TODAY is the best day of my life!

Theoretically, this should be true of every day. And while “every day” may not be the case, I definitely have no issues with waking up and declaring this to myself as I head into the shower. I am a powerful and highly motivated individual! Today was quite special, we had an in-house workshop and it was a great success. I can FEEL the improvement in the students, and it’s really touching to know that we are able to bring such changes in them. I love my job. *tear*

I hope it will be an experience that they will treasure. I know that it never gets old for me, and this is my 3rd time doing the workshop. I also got to meet some of my students’ parents when they came to collect their kids. A good opportunity for me to practise my networking skills. I’m still a kid inside, and I’m working on being more natural and less intimidated when talking to “adults”.

I got a ride back in my boss’ convertible later, and I got to sit in the front seat with the top down! Wheee! Ok la weather outside a bit sticky, but hell if it’s going to spoil my enjoyment. One day soon, it’ll be me in the driver’s seat of my red soft-top Mazda MX5. It’s a car I’ve been chasing (not literally, please) since I was 15, so it will really be a dream come true to put the top down on my own car and go zoom-zoom. It’s good marketing for our company for me to be seen exiting expensive cars while wearing our company shirt.

I’m really looking forward to 2 appointments that I have tomorrow, I’m bringing a renewed energy to the table and I think they’ll be resounding successes. I always believe in doing customer service from the heart, and the bottom line will take care of itself. Then on Thursday I have my very first “solo performance” – for 2 hours I have the audience all to myself. Even when doing drama, it wasn’t a monologue, so that will be a really cool experience. Ramping up to my dream of becoming a superstar! That’s one of the career ambitions I wrote down when I was in Form 2. My teacher skeptically wrote it down in my report book, and it’s not like it mattered since we were supposed to list 3 ambitions. But I never let go of my love for the spotlight! One day soon I hope to be recognised while grocery shopping in the supermarket or something like that.

Today was hella good fun, and I’m still high. Can you tell?

I am the problem between keyboard and chair.

Yesterday I ran a WordPress training session for the rest of the staff in the office, and it came to light that one of our corporate blogs (we run more than a handful) was still running on WP 2.1. This meant that the notes I handed out, which were based on the 2.8.6 interface, weren’t totally correct because of the user interface changes between the versions. So I thought I’d do an FTP upgrade of the blog.

I don’t have cPanel access, that’s why I have to FTP it. Still, WP is generally easy to handle. Even via FTP, it should be quick and painless.

Should be. If you’re not the kind of hero idiot I am who doesn’t RTFM. I very cleverly uploaded everything. EVERYTHING. Even the wp_content and config files. So clever.

So when I’m done with the FTP at 9pm last night, I go to the site and get a fatal error. Huh. I meddle with it for another 45 minutes, then have to call it quits and go home.

At home I mess with the config files some more, and finally! No more fatal error! The page loads… for another blog. Somehow or other, my copying of the config files from another WP install caused it to load databases for that blog as well. Huh. Damn. Subsequent Googling suggests that WP 2.9 may not be as stable as I’d like. Okay, good thing I still have 2.8.6. I’ll use that instead. But it’s already 1.20am, and I’m falling asleep in front of the computer. I have to go to sleep.

I have apocalyptic dreams about a giant wave flooding KL and having to move my possessions to a flat higher up in the building. Which is odd, because I’ve never lived in a flat during my years in KL.

I wake up and start up the computer. FTPing away the files takes ages. Then I have to FTP a clean install back on. Maybe it was good that I chose to commit this act of stupidity right before my day off, so I can spend my rest day fixing my own giant mess. Bring up the site again, and it wants a wp-config file. Okay, I got this. Not immediately, but eventually I get in and HALLELUJAH! It’s there! All there, posts, categories and comments. As though I hadn’t done anything.

Except for one thing.

It’s gone back to the default theme. But no matter, I got this. This is easy. Reinstall theme, and there we go. Almost as good as new. The one thing left: To fix something somewhere so that the Chinese text displays. Now this, I have no idea how to fix. But Google does. Back to the config file. And finally, ta-da! Everything’s back to normal on the front end, and on the back end the only difference is the UI. It’s as though all the stress and frustration didn’t happen. It never should have, if I hadn’t been so darn clever. Ugh, never again. Lesson learnt.

Bipedals on two wheels, Day Two

Oooh, tired tired tired. Since today was my day off, I decided to make a little expedition on scooter to Little Guilin, in Bukit Batok Town Park. I’ve passed it by a couple of times, but never actually been there. So today was a good combination of exploring a new place, riding my scooter, as well as scouting out the park connector network.

My expedition buddy and I set off along Cheong Chin Nam Road, then turned into Old Jurong Road and had a lovely time coasting downhill through Bukit Batok Nature Park, where the Japanese WWII memorial is located. After this we set off through the neighbourhood, and a little boy standing behind me at the traffic light admired my scooter aloud to his mother. It’s kinda telling that the only positive comments I receive from the public come from kids.

While we were still moving through the neighbourhood (my buddy following behind on a bike), it started to rain. It didn’t bother us much until it got heavier, following which we took refuge at a bus stop while I checked the route again on my Nokia Maps. I love this app, I do. It’s free and it works, what more could I want?

After confirming our route, we went on, the rain having fortuitously lightened to a light sprinkling. Eventually we got within sight of the park connector that I had been aiming for. Unfortunately, we were on the opposite side of the road, and we only found a crossing when we were actually at Little Guilin itself.

After a journey of about 5km, because we took a bit of a detour through Bukit Batok Street 21, we had reached the former mine/quarry that had filled up with water to form a lake. You decide if it’s really pretty. It’s just something novel for me to look at.

The main view from the entrance

The most arresting former mining face

The quieter end, which I suspect attracts courting couples after dark.

We took the park connector back. For the most part, it was a lot more fun than taking sidewalks, firstly because it’s so wiiiiiiiide and there’s so much space, and secondly because the surface is smooth. Makes for awesome gliding.

The downhill bit on Jalan Jurong Kechil was also fun – I coasted all the way from the bus stop in front of the German School, to the next bus stop. Wheeee!

My legs got a good workout from pushing uphill – I got this thing for exercise, after all, but I don’t think I’m getting much cardio. A runner can go faster than me, after all. But I don’t want to run, I want to gliiiiiiiiiiiiiiide with the wind in my hair.

Dammit I wish I could scoot 10km for the StanChart event instead. Wide open roads, no traffic, no drain grilles, no cracks in the pavement or rough gravelly surfaces – it’s a dream! Sigh.

Oh yeah – today I braved the testosterone-filled atmosphere of the bike shop, and bought a tiny little white LED blinkie light for $17. It’s very small and is more to improve visibility than to actually illuminate my path. The shop ran out of bells, so I went around the corner to a bicycle and motor shop run by some uncles, and picked out a $5 bell. My expedition buddy said I need to ring while I’m still farther away, and not when I’m 2 steps behind them. I am a n00b! I have lots to learn.

Bipedals on two wheels, Day One

So I almost didn’t make my maiden Xootr commute today.

In the morning, I discovered my necklace missing. Since it’s imbued with great sentimental, as well as monetary value, I spent time looking for it and missed my regular bus. As well as the “late” one 15 minutes later. I suppose I could have run for it, but I was carrying a scooter, facing the loss of my jewellery and I just didn’t have the drive.

So I took a cab to work instead. Couldn’t afford to be late, because we were having a meeting and the late fine is 10 bucks. Taxi fare was only $7.80. So much for making a mixed-mode commute to work.

The Xootr drew comments from my boss, who thought it was a bike. The colleague sitting next to me hadn’t even noticed it sitting quietly under my table.

Come going-home time, I decided to forgo the bus entirely and scoot all the way. I walked to Chancery Lane, because the pavement leading from the office to the residential area is ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS, and began my adventure there.

I didn’t go very fast, because of the many dips in the pavement to accommodate house entrances. I went on the road for a little bit, enjoying the freedom, but it wasn’t to last. My whole riding philosophy is safety over speed, so I walked and pushed at intersections in order to avoid getting hit by cars.

I started my journey at about 8.20pm, and arrived home at 10pm. Google Earth tells me that the distance I travelled is around 8.6 kilometres, so I didn’t go much faster than a pedestrian, actually, assuming that pedestrians have a constant speed of 5km/hour. I’m pretty impressed by my distance travelled, actually.

Along the way I did have some ugly moments. Almost tripped over the scooter deck while crossing the road, some dude who went ‘whoa’ in my face near Coronation Plaza when I was doing my best not to wipe out into the grass verge, another weird dude who overtook me running, then I overtook hin, then he overtook me back, still running – whatever, man. Safety, not speed. I think I’ll need a bell or something, though – some people can’t hear my soft little voice saying “excuse me”. Oh, and a Hwa Chong JC boy who couldn’t see me coming and didn’t make way until I was 2 inches in front of him. Stupid kid, just because you’re all out in a group during orientation doesn’t make the sidewalk yours. He probably thought I was like 14 years old or something.

To be fair, I made some mistakes too. I cut a little too close to some pedestrians, and I learned that it’s sometimes not worth it to ride past a bus stop, because space is so limited. And also, rough pavement is worse than cracks, because a crack will bump you but rough pavement will jiggle your arms so badly it feels as though they’re being vibrated out of their sockets.

All in all, not a bad first ride – there were good moments when the pavement was wide, smooth and clear, and I got some good gliding out of one push. But I don’t think I’ll do that route again. It’s not worth the effort, frankly, because of the sheer number of pavement dips and traffic lights, as well as unfriendly pavement conditions. I don’t mind the time spent, because Fridays I get off a bit earlier, I’m not working the next day, and this counts towards my exercise quota.

Tomorrow I’ll see about using the park connectors to get to Little Guilin and take a gander at the place. Meanwhile I’ll have to scout for an alternative route to get home from work, entirely by scooter.

Oh yeah, I found my necklace after all. Phew!

We really take in all types.

Today I had nonstop lessons from 9am till 9pm, with only an hour’s break for lunch. That’s tiring enough, but it’s not the hours that are draining. It’s the students, or specifically one student.

We took in a new student, let’s call him Student E. He first attended our revision planning workshop, and during that session all of us had a good look at one aspect of him – and none of us liked what we saw. He was very defensive, rigid and unwilling to think of others. We weren’t even keen on taking him in, but his father was adamant on getting him help.

So he ended up in my class, and since it was a tiny class to begin with, it’s pretty much one-on-one with him. One-on-one sessions can be very enjoyable if I have a good rapport with the kid, as I do with several of my students (who are also relatively bright, which makes work easier). But not only was the kid new, he rubbed me the wrong way practically instantly. Under those conditions, it’s very difficult to build rapport, and I think the kid knows it too. Today he said something along the lines of “teacher, we don’t connect la”.

Yes, he’s the only one among my students who calls me “teacher”, even though I’m not a teacher. The rest call me by name, which is what we encourage. If he’s not able to tear down that mental wall of authority between himself and me, I will only have very limited influence on him. At the same time, I don’t like him enough to want to approach him, so I’m afraid we are at an impasse.

I’m not some insane woman who randomly chooses to hate kids, but this one is really a tough nut to crack. When he first discovered we have wi-fi in the office (who doesn’t, nowadays) he wanted the password. Of course I refused to give it to him, as he’s not there to play games or surf the Internet, and he immediately whined that this was “not fair”. Not fair? What the hell do you mean not fair? This is our office, our wi-fi, and you think you should somehow be entitled to it? Gosh, what a grossly inflated sense of entitlement!

He also has this attitude that everything connected to him is the best in its class. I couldn’t find the proper psychology term for it, although it sounds like something I’ve encountered before. Basically, if he owns a certain brand of item, that brand is therefore the best for that item. If he plays a certain sport, it’s the best sport to play and everything else is for idiots or something. It’s egotism carried to a somewhat delusional and frightening degree, as I have no idea how in touch with reality he is. Of course, such “self is best” attitudes also mean his opinions smack of xenophobia and racism. Frankly, when he starts spouting such rubbish, I feel like calling him a selfish, ignorant little turd.

And he takes everything so damn personally. He’s on a vendetta against the world, so it seems fair that he thinks the whole world is against him as well. When one of my students didn’t answer his question, student E interpreted it as a snub. I guess he didn’t notice that my student just has that kind of “gangster face” that is easily miscontrued as a sneer by those who aren’t familiar with him. Or maybe my student really did snub him on purpose. Hee. At this point I would just call it a misunderstanding and let it blow over, but student E was still dwelling on it later, and making empty threats that he “would have beaten that guy up!”. Yeah, sure. *rolleyes*

Sometimes his arrogance borders on the childish and/or psychotic. During the last lesson, he was telling me that he’s a world-recognised genius (presumably in his chosen sport) and that he’s been invited to speak to various world leaders. Um, really? Even a 6-year-old could see through that. If it was an attempt to impress me, it was pretty bad as well as condescending – I’m not that stupid, you know.

I really have no idea what’s going on with this kid. I have a feeling he’s headed for mental illness down the line if he keeps telling all this rubbish to himself and others – he already seems to have a very tenuous grasp of reality. Add to that the fact that he has limited social skills, and I think the signs do not portend well. Professionally speaking, I’d like to help and improve every kid who comes my way, but for the sake of my own sanity I also need to know when to hold back, defend my boundaries and protect myself from drowning in the deep end when I don’t know how to swim. He’s a very disturbed person, I think, and I’m not qualified enough to help him.

He’s someone else’s problem for another time, and I admit I’ll be glad to see the back of him.

What’s wrong with kids today?

Not all kids, just two. What’s wrong with two of my kids today?

One (Student C) has been through our motivational workshop and still delights in making doomed pronouncements for himself. “I’ll fail.” “I’ll get everything wrong.” “See, told you I wouldn’t get an A1.” He knows I hate these statements, he knows they go against our mindset of positive thinking, and he knows he can do better than his dire predictions, but still he delights in them. I feel like smacking him one. Or a dozen, whatever it takes to get the message across to him.

Today Students A and C did a practice test, and Student C was “so happy” to get an A2. As my boss was there, I challenged Student C to tell my boss to his face that he was happy with the A2. My boss was unflappable. He just gave his usual speech about “it’s your life, you screw it up”. I’m torn between correcting Student C every time he says this, because I want to change his mindset, and just ignoring it, because I know he’s just doing it for the attention. He does a lot of things for attention, but this is the one that irritates me the most. Also, he’s passive-agressive: While he won’t voice out his objections, he will just stubbornly persist in his erroneous ways until you give in out of exhaustion.

If I were allowed to smack them around, I so totally would. Except that physical punishment probably doesn’t mean anything to these kids. They have other weaknesses, and I shall find these and exploit them! Muahahahaha!

Student B was also present today, but not in my class. When I went into his classroom, he told me in the presence of his teacher and classmates that he had essentially been offered money to shut up and not spill a stupid, trivial secret. His school is really terrible, not academically but in what they do to their children. What kid uses money as his instrument of first resort? Kids who have too much, that’s what. And this breeds a very “money talks” mentality among them. All of them. Every single one of them. I sincerely doubt I could find one kid in that school who has the kind of moral fibre that Student A showed.

So I told Student B straight to his face, again in front of others, that he had no integrity. He happily agreed. *sigh*

Later I was forced to play my last card. I told him that his peer(s) considered him not the greatest role model. I asked him if he would do business with someone with no integrity, and how would he succeed anyway when he himself has none, yet intends to go into business? He has a great entrepreneurial mind, I’ll give him that, but his moral compass is seriously screwed up.

I told him that if he was already such an asshole at 15, what kind of asshole would he be at 25? He seemed to find this amusing, so I don’t know if the message got through. People like him have an awesome tendency for selective hearing and memory.

I shall probably just give up on both of them. As my bosses tell me, you can’t change all your students. If they don’t want to change, I’m not going to waste my time and energy on them when I have lots of other students who need guidance. My only priority is to boost their grades, since that’s what I’m being paid for. If they want the moral fibre freebie, it’s theirs for the taking, otherwise I can’t be bothered anymore.

Youth is not always foolish.

And age is not always wise.

Today I had two students, and the interplay between them showed me the areas that I need to work on if I’m to deliver on my motto of “Better Grades, Better People”. One of them (Student B) makes his school out to be terribly notorious, and the other (Student A) sits and listens to tales of debauchery and extreme materialism.

I rode the bus back with Student A, and he showed me what lessons I could learn from “my kids”.

He reflected on the conversations we had during class today, and stated his opinion that extreme materialism, premarital sex and all the other scandalously juicy topics found in his classmate’s stories are nothing to be glorified. I know that seems obvious, but the way Student B was talking about it, you’d think debauchery was the new black. What was great was that Student A saw through all that, filtered it through his own moral values and came to the conclusion that he did not agree with his friend. One point to him for not giving in to peer pressure.

Throughout the bus ride, he told me why he had come to that conclusion. His upbringing had not involved massive sums of money, electronic toys and other such goods that children nowadays seem to take as their birthright. He said he had turned out fine, which translates to “I like myself the way I am”.

I was very pleased with his maturity and security in being himself. He told me he couldn’t be bothered with comparing cars, watches, phones or bags with his schoolmates, because he bought what he wanted, trends and coolness be damned. He rightly identified this obsession with luxury goods as just so much showing off, because we both very much doubted that teenagers know how to truly appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into a Rolex, even if they owned multiple genuine articles.

He is also very sure of himself, without needing to compare himself with others to see who’s superior. Insults rarely got to him, even if they were regarding his weight, hair or clothes – topics that would probably cause other kids to fight to first blood to defend their “honour”. He did not see the need to live by others’ standards, and I have to say that I admire him for that. Especially when I take into account that such taunts are purely out of malice, because there is certainly nothing wrong with his appearance. Not retaliating against untrue insults is definitely much harder than when the insults are rightly deserved.

Barely halfway through his teens, he already shows signs of becoming a man with whom one would be proud to associate.

So today, my student taught me something: Teenagers aren’t all stupid and shallow. Once in a while, you find a gem like my student, who is superbly level-headed. I won’t say he’s wise beyond his years, because that would imply that people aren’t usually this insightful at his age. Perhaps over the generations, humankind became so soft that you’re allowed to be stupid and selfish at 30 years old. But this is not our birthright, this is a regression. It shouldn’t have to be this way.

There is nothing to stop us – or our children – from attaining mental maturity at an age when some are still undergoing puberty. I will not make excuses for my kids any more. For too long, I have excused what society at large considers inexcusable behaviour, on account of their youth. No more. One student has shown me the path that all of them should be on. I would have been remiss if I did not at least try to set them on the right track.

Playing favourites with my kids

Some days, my job is so insanely fun it seems illegal that I’m being paid for it. Until, of course, the credit card bill comes back and I find out how teenagers can eat you into the poorhouse.

Anyway, the centre was undergoing some minor renovations today. Nothing that would have really disrupted the lesson, but the smell and the dust and the noise were getting to me, so my student and I ran away to a cafe and sat there for 2 hours, revising the chemical reactions of metals. We were joined by a second student, and the two of them proceeded to order drinks on my tab.

These 2 kids are good friends, so I had an interesting dynamic to deal with. All in all, it was more like taking my juniors out for a meal than conducting a lesson. By the time I got back to the centre, I had been gone for about 5 hours. My boss must have been wondering if I’d dragged them to another country or something. See what an awesome place I work in? I go AWOL for 5 hours and it’s okay!

It might seem like I play favourites with “my kids”, and I’ll admit that there are students to whom I feel closer. But I don’t really have my likes and dislikes. I’m only closer to certain kids because I’ve had one-on-one time with them, and had the opportunity to know them as real people, instead of just evaluating the academic part of them. I’m sure all the kids have interesting things to teach me, if I just allow them to let it out. Plus, they’ll tell me things about each other, such as who likes whom and who’s a good artist. Gossip is an integral part of rapport-building.

For some people, a job is just a job – something they do that allows them to make a living. For some people, it’s something more - it gives structure to their day and allows them to feel useful, even if they don’t need the money. But for a fortunate bunch, their job is their life’s work. It gives meaning and purpose to their life. Special needs teachers, religious brothers and sisters, doctors, activists – their work allows them to achieve their dreams.

My dream is to change people’s lives. And I’m slowly seeing that come true. This is why I work more than 40 hours a week – not because I have to, but because I want to. Today was supposed to be my day off, and I end up working until 9.30pm. Why?

Because this isn’t just a job. This is my work. This is my contribution to the world. Not better grades, but better people.

This will be my legacy.

My First Paycheque

I made a paycheque! Okay, so it’s not technically my first, since I’ve received cheques from my previous job, 4 years ago. But this is my first REAL paycheque from a REAL job. Ahem. So of course I took a picture of it to commemorate the occasion.

I’ve modified the picture to eliminate personal information – in other words, it’s an intentionally bad picture.

To celebrate my newfound wealth, I decided to share it with a lucky proprietor of some shop selling earphones. My Nokia N78 is a brilliant music phone that comes with very unfortunate stock earphones. I have no idea why they’re so bad. Even the headset on my old Nokia 6230 fit and sounded better than these earphones. So I went on a search for Sennheiser in-ear phones, because I primarily listen to my music while travelling, and it has to block out the bus noise (as well as the annoying TV Mobile dialogue).

I ended up paying $159 for a pair of Denon earphones instead of the Sennheisers, because a) the dude in the shop told me they were better and b) Denon’s a pretty low-profile brand so fewer people will have the same earphones. And I like being special. Later I found out I got pretty much ripped off, as the same earphones retail in the USA for 50 USD. But I was going to fork out more than a hundred for my earphones anyway, so I’ve not much to complain about.

They fit great and the sound is bliss, compared to the stock earphones. The sound isolation works very well, I’m stuck in my own little world once the music starts. And they also double up as impromptu earplugs when the aircon at work starts getting too noisy.

Unboxing pictures after the jump, to save bandwidth.

Continue reading →

Dear Students

Dear students,

This is the story of how I came to work at this place, teaching you. It’s a long and winding story, but persevere and you’ll see the point.

Guess what I wanted to be, when I was 12. A doctor. How very pedestrian, that’s what all kids say growing up. But I stuck to it for a while. Until 16, actually. Then biotech became the next big thing and I wanted to be a genetic engineer.

(Un)Fortunately for me, biology in JC at A-Level sucked all the aspiring geneticist out of me. That was when I realised something about myself. Being a doctor had been about helping people (gag, cliché), and it was also fueled by a fascination with the human body. Now that the human body wasn’t holding my interest, I turned to the human mind. When human bodies go wrong, they see a doctor. Where do human minds go when they need help?

The answer was psychology. What I had realised, was my inherent desire to help people. The method didn’t matter, as long as I could solve their problems or alleviate their pain. The study of the human mind – essentially psychology – was my other road towards fulfilling this desire.

And that is how I, a triple-science student, switched to Arts and Social Sciences in university.

Close to graduation, when the job-hunting begins, you always start to consider what other options you might have. If I weren’t teaching you right now, I’d probably be unemployed, an insurance agent, or maybe even working with Knight Frank, the property management company. So how did I come to work here?

Truth is, I didn’t really consider teaching. It’s a common saying among Arts students that if you can’t find a job, you can always teach. But I don’t have a passion for teaching, not the way MOE wants us to teach. I can’t stand children, and facing 30 or 40 of them just seems like a nightmare. But I came for a job interview here anyway.

They convinced me that this company is really different, not just from the MOE style, but even from other tuition centres. How many tuition centres will send you for a motivational course that’s in line with their in-house philosophy? And of course tuition is a more relaxed way of teaching than working in a school. Tuition centres are naturally more easygoing than classrooms. You can wear whatever you want, and we’ll let you eat in class. But what we do here is something more than even tuition.

Your ordinary tuition centre doesn’t really care about giving you life skills, career guidance, or being your friend. They just want you to get great results to put in their advertisements. That’s not how I roll. If I worked in a place like that, I’d just feel it was a job. But what I do here, in a very roundabout way, is what I set out to do when I applied for a place in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. I’m not just a teacher, I’m also a counsellor. I help you with your grades, but I also want to set you on the right path for life. I want to help you to be a better person – to be the person you want to be.

Because that’s what this job is letting me do – it lets me be the person I want to be, by helping others.

That’s why I work here, and that’s why I’m talking to you today.

Bohemia Bunny

The Funnerology Principle

Category Archives: School Life