Back to School!

Sorry it has been a while since I last posted, but I have since become part of normality, working a day job for the fist time in my life. I must admit, it has been more than challenging (the early mornings that is), but I am slowly getting used to it. I always said I would never work a 9-5, but never mentioned a 8:15a.m. until 5:15p.m. (7a.m. till 6:30p.m. if you count the commuting).

I began work last Wednesday; the journey to school was horrific! I have to get two buses and the metro to get to school, and it takes around an hour and twenty minutes in the morning, which means a 6am wake up call for me. I am not a morning person to begin with, and my body is usually dead to the world until around noon. I thought that the best thing I could do, was to put together my own concoction of coffee for the road, also giving me the excuse to use my new thermos flask, purchased from the ten dollar shop, for just ten dollars! I left the apartment at 7am, giving myself plenty of time for the commute ahead. I had traveled to the school on two other occasions’ with no problems, although this was my first day - things weren’t meant to go swimmingly.

I boarded my first bus from outside my living complex, only to find, the bus concluded it’s journey just half way to my destination! I was the only person left on the bus, while the driver shouted at me in Cantonese; I assume he was saying, “get off the bus you stupid westerner!” In a fluster, I called Maggie to make some sense of the situation. She chatted to the driver and found out that not all the buses with the same numbers actually go as far as I need to travel! This doesn’t create the best of scenarios for me in the mornings, as it’s just a bit of a gamble if I get on the correct bus or not. The bus luckily went back to the complex, and I could join the queue of 20+ people, to take the next bus gamble to work.

First impressions count for everything in Hong Kong, so I certainty didn’t want mine to be a bad one by turning up late for my first day of work. I finally arrived just five minutes late, which I hope was not noticed by the principle. I struggled to perform my first door duty, short of breath and sweating in the stifling 31 degrees heat, and 80% humidity. Never the less, I braved a smile and greeted every single child with a “good morning” and handshake welcome. Door duty is something I do every day on four occasions during school. It’s an opportunity for the children to first of all, meet me, learn to greet in English, and finally, for the school to model their new English teacher. After door duty, I had the opportunity to prepare my lessons. Whilst rummaging around my bag for the required books, I was horrified to discover that the small remains of my coffee concoction had only leaked all over my new books. This was not the best of starts to my first day, but I fortunately had no teaching that day, so it didn’t get any worse.

Even though I had no lessons to conduct, I did get the opportunity to meet most of the children, pop in during their lessons and say; “Hello, I am Miss Lyndsey”. It was lovely to hear the children call me Miss Lyndsey, they are all so cute and ever so small! I made the most of my time by preparing lessons for the coming week, and attempting to decode my new timetable. Before I knew it, the day was over and it was home time. I encountered a few teething problems as far as commuting goes, but the teaching was yet to begin!