I think i did stop breathing and was trying very hard to hide my excitement when I saw the familiar number on my vibrating handphone. The person who gave me the greatest relief with her voice spoke when I picked up the call.
"Congratulations."
Gosh. The first word itself sort of failed my aforementioned attempt.
"Thanks." a somewhat quivering whisper.
YIPEE. Finally I got something i really wanted and yearned for for a very long time!! A scholarship!!!!!!
The last time a phone call did such a magical thing to me was when Miss Tan from the kindergarten called me to say that I got the job. Cumone, first job!! I was ecstatic!!
I was actually in the least of hope after the interview.
Her : Do you have any experience in teaching?
Me : Er, No ( I din think that the fact that my effort of teaching my friends( very often with raised voice) would have delighted her.)
Her : Do you then, have any experience of taking care of younger children?
Me : No. I am the youngest in the family, you see.
Her : Cousins perhaps?
Me: : I am the second youngest on my mum's side and er, the youngest on my father's.
Her : Oh, I see.
Though she tried not to make me feel so hopeless by laughing amiably at the facts I had to give, the doubtful look she gave had already told the entire story.
But I still got the job!! So it's perfectly normal that I went all crazy and hugged my mum when I got a job at a kindergarten.
Four months working at a place that had literally tested my patience to the limit. I am still hot-tempered, mind you.
But I miss them so much now!! And there are a few kids that I totally feel like bringing home, hehe.
Kids nowadays are S.M.A.R.T. They can memorize rukun negara with the "maka kami, rakyat malaysia.." thingy as well!!
I've learnt alot. I never knew that water spinach is kangkung in english and mustard greens is sawi, for instance.
By the way, I think I was only taught the alphabets at kindergarten, or at least that's the only I'd managed to learn. Hehe.
After two years at kindergarten and I was still writing "n" before "m" and "2" for "s" (I can't find any inversion of 's' and '2' seems to be closest to what i used to scribble).
Kids were way simpler back then. I wonder if the kids now still play guli and stuffs like that.
my kids
The oh-so-pinchable yunus
the insolent swee yong who gave me nick names ranging from suzy to zhen zhen
the class that have turned teacher sarah into a super woman with the loudest screech i have ever heard
the class that I had the opportunity to tame for two weeks!! gosh it was an experience.
the one on the right is kian ping, an extremely "dynamic" creature. It's so hard to catch him when he's running circling you. So you can imagine how hard it was to have him stand motionless and let me take this picture. And one thing, his sentences always end with "ar", like that ar? red colour ar? eat ar? line up ar?
the class I love the most!!
VINCENT!!!!!!
and yes, the star of our kindy, the super temperamental JUDY!!!
(a potential camwhore, the peace sign wasn't asked for)