From the many SMS-es, it appears that many people are interested in how my job went.

After day one, I wish I could say something like, "Oh, I expected it to be really bad, but thank goodness it went better than I expected!"

No, it was more, "Oh, I expected it to be really bad, but it was worse than I expected."

Expected: General rowdiness, defiance, noise, disobedience, running around the classroom in a worse case scenario.

Did not expect: A freaky fascination on the students part with knives, gas stoves, and anything they could kill themselves or each other with.

You know what was worse? I could handle it if they were doing it out of defiance! The thing is, I think it had absolutely nothing to do with me--the common sense that usually tells you sharp, pointy, can poke very deep appears to be absent in those boys. Needless to say, the class was a lot of shouting, since the first moment they stepped into the kitchen, spotted the knives in a basket and immediately picked it up to swing it around, saying "YaaaHHH!"

Shouting worked, kind of. They'll put down the knives and about three seconds after you turn your back, they'll be waving it around again. One guy went out to another class with THREE knives between his fingers and got caned for it, because the other teacher spotted him and called OM. Unfortunately it was my responsibility, but I just didn't spot him because of the gas stoves. Crap, those boys are NUTS.

Worse still, I had to spend so long after cleaning up with a lazy kitchen servant taht only knew how to complain because half of them didn't wash up properly. As in, they did, kind of, only a lot of stuff was oily. And I thought it more hazardous to keep them back.

The good thing is, I can stop having practicals with this class. Apparently the office prefers it so. It is slightly unfair, I suppose, because really not EVERYONE is that bad...the girls were pretty nice, and one or two of the boys. But half the class is enough. Oh well, it's really too much effort though. ANd I'm a little paranoid they will kill each other and me accidentally.

Thankfully, after today I discovered that the teacher was right; that class was probably one of its kind. The sec three normal academic and sec two express class i thought today was quite nice and obliging, although they stoned quite a bit. At least that leaves me enough energy to blog today.