The January Report – excluding Bangkok!

In January 2nd 2010, I flew back to Singapore, marking my first ever completely voluntary, independent return. It felt different. I felt even more aware of my surroundings, and the nitty grittys that came along with living alone – my travel expenses suddenly got a lot more expensive thanks to the ‘working adult’ label imposed upon me now, I no longer seek refuge in a hostel and actually had to look for a shelter over my head. This also meant that there’d be no more catered food too ): On hindsight, studying overseas on a scholarship has been falsely associated with being independent.

Also, I never made new year resolutions when the clock struck 12 on the eve of 31st December 2009. They’ve never worked for me, (and therefore by induction,) I believe that they will not this year either. My 2010 plan comes in chunks & periods, I suppose. Monthly reviews to see how I’m progressing towards my plans & quarter yearly goals. (:

So here’s how January went.

Work’s not going too well. Got hammered down this morning for having too many side commitments. I wouldn’t blame them for being fired up about my absence in the office. I haven’t been hanging around as much as I really should (but seriously, as if I ASKED for a corneal ulcer. I didn’t plan that in advance, please. And really, as if I asked to have problems with the immigration counters. As if.) Working with the kids have been quite an experience though: initially, I began work thinking that I would just do what ordinary relief teachers do – ignore their students. Ended up learning that talking to kids is inherently a skill, one that I am acquiring as we speak. Every turn and twist they make is a call for something, a puzzle that I have to figure out. And when I do, it’s incredibly rewarding to see that sobbing face light up with joy again. (:

By April, I want to:

(Ultimate wise:)
- Be able to throw straight and accurate forehands and backhands,consistently. (more than 20 in a row)
- Play as a ‘popper’ in a zone offence effectively.
- Get free. And cut.
- Learn how to relax.

(Work wise:)
- Be at work at least 95% of the days & fix my always-not-around reputation.
OR Get another job that pays equally well, has less working hours and has greater allowance for me to play Ultimate.
- Sort out the whole no pay situation. ITS NOT FUNNY.

(Personal wise:)
- STOP EATING AT OBSCENE HOURS.  (Bangkok trip did not help.)
- Learn how to relax a little & be patient when things go wrong.

Let’s go, February!

belated christmas wishes.

dear Santa,

I understand that this may seem like a superbly late post considering how last Christmas was a month ago, but I really would like to:

1) Recover from all my frikkin injuries/miseries by the time Bangkok comes around.*
*if you could speed up the recovery process, I wouldn’t mind getting well faster either. Just saying.

2)  Stop falling ill altogether so that my salary can actually pay for something else other than my medical bills!
My visit to the doctor’s yesterday night cost me 82 DOLLARS. Holy macaaaaaaaaroni. :(

3) Figure out what is wrong with myself lately.

Till then, i’ll crawl until I can walk again.
And I’ll run, until I’m strong enough to jump.
I’ll fly,
until there is no end.

here’s to living in the moment.

For those who don’t watch HIMYM, you’d find it strange that I have an image of recurrent slaps. And to avoid spoiling the joke, I won’t explain it at all. (It’s addictive watching Barney get slapped over, and over, and over again huh? :D )

Anyway, it’s been a pretty strange week filled with injuries, ultimate (duh. i mean, really. that has never been absent ever since A levels ended.)  and strangely cute moments with children, who sometimes really drive me up the wall.

Injuries wise, there’s the ankle sprain from last Saturday. It’s been aggravated by beach pickup; i’m having problems rotating my foot painlessly again. :( There’s also the sudden lost of voice (which apparently gains sympathy points with the children. They actually do keep quiet when they realise that you’ve got no gun powder to fight their machine guns.) due to excessive shouting at kids who refuse to listen.
(impending injuries wise, there’s always obesity and heart failure from eating too much junk food at odd timings. i.e. I need to stop eating like a cow. Or rather, an owl. NEEDA EAT AT NORMAL TIMINGS MAN.)

Ultimate wise, I’m pretty stoked about Bangkok Hat! Flying off on Thursday evening (: 4 whole days of unadulterated joy – unless my injuries act up and cripple me up like a good crepe. :( Feb’s gonna be packkkkkked with traveling (especially back and fro KL for tourneys and Chinese New Year) but I’m not complaining. :D

Strangely cute moments with children wise, I suppose it’d be safe to say that you’d be reading a lot more conversation posts :D You guys like reading them right? Haha. One can only assume when comments dwindle. :( (LOVE YOU LOTS LIYING HEHE. Btw, update please. i know you have a diary but don’t leave us completely out of your life!)

with so many things hanging in the balance, I don’t want a single care in the world. So here’s to living in the moment.

Overheard along the hallways of Gitmo.

Interesting conversations from work! (Since there’s literally nothing interesting happening right now.)

On the day I was handing out Health & Fitness forms to the kids who are overweight:

M: So do you guys understand that it is compulsory for you to attend HnF on Mondays from 3 – 5? Okay good. Go back in now.
*little kid lingers in the corner*
M: Are you okay? Can you go back to your seat now?
Kid: …. does this *points to the form* mean I’m fat? :(

M: Hold on to the forms and get them signed by tomorrow okay? I’ll come around and collect it.
Kid tears the form in my face and storms back into the class.
M: HEY. Come and get another form now.
Kid: Do you want me to tear this one too?
M: No.
Kid: Then I’m not taking it.

On the day I was teaching Ultimate Frisbee to the kids:

M: Be careful and look where you’re throwing. DON’T HIT YOUR FRIENDS. I MEAN IT, OKAY.
Kids: ‘CHER I DONT HAVE A FRISBEE. CAN I TAKE YOURS!!
M: *looks at the DK disc, knowing it’ll get scratched/stolen/completely wrecked* ahhh, fine okay. :( BUT BE CAREFUL OKAY.

M: Okay, so that’s it for today. Can you recall to me what throws you’ve learnt?
Kids: FOREHAND AND BACKHAND.
M: Very good! :D
Kid: TEACHER CAN YOU SHOW US A HAMMER?
M: ... ooooookay NOW WE DO PUSH UPS OKAY. ON YOUR PALMS NOW! :D

Most epic of all,

a primary 6 kid who is taller than me comes up to me and ask,
“Teacher, do you feel sad about your height?”
I replied, “No child, I’ve grown into liking it.”

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5 things on my mind tonight.

(Recently) true facts about myself:

1) I do not intend to get any tanner than I already am. I can hardly recognise myself in the mirror – and that’s really saying something considering the vain pot I’m accused to be! Besides, post-league sunburns are not fun at all. (PS: People who have not seen me for a long, long time i.e. chonghaufoo, liying, MOM – i’m really a lot darker now. Please don’t disown me.:( )

2) I prefer Beach Ultimate to field Ultimate. There’s something about the sand, and the wind in your hair that makes everything seem so relaxed even if a really intense point is being played on beach. But as long as there’s a disc and 5 or 7 people on each side of the endzones, I’m good to go!

3) Working life sucks.

4) I love my pickup friends (: This isn’t a very recently true fact but it still holds nonetheless. :) I’ll never forget how amazingly lucky I am to have them in my life. They make fact #3 perceivably less true sometimes.

5) I’m drawn to bad boys*, but I only look from afar. Taming them has never been my interest; they are, therefore, not exactly my ‘type‘. I guess you could say I live vicariously through watching them self-destruct. Somehow, the come-hither charm never wears off.
*bad boys who are rich enough to be bad ass are cool – Mats and Bengs who don’t have the dough to pull off a decent bad ass look are just… unappealing.

gagaoohlala.

Weekends taste sweeter when those hours actually belong to you – when you don’t have homework lying somewhere waiting to be done, or some council emails to get back to, or revision to complete so that A level wouldn’t be a freak out fest.

Weekends taste really, really sweet right now.

Work #3: I think I might start posting less frequently again because

There’s really nothing interesting :/ Work in unvaried, and I am typing this from work because there’s nothing to do right now. Audrey is stoning right in front of me. Yawn.

Interesting story from yesterday: I was told to run up to one of the Primary 4 classes to accompany a kid down because she was having a terrible stomachache. On the way down, I wanted to be polite by initiating conversation i.e. ask her where the pain was and since when she felt that way. (I felt very House M.D. ish. Yeyy.) She seemed quite shy and reluctant to talk so I gave up after a while. Just when I decided to shut up and shut off, she opened her mouth and I didn’t know how to stop her from talking after that.

Oh, children.

Work #2: I’m worried.

Slightly peeved and reluctant to blog because I’m hatin’ on the judgmental people who have nothing better to do than to point fingers and laugh at how retarded my words sound. How I wish these people were imaginary, or at least out of my peripheral vision for once.

Day one at work!

0715 – Clock in with Audrey after hitching a ride from Mr & Mrs. Tay. :D
Nothing spectacular there. We were bored brainless for a good 15 minutes because the staff was less than organized in work distribution. We had one lady dashing across rooms, looking for people, signatures, pens and whatnot; the rest of the staff were absent, physically and/or mentally.

0800 – (Shady) Briefing begins.
When the Busy Lady finally had time to tend to our petty needs (petty being, needing the required legal documents for them to officially hire us), we were already seated in a mini cubicle that was reserved for Teaching Assistants. We were told that our main duty is to help the Head of Departments with certain duties, including but not limited to, clerical work, administration tasks etc. (In other words, BAO KA LIAO lah.) If there any teachers that are absent, we might be required to stand in their positions and takeover classes. She did mutter something about the pay being lower than what we expected but we didn’t really get to that part on a conclusive note.

0815 – We try to keep our spirits up!
Some of the teachers came up to our cubicle and actually introduced themselves, which was nice of them, I guess. So small, menial tasks began to fly in our direction – Audrey was directed upstairs to help out with some book sorting, whilst I was tasked with a typing job. The little things we did hardly made a difference on the grand scheme of things, but someone’s gotta be at the bottom of the food chain. We’ve hit rock bottom – I even heard the thumping sound on the way down.

1115 – Hmm..
Were told that Audrey and I weren’t allowed to have lunch together. They needed at least one TA there at all times.

1200 – Audrey drops by the (hell) hole for a visit!
I could feel my brain deliberating shutting off on me as I repeated tapped on the Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V buttons on my keypad. It’s trying to tell me, “Call me when you have something even remotely interesting. This, you don’t need me for.” Audrey dropped by, telling me she was heading for lunch.

1225 – LUNCH!
We’re not paid during lunch hours (DUH!) Well, I suppose then lucky for us, we’re only allowed to lunch for half an hour. -_- Had the cheapest lunch, EVER. :D 1 Dollar for a regular sized bowl of Prawn Noodles & 1.30 for fresh fruit juice. That totals up to 2.30 per MEAL! That’s possible the cheapest meal I’ve EVER had in Singapore!

When we were both heading out of the office to help a teacher run an errand, Audrey and I saw this little girl pulling a Spiderman on the staircase leading to the hall. That was when the message hit home – I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be in a primary school, or a teaching position considering my complete lack of affinity with children. Shut up, I know I’m not maternal but whatever. It’s not that I dislike them; there’s just no connection. I don’t know how to talk to them! Audrey, however, is talented with kids. She’s patient, imaginative enough to follow with their wacky schemes (or at least bothers to pretend that she’s following).

The never-say-die spirit’s not looking to hot right now.

1345 – Logged on to FB from the school comp.
I can’t take the school’s-off bell. Kiddies are on the way home; 3 hours to go for me. So far, the most interesting thing I’ve done is help tabulate survey results.

1445 – Still hanging around with nothing to do because all the teachers are in a meeting.
Twitter time! Oh well, doesn’t seem like anyone’s on anyway. Discovered foursquare.com though! Cool stuff. More people should be on it. Click.

1500 – AUDREY’S DONE WITH HER JOBS UPSTAIRS! YAY.
… but what now?

1505 – Teachers are out of meeting.
Shit. Facebook. Logout. LAG. WTF. SHUTDOWN.
Ohmailord.

Okay. Off to kill a dozen trees now so that children can have art lessons. Good stuff. Heading off to the printing room learn the ways of the copy machine. Audrey crowned me ‘dumb shit’ for the day because I pressed the buttons wrongly twice. It wasn’t even that fatal a mistake! :(

1705 – Concluding a day’s work.
We took the extra copies home. God knows why.

Some interesting things I learnt at work though!:
1) Either

  • a) Guantanamo has a lot of Ang Moh kids or
  • b) A lot of non-caucasian kids have caucasian sounding names or
  • c) Parents nowadays just want to show off their creativity when it comes to spelling names.

E.g. Toshiro Alberqueque *something (WINNER OF THE DAY LAH OMG), Preston Blake Jr. (didn’t know there were people who still did the Jr. thing!), Brian Vesteeg (super cute fella wrote his name as ‘Brain’ on both forms instead. Hahaha!)
*Special mention! There was a Zaki in school; I have no clue what he looks/sounds like because all I did was process his Edusave form, but I thought of Dzaki and how he ssays that there’s a difference in meaning because of the spelling. Wonder what Zaki means then. D:

I’m tired.Getting up at 6 is tiring. :(

.. this is completely irrelevant but I’ve been thinking about this for some time, and I don’t think I believe in ‘The One’. I believe that there are many people who can make you feel like you’re in love but to consider the possibility of having one single soul mate you’re destined to be with is just ludicrous. It’d be almost impossible to find this one person unless you have really uncanny luck – and come on, lets face it. Nobody’s that lucky. AND, what if that One person actually dies before you find them! It’s highly plausible. Does that mean that you’re doomed to wander the rest of your time on Earth, settling for less than perfection? (LOL. Okay fine, I see the flaw in my argument here.) But all I’m saying is that it’s statistically impossible to obtain happiness by relying on searching for The One.

Work #1: I’m hired!

I don’t really have time to sound eloquent (not that I usually try to; not here, anyway.) so I’ll cut to the chase.

Tomorrow, I’ll be heading back to school, but as a teacher this time.

I don’t know how exactly this is going to work out for me, but I will try to make it work. The pay is moderate, and the working hours are something that I need to get used to. :( But I suppose that beats being completely unemployed. The new year rings in changes and this will definitely be a huge one, I think. After all, it’s going to be my first ever legal form of employment. (I just hope I don’t get swindled into taking even the janitor’s role. Considering how I’m fresh meat, The Noob of NOOBS, it just might happen.) Anyway, I intend to blog regularly about it, so do check back frequently!

.. and well, regarding what school I’m currently posted to, I’ll keep that between my closest of friends and I (if you’re on Twitter, you probably already know though. Oops?) Let’s call it ‘Guantanamo’. (Yes, Mich? Codename of schools at the disposal of all teaching applicants who want to avoid legal repercussions!)

Alrighty, it’s bed time. Guantanamo awaits when the sun rises again.