Yesterday I made a silly mistake. I realised it mere moments after I made the error, and groaned inwardly at what a n00b error (for lack of a better word) it was. I had given out the coloured paper for Father's Day cards before I had finished all the work in class. As I walked out of class to grab the coloured paper, the thought of what a massive distraction it would be vaguely crossed my mind (for I am not that unaware), but then the thought of forgetting to give the paper out seemed worse. So while my students were still dutifully completing their full sentence corrections, I started to slowly distribute the paper only to see them jump out of their seats and clamour for their choice of paper colour. Oh dear.
Needless to say, the last Cloze Passage (on a dog nonetheless) was rushed through by the students as they eagerly awaited Arts-and-Crafts time. Which was just as well really because I felt utterly worn and exhausted yesterday. From 2 weeks ago I've been swamped at work with extra classes. The week of 27/5 to 31/5, I had 11 classes. The week of 3/6 to 7/6 I had 12 classes. This week I am back to 11 classes. I can only wonder what next week will bring.
Yesterday as well something interesting happened, which is that I walked into class and I was immediately greeted by a teary P4 student. My heart sank because I my mind ran amok of all the potential problems: Did someone bully him? Did an accident happen? Then, when he told me he fell down, I thought in horror that he had been injured In The Centre. The relief I felt when he told me he fell outside, in the carpark, was palpable.
I brought him to the office to get anti-septic cream. As we walked there, I noticed he seemed to be even more upset than I had initially realised. His voice was trembling, and he kept talking about how it hurt a lot and how he was in Great Pain (probably exaggerating). Rolling back the sleeve of his denim jacket, I realised he had a long scratch running down his left arm. As I dug around the first aid kit to find something that wouldn't set off his tears (read: alcohol swab) he started to look more and more worried. In the end I settled on letting him apply the anti-septic cream himself as he winced and got all teary, lest I be too rough and prompt a flurry of tears. Then we walked back to class and I told him an anecdote about how I had missed my English orals once because I was running around the quadrangle and fell badly, scraping my knees, and became utterly inconsolable until I was brought home. He seemed to perk up after that.
It's hard for me to quite describe how I felt at that moment as I led him down the hallway to the office, and looked into his worried teary eyes. I felt so terrible that he was sad, and felt that my heart would break if he cried. This was probably compounded by the fact that he's one of the students I am fond of, and a huge history buff like me. I wanted very much to give him a hug and say 'everything's going to be fine!', but I'm sure that would've been wildly inappropriate.
When we went back to class, the place was in uproar. His classmates were happily chatting away and I ended up shouting at them to finish writing their content page. Then one of female students happily started 'ZX stabbed himself! That's why he's hurt' and the whole class started to get very excited about ZX's injury, pestering him with silly questions. I ended up cutting in and telling another anecdote about the Most Embarrassing Fall I Have Ever Had - one where I slipped on an icy patch in LSE and fell on my rump next to a group of tourists admiring the Old Curiosity Shop - and they soon forgot about ZX and started doing their work.
Needless to say, the last Cloze Passage (on a dog nonetheless) was rushed through by the students as they eagerly awaited Arts-and-Crafts time. Which was just as well really because I felt utterly worn and exhausted yesterday. From 2 weeks ago I've been swamped at work with extra classes. The week of 27/5 to 31/5, I had 11 classes. The week of 3/6 to 7/6 I had 12 classes. This week I am back to 11 classes. I can only wonder what next week will bring.
Yesterday as well something interesting happened, which is that I walked into class and I was immediately greeted by a teary P4 student. My heart sank because I my mind ran amok of all the potential problems: Did someone bully him? Did an accident happen? Then, when he told me he fell down, I thought in horror that he had been injured In The Centre. The relief I felt when he told me he fell outside, in the carpark, was palpable.
I brought him to the office to get anti-septic cream. As we walked there, I noticed he seemed to be even more upset than I had initially realised. His voice was trembling, and he kept talking about how it hurt a lot and how he was in Great Pain (probably exaggerating). Rolling back the sleeve of his denim jacket, I realised he had a long scratch running down his left arm. As I dug around the first aid kit to find something that wouldn't set off his tears (read: alcohol swab) he started to look more and more worried. In the end I settled on letting him apply the anti-septic cream himself as he winced and got all teary, lest I be too rough and prompt a flurry of tears. Then we walked back to class and I told him an anecdote about how I had missed my English orals once because I was running around the quadrangle and fell badly, scraping my knees, and became utterly inconsolable until I was brought home. He seemed to perk up after that.
It's hard for me to quite describe how I felt at that moment as I led him down the hallway to the office, and looked into his worried teary eyes. I felt so terrible that he was sad, and felt that my heart would break if he cried. This was probably compounded by the fact that he's one of the students I am fond of, and a huge history buff like me. I wanted very much to give him a hug and say 'everything's going to be fine!', but I'm sure that would've been wildly inappropriate.
When we went back to class, the place was in uproar. His classmates were happily chatting away and I ended up shouting at them to finish writing their content page. Then one of female students happily started 'ZX stabbed himself! That's why he's hurt' and the whole class started to get very excited about ZX's injury, pestering him with silly questions. I ended up cutting in and telling another anecdote about the Most Embarrassing Fall I Have Ever Had - one where I slipped on an icy patch in LSE and fell on my rump next to a group of tourists admiring the Old Curiosity Shop - and they soon forgot about ZX and started doing their work.
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