whew! I'm finally glad that the week is over. And hurray! I'm so happy to know that my heart still beats and that my brain still function - in short, I'm alive!
My week started with the wrong class schedules. So I have no choice but to re-enroll, and re-validate all the subjects that I wish to enroll. it was tiring because you have to adjust again to new classmates and new teachers. Plus, you have to catch up with the lessons because the new teacher wont give you a special quizzes and assignments and your new classmates wont lend you their notes because they are not copying. What's the point of borrowing one anyway?
The there's a seminar. Strings of it. Seminar for student interns. Seminar about how to's, like: how to act properly if you don't like your cooperating teacher. Or rather let's say, if you're
COOPERATING teacher is not cooperating. How to write you're lesson plan, how to develop your personality and how to be professional.
Internship is like the Gas Chamber of Future Educators. You have no choice but to do even if your GPA is 1 or even if you are a consistent Dean's List or if you are the son/daughter of whoever from wherever. Its the testing ground if you're ready or not. And ready or not, you have to show them what you got. Oh! And why Gas Chamber? Well, how do I explain this one..? hmmm..
just see Chamber as the School ; where the Gas is the system and the Teachers (whether its your cooperating teacher or not) are the Nazis.
err... you get the point.
What's most challenging about it is that you are introduced to the system. With that, you'll learn how the system works, and how to be comfortable if the students greet you: "Goood Mooorning Mha'am" ; "Goooood Moooonenng, Sirr". You'll will always be t6rained on how to deal with colleagues and bosses - Your Principal and Your cooperating teacher. Well if you're fortunate enough, you wont be assigned to teachers who are too self-centered, the type of teachers that dont give their interns a chance to learn and the type of teachers that dont want their interns to develop and become
AS BETTER or
WAY BETTER than them. In vernacular, "
Kulbaan masapawan". Other than that, consider yourself more fortunate if you are not assigned to teachers who are "EVERYBODY's FRIEND". Take note! I said,
NOT ASSIGNED. Say what? What is an "EVERYBODY's FRIEND"type of cooperating teachers? These type of cooperating teachers are
too sweet,
too kind,
too talkative,
too trusting,
too helpful,
too loving,
too supportive,
too grumpy,
too happy,
too critical, and so on (just insert the word
TOO, in every adjective you can think of.). I'm not saying being sweet, happy, kind, talkative, critical, trusting, helpful, blah blah, is bad. But the word
TOO makes it different - yes, bad for that matter. Usually, cooperating teachers who are like these makes the Intern do the teaching for whole week (hmmm... good training for voice modulation, classroom management, and so on.). They also allow student Interns to do the math for the grades of the year/section they handle (which is also good, because all of us need to fall in love with Math *gags*). And lastly, they introduce the Interns to their colleagues, members of the school community, friends, and family (yup, it does happen sometimes). Maybe you are wondering why I am complaining about this when everything I have written here is two-thumbs up. Why am I really complaining? Well, remember when I said that the word
TOO makes everything bad. So if your cooperating teacher is
TOO kind, TOO helpful (you need her help so you can have your teaching demos) and
TOO supportive and you will be teaching for a whole week, good training indeed. But what do the cooperating teacher do, aside from receiving the moolah, if we are all doing their task? If you're lucky, they sit somewhere, flip some magazine, brochures of avon, fullerlife, tupperware, natasha, msi, and so on, instead of listening to you and guiding you with whatever you're babbling. But most of the time, they go AWOL. It is during these times you'll appreciate the precious Lesson Plan. Once, I heard one of my senior Intern praise the Almighty for enlightening her to do her Lesson Plan the night before. If it wasnt for that enlightenment, her class would've been a mess. Going back, aside from the sitting with the handful of brochures, some "EVERYBODY's FRIEND" type of cooperating teacher gets
TOO comfortable with you so they become
TOO talkative. Take note! There goes the word
TOO again. And what do they do when they are like this?
They gossip with you. Everything! Everything you
NEED NOT TO KNOW, becomes everything you
HAVE TO KNOW. And to please her/him, you also have to REMEMBER everything she/he said because for sure the next day she/he will ask you where did you two end the convo. Or if she/he have already reached the gossip limit of her/his little memory back, she/he will ask you what's the missing sentence of whatever you're gossiping about. If these are the case you get a daily dose of
SNN Morning Edition. Now, did I miss some TOOs? Let's see...
- Too kind. CHECK
- Too supportive. CHECK
- Too comfortable. CHECK
- Too talkative. CHECK
- Too trusting. that's what is missing.
Now, how to know if your "EVERYBODY's FRIEND" cooperating teacher really, really, really, really, 3000000000000000000x, trust you. Well, she/he asks you to do the grocery for her, or if its a matter of hygienic crisis, s/he'll ask you to pull out white hairs from her/his precious balding hair. CONGRATULATIONS! From there you can apply what you learned bout behaviorism, constructivism and ACTIVISM. :)
Yay! Dont walk out on me yet. Look, I'm not being mean here or anything. And I'm not even saying that was a bad seminar. It was a HELPFUL seminar. It allows us how to be prepared and how to enjoy every shift and how to apply what we learned. And the bonus part was, learning how to put on make-up and dressing up well. Personality development, that is.
Aside from strings of seminar, I also have to do give attention to my extra curricular activities like being the Tactical Officer of some High School. It wasnt easy but it was fun. Its like going back to being high school and reminiscing memories with every rifle drill execution and marches. And the other way of supporting the organization, I also have to practice the narration for their Fancy Drill competition which was held at SM NorthWing Car Park. Yup! They wont the Grand Prize. Fun! Fun! Fun!
And to add load to more overly loaded activities to tend to, my 10-month old baby, Sappho Juno, also made contribution. She's a bitch, she's in heat and she badly wants to be devirginized. So I have to go meet Ms. Hazel and ask her if Sappho and her dog could do the "thing". And she agreed. (Thank you Ms. Hazel) ^_^
Finally the last confusing event. Two birthday invitations, One date, same hour. I wish I was Amor at that time so I could freely and speedily move from one place to the other. But I only look like her, minus the super
aswang powers. So I have to attend the first one after the Sunday mass in the morning and the second one, at 5 pm. Yup! both of them, oh so love me that they wont accept "Friend, i cant go to your party. I'm really exhausted."
As a result of all these chaotic activities, I only accumulated 30 hours of sleep, with calorie intake of more than 5000 (thanks to the two birthday parties!) and alcohol intake of... I lost count.
So dont wonder if you see me walking like a zombies with dark under eyes and shrill, raspy voice. And no matter how chaotic that week was, and how sickly I've become, Im still glad all of ti happened. I learned a lot of things. From time management to all the how to's from the seminar. If you ask me if I will still accept the challenge of having this same schedule of events, my answer would be YES!
...but for now, my next step is to stock Fern-C in my room and snuggle with my pillows.
ta-ta! <3
