It's all over

It seems I have all but disappeared from the face of the earth for the last month or so, but it's all for a good cause. Because today I have officially completed my TEFL training here in Haimen City, and by this time tomorrow, I will be in Shanghai for a much needed week-long vacation.
During the whole time, I tried my darnest to write more, but the workload from the course was killing me. My days usually started when the kids roamed through the hallway at 6:30 in the morning, and I would still be in the classroom alone preparing for my next teaching at midnight.

Then earlier this week was my finals. I spent the weekend either cramming for the exam, or losing sleep over it. The day after my finals, I had to teach at a primary school for three days. My very first class was 50 1st graders, and it was 40 minutes of pure hell. It was so horrifying that I dreaded of returning the next day. Lucky for me, I only had to teach the first grade once. Teaching the 2nd thru 5th graders were a bliss after that.

One satisfaction I got out of these kids was that after each class, they would mob me with their books and pens in hand, clobbering to get me to sign their books. Yes, they wanted autographs of their foreign teachers. Most times I couldn't see where I was signing, because there were so many books shoved in front of my face. It's a total blast for the ego!

An even higher satisfaction was when the local English teachers who sat in my class (it's actually their class) would come up to me afterwards to tell me that I did a good job, or that I make a very good teacher. Suddenly, all that grueling work I put in before seemed to have paid off.

Now I'm relaxing at UBC and typing again; it's probably going to be my last visit here. This UBC has been my canteen of choice, where I spent many hours of productive writing and studying. The service staff is excellent, so I'm actually going to miss them, because they all know me by now. I even met the owner who gave me a VIP card that I can use at all UBC franchises. Cool.

I still want to fill the gaps for the weeks that I haven't been writing, because there are much to tell about my experiences in Haimen City and the TEFL course itself. But the jest of it is that I am glad I decided at the last minute to come to Haimen for the training. I can honestly look back at the past 5 weeks and say that it was persistence that put me through it.

I can only compare the experience to my basic training in the army days when I was 17. Back then it was 8 weeks of physical strain, while here was 5 weeks of mental strain. Many a time during both trainings, I had doubts of whether I'll be able to pull through. Then the moment when I realized it was all over, that overwhelming feeling of relief, and even a bigger sense of accomplishment, are indescribable. They are both events in my life that I can look back on and be proud to say that I did it.

Filed Fri - June 4, 2004, 06:35 AM in

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