Yesterday I finally gave in and went to see the doctor. After weeks of insisting that I was not sick in a curable sense - I was merely allergic to the haze - I found out that I was sick in a curable sense. Given the cumulative loss to my standard of living over the past one month (and almost a month exactly it was to the date I came back home), I felt peeved. Like I had been cheated out of something, albeit by my own stubbornness. One of the medicines the doc gave me was pseudoephedrine, a truly peculiar drug.
According to wikipedia, pseudoephedrine is a commonly used drug-component fr a variety of reasons. The one applicable to me was as a nasal decongestant (hooray for finally being able to breathe out of my nose!) and the other is as a stimulant, to enhance waking. Now the strange thing is that for me, pseudoephedrine also makes me sleepy. But at the same time it makes my heart race. This means that it makes me fall into a strange trance whereby my brain slows down to a crawl while my heart thunders away. It is a very strange feeling.
I took my medication on the bus today, while on my way to work. An hour later, I was in a state that can only be described colloquially as feeling very gong. That is, I felt like someone had taken my head and smashed it into one of those large buddhist temple gongs. Stunned, into some strange twilight zone.
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Today I managed to return to a class I co-taught last week, because I wanted to spend more time with one of the students. This boy, quite a cute looking child I must add, seemed to be perpetually getting in trouble with the teacher. He was either unable or unwilling to follow instructions and pay attention to the teacher. It didn't help that he seemed to be a relatively weak student took. Last week I found myself taking him aside and going through everything that I had already done earlier with the other students. He had absorbed nothing of what I had said, and taken no notes down despite them being on the whiteboard. When I asked him to cross out a wrong answer, he responded by putting a little cross next to a string of wrong words -______-"
So anyway this week I returned back again. This time, I sat next to him as the teacher taught, and watched him to make sure he had the right worksheet, was on the right page and all. He was much better behaved this week, and actually seemed to be following the class. I also started to notice a few things about him, namely that he seemed like an anxious child. At the same time, he had lots of rubbish in his bag (complete with melted candy that made everything stick together) and his pencil case, which only made him MORE anxious when he tried to search for anything. Furthermore, I noticed that he had a strange habit of doubling up in laughter for a hell of a long time. Something that other students would laugh at for a few seconds, he would choke up in laughter for a full minute. Strange, but some how kinda cute.
The best moment came today when the class was doing a composition, and I turned to see him with his hands raised right up, looking intently at me. A few minutes later, he did the same. I was amazed because he simply waited there, patiently to get my attention. He didn't tap me (I was less than 50 cm away from him!) or ask for my attention. He just sat there with his arm up. LOL. And when he finally did get his attention, he said "teacher, can I ask a question?" and I went "huh, me?" forgetting that I was also in this context, a teacher.
After class was over, the main teacher was so happy because apparently this was one of those rare-few classes where he had been so well behaved. And for that, I felt really happy, because it felt like such a change from just last week. I'd love to continue working with him again, if it does him any good, but we'll see.
According to wikipedia, pseudoephedrine is a commonly used drug-component fr a variety of reasons. The one applicable to me was as a nasal decongestant (hooray for finally being able to breathe out of my nose!) and the other is as a stimulant, to enhance waking. Now the strange thing is that for me, pseudoephedrine also makes me sleepy. But at the same time it makes my heart race. This means that it makes me fall into a strange trance whereby my brain slows down to a crawl while my heart thunders away. It is a very strange feeling.
I took my medication on the bus today, while on my way to work. An hour later, I was in a state that can only be described colloquially as feeling very gong. That is, I felt like someone had taken my head and smashed it into one of those large buddhist temple gongs. Stunned, into some strange twilight zone.
-----
Today I managed to return to a class I co-taught last week, because I wanted to spend more time with one of the students. This boy, quite a cute looking child I must add, seemed to be perpetually getting in trouble with the teacher. He was either unable or unwilling to follow instructions and pay attention to the teacher. It didn't help that he seemed to be a relatively weak student took. Last week I found myself taking him aside and going through everything that I had already done earlier with the other students. He had absorbed nothing of what I had said, and taken no notes down despite them being on the whiteboard. When I asked him to cross out a wrong answer, he responded by putting a little cross next to a string of wrong words -______-"
So anyway this week I returned back again. This time, I sat next to him as the teacher taught, and watched him to make sure he had the right worksheet, was on the right page and all. He was much better behaved this week, and actually seemed to be following the class. I also started to notice a few things about him, namely that he seemed like an anxious child. At the same time, he had lots of rubbish in his bag (complete with melted candy that made everything stick together) and his pencil case, which only made him MORE anxious when he tried to search for anything. Furthermore, I noticed that he had a strange habit of doubling up in laughter for a hell of a long time. Something that other students would laugh at for a few seconds, he would choke up in laughter for a full minute. Strange, but some how kinda cute.
The best moment came today when the class was doing a composition, and I turned to see him with his hands raised right up, looking intently at me. A few minutes later, he did the same. I was amazed because he simply waited there, patiently to get my attention. He didn't tap me (I was less than 50 cm away from him!) or ask for my attention. He just sat there with his arm up. LOL. And when he finally did get his attention, he said "teacher, can I ask a question?" and I went "huh, me?" forgetting that I was also in this context, a teacher.
After class was over, the main teacher was so happy because apparently this was one of those rare-few classes where he had been so well behaved. And for that, I felt really happy, because it felt like such a change from just last week. I'd love to continue working with him again, if it does him any good, but we'll see.
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