Teacher Ong, Mandarin, Kids

Yes, Teacher Ong here. OMG! That sounds weird even till now. The kids, the parents, the other teachers all call me that. Day in, day out. How spooky is it that whenever I go to a new place, I Earned myself a new name.

Penang= layping/Girl.
Taylors= layping/maggie
Cambridge=Ping
Back to Penang= Teacher Ong/Girl

So, to speak of a teacher's life. I am teaching in Mandarin. Yup, you heard that right. Me, a banana *eyes wide open* I have just grasped the basics; enough for scolding the kids, enough for subtration/addition (don't even know what it multiplication/division), enough for the famous teacher's sigh of disappointment "Pu Ke Yee Chiang De" followed by tsk tsk, enough for negotiating with the kids on how much playing time they are getting, enough for 1-100.

The optimistic me thinks that it should be enough to get by for the next two months until....

a smart aleck walks in with superior Mandarin. How superior, ah well Std 2, enough to trash me, so to speak. ;)

Z.Yang: Shen me shi monkey?
Me: Monkey is monyet *at lost for Mandarin word*
Z.Yang: Monkey shi hou zi *haughtily*

After 2 seconds and my blush have yet to recede,

Z.Yang: Shen me shi Crocodile?
Me: Crocodile is Buaya
Z.Yang: Crocodile shi Er Yu

Me, trying to replace everything into BM which obviously the kid doesn't understand. After a few more questions, I whispered to the kid, " Bu yao wen wo, wo bu dong" and hastily asked him to ask another teacher.

After a moment of silence, he continued. I think he's determined to teach me Mandarin. *blush*

Another Mandarin misfortune, this morning a kid came in asking for thing sia. Me, and two more teachers all do not know how to read Mandarin, just the basic words. *pengsan*Poor kid however found help in the form of another older kid who have read those words. Somehow, I think that the pedestal the kid put us on just came crashing down on her today. *guilty*

Yet another diversion. I have finally come to terms with my job and is starting to enjoy it. Sorry for the earlier bout of complaints. *sheepish* Teaching the kids are fun! Hugs are aplenty, tickle them, tease them and "negotiate" with them. 5 mins playing time, then back to work. hahahahaha and you'll know how manipulative some kids can get. They'll purposely manja with you to get off the work, that's the better ones. The worse ones will kick/shriek/scratch/run away and you'd think that doing some ABC's is worse than seeing the dentist.

Last but not least, kids smell good. Hahhahaha, I either sound like a paedophile saying that or like the nasty Giant in fables that eats kids for breakfast.

But yeah, they smell good, like smell of the air after the rain.

To revisit a past conversation:

Me: I waaaaant Kids, Now *moans*
Alvin: Get a goat

Now, is that a good pun or what? *wink*