TGTIF
I am currently on a "forced" break. Yes, I'm forcing myself to take a break from the craziness of the past week. I know the week's not quite done yet, but I think I just had the craziest week of my life. Six hours a day with a child doing therapy and meaningful activities where language learning is disguised in some game or craft/physical activity...not as easy as it may look or sound to the outsider.
It was a pretty rough week for me. Pretty much still "jet lagged" for the first couple of days and nearly in tears by the third day. There isn't quite enough time to process information and analyse previous reports when you have to deal with a child for a 6 hour block...Didn't help that my child is such a naughty child. Sometimes I just get a headache from looking at him, when he starts crying, when he starts going off on a tangent...when he's just being him. I reckon I could deal with seeing different children for an hour at a time, but six hours with one child and having to factor in teaching strategies in "fun activities" for six whole hours straight without a break in-between to think. Plus it's not like we get to go home after the kid leaves at 3. Most of us are there till six-ish planning activities and preparing materials. Typically, a child is only gonna stay interested in an activity for 15-25 minutes, so...six hours, do the math. That's a hell lot of activities we plan.
To makes things worse, my child has such a short attention span and is so easily distracted that nothing I do with him seems to satisfy him. He's always going to find something else that he wants. Even when doing his favourite activities in a gym...he would find a picture of a dog left behind by somebody else, and decide he wants to print pictures of dog and start throwing mini tantrums. This sounds terrible, but I really believe that if he was brought up in a typical asian family with ASIAN DISCIPLINE...he would be performing very much better than he currently is. I just can't emphasise enough how naughty he is.
Woke up this morning and thought about how much I really did not want to go in and face a six hour block with the child and then another 5 or six hours planning for the next day and researching for the report we all have to submit at the end of each week...
Oh well, I would say today wasn't actually too bad. Compared with yesterday which was the WORST day ever. I literally was in tears before my child came in for the day. Talk about a mental breakdown. I think it was the first time I really experienced a mental breakdown. Thank God for all the support I've received from a few of my friends, I felt really blessed by what they've done for me - delivering my favourite boost all the way to my place, daily messages of encouragement even if I'm not really replying because of how busy it is (I start the day with 100% at 730am and at 630am I usually still have 80% or battery left, or more LOL) and just listening to me rant at the end of the day.
FRIDAY! Persevering. All my classmates who are there are equally stressed, and I'm glad there are quite a number of us there and that we all help one another. Times like these, you realise how there's strength in numbers!
