New school and stuff

First week at school!!! The kids, or ‘learners’ as we are encouraged to call them, are lovely, very very cute and extremely quiet but luckily I do have some crazy characters so I won’t get bored! I have 21 now, the biggest class in the school (how is that fair?!) but I’m not complaining (much – I would have preferred a number which had more factors but there you go). They are very polite and call me Miss Jenny, which gets me every time as I try to work out whom they are addressing.

It’s so funny as we’re really cold in our classroom because of the lush air conditioning, but step outside for even a second (the building has open corridors, so no roofs and sometimes only 3 walls) and you get a nice sweat on – luckily staffroom etc are quite close to my room so I avoid the beetroot look most of the time. I don’t actually know how the kids run around at playtime – but they do somehow! Most of them support Man U, Liverpool or Barcelona – the really well known teams basically; no local teams for them to support so we’ll let them off. They love a kick-around on the boggy (and I mean boggy) school field.

Most of the children are Malaysian (and there are Malay Malaysians (mostly Muslim), Indian Malaysians (Hindu) or Chinese Malaysians (Christian or Buddhist)) or some Korean, and there are a few Americans, English, Australian etc. It’s great, the majority speak fantastic English (unfortunately in American accents), as well as Bahasa Malay, Mandarin, Korean and/or loads of others. Many of them have lived in different countries for long periods of time as they come from families of diplomats or businessmen.

First lunchtime duty was interesting – half an hour out in the sun with no shade = a very sweaty Miss Jenny. For that reason I will dread Wednesday’s forever more! Everyone is expected to lead an after school club and I opted for photography (as it's indoors mostly) but then the head of PE asked me to lead Secondary Netball...! I agreed, but only if my Photography club proves too unpopular to run as they are supposed to be on the same day. As you can imagine I am canvassing for support for my photography club so as to save myself from more outdoor exposure! Hopefully I will get a lot of kids and escape!

Anyway school was great this week, but it will take a lot of getting used to as the kids are different - they don't seem to get my (ahem) humour. As you all know, I was hilarious in Bristol, but it seems I'm not funny in Malaysia...booo! There is literally one kid who laughs at everything I say, whilst everyone else just stares at me as if I'm mad!

The staff are lush and great fun - we went to a champagne brunch at the weekend, a first (but definitely not a last) for me. We do a lot of socialising, got water-skiing on Putrajaya lake coming up and also a possible staff trip to Borneo to stay in the Jungle with the Orang-Utans. Also made some friends from the bigger international school in KL who live in the same Condo as me. They're all lovely and we have enjoyed a good few meals out etc (eating out is extremely cheap)!

Loads of time off school here - today is Malaysia Day, then next week is a 4 day one and I have the whole of the following week off for Hari Raya (end of Ramadam and the most important festival in the Muslim Calendar). Me and my Garden (the name of the other school) friends all planned a holiday for Hari Raya hols - booked it and everything - then when discussing our impending trip we realised that our school had arranged for their holidays to be in different weeks so I couldn't go - they're off next week!! Hideous. You'd have thought we would maybe check these things but apparrently not. So I'm probably planning a diving trip on my lonesome for Hari Raya but I'm not too fussed about that - desperate to see a bit of Malaysia!

Anyway better go, I get the feeling I'm rambling.

Hopefully will get internet access at home soon and will also get pics of my apartment up here.

Thanks for all your lovely messages!

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