Flute? What Flute? You mean the one we used to play back in primary school?
No. That's a Recorder.
I realized that I've never written about me being a flutist on this platform before. I don't consider myself a full blown flutist because I've not sat for any of the official music exams (yet). Nevertheless, a flutist at heart because I do play the instrument and have been attending lessons since the end of 2020!
Most people ask me this question "Why did you decide to take up flute lessons?" and my answer will always be the same.
"Because it's niche and easy to carry around as compared to the piano, guitar etc"
Plus, I always found the sound of the flute so distinct and unique whenever it's played in any sort of musical soundtrack or orchestra.
In 2020 when CoVID-19 lockdown happened, I got bored and decided that at the end of the year, I wanted to learn the flute. So, I started researching on flute lessons nearby my place and found CG Flute's blog. I read her blog and saw that she taught adult students as well, hence approaching her on instagram and inquired the price of a flute, lesson fees and so on.
I didn't have enough money at the time to purchase a RM2K Yamaha Flute, but I was determined to save up so that I could get my hands on atleast a Yamaha flute which are mean't for most beginners. I think I went silo for a little bit (according to Sze Gee aka my Flute teacher) then one day I came back and said like heyo I think I'm ready to purchase a cheap ass second hand flute if any. Just my luck and blessings cause Sze Gee informed me that her student wants to sell off her Yamaha Flute (in order to purchase a more advanced player Flute - Muramatsu brand). I quickly contacted her student and met up with her to get the flute for half the price! What a steal bro.
Penny the Flute!
Thus, my flute adventures begin!
I would go over to Sze Gee's place to start learning the ways of placing my flute on my lips, reading the scores and musical notes. However lockdown happened again so I had to stop going to her house and we resorted to online lessons. Trust that I struggled at the beginning and there are plenty of videos to prove it (ngl they're quite funny).
At one point I was learning theory but dropped it cause of the lack of time and we wanted to solely focus more on my practical.
At the end of 2021, Sze Gee told me she planned to have a Online Flute Concert and form a Flute Choir where different flute players from different levels would come together and play a piece together.
Being her student, obviously I was roped into it. I could have said no, but yow performing is a part of the instrument like what's the point of playing it if I'm not going to perform. I had a solo video for the Online Flute Concert (LMAOOOOOO fak, it's so frikkin funny now that I look back at it) and played a part in the Flute Choir as well.
Ponyo Theme Song by CGFlute Choir
As 2022 arrived, Sze Gee and her friend decided to rent a place in Petaling Jaya (I was lowkey so excited cause it's closer to where I live so I didn't have to travel too far HAHA) and we continued our lessons there.
Since lockdown has already ended and live performances were coming back, CG Flute Choir was also going to do a live performance comprising of all flute players from different levels because inclusivity, you know?
I worked with Sze Gee on merchandise design and we printed out T-Shirts for the Flute Choir members.
It wasn't my first time performing in an "orchestra", I used to perform for my primary school's marching band where I played the recorded (LOL plsss). But this would mark my first official orchestra performance at KL Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC)! I've always watched local theatrical acts at KLPAC, I never thought that I would perform there some day.
Our theme for 2023 was Disney and practise started around September 2022. We would practise every Saturday in our respective Groups and also as a whole.
Truth be told, because it was my first time being in an orchestra, I was lost half of the time. I didn't know some of the theory terms and struggled with catching up with the rest. I often had to go home and listen to the recordings over and over again to get the beat and timing right, all at the same time balancing my embouchure and playing technique. (Also lmao, I look tired asf in the group picture)
There were some mishaps during performance day itself (we performed for 2 days!), but we managed to pull through and before you know it, the performance was over and our months of practise plus rehearsals have all paid off.
Extremely thankful to my family and friends who came and watched my performance, even to those who weren't really interested in classical music but came to watch anyway. Thankful for the flowers that they presented to me on both days I performed.
This year, 2024 - we performed the Studio Ghibli medley.
I'll probably blog about this on another day since it's another elaborate post with more fun stuff. :)
Plus I am so overdue with this post lmao. Our 2nd concert's already over and I have just only posted about my first performance. Wahahaha.
Signing Off,
Sofea
It's been almost 2 years and a half since I completed my journey with Teach For Malaysia and have embarked on another journey with CIMB as a Management Associate under their The Complete Banker (TCB)-Fusion program (and then moved on to Grab, because this post is super late - it was supposed to be posted last year or last last year when I was still with CIMB).
I still get questions here and there if I am still a teacher and some people still thinks that I am still a teacher. I suppose the imprint of me telling people that I worked as a teacher is strong.
"How's life after the Fellowship?"
"Do you miss it? Do you miss teaching?"
These 2 are the most common questions I receive whenever I tell someone that I'm no longer a teacher or just usual questions from other Fellows as well.
I would mostly joke around and say "Well, I cry less." and that would make the other party (and myself) laugh, usually the ones who would laugh harder with me would be the Fellows (from any batch) who has been on a similar journey as me in the Fellowship.
That being said, to answer the honest truth - there are some aspects which I do miss aka planning activities for my students, communicating with them and having a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction when you see you work impact another person's life in a positive manner. I also miss having walk into the Bilik Guru and seeing that there's already food all over the table counter because God knows why the teachers love to eat lmao, but hey, free food for me! Oh and when students run up to you asking how you are and complimenting you out of no where (lmao, take it with a pinch of salt tbh).
Here's a pic of my desk on the first day of work. The red puncher was from STAJ (which I returned after 2 years HAHAHA), my white bottle that went missing in IPG, iced americano I bought at 6AM in the morning from Centrepoint's Mekdi and the rest are still with me!
I most certainly do NOT miss the indirect communication (OFTEN HAPPENS) done in school, with poor leadership who only cares nothing and nothing but name + fame. I believe that when it comes to any environment, leaders should always put their people first. I do NOT miss the long working hours (It's a misconception that teachers only work til 1pm or half day. HA! WHAT A JOKE. If you take into account staying back after school to handle extra curricular activities, nonsensical documentation & paper work which goes nowhere after that, classroom & lesson planning, stakeholder management etc), you pretty much finish work at around in the whee mornings.
My interest in TFM formed when I saw some of my high school seniors posting their stories on instagram (yes, a few of them were Fellows) and even two of my high school mates from the same batch (2011) became Fellows themselves - Grace (2017), Sophie (2018) and Me! (2019). I never expected any of my school friends to have joined TFM, much less seeing one of my GenCorporate Bros aka SY joining TFM as a Fellow!!
While my interest was there, I never thought of applying since I was more focused on getting my life together and figuring out what I wanted to do (still am tbh but with a better direction I suppose?) but with God's directions, I ended up in TFM anyway.
The road was rough from the beginning, from training all the way til it ended. There were times when I just wanted to quit because I had another job offer, somehow I stayed - because honestly, I was scared to be seen as a failure for leaving half way and to be judged that I couldn't make it as a teacher, but I made it, I really did. I completed two years.
However, being part of this growing community has also allowed me to branch out and with the experience faced as an individual - it made me empathize more with the people within it. I suppose the in wanting to build a better place for the underprivileged is also something that I miss, since it's not everyday you find someone or a community which has the same vision or thoughts which are aligned with yours.
It's been 3 years since 2020 ended, it's 2023 now and I finally got the groove to start posting something again on my blog. There were so many ups and downs, some I documented on my twitter, some on my finsta, insta whatever platform that I was able to express myself. I still reminisce on my life as a teacher, it really is true that memories do stay with you. I do miss my students who have mostly graduated with only 1 - 2 now in school who remembers me. I don't talk to them as often anymore, but god do I miss teaching them back then. I wish I had more time with them, but the time felt right.
I am also happy that some of them and the teachers in school (aka Kak Sab and Kak Ru) still keep in touch with me and asking how I am from time to time. I was supposed to go back but couldn't find the right time to go back. This blog seems to be mostly about my time as a teacher and honestly speaking, I don't think it will ever end, because there's too many stories to be told and that's only a 2 year journey. Imagine if I was still a teacher (probably would be complaining about the low pay and excessive work damn), the stories would be pouring and never ending.
Anyhoo, here's an update for 2023. Let's see if I will update about my past journey with CIMB and currently my journey with Grab or what I have been doing on the side lines with Nasi Campur Tales (something that has been keeping me busy for a year and a half now hehe) or how I am a part of The Flute Choir with CGFA Flute (yes I play the flute!!).
See you soon!
I have spoken about The Growth Hub on one of my insta post on instagram before, but I feel like that there is more to tell.
The Growth Hub has been a personal project of mine when I was a fellow and it has been one of my the saving grace of my fellowship journey. The room has seen so much, it has seen me laugh my butt off, cry, my frustrations/anger and all of the emotions that a human being could ever feel. It was where I was able to unleash my creativity, express my thoughts and feelings into it without feeling judged or being watched over. This goes the same for some of my students who has spent their time in that room and my fellow collabs who has equally experienced all those feelings as well.
It was our safe space.
If I were to tell every story about the room, I could go on and on and on.
Before the whole MCO situation happened, I had already begun working on the room at the end of 2019 - meeting up with sponsors to donate tables and chairs for the room (Shout out to Epic Homes and the Obama Foundation Fellowship for being the greatest and championing my project! Couldn't have done it without any of them) - Another story to tell but damn, that experience made my fellowship journey legendary.
Why transform the room though? Was it not okay before this?
The room was initially a counselling room, but due to several issues - leaking ceiling from the toilet upstairs, broken tiles, there were even rumours about flying bats. So, the counsellors moved to a different room and ever since then the room was left unkept for many years E.g. Broken Ceiling, Broken walls alongside broken chairs and tables (Halo, aircon wires also kena bitten by rats, so obviously we can't use it. No komen).
I don't understand why no one wanted to handle the room beforehand, but hey! An open opportunity is great for me to execute my vision, which is to give the students a Study Hub, very much like study spaces that you see in international schools, universities or boarding schools.
I believe that every school deserves the best facilities in order to allow students to feel comfortable when it comes to studying or conducting activities.
My students and I were super onz about transforming this dead beat room into something refreshing and exciting for us to use - as a classroom, hang out spot for students who have to stay back after school. Technically, it did turn into their hang out space also after school since they were all working on the painting and decorations of the room.
This journey is broken down into several phases.
Phase 1 - Getting permission from the School's Administrators (Pengetua, Penolong Kanan etc) and PPD.
Tn. Mukhtar and Pn Alina, the then Principal and Penolong Kanan 1 of the school had no problems with me wanting to transform the room, so long I had a proper plan and got the paperwork ready. Tuan Mukhtar even got the room cleaned out and broke down the "extra" rooms within that room and cleared out the broken ceilings.
Pn Alina guided me throughout the paperwork and documentation, where she showed me the ways to create budget plans and enforced that no one else was to touch the room except for me.
All paperwork & documentation must be handed in to the administrators so that they could send over to PPD (Pejabat Pegawai Daerah) to show the activities that they were conducting in the school.
Phase 2 - Planning Stage & Sponsorship
At the time, I had already a little bit of budget left from the SLC project and May Yin (My 2018 TFM collab in school) decided to hand over her SLC budget to me since she's done with her project.
I had several students involved in the room planning and choosing the colours that they wanted.
At the same time, I was able to secure sponsorship for tables and chairs from Epic Homes who so generously donated 40 tables and chairs as well as 9 book racks. What was missing was the funding to refurbish the room.
Phase 3 - Execution (Cleaning up, Building from scratch)
This phase was fun, my students stayed back every Thursday to clean up and paint the room. We manage to secure some small amount of funding by using the leftover money we had from the SLC competition the year before and bought some paint alongside materials to decorate the room.
All colours are chosen and picked out by the students and I'm actually super happy with the colours because not only is it vibrant and bright, but it is also cheerful and gives life to the room.
Phase 4 - MCO & Active Sponsorship
As we all know, MCO happened in March and it affected millions of people. I had to put the project on hold and over the few months during MCO, I made a budgeting and strategy plan to see what else was needed to refurbish the room.
I realized that many things were still missing, we already had the tables, chairs and shelves but we still lacked comfort - air conditioner, proper tiles (the broken tiles were still left unfixed at that point in time). Classroom necessities such as whiteboard, proper blinds/curtains, door grill and classroom signboard were all not available. The cracked walls and broken sink were still in place and we needed a large amount of money to fix all these things.
Bless to the people who were involved in helping me plan and strategize the entire project. I used the MCO months to craft out budgets and seek for sponsorships. With the help of sponsors who were so understanding of the situation and had the same vision, the project was already solid and good to go. All I needed to do was wait for MCO to end.
Phase 5 - Renovation - Challenges
MCO ended (yay!) and all of the teachers were separated into different rooms to maintain social distancing, so we had to move from our usual tables in the Bilik Guru and some of us were placed in The Growth Hub.
Some of us had a really good time being placed in that room since it was far away from the rest and we had our own space to just talk about anything and everything. But still, the ultimate goal is for students to use that room (they couldn't as of now since it's still MCO and there's strict SOPs in place).
One of the biggest challenge I had to face was definitely discovering Termites Nest in the room. It was huge and horrible. The termites nest had already existed for quite some time but over MCO, it made its way from the ground floor all the way to the top floor and The Growth Hub was severely affected. It was eating EVERY single thing, including some of the tables and chairs.
It was going to cost a huge bomb for me to call in exterminators and asking the school for help was not an option (I tried really hard to persuade my principal but to no avail. He even suggested to put acid on the nest, which actually aggravated the termites even further. So to those who has termites nest at home or anywhere, please call a professional). Luckily for me, God was looking out for me and my friend sent me a link on a group of exterminators who were trying to terminate pests in school as part of their CSR project (Check them out at Rapidkill!! One of the best services ever).
So incredibly blessed when this company agreed to check and sanitize the school as well. The only thing is that we had to wait for 2 - 3 months for the termites nest to be exterminated completely. Infact, after checking the school, it turns out we had atleast 3 separate kingdoms of termites (Talk about what the f man).
Other than these challenges, students were not able to stay back after school for any extra activities so I had to find different ways to get things completed. Managed to call in contractors to fix up the room and install carpets + aircon to make the room a little livelier.
Phase 6 - MCO 2.0 + Work in Progress
By this time, the stupid termites nest were still in the room and the walls were still broken. No students were allowed to enter school properties except for specific reasons and with an accompanying teacher. When MCO 2.0 hit, I was already preparing to pack up my things in school since I was leaving officially in December.
The termites guy came over in late November and thank goodness, the termites were already dead by then. I was able to continue with the other incomplete work in the room. Very thankful that boi boi, his brother and sister often came over to help me out with fixing up the room - painting it, shifting all of my other things to the car and so on.
TFM fellows aka my collabs has also been the biggest contributors in fixing up the room and the best of the best companions, absolutely couldn't have done it without them.
Phase 7 - The Growth Hub
The team got smaller over the months due to MCO, in the final stages only Boi Boi, his sister Girl Girl and younger brother Ah Cong were allowed to help out.
And, to the final phase. It is unfortunate that I wasn't able to use the room to teach my students, but at the very least, it's completed for future use (whenever MCO ends that is).
I had the heaviest of heart leaving the room on my last day. Even boi boi felt sad leaving the room, promising me that he'd take care of it whenever he's in school. True to word tho, he checks on the room all the time he goes to school. HAHAHA. So glad I have a spy in school to help me check on my baby project.
I hope you will be the room where students will be happy to enter each time they have their lessons, where they will feel different as compared to the boring ass classrooms that they are in. Just as how you were there for me when I faced several emotions as a teacher and where my students had fun entering the room to hang out, do their work/have extra lessons, I hope others would find the same comfort in you too.
It's taken me nearly half a year to write about you, granted I was lazy la no doubt HAHAH.
Thank you, for being one of my most meaningful projects on top of the other initiatives I've done. It wouldn't have been the same without The Growth Hub and I'm glad that I stuck through til the very end.
Signing off,
Sofea
