A, who is in Manchester right now, sent me a text message a few days back saying, "What happened to your clog?" I looked at it for a bit and tried to comprehend its meaning.
Damn finishing text sometimes mucks around with our minds. I had visions of me clomping around the windmills in Holland in my clogs. A milkmaid of some sorts?
I promptly sent A back a text telling him something to the effect that I have gone off writing because life sucks. What an incredibly childish and petulant statement! Life doesn't suck. Hence the revival of this blog. And it's a BLOG not a CLOG.
A few months back, I was in a funny place fraught with unsettling transitions and harsh words. I am not sure if anything has changed since then but I know that a few things do make me happy. I will be meeting my first form class tomorrow night. They are going to start university this year and a few are going abroad. I think I have finally become the teacher that I have always wanted to be. During the silly M*E interview, you’d be ask the question that decides your entry into N*E – Why do you want to be a teacher? I gave the panel sickeningly politically correct answers back then e.g. I want to teach because I have a passion for English and Literature (PUKE!) or I want to teach because I want to be instrumental in moulding the future of the nation (VOMIT!).
Right now, I think I teach because I just want to be better than any of the teachers who had taught me. I had some lovely teachers but no one that I felt compelled to keep in touch with. I only remember the Lit teachers because that was when I was awake in class. In Sec 4, I threw my lit text at my very large American teacher because she refused to award me a mark that I thought I deserved. In JC, my lit teacher told me I was going to go to hell, called me a variety of interesting names such as asinine and inane (words that I still use today) and told us that we were useless and we were the dregs of society. I saw her at Ngee Ann City a few years back. She was on the escalator going up and I was going down. I gleefully shouted at her, “Mrs S**! I am a teacher! Just like you! Hahahaha!” The look of pure horror on her face was priceless.
When I first started teaching, I used to see all these ex-students coming back to see their former teachers during special occasions such as Teachers’ Day and Chinese New Year. I always wondered if I would be one of those teachers that the kids remember after they have left the school because I never did show any of my teachers much gratitude or appreciation. It was probably because they were crap. Haha! My very first form class will always be special because I muddled my way through the two years, had Ah Lian staring matches with a few of them, argued about grammar with one particular girl and shouted at her when she rolled her eyes at me (Dammit Gwenlyn, I was right!), and hopefully I did not screw up their lives along the way. I guess I must have done something right because we still meet up a couple of times each year and they seem normal and well-adjusted. I am so proud of them – the doctors and lawyers they will become and how they really are the future of the nation.
Damn finishing text sometimes mucks around with our minds. I had visions of me clomping around the windmills in Holland in my clogs. A milkmaid of some sorts?
I promptly sent A back a text telling him something to the effect that I have gone off writing because life sucks. What an incredibly childish and petulant statement! Life doesn't suck. Hence the revival of this blog. And it's a BLOG not a CLOG.
A few months back, I was in a funny place fraught with unsettling transitions and harsh words. I am not sure if anything has changed since then but I know that a few things do make me happy. I will be meeting my first form class tomorrow night. They are going to start university this year and a few are going abroad. I think I have finally become the teacher that I have always wanted to be. During the silly M*E interview, you’d be ask the question that decides your entry into N*E – Why do you want to be a teacher? I gave the panel sickeningly politically correct answers back then e.g. I want to teach because I have a passion for English and Literature (PUKE!) or I want to teach because I want to be instrumental in moulding the future of the nation (VOMIT!).
Right now, I think I teach because I just want to be better than any of the teachers who had taught me. I had some lovely teachers but no one that I felt compelled to keep in touch with. I only remember the Lit teachers because that was when I was awake in class. In Sec 4, I threw my lit text at my very large American teacher because she refused to award me a mark that I thought I deserved. In JC, my lit teacher told me I was going to go to hell, called me a variety of interesting names such as asinine and inane (words that I still use today) and told us that we were useless and we were the dregs of society. I saw her at Ngee Ann City a few years back. She was on the escalator going up and I was going down. I gleefully shouted at her, “Mrs S**! I am a teacher! Just like you! Hahahaha!” The look of pure horror on her face was priceless.
When I first started teaching, I used to see all these ex-students coming back to see their former teachers during special occasions such as Teachers’ Day and Chinese New Year. I always wondered if I would be one of those teachers that the kids remember after they have left the school because I never did show any of my teachers much gratitude or appreciation. It was probably because they were crap. Haha! My very first form class will always be special because I muddled my way through the two years, had Ah Lian staring matches with a few of them, argued about grammar with one particular girl and shouted at her when she rolled her eyes at me (Dammit Gwenlyn, I was right!), and hopefully I did not screw up their lives along the way. I guess I must have done something right because we still meet up a couple of times each year and they seem normal and well-adjusted. I am so proud of them – the doctors and lawyers they will become and how they really are the future of the nation.
3 comments:
you make teaching sound meaningful...
i think i'm still at the terrorizing people and reveling in power stage. maybe i will make a difference some day
sigh
Long live the clog!
ms teo!
hahahaz! u said to tag when i visit ur blog! so here i m! i only pop by once in a while la...n ur 1st form class still luv u no matter wat!
take care!
xuet ying
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