Sunday 11 April 2010

What noises to do Tigers make?

Busy week. Busy at work, busy around work (apart from today). Teachers sick. 1 with dengue and another with the bad belly syndrome. I worry but they are adults and need to make sure they do the right thing. That makes work a little more adventurous. Ultimately I worked 6 days a week. I had plans for Saturday but as the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry. So that meant cancelling bits and pieces until I could get away.

Anyway, with another of my teachers off to Singapore to get visas and enjoy the day there, it was left me to me to go and support my school with a demonstration lesson at a local kindergarten school. So off I trudge to work early and fail miserably to convince my marketing manager to cancel and take me to starbucks where I would treat her and the driver. 9am classes are not a favourite of mine. 9am classes of 5 years are even less. I not keen on 5 year olds as I used to be one and and I am sure I was no angel.
I had 30 mins to 'teach' them some vocab and some language points. Two groups, 30 mins each and thats teh hour.
So microphone in hand, the children walked in crocodile style, said some prayers and sat and stared at me. So out comes a routine. I owe my skills to a dear old friend who I used to work with many years ago who could charm the birds from the tree and he taught me how to do the same.
A little bad indonesian and then out comes some picture flashcards and to upset the schools teachers have them make lots of noises.
'What noise to tigers make?' silence. 'arrgh' They laughed. 'Whats this?' (holding another flashcard), 'A fish '   they shout, 'what noise do they make?' . silence. 'aarrrggghhhh' 'noooooooooooooo' and so on. Pretty much this went on through the animal cards I brought, including Dolphins, Goats and Cats but the students got.
Then Heads, Shoulders Knees and Toes and some counting and 30 mins was up. Hot
The next group came in singing and that too was great. This lot was a little more quiet and so I had to work a little bit harder but we got there.

That set me up for the day and it was a really good thing for me to do and now its done, I will try and avoid any more!!!
The next day I went out again with the marketing manager to do a presentation to a school to help their teachers with English. That was good also. The presentation was held in a Biology lab so that was strange but it went well and fingers and things crossed we get the job. One can only hope.

So more 12 hour teaching days and work days for me but never mind. Its all for the greater good... the greater good.

Spent some time Blog wandering and read some great blogs. There are some very good writers and educators out there and I am following them now.

Saturday work came and went very quickly which was great. And then I took the bike to be serviced. 2 hours to wait but its ok. The service place was ok, too much noise but other than that alright. I watched firstly intrigued with how they would service my bike, then with horror as the engine was taken apart and the brakes too, and then with hope and happiness as it was all put back together again and then tested. The other great thing about the bikes is that the cost to service them is so little and with a new bike I get free servicing and so all that work for nothing as Yahama pay and so thats even better. I can now relax as the bike is in great condition and serviced and now the brakes work even better.

From there to gfs house via a taxi and wow the traffic was intense this Saturday although I could not work out why, just lots of it everywhere. We went from hers to Pasar Festival to go book hunting. After some crap KFC we found 3 bookstores, 1 full of low price indonesian books and the other 2 mixed. I bought 5 books for 100,000 which is a great deal and so I have lots to read now.
It took forever to get back home where we ordered pizza after the 14th attempt. I do love fast food weekends. Not a grain of rice in sight.

West Ham won. There is a result. 4 points clear now of the relegation zone.

With a fever coming and the flu, Sunday was spent, sleeping, watching too much tv and eating lots of fruit.

I hope its a quick dose of man flu and nothing else. I have been lucky for too long and not been sick for over a year..... I guess all things come to those who wait.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Luke,
It's always interesting to read your experiences in Jakarta.

Unknown said...

Hello Luke,
Not a bad adventure after all with the kids..thank you for sharing.I always believe that teaching is a very noble occupation.Have a great week ahead.

Simon H said...

Nice post Luke,

Can totally relate to everything - living in Indonesia, servicing the bike, awkward classes/performances you have to put on to keep marketing happy...

Will have to try the tiger one, gonna surprise my students later!