Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Looking for a way out...

I dun know whether I am being too rash, give up too easily or blowing things out of proportion. I have never been so unhappy ever since ShittyBank as an intern.

I want out!

I need a way out, before I break.

I am already cracking...

Life is dull. Work sucks.

Where is that 'freshness' and 'everything-is-new-and-is-challenging' feeling that I have during my contract and even during practicum days.

How much of the "I am interested in the teaching aspect" passion is left...

I just want to STOP everything and really take time to rediscover for myself what is it I really want and seek.

To take the time to rest and recover my body, health and broken spirits.

What is stopping me is the remainder of the bond. At a price of $21.6k, I am locked in for another 2yr 2mths.

I need an action plan to get this amount. The choices are limited. Either get the money and break and go, OR just bear with it and do Survivor until it ends.

I am doing the gambling part (Toto and 4D), trying to invest (reading frantically and waiting for mkt to crash but need another 6mths to stablise even if crash) and maybe look at job applications. Maybe take on another job even if in pte sector.

Cos what are the fears that is keeping many locked in. They perceive that they do not have much value in the pte sector. They think that they cant re-enter easily. To confront that fear, maybe send out job applications and see if can get any offers? Just to test, if it is really true. If a better offer can come along, why the hell not? Can have a means to pay off the bond and a job. Hmm think will start with this weekend's job classified.

Maybe see if can become a full-time tutor. If I can get almost an equivalent pay, things arent as bleak.

Time to take charge and not be so helpless at it all. Just bearing with it, by either changing perspectives is a way to deal with it. But sometimes how much of yourself are you killing?

Signz

Am I too idealistic? Think too much? Too soft? Give up too easily?

I dunno, but I want to do something to reduce this mental/physical/health pressures I am having. Is it right? I guess in this game of life, things are not as simple as a 'yes' and 'no' answer. The grey areas are just too grey, never with easy answers.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Nvr been so sad and disappointed ever since Shittybank

Never have I been so sad,disappointed and frustrated ever since I left Shittybank behind and joined. Is it worth it? *Big signz* If only I have the means to quit.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

OMG I'M DYING, SCREAMING, PRAYING. I'M BLEEDING....

Can someone deliver me from this gigantic shit pile I'm in?

I can painfully feel the lyrics of the song, Tourniqet, by Evanscence, in my heart.

"I tried to kill the pain, but it got more, so much more..
I laid dead and I'm pouring, Crimson regret, that beach me,

I'm dying, pray...ing, bleed...ing, I'm scream...ing.
Am I too lost to be saved? Am I too.... lost...
My God, my tourniqet, return to me salvation.
My God, my tourniqet, return to me salvation.."


Imagine an entire week where I clock in 7am, clock out 5.45pm average. This is not cos I stayed back to mark. BUT cos I have other things like a couple of courses, CCA competition out of school plus meeting and even throw in house practice. All these means I have NO time to do anything else, even marking. So how do I try to do my marking, during all my free periods, scrapping as much time as I could to mark/print/do bus booking/consent form on top of that teaching. Lunch is non-affair. No appetite or time or peace to eat. I drink isotonic drink to last unil about 1-2pm. I am fast burning out. I try to finish my marking by bringing some home, BUT once I reached home after 2 shifts, I cant manage another shift. Its too painful, too inhumane, too workaholic... I am not a robot, though there are those teachers who do, do this. Well from my observation, these teachers are MOSTLY married, nearing mid-30s.

Well they are 'settled' in marriage, and their focus is on their careers, on bringing the bacon home. Their foucs is family, they dun really need a social life. Some mark when they watch tv.

BUT I am a SINGLE, still trying to find my way/path. I want to spend time on family and myself. I have things I want to do, play, go out. Imagine reaching home from work around 7pm. I know of pple who work in pte sector who reach home around that time. But by then I would have clocked in 2-3hrs more than them. The level of tiredness...

Even if I have no life, I dun want to spend my days doing 3shifts. Even factory workers do maximum of 2 shifts.

Then other irritating crap is the amount of monkey biz and crap happening in the class. Just go F(*$#( themselves, dun hand in, dun bring, tell lies and more. Even toilet-cleaner dun have so much crap to clean.

Recently ever since I've discovered TOTO and 4D, I have been buying and using the draw dates as tippers. Tippers according to Tab, is like points to help you pass the week. So on Wed, its 4D, Mon and Thu are Toto. The rest are on weekends. So far no luck. Maybe I should go temple and seriously and sincerely pray for a hit, not much, just enough for $23k to break my bond prematurely. At most be a tuition teacher, more teaching done and a much easier life.

Signz... from tuesday onwards, I have difficulty sleeping. Too much on my mind that though I try very hard not to think about it, it pops up and keeps me awake. I have resorted to downing a can of Jolly Shandy immediately and lie down to sleep. So far it works. Though its only 0.5%, it let me sleep peacefully until 6am. Work is so crap that I reach home and drink a can of Shandy to relax. So now I am downing 2 shandies a day. Drowns out the mental anguish and those things on mind, lets me relax. Just hope I dun 'graduate' to drinking beer, hard liquor or wine. Then I log onto maple to relax after a LONG day. About an hr. Then the work I dabao, I just chuck one side.

My youngest sister Geoky remarked to me, "The more you work, the free-er you get." The idea is there is no use proscrastinating, the faster u start, the lesser it gets and then you have more time for yourself.

But in reality there is another type of work. Krynnder might be more familiar... There is just so much to do that no matter how much OT you clock in, even on weekends, you just cant clear. Imagine that.

Now I am seriously trying to prioritise. There is a trade-off. School vs Class. There is only so many hours I have. There are things to be cleared from School and things to clear for Class. School vs Class. A lot of School things eat up my time to clear Class things. Class things I try to clear but too much to clear. End up delay in returning work. End up class suffers. End up I get burnt out.

Mgt should seriously look into the workload planning they are doing. BUT an observation about Teaching. Seriously some cannot plan. They are not organizers by training. They are just trained to teach. They can plan or organize realistic things. End up having everthing last minute or not realistic (idealistic) or things come immediately one after another. No wonder burn-outs is seriously happening to those who are BTs, new teachers who cant do anything cos they are at the mercy of the bond. Those who cannot take it, break the bond, go back to pte. Those who cannot pay, wait it out, and quit once the bond is over. Those who wait, in the end, decided that they could tahan and continue. In the end, teaching is staffed by those who can tahan with all the crap. This is some serious shit inside. Wonder if its like this at other places. This is my observation from working for 1yr 9mth in 2 schools.

Its only week 1 after the break and everyone in my level is sian. Me is ultra sian cos I and another are the only ones, who stay back on a daily basis. Others leave around 3-4pm. They within half hr of travel.

"I tried to kill the pain, but it got more, so much more..
I laid dead and I'm pouring, Crimson regret, that beach me,

I'm dying, pray...ing, bleed...ing, I'm scream...ing.
Am I too lost to be saved? Am I too.... lost...
My God, my tourniqet, return to me salvation.
My God, my tourniqet, return to me salvation..."

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Had a damn hectic week cos busy marking, collating component marks as well as go thru the CA papers before school ends. On top of that, tio observation today. Then this week, I have TO stay late every single day cos got cca, remedial,meeting, sports day practice plus meeting parents.

Just when I finally lived through the bloody hectic day of going-thru-paper/observation/marking/meeting, I got a call from parent. Called back and it escalated into another argument. Basically the ill-informed and responsibility-phobic parent made quite a number of unreasonable things that I SHOULD do cos her kid didnt do well. Saying things like cannot expect them to do, still kids, cannot push responsibility to them blah blah. Lets just say, after the whole thing, I was left damn frustrated and fuming. Bloody hell, what a big baby u got there, If students cannot be expected to be responsible with their own work, who can be? Request for seating changes, that I can do and will do. So magically, all their grades will improve, since it was such a fundamental reason for the sharp decline in grades.

Guess the episode will continue in the coming parent-meeting talk. Think I will bring a voice recorder to secretly record the conversations to "protect my butt" so that I can show and prove what is so unreasonable. Also if I know its going on tape, will try to give politically-correct answers instead of getting angry so easily.

I knocked off late again with one more stack of composition to finish, with marks to tally up and key into this centralized system (COCKIT) I tried to calm my anger by thinking about how I will bring this incident to the class tomorrow and let them 'learn' what is responsiblity. Let them give me the answers. A cold vanilla milkshake drink and a bath helped to ease the anger back to the bottle.

From this, I dun think this is really for me. I am resolving myself to "invest" additional amts into Toto and get started on 4D asap. I want my ticket out. Either I am burning out on both ends due to the heavy load and non-teaching load, or my health is giving way (nose is semi-blocked/wake up shivering in the morning) or suffer high-blood pressure from getting angry and scolding (though I am low-blood) or going crazy with the same few students and their equally-if-not irritating and infurating parents and on top of that, start feeling life is kinda a sad affair...

Wake up bloody early, spend quite a bit to reach the place I would rather not go to, go through the same shit with the same few F(**kers. Then have a 2nd shift until evening, reach home late and lastly even after reach home, have a 3rd shift up til 12am or later at times. Teachers have a good life? My ass!!!!! Already down for 4days for the March holidays. Still adding to that number. Dun have time to go to gym, read a book, even go out to spend my blood-money on weekdays. Feel so tired, just want to sleep when i reach home and shortly after, the same shit repeats itself. I find myself asking "Y the FUCK am I doing this?" Only the bond is still keeping me inside. Now is almost 8mths. Got 2yr 4mths. IF i cannot tahan anymore, I wont wait for that CONNECT plan thing. Think my sanity is worth much more.

Note to myself, the share market seems to be going down, I will try to 'go' in when it is lower. To let my money work as hard as me, if can make decent returns, maybe can break the bond earlier.

Doesnt sound like a motivated Teacher right? Well that is the true face of education. One that pple do not see cos its so well-kept away from the public's eyes or the misconception is so deeply ingrained that pple keep assuming teaching nowadays was like how it was 20-30years ago. My answer to that is "YOU R BLOODY MISINFORMED." Dun think its easy, then only to find out the REAL picture when u are locked inside by a bond. Guess that is why some break their bonds soon and return to the private sector very shortly. Signz my JC friend did tell me, my prospects not so good if i go out to private sector as I didnt really have much pte sector experience. That friend told me he was actually contemplating quitting as an auditor and joining teaching but he was put off by 2 things.

Firstly teaching is ironic because it is becoming Customer-Driven like a private sector cos these models are incorporated into education to "improve" the sector, YET the way things goes on inside especially by mgt is more of ARMY-style, where teachers are officers and got reporting officiers and Commanders. Mgt tells u to jump, you only ask "How High?" He feels that it is very oxy-moronic that both can co-exists. So he hesistated.

The Second reason is that he told me its a well-known fact (think he experienced it in his Army days) that Civil tends to leave the inefficient and slackers aside for them to float by without doing much and load up the better pple with so much shit, that they either float or sink. Met some taiji-grandmasters.

Anyway he would be getting a pay raise soon, to about 3.3k, so he was also unwilling to give it up and take a big pay-cut going into NEI.

A collegue of higher status than me told me kinda-recently in a matter-of-fact manner "Those who REALLY want to teach, should NOT join teaching." He explained that teacher's job is not to teach already. There are so much more responsiblities beyond just the teaching load. Teachers have to work their butts off. He gave instances where he stayed more than 24hrs, go without sleep to meet some really unrealistic deadlines. Again that is an extreme. But again an oxy-moronic statement. So I surmise, "Those who REALLY want to teach, should be a tuition teacher, or be an Adjunct teacher or a contract/relief teacher." My time as a contract teacher and even as a trainee teacher, I was doing alot of teaching and thinking about how to teach in a better way. Now as a almost-full-fledged teacher, I hardly have time for myself to rest, not-to-mention thinking and reflecting on my teaching and coming up with better or more interesting ways to teach.

What I feel, teaching though is my interest but that 'passion is dying', doused by the cold waters of frustration and anger. For now I can only take things one day at a time to wait out the bond, before I can spread my wings. Hopefully my NEST is decent by then. K I am going mapling to destress b4 the 3rd shift.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Buying a 'hope' and paying for a ticket outta here

Well on friday, my body couldnt take the long hrs anymore and I came down with flu plus stomach flu. Hence my 3rd mc, just into the newly arrived March. (But I dun care anyway) Saw the doctor, had diarrhoea just b4 I saw him. Gave me flu medicine and stomach medicine. I asked the doc, whether there was anything that he can prescribe to boost energy levels. He advised enough rest and multi-vitamins. I'll try that out.

The interesting thing was the clinic was just next to the Singapore Pools, so when me and my mom walked past, and saw the CNY Ang Bao TOTO draw with prize money of $10m, we decided to buy. (still remember the Toto talk we had with ZX last time we met up) Well it was my first try at TOTO. Bought a ticket for system 7 based on the time I watched the doctor etc. (In case u wondering, we didnt win). I was kinda confused by the Toto system of betting etc so that night I visited the Spore Pool webpage.

Now have a clearer idea. Now I will be buying Toto every week. Buying only 6 digits, ie Quickpick that will set me back about $4 a week for 2 draws per week. Still thinking about the 4D. Those interested, I created an Excel spreadsheet that can generate random numbers for both 4D and Toto when I had just newly graduated. In anticipation that I would "invest" in both but never acted upon it until now. For now, I just let the system pick. Maybe will use that file for 4D. See how first. Well IF lucky, that $4 is my ticket outta the current dump I am in. Well but we all know the probability of striking is 1.705^ -8 ie 0.00000001705 but as what everyone is saying, "its buying a hope." I will just spend $4 bucks less per week lor.

Anyway a welcome break for me. So I rested and mapled online on friday and sat morning. Definitely got enough sleep for myself. Felt happier cos I havent touched maple much for the past 2 weeks. Everyday I reached home exhausted, too tired and sleepy to do anything. On some days, I tried to stay awake but later just dozed off around 9pm and slept to the next day, where I wake up still feeling tired. Then met up with Tab for jap lesson thereafter we headed to VivoCity, cos I havent been there at all. Well gave her a treat for her bdae and we went off around 10.30pm, both of us still recovering from our illness.

Today I slept late and woke up to face the music. Had 1 CA paper and 2 stacks of compo plus lesson plan plus observation lesson plan. Had thought I could finish the CA paper within 3hrs but it took almost 5hrs to do so. Now left with compo and lesson plans. Will be doing one compo and the lesson plans. The other compo is for tom. Cos still have one more CA paper tom to mark as I was absent on fri. Hence dun overwork myself.

Had a bath and ate and now blogged. Thinking of going out to 'shan shan xin' but sadly Ginza Plaza has closed. It closed on 28th Feb to undergo renovations for 2yrs. So no more air-con place for me to 'hang around'. Then at Clementi Central they are still building that Mall cum HDB flat thing so again I feel like going out for a short while but have nowhere near with aircon to go to. Sometimes is not really even for the aircon but just to go out when things get too stifling. To walk it out of the system.

Think I will still go out for a short walk, so that I dun grow mushrooms staying at home too much.