I survived my second week! Hurrah!
I'm finding I am more able to navigate the confusing world known as Singapore, and though I still get lost it's less frequent and easily managed. I learned a while ago that when something scares you it's often best to just go grab it by the ass instead of waiting for it to grab yours so I look for scenarios where I can get a little lost and I'm used to it now and I get found again pretty quickly.
I wish however that I'd taken some course on "Mastering Ambiguity" or something like that because it seems that is the world of Singapore. You ask a clear and direct questions such as "Who is my Reporting Officer?" and Singaporeans have mastered the non-response that is sort of a response so you can't really say they didn't give you one but at the end of it all you're more confused than you were when you asked it and you still don't have an answer. So, my position at the school sort of remains in that state, but at least I have a few things like the Drama Club where I have slightly better sense of exactly what is going on. Sort of.
Today the acting HOD for my department came up to me at about 11am and said that there was the MOE Excel Fest and that the HODof Aesthetics wanted me to go, so off I went at the end of the school day to the other side of Singapore to attend a workshop on Teaching Skillfully which is a program I deduce but still had some interesting information. Lots of it is sort of what I already know from my teacher training, but it's good for me to see the Singaporean interpretation of things and it's nice that the school is investing in the idea of me going for courses and such so that's a good sign. I think.
On the soul/mind side of things I am still rather isolated but there were a few good developments. One of them is that I remenbered that I have my iPod with me. The thing is, I was afraid to listen to music for the first two weeks because I was emotionally raw and I knew it would make me cry cause it would remind me of the people I don't have with me now. But, I decided the other day I needed some badassery and got out my iPod and made a shuffle list of songs from "Heads Will Roll" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and I found a plethora of good shit on there that is rock out with the cock out kind of music that I have been carrying in my pocket for years but never took the time to find. I have spent years collecting music that I knew I would one day want to listen to but wasn't ready for yet and I think that slowly I will make my way through the thousands of hours of music I have picked up here and there from different people in different times and discover new meanings in it.
As well, I met a drama instructor who comes to the school to work in DEP which is the only drama class the kids get and she put me in touch with some drama groups here in Singapore that do theatre productions which I could act with and some facebook stuff and meet up things for expats which could very well save my life in the future.
Lesson of the week: Art will save you. It will find your sorrows and it will articulate them, it will light the way in the dark and if you can find the art you need when you need it that art will bring you back from the dark places while acknowledging what they mean and how important they are at the same time. Art is the language that will transcend and it will keep you company when no one else will. Find the music, the books, the stories, the pictures, the photos, the television shows, the novels, whatever it is that fills your holes and grab on to it like it's a life raft. Because, friends, it is. It brings you back to the shore of who you are when you're lost at sea and forget for a while.
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