crazymalc.co.nz - Home Page of Malcolm Trevena

I am most anxious for liberties for our country, but I place as a prior condition the education of our people so that our country may have an individuality of its own and make itself worthy of liberties.

My days are really starting to fill up. A typical school day for me goes something like this:

7:30	Walk to Jeepney station. Catch a Jeepney.
8:30	Arrive at Pulao.
8:45	Teach Grade 4 math.
9:45	Play games with the kids during recess.
10:30	Tutor Grade 5 math.
11:30	Prepare lessons and mark homework.
12:30	Play games during the lunch break.
1:30	Teach Grade 5 math.
2:30	Teach Grade 6 math.
3:30	Head home.

Yikes! That almost looks like a normal job. I haven't worked a proper 9 to 5 job for about a year now.

I'm also feeling a little bit busy. I use to check my email everyday, but I am too busy to make the trips into Dumangas. I'd like to spend more time writing during the day, but it is just not practical at school. These may sound like gripes, but they're not really. I like the fact that I am just busy enough that I have to juggle my time. It's like I have crossed that minimum threshold required to consider myself busy.

I've been too busy in my life, particularly while working at Enabling Technologies, and I have been not busy enough, particularly after leaving Ashburn Psychiatric Hospital. I like being just busy enough and having just enough stress in my life. It seems like a good balance.

Hangin' With The Kids
I am also really enjoying hanging out with the kids at Pulao. I like organizing activities more than I like participating in activities. I tend to be the guy that ends up being the referee, but that's okay, because I like being the referee.

Handball
The kids here seem to improvise a lot, which is probably good for their imagination. There's the "Throw The Jandal" game, the "Kick the Block" game and the "Lets Pretend This Tree is a Basketball Hoop and This Rock/Jandal/Innocent Bystander is a Basketball" game.

When I was kid growing up in New Zealand, I played a lot of Four-Square, or Handball. The game involved bouncing a tennis ball around designated squares using your hands. Pretty simple. I'm sure a lot of you Western folks have played it.

I thought it would be fun if I bought some tennis balls and introduced them to Handball. I made some squares using chalk and explained the rules to them. Some of them absolutely adore it. They love it when they do good shots and one of them always chants "I am the King Kong!" when he gets to the King's square. Sometimes things get a bit heated when there is a close call, but they always go with my ruling and don't argue when I've made it.

It's good to see how much fun they are getting out of a 70 peso ($NZ 1.75) tennis ball. I might try and organize someone to paint in some permanent squares, as well as some hopscotch squares and stuff like that.

i-Pod
They really love my i-Pod. As soon as I get to school it's "Mam Malcolm! Mam Malcolm! Can I borrow your walkman?!"

I put the Big Brother soundtrack on my i-Pod and they just love listening to "Pinoy Ako", which is an insanely popular song. I put on some Black Eyed Peas albums as well, as Black Eyed Peas have a Filipino member who does a couple of songs in Filipino. Needless to say, the Black Eyed Peas are very popular here.

Movies
When I was in New Zealand, I had a real thing for copyrighted materials. I would always buy the games I wanted, even though I could download them free from the internet. Same sort of thing with DVDs, CDs and the like. I always felt that it was good to give the owner their due.

That has gone right out the window here in the Philippines. I have no qualms about giving copies of software that I have purchased to schools. I even go into dodgy little stores and buy blatantly copied movies. I had (a rather bad) copy of King Kong not long after it came out at the movies. I take the movies to school and show them to the kids during the two hour lunch break. It is not uncommon to see 20 or so kids huddled around my laptop.

Computer Games
There are several reasons why I also purchase illegal copies of games. The first reason is frustration. There are just no legal computer software shops in the Philippines. Just as I left New Zealand, a game I really wanted called Age of Empires 3 came out. I asked my parents to buy a copy for me and send it over. Two months had passed and there was still no sign of it. It got to the stage where I just couldn't wait any longer and purchased a dodgy copy. It did eventually arrive about two months late.

I also buy the dodgy games so the kids can play them at school. I try to buy games that require them to think a little. Some of them really love Age of Empires 3 and are getting right into it, which is great.

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(c) 2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to link to this page. Heck, you can even copy stuff from here if you want. Just make sure you sight me as a reference.

Balance at the School