It's now pretty much the end of school for this year ( at least for the students), as even though this upcoming week is only week seven of the last ten week term of the school year, due to the O Level exams everything else in secondary schools is more or less shut down. This has only been the case for the past, what, five years or so, due to those exams having been moved forward to accommodate an earlier release of results. I still remember the (good?) old days when my birthday, while always falling right at the start of the school holidays, would during the O and A level years instead fall smack within the exam period, and i definitely had to plow through a paper or two once or twice.
What this means is a very rushed second semester for the teachers and students, particularly, if like me for lower sec history, your school follows a modular system, where basically you have only one semester (i.e. half the school year) to complete your entire year's syllabus. Couple that with the impeccable timing of the SAF in scheduling my three week reservist during this period (while for good measure, managing to also eat up my Teachers' Day and one week September school break as well), and the uncanny knack of the higher ups for without fail, managing to come up with more and more things that teachers are supposed to do. Add for good measure conditions at the workplace which are, shall we say, evidence of a fallen world and you've got one incredibly crazy semester that i'm frankly still reeling from
It therefore isn't much of a surprise that this semester has also been the one when i've started to entertain thoughts about a life outside of the system, even though, yes, i still have a good two-and-a-half years to go before i can actually enjoy even the possibility of such a life. I feel that there's only so much more of comforting myself by being reminded of the fallen-ness of this world and me as being placed by God in the midst of it for a purpose (and that already had started to wear thin by the time i was at NUS) that i can handle before totally losing a sense of what that really means.
While i'm still in this system though, i think i do need to start to try and get my act together more. Which means for starters screwing up less often, in order to give others as little ammo as possible to (deliberately or otherwise) aim in my direction. I guess i can hopefully use the (somewhat) clean slate of a new school year to try and start over, so to speak. At the same time, there's the need to remind myself constantly that ultimately, teaching would not exist if not for the students, and therefore they are people whom (as terrible as they often can be) i should consider the impact on them for whatever i'm doing as a teacher. (After all, otherwise, i wouldn't be moulding the future of our nation, eh?) And also, for as much as i despise the notion of doing things primarily for the sake of promotions and performance bonuses, to not be so blatant in bringing that across, as i've realised that it can come across as preachy, instead of reflecting well on my values as a Christian in the workplace.
I do wish that i had a good time on vacation to regroup and make sense of things before the new school year. Unfortunately, the aforementioned craziness of the past semester means that i never got around to planning anything, and now air ticket prices are all crazy expensive. Then, scheduling wise i'm not able to be away for any longer than a continuous week, which really kills it for most places that i'm typically interested in going to. Will definitely try to fit something in though. For my sanity.
What this means is a very rushed second semester for the teachers and students, particularly, if like me for lower sec history, your school follows a modular system, where basically you have only one semester (i.e. half the school year) to complete your entire year's syllabus. Couple that with the impeccable timing of the SAF in scheduling my three week reservist during this period (while for good measure, managing to also eat up my Teachers' Day and one week September school break as well), and the uncanny knack of the higher ups for without fail, managing to come up with more and more things that teachers are supposed to do. Add for good measure conditions at the workplace which are, shall we say, evidence of a fallen world and you've got one incredibly crazy semester that i'm frankly still reeling from
It therefore isn't much of a surprise that this semester has also been the one when i've started to entertain thoughts about a life outside of the system, even though, yes, i still have a good two-and-a-half years to go before i can actually enjoy even the possibility of such a life. I feel that there's only so much more of comforting myself by being reminded of the fallen-ness of this world and me as being placed by God in the midst of it for a purpose (and that already had started to wear thin by the time i was at NUS) that i can handle before totally losing a sense of what that really means.
While i'm still in this system though, i think i do need to start to try and get my act together more. Which means for starters screwing up less often, in order to give others as little ammo as possible to (deliberately or otherwise) aim in my direction. I guess i can hopefully use the (somewhat) clean slate of a new school year to try and start over, so to speak. At the same time, there's the need to remind myself constantly that ultimately, teaching would not exist if not for the students, and therefore they are people whom (as terrible as they often can be) i should consider the impact on them for whatever i'm doing as a teacher. (After all, otherwise, i wouldn't be moulding the future of our nation, eh?) And also, for as much as i despise the notion of doing things primarily for the sake of promotions and performance bonuses, to not be so blatant in bringing that across, as i've realised that it can come across as preachy, instead of reflecting well on my values as a Christian in the workplace.
I do wish that i had a good time on vacation to regroup and make sense of things before the new school year. Unfortunately, the aforementioned craziness of the past semester means that i never got around to planning anything, and now air ticket prices are all crazy expensive. Then, scheduling wise i'm not able to be away for any longer than a continuous week, which really kills it for most places that i'm typically interested in going to. Will definitely try to fit something in though. For my sanity.
2 comments:
Hi Matt! why not trying air asia ? they fly to london, and soon to paris, from KL ;)
Hey Mat! yeah i think i might do that one day soon, but just not for this time. I don't have enough free days in a row for going that far to really work out..
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