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Hi all,
So neither of us have posted anytime recently, and it's purely because we are getting on with day to day life which isn't that exciting. Having said that, I am still about to bore you with the ins and outs, so if you are not at all interested in this, please feel free to stop reading now...
Still reading depsite the disclaimer, great!
So we have made it pretty clear that we love living at The Verve. It's such a special treat to live somewhere with such fab facilities, and the novelty has certainly not warn off yet, although the time available to indulge has got shorter and shorter.
School starts at 7:40am here and so we begin work at 7am at the latest! Luckily for us, we live across the street and so can roll out of bed and be in school in 15 minutes if we need to. On Thursdays, Jono and I both have clubs in the morning which start in the pitch black at 6am before school starts but they are really well attended.
The school day is much like you would expect in England with the Secondary students having 4 periods in a day and primary students being timetabled on to PE twice a week, giving us a timetable much like secondary.
We basically teach the same types of things with swimming thrown in there which can be interesting to say the least with Year 1 and 2. Interesting, but really fun. I have also had to get used to teeball pretty fast which is like softball but without a pitcher, instead the ball starts on a tee and so is static when the child hits it. Too many rules but a good game.
We finish our school day at 2:10, have 20 minutes to sort out all the mess you have generated across the day while running between the pool, field, sports hall, grand hall, PE room, tennis courts, carpark court and undercover court before CCA's begin. These last from 2:30 - 3:30 and are clubs which any child can attend. There are...wait for it...160 CCA's at Garden! Absolute madness.
After CCA's finish there is Dragons training and this is for those who have been selected to play for the school teams. They receive free coaching from teachers and are given special dragons kits for their sports. These children get to compete all over South East Asia in all different tournaments, even the Year 2's!
After Dragons training, we finish (or start) any paperwork etc and head home, leaving those children who didn't quite make the cut to be a Dragon to go to the Academy from 4:30 - 5:30 with external coaches who they pay for.
At this point I should say that all this special treatment for the children comes at a price. The majority of parents at the school are extremely well off for one reason or another and so they pay for all the amazing experiences the children get. The parents (usually mothers) therefore are often not working and so they come to just hang around the school at their leisure. It is a really intimidating environment to be working in sometimes as you have parents watching your lessons and coming to question you about the decisions you have made. It's definitely something that you have to get used to.
The flip side of that is that they come to all the children's fixtures and often to training sessions to support which is lovely, and they're always quick to give you a thankyou cake or some sort of strange concoction stemming from their home countries, pork balls was a particular low especially when they stay to watch you eat the ball of pork jelly. I don't want to sound ungrateful but EW!
When we first got here, home time meant swimming, going to the gym, yoga, football, netball or exploring where we lived. This now has peaks and troughs but I can feel an exercise peak just around the corner! It better had be anyway as it is so expensive to buy groceries here and SO SO cheap to eat out, cooking has become more and more of a rarity.
The social life here is great though. You stay friends with the people you arrived with and were inducted with and pick up more and more along the way. We all go round to each others houses for dinner or go shopping or out to visit new places. It's really nice. Jono is especially pleased as we have managed to organise a Made in Chelsea catch up night, where all the girls gather to scream at the TV whilst streaming the previous night's Made in Chelsea.
Weekends involve either going to the local pub with people from work which is always a great laugh, or else we're working at some fixture, trip or tournament. Jono has definitely paid his dues at the start of the year as he has barely had a weekend off. I however, have been lady muck, hanging around the verve, pottering down to our local mall and sunning myself on the sky beach (I do work too, it just seems like Jono is always in work and I do get the occassional weekend free).
When we don't have too much work in the evenings we can now finally enjoy WIFI and ASTRO TV! This is SUCH a luxury, it's sad really. We also live on the outskirts (2 minutes walk) to a less built up town called Desa Sri Hartamas, which is full of tiny spas, massage parlours, bars, fancy dress shops, masses of restaurants and coffee shops..pretty much anything you could want really. It's really good, really cheap and reminds you that you are in Malaysia despite the excesses of life in Mont Kiara.
Life is definitely great here, very spoilt and loving it so far. Our holidays are fab, our home is lovely but we definitely work hard during term time like any teacher.
Anyway, that's about all there is to say about day to day life here other than if you're passing, please come and visit and see for yourself! :)
See you soon, miss you all x
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