3resilience

I managed to clear all my work for the most part this weekend, and spent a lot of time working on Directions, and taking the chance to get some reading done. Fiction I haven't read before is hard to come by these days, and though I spend most of my time now immersed in the technicalities and nuances of English, I don't have that much leftover time to read as much as I'd like. Revisiting old, well-loved pieces is definitely nice, but I want the thrill of anticipation, of expecting that the next book, the next page will surprise and touch you in ways that will open the eyes of your eyes and unplug the ears of your ears. And this weekend, reading Shaw's Three Plays for Puritans, I treated myself to some of that sensation.

Also, been chatting with some of my kids online, and it's invigorating to see them discussing their English assignments with one another, swapping ideas and germinating them mutually. It reminds me of that kind of creative energy that we had my old class; and whatever has changed over the years in school, whatever new programmes it has implemented, whoever has left and whoever has come to take their place, it is nice to see that this has not prevented that exhilarating spirit of creation from manifesting itself. And I think this is something to do with youth, rather than to do with the learning environment; when your students are fourteen years old, and on the brink of new knowledge and self-identity, then their creativity is not for the teacher to nurture, but for the teacher to lose.

I wonder how long this will keep up. I hope the next week will be as good as the last. But I recognise, too, that eventually the novelty factor and my scope of new ideas will narrow down and eventually be exhausted. The only thing is to make sure that I always find myself a few tricks to keep up my sleeve, and to make sure that the point of exhaustion comes after May 10th.

I wonder how real teachers manage it, bringing themselves to teach the same thing over and over again, year after year. I can't even bear to reuse the materials that I was taught with. I wonder if they see curricular changes as welcome breaths of fresh air. Or, maybe, after the novelty factor wears off for the teacher, then the priority is to establish a routine with a high level of quality, so when the inevitable autopilot mode sinks in at least one is still able to give good lessons. Novelty is then not so much an addictive drug, as it is now for me, but a stimulant to be taken in small doses and at strategic times.

But anyway...this job is turning out to be more enriching than I thought. I daresay it could even be so enriching that it outweighs the novelty and glamour factor of taking on the Duck Tours assignment. And I can see how this will come in useful, come August, when I will go back to the other side of the teacher's table. How do these things work out, to make everything fit together so nicely? Or am I reading a pattern that isn't really there?

*

Greg's third day in camp, and I can feel a certain...imbalance at home. I guess the rest should be used to it now, since I've been gone for the better part of two years. But to have a member of the family missing from home is still quite a novelty to me. It's not something that I feel very intensely...just some imbalance in the fabric of home life, something like a barely perceptible breeze that tickles your nape. It's something that has worn out the assumptions that have been taken for granted in home life, and though the practical and palpable reprecussions are not major, there is still a feeling of something being wrong that is dogging me.

Went back to my mum's old family home this evening, the home that is owned by her mother, where I spent my first three or four years' worth of weekends. I still remember what that house used to look like, before the latest round of renovations made it all bright and airy and shiny. Driving through the old neighbourhoods, the echoes of memory rise up tantalisingly through the layers of newness that have been constructed over what I remember: a familiar view here, a sense of déjà-vu there, an anecdote waiting in ambush. I would be lying if I said everything was still the same; but even the tiny hints that are all that still remain are eloquent to me. That old analogue clock, tarnished and discoloured by age, speaks to me. The old stacks of photos taken in the house and stored in dusty albums are as evocative as talismans.

*

Obama wins in South Carolina.

It is clear that he speaks well, very well, in fact. He brings out the best sides of people in his speeches, and though he can sometimes be telling people what they want to hear, he does it in a way that doesn't make anyone feel guilty in agreeing with him. His tendancy is towards defusing conflicting viewpoints. And while he may not have the experience or the substance in policy-making, I think that kind of tendancy, that ability to reconcile opposing viewpoints and make people from different backgrounds and with different interest listen to you, is what America needs now. Though I also recognise that it's rather ironic for a Singaporean to recommend what America needs.