Tuesday, January 3 - First visit to the mall

This classroom is used mostly for the two second and third graders and for the two seventh graders.
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Today was a full day, and so I am already tired - at only 9:40PM. But I don't feel like jet lag has really hit. Maybe I'm one of the fortunate ones that won't have to deal with it!

My co-teachers took me to the mall today - 1 Utama, as they call it. They named it that because they say you need only one place to shop for everything, and then the suburb it's in is Bandar Utama ("City Utama"). The majority of the mall is four stories high, and at one part it's seven!! It's hard to believe that this place could support so many shops (and there are many inside!), but it gets a lot of business from the Chinese, since they're the ones here who are the business people, therefore they're the ones with the money. On the fourth floor are two cinemas (with several theaters inside each one), a gym, and a bowling alley - craziness!! There's also a rainforest area (with a waterfall) adjacent to the mall, and it's open to all four floors via decks that overlook it. It's clearly manmade, but is still very impressive and relaxing. I didn't have my camera today, so I'll have to take pictures of it another time.

This is the classroom for grades 4-7. The third grader joins them for their Bible and history lessons as well.
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We ate lunch at the mall at a place called Sri Melaka. The food was good, though a little spicy. My tummy seems okay so far though. For dessert we went to Chili's! It's pretty strange seeing so many American places here - at the mall were Burger King, Dairy Queen, Baskin Robbins, Orange Julius, Starbucks, Subway...and those are just the ones I saw today - we didn't make it to all four floors (obviously!).

I ate dinner at home tonight - spaghetti, black-eyed peas, and carrots with butter and brown sugar. I'd like to cook like they do here, but I don't know how! I guess I'll just have to be content eating out for now...at least, when I want that kind of food. Perhaps it's good to eat Western food sometimes...perhaps. :)

Here's the school library. The books up top are for the older readers; the ones below are for beginner readers. They've actually got a few classics here - Jane Eyre, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Black Beauty...
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School starts tomorrow, and I don't really feel ready. I'm stressing about teaching the science lessons to the seventh graders (there's only two of them). I still need to read the chapter and make notes, and I need to prep for the experiment, though it won't take long. I might have time to do it in the morning.

I'd better get to bed. It's past 10 already, and I'm beat!