Observation from the 'other side'

Met a collegue from my batch of contract 'chers and also that ex-collegue from contract school. Interesting to note that the two of them are also posted bloody far from their homes. Beyond one hour and up to one and a half.

One tried to apply for transfer on grounds of wedding and moving even further, denied. The other loved her contract school too much and doesnt mind even though she too is getting married and shifting very near to the eastern end of Singapore while her workplace is in Bukit merah. One has gotten a car cos of the sheer distance. The other is intending to get one, once she is married.

Hmm in the 2 years since I had joined, things have moved on. About half are in the process of 'settling-down' be it marriage or even work-wise.

I am still floating around, anchorless and maybe.... not-so-free. Thinking of retirement, trying to pursue forgotten dreams and rekindle dying passions. To my best efforts, to live each day as it is, to stop and look at the blue skies above and inhale the fresh air, to stop and ponder about what life entails for me, to search endlessly for something even if its form is vague and incomprehensible at the moment.

At the moment, I cant imagine what its like to 'settle-down'.

The idea is too remote and alien-like. The prospective of that is too daunting- the matter-of-fact is once married, (in most cases) one cannot stop working to pay housing and car instalments. After when the kids come, one cannot stop working to pay for the education, and thereafter to save up for retirement.

The other prospect of 'settling-down' in a job especially my current industry would mean that I have to do the same thing in a routine manner through the years. It will be the same routine save for two things; I get older but my charges remain the same age.

Its too mind-boggling to comprehend my unwillingness to let go of my freedom. The freedom from work, not so much of marriage. Maybe true to my zodiac sign, I have always longed for freedom, be it physically, mentally or spiritually. This doenst manifest with having a travel-bug like my friends but a longing whenever I look at the skies. To shed the chains and responsibilities and soar and live freely.

To lift the analogy from the Matrix, how would those humans still plugged into the Matrix, know what true freedom is like, given they are plugged into the System in which they live out their entire lives. How would they know if the freedom of choice they had while plugged in is real or not? Is that freedom any lesser than that they experience once outside the System?

True the working and married life have their own promises of freedom, experienced by those who live out their lives in this manner. But is there no alternative freedom? Guess this search of freedom for me entails still much more than financial freedom.

Okay, that's all for my ramblings and deeper thoughts for now. Am not feeling too good, on my second mc, am going to see doctor, rest, maple a bit and finish up some *$&%# work. Maybe I should just chuck the work.

2nd Year Anniversary

Today marks the 2nd year into my job. Actual experience is 1yr 3mths, rest of that is Nei time. Nothing much except have to hang in there. Today I chanced upon the forum, is only for educators one and requires a password n ID to login. It seems all educators have access. Inside I came to an interesting thread - Teachers are going crazy.

The posts are very insightful into issues like stress, IMH, possible types of pyschatric disorders that educators suffer from, burnout and many more. Many educators post their experience and it was an eye-opener indeed. (maybe tab should try to go in)

Some interesting points:
1) Bananas have a chemical that helps to surpress depression. (Eat a banana a day to keep the shrinks away)

2) If you cant change the way things goes, its time to change ur way of thinking. Dont be a perfectionist. Know and adknowledge ur limitations. Prioritise also.

3) If u can hang on, hang on, but if you have lost the passion and it eats into ur life, family, sanity, it's time to rethink or throw in the towel, if not suffer IMH.

4) At most is a 'D' grade lor.

Hmm interesting perspectives that got me to rethink about my situation.

F&$#* it all once the work is over. Rest is MY time. Get out of my head and thoughts. I cant be bothered. Yep and I am not the only one who sometimes have problem sleeping, especially due to observation. Some shared they take tranquisilers to calm down due to anxiety, others sleeping pills. For me, at most is watch anime, until fall asleep lor. Haha.

Nvm now, just finished my mapling, and I am putting on my dance shoes, going to Audition, then some more anime. Tom dun kill myself by going in too early, just go in normally lor.

Holidays are a distant memory...

Yup the holidays came to an end, made shorter by 2.5days by work commitments. Didnt do anything constructive for work. Everything is pure lesiure. Yep after living with my bro over the 3 short days, it somehow strengthened my resolove to finsih up the bond and live there. Can be a bum for a year before I commit to anything. Hehe... only problem is that I would have to save up before then to be able to live comfortably for a while. Another problem arise, is that I cant bum forever. Eventually still have to work for a living. Unless can generate some passive income. Hmm still pondering about this....

Oh besides playing Maple, which I am still going strong, I downloaded and tried AuditionSea, after Tab mentioned about it. Hmm its a new game from creators of MapleStory, a dance game. Saw the cool advertisement at Shaw towers a few months back and decided to give it a go. Oh I am playing a female character using the same in-game-nick. Not too bad. Nice dance moves and some good tracks. Really wish I could dance like that.

After I told Tab about the same nick part, she mentioned the irony of it. Huh? Well Tab remarked the irony stems from the fact that during my peak hour - i would be mapling, and using a dagger to hunt and kill stuff. Whereas during the off-peak hour, I would be strutting my stuff and dancing around. Hmm I would agree with her. It somehow doesnt fit my image. Anyway just had a good dance day at Audition.

The funny thing is I am behaving as though I am still holidaying. Tom I have work but somehow I am still sleeping late. Playing Maple and Audition and even watching some anime from YouTube. Hmm only thing missing is being able to sleep til the sun shines and burns my backside. Well time to go, back to some anime before sleep.

Back

For those who didnt know, some stuff over at work got cancelled, leaving me with a 3-day break which I used to visit my brother in msia. So on tuesday morning, bloody early in the morning, got to the train station and got on the KMT train. Nothing much to say about the journey but it took 4hrs. Brought some work to mark, and didnt do it on the train at all.

Arrived there aound noon and my brother came and fetched us in his second-hand Kanchil. Itinery was easy. Eat lunch, go back. My kinda of holiday. Once there, we settled into the spare room and just sat around. I was slacking and playing a bit of maple, inbetween maple discusssion with my bro watching me play maple or he plays, I watch and discuss. That evening ate dinner and I came back and watched Doom while opening maple shop. Stupid movie. Duh. And I wont want to play the game and scare myself at every corner. Slept late cos was reading some comics.

Next morning Wed, woke up early to send my mom to do her hair and helped my bro get carry 2 cartons of mineral water. We dropped her off, with her friend to do hair. We settled our breakfast and lunch. Simple fare. Went around to a shopping mall to check out the pirated stuff, games, movies or cds but I didnt buy anything. No point if I cannot bring out. Bought a facial mositurizer for my sister. Her daily makeup usage is not doing wonders. Think she needs one. Dabao lunch, went back maple. Later go out for dinner, got dropped back at the house while my bro went for his tuition. Then around 10 he came back and fetched my mom also. Changeover. He maples, I read comics. Drops off to sleep.

Woke up bloody early at 530am to get ready to catch the 715am train. Man 3 days in a row is really crap. I need my sleep. Slept on the train journey. Inbetween got noisy and wild kids. Grr no mood to mark WS also, so dabao back. Wanted to clear later when back in singapore. Just couldnt. Sign. The life of my bro is not too bad. Relaxed and slower pace. Once I got back i went to the neighbourhood to return comic. Subconsciously I noticed I walked faster, I looked around, other people also walk pretty fast. Back to the grind I guess. Just another 2 and 3/4 year to go.

Tom is a full day course, dunno for wat crap use one. Just got to show my face. Hmm if try to clear tom and saturday. Will I die from the amount of marking?

Nevermind those crap, now I'll just go and try out the game AuditionSea and sleep.

Bleah no life... even maple life

Err from where I left off, I am disappointed at the moment. Cos quite a number of students did not do well in their test. Though not counted as there is no CA. But it shows the underlying problem of understanding. Bleah. Went through with them and many inattentive. Need I say more. Disappointed... Just disappointed.

3 of the 4 heavenly kings acted up. Sian.... Just sian.

Marking has piled up which I went in super early today to clear but still left with a pile for tomorrow and clearing in Sept holidays.... Man... Just man.

Impending holidays chopped into series of 1-2 days break cos of course, work activities, only meant that I CANNOT go back to visit my brother and chill... F&$#.... Just F8*$(#

This week havent even touched Maple since Saturday... stemming from tiredness everyday. Just want to relax once I've reached home. Dun have the stamina to maple 2 hours anymore. Will try to catch up on the lvling over the weekends... Tired.... Just tired.

A poem to sum up my state.

Life.... oh life, a bore
People smile, explore
I'm too cold in my core
to taste the sweetness and more

~Hellbound

PS: I dun have a deathwish, just that this period in my life is just so sucky. Am still trying to make myself happier or risk IMH but not all days u succeed. Think gin helps.

A exploration of my current state...

Currently employed, earning decent pay, young and single. Best time of your life right? Yar by right it should be. Somehow being the person living my life, I beg to differ. WHY do I feel this way? I am trying to identify the root cause so that I can live this life comfortably until the end of my bond.

Work fatique is one reason. I have been in the industry for 2 years, of which 1year is spent in the class. Its getting to me. And like what Tab said "Somedays are just too 'interesting' that I wish they could be more boring." Couldnt agree more. The 'interesting' aspects puts one in too much stress and high-adrenalin levels that after a fairly short time, fatique sets in. Not to mention the scale of work is a huge exponential jump from the inital contract days.

Personal time being taken up is another factor. There is a constant pile of marking. Have to go early to do so or bring home. Going early entails waking early, taxi there, mark like crazy, tired, then go for classes. Bringing home entails chucking my bag at my table and leaving it there untouched until the weekend is over. A bit of a dilemma. Think the former is a better alternative. Also weekly lesson plan is so far done on sundays. The fact is that once work ends on Friday, the TGIF mood kicks in and work-related stuffs are just chucked at the corner and out of the mind. The familiar "I-dun-want-to-do-it-I-want-my-weekend" syndrome. So far I have managed to squeeze things into the weekdays, even lps on monday mornings. Guess it will continue to be so.

Observation, one of the most dreaded aspect of this occupation. To those unfamiliar, its a lesson planned to wayang wayang to show to important people (P,VP,HOD or even Supervisor in nei days) Basically though supposedly not judgemental but developmental, the stress is still the same. The lesson is not an accurate reflection of what you would usually do or typically do, but is so peppered with PPT, activities and even worksheets, all designed to impress upon your audience what a good n capable 'cher you are. To show them that you can deliver such high quality and engaging lessons. The reality is once it is finished and they have walked out, its back to the REAL way. The normal, more efficient way termed Chalk&Board.

I just had an observation upon rather short notice. I came out with my own, quite happy with it, showed it to my RO whom gave more ideas to add on, which entails alot of changes and the move from chalktalk to PPT. The ob was the next day, hence I went home and rushed out the changes on the morning of the ob, cos that day itself was a very heavy day and I was deadbeat by evening. However I tried to sleep earlier that night cos I had to wake up much earlier to do the changes. BUT things didnt go that way, I tossed and turned until past 1am then fell asleep uneasily. My mind wouldnt stop thinking about the lesson. So the next day, I woke up deadtired, made the slides and changes, printed out copies, made photocopies at a shop, taxi to work to make photocopies of the few pages of materials. Handed over to my sups and went back to my seat to try to do work, which I didnt manage to do much. Couldnt risk tiring myself out from endless marking. After that, went up to the room during recess and prepared the comp and visualizer and my stuff, prep things up and once the bell rang. Had to go down to bring up the class and then the show begins. Later on, the feedback I got were quite positive. Though I couldnt help feel that the amount of work and effort doesnt justify this type of observations. (PS this is not as much compared to what some chers have spent on just 1 ob, a collegue I knew last time worked until 9pm before just on preparing her resources.) That night after, I rewarded myself with good food and a gin coke and did absolutely nothing whilst at home. No wonder many end up in IMH, leave the service. If this keeps up, we'll all go kuku.

Think I have identified wat really IRKS me about my job. The first 2 already kinda bad enough, the 3rd one is just the straw that breaks the camel's back. For now this broken-back camel is trying to get on its feet. See how it goes. Maybe I should start buying 4D and Toto.

Its a tiring week...

doing nothing much.... BUT I am tired. Tuesdays are the longest days cos its 8 periods straight exclude recess which I would also 'punish' and make those who dun do corrections do. 'talk' to them about misbehaviours. So effectively 9 periods. plus remedial earlier abt 1hour. So 10 hours of human interaction really test the limit of one's endurance.

Then I am bored of working life and have food cravings. Sushi craving was so strong yesterday that I stopped over at a NTUC and bought some to munch on my way home. It was a long day yesterday and I had only 1 egg prata and coffee for the entire day. No recess for me. BUT then while munching the sushi, I was kinda contented even though it was for a short while. To have a place to sit in the bus, and eating sushi, guess I am an easy person to satisfy.

Reached home and had a bath and dinner. Then login online to play Maple, though it was only for an hour, met my brother online and chatted. Currently a lvl 91 C.dit and going to lvl 92 if I could just dig out enough stamina to play more than 1hour each weekday.

Tom and Fri, have to turn up at morning session timing cos of exams. The good thing is no class, the bad thing is less classtime to finish syllabus. Have to juggle then. After today, effectively only left 8 more school days to cover the remaining work. I want to have a life. I looked at my table calendar which is Holiday theme and am reminded constantly of Redang and Tioman island. Miss the lazing around, WITHOUT a care in the world, no worrying about work, time or anything. The mind just goes blanko.

If time allows, I intend to go back to Segamat for a short few days to rest and visit my brother. Of course mapling is in the agenda. Yar before that I will have to clear all my stuff (marking) and get it done. Sign... another 2yr 10mths. See how it goes.... Hope today wont be a bad day.