Wew. It's currently 10.54 pm on a Friday night, I have nothing much to do but I am feeling quite energetic still. Let's channel this energy into recalling what the hell happened 2 years ago and where I left off...
Day 2 of my internship. Thrown into the pack of wolves. A preschool in Canberra, a place which somehow is in between the two stops on the North South Line and wasn't existent until very recently (no MRT = doesn't exist in my mind) and I'm being sent to this foreign land on my first mission.
How the hell do I get there again?
Fortunately for me, there was 1 good caveat about my company. A good portion of my travels was covered because I am allowed to take taxi to places whenever I bring logistics, which are big Toyo boxes filled with toys for those devil children. And then afterwards, I get to leave from the preschool straight back home. Which sounds decent but classes end at around 6.30pm and then cleaning up, I usually leave at 7pm. So it's still late as hell but at least I don't need to go back to the office. We take those small Ws.
Box obtained, Grab called (by my colleagues cause I don't have the Grab app on my phone, that shit is a rich people service mate), game-face on.
Time to educate some students.
Carrying the box (it's heavy and I can barely wrap it around with my arms) to the preschool, I tried to locate the main trainer. Yup, at least I'm not the main teacher so I guess it should be fine, I told myself. Found the guy, a poly student waiting to go to university. What's up my guy, I hope you are experienced cause this is literally my first time mate I have no idea what is the standard procedures like.
"Oh this is my first time too"
So that's how they work. This is merely the precursor to what is about to come. A prelude to the theatrics I would be exposed in this clown society.
Inside the box is also a binder with the class list with students in the class. So before every class, we are supposed to take attendance and if children are missing, we check with the teachers. Sounds reasonable and logical.
Let's see how many we have today. 3.
Oh. Okay.
So actually in this scenario, from my understanding 1 trainer is actually good enough for this. But I guess because it's the guy's first time, I got sent there to be a dog for everyone. A funny thing to think about is that months later, I (me myself , and limpeh) took a class of 40 by myself, so you can imagine what sort of tomfoolery is my bosses brewing. I have SO MANY things to talk about, I'm pretty sure I forgot a large part of my internship.
Hence why I'm writing this shit down right? 3000 IQ plays as usual by your boy.
(ffs man I also want to talk about my previous corporate job and my current cybersecurity job but I'll spend more time writing compared to Shakespeare and Murasaki Shikibu combined)
Take some drugs to continue on
Anyway, nothing too interesting to talk about for lessons. It's children and toys, what do you expect. Actual learning? LMAO please. Parents think that these children actually give a crap about what we teach them. On the ground, you'll be lucky if these children actually sit down and not run away, let alone listen to you. This is also merely the precursor to my second stint where I continued to work as a teacher after my internship but was somehow booted midway through. Oh the misery, everybody wants to be my enemy~~ (I told you I have a shit load of stories to tell. It's mad)
Anyway, I still remember one of the children on the first lesson. There are different topics for different classes in different preschools. Let me introduce you to Scratch, an easy block based programming tool that's really cool even for an adult like me, if I had this shit in the past I would make so many banter games it would be unbelievable. Instead, I did it on Macromedia Flash and RPG Maker. Memories. I digress, so Scratch was done on iPads (yes, these 6 year olds have accesses to iPads) and we distributed them to the children while we conduct our lesson. So 1 of these little guys realised what Scratch was similar to, and then started to tell us about his Minecraft exploits at home. Let me reiterate this to you, there are 6 year olds out there playing Minecraft right now, this was in 2021 by the way. In 2023 I think you'll expect to be debating with toddlers on Reddit on why we should add the Fortnite dance to Roblox. At 6 years old the only thing I remember was looking forward to colourful kueh and hoping its not cold chee cheong fun again at my church preschool. That speaks about how grown up (being very positive here) these young ones already are. Who is to say that teaching coding is not a waste of time after all? Well, we can leave that debate to another day on whether Minecraft is a coding app, but I was seeing that maybe children would really be able to sit down, listen attentively and actually surpass my coding level at secondary school while in preschool.
Nope. That guy was like the 1%. Out of all the classes I teached afterwards, I had only found 1 other boy who was like him, able to surpass the speed of the class and also listen to me. Shawns in the making I dare say.
I don't recall much after that, just normal lessons shit, and I went home weary but happy that I somehow managed to survive my first time teaching in a preschool. [For personal reference, I check this with Google Timeline so I can recall what happen. I found that I reached home at 8.17pm lol. This was July 21 2021]
Small steps.
Oh, did I mention that this company was going to move their company HQ to another place in Bukit Merah? And that they did it on the weekend of my first week? Saturday morning, please come to lift furniture and move stuff over guys. I don't even remember if I was paid for this honestly. Oh yeah, I was. My CEO (the boss of my bosses) actually offered to buy lunch for me and my fellow intern M. And like gave us $10 or some shit. Sandwich and milo, or something like that. Haha you don't have to sir, how generous of you! We broke ass bitches could never accept that.
But you must rise against the current no matter how strong it is.
So we got a brand new office, a bigger one in the outskirts of the city, an even more ulu place to go. Oof. There was a canteen in the office at least. I guess I'll be saving some moneyy hahaha no. My colleagues actually prefer to Grab or takeaway and eat in the office! Incredulously, this led to a moment which, looking in hindsight, is either the most disrespectful or respectful thing you can get, subjective to you of course. We will get to that later.
Oh, I forgot to mention something. We were supposed to bring our own laptops. This led to me actually asking companies in the future on whether they provide laptops. I think the interviewers would be confused over why I asked this, do companies out there not provide laptops?
Haha... I know one...
The sun shone in very strongly in the morning, which made M decide to chope a place and sacrifice me into the sun. How very kind of her. But I took the Vitamin D in stride and had a spot which overlooks a swimming pool in the building opposite. I always stared at the pool whenever I had the opportunity to and dreamt of me one day being able to swim while at work. Imagine relaxing and having leisure time at work.
In the end, it has to be this way. I'll take it in stride. Grit your teeth. 6 months. What's the worse that could happen?
Here comes the first secondary school assignment.
I received a call on Wednesday night by my boss A who apologised about bothering me at night (aww don't worry, I am always ready 24/7 for you sir. After all, what are interns for? We are here to be at your service sir!) and told me about an emergency.
Spoiler alert, these emergencies happened very often within a 6 month period.
Apparently, the main trainer tomorrow is gone so they needed help. A$AP ROCKY. Who is the best person for the job? HMMMMMMMMMMM
IT'S YA BOY SHAWN PRAWN LEMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
"It's OK, you can be the assistant trainer, I will come along with you tomorrow and you just help me" said A. Oh ok, that isn't too bad I guess. So he will be going through the main content and I will be the useless cunt clicking at the slides and then helping the other kings and queens with their iPads on the tables. Don't forget taking the pictures!
[12 August 2021, just checked and this was actually NOT the first time I went to teach a secondary school, I was assistant to another dude few weeks earlier and found secondary school students watching Gawr Gura, le funny meme shark vtuber that I myself have been watching for a while already. I'm sharing a hobby with 13 year olds. Yes. Ever since that day I stopped debating about vtubers to people online because I could be debating with a FUCKING 13 YEAR OLD and I wouldn't know about it so seriously thank you internship for opening my eyes]
Actually there wasn't anything interesting that happened on that day. Other than me being useless and also observing on how secondary schools work, I noticed that the coding classes happen in a classroom different from the students' usual classes. So they reach the class 5-10 mins later which means we have to cram our curriculum even more because of the lesser time given. I found myself personally liaising with teachers a lot because sometimes we face technical difficulties and pressuring the teachers to do something is something I have to do. Get the Wifi password bitch or we ain't working today. HDMI cable or you guys will look at a blank screen. We ended up usually on the upper hand so it was us who told the teachers what to do and they were grateful to us when it worked out in the end cause of my excellent firefighting skills. Too bad I didn't get any teacher MILF gf from this but whatever
~~ Interlude ~~
So remember what I talked about earlier regarding my colleagues who like to takeaway and eat in the office rather than eating in the canteen which has tables and chairs btw, very shocking but they indeed facilitate eating there! So I once told my colleagues, I ain't taking away shit. It costs extra money, so you guys can go ahead and takeaway, I will eat by myself in the canteen. Which was a really good thing because:
1. I would very much prefer to watch vtuber videos on my phone while eating
2. I save some money
3. It's hard to use my phone in the office since it's so small, my boss can see me very easily
4. My daily schedule in office is quite suffocating so taking a break alone, being an introvert, is good.
5. Did I mention I get to use my phone while I eat? Alone? With earphones on?
So I did, and afterwards my boss S came over and told me in the future, she will give me $1 every time we takeaway. And she actually took a $1 coin and gave it to me.
....
Should I feel happy she thought about this and actually gave me money? Or insulted that I have to be given money to eat with them cause I'm such a scrooge that I even have to care about the $0.30 takeaway charge? It wasn't something that came to my mind that day, but I just returned the $1 to her secretly and thought that even though it was a nice gesture, I would very much be watching this on my phone instead during lunch.
Anyway, it's not that I don't want to talk to my colleagues. They actually had some things to talk about during lunch, unlike my current company where its just a bunch of guys who are introvert nerds anyway so we have nothing to say to each other. So I didn't hate their company, but I just felt so tired cause of work I don't even want to talk.
~~ Interlude end ~~
[Time check: 12:26am]
Let's stop here for today. Things to write: Drones, first time doing in that circle thing in BMSS, writing proposals for d*ta, sungei buloh,
