LOVE REVISITED

Everybody needs love. As cliché as it may sound, you and me and every living things on this earth needs someone to tell them that they are needed and loved and cherished for who they are.

Some people search for their true love until the day they die. Some people thought they have found their true love and become satiated with what they have although eventually, they are rendered unhappy. Some people, like me, could not be bothered about love as when love comes, two things might happen; either you got to keep it or you have to let it go and pray that it comes back again to stay next time.

As you get older, people are bound to ask questions, albeit personal ones, about aspects of your life that concerns love. When you’re still in school, they will ask you, “Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?” and the same question is asked until you get married. As for me, turning 27 this year, the same questions plus another new question that people keep asking me after I graduated, “When are you getting married?”, both questions burn a hole in my heart and also in my mind as every single family gathering or even bumping into my/my parents’ acquaintances, both questions will be asked in different sentence structures that boils down to the same semantics, “You are getting older and you’re a woman, you need someone to look after you.”

The problem is, I don’t need someone to look after me. I learnt to be independent ever since I got into college. Learning to handle my finance and planning my activities and differentiating between right and wrong. I learnt how to drive so I don’t have to be chauffeured around. I learnt how to make a loan and bought my own car and another car for my brother. I learnt not to depend on others because one day, you’ll be alone eventually and if you didn’t start early, you’re going to have a bad time adjusting to one sad and cruel truth, all of us would die alone and it’ll be us and angels of death inside our grave (this applies to my religion and I don’t know how other theological beliefs view death).

 When I think about the times, I could settle down and own a house in the suburbs with a handsome husband and lovely kids, I said to myself, “Nah, that would never happen either in this lifetime or the next”, because when you decided to make a leap from singledom into marriagehood (I coined these terms out of thin air, maybe Oxford would like to put these words in their latest dictionary), your life and every single aspects of it, whether you like it or realize it or not, will change. For the better or worse? Depends on how you look at it.

Doing household chores’ the cleaning, the cooking, the washing, the folding clothes, the feeding: all of these things are tiring and when done daily, could bring about health problems like high blood pressures. No wonder housewives are always stressed out and resort to other forms of escapism like ‘membuat ketupat’ (if you’re Malaysian, you know what this term means). Don’t be mad at me, this is just an overt generalization that I make and not all housewives are like this.

The thing is, I felt like a housewife already although I have a professional job as a teacher. My foster grandma cannot walk and refuse to try and my mom is sick at the moment and she cannot move that much (doctor’s order). So when I came back every afternoon, around 3.30 p.m. (the earliest if I punched out exactly at 2.15 p.m.), I have to do everything a housewife does. My father is currently building a rock fence around the house so I’m the one in charge of domestic matters. And although it’s a half-day gig, by the end of the day, I felt like a giant pygmy elephant (that’s oxymoron for you) took a big dump on my head and I can’t move when I go to sleep every night. So if you people ask me whether I want to get married and become a housewife, I’ll put my hands up in the air and surrender to the invitation.

Plus, when people next to me talk about their marital woes and from what I read and observe in my daily life, having a scumbag as a spouse does not help either. In addition to sluts and male whores who love to wreck marriages, I felt like nothing is permanent in this life. Like the ‘akad’ (sort of like marital vows) that you pronounce during ‘ijab kabul’ (solemnization) means nothing and marriage is just another concept that has been institutionalized and become something as common as eating a cup of ice cream.

I knew there are decent males out there that look at marriage seriously and they don’t have the challenge to stay monogamous for as long as they are married with the same person they fall in love with. But boy, a good man is hard to find and even harder to keep. So, the solution to not get your heart broken and in shambles, just don’t fall in love and don’t put any expectations on how your romantic journey would be. Sure, it sounds pessimistic but in this world where illusions hold more concretely than reality, an idealist would not survive. What more in the matters of the hearts.

So what if one day a pessimistic, non-romantic, self-loathing realist like me abandons her principle and runs away to join the joy of marriage and bearing children? That’ll be the day I swallow my own words. But until that happens, let’s just say, I’m trying to be happy and show a smile on my face just to look normal and acceptable in the immediate community that I am in. A community that loves a fairy-tale ending to every Nor, Bah and Ira; a damsel in distress saved by her knight in shining armour.

LAMENTABLE THURSDAY

So in my last post, I lamented about how tired I am and how during hard times, we can truly see through certain people that we thought were really ‘nice’ to us. Also, during these times, we can really ascertain for what reason each and every one of us wake up and go to work every morning. Is it because the work entrusted to us is deemed as our responsibility so we must carry it out selflessly or is it to gain fame and announce to the whole world that we are the model employee and should be given award for our perfect performance.

Now, if you’re in the teaching business like I am, you know that the work of the teacher drains the life out of you. Whether you like or not, if you want to live off guilt-free out of the monthly salary, you’ll do tonnes of tasks that are above and beyond your original work description. You work 24/7 including on the weekends too. There are bound to be all sorts of whatchamacallit activities that the school wants you to be in charge of. So, your brain will be processing all of these activities right from the moment you wake up until the very last moment before you’re sleeping.

If you think you’re in the wrong profession, because you can’t take all these bureaucratic bullshits, then you better change profession before you turn 40 and wake up with sudden realization that your life (if you have any at that point) sucks. You have no time for social gatherings or personal holidays because for every goddamn holiday, there is bound to be extra classes or exam-answering technique that you have to be in charge of. And for the year-end holiday, if you want to make more out of your miserable monthly salary, you’ll bound to be selected (voluntarily or through coercion or other people dumping that responsibility to you) to invigilate exams. If you’re a PMR or SPM exam marker, the moolah is quite lucrative albeit your eyeballs and souls being tortured by some ridiculous essays written by form 3 and 5 students who supposedly spend 15 and 17 years respectively in school learning English for 90 minutes, 5 times a week. So basically as you can see, teachers don’t have a lot of holiday like some of you imagine. I really hate it when people ask me, “What is your profession?” and I answered “A teacher”, then they will retort with “Well, easy for you since you have so many holiday”, and I immediately ran through countless scenarios in my head where I could kill the person mercilessly.

I’d never imagine that being a teacher could be this hard. I mean, I love the teaching and the bond between teacher and students (selected ones who do not get on your nerves) but all those other works that are definitely NOT within your professional capacity just suck the life out of me. And the way society looks at teacher and the misconception that they have, i.e the long holiday, the short working hours, the increase in salary, these are the things that make teachers lose their spirit in working and stay working as teachers. No wonder there are many teaching professionals who switch ship and prefer to be a lecturer instead. And the way society segregates teachers and lecturers and give a high respect towards lecturers but not so much on teachers because they think the former is better and of more prominence than the latter. The truth is, dealing with these kids, from my personal experience, those hours of googling to look for interesting shit to be presented to students and sacrificing your beat-up printer to print out coloured hand outs so that the students would be interested to learn, and when I took those handouts to class, the kids just disregarded my effort and didn’t even bother to attempt the exercises in the handout and throw it away or rip it to their hearts’ content, I just got this feeling of futility and shit wouldn’t work out for the better no matter how hard you try. Or what about the time when you called the parents of this particular student who was absent to school for such a long time and when the parents came to school to meet the principal, they could blame you for their son’s or daughter’s half-assed attitude towards academic matters? What is the teacher suppose to do? Drag their son or daughter from their own home to come to school? Seriously, sometimes I don’t get this ultra-protective attitude of parents that would eventually spoils and ruin their children’s lives.

Not to mention all the split personalities of your colleagues that could baffles the director of an asylum. Some people only work when the administrator told them to. Some people only work when there are people watching. Some people only work when there are benefits for them. Some people only talk about the ‘work’ that they do. Really, no wonder teachers are one of the most occupants of mental facilities and I’m shitting you not.

So do I regret this choice of career? Do I wish that I took that offer to study medicine at Universitas Gajah Mada or became a software engineer instead? Sometimes, when I am swamped with work or I felt like I’ve been treated rather unfairly, yes, I do think of quitting but then I am reminded of my 180k worth of government scholarship that I have to pay if I didn’t give my service for at least 5 years and this girl on fire just melted away to nothing. The truth is, all those wisdom words about loving your job or doing whatever you dream of are called wisdom words because it is easy to say but not an equally easy feat to do. Sometimes, you’re stuck in the job you don’t like and although it is easy to say “Fuck this shit, I’m quitting!” but when you think of what could’ve happen if you don’t have a job, you just swallow the bile in your mouth and grit your teeth and breathe slowly through it all. Because not all of us have the luxury of being in the job that we truly love and for those few who honestly love their job, can I just say I hate you?

Hypocrisy

So today after such a long time, I opened my Facebook account and saw a status update from one of my friends. How administrators are hellishly angry at teachers for leaving school early or not coming into their classes because of prior commitments that couldn't be avoided.

However when politicians came to that particular district, teachers are the ones who'll be forced to go and attend these meet ups with the politicians. Nothing wrong with that. But teachers have been told to practice MMI-Melindungi Masa Instruktional which simply means get into your goddamn class according to your predetermined schedule. But sometimes, teachers are told to quit class in the morning and abandons their classes to go to these meet ups. What a moral dilemma- we are told to follow two things that coincides with one another. Which one should we follow? What matters most? The students or these meet ups? That's what teachers this age have to go through, the core business of teaching seems to go out of the window when something larger than life such as politics comes into the picture.

For me, if you forced someone to do something that they didn't like, they are bound to be rebellious and go against you. If people really agree with you and your ways of dealing with things, they'll go without being asked or forced to. That way, you'll know where you stand and whether you're doing a good job or otherwise. Instead of demanding people or giving the illusion that we are given free choice to things we have freedom to do, they are afraid of their own shadow and have to resort to coercion.

As for me, I was given government scholarship, went into public tertiary education institution and now offering my service and knowledge as a government servant so you know where I stand. My father is a government pensioner and my brother also went into matriculation college and now studying at a public university.
And when my foster grandma was diagnosed with cancer, her surgery, ward stay and follow up chemotherapy was sponsored by the government. And when my mother had eye laser surgery, that too was sponsored by the government. And now both of my parents have monthly check up also at government hospital. So if someone asked me which political party I'm rooting for, you can guess and I don't have to say because my vote is a secret. And when my colleagues or my fellow educators say "I'm supporting the opposition because the present the gov is corrupt or I'm graduated and didn't get posted and it's the fault of the present gov", I have only one thing to say "How can you be so sure that if the opposition became the government things will change for the better?". Egypt was happy for a while when the opposition ruled but now chaos is rampant and take a look at Iraq or Afghanistan, they conspired with America to bring revolution to their nation by killing Saddam Hussein and what about Libya and Muamar Gaddafi, what happened now that these 'cold-blooded dictators' had fallen, did the citizens get what they wanted? Do their lives et better and their kids could go to school without getting shot? And the most resounding question is do you want Malaysia to follow in the foot steps of these countries? Yes, change is good but not all changes are necessary. But of course, I'm just a first time voter and could only talk using my qwerty pad and keyboard, what do I know?

I'M BACK!

So my school has been battling in a national level competition for quite some time now. To sum it up, I’ve been working 7 days a week, almost 12 hours a day. The competition is for Pusat Sumber Sekolah Cemerlang and I, as the the Guru NILAM has a huge responsibility as NILAM and all things related to it contributes 20 marks to the overall evaluation.

Nonetheless, when you work in a team, you do more than your designated tasks according to your Fail Kuasa. Luckily for me, my colleagues at the library where I spend most of my time at school are all very dedicated and we help each other, without having a second thought, “Well, this is not my job so why should I help?”

However, during time of intense pressure and abundant works to do, that’s when you know who can help you or who only pretend to help you. Who is helping because they want to or who is helping because they are forced to do so (by the big boss, Pengetua, since everybody listens to her instead of a junior teacher like me). Who gives their all with no intention of reaping the reward afterwards or who is calculative and only do things if it brings benefits or recognition to them.

One thing I can truly say, if you did things so that people would praise you or reward you, you’ll never be fully satisfied with yourself because you do things just to get other things to happen and when those things that you expected did not happen, you feel downtrodden and you feel there’s no use doing all these things because you don’t get the recognition you think you deserve.

Whereas, if you did things because you want to, because you feel that team work is key and by working together heavy burdens will be lighten, then, you’d be at peace with yourself and with people around you. Hey, just do it! If you keep waiting for people to see you doing your job, then you’re in for a lifetime of unhappiness and feeling forced to do shit that does not give any good to you. Well, newsflash, this is the working world, where half the shit you’re doing means absolute gibberish to you and half other gibberish you’re doing means shit to you.

So, that’s the horrible truth about the working world, where you have to keep eyes behind your back and avoid being too comfortable with where you are now. There are people who love to see you screw up and just waiting to laugh and point their crude fingers at you whenever something goes terribly wrong.  Sure, there are people who really care but you have to open your eyes wide and really digs deeper inside your heart to know these people that you can trust albeit not 100%, so that hours you spend at work won’t be a living agony.

As for those who aspire to be in any competition at the national level, make sure you have a strong body and mind because these things suck the very last essence of life out of you. Be willing to make sacrifices like going to school at dawn and returning home at dusk from Sunday to Saturday. Better yet, bring a tent and sleep at school.

P/S: This is like my first post for like a month now, my daily routine revolves around wake up, go to school, stay at school, come back, eat, shit, bathe, sleep and repeat.

SOS

Empathy. A concept that is easy to say but not all of us share the same belief. Even the holiest of us don’t really want to help others if it jeopardized the very well-protected circle that we live in. Why would we go to all the troubles to help others if nobody wanted to help us in return? Why would we want to go out of our way to help fellow human beings with no guarantee that others would do the same to us?

Yeah, bitchy ain’t it? When you can’t say NO to people but people keep saying NO to you. When people look for you when they’re in trouble but when the table turns, you are left alone without nowhere to hold on to and nobody to confide in.

A classic example would be in school. When there are events to be carried out and you are one of the so-called big boss and have to delegate the tasks to others.  But when you ask them for help, they come up with excuses after excuses. Sure you’re not friends with them, but they are your colleagues and shouldn’t colleagues help each other when they are in need? But noooo, they will work as hard as they can to ease themselves of all the responsibilities for an event that only took place within a day but have endless consequences in the long run if you keep seeing the same colleague at work.

So, to avoid awkward situations like these, sometimes you just say YES to everything, although it meant jeopardizing your health and not being able to come to school the next day. However, one can only keep quiet and take all the bullshit for so long. Sooner or later, one must break free from the chain of inequality and fight for one’s right.

Sometimes, the delegation of tasks is based on gender. Taking the example from my experience and that of my friends, most form teachers are ladies. What happen to the men? Aren’t they capable to manage a class and perform duties of a form teacher? Like marking students’ attendance and closing the register every month? Why do the ladies have to do it?

Such is the sexist atmosphere at work. If you think the world is totally free from gender discrimination, think again. For you might be very disappointed and shocked when you are faced with so-called reality. Or if by saying NO, you’ll make a couple of enemies in the process then so be it.

Attention-Seeker

Do you have that one kid who loves to hang around you and be extra 'manja' and over 'gedik'? Or loves to hug you or get close to you without any regard whatsoever on the concept of personal space? Or SMS and call you excessively even when you told them when you gave your number to them, to only contact you under dire and emergency situations?

When I first got posted and became the form teacher to this form 2 class, I had this kid whom I've ever given her the chance would love to be my 'adik angkat'. Mind you I'm only 10 years older than them so if they call me mama or mak or refer to themselves as my children, I'd flipped because I'm still young and haven't any children on my own. Some teachers who love to get close to students usually insist on students calling them with maternal titles like the ones mentioned above.

So this kid likes to SMS me and asks all sorts of trivial questions. Once it was raining and this kid SMSed me and asked me to fetch her from her house to the school? What the fuck?! I'm not your chauffeur and I bought the car on my own not with yor money. There was also this one time that the librarians were having their annual lunch so she asked me to send her to this restaurant in KB (my school is in Bachok, about an hour drive to on) when she could've gone with the other students on the bus provided by the school.

When I was not around, or during exams when this kid's classmates were noisy or copy each other, she wrote down all the names and gave it to me, probably to get my recognition for being ultra-efficient. Yeah, way to go to earn friends in class.

I thought I got rid of her when I was not teaching her when she got to form three. Boy, was I wrong. She requested to be my friend on Facebook. My principle is to only accept request from form five students or students from my previous school. When I ignored her friend request, she turned sour towards me. Everytime she saw me, there was no greeting.

Until she got into form four and I had to teach her again. Now, she's over-friendly and always be extra-nice when it's my period. Luckily, my phone number has changed so she couldn't SMS and call me. Sometimes, this feels like some crazy psycho ex boyfriend tracking you and sending stupid SMSes about how they regret their actions and how their married life is not a bed of roses and how they want you back. Seriously, this type of people need to find a hobby. Rather than focusing their energy on chasing people's affection.

# 9 BY MYSELF

Friends

Some are special
Some are worthless

Some stay with you till the end
Some leave you when you are breaking apart
Some even stab you in the back

Some encounter you to meet success
Some bring you down from the top

Some steal your guy

Some become your nightmare
Some become your sweetest dream

Some you trust
Some you ignore
Some you admire
Some you cursed


Why do you need them for?
 If they are so complicated
Don't need friends anymore
Just need myself.

P/S: I've always had this fear (in fact I still do) that nobody likes me. And my suspicion might be true considering how much of a bitch I am. When it is time for group work, I always have this uneasy feeling at the pit of my stomach and there is like a giant bile, struggling to escape my throat. And usually other people would already have a fixed group of friends that they always look for in any assignments for every course. And I'm usually the last person to be picked for the group.

Do you know how it feels like? Like you are garbage by the roadside, nobody wants you, let alone be the one responsible to pick you up and put you where you belong? Sure, people say that I have a tough exterior and my face is void from any emotions but they don't know what is going on inside my heart. Everyday, I pray that people would like me, that nobody would hate seeing my face. After a while, I just stop trying. I realize God must be tired of listening to a whiny and insecure person like me.

The only time I'm good for is when there is nobody left to work with. For example, at the school canteen when all the tables are empty and I am the only one sitting at one of the tables so the person has no choice but to take a seat next to me, probably for fear of being called a loner or anti-social. Or when that person falls out from the group that he/she usually works with, I'm the number one choice for a rebound partner (if there is such a concept for friendship).

That's why one day I just woke up and said "Fuck it". I'm not going to allow other people dictate how I am supposed to live my life. I am not going to let others' inability to look at my face honestly to deter my will to live. That is how I got this ultra-thick face to sit alone at a crowded restaurant to eat. Or to shop alone for things that I need. Or to go to sleep without crying myself and believing in false hope that everything will turn out for the better eventually. Because I know it never will.