24

Today I turned 24. I remember when I was in Junior High and I thought that 24 was old. By 24 I was going to be done with school, probably be married, and most definitely I would have a big kid job. In junior high I was in between wanting to be an elementary school teacher and a journalist. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would still be in school (today also marks the first day of my second semester of grad school) and living in Malaysia. The possibility just wasn’t on my radar, but my summer in Berkeley changed that, my 4 years at Alma changed that. I am in love with the path that I have chosen for my life even if it is not the traditional path or at times the easiest path. I have committed myself to a life of working with developing countries and traveling the world and even when I miss my friends and family (which I do. a lot.) I love knowing that this is what I’m supposed to be doing. In the past year I have...

...started grad school. I am anxious to get back to Denver and studying and paper writing. I think school has almost become a security blanket for me. I feel incomplete without having readings and paper deadlines. 

...started to regain control of my health again. Working on getting my hormones back in balance with some new medicine and have lost 40lbs and counting since last September.

...moved to Malaysia. Only 8 more weeks. Too hard to process that at this point so we’re just going to leave it there. 8 more weeks.

...met 49 new friends and 16 new family members in the form of the T-ganu crew who are the only ones who are going to be able to fully understand this year. 

...experienced my first Ramadan. As nervous as I was about having to teach classes of hungry, sleep deprived teenagers for a month I really enjoyed the experience. There is nothing comparable to it in the US. An entire village waking up at 5am to eat breakfast and then work through the day with out any food (even for my pregnant mentor) or cigarettes (which seems to be the harder of the two for a village that loves to smoke) and then feast together at exactly 7:20pm. The sense of camaraderie and togetherness in the air is really remarkable. I wish I could have participated, but my body decided to revolt for all of July and a good portion of August.

...showed my parents around another country, specifically Malaysia. I had a blast showing them around my town, introducing them to my students and then exploring new  places with them. We went snorkeling at Rendang Island, got eaten alive jungle trekking at Lake Kenyir, and went white water rafting down a river in Borneo. I think it actually helps with the homesickness knowing that they understand my stories a little better now.

Today I turned 24. It was a pretty normal day. I traveled up to Besut to plan for our next English camp and will be going to China town for dinner so that we can grab a beer to celebrate. It doesn’t really feel any different but for some reason the number screams adulthood to me. It might not be the definition of adult that I had in Junior High, but I am more comfortable considering myself an adult than I did when I turned 23. It might be a few years until I get what I would consider a “big kid job”, but I think today I officially declare myself an adult. 

Finally, I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated you all on Malaysia so if you have any questions feel free to post them and I’ll answer them as best as I can. Too much has happened in the past 2 months to write about all of it. I wouldn’t even know where to start. So I guess I’ll end with this: I’m 24 and 8 more weeks until Michigan. Woah.

A friend's view on life in Terennganu

Here is the link: http://jordanholliday.com/collections/writing/fresh_835_explanations.html

This was written and performed by one of the guys that lives just North of me for our mid-year meeting a month back. I thought he did a great summary of life as a Terengganu ETA.

The Global English

Earlier this week I attended a course taught by a Wisconsin woman named Renee who was invited by the American embassy to teach us about teaching English as a foreign language. She started out by stating some facts that really struck me as important. She said that the majority of people in the world who speak English speak it as a second language. Even more the majority of teachers teaching English globally do not speak English as their first language. She followed this up by saying that the English language is rapidly evolving due to all of these non-native English speakers communicating in English through informal channels like the Internet.

In Malaysia they say they learn British English and I’m discouraged from using American English in the classroom so that I don’t confuse the students too much. However Renee talked about how my students will end up using “Global English” as they communicate with others in the future. Renee talked about a “Global English” as an English that is less focused on specifics of grammar and more focused on comprehension. Can the two parties speaking understand what the other party is trying to communicate?

These comments though made in passing during an all day course stood out to me because it is something I have been thinking about a lot since I saw the midterm results of my student’s English scores. They didn’t do very well. Now I am purposely placed in a school that is struggling with their English, a school where the students rarely use English in a practical setting, but I know my students. I am able to communicate with a good amount of them, but their exams are very specific grammar based questions.

It’s frustrating for me as a teacher to see my students progressing to speak and understand English, but to see no improvement in their exam scores. Now before I talk about my conclusion I want to preference it with “I do not study English or languages and I do now that grammar is important.” With that being said for my last 4 months teaching I’ve decided that I’m going to let go of the little bits of grammar I’ve been trying to get my students to pay attention too. Instead I’m going to focus on getting my students ready to communicate in “Global English” with the European tourists that frequent their islands and their online penpals/ their random Facebook friends.

Last week, I posed the question to my upper level students “Would it be better if the world only spoke one language?” And I guess I’ll leave it there, because I don’t really have an answer to my own question.

Oh, wait. One more thing. Here is an interesting videos that one of my fellow ETAs shared.
 http://www.ted.com/talks/jay_walker_on_the_world_s_english_mania.html 

The Women of Terengganu

After the mid year break I held my first over night English Camp with 5 other schools, 6 other ETAs, and 120 female students at a beach in Dungun, Terengganu. We called it “The Women of Terengganu English Camp” and it has been in the works since January.

We noticed right away that our female students tended to be very shy and passive in class. So we decided that we wanted to take some of our top female students somewhere special to work on their self-confidence in English.

All of my girls before getting on the bus to go home.

As a part of the camp we mixed fun activities like cooking s’mores and slack lining with confidence building dance and drama competitions with a little bit of seriousness in the form of a ‘Love your body workshop’ and small group discussions about relationships. We packed the two days full of activities and the girls really seemed to respond. It was a lot of fun hanging out with the girls in a place where they felt comfortable to be themselves. By the end of camp the girls were making speeches (in English) in front of large groups and performing their own dance routines in front of 100+ people. Definitely things I never would have expected out of my girls who use to hide behind their hands while speaking in class.

Climbing the rocks at the end of our morning beach hike

Since our return to school I have noticed that the 20 girls I brought with me have begun to open up more in class and every once in a while running up and giving me hugs in the hallway. Hopefully this won’t fade overtime, but instead spread to their friends. One can only hope. Now it’s time to stop writing blogs and start planning for camp number 2! Any suggestions on favorite camp activities would be more than welcomed.

Kangaroos, Kualas, and Dingos, Oh My!

So I have been off in the great down under for the past week and a half: Sydney, Australia. I have been slightly obsessed with visiting Sydney since the 2000 summer Olympics. I came to the conclusion that Malaysia is way closer to Australia than Michigan and decided to treat myself to an early 24^th birthday present.

My Sydney tour has been the family friendly route. My first few days included visits to the Aquarium, the Opera house, the zoo, the Australian wild life exhibit, and the Royal botanical gardens. Lots of school kids on field trips and lots of animals, which has actually been a lot more fun than my original expectations- I’m not really an animal person. I have also been reading the book series “Clan of the Cave Bear” which is a well-researched fiction book about the lives of cavemen, cavewomen, and the origins of humanity. I think the combined efforts of seeing these really unique animals and reading these books has given me an intense desire to go back to school for biology. And that’s just weird; I’ve never been a science person. However it does fit into my typical pattern in school of wanting to know everything and not being satisfied with only studying one thing. I want to figure out how everything in the world works weather it’s the reasons that lead one country to develop while others stay stagnant or the mysteries of the first people (and yes as I type the words “figure out how everything works” I’m realizing how science geek it sounded. Maybe I am a science person deep down). Anyways the first half of my vacation definitely led me to the conclusion that I never have an excuse to be bored- there is just too much cool stuff to learn about.

Feeding a kangaroo at the Sydney zoo.

My first day was extremely overwhelming. It was cold, rainy, and oddly familiar; everything that Malaysia is not. I kept forgetting that people could understand me, and the market near my hostel had everything you would ever need. In Malaysia I’m lucky enough to live near a large super market, which is fairly rare in Terengganu. When I’m in KT I have a hard time articulation what I’m missing from home. I don’t really feel like I’m missing anything (except maybe good Mexican food), but being in that super market made me feel like I’m missing so much.

One of the coolest things in Sydney was called ‘Vivid’. It was a month long event happening at the harbor where the opera house and the modern art museum are located. At night the whole harbor was turned into a light show. Meanwhile the opera house was hosting techno inspired performances and the local restaurants turned themselves into faux night clubs. The harbor was packed and the energy was high, definitely one of the highlights of my trip.

View of the harbor from the Rocks during the Vivid light show.

Opera house tour- check

Aquarium visit- check

Forced to buy a winter coat- check

Stay a night in a Olympic village hotel- check

Spend a lot of time sketching and reading- check, check

Sketching on the back of an old reciept from the Royal Botanical Garden.

Now it’s time to get back to school and prepare for the second half of the year. Time is going to move so quickly the next few months. I already have every weekend booked through September, starting this weekend. My dad has arrived in Malaysia for a work trip and this weekend I’m making a trip out to KL to celebrate Father’s day with him. I am beyond excited and life is good.

Talking about FOOD

This post is in dedication to my dad who will be joining me in Malaysia for the month of June and especially asked for information on eating in Malaysia.

Sooo here’s the thing. If you love fish you’ll be in food heaven. They put in everything and you can usually count on it being very fresh (especially where I live on the coast of the South China Sea in a small fishing village). Malaysians usually fry their fish, along with the majority of their food, but they have also perfected the fish sausage and various other processed fish varieties. At our local night market you can even buy processed fish in the shape and color of angry birds just waiting to be placed in the deep fryer.

However, if the only fish you eat is tuna and the occasional piece of salmon, and you grow ill at the thought of a whole fish head and all, like me, Malaysia can be a little difficult food wise. For a typical meal I usually go for my standbys of sup sayor (vegetable soup), nasi paprik (rice with a red pepper and onion sauce), or roti cani with dal.

There are not as many varieties of fast food places in Malaysia as compared to the US but Malaysians take it to another level. Take McDonalds for example. In Malaysia, you have the typical McDs menu, but you also have their doubles menu which takes any sandwich already on the menu and doubles it. You can order a quadruple burger and the Mega Mac is a sight to be seen. Additionally, here Mc Donalds has a delivery service. I can only imagine how my college all nighters would have been different if the Alma McDonalds delivered. Finally is their reward program. I’m not exactly sure what joining the McDonalds reward system gets you but I know in must be good because you get a large sticker to place on the back window of your car and every car in Malaysia has a huge McDonalds sticker on it. That was really shocking to me when I first arrived, because in the US eating at McDonalds is not something people usually brag about after the age of 17 and here it is plastered all over their cars.

Now as you might notice, it’s a bit difficult to eat healthy here which is reflected in Malaysia’s high diabetes and obesity rates as compared to other South Asian countries. Many of my fellow ETAs have been complaining about gaining weight. I however have been losing weigh which I think is in large thanks to my avoidance of all things fish, in ability to eat more than one meal a day with rice and my addiction to their delicious fresh fruit.

So if you ever make it out to this region, here are my top 5 foods you should try.

1.       Chicken Satay with peanut sauce

2.       Roti Cani with dal

3.       Nasi Goreng Paprik

4.       Sup Sayor

5.       Tom Yam

…and top 3 foods to avoid, even when the locals try to force feed you

1.       Durian (a local fruit that is out lawed in hotels do to its horrible smell)

2.       Karapok (fish sausage)

3.       Rose Water (it’s a red juice that they serve at celebrations, super sweet)

Top 3 foods to eat at home before you leave, because they’re just not the same in Malaysia

1.       Mexican food (it’s not available, but if you do find a random place offering it stay away the Malaysian version I had replaced sour cream with mayo)

2.       Alfredo pasta ( They don’t do a lot of pasta here, and even less dairy based meals)

3.       Bacon, peperoni, basically any ham based foods that you enjoy. (It is a Muslim country after all.)

My perfect Malaysian Day

Hanging out during Teacher's Day

Wednesday May 16 was Teacher’s day here in Malaysia and it was easily my favorite day since arriving here in Malaysia on January 4. 

Malaysian schools go all out for Teacher’s day celebrations. There was a parade of teachers, an assembly honoring the teachers and celebrating birthdays, a lunch feast, games like water balloon toss and rubber band shooting, and a talent show. Oh, and lots of presents. Lots and lots of presents. I am now set in my coffee mug, tubaware, pen needs for the rest of the year. 

Playing water balloon toss against the other teachers. I got second.

I spent most of the morning in sheer panic because I had been forcibly volunteered to sing Selenia Gomez’s “Love you like a love song” to the entire school for the talent show. For those of you who have witnessed my singing abilities in the past you may remember that I have absolutely no ability to remember a tune or to sing on pitch. Luckily, a few of my favorite students took pity on me and agreed to be my back up. We sang and we were even asked for an encore. I had a blast working with them all day and I was able to hang out with the drama kids who were preparing for their skit as well.

On stage singing with my two awesome backup singers.

It was the first time where all of the kids, teachers, and administrators were relaxed and just enjoying themselves. I had a great time chilling with the students and soaking in the emotions of everyone at school. It was my perfect Malaysian Day, which lead directly into a pretty awesome weekend.

At the end of the day I had to rush home to catch my plane to KL for the weekend. All 50 of the ETAs were gathering in the capital for the mid year meeting. It was the first time we had all seen each other since the first half of January. Good food, story swapping, and fun were all apart of the weekend along with meetings with the Ambassador and the Malaysian Ministry of Education. We parted to prepare for a week of exams and then 2 weeks of vacation. I, myself, will be heading to Sydney, Australia for two weeks taking my continent count to 5.

Bringing art into the language classroom

For the mid year meeting in KL this past weekend (Yes, I know halfway through already!) we were all asked to write an article on one of the activities we are most proud of at school. So here for your reading pleasure is the article I wrote:

Form 1 students painting a mural for Earth day.

How do you teach a language when the teacher and the students can’t communicate? There are probably many answers to this question, but my answer has been to rely on my strengths- art.

Soon after I walked into my first class I realized that many of the tactics my teachers used in my high school Spanish classes were not going to work here. There just wasn’t the technology or the resources I was used to having in a classroom, and more importantly I don’t speak the students’ language.

I quickly ran into problems trying to explain myself in classes, but after a few trials and errors I began to rely on my training as an art student. I started to draw visuals to go along with my English to more clearly communicate with my students. This tactic has been especially useful with my students who are illiterate in Bahasa Melayu let alone English. One of the teachers at my school after a successful lesson once told me, “those four girls fail Bahasa Melayu but now they are speaking English.”

 I have found that incorporating art projects with my lessons has also been particularly successful with my youngest students, 12 years old. These kids have extreme amounts of energy and have very few opportunities to use it during their listen, copy, worksheet classes. Including art has given them a way to release some of their energy through creativity as well as allowing themselves to express themselves further than their current English ability allows and helps to ingrain new vocabulary into their memory. I have also noticed that lessons that include creative projects have helped me with discipline in my youngest, rowdiest classes.

 For Earth day I was looking for a project to do with my students to remind them of how important it is to take care of our environment. I floated the idea of a beach cleanup with the students,  but received a lackluster response. Our project instead turned into a mural entitled “we’re all connected” on a wall in the school. As we painted we were able to talk about the environment, climate change, and what the students could do to help. We were also stopped by several curious students who wanted to know why we’re painting the mural. I was very impressed as I heard my painting crew explain to the passerbys about Earth day and our mural.

The headmaster at my school seemed impressed with our work and put in a request for a Teacher’s day mural we have been working on. And as a result we are forming a Mural Club at school where we work to brighten up the old, bland school walls.

Half way through the school year and I have only made a little progress on my Bahasa Malayu skills, but I have made a lot of progress with communicating with my students. Through my broken Bahasa Melayu, their English, and our art we are able to figure each other out and after all that is the point of learning a new language. Is it not?

Getting by with a little bit of help from my friends

April, we were warned, will be the longest and emotionally the hardest of the ten months we would spend in Malaysia. It’s our fourth month which means we are finally fully settled in our new homes. April is the start of the dry/hot season and previous to this year it was the only month in the school calendar without a vacation day. Luckily for us the new King decided to add a holiday on a random Wednesday- I’m assuming this is solely for the benefit of teachers across the country.   

As promised it has been a very long, hot month. However, it’s also had a lot of highlights.

1.       I started the month off at a school wide camping trip where I was able to talk to some of the students in a more informal setting. It makes my day each and every time I am able to have a conversation with a Malay that goes beyond the basic small talk.

2.       I discovered Kapas Island. It is small island only 40ish minutes away from my house. It is an amazing get away where I can leave any stress on the mainland for a day with barely any commute. I’ve been twice in the past month. Once for a girls weekend and once was with all of the Terengganu ETAs.

3.       Celebrated Easter potluck style with the other ETAs in the area. Between the 6 of us we were able to put together a fairly nice American style dinner after school on Easter Sunday.  

4.       Visited southern Terengganu again with many of the Terengganu crew where we were able to go to our first movie theater and Starbucks in ages. Hunger Games did not disappoint and the movies are the perfect place to pretend you’re at home for a few hours.

5.       I went kayaking with my housemates, a few of my teachers and students. It was a blast and there is even a chance that they are starting a kayaking club at my school. *Fingers crossed.*

6.       Yesterday, I painted an Earth day mural with my kids during a Saturday make up day and now the principal wants me to design another one for the front of the school.

7.       My parents finally bought their plane tickets and will definitely be here for August break.

It’s been a long and frustrating month school wise with a lot of language barriers and cross cultural communication problems to overcome, but I had a good month because of all of the friends I have come to rely on here in Terengganu. I’m amazed at how close we have gotten in such a short time, but I guess that is what happens when 17 strangers in the same challenging situation. If any of you are reading this, thanks for my sanity.

In contrast the next two months are so full of things to do that I know that they are going to fly by. I can’t wait to see what they’ll have in store for me.

Side note: Alma graduation was today. I have officially been a college graduate for a year. All I can say is it has been one of the most eventful years I have ever had.

What?! It's already the three month mark.

I can’t believe it has already been 3 months. It still feels like I got here a few weeks ago. I guess “time flies while your having fun” is a cliche for a reason. The past few weeks have been amazing both in and out of school. 

We had our first week long break and I went to Burma with one of the other ETAs. It was easily one of the best vacations I have ever taken, but I do not recommend it for the novice international traveler. Being a tourist in Burma presents a lot of new challenges. They don’t have ATMs in the country and it’s a rare case for a business to accept Visas, therefore you need to plan out the exact amount of money you will spend making sure that the bills you bring are US dollars with no wear and tear of any sort. If you do not do this you will run out of money and be at the mercy of the kind Canadians you run into on your trip who offer to trade flawless USD 20s for your old, folded bills. Traveling from city to city is also more complicated than I expected. There are a lot of mountains in Burma which means that it takes approximately 10hours by bus to get from one tourist destination to another and those who get motion sickness (like I do) should bring dramamine (I didn’t) for the long night busses. However for those of you who are willing to brave leaving the creature comforts behind you will be rewarded with some amazing views and an extremely rich culture. My favorite destinations were Bagan and Inle Lake.

In school, I have been having my students write pen pal letters to my mom’s 6th grade students. The project has been a bit bigger than I originally planned because I had the brilliant idea of typing up all of the letters myself realizing that it would be more time efficient to email the letters than snail mailing them. Even though I have spent nearly every evening this past week typing up grammatically incorrect sentences and long Malay names and their still long, strange looking nick names I have really enjoyed reading my students letters. I now have a better understanding of the common mistakes that everyone is making as well as a more thorough understanding of who my students are. I don’t know if it is because they have already become more comfortable talking about themselves in English or if they are more comfortable writing to an eleven year old as compared to a twenty-three year old, but they were much more open in these letters then in my original introduce yourself lesson. (Am I already considered old in the eyes of high schoolers?!) It was great to read what they had to say. 

This past week also marked a big milestone. I rode my bike over the bridge and into Kuala Terengganu proper on my motorcycle for the first time, AND I wasn’t even close to falling/hitting anyone. For people who knew me in high school you probably know that it took me 2 years after getting my license to drive on the highway and into the big city of Grand Rapids by myself. Progress. 

This week I’m teaching my students English basketball, finish writing my survey so that it can be translated, and preparing for my first English Day Camps that will be later in the month. Wish me luck. 

Staying hydrated and hyped

The past two weeks have each faced their different challenges for me to conquer. In some cases it’s been a long, painful battle, but my reward for making it through the last two weeks is making a trip to the Perhentian Islands for scuba diving lessons with the rest of the Terengganu people. It’ll be the first time we’re all together since state level orientation ended and I’m really excited to see everyone.

So last week was solving the issue of staying hydrated. I had caught some sort of stomach virus and as a result was able to keep very little in my stomach at any given time. This caused severe dehydration as well as some truly awful stomach pains. Hydration is always a tricky issue here because of the extreme heat this Michigan body is not built to handle. It’s not even the hot season yet…anyways besides the heat you also need to keep up on boiling your water or get to the store to buy water. With three of us in the house we boil approximately a gallon of water twice a day. We’re getting into a routine with water boiling but we still run out at times which is never good. Back to last week—the virus meant I needed more water than usual, but I was not familiar with the symptoms I was experiencing. For your reference fever and dizziness is a possible sign you need more water.

Now as many of you know I spent the majority of my undergrad studying water policies, but I don’t think I have ever thought about water as consistently as I have in the past month. Again being from Michigan has given me a skewed understanding of water access. Yes, for the last four years I have read more than my fair share of articles on the lack of water,  in Uganda I lived with a family that had to walk to the well everyday to get water, but I don’t think it every really hit home until I was in charge of providing my own  clean water. Malaysia has achieved their water MDG to have the amount of people without access to improved water sources by 2015. According to the 2010 ASEAN MDG report, 100 percent of Malaysians have access to improved water sources and 95% have access to improved sanitation, which is really good compared to many other countries in the region and the world. It makes me wonder, if I’m having this much trouble staying hydrated in a country where it is relatively easy to get access to clean water how much worse can it be else where? Two last thoughts: I wish I would have helped Kaka, my Ugandan brother, with the water chore more and I am grateful for the Great Lakes.

Staying hyped is hard to do, but it’s what the students expect. I’ve know been in Malaysia for two months and life has fallen into a normal routine. Wake up at 6am, shower, breakfast, drive to school, teach, entertain myself between classes, after school class, nap, explore, dinner, hang out, bed by 11pm. With this kind of schedule it’s hard to stay excited at all times but the students still expect me to be the fun, energetic, foreign teacher every time I see them in or out of class and are disappointed every time I’m acting tired. This week was especially hard to keep my spirits up as all of my classes were canceled so that the students could take their exams. I have started coloring with the primary students that get done with classes before the secondary students and really working on my Bahasa Malaysia skills. One of the primary school girls has even taken upon herself to be my personal Bahasa Malaysia teacher. However she is not very patient with my pronunciation abilities. I know that the trip to the Island this weekend will really help to refresh me again and then I will only be teaching for four days before spring break where I will be visiting Burma with a fellow ETA. I’m really excited for this trip because when I was living in Thailand I was on the Burmese border, but at the time US citizens were not allowed across. I’m excited that I will finally get to see the country I was so close to entering but never could.

I’m making you, my readers, a promise so that I will hopefully follow through on it. From now on whenever a class is canceled I will use that time to research my thesis topic! I will. Pinky promise. 

Top 10 from my Similes lesson

1. You are unique like Albert Einstein. 
2. You are original as yourself.
3. You are very cool like my grandfather.
4. You are as fierce as angry bird.
5. This class is wonderful like sunshine.
6. You are like Teacher because you are brave.
7. You are as cool as America.
8. You are as pretty as Chelsea Clark.
9. You are as smelly as rubbish.
10. You are dumb like Sunday.

This was my alternative to teaching about Valentines day, which is outlawed here in Malaysia. They were supposed to be using similes to complement each other. As you can see they succeeded most of the time, but teenage boys and compliments are the same everywhere. 

The good, the bad, and the embarrassing of Week 1

Finished my first week of actual teaching and there have been a lot of ups and downs, but I am starting to get familiar with my way around the school. So here is a brief recap of this crazy week.

Ways I embarrassed my self:

1. I wore a skirt that unknowingly to me became a bit see through in the afternoon Malaysian sun.

2. I held a conversation with my mentor in the office, the loud speaker had been left on and the conversation was broadcast to the whole school. Luckily very few people speak enough English to understand me, but that was actually what the conversation was about...SO maybe not so much. 

3. I tried to shake a male teacher’s hand after being introduced to him while standing in a crowded room. The entire room went quiet and I became the morning topic of gossip. Easily the most embarrassed I have ever felt. 

Crazy things that I never expected to happen in my life:

1. I now own and have been practicing on my very own motorcycle at the stadium near my house. On Sunday I am going to try driving it to school.

2. I have become a minor celebrity here. On Tuesday a national newspaper reporter took me out of class to interview me and then took pictures of me teaching. Wednesday he had me go to the Central Market for a photo shoot. The article is going to be the front page of this Sunday’s paper. 

3. On a lesser crazy scale, but still high on the scale of things I never thought I’d have is an ant sponge. In our kitchen we now have an ant sponge and a dishes sponge to clean with. I have been massacring ants everywhere in the house, but their numbers seem to be growing.

Things that frustrated me this week:

1. Most of my classes are great and I am excited to teach them more, but a couple of my classes are extremely weak. It was really frustrating when I was standing in front of a class for 80minutes trying to get them to say a few just a few words and the all stared at me blankly. In conclusion, teaching is hard and I now respect even more what my mother does on a daily basis.

2. At times I have become frustrated with not being able to show the Malaysians who I really am. There is a lot of pressure on me to fit into the Malaysian notion of what a teacher should be that at points it means contradicting what I actually believe. Hopefully as the community becomes more comfortable with me I will slowly be able to introduce them to more parts of who I am. 

Things that made me smile this week:

1. After the really frustrating class I walked into the cutest and most excited class I had all week. During the ‘Get to know Miss Chelsea’ activity one of the boys asked me why I came to Malaysia. I told him that I liked adventures. After a few moments he whispered into my ear, “Miss Chelsea, I think you are very brave”, and then he ran to the back of the room. 

2. A primary school girl came to the teacher’s room to see her mom. She ended up hanging out with me drawing pictures back and forth learning their names in English and Bahasa as well as their sounds. She then gave me some math problems. When I got the answer to 408+2 correct she was so proud of me that she told all of the other teachers in the room. It was adorable. 

3. I received a letter from Will and several emails from other friends this week. I love hearing from all of you and being connected to everything back home.

Settling in

The past month has felt like a dream that I’ve been floating through meeting lots of people and experiencing a new culture, but not reality. Not the job that in reality it is. It has been a month long vacation in a tropical paradise. 

Wednesday we moved into the house we will stay in for the rest of our stay. Our numbers have dwindled from 50 the first 2 weeks, to 17 the last two weeks and now we’re at 3 (and a possible kitty). Hannah, Nazeeha and I are sharing a two story house in a suburb of the capital of Terengganu. It’s a great location. Still pretty rural but only a 10 minute ride from the conveniences of the city.

The first two days at my school have been pretty overwhelming. There are a lot of people to meet and places to figure out. It doesn’t help that everyone is very busy and barely anyone speaks English. I am managing though and all of the teachers are trying their best to help me out where they can.

The students are great although most of them are to scared to say more than a few words to me. I have yet to teach a class on my own. Next week I will take on that adventure. So far I have sat in on two classes. The teacher reviewed the question words and then they all took turns on asking me questions. Revelations from that exercise include: my blue eyes are a source of many complements, I need to learn more about K-pop music and famous soccer players, and the only Mexican food Malaysians have heard of are nachos. 

Virtual Tour of the house

Incoming news...Angry birds takes over Malaysia

So I have been meaning to write for a while, but I have been extremely busy with the state level orientation, meeting my mentor and moving into my new house. When I last left you, my readers, I was in my last days of orientation in KL and I was meeting the Prime Minister of Malaysia. For those of you who are up on their movie references and those who know how to use  imdb.com you may be interested to know that Zoolander is outlawed here due to seditious content. It was a very fancy tea and he gave a very nice speech about how important English and teachers are to continuing Malaysia’s development. My favorite part was the painting that was hanging in the entryway to the dining room. The painting depicted four woman gathered around a bench. The colors and design were all very subdued and formal, but one of the women was carrying a hello kitty shoulder bag!

I’m actually surprised that Hello Kitty isn’t bigger here than it is. Maybe its more of a northern Asia phenomenon. What is huge? Angry birds. They have taken over Malaysia. I literally have not gone a day since arriving in Malaysia without seeing some sort of Angry birds merchandise- usually it’s by the wall full.  

I moved to KT just in time for Chinese New Year weekend. The weekend wasn’t as festival filled as I thought it would be because Terengganu has very few Chinese compared to the rest of the country. However, we did get to go to a New Year’s open house that had a lot of cultural dancing and food. Additionally, after the open house we got to attend a Malaysian wedding feast. It was a very colorful affair and the couples outfits were awesome. It’s traditional for the couple to wear matching clothes and dress as royalty including crowns and a wooden sword. 

State orientation was more of the same: language lessons, cultural sensitivity training, and teaching lessons. It was all pretty good but nothing that we hadn’t heard in KL. The one thing that I really got out of the state level orientation was closer friendships with the people who will be living with me in Terengganu. It’s much easier to get to know the 16 others in my state rather than trying to meet 49 others in Malaysia. I also got to meet my mentor during orientation. Her name is Ena and she’s super sweet, but she’s also afraid to let me do much because I might die. 

Tomorrow I’ll post pictures of my new house and stories from my first two days at the school.

Hanging out with the Prime Minister of Malaysia

http://www.pmo.gov.my/?menu=gallery&id=3580&page=1951

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v6/newsindex.php?id=641258

Feet pampering and how Harry Potter relates to teaching in Malaysia

Orientation continues which means I am still spending most of my day in the MACEE office listening to speakers talk about the country. The past couple of days have focused on the structure of the education system here. The setup of their system is very different than the US system. In fact many of the ETA first reactions to the description of the Malaysian system is skeptical and adversary, mostly because of the extreme philosophical differences between the systems. The Malaysian education system is very exam oriented.

This is a criticism is often made by American teachers in regards to the American system (or at least made by my several teacher friends and family), but the Malaysian system is much more exam focused. They take three big exams one in our equivalent to  6th grade, 9th grade, and 11th grade. Each of these tests are used to stream students into the Math/science, Commerce, Humanities, or Technical tracks. The highest scores are put into Math/science and then commerce and so on. Also, these scores are the only grades that future employers and colleges will ever see. No one cares about how the students do in the classroom, just these three tests. 

If you are trying to picture how the Malaysian school is set up think of Harry Potter. My non-HP readers bear with me on this. So you, a young witch, start Hogwarts studying the 5 basic subjects and then at the end of your primary schooling you choose the electives you want to study for your OWLs. You are supposed to choose the classes you’ll need for your future career so the big 6th grade class will tell you how likely you are to be placed in a certain field. At the end of 3 years you sit for your OWLs and the classes that you pass are the classes that you can choose from to study for your NEWTs. In other words, you are again streamed into further career paths. After 2 more years of taking your NEWT level classes you sit for the NEWTs. You must get a certain number and kind of NEWTs to go to college so the year before taking the NEWT is stress filled studying.  This method limits creativity and deemphasizes the importance of humanities by only memorizing information for tests and by making the humanities the path for only the third tier students. However, this system has been proven to work. It’s the system of much of Europe and Asia. The US values the freedom to change your focus easily and to think creatively. The Malaysian system values creating scientists and  covering as much material as possible. I see the positives and negatives in both systems, not yet having taught in either system. 

Fun fact of the day: Students who attend school in the public schools are required to take a morality class and it is one of the subjects they are tested in for the OWLs.  Also, Home Ec still exists here.  

In the evenings we have been exploring the city. There isn’t a lot to do except for shopping, but as I am still living out of suitcases buying odds and ends isn’t really practical. Instead we have been pampering our feet. Two days ago we got our feet eaten by fish removing all of the dead skin. My reaction went from fear to ticklish to relaxed to ticklish again in the span of 90 seconds. Today we indulged in a Thai foot massage. 

Ghost stories, never crossing your legs, handshaking etiquette, and 100 other ways to become Malaysian

I am currently in a holding pen of sorts, being being trained and learning the different skill sets I’ll need for the next few months before being sent off to my assignment. Kuala Lumpur or KL is the capital city and is more cosmopolitan than I expected. I’m in a fancy hotel near the embassy and the Fulbright office where we go daily for orientation. KL is a different beast than Malaysia as a whole. My roommate whose family is from KL is still in shock that she will be living in rural Malaysia. They keep telling her it’s not too late too back out. This is because they themselves have not really left KL. I will be going to Terengganu on January 20th, which is one of the most conservative states in Malaysia and therefor very different than KL. 

I’ve been in Malaysia for approximately 3 days now and all my time has been filled with intensive culture classes. Most importantly we have been being trained on the etiquette of being a non-muslim in a muslim majority culture. Much of the etiquette has to do with age differences and the relationships amongst the genders. As a woman I am expected to wear loose long clothing and in general be mindful of my sexuality. This I expected. However, the divide between the genders is much larger than I first expected, as in men and woman should not touch at all. Handshakes at this point seem to be a complicated affair because a man should not extend his had to a woman, but a woman can extend her hand to a man, but this may cause him to become offended so it’s better if she doesn’t. Instead they just nod their heads. On a side note, one thing I really like about the way Malaysians greet each other is that after the initial handshake/nod they lift there hand to their hearts as to say “I welcome you into my heart.” It’s really a sweet gesture. 

Another thing that we have been briefed on several times is the Malaysian tendency to avoid confrontation and the importance placed on politeness. Because of these values we have been taught many gestures that are supposed to reinforce our respect for the people around us. They include: not pointing with your finger at anyone or anything instead gesture with a loose fist, not crossing your legs in a way which points the bottom of your foot at someone, taking your shoes off before you enter a home or place of importance, and always give or receive an item with both hands. There are a lot of little ways to offend Malaysians here that Americans wouldn’t think twice about. Luckily I am a young foreigner so they will not hold it against me as much.

Another interesting cultural difference I have experienced so far involves our living situations. The Malaysian Fulbright program has expanded 3 fold this year and as such the government is still trying to find adequate housing for all of us. One of the houses we were set to have has just been taken away from us by the Malaysian government because the house is believed to be haunted by a ghost. The government doesn’t want to take the chance that the ghost will harm one of the ETAs so we must find a new suitable housing option. Apparently ghosts are very popular here and many of the Malaysian movies and tv shows revolve around ghost stories. 

There have been a lot of dos and don’ts the past couple of days, and it’s all very overwhelming. I am looking forward to moving out of KL in order to start experiencing everything that they are telling us, but we still have 2 more weeks of orientation. Tomorrow we are going on a scavenger hunt, so expect pictures soon.