It’s been about three weeks since I recovered from chicken pox and I’m still catching up on school work while new ones keep pouring in relentlessly.

Last week, one of our lecturers assigned us yet another essay to our utmost horror, which we made sure to express very visibly on our faces.

She took one look at us and said, “What, are you all feeling overworked?”

“Yesssssssssss,” We chorused miserably.

Smiling, she said, “You don’t know what’s coming yet. Have you seen your seniors lately and noticed how frazzled they have been looking?”

Right. We really needed to know that.

The “seniors” she was talking about are just three months ahead of us.

Anyway, we have a three-week holiday coming up, during which time we have to complete two essays and one file, which will contain about 60-80 A4 pages of notes and drawings.

Like this:

 

 

Some holiday.

We have to do about 15 essays and 7 or 8 files within this one year. Whee.

As a result, I’ve had to let my blog pile up as well. I have a lot to blog about but no time to write them. Today, I’m taking a break from school work because I will have the holiday to catch up on everything, hopefully, lol.

Regardless, I am still enjoying the course. At times, I do want to pull out all my hair, like when slaving over all my assignments, but completing them gives me such a sense of achievement that I sometimes actually enjoy the work, which is hopefully not a sign of masochism.

It’s like people who enjoy going to the gym and torturing the hell out of their muscles, right? I think I kind of enjoyed that, too, when I was doing it, except during the moments when I wanted to murder my personal trainer so he will stop making me do more sets.

This is a bit complicated so let’s talk about something else.

In England, there are no coffee shops, hawker centres, food courts or random food outlets. There are only restaurants, pubs and supermarkets. Which means that people make their own lunches and take them to school or work. (You can buy refrigerated precooked meals in supermarkets but they mostly suck.)

This is something I am having a lot of trouble getting used to. In the beginning, I just made sandwiches, which seemed easiest, but then I very quickly got stark raving sick of sandwiches. I will literally go insane if I have to eat the same kind of food every day for even a week. I would rather starve, seriously.

Sometimes, my lunch looks like this because I have no time to prepare food or I can’t be bothered:

 

 

But that was before I found out that our school has a no nut policy because nut allergy is quite prevalent and can be deadly. (Just read in Wikipedia that, in England, 11 people are newly diagnosed with a peanut allergy EVERY DAY.)

No more Snickers or Picnic for lunch, which is a pity because I love them. However, I have many other nutless mini snacks to choose from, so that’s alright.

 

 

We usually eat in our classroom because the break room has no tables and is always crowded. It’s very fun to see what lunches people bring every day.

Kai brought a whole can of tomato soup last week, lol.

 

 

The bright side of having to prepare our own lunches is that I have an excuse to make some… uh… very essential purchases.

 

 

 

I tried to convince Piers that he needed cute lunch boxes and bags, too, because I sometimes prepare his lunches, but he refused to hear of it. Spoilsport. So we just got him some boring containers from Ikea.

So, now that I have lunch boxes, I can pack proper food like rice, pasta, couscous, or whatever. The lunch bag is to hold together a selection of mini snacks plus a banana.

Yes, bananas are very important because they help reduce/control/treat stress, depression, nerves, anemia, constipation, blood pressure, heartburn, morning sickness, ulcers, stroke, cancer, kidney disease, osteoporosis, vision loss and mosquito bites.

Yep, I just copied that from some website. BUT, oh my, bananas are so very amazing.

Anyway, I have so far visited two nurseries to clock my observation/teaching practice hours and have been delighted by my experiences with the children, even if most of them just involved me sitting in a corner and watching them.

Will share some stories next time when I have time to write another post. I will probably have enough material to write a book by the time I finish my 240 hours! Except I won’t have time to write it, lol.

Oh yeah, going back to Singapore for a week in April. Yep, sadly, that’s all the time I can spare in view of all the assignments we have.

Oh boy.