Flying Low

My colleague is thinking of quitting the profession. It gives her more grief than joy. I can understand where she is coming from – being dumped with (extra) duties you aren’t particularly interested in is a pain. And sometimes these (extra) non-teaching duties can become so overwhelming, your actual teaching duties end up taking a back-seat. Or all this leaks into your teaching duties and you can no longer find joy in teaching anymore. Let’s not forget the stress involved as well.

Of course, these aren’t actually extra duties. According to our job profile, we are expected to be involved in research, community work, projects to boost the school’s image and organising national examinations among others. You know, no one told me all these when I first started teaching. I don’t think they tell the new teachers now either which would explain why some are so shell-shocked at the amount of work when they finally qualify as a full-fledged teacher. In fact, there are a lot of things NIE never tells you. So if you are a new or soon-to-be new teacher, these are probably some things you should know about teaching in Singapore.

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Nothing is more annoying than to receive spam because people either

(a) are INCAPABLE of reading comprehension of emails.
(b) are INCAPABLE of following simple instructions.

Please, just read your emails. Please.

ETA: Ok this is just ridiculous. STOP SPAMMING ME TO TELL OTHERS TO STOP SPAMMING! This does not make sense. On any level! ARGHHH.

ETA2: I sat down and counted – 95 replies to the initial “spamming-in-error” emails despite being told by the higher-ups NOT TO REPLY. I weep for our future.

Heard this song used on a fanvid of Merlin. I love it. So tempted to buy her album now.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I don’t like you.

I vacillate between being horribly skeptical and a little cynical and indulging in fairy tales. My friend insists that cynicism is the direct opposite of optimism and says I cannot be both. But I think I am.

Show me movies clearly meant to motivate and inspire and I am likely to laugh in all the wrong places and make sarcastic comments to whichever poor soul is sitting next to me. This is why I avoid all the teacher-movies like Coach Carter and Dead Poets’ Society like the plague. I dislike the whole Chicken Soup series and find it difficult to tell my students “inspirational / motivational stories”, especially those involving animals. I tell my students that life isn’t fair and the sooner we realise that, the better off we all are. I think that many people don’t think enough and that people are selfish. I get very angry when people accept things others say without thinking, questioning or even doing basic research. I have little faith. Don’t expect me to believe in things just because. I often ascribe the worst motives to people, especially those I don’t know. I roll my eyes often and make snarky remarks frequently. Not a terribly positive person. And believe me, I mock. I even mock Merlin (a show which satisfies both my need to think the world is full of rainbows and flowers and my need to snark).

And yet, despite this all, I believe that we are innately good, that things can and will get better, that there are things worth fighting for. I think the best is yet to be. I believe in happily-ever-afters and that we can all be happy if we try. I am fascinated by positive psychology and am ever hopeful. Life, to me, is never as bad as it seems. I read about the people helping in Haiti or about those teaching poor children in far-flung corners of the world and I am inspired. I endure the nonsense in my teaching job because I believe I am doing something worthwhile. I want everyone to be happy and get what they want, even fictional characters in shows I watch. Lastly, I’m happy more often than not.

So maybe I am a cynical, skeptical person and maybe I am also unrealistically optimistic and happy about life, but I’m human and I think we’re allowed to be a mess of contradictions.

Apparently the upcoming Man Utd – Arsenal match (which I cannot watch because it is on a Sunday) will be telecast in 3D and the viewers at the special previews will have to wear 3D spectacles.

I wonder what that would be like. Would you feel like you are in the middle of the match? Would you feel the urge to jump out of the way of the ball? Or would it just all be rather lame?

I watched Avatar in 3D and was suitably underwhelmed. My friends claim it is because I watched it in Tampines GV which isn’t as new, modern or sophisticated as the others. Who knows? I doubt I will be catching a 3D movie again.

Speaking of Arsenal, I got the iPhone Arsenal app which seems to give me access to the highlights videos without being a Arsenal TV online subscriber. Brilliant. I think I can live with this – no need to subscribe to Mio TV.

but I pre-ordered the Merlin S2 DVDs.  (cowers and hopes her parents don’t scold her)

Because I feel like it. And because I miss Merlin.

Above image taken from Made of Gold.

Dedicated to Ewok since she’s the only other RL Merlin fan I know.

Made by Kheldara

I’m probably discovering this very late but I need to express my love for PortableApps. I love having some of my favourite programmes available when I’m using the school-issued computer. Previously, I had to beg the TA to install stuff for me and wait until he was free. Now with PortableApps, I can use Songbird, FileZilla (haha, edit my blog at school) and Foxit Reader with little fuss.