28 October 2017

I handed in my first CELTA assignment last week, and am about to hand in the second one today. There are four assignments overall, so it appears I’ve reached the half-way mark.

This Tuesday I will be teaching my fourth assessed lesson of eight. This course has gone by in a flash – it’s crazy.

So far, I’ve been pretty happy with the course and my performance. Observing other trainees’ lessons has been eye-opening, and the input sessions on Saturdays have all provided much information that can and will be applied to my own teaching. Having learnt all this, I almost want to turn back time so I can re-plan and re-execute the many classes I had at Wall Street English. In retrospect, they could have been much better.

We received our global evaluation after one-third of the course last week. I’m off to “a good start”, which pretty accurately sums up how I feel about how I’m doing. I’ve put care and effort into my lesson plans, and they have borne fruit in class. We’re getting our first assignment back today. I’m excited to find out what the tutor thinks of it. I was very detailed in completing it and reviewed it many times. I hope he is pleased.

A pleasant surprise is that so far the work has been manageable, even with the amount of subtitles work I keep heaping onto myself. Apart from working on Asia’s Next Top Model Season 1 for iflix, I took on a 6-episode French crime series La Mante for another online content provider. Which I probably shouldn’t have. And I did reject a project previously – one much shorter and more manageable than the French series. But getting to listen to so much French and putting my French to good use (for pronouns and nuances), as well as working on a whole series, that was too good to turn down. I’ve managed it fine so far though. I can work at a speed now where I can finish two episodes in a day if I really sit down with it. So I’ve been able to work through them alongside my CELTA work.

A good thing happened yesterday actually. My project manager wanted to assign me another French series, a famous one this time, Marseille. I knew I couldn’t possibly handle one episode every two days, so I asked for three because “I’m working and studying at the same time”. Then in a very nice way she said that it was okay, that I’d better not take the risk since the show seems complicated. Then she said that there are other shows and if anything comes up she’ll definitely let me know. That was very nice to hear. I guess putting in a lot of work to maintain a high standard is bearing fruit. It feels nice to know that she sees me as a trusted hand.

I start my new job this Thursday. I can’t believe it’s happening so soon. I went in to sign the documents last week and boy was there a lot to get through. “Learning and Development Specialist” – it doesn’t roll off the tongue yet and if you ask me I still have only a tentative idea of what I’ll be doing. I hope to solidify that vision over the course of the next few weeks. It’s a new beginning, and I’m excited. Not too excited because I don’t generally get that excited about anything anymore, except maybe for coming up with an awesome translation for my subtitles work. But yes, excited nevertheless.

Thank you for reading another long post. Much is happening in my life, for a change. I hope you are all well and busy doing what you love.

Much love,

Val

27 September 2015 (Part 1)

Dear reader,

It has been almost a year (well, ten months) since we last met. I am deeply sorry for my absence. I hope you have been leading pleasant lives, full of pleasant encounters and pleasanty things.

A lot, and nothing, has been happening on my end. Let me give you a summary:

• First real job ended two months after it began. For a variety of reasons. You could say we were incompatible. I did not find meaning in the ups and downs of marketing, and the company did not find a suitable employee in me. I simply could not make myself passionate about the work I was doing, and this proved fatal to our match. In any case, I retain pleasant memories from my short tenure; and valuable lessons in sociology and psychology were learnt.
• I went crazy. Literally. I don’t remember if I ever told you about my depressive episodes, which occurred recurrently in 2010, 2011, 2013, and 2014. (2012 was an entirely happy year, thanks to the wonderful offerings of Paris where I was spending my Erasmus exchange.) Anyways, I swung to the other end in late 2014, around the time I was leaving my job as Internet Marketing Analyst. By mid-January I was entirely out of it. I was deluded and I believe at one point hallucinating. My brain had gone haywire.
• So, I was hospitalised. This was late January. To say ‘hospitalised’ is a bit misleading; I was forced to enter a mental hospital, where I was confined to the company of other crazy people for a month and a half. It was entirely traumatising, though the food was excellent. I gained weight and a disease: officially becoming a sufferer of bipolar disorder.
• Reeling from the myriad effects of my medication (drugs that made my brain not go crazy), I was released from hospital in mid-March, from which time I have been home (hence the ‘nothing happening’ on my end). The drugs’ side effects wore off one by one. Apparently, for weeks after leaving the hospital I walked like C-3PO. Then the neck ache (never understood what that was about; my head was fine, it was the neck that hurt) disappeared. Gradually, the morning naps became shorter until, very recently, I was finally able to go the whole day without feeling sleep deprived. So yes, many months went by without nothing much happening. I watched Korean TV, Korean series (this one was my favourite), and Korean singers. I became something of an afficionado. (Like my mom, I must add. One of these days I shall surpass her knowledge of South Korea’s entertainment industry!) Apart from that I ate and walked. My father had kindly bought me a treadmill which I used daily to hill-walk in the (ever desperate yet futile) attempt to lose my hospital weight (the stress of being confined behind locked doors having been thoroughly relieved through overeating).

Recently, however, I have been writing. And that is why I am now here updating my precious baby. For many months I had planned on picking up a novel I had begun to write when I was seventeen. And finally, at the gentle yet firm urging of my doctor (whom I like very much) to find something more substantial than Korean entertainment to occupy my time, I opened the eight-year-old file and started writing. It’s a fantasy novel, a cross between Star Wars and Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire (ah yes, I forgot to tell you I have also been spending my time digging up old novels to read), with just a hint of Pop Economics and International Relations. It’s tentatively named The Gems of Azora and takes place on, you guessed it, the planet of Azora.

I’ve been writing everyday, but the book is advancing at a snail’s pace; I swear time disapparates (random reference) when I’m writing. I had left the book at 114 pages when I stopped writing eight years ago, and now I’m at 14. Wait… what? Yes. Sadly, I’m having to rewrite most, if not all, of what I’ve written. It turns out one’s command of English and general writing skills do improve over time. I shudder thinking back to my first reading of the sloppy, grammatically-inaccurate, and overly-complicated 114 pages I had produced as a teenager. Anyways, I’m rewriting it, and if I may I have to say the book is looking much better than it did before. I read and put the finishing touches on the first chapter yesterday, and I must say it is good fun. Fingers crossed, when the time comes, publishers will agree. I won’t tell you anymore just now, but I’ll surely be back to report on my progress.

That’s it for now. I hope you found this entry entertaining.

Much love,

Val

p.s. I’m thinking of taking up a part-time job as a waitress. There’s this trendy little restaurant near my house. I really like the atmosphere and the waiting staff is polite and efficient. I think I could have a good time working there while I finish my novel. Yes, maybe I should. We shall see…

 

 

 

8 September 2014

Today was one of those days where coffee didn’t work.

Having slept an average of 4-5 hours and walked an average of 12 the past few days (I’d been travelling), I fully expected my body to demand a lie-in and did not set an alarm last night.

So I was extremely surprised when I woke up at 7.30am and didn’t fall immediately back to sleep. I had slept 9 hours, far fewer than I’d expected to. And I felt nowhere near rested; my head was weighing down as heavily as it did yesterday

After half an hour shifting about in bed, however, I decided to get up. Normally, I would have tried to go back to sleep, but given that I had been sleeping very erratically lately, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to reinforce a healthy sleeping schedule. I’d feel better after coffee, I told myself.

I didn’t.

And I’d made my coffee extra strong and extra large.

So here I am, caffeine-injected and still as heavy-headed as ever. And let me tell you, writing has never been more of an effort.

I miss feeling normal. I hope I wake up more rested tomorrow.

I really do.

Wow. Writing this post is hurting my head, literally. Some post-vacation withdrawal effect, this is. I’d better go do something less mentally demanding.

Now, I can either read the Freud I picked out from my shelf this morning… or watch Big Bang Theory. Hmm…

*grabs headphones*

Have a good day everyone!

Val