Teacher’s Day Dinner

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Singapore celebrates Teacher’s Day (and HOW!)

There was an assembly and some students put on an extremely long-winded skit about teachers. The students laughed at lot at it, and teachers laughed too, but for other reasons. If you’ve ever spent some time with a group of kids, you’ll know what it’s like when one kid tells a “joke” that is either totally lame or not funny at all (“What’s bigger than a duck? … A duck!”), and the rest of the kids find it hilarious and end up rolling on the ground laughing. The entire 10-minute skit was like that.

Students also bought teachers little gifts and made them cards. I have a student neighbour which originally terrified me, but has ended being awesome because she’s such a sweet person. Sweet Neighbour and her friend gave me a glass bottle filled with tiny hand-made shiny paper stars and a little note. I loved that. I also received more plastic dangly phone charms than I will ever, EVER use. Also 4 Bible-themed purse hooks. The teachers pretended not to be too excited, but I could tell everyone had an awesome time ripping gift wrap off of everything and comparing. I actually managed to trick my desk neighbour into believing a student had given me a brand new iPad2:

Grace: Guess what I got? *opens iPad2 box revealing shiny new iPad2*
Desk Neighbour: *looks* *jaw drops*… Noooooooooooo. Noooooooooooooooooo!

We had him fooled for a full 10 minutes before I admitted the iPads for the iPad music program had arrived and it was just on loan to me.

I also got two enormous plastic bags stuffed to ripping with chocolates and muffins and cookies. So did my roomies. The living room table disappeared beneath our motherload of baked goods and chocolates and we steadily ate our way through it within a week or two.

Now the eve of Teacher’s Day (the day itself actually being a holiday  – yusssssssssss) was a themed dinner at a hotel downtown. I love costumes and I was pretty pumped for it. My favourite costumes are ugly, low-budget, homemade monstrosities manically hashed together in 2 hours of inspiration and improvisation. AWESOMMMME! (Colourful examples: fan death with Alice. Another time, Becca and I were loose-moraled Christmas flappers using tinsel and Zellers dress slips. Thankfully images of this travesty/triumph do not survive on the internet as far as I know.) The theme of the dinner was “Retro and Futuristic”. Retro is easy if you have the clothes already, but I think futuristic is easier to do on a budget … at home. I started eyeing things around me as potential costume pieces. This is the result:

TREMBLE BEFORE MY GREATNESS!

Vaguely futuristic costume recipe:

- 1 shiny grey shirt
- 1 long grey skirt borrowed from roommate, preferably a slightly different grey from the shirt
- 1 big yellow belt also borrowed from roommate
- 1 pair black leggings because you will be flashing your panties to all your coworkers otherwise
- 1/2 roll aluminum foil for accessories or to cover your belt should it not be garish enough
- 1 fluorescent pink child-sized hula hoop “borrowed” from your school’s music room

1. Put on clothes, makeup, and accessories as usual. Be sure to do your hair in a lumpy bun and the wrap it inexpertly in tin foil.
2. Bring hula hoop under skirt, then “trap” the hula hoop in your skirt by tucking the ends of the skirt into your leggings.
3. Now you are from the future. Dance the robot.

I had been warned that “no one actually dresses up” but when we arrived almost everyone had put on some form of costume. The thing was that despite the theme being “Retro and Futuristic”, I was the only representative of “futuristic”. A spy I will never be.

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I Am a Vehicle for Propaganda

I am a primary school music teacher.

What do primary school music teachers teach? Songs? Yes, some. Music theory? Yes, some. Recorder? Yes, some. Rhythm games? Yes, some. Empathy? Yes, some. Blatant flag-waving propaganda? Yes … some.

You might be surprised at how often I’m asked what I teach by my co-workers — I know I am. Every day at least one person will turn to me in the elevator, “So, what do you actually teach?” They’re probably just grasping for small talk in a very uncomfortable situation (the elevators are extremely slow and stiflingly hot.) Usually they make a guess before I can reply with my vague, unsatisfying answer. Usually their guess is, “You teach them songs, right?”

Usually I reply, “Um, well …”

Please understand that all I want to do with my students is show them that music is precision and hard work and academic; but also that it can be a social, mind-blowing, life-altering, infectious, wonderful, eternal thing. And that it’s open and welcoming. And that it’s for them. And that school has very little to do with it, because it’s about sound and people; not about study and students. I don’t know if teaching songs is the way to teach that.  Ok, sorry, let me clarify: Teaching songs is not the way I want to teach that. Or at least, not the only way.

(Note: “teaching songs” means handing them a lyric sheet or a unison line music score and playing a CD with midi instrument accompaniment.)

But I am employed by a foreign government to get students to perform to a certain standard and to know a set amount of facts, and I can’t escape the songs. The very first bullet point in the syllabus is for students to learn National songs. Ok, Mr. Minister, O Mine Exalted Employer, so be it.

The only problem is that I don’t feel right teaching these National Day songs. They’re all about patriotism and Singpore-is-the-bomb and I’m-so-glad-I-enjoy-all-the-freedoms-Singapore-offers and Nowhere-is-better-than-here, and while I agree that, yes, Singapore is a pretty special place, and good for Singapore for putting on a business suit, I’m not Singaporean and I’m not a Singaporean patriot. Hell, I’m not very patriotic for my own country. I’m not even a fan of the whole idea of patriotism. But here I stand in my classrooms, pressing play buttons with cringing finger so that my girls can dissolve into song after song about “our one true home.”

I really didn’t want this to turn into a rant, but I’ll allow myself to be whiny just for this paragraph. The part that actually bothers me isn’t the fact that I’m teaching children to wave flags madly. I think that kids should experience the frightening joys of mob mentality at least once; the part that bothers me is that the vast majority of the enormous repertoire of these songs is almost completely lacking in musical value. I am totally going there. Paint me a snob. It’s the musical equivalent of eating cotton balls. I really, really don’t want make midi-accompanied, soft rock ballad clones a staple in my students’ musical diets.

To be fair, a couple of the songs are pretty good, and I plan on only making my girls sing those ones. They’ll learn the others by osmosis at flag-raising ceremony every morning.

In the meantime, I’ll do my best to teach music and geography as penance for having to teach blind pride in one’s country. I’ve already managed to teach the P6′s that “African music” is not a single genre. (And that “Africans” are not a single ethnic group.) And you thought American kids didn’t know anything about the rest of the world? Well,  … enjoy:

I was playing 20 questions with some 11-year-old girls and I was being Germany. They knew I was a country in Europe. This is an EXACT remembrance of the conversation we had.

Girl 1: “Are you Paris?”
Me: “No. Paris is a city.”
Girl 2: “Is it? How about Florida? Are you Florida?”
Girl 3: “Nooo! Florida is in Mexico.”
Girl 4: “Mexico is where rats live.”
Girl 1: “Africa?”
Me: “That is a continent and it’s not in Europe.”
Girl 4: “I had a map once.”
Girl 1: “You’re England!”
Me: “No.”
Girl 1: “Ireland!”
Me: “No.”
Girl 1: “Paris!”
Me: “You guessed that already. Do you want me to pull up a map of the world? Will that help?”
Girl 4: “No. Don’t bother. We don’t learn about the world.”
Girl 3: “Yeah! I thought Canada was at the bottom of Australia until you showed us that picture.”
Girl 4: “The picture of a map!”
Girl 2: “Are you Italy?”
Me: “Good guess! But no.”
Girl 2: “Rome?”
Me: “Rome is a city in Italy. So no.”
Girl 4: “Isn’t Europe in Asia? Is this a trick question? Can I go to the toilet?”

Recorder chores and petrichor

It finally rained.

But first: Primary 3 (P3) music class (P3 is the same as grade 3.)  I don’t know what happens to P3 students here. I direct P1′s and P2′s in choir, and I also teach P4 – 6 music classes. P1 and P2 are shockingly well-behaved, all listening with enormous, doting eyes; P4-6 are pretty much little people and respond in hilarious half-grown-up ways to humour and classroom etiquette. P3′s seem to be channelling all the issues of the other grades. Get it over with all in one hellish year.

They’re still sweet little girls, and they’re hilarious, but they are all over the place and I don’t have the class time to join them.  We’ll be talking about posture and suddenly one will launch into a monologue on the joys of swimming; she’ll stand up and everything! Another will catch her enthusiasm and support her by yelling out all the different coloured birds she knows. And all semblance of a lesson crumbles as the rest of the girls tell me about a) why her brother may have stolen her recorder, b) the benefits of putting ones shoes on the wrong feet, c) carpet burns, etc. They just spew out their trains of thought at any old time. They have no filters

Ok and yes, it’s hilarious. I appreciate that.  But I feel like I have to do something with them.  I decided to see where they had left off, recorder-skillz-wise.

*angry buzzer sound* Nothing. Zip. Half of them didn’t know how to hold their recorders: hands in strange twisted positions, mouthpieces on backwards, fingers nowhere near the finger holes, chaos. If you’ve ever gone through an elementary school music program, you’ll know that players need to use very little air to create a half-decent tone. (A fully decent tone is a rare miracle. When I was in grade 5, our music teacher brought in a professional recorder player who had this gorgeous wooden instrument with the sweetest tone. My class was frustrated for weeks trying to make the same nice sound. ) Blow a little too hard, pop up an octave. Blow a little more than a little too hard, THE DEATH SQUEAL. It is a thousand times worse than a squeaky grade 7 saxophonist. Times 41 for 41 distinct and individual DEATH SQUEALS.

Hell.

So we’re starting from scratch! I feel like a drill sergeant. “Recorders up!” “Recorders down!” And I feel like my primary school music teacher. “Practice in front of a mirror!”

I guess I am a primary school music teacher. Oh sweet lord.

But it rained after nearly a week of no rain. Sweet, sweet petrichor.

The Cleanlust

50% of my free time is spent cleaning my home.

Rebecca and the Behind-the-Fridge-Wall dreams are made of. *sigh* I'll never forget you, Behind-the-Fridge-Wall stain. *single tear*

The first Saturday after I moved in, Rebecca and I tackled the kitchen floor (actually just half) and the fridge area. Things keep changing colours on us.  Grey is actually white. Yellow is actually white. Black is usually actually white. Once, black was actually yellow. And I have encountered a single example of red actually being white.

There’s a lot of white in my house. I assume the last tenant must have hated white because obviously he hadn’t cleaned in the entire time he stayed here. Possibly 2 years. Apparently he didn’t cook, didn’t do laundry, didn’t wash the house at all. Also apparently his maid is terrible.

But the scariest part is not the astoundingly thick layer of grime that covers … everything; the scariest part is that I’m turning into my mom. Once I start cleaning, I am compelled to keep cleaning, keep scouring by a strange, irresistible urge that turns be into some sort of cleanliness berserker. My brother, my dad, and I used to warn each other when mom was overtaken by the cleanlust by discreetly whispering to each other on the stairs or in hallways, “She’s on the warpath.” The correct handling of the situation is to make oneself scarce for a few hours while she got it out of her system. Trying to help achieved nothing. But now I’m beginning to understand.

It really sunk in today when after scouring my bathtub with baking soda I found myself  making fish adobo with green leafy vegetables.
Mom, I’ve almost completed my transformation into a taller, paler version of you. I eat your food; I tread your warpath.

 

Settling in and school snapshots three

It’s been a while; but let me tell you, I have not been idle. Today I just finished up my second week teaching at my school. It’s an all girls primary school very well known in Singapore complete with a posh name. The girls are sweet; precocious and vocal, but sweet. In another post I’ll explain the Singapore education system and its rigorous national exams in detail. For now, just know that music is not one of the examinable subjects in the Primary School Leaving Exam, and because of that, very little is import is placed on music. I was also shocked to find out that there are really very few qualified music teachers in the school system and because of that all choirs/bands/performance ensembles are directed not by the music teachers, but by outside vendors who are hired with great expense to the schools. GREAT expense.

Digression: my original point was that I think my students are just happy that I’m giving them hands-on music lessons as a “break” from their regular day. As much as I hate to admit that my class is a break (heaven forbid!) from real subjects — no let me rephrase: as much as it makes me want to grind my teeth to the gums — I’m glad that music is starting to have some purpose to these students. Even a purpose I’m not nuts about. Even though I only see each class 25 minutes a week. Maybe.

Don’t read this as complaints because it’s not; read it as my surprised and curious response to a different education system that the ones I’m familiar with.

Lots of things are great of course. My principal is outstanding. I really admire her. (And no, ha ha, I don’t think she reads this blog.) My classrooms are air conditioned. Pianos are abundant. My work station is nice. The other teachers are friendly — although I always have to explicitly ask, “What is your name?” Just saying, “Hi, I’m Grace,” results in them nodding and saying, “I know.” My school mentor is extremely experienced and practical. I really admire her too. My school buddy keeps wanting to drive me around to go grocery shopping and household item shopping. I’m busy! My lessons are falling into place now that I’ve seen the classes twice and have kind of wrapped my head around the Singaporean student. My commute to work from my nice new home is only about half an hour each way on a direct bus.

Speaking of which, I moved in last Friday, finally. My roomies are Rebecca and Rachel, the two other Canadian teachers with this foreign teacher cohort. I promise a video tour of my condo. It’s amazing. I live in a resort.

Buuuuuut …

SNAPSHOT 1

Yesterday I was rushing off to a meetup.com gathering (in an effort to meet lots and lots of interesting people.) There were two girls sitting on the step of the condo next to us. One was wearing a navy pinafore like the girls at my school but I thought nothing of them until I heard,

“*enormous gasp* … Miss Hutton!?!?”
Oh. No.
I turned. The girl wearing pyjamas looked like she was about to dance with glee.
“Are you my neighbour?” I asked her.
“Yes! Yes I’m your neighbour!”
“What a surprise! What’s your name?” I teach about 750 girls (20 classes of around 40) so learning names is not a priority these days.
“I’m ________. I’m in [class grade and letter].”
“Well! I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Woooooooow! I can’t believe you live next to me!”
“Yeeeeeeah … let’s keep it kind of a secret.” At this, her friend giggles and shushes her stuffed animal pencil case. “Have a good night, girls.”
As I entered the elevator, I heard Next-Door-Neighbour-Student begin to squeal, “OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD!!!”

SNAPSHOT 2

Today on my way out of the music room, I saw a big, old, brown beetle on the corridor floor, so I picked it up to bring it back to my office to photograph and then let free somewhere a little safer. There was a small pod of girls (what is the collective noun for 11-year-old girls? A giggle? A squeal?) outside the office, and as they bowed to me enthusiastically, one spotted my new friend who had latched firmly onto my thumb.  It was a little bigger than a toonie and looked like this beetle, just darker.

At first they were grossed out, or pretended to be grossed out, or thought they were grossed out, but then I used my index finger to pet the beetle’s wing case and invited them to touch it too. One suddenly squealed, “Oooo! It’s actually kind of cute!” and most of the others soon agreed and were jostling around waiting for a turn to pet the beetle. I was so proud.

I bumped into two of the girls on my way out of the school later and they asked what had happened to it when we all spotted a moth on the wall. I took some pictures of it and they helped by holding the dangling camera strap out of the way. I taught them how to hold a moth but they were a little to skittish still. We’ll work our way up to moths.

How can I say no to a face like that?

SNAPSHOT 3

Also today in one of my Primary 3 (grade 3) classes, because half the class hadn’t brought their recorders, I taught them “The Princess Pat”.  The second verse involves a man named Captain Jack who has a mighty fine crew, and I reminded them that although they are 8-year-old girls, they still had to sound like a 40-year-old bearded man. We had  a lot of fun growling and croaking our way through the verse. I actually had to stop singing for a whole minute and sit down I was laughing so hard. They were killing themselves, they thought everything was so funny, and 3 were literally rolling on the floor laughing. One girl in the back of the room got so into it: hands balled into fists at her sides, locked limbs, chin thrust out, death metal voice. I lost it every time I looked near her.

Calming them down for their next teacher was a huge challenge.

Welcome to Singapura

It’s been two weeks.

Here are a 5 snapshots of my first week here minus the less interesting parts like “induction” by the Ministry of Education and getting a stomach flu preventing me from going to said induction.

#1: IT IS HUMID HERE

Seriously, if you check the weather of Singapore right now, whenever that now happens to be, the humidity will be 75 – 95%. I got out of the airport with my mentor and his wife and stopped dead in my tracks. “What!?” was all I could say. It was like hitting a wall of water. The air is made of water! I need to grow gills!

I love hot, humid weather, but this is beyond my experience. Is it because I’m so near the equator? Is it because I’m on an island so close to the equator? Fortunately for me and everyone around me on the metro, I am not a sweaty person and my body has contented itself with glowing agreeably. Also fortunately, everyone is always blasting their a/c and even my music classrooms have enormous a/c units.

#2: Little India on Sunday afternoon

For those of you who know what it’s like to up and move to a country where you know no one, you’ll understand the need to keep moving. I arrived Saturday evening, put down my ridiculous leopard-printed luggage (I’m not kidding about those! I’ll take a picture when I finally lay them to rest in my permanent apartment,) and ate a hugely appreciated dinner with the family I’m staying with. Their names are Victor and Connie and they’re a sweet Filipino couple who are friends with a long-lost 3rd cousin or something. I don’t spend any time with the Filipino community ever, but damn, they pull through. I’m staying in a bedroom in their posh condo. I can’t stay though because it’s a far way from where I’ll be working. And … from most places on the island.

Sunday I languished in bed for a while until I dragged myself up and out, got a SIM card, exchanged some cash (for I had NO MONEY!) and tackled the public transit system. I chose a likely sounding MRT station: Little India. I hadn’t bothered to do any research on Singapore before I arrived just because, but I’d heard about the Little India, so off I went.

One of the many temples. I went Sunday afternoon and it was just swarming with people.

It took an hour and a bit to get there. For such an “advanced” country, Singapore’s MRT (that’s Massive Rapid Transit) is slooooooowwww. It’s not a big island, but I was surprised at how long it takes to get around. In Little India, I wandered aimlessly, taking photos of whatever. I found out later that Sunday afternoon is when a lot of the Indian men have time off, so they all gather in Little India to attend temple and just have a chill time, and I don’t doubt it. It was packed. I could hardly walk down the street.

Fresh fragrant flower garlands

There were some fruit markets and hawker centres and cheap goods for sale. My favourite part of that afternoon was walking behind a group of women wearing jasmine blossoms in their hair. I’ve never smelled fresh jasmine before; it is potent.

#3: The Lasalle Art Centre

There are 14 new foreign teachers including myself (very different from the 800 of us who arrived at once in Seoul 2009.) There’s three Tamil dudes, three Indian women from Calcutta, a Filipina, an Indonesian girl, a Liverpuddlian, a Texan, a Polish woman, and two other Canadian girls. The three of us are living together, or will be when I move in July 1. After I got over the Terrible Stomach Flu of 2011, I went to meet one of the girls Rebecca at her hotel. Here’s a building near that hotel.

Lasalle building

It's an art college, I think.

#4: Singapore Sling

At the end of the first week the three Canadians and Iwona the Polish woman went out to celebrate in Chinatown.  They were intent on getting Singapore Slings. A Sling is some sort of cocktail designed to for tastiness and “a tardy alcoholic rush”. Direct quote. I decided not to indulge because of the Terrible Stomach Flu of 2011, but I pretended.

Please note: alcohol is prohibitively expensive, as I was warned by a friend. These slings came at a hefty $15 apiece.

Rebecca and Rachel with their slings.

Me and Iwona, pretending.

#5: If you are seeking housing in Singapore YOU NEED AN AGENT

Take it from me, self-proclaimed Queen of Cheap, an agent is a must. Suck it up, and pay that extra 1/2 a month rent because it will save you so much hassle, time, and MONEY. Foreigners get cheated all the time here because we don’t know the Singapore housing rules. You have to be careful. I came across four scams online searching for a rental before I met our agent. Also you have to be careful finding an agent who isn’t just after agent fees; trying to sell you any apartment as soon as possible. Lucky for us, Rebecca’s mentor from the Ministry hooked her up with an excellent, and very human agent. She’s an angel. An angel with an SUV. If you ever find yourself in need of a housing agent, rental or otherwise, send me a message and I’ll send you her information. She is a gem.

Bonus snapshot: Orchard MRT.

Mystery Insect!

It was tiny, maybe 3-5 mm across, and wouldn’t have even noticed it but it was moving across a cushion near me. It seemed to have covered itself with dead matter like a decorator crab, and upon closer inspection using the zoom on my camera, I found it to look suspiciously (deliciously?!?!?!) shrimpy-looking.

Check out his digs.

Click for close-up shrimpy goodness.

What is it?!

An interruption from our regular schedule

I arrived in Singapore on Saturday night and today I had my first day of “induction”.  I’ll tell you all about it when I get caught up chronologically but for now I leave you this gem of a conversation: 

I call it: I LIVE IN UMBRIDGE’S HOGWARTS!!!!!!!!!!

Foreign Teacher: We were standing on the sidewalk waiting and they asked us to move. We did. We weren’t in our new spot for more than 2 minutes and they asked us to move again. What’s going on? Why can’t we stand on the sidewalk in the shade?
Ministry of Education worker: Oh, it must be the congregating law.
FT: What?
MOEW: It is not allowed to gather in one place more than 5 people simultaneously.
Everyone: WHAT!?
MOEW: Yes, it is the law.
Me: But … what if I have 5 friends and we go out for dinner.
MOEW: Maybe they’ll ask you not to stand together. Maybe they will see you’re just being social and it’s not a problem.
Me: Why?
MOEW: Because it is against the law to gather more than 5 people …
Me: Yes, but why is it the law?
MOEW: Oh! I see! It is because we want to discourage protesting. Protesting is against the law.
Everyone: WHAT!?
Me: You mean, Singaporeans don’t have the right to protest?
MOEW: (obviously confused) Um … You can go to a place called Speakers’ Corner to speak. That is alright. Protesting is not allowed.
Me: You don’t have the right to protest?!?
MOEW: I don’t know this right.

UMBRIDGE!

Umbridge lives.

Stay tuned for the rest of Cambodia and my new adventures here in Singapore.

 

Packing, right?

This is me not packing

Packing, right? I love packing for small trips. I’ll pack days in advance.

But year-long-or-more trips? No. No, I am the Queen of Procrastination today, all hail.We have bought everything that needs to be bought. We have piled everything into vague, messy piles. We have fended off Queen-Mom’s advances to help. Our enormous leopard-patterned luggages remain UNPACKED.

Also, nice to meet you. I don’t know what this blog will turn into, or even if will grow into a real blog, but I’m bored enough now to make a commitment to it.  Expect more from me especially once I finish packing, board those planes and jet off to Asia.