HERE'S TO NEVER GROWING UP

So, I heard this colleague of mine started spreading rumours about me who was supposedly does not see eye to eye with another junior teacher in my school. I don’t know what the deal with her low mental capacity that she has to constantly spreads vicious lies about others in order to feel good about her dang self. I am one second away from confronting her and asking her what’s up her ass but I do not want to make things awkward as I’ll be seeing her face every day as we are, duh, colleagues. But to think that her insensitive little being has to touch me who has never given any regard to her existence made my blood boiled. This is not the first time she pulled this kind of stunt. Before this, she is well-known to bad-mouthed other co-workers (me included) to the boss. She thinks that other people have no idea of her more than assoholic demeanour, well news flash bitch, we all know who you are.

Another colleague of mine, who as of now, hasn’t crossed me, also has the same kind of disease. It seems like she has this special radar that detected the boss is around and near so she has to be on her best behaviour. Well, that’s cool if you want to be arse-licker. But the troubling fact is, she tends to point out other people’s shortcomings in front of the boss. Like, “Hmmm, cikgu, hari tu saya rotan budak cikgu yg keluar kelas tu”, is the stuff that would come out of her mouth. Now imagine she said that in front of the boss. It not only shows that you’re a blubbering idiot who can’t control your own class and also, you suck as a teacher, that’s why your students won’t keep still in your class. She usually would make noise within the vicinity of the boss. So, when your boss heard the commotion, the boss would ask, “What’s wrong?” and no matter how well you can snake your way out of it, the blame would be on you and the loud mouth, shit sweeter than other people colleague would beam in pride for having corrected you in front of the boss.

Another worst kind of colleague to come across to  is the one that loves to speak in a meeting. Like his opinion matters than most people because he’s like the golden child of the school. So, he has the right to drag the meeting towards its breaking point. Like people have time to listen to him muttering away. Things like this never happen in English Panel meeting because we, English teachers are so concise and straight to the point instead of beating around the bush over and over again until there is no bush to beat around anymore. And I know all of you are affected about the news of the child who was accidentally left for dead when her mother forgot she was in the backseat of the car as the mother, a teacher was rushing for a school meeting. Some people hurl all kinds of insults at her for being a bad mother, but I’d like to empathize with her. Meetings at school lasts more than 5, 6 hours. And schools (that I know of) do not come with day care for mothers who chose to be teachers, awesome teachers at that too. And what about the teaching assistants who were promised for us, teachers? Who supposedly would lessen our administrative burden? Nada. Zip. Nothing. Now that a child is dead hopefully they open their eyes wide. This kind of tragic incident can be avoided if only we realized teachers are humans, not super robots. Even super robots need to be oiled and serviced from time to time.

The bottom line is, there are all kinds of people in the world. A loner like me who has never given a hoot about other people is also not safe from vultures who like to spread lies and rumours which eventually would engulf the whole school. I pity the children of these vultures. How can you emulate moral values if your role model is having a hard time growing up?

GREEN RIVER

I have no problem teaching both PMR and SPM students. Though sometimes, being a mortal, my brain sometimes does this trick when it switches PMR stuff with SPM stuff. Teaching according to the syllabus and marking exam papers with different schematic answer, though challenging but manageable at times.

What I don’t like is the meetings that I have to endure for both PMR and SPM levels. These meetings lasted longer than Spielberg’s movie. And usually I am the first one to arrive to these meetings but the last one to reach home as it took an hour drive from work to home.

If you are a teacher, you are familiar with post-mortem meetings to analyze why these kids got A but these kids failed. If you are an English teacher, you are very familiar with those reproachful stares and tsk tsking of the mouths when the whole meeting room analyze the results for your particular subject. If you are an English teacher, teaching in a rural area where no amount of creative TESL teaching skills that were imbedded in you cannot help you to magically create an A students (PMR and SPM levels) who manage to fail every single English exam that they ever took for their entire life.

Sometimes you wonder, what’s inside their brain? Shit? What made these kids unable to fathom any single word in English despite the fact that they have been learning the nook and crook of English since they were in kindergarten (singing nursery rhymes and learning ABC).

These meetings although should be useful however are very dragging especially if the chairman is not an English person or TESLians. Us TESLians, speak very directly, thus all English Panel meetings are done within 45 minutes, tops, regardless of how many agendas in the call letter (I know since I have been the secretary for the English Panel ever since I got posted; apparently typing the minute of the meeting using my laptop as the meeting is going on is a big deal). TESLians (who are blue-eyed and blondes, NOT) are usually talented in giving the short version of complicated matters, hence making our meetings not only enjoyable but a soul-sharing session (if you are surrounded with awesome English teachers as your colleagues as I do in school).

Not the case with meetings with the general population. Some people enjoy basking in the limelight and tend to talk gibberish and longer than necessary when being asked about the results of their subject. Mr/Mrs/Ms Know-It-All always linger before giving much needed important points of their report of their students’ achievement. I bet they failed at summary writing back in their school days.

There are also those who seemed to put others at the pointy end of blame when their subjects did not reach the target. The kids are brats, the classrooms are not conducive, the fans and lights in the classrooms are not working, yadayadayada...on and on it goes. 

As for me, I usually have my tab handy or my laptop, enjoying the Internet connection at the school since TM is shit and the Streamyx at my home is not working for like weeks. And when I complained to TM Point, this arse thought that I had no business doing here and purposely went there for fun. And there I go getting of topic again.

Sure, I looked like a disrespectful person as I buried myself in other things while other people are yapping away in the meeting, analyzing why the kids don’t just get all A’s. For me, in the words of my colleague who quoted from his brother and sister in law who happens to be a counsellor, if all kids get straight A’s, who would clean the toilets, fix the roads, pick up the garbage and other important jobs that others would not do. These kids, though not academically inclined, can be helpful members of the society if they were given opportunities to do something that they are good at. Not everybody is the apple of their parents’ eyes. Not everybody understands the purpose of them being in school. When I was in school and in the upper form, was in the Science Stream, I didn’t understand the science subjects that I was learning and it was such a frustration. God loves me and He gave me a good SPM result that was both a relieve for both my parents and I. And He loves me when He got me enrolled in TESL programme, learning English, a subject that I considered my saviour during my confusion era back in school. I excelled during my first and second degree because finally I found a purpose in studying and when my friends complained about the burden of reading notes or the tedious chore of reading literary texts, I shrugged it off and was mistaken for a stuck up bitch who tried to get on the lecturers’ good side for handing in my assignments extra early and doing extra reading on English subjects back in uni. And when my friends went out to reward and enjoy themselves after all the hard work studying and completing assignments by going out for lunch or watching movies or shopping, I was tucked away in my hostel room as I was saving up to buy a laptop and later, a scooter (during my first degree). And for that I was branded an anti-social (one of my course mates christened me as an anti-social in his blog) and everybody dispersed like ants being showered with water. During my second degree (part time programme since I hold a full time job) which I have just finished last April (keeping my fingers crossed for graduation in October), some of my course mates went on a holiday after a semester has ended, but my life just went back to normal, woke up at 6 in the morning to go to work and came back at ungodly hours depending on what happened at school. Why? Because for me, studying is a reward in itself. Sure, it is stressful at times, what’s with the depressed situation I was in. I wasn’t exactly Miss Popular and life was hard, I thought about suicides a lot during my first degree, what’s with being alone with no friends that I have driven away because I was too preoccupied with my relationshit with a psychopath (I came to this conclusion after watching a documentary on serial killers, saying that 1 in every 100 people is a psychopath and some of the characteristics of these psychopath is charming, manipulative and lack conscience, thus effortlessly lie their way through life and this sounds a lot like my ex). During my second degree, the same thing happened, there was this one person who hated my guts, probably because I was as straight as an arrow (never cheated in exams) and this person who did the opposite in almost every exam clashed where our morale is concerned. Nobody likes me, for sure. And it they were given a chance, being with me at a close range would be the last thing that they opt for. Maybe it is because I drive people away because I am a disagreeable person most of the times and I said it more than once, that I don’t need anybody in my life but according to psychology 101, those who said they never needed something are usually the ones who really need it.

Wow, how a ranting session about long meetings can turn out to be a reflection on my less than pristine life. Watching documentary on serial killers can really make you think out of the box. Sometimes beyond that imaginary box. No wonder they say serial killers are wired differently.

IF I HAD A DIME...

So I haven’t been blogging in quite some time. Work was just so overwhelming. A word of kind reminder, if your school ever got selected to any kind of state/national level competition, be prepared to endure complete craziness for as long as the waiting moment before the competition is finally over.

In this post, I don’t want to talk about colleagues and how they evade workload but manage to show up at the right time and at the right place, usually when the principal or other bosses are around.

I want to talk about how hard it is to find love these days. A lot of people (mostly nosy bastards) who always have a favourite question as they see me putting more and more candles on my birthday cake, “Bila nak kahwin?”

If getting married was like choosing shoes on Zalora.com, it’ll be as simple as clicking a checklist of your dream man and out popped your search results. But in reality, things are not as always as rosy like the fairy tale we grow so accustomed to believing during our naive and gullible years as children.

If I had a dime for everytime the question popped up, I’ll be a millionaire by now. As lonely and dejected as I am, there are still people questioning shit about me and interested to know every wound and every scar that prevent me from getting married.

And God knows how depressing it is to open Facebook as see notifications after notifications of coursemates and juniors as well as schoolmates who invited me to their wedding. Or what about all those cute baby photos of couples who are blessed to take care another living and breathing human beings. Yes, I admit it cuts deep. Deeper when my mom went to weddings and came back home and showed me ‘bunga telur’ and asked me what colour would be the theme of my wedding. Deepest when my mom keep stopping at shopping malls looking at baby strollers or baby apparels, saying that if I had children, this (baby things or clothings) would look so good on those little souls.

If it were up to me, I wouldn’t mind not being married at all. Who would want to bring a child into this cruel little world? But again, that’s a defeatist talking. A normal human being would gush at the prospect of a wedding. Married to someone whom they are confident to live and die with. When they imagine rosy little feet and cooing crying little babies as their life is completed at last.

Me? I still think I don’t deserve someone or even little someone as I myself, is someone who are not quite right.