For many not the few. The ordinary, banal, and mundane, is just as fascinating as the blissful, surreal, and hypereal moments that rarely desiccate our lives. This post is a run down of some of the average day to day experiences and reflections that have permeated my life recently.
The big news is that the UK is going to have another general election. Wooooooooooo! I can't think of a more welcome distraction from the run up to Christmas than a daily trawl of the Guardian Live news, and my social media posts being filled up with political memes. I have registered as an overseas voter, and I have organised a proxy to vote on my behalf. I guess there is nothing more to be said, I am sure the majority of readers of this blog come from my Facebook echo chamber, so there is no need to wax lyrical about my political thoughts. All I want for Christmas is a Labour government.
Work is still going well. I am really enjoying working at the school. To be honest, my experiences so far make me not want to step back into a UK school anytime soon. It is far less stressful, I am not overburdened with tasks, and I get a far higher degree of respect from my students. It is also making me into a better History teacher, having complete control over the curriculum, and making me carefully consider what knowledge and skills I am embedding. I am loving teaching Modern World history, and I am busy preparing to teach Russia 1905-1956 as the depth study, which is probably one of my favourite topics to teach. I am also enjoying my middle leadership role, and I am being active in improving teaching & learning across the school. There is also a strong assembly culture, where staff and students get to regularly cover important topics and show off their talents - it helps build a great school community and culture. I did one on 'Selfie Culture', which got the whole school out an about in a an activity, which was well received. As well as that, I have a far greater degree of expendable income a month as well as being able to save a considerable amount, and the life outside school that Malaysia is offering me is still novelty and fresh.
Without my CD collection in tow, and the faff of playing music from my phone via bluetooth for a short journey, I have been listening to the radio in my car. The rotation of music for modern pop songs is pretty limited, and any old songs they play seem to be average pop songs from the 1990s. The funniest bizarre thing about Malaysian radio is that sheer volume of Public Service Announcements that scatter the broadcasts. They are done in English and cover all sorts of anti-social behaviour such as: throwing your take away rubbish out of the car, speaking in the cinema during a movie, and not eating too many fatty foods. In fact, I wish I had kept a list because there are tons of them. I guess they are good for altering mindsets amongst the population, yet for a woke person like myself, they get tedious after a while. Just as tedious as the limited amount of songs on rotation.
TV habits have remained mostly the same - I can still get access to online wrestling companies, NFL gamepass, and as a bonus, I can now watch most Leeds United games on an international service. We also have Netflix, so we can still watch good TV drama and comedy.
Alcohol wise, we have found a shop run by a couple of Indian guys, who sell us behind the counter duty free alcohol, so we can get it a bit cheaper. Compared to back home alcohol is more expensive, and not as widely available, so we have benefitted mentally and physically from not drinking as much. The only time we really drink is when we are at home with friends on a weekend, and I am quite OK with that - it's a refreshing change. As for food, my two new favourite things are Laska (a spicy fish broth that comes with noodles and vegetables) & Tempoyak (fermented durian turned into a spicy paste).
Over the past 6 weeks we have had both mothers visiting for a fortnight at a time. We made a visit to Little India, an enclave in central KL callled Brickfields, where we had an amazing selection of curries served on a banana leaf, and took in all the sounds of the Deepavali celebrations. During the October half term, we made a visit to Port Dickson, and spent a few nights at a luxury 5 star hotel, where we stayed in a chalet which was on top of the sea; something like you see in the movies or in Dubai. It was so luxury that we even had our own swimming pool and steam room on our balcony. That was an experience we have only been able to have by making the move to live and work out here.
It's also worth noting that raising children is still the best job in the world, yet it can be stressful, and they can be pain in the arse at times.
I recently discovered that my educational Youtube account has been deleted, due to some service changes. I unknowingly missed the deadline to get it transferred, and all the videos I have been making over the past 5 years are gone. This is a real shame. Thankfully, none of them will benefit my teaching in my future practice, yet they would have been great to have for looking back on in the future, and also many students could have still benefitted from many of the advice videos I made from my Sociology examiner role. Some of my videos had over 10,000 views, and the all time classic 'Sociology of Moana' video is long gone into the ether. Never mind, it wont be long till this 21st Century Digital Boy is back being creative again.
And finally, it was great to hear that Candian xenophoic Ice Hockey analyst Don Cherry, has been fired from 'Hockey night in Canada' for his unapologetic nature following another rant live on air. I just hope that Propagandhi still play 'Dear Coaches Corner' live, despite the game being cleansed of his presence in the national media.
Only three more weeks left at work till a four week Christmas break. Keep calm, and fingers crossed for a new & better government.
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