My First Day At School

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The title says it all. Something I’ve found to be particularly entertaining (though sometimes insulting) is the way Malaysians tend to convey opinions. It’s direct, brutally honest and usually sounds nicer in their heads, but at least they mean well. Monday was my first day at school, and man did it feel like I was an international celebrity. Photo after photo after photo after photo… Handshake after Handshake after Handshake. A tiring day would be an understatement, but an exciting day it was. I rode to school in the morning with Encik Asik (my AFS coordinated teacher/counselor) and the second I walked onto campus I was bombarded with smiles, glares and handshakes. Every morning there is an assembly and morning prayer in the covered patio that serves as the center of the school. I am pretty much the only non-Muslim in the school, and while I may not…show more content…
A few things that were a little bit beyond what I had expected are: If a teacher doesn’t show up to school, then we just get free time. There are no substitute teachers. For example, today at school I had two short math classes first thing in the morning, and did not have teacher the rest of the day. There was a 30 minute period before “break”, and then to the end of school there was nobody. Between about 10am-1pm it was just the students self organizing and learning, which I thought was productive and wise. There are a variety of stalls at the school canteen for you to chose your “breakfast” from, and it is all ridiculously cheap. Just about everything is RM1… the equivalent of 25 US cents for a meal. So for just a quarter you can feed yourself a delicious and authentic meal. The students are released from school early to go to the mosque. However, I don’t attend the mosque, so I go straight home. The teacher/student relationships are much more casual than any of the AFS guides convey… however corporal punishment is still in
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