Wednesday, September 29, 2010

another day at work

education and empowerment training can show girls
that femininity does not entail docility,
and can nurture assertiveness so that
girls and women can
stand up for themselves
.
Half The Sky - How to Change the World,
Nicholas D. K. & Sheryl W.

what happens when a teacher talks about gender inequality to an audience of 16-year-old students?

it's the best day ever!
50 more to go.

Monday, September 27, 2010

my weekend in KK

I was there for an inter-school program, involving 5 residential schools in sabah, sarawak and labuan.
Mt K at the background. with the form 5 girls.

The peak. All covered by clouds.

i know i have to take picture of this because it reminds me of Bruno Mars. and therefore reminds me of songs like ...
"and you're amazing, just the way you are......"

My housemate was in KK the same weekend for something else. She got me out from that THM school in the second evening. Oh by the way, THM officially stands for Terrible, Horrible, Miserable.
KK. Waterfront.

On the way to Tanjung Aru. Special effect because the car was moving.

Sunset at Tanjung Aru. It was really nice to stand at the shore, watching the sun went down, trying to keep calm and be at peace amidst the whirlwind of thoughts.

oh, the teachers slept in the sickbay. of all places. another THM room with cockroaches and THM bathroom.

The program ended on Sunday noon. And off we went to Centre Point.

Sat in Starbucks with my book. and decided i can't be sitting here for 6 hours and therefore i went to watch the Wall Street movie.

The jalan-jalan continued at One Borneo after sending the students from Miri to the airport.

And these are the books i bought.

and something you must know.. so it took us 9 hours to travel from LD to KK. i have never been on such a long journey BY BUS, going up and down hill. but it was kind of fun, though. :P

can i just forget about work?

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

the log

epop

every time i look at this picture, the EPOP is always registered
in my left brain as PEOPLE.

when i complain to my friends about my life and my job, the students, the colleagues, the injustice, the unfairness... etc, i always say the same thing ~

i don't care, i couldn't be bother,...

i did care. and i still secretly care. because that is who i am.

i guess it's some kind of protection, like a hermit crab having its own shell to retreat into. i got my hopes all so high up there and it only took some miserable months, if not weeks, to have it all shattered. i cared too much. i am driven by performance, fueled by a certain amount of self-motivation. but now i am gravely disappointed. forgive me that i lived in the other side of my world for the past 24 years. i know the difference between these two sides of my world is big but i didn't know that it is so great. forgive me for being so shallow in my thinking. then i was enlightened that each of us has our niche. teachers have their own niche. some are suited to teach spoilt brats; some, cute and at the same time annoying kindergarten kids; some primary school kids; some, lower secondary; some, upper secondary; some, college kids. i think by now, you should understand what i am trying to say. i spent this year discovering that where i am at this point of my life as a teacher is not my niche. in short, i see myself as a misfit.

i am a misfit in this side of the world.

i am NOT saying it in a proud way with my flat nose touching the sky. don't judge me. in fact, this state as a misfit throws me into deep seas and i am struggling to find a log, anything, to keep me afloat. this log is like the happenings in school that somehow helped to make me feel better - things like, taking pictures for school events; talking with students about life experiences, memorable quotes (asking them to share their favourite lines from a long quote), latest hit songs (english songs of course), autopsy, and sometimes religion, instead of things in the maths, science and bio textbook; the country, the politics, the society. the log is good. but i need a ship/rescue helicopter to lift me up and out from the sea.

so, while holding on to the log waiting for my ship, i formulated a way of protection from disappointments and hurts - i learn to care less, or pretend to care less, or repress my urge to care, whatever way you want to describe it as. i work because you pay me. i carry out my duties and responsibilities because you pay me. my log, how i am desperately holding on to my dear log and constantly i try to create opportunities to do what the log represents.

that's how i survived and am still surviving. sad to say, i have never been (and can never be) fully committed to the school because it sucks and the system sucks. the whole organisation sucks. to my students, it's a partial yes and no. now you can call upon the lightnings and zap me to my core!

to many others, teaching is like a bed of roses - you work half day, get paid more than 2k (with allowance), oh-so-many-holidays, go-there-just-teach-only-whatttt.... occasionally, you mark some exam papers, mark some homework, attend some meetings.. oh so easy-bissy...

i think they have forgotten that roses have thorns.

and you get thorns in the flesh.

there are good moments, needless to say. but i can't ignore those thorns.

i don't hate teaching although i hate my job. it's just that it's not my niche. i want to get out from this bed of roses and find my niche. somewhere i can really function properly. yeah, i think properly is the word.

i am grateful when there are people who truly understand what it means and how it feels.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

for you,

the beautiful souls in my life

the white.

the orange and the pink.


you're amazing just the way you are.
;)

no more borneo paradise for 2010.
now i know how 'geli' it is to walk in
the mangrove swamp during high tide,
stepping on lots and lots of pneumatophores.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

let's cross over


it's been a great holiday, filled with conversations with family and friends.

indeed, we never know what we are capable of. there's so much potential in us, yet some of us are so bounded by our fears. fears of all kinds. worries of all genres.

it's like there's a wide gap separating the who-we-are-now from the who-we-are-supposed-to-be.

attraversiamo
Let's cross over!
you and me!
together!

Friday, September 17, 2010

LD says

"welcome back to this lake of burning fire"

**
8++ more weeks.
60 ++ more days.

**
to-do list
  1. set maths final exam papers. let them die die die!
  2. finish off the maths syllabus. one more chapter on Statistics.
  3. rush my bio like mad! seriously. have to give night classes to cover the syllabus.
  4. borneo paradise trip on next monday and tuesday. here comes the pirates! yeah!
  5. next weekend - i will be in KK for some 'Perfect Score' program. the thought of 7-8 hours of bus ride from my place to KK makes me want to pengsan.
  6. mark the bio PEKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh my gawwwwd....
  7. update the stupid 001 cards that are left blank by ALL the previous form teachers. darn it. what's wrong with them?!
  8. go around to take more pictures to keep my sanity.
  9. go trippin' with colleagues to mataking?
  10. go lepak somewhere before i go back for holiday on nov 18th?
the best thing has to be this~!!!!!!!!

prepare to come home for year end holiday.
the countdown has begun.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

yes, guilt

guilt

i remembered putting up this picture here some weeks ago.

guilt. sometimes you feel it, sometimes you don't. you see a shadow of it and wondering where the solid is. sometimes it's like a lion waiting to pounce on you and tear you into pieces, then get a tailor to sew you up so that the tailor can return the mended you to the lion for it to tear you into pieces again and so that the tailor can do the sewing job and so that the lion has something to do. it's a cycle. i hate how i have allowed guilt to eat me up and surprisingly, i am still allowing it to do so. because at times, it makes you feel alive. a heart that hurts is a heart that works.

it's funny how i have grown to repulse, if not hate the term 'calling'. oh, no offense. a lot of people spoke to me out of good will about 'calling'. i even talked to my self about that, reassuring my self that, yeah, that's your calling. thank you, i appreciated that. i was once kind of certain that this was what He called me to do since everything kind of fell into the right place in that four years. oh probably i have some serious misconception on how He does things. but anyway, my calling.. Oh baybeh please.. please stop speaking that way.. please stop before i jump down from some tall buildings due to guilt and shame that comes because i refused to do what He 'called' me to do.

i don't want to stay in that place because of guilt. but leaving that place does make me feel like there are infinite amount of flaming arrows aiming at me from north south east and west, not to mention directions like northeast, northwest, etc. And they are waiting to be released and come raining on me. And burn me to death. I am that morbid, and sadistic, at times.

Or maybe it's me who allowed myself to be in that helpless hopeless situation.

25 and i am still feeling my way around. It's as if i have lost everything, and have to start all over again.

Guilt is a good weapon to paralyse someone. And you just stay in the rut.

how can i not feel the guilt when people around me is telling me that teaching is a noble profession and we need good christian teachers to be in the scene, touching heavens changing earth, making our lives count, dying to self, like the kennel that falls into the ground?

There's not a day i don't feel the immense hatred towards my job and the other side of my world. And it's amplified many folds every time i come back for school holidays. and i don't care if the whole world knows about this. i thought i could grow to love this job and it did blossomed a bit but reality kills it the way curiosity kills the cat.

a friend always tells me she remembered how i used to be when i was in form 6. joyful. committed. eager to know The Word, all the good-christian-ish descriptions you can imagine. That jia is not even the jia some of you know today. She fades in and out ever since she is denied the opportunity to do what she wanted. It has a serious implications on her twin's life since then. And that friend of mine has been reminding me again, and again, and again to search for that jia.

"search high and low for her," she said.

i tried.
we tried.
but we kept losing each other.

it's like a love story. a sad one, where guilt plays you around like the cards in his hands. Or like lovers drawn together because of guilt, and then separated because they die in each other's arms bit by bit as day goes by. it's like The Tale of You, The Lion and The Tailor i told you earlier.

*****

i don't know where i get all these words. i myself was surprised as i proof read it again and again. but all i know is - my heart is suffering from immense pain and hatred, and all i can do is putting them into words and let some of you know about this truth

you have not been to where me and my friends are.
don't pretend you know it all.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

supermagicsmiles

your super magic smile

there was a lot of super-magic-smiles flashed around
throughout the Good Ipoh Food Trip.

***

When I see your face
There's not a thing that I would change
Cause you're amazing
Just the way you are
And when you smile,
The whole world stops and stares for a while
Cause girl you're amazing
Just the way you are
-Bruno Mars-

Saturday, September 11, 2010

GIFT

sneak preview to tonnes of pictures..


when you smile

;)

the AWESOME Good Ipoh Food Trip