Ahh, ok, this is a little bit harder than i thought. Take a bit of culture shock, homesickness, dislike to local food, tummy ache, intense humidity, cockroaches+super fast lizards- mix it all together and u get one bewildered and emotional Kirsty. Hopefully it's gona calm down tho- just didnt really prepare myself for it. Arrived at our school to a very warm welcome by the students- at first all pointing and giggling- mostly at my blonde hair and white skin. But then all started coming up and saying hi. Really intrigued as to who we are and where we're from. The teachers are friendly too- we were worried about handshakes cos it's not part of the muslim culture but most teachers greeted us with a shake, others with a small bow. The other worry was learning the names of the students, but the girls we have spoken to so far have mostly had Christian names and the others have abbrieviated their names for us. We are sharing a room at the end of the girls dorms and have a sit on toilet-woo!, a shower, which iv not had the guts to use yet as there's a dodgie looking nest in the corner, a fridge, toaster and a tv that's dormant@the mo. Aman and I have been wandering round like lost puppies most of the time. Not many of the teachers have very good english so there's a bit of a language barrier. We've been given a mentor, Ramsie- who's offered to drive us places, which is good. However, his accent is so strong that it's mega hard to understand him and Aman has trouble lip reading him. Today we were introduced to Johnston--he's there to help GAP students at the school and has extremely good english so's easy to understand. He's been very helpful- given us our holiday dates, told us when we'll be working and is trying to get us a laptop to borrow as there aren't many computers linked to the internet (but there is a place to link laptops to the net). I'm working 2 fixed hourse in the morning shift and 2 in the afternoon. I still need to ask Johnston when I'll have the chance to work with the deaf students as they are on a different programme in a different part of the school. I'll hopefully help on my hours off or in the evenings. At the moment, the deaf children are decorating their classrooms- so that would be fun to chip in with. They cannot lipread like Aman, and aren't very vocal so they rely entirely on signing. Aman uses "British Sign Language" or "Supported Sign English" which is completely different to the signs the children use here, so we're both gona try to pick it up. Something else that struck me was that the hearing children are called the "normal" students and the deaf children are branded the "special" students. But as Aman said to me, in some cultures, deaf children would be hidden away and seen as inferior, where as at least in Malaysia they're given the chance to learn. I've also offered to help with music, drama and literature. We've been given a short story to read and teach to Form 5 students (17 yrs old). Some students are 19 but look much younger. The Malay girls often say we look alot older. Since we are not teaching today, Ramzie drove us to KK so we could go to the Internet cafe and get some western food atlast.This weekend Aman and I are coming back to KK to meet the other gappers from Sabah. On Sunday we are going to a Chinese Dragon parade (as it's running up to Chinese New Year). We've been given 1 week off for Chinese New Year so we are booking our flights to Hong Kong this weekend- can't wait! We are also going to set a date for our padi course. Hopefully the 3 days after we return from Hong Kong. O.K, off to buy some more kaftans and some fruit for our fridge.