Tenby School Malaysia

Day three already!!! How does time fly so quickly by? We are really settling into our time here in Malaysia. Day one was like a dream, maybe because we were half asleep or delirious or just over stimulated by everything new. Emily’s time seemed to follow those who have come before with some time for meetings, some PD time and classroom visits. Mine on the other hand was like being thrown into the fire alive. I taught and taught and taught some more. Thank goodness my bag of tricks is quite big, my ability to be flexible still possible and my ability to focus in the midst of chaos still intact.

The real highlight has been the co-curricular after school workshops. This week Engineering Challenges and next week Connecting Spheres: Bio/Geo/Hydro. With over 100 applicants for really only 24 spots, we had a lot of rethinking and s t r e t c h i n g to do to make it all work. Thanks to the wonderful science team at Tenby School we were able to accommodate all comers, after some tears and frustration. The co-curriculars have continued to be a blast. Making spaghetti towers to support marshmallows, launching paper straw rockets, creating boats to support a heavy load and the ever popular flinkers.

Day two was a busy day for me in the classroom as well. Teaching about adaptations using a bird beak lab with models for various types of beaks and food sources. FUN.

It was Emily’s birthday so we took a ride, in the pouring – did I mention it was POURING- rain to the older parts of Kuala Lumpur. We were in search of foot massages, a more authentic dinner and some sense of culture and ambience. We were three for three. Although the ride in was treacherous and our first attempt to find a foot massage place almost led us to some place we certainly did not want to go. A very exuberant and yet non-convincing man was trying to tell us that we would get the very best foot rub if we would just walk inside this hallway and go up a stairway to a room on the right. Really, he said, it was a nice place and we would like the massage very much. Finally Emily asked where was the sign for the business and the perplexed fellow pointed around but then looked confused about where the sign was. That was enough for me. The sights and sounds of the bazaar-like food street of Jalan Alor were amazing to the senses.

Durian fruits were everywhere – stinky and strange. So far our meals have been good. Being a vegetarian(me) and mostly a vegetarian(Emily) that is how our conversations start at each food place. Some are helpfully sure that they can provide us with good food that is vegetarian while in other places we get a simple nod of the head to decline our request for no meat. It is Ramadan here so there is even more food available and more crowds at night.

Where we are, which is essentially slightly outside of KL, there are malls connected to malls within malls. Seriously it is Mallaysia! At night there is a party feel with bustling indoor/outdoor “streets” with music and food hawkers everywhere. Neither one of us is big on shopping so the malls are just a place to walk through to get to food or beverage.

More stories and news to come…