Darla!

Category: teaching

Life Lately
Hello! This lazy blogger is finally back again! Where have I been, you might ask (or not)? Nowhere in particular. I just caught up with this whole commuting thing. Living an hour away from the city where we work makes the commute time take most of our time, I guess. There’s a lot of things I could have done instead of sitting behind my husband on our daily motorcycle ride to the city doing nothing. It’s been almost 10 months but I’ve just realised about this time consuming commute these past weeks. I love the house where we live in and the neighbourhood and the small town, but perhaps we need a place closer to the city. There’s still a lot to figure out.

Well, anyway… It’s October again! It’s my and this blog’s birthday this month. I had planned to throw a blog birthday party by holding a giveaway, but life got in the way and I didn’t finish the planning. Next year, I promise 😉

While I was away:
- I started tutoring again! After months without explaining grammar and reading strategies, this brain can finally breathe again. I teach two boys and one girl on two separate tutoring schedules. I’ve missed being called “Miss Dara” by students 😉
- I’ve been craving for novels and reading materials. And because money is really tight this month, I finally started reading Laskar Pelangi, a novel that I actually bought in 2008 but never read up until now. Crazy, huh? Haha!
- I bought a new phone! It’s a Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime (a review coming up soon). It’s a mid-range phone and not too pricey, but it’s the reason why money is really tight this month.
How are you?

Dara | Bloglovin’ | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
7 October 2015
Saying Good Bye

Changes are inevitable. People come and go. That’s how life goes, right?

Last week of November was also my last week teaching in this high school. With the wedding on the way (it is this month, OMG!) and the semester coming to an end, the time for me to leave is also getting closer. This week is finals week. I still have to go to school to write students’ reports and do other stuffs. I will leave permanently next week.

It’s not easy to leave the students I’ve only been teaching for less than five months. I’ve grown close to most of them. They are very nice. Sure, there are several students with extraordinary behaviour, but deep inside my heart, I love each and all of them. They are funny; some are also silly, asking questions like “Ma’am, what is ‘sunset’ in English?” I tried to look tough as if leaving them wouldn’t make me sad, but to think that I’ll never get to stand in front of them and make them confused with all those grammar rules breaks my heart a little.

But as much as I want to stay and keep being their teacher, I really have to go. I’m going to move one and a half hour away and I won’t survive the everyday commute if I teach there. I hope my decision to resign is the best way.

So as for now, we have to bid each other good bye.

2 December 2014
On Teaching and Being a Teacher

I have mixed feelings about teaching. Since I was a kid, I had always wanted to be a teacher. I often played school with my friends, with me being the teacher and my friends as the students. My mum taught me basic math since I was 3, so when I turned 7 I was already better at math than my friends; so naturally, I taught them math in our “class”. I really enjoyed playing teacher. Whenever grown ups asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said “A teacher!” with confidence.

After graduating from English education programme and getting my degree in teaching, I still had mixed feelings about whether I wanted to be a teacher or not. Turned out, I no longer enjoyed teaching as much as I did back when I was 7. College has taught me that being a teacher is not a simple task. Teaching deals with social interactions (e.g. teaching in front of the class, communicating personally with the students, facing the parents, etc.) and paperworks (e.g. lesson planning, grading students’ works, creating and grading tests, writing reports, etc.), both at which I am not good at all. If you really know me, you know that I am socially awkward and a bad procrastinator. I’m not a suitable person to be a teacher.

And it was clearly shown! I resigned from a teaching job after just two months of employment. Then I got another teaching job at a high school and then I yet again felt frustated. I complained a lot. I took even the smallest things as signs that I had to resign and got another job somewhere else. I saw it like the whole sky was covered with dark clouds and I couldn’t see the silver linings.

Since I’ve just started on August and I felt like it was wrong if I resigned in the middle of the semester, I decided to stay. At least just for this semester. I thought I’d resign at the end of the semester. I felt that the momentum would be right because at the same time, I’m getting married.

Perhaps that decision was the best I’ve ever taken, because as the days go by, I started to enjoy being a teacher at this school. I love the students. I love being the authority figure during the teaching activity. I enjoy grading their tests (I procrastinate every now and then, but when I am grading them, I really enjoy it). I’ve grown to be used to my schedule. And while I still need to work on my social skill when it comes to interacting with (older) fellow teachers, I’ve managed to reduce my anxiety and started talking to several teachers. I still keep my mouth shut most of the time, but I am not as awkward as I used to be and I’ve grown to care less about what others might think about me as long as I’m not bugging them profesionally. I’ve grown up a lot since the first time I stepped in to that teachers’ room. It’s not too much if I say that I’m proud of myself, isn’t it?

I still don’t know if I will resign at the end of the semester or not. I’m going to move out of my parents’ house anyway, so I may live far from the school. It hasn’t been settled yet, so I’m still open for other options. But as for now, I think I’m going to survive.

12 October 2014
A New Teacher

Yesterday was my first day as a high school teacher. I had come to the school on Saturday to clean up my desk, which was still cluttered by the previous teacher’s stuffs like old worksheets, books, CDs, test booklets, etc. My teaching schedule is still a mess, too, so I only get to teach five classes in two days, Monday and Tuesday, and for the rest of the week I’m off again.

The last time I taught a class of high schoolers was one year ago, yet somehow I found myself already feeling comfortable talking in front of the class yesterday. I hope it is a sign that the rest of the semester won’t be as hard as I thought it would be. There are still more things I need to learn, though. I’m still confused about the new curriculum and I still need to get to know everybody at school. Also, my desk is still a mess and I need to dump three boxes of the previous teacher’s file. Now if only I could find an easy way to take all three boxes without asking for help from anybody (I haven’t known anyone!).

But I found a meme in the textbook for eleventh graders! So all in all, it’s pretty good so far 🙂

12 August 2014
Life Lately

Hi! Just stopping by to share some updates in my life recently. After some silly posts telling you all about what’s going on in my mind, let me tell you now what’s going on in my life.

Remember the student teaching program that I told you two months ago? The programme is supposed to last until May, but it looks like mine will only last until early April. Good to know that I would get some spare time to revise my final paper proposal and submit it in time. I can’t afford being late and not being able to submit it again. No way!

And today, my boyfriend and I decided to (finally) do a photoshoot sesh in a proper studio. The result will come out on the coming Monday, so I’ll share it here later.

Now, how’s your life lately?

21 March 2013