week 2

1.
even going home from nie is a trial. as choonping said, it dawns on you as you sit on the mrt that you have never before heard the train speak names like ‘chinese garden’ and ‘lakeside’. could we be any further west?

2.
glancing through a document written by one of the phd candidates in this group, i’m assailed by such marvels as “…scaffolding can really become beneficial only when the number of students are very less and can not be used in large classes.”

3.
not to mention that i have had a fever on and off for the last 4 days and really should not even be here, never mind having my eyes gouged out by sentences like the above.

4.
i show choonping to the place where i work, and he accompanies me as i punch holes in a stack of papers and bind them together. ‘fifteen years of education,’ i say, ‘and a degree in neuroscience, all leading up to this.’ ‘well,’ he replies, ‘at least you know exactly how your brain is degenerating as it happens.’ which is true.

5.
not that every teaching job is a dead poets’ society fairy tale thing either.

6.
i need to get out of here.