#1

goodbye.

change is the only constant.

show no fear

It's time to make a start
to get to know your heart
time to show your face, time to take your place

In every speck of dust
In every universe,
When you feel most alone, you will not be alone

Just shine a light on me, shine a light
I'll shine a light on you, shine a light
and you will see my shadow on every wall
and you will see my footprint on every floor

It only takes a spark to tear the world apart
these tiny little things that make it all begin

Just shine a light on me, shine a light
I'll shine a light on you, shine a light
and you will see my shadow on every wall
and you'll see my reflection in your free fall

Just shine a light on me, shine a light
I'll shine a light on you, shine a light
'Cause when your back's against the wall
that's when you show no fear at all
and when you're running out of time
that's when your hitch your star to mine

We won't be leaving by the same road that we came by
~My Shadow, Keane~

****

Live. I don't know, I think you're either born simple or you're born... me. I wanna be the person who gets happy over finding the perfect dress, I wanna be simple 'cause no one holds a gun to the head of a simple girl.

~C. Yang~

that 1%

[it's] like on a weighing scale
and you put extra one grain of sand
on one side
and the whole world changes.


it's apocalypse.

~Josh~

adrift

you're lost in your own world.

let's kick

this was my last assignment for the year. 3 days of Ko-K activities, i was one of those who were in charged of taking pictures for sports event. so cool, kan?

finally, the long awaited year end holidays is here.


i won't miss that place. definitely.

and i am glad that i can stay away from the shack for 6 weeks and forget about the lizards, the bugs, the spiders, the moss, the mould, etc.

those were form 1 and form 2 kids. ah, i am lazy to put up more pictures. it's time to rest after the super long and tiring 12-hours journey.

it feels good to be back in this side of the world. ;)

year 1

so let's break free from all these chains of misery

that we have laid down upon ourselves in history and let's break free

~Jack Savoretti, Breaking News~

image taken from here.





year 1: done.

you have no idea

i don't need your sympathy.

stop and start.

4 more days and it will be my last day in school.

honestly, i should be *darn* proud of myself for such bravo display of perseverance and survived one year in this place.

a few days ago, i actually went through all the things i posted up from the beginning of the year. i am amazed at how circumstances in life has such great power to change a person, from the inside out.

and you know what, just in case you still don't realize this - i spent my one year TRYING very hard. i need to do justice to all the effort i have put in, whether is in keeping myself intact, teaching the students, adapting to the system and the new environment, making new friends, traveling here and there, etc.

and i found this!

image taken from here


it's time to move on and stop trying.

i think there's a need to repeat this - there's nothing wrong with giving up.

for a second,

and lay it all out like a weather chart.

pretense

adakah perasaaan benci ini sebenarnya cinta
yang masih bersemadi untukmu
dan sebenarnya ku mengharapkan
di sebalik senyuman mu itu
kau juga merindui aku

apabila kau merenung matanya
ku rebah,
jatuh ke bumi
di saat kau benar-benar mahu pergi,
seperti ku bernafas dalam air
~Yuna~

barbed wires

i think there's nothing wrong with giving up.

what's ahead

i could have walked a little bit farther.

graduation

done.

14 days left

and it will be the end of year 1!

tomorrow i will be doing my second last photoshooting assignment for the school. next week's co-c day will be the last one for the year.

there will be one more hospital visitation with the form 3 students, happening on the coming thursday.

the deepavali's weekend - i will be up in Kundasang, hoping to get some good pictures to feed my jimo-ness.

i have been spending time reading two books (or three, in fact). The Pilgrim's Progress (abridged version) is pretty interesting. The Life of Mahatma Gandhi is inspiring. God is Back - How The Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World is eye-opening, although the book focuses mainly on America and Europe.

school work. almost done. *i think*

perhaps i should look back at the entries from the beginning of the year to see how i have evolved within the first year in this THM place.

Question of the day__________

What is the state of your mind?

the less i give, the more i get back

it's already 11am. 5 more minutes to go.

you refill your marker pens, look through the stacks of papers you are bringing to class, make sure you are also bringing the marking scheme for paper 1, 2, and 3.

ok, it's time.

and you walk to the classroom. they greet you, say their prayers and then sit down.

in the class, there's only 17 out of 21 students. one of them is not even from your class. well, never mind. you carry on with what you have planned. you return the papers to them. in your heart, you are amazed that some of them can be so happy with their THM performance (ok, maybe they are expecting the worst); some of them can be so apathetic; some of them have the ability to show you their darn face as if they are very smart but actually their results is nothing but a laughing stock.

very funny, right?

you have been taught by your own experience - learn to care less, just do whatever you are paid to do, deliver the darn lesson, get out from the class. Do not get so emotionally attached to these people (a selected few, yea, acceptable and that's enough). to them, you are just another teacher who (so happened) is posted to their school and they are going to leave school by the end of next year anyway.

so you go through all the questions in paper 2 and in your heart you wonder how many percent of what you have discussed actually registered in their brains. you have to battle with time and you have to keep waking that particular few sleepy heads up. you have never wanted to scold them because it's a waste of time and secretly, you don't really care that much. it reaches a point where you choose only to focus on those who are following your lesson. why should you neglect the good ones for the sake of those THM ones? and don't know since when, you have turned into a follower of academic elitism.

you are told to simplify the things you teach, make things easier to accommodate the slower ones. but the problem is, any more simplified version than those you teach will make you look like a fool. you couldn't stoop any lower. you are already feeling like a great fool for teaching watered down syllabus. Imagine yourself sitting down like your students watching you teach. You will laugh and wonder what's wrong with this teacher going through the same old things again and again and again. and again. and again and some of them still couldn't get it. Don't you realize some of your students are feeling that way? Don't you realize some of the good ones feel neglected because you have been focusing quite too much on the not so good ones? And yet the not so good ones didn't even budge a centimeter from where they have been.

You realized that. and you wonder if it's your fault for not helping the good ones do better; or is it your fault that those brats never moved a centimeter.

well, you are forgiving towards those good ones who dozed off once in a while because they can afford to do so. and then you have these few students who are constantly on a ride towards their wonderland somewhere out there. once upon a time, you tried to motivate them to study. but sorry to say, after some time, you realize that you don't have enough self-motivation to go around or share with them.

out of 17, only 4 of them are constantly paying attention to what you say and they are alive because they are responding to you. and again, one of them is not even from your class. the rest, they are just floating around. Like zombies.

your conclusion - there's a cantonese saying that goes like this

"烂 泥 扶 唔 上 壁"

Apply this saying into your situation - as Suit puts it,

helping your students improve
and climb up the ladder of success
is like coaxing watered down clay to go up a wall

you put aside the frustration that is raging in your heart. questions after questions. for the love of the subject, you discuss your heart out like how people cry their hearts out or laugh until their lungs burst. Finally the clock strikes 12.25pm. thank You and thank you class. you walk out and get ready for another such cycle.

to some, this is just another normal classroom scene. to some, you are considered lucky because you don't need to shout or yell or cane or waste half the period just to get the students ready for lesson. you are lucky because most of your students can answer more than half the papers with reasonable answers and not simply doodling and scribbling the papers. By the way, what is the definition of lucky?

shouldn't you be contented with life in this place because you are such a lucky girl?


--------------------------------------
friend, i think you should never be contented with this kind of life simply because this is not you. you thought this was you but your THM life in this place shows you that something has gone wrong somewhere. you deserve something better and you deserve the opportunity to embark on a search for the one you once were, to reconcile the old and new you, even if it might take you quite some time; even if it means taking risk and losing the so called iron-rice-bowl.

and let me remind you, the less you give, the more you get back. Most importantly, you get back your sanity.