itself. Sure, it’s quite difficult, requires you to be full speed and full energy on a constant basis, to be there 100% all the time (even when you’d rather be under a blanket sleeping your misery away), requires you to be flexible, pay attention to everything and everyone, and it’s just literally exhausting. But it’s also the emotional part of it. You seriously get attached to these students (and I am really not just referring to the children). I’ve come to realize that the only reason why you could go through all the above motions is because the students give you so much at the same time. So it feels truly heart breaking to sort of “break up” with them 🙂

Then there’s the whole responsibility part that I had never felt so intensely before. I proably should have felt something similar in my previous job – you know, big corporation, big money, big impact etc. But I didn’t. Not the way I do now. And that stems from various causes. See, I’m not a professional English teacher. I thank the Heavens for Mrs. Ambrosie (my highschool English teacher) whom I am utterly and shamelessly copying many times. She actually explained grammar in a way that makes me able to transfer the knowledge. But even so…I’m seriously playing this by the ear. People say that I’m doing a good job but there’s no real way of knowing. There’s no proper evaluation of the work you’re doing (or at least not one that is worth while) apart from the degree of understanding of your students. Which is all very relative, volatile and that also depends Beverly on how good of a day that person’s had.

But I guess what gets at me mostly is just the simple status you are given. In Malaysia, the mere fact of being a foreigner gives you some sort of “special” (and by that I do mean superior) status. When

You add the “teacher” word to it you’re basically unbeatable. The word seems to have supreme power and it generally means that “teacher” can never be wrong. One of my teenage girls waited for 2 months before telling me that I had been pronouncing her name wrong. When I asked her why she didn’t tell me earlier, she just went quiet and shy and mumbled something about “being afraid…teacher wrong…teacher never wrong…”.

Last Saturday I came back on the train from KL and two little Indian Malaysian girls started talking to me. They were super cute and talkative and when in the end I told them I teach kids like them, they went “uaaaaaaa”, then went to their mother and said in a very reverent tone of voice “Mummy, she’s a teacher!!!”

All of the above gives you power. Power you don’t sometimes realise you have. Only when students start sounding like you, or talking like you, or feeding back to you things that you’ve been saying, do you realise how much power you actually have. And it’s sometimes scary to think that maybe sometime they will not understand you well, or will take out really the wrong thing from what you’ve been saying or even that you’ll be teaching them crap. And you might never realised how you’ve impacted someone’s life.

PS: As a thank you, we got traditional Malaysian clothes from our students – baju kebaya 🙂

Far Off…

Lately, I feel very far off. From everything and everyone. It’s a really weird feeling. Not sure what brought it about.

Last week I was sick…very sick…sicker than I’ve been in a loooong time. I guess it was just a virus but it had super weird symptoms, and just made me feel completely weak. I basically was walking around for 5 days with my head pounding continuously. Adding to that the fact that I still had to teach, and you basically have a walking zombie trying just to make it until the next day. Needless to say that by the time the cold (or whatever that was) was over, so was I. I was utterly demotivated, depressed and asking myself all those wonderful existential questions that really lift up our spirits always!

I also realised this “living until the next day” way of looking at things, is really characteristic of my whole life here and now. People ask me about making plans and I literally cannot look further than a week in advance. It’s impossible to imagine that far in advance. Which is super weird considering that I used to love planning! (and was quite good at is also).

My rationalisation is that this focus on the short term really reduces my view on what’s happening around me. That and my current lifestyle (which basically involves sticking just with my community at least 5 days out of 7, and having limited access to internet). As a consequence, it feels that a lot of the things that I was concerned with before, just don’t matter anymore. Cause they are just not related to me somehow.

The funny thing is that I knew I was aloof, but I had not realised how aloof I was until yesterday. When Bruxelles happened. See, when in autumn the Paris attacks happened I was terrified. Like I literally could not sleep thinking of the fact that my brother had lived there one month before, wondering if all my friends were safe and just trembling at the thought of a loved city (and one that I am so comfortable in) being destroyed. My reaction now however was very different. It’s obviously a horrible piece of news but I sometimes felt it as very far from me. Even though I have friends living there. Even though the same considerations would normally apply. I don’t know. I’m trying desperately to hope that this does not make me a horrible feeling. But I just feel very far off.

 

MY taxi drivers!

Yes, they are mine!! All mine!!! 🙂

To explain. In winter, one of my students asked me to hold some workshops for taxi drivers. Those went so well, that we decided to try and set up a class especially for them! Which worked out very well…in Malaysia taxi drivers are basically entrepreneurs so they set their own working hours. As a consequence, their schedule is super flexible and they fill in very well my morning slots, when no one else can attend. So, we started! I didn’t really know what to expect but at this point in time I can just say….BEST IDEA EVER!!!

My experience so far has been that everywhere you go in the world, taxi drivers are special. They generally talk more, are willing to share their opinions on everything and are some of the people that really give you a taste of the place you’re in. Add to all that the fact that in Malaysia (and probably in most other developing country), taxi drivers are also a bit suspicious. Will he use the meter or will he try to rip me off?

Well…I can honestly say that MY taxi drivers are the nicest, kindest and funniest people ever!!! They are incredible! Super motivated and always making fun of everything. As you might have noticed from my previous posts, I live in a rather conservative community. But these guys have no problem discussing about sexiness, making jokes about second wives and just being generally naughty!

Furthermore, they know way more about the world and general knowledge things than my teenagers (who should be currently learning this) and my adults (who all have at least medium education) put together. Because, believe it or not I have been in the position of explaining to my adults what a continent is; that Paris and London are not countries, but cities; that there is no jungle in Europe and so on and so on. And no, people here are not stupid. But they are living in a system that is teaching them only Malaysian history and geography (and even that not in a very good way) and that is not encouraging them at all to search, to expand, to seek answers.

My taxi drivers on the other hand are brilliant! They know lots of stuff from all over the world, most of them have extra jobs (one actually owns a travel agency, and was laughing that his employees don’t know he’s a taxi driver too:)), they always ask questions (and really good ones I might add), and are genuinely interested in anything new or different! Plus, they all actually LOVE what they do, which gives them an unbelievable energy!

So now our mornings are beginning in a much more awesome way than before! Not to mention the fact that one of them is one of the funniest people ever…so it’s basically like I got myself a MAlaysian dad (his wife is awesome also…she decided to come to the class too, so she is now the only woman in the whole group of men. And not at all shy! But confident, strong and funny!). And another one of them is like our granddad…you just want to hug him all the time 🙂

It’s just unbelievable how much warmth and energy they can give! Not to mention the free taxi rides 🙂

So, this happened…

Two weekends ago I went out with a friend of mine. We walked, we talked, we ate and we got to that point in time when the only thing left to do was to buy a bottle of wine and go drink it in a park.

Obviously, alcohol is prohibited in public spaces in Malaysia (Muslim country, remember?:)). So we were careful to have a proper camouflage for it. It was about 8.30 pm and we were very innocently sitting on a bench, drinking a bit of wine and talking. I would like to stress the innocently part…we were literally 1m away from each other and we were just talking!

Completely out of nowhere two policemen appeared. WHo obviously spoke no English, so the whole conversation happened between them and my friend (who luckily is Malaysian) and with me goggling my eyes at them, struggling to catch a few words. It was quite obvious that they wanted our IDs. After which apparently  their first question was “Are you married?” And they didn’t even want to know if we were married to each other! But they were wondering if we were married to other people and hence, on our way to obviously committing adultery!

It felt a bit surreal. I was already considering how much money they will want as a bribe (such instances are well known here so I had heard many stories). It took forever! They kept moaning and groaning and checking our IDs…apparently they were impressed that I was a teacher (it says so on my visa). After which another surreal conversation: why are you sitting here and not where there is more light? To my friend’s “the bench there was not clean” answer, they did not seem very impressed. And continued talking about how sitting like this in the dark can make people think weird things. And why would we want that? We should just sit in the light so that there is no danger, and people don’t get weird ideas.

This whole conversation in MAlay lasted about 5min. They then finally gave us our IDs back (I had been terrified that they might not give my passport back!) and left us with the wise advise: “You can stay here but where there is light”.

You might not be surprised to find out that I was quite happy to just get out of here. To realise only afterwards that, had any of the two of us been Muslim, they would have called the Islamic police and two options would have been in store: either we got married or we went to jail…

Conversations with teenagers in Malaysia

Lately, we’ve been having various conversations with my teenagers. About everything. It has been very educational and surprising in many ways.

Conversation with my girls on boyfriends (age: 13-15 years old)

Question: When did you girls have your first boyfriend?

Answers: 9 years old. 11 years old. Two of them never had one. To quote them “it’s too early to have boyfriends. They take up so much time and they are so boring. Now we should focus on school. Later, in university we can have boyfriends”

Q: How does it work? Does the boy come and ask if you want to be his girlfriend?

A: Yes, sometimes yes. But for me, the friends of the boy came and asked me if I wanted to be his girlfriend. Then he sent me a letter with the question “Do you want to be my girlfriend?” and “Yes/No”…This got giggles from the other girls and a “Uaaa…that’s so romantic!!” remark 🙂

Q: So what do you do with your boyfriend? Do you hold hands?

A: Teacher NOOOO!!! Cannot! We walk home together from school, we chat (online), we talk if we have a problem.

Q: Do your parents know about your boyfriends.

A: Opinions were mixed, but I was impressed that a majority of the parents actually knew about it.

When two boys showed up for class, we had to switch the conversation as all the girls became super shy. So we started talking about marriage, and all that nice stuff.

Q : How do you want your husband/ wife to be? Handsome, rich, smart?

A from the girls: Handsome of course, teacher!! Average rich…if he has too much money, then he would be arrogant. And he needs to be hard working and kind. (one girl who is taller also mentioned that he needs to be taller than she is :))

A from the boys: She cannot have free hair. Q: But why Eizwan? A: I just find it more beautiful with hijab teacher. And she needs to understand me. And be loyal. And she should know how to cook because I don’t know how. Q: Does she need to be a housewife? A: Whatever she wants teacher. If she wants to work I can help her find work.

Q: When do you want to get married?

A were mixed. Most of them said 23 – 24, the boys said 27-28 (they first need to get a job to provide), and only one girl said 28 – 30. She said she wants to go study abroad and then get a job and then get married.

Q: How many children do you want to have?

The average answer was 4 – 5. Only one girl (the one that also wants to get married later) said she’s ok with 2.

Q: When did you start wearing the hijab?

The answers were mainly around 11-12 years old. One girl however: “I don’t wear the hijab all the time actually. I still have free hair. I am not ready to wear it all the time. You need to really be ready for it, as otherwise it is a sin. It is very difficult to wear it all the time, so you need to be sure you can do it and want to do it. SO I just wear it at school and in this class because everyone else is wearing it.” Q: How do your parents feel about it? A: “My mother is ok. My father doesn’t like it though. All my cousins already are wearing the hijab so he would like me to wear it too.”

Q: Why do you need to wear it all the time?

A: Otherwise we would look sexy teacher, and that is a sin.

Q: But what do you mean when you say sexy?

A: Well, if you show skin or hair, then you are sexy.

Q (me and Laura were at this point after 6h of teaching in non-conditioned rooms, wearing long pants and loose t-shirts): So, because you can see part of our arms, that means that me and teacher Laura are sexy?

A: Well, yes, a bit teacher.

Q: But I don’t understand. I’ve seen many women wearing hijab and long clothes that are still sexy. We believe that sexy is more a manner of attitude…if you want to be sexy, you can be sexy no matter what you wear.

A: Hmmm…I don’t know teacher…maybe….(insert pensive eyes)

A from the boys: The thing is teacher, if you wear hijab then you are beautiful. If you have free hair and show skin then you are sexy. And you should be like that only at home, with your husband

Q: Ok. But then why are you not sexy when you are wearing a sleeveless T-shirt? In Europe we would call a man sexy if he wears that and has muscles.

A: Hmmm…I don’t know teacher….no…maybe….(insert pensive eyes)

TO BE CONTINUED…

 

 

 

 

 

Motivation’s a bitch!

These past few weeks I’ve had some difficulty writing. Here or anywhere. Which is weird because as a friend of mine says, I write  like I talk. And we all know I very rarely have difficulties talking.

I think the challenge has lied mainly in not having enough time to process everything that is happening around me. As usual, Malaysia remains full of surprises. Things change over night, interesting people come by at completely random and unexpected moments and blow you and your ideas away, feelings and emotions just happen and you feel as if you don’t really know even how to identify them. Not to mention think about what they mean, what they were caused by, etc.

I have however decided to go against this writing block I’m facing and to do so by focusing on just one topic that has been on my mind a lot. Namely motivation. And let me tell you something: Motivation’s a bitch!

Now, you might argue: Really Ana? You and your HR master had not figured that one out yet? Only now realised it? And I can say that of course, I knew that already! It’s just that I had never before been in a situation in which motivation would be so fully determinant of your success (and by that I just mean life satisfaction in general). Nor in a situation in which motivation would be so difficult to obtain and to preserve and would rely almost completely on your own inner workings.

Let me try to explain. If I would get demotivated in my previous life, there would be mechanisms I would use to get back on track. There would be going running, going dancing, hiding in a cafe with a nice book for hours, going cycling, calling up people with uplifting potential, the bottle of wine drunk while watching the favourite soapy movie. And if all that would not work, that would not be the end of the world. I would just hide in front of my computer for for 2 days at the office, try to avoid main interactions, sulk for a while, and somehow the inner resorts would come back to life.

Here however, all of the above is impossible. Exercising requires serious motivation (it’s bloody hot all the time and logistics is horrible), there is no alcohol around, and you don’t really have that many people to call on (you are in a foreign country after all and the time difference is just horrible). Moreover (and here is the worst part of it), everyone and everything depends on your motivation! You cannot hide away – you need to go to class! You cannot go demotivated to class – your students will feel you in a moment and become gloomy, bored or angry themselves. Which will basically set the whole scene and day for disaster…time will pass with the speed of a snail and all you will want to do is sleep forever! If in other jobs, there would be people around to share from their energy or motivation, I have the feeling that when teaching it’s really you who sets the tone. You get obviously a lot from your students but you need to be open for it…and sometimes you just are not.

Furthermore, you live in your community! Which means that at all times you need to be the positive teacher you are in class- everyone wants to talk to you and everyone wants to know everything about you. Which basically means that the only option viable is to lock yourself in the house with decent supplies of food and do whatever it is you need to in order to get back on track.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve never in my life monitored my motivation level so regularly, nor have I actively planned for increase in my motivation level. Because I know that if I start down on the Monday, the whole week will be true hell.

I also never ever lived so much “one day at a time” as I do now. Because anything can happen! And it’s not about the lack of planning. It’s just that emotions fluctuate so much and people react sometimes in such weird ways, that you really need to just get through the day. It’s a funny type of life…if I think of when I started it all feels like it flew away. But also that it went by quite slowly somehow.

But anyways, being forced by circumstances, I have developed new “motivation lifter mechanisms”. Among them:

• Insanity! Am in day 21, dying every time I do it but I must say it works!
• Good and healthy food! food here is amazing but so oily and unhealthy that you can get really carried away – focus is needed to stay eating healthy and I am proud to say that I think I am eating less sugar here than I ate even in Europe;
• Being very actively in touch with people – if you don’t reach out you will go mad. People in your community cannot really be your friends, rather your students, so you really need to keep in touch with some people with similar interests and levels. If in Europe I was quite sensitive not to intrude, here I have no shame…”Can you please be my friend?” 🙂
• Regular outings from my community, accompanied by good coffee and good wine. It can get quite comfortable in the community because the people are nice and things are made easy for you somehow. But you just need to get out! See other things, remind yourself of what you used to do before this. I just think it’s essential for remaining true to who you are.
• Make sure to make time for myself. There’s always a multitude of things to do…you just need to be careful to have some time for you also.

So yeah, in case you haven’t noticed, this job is heavier and more revealing than expected. But it’s ok. It’s actually all starting to make sense lately.