Exams and Stages

Today is the Thursday before our second long weekend in a row. I have spent much of my time this week marking papers and assignments of the class I started working with as well as the classes that I have been observing. It is crazy marking time in schools here right now with many teachers buried under massive piles of papers and test scripts. Yesterday afternoon I attended a conference on behalf of my RO because she was unable to go.

It is interesting for me to see the content of educational conferences here and while I still feel that I do not completely grasp the Singapore context I am starting to get a hazy concept of what the system looks like here. I find it somewhat funny to be in workshops discussing Vygotsky and Social Constructivist Pedagogy when I just spent the last five years sitting on the floor in DRED discussing these things with Tina and Gail. However, I am glad to see these things here and it is a familiar space for me even if it feels like I'm back in lecture halls that I worked so hard to escape.

Exam time here at St. Hilda's starts next week and I will see what this looks like and how it is carried out. I expect that I may be invigilating exams and possibly helping to mark them so it will be a good chance for me to get a better idea of what the tests that the students spend so much time and effort preparing for really look like.

Tonight I am going to the first meeting of the Stage Club here in Singapore that I have signed in to become a member of. I am very excited to have a possible place to be on a stage or to at least work creatively with a theatre group. I am trying to bring forward lessons from my schooling and I know from ACE that it is important to maintain my artistic practice even in the midst of the swamp of my career. And so I shall venture forth to discover what this adventure may have in store for me. I will be sure to keep you all updated.

On another note, it is now 43 days until Ben touches down in Singapore for our two week holiday. I am incredibly excited to have him visit and to be able to show him around this island that I am slowly starting to call home.