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#993 tok kong mee kia

on February 24, 2012

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Spring. A gentle sun, warm and golden on sun-starved skin.

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Life after the BOE?

So, in this post, I'll be detailing what I did to continue teaching in Japan after I left the JET Programme. What's so special about this post, you ask? Well, if I were a citizen from any one of the Big Seven (what EFL job websites tend to call the seven major English-speaking countries in the world- USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland), this would be quite a redundant post. But I'm not. I'm Singaporean, and sadly, and I will say this bravely, Singaporeans do not have a good international rep for speaking English well. And though our first language is English, we don't make much that much of an impact as English speakers to be rated amongst the Big Seven. While doing research for my job after JET, I came across one or two blog posts written by my fellow countrymen about Singaporeans teaching English in Japan. Precious few. Like this one here . Which should have clued me in on how difficult it is for Singaporeans to find ESL teaching job...

Reverse Culture Shock: Life after 2 BOEs and a Daigakou

Wrote this and left it for the longest time... It's been 1 year, 3 months and 2 days since I closed the Japan chapter of my life. It's been two weeks and 3 days since I left Japan for Singapore. It's 10:30 pm on a Monday night, my fan is at the fastest it will go (but I'm still perspiring), I'm twitchy, itchy and wanting to go somewhere / do something / talk to someone. In my recently gutted room (decided to tear down the 20-year-old built-in cabinets), my tapping away at the keyboard sounds unnaturally loud. I think I just went into reverse culture shock. And there're no available books about reverse culture shock in the Singapore National Library (I checked online). I search the net and most blog articles are about Americans' experiences. Some Singaporeans have written something about RCS, but it's usually the same things - comparing the differences between cultures, the heat and humidity etc. And why shouldn't they write about such things? I...

Graduation Day, or, the end of the World as we know it

Warning: Melodrama ahead The High School Graduation Day in Japan is a BIG DEAL. For those who have already gotten a place in a university, Graduation Day means they are basically set for life. The university that they enter will pave the way their life takes from now on. They just have to follow where the road leads. For those who will go out into the working world, Graduation Day is bittersweet, but more bitter than sweet. From here on, they have to put away play, a relatively worry-free life, fun and games. At 18, they know they go out into the world to start right at the bottom - to be taught, forced, guided, shown how to navigate the extremely harsh working life of Japanese people. Most of the students I care about fall into the second category... and i can't deal with it. How can teachers sleep easy at night, sending their kids out into such a world? I'm probably being melodramatic, but it is truly hard for me to relinquish the care of my students to the world. I don...

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