itchy

And so it's been seven years...

finicky

Was doing up a RIASEC test today - it basically shows what careers one may be more inclined towards based on personality type. I've always been a rather fussy person in some areas, and it certainly showed in this test, as practically all the job options that were presented before me all seemed to be things that i was not interested in, such that my overall scores were certainly on the low end. So it looks as though for me it's not as much about which type best describes me as which type is least inaccurate in describing me. (Scarily enough, my top scorer, relatively speaking, was "Social" haha - who would've thought!) I suppose this goes some way in explaining why i have difficulty in clicking with most others on a deeper level - there are just so little shared interests that we would have to begin with, owing to my own fussy nature. That's certainly not something that i can change, but at least it helps to be aware of it.

On a more reassuring note though, at least one of the recommended career options that came out of doing the test is what i'm doing now, which means that at least i've been able to end up doing something that's a good fit in spite of all my inadequacies. Indeed it's not by my strength, but by His :)

Love's Labour Left

The usual Labour Day marking period is here again, and this year, thankfully, it falls over a long weekend. However, the bulk of what i have to mark has yet to come in yet, and to make matters worse, i stupidly left behind half of what has come in so far back in school, with no opportunity to retrieve it until the weekend is over. Even after so many years, here i am still making rookie mistakes.

The upside is that there still are plenty of other non-exam things that i have to mark, which i can now proceed with without thinking about neglecting anything else (since i'll have no choice but to neglect it anyway). So all's good, and at the end of the day, those left-behind scripts will still be laboriously marked with love.

Eclipsed

As far back as i can remember, i've been someone who's generally in the know with regard to current affairs. While i may be the last one to know about stuff like who's hooked up with who, even when i've been busy, i've generally managed to stay abreast of whatever matters that may hold at least some significance to some people.

That's probably why i started to feel rather down once i heard people talking about today's solar eclipse, for the very reason that i knew nothing about it until this morning, when typically somehow i'd have found out about such impending events at least the day before, something that i can only attribute to having so much of my time occupied primarily by work matters. While since i've started working i'd be able to squeeze out enough time from at least one work day a week to at least have a quick browse of the day's (hardcopy) newspaper, i realise that it must have been close to a month since i've read anything from the papers. Usually i'd be able to get by with online news, but the fact that i missed out on something that significant shows that i've really been out of touch. And just like that i plunged into one of my sudden (but thankfully relatively short-lived) emo moods

Added to that, through other occurrences today, i've also been thinking more about the way i'm wired and how it's not best suited to quite a fair proportion of the things that are expected nowadays. It is true that somehow, things will work out, but it is nevertheless far from being a pleasant reality to try to come to terms with. From time to time, i think i have, but then once the right trigger comes around, that sinking feeling comes back with a vengeance (but once again, thankfully such feelings are relatively short-lived).

So that's the current state of affairs. Distressing to an extent, yes, but nothing agonizing unnecessarily and losing sleep over (anyway i'm so sleepy nowadays that it's hard to stay awake after any more than a couple of minutes with my head on the pillow). And indeed, somehow, things will work out, by God's grace :)

not so fab Feb

As the end of this month approaches, i'm thinking back to the start of the month, when what started with one innocuous cup of ice-cream eventually grew into a cold URTI that never became serious enough in my eyes to warrant going to the doctor, but simply never seemed to go away. Perhaps part of the reason for that was that i had to continue on conducting lessons, so while i was able to abstain from eating all the wrong food and take all the right stuff instead, my throat never really had a chance to rest and therefore recover. (Perhaps the other part of the reason was that i am getting older!) At its worst, when singing the National Anthem in the morning all that would come out was a persistent wheeze, but thankfully now things are pretty much back to normal.

The other highlight of the month would be the opportunity to take part in another good run with good company. Even if the route conditions and organisation could have been improved, it was great just to be able to have friends along with you and having a good time while getting some much-needed exercise. Being able to get a decent time while just about recovering made things that much better. Really am looking forward to more such runs in time to come.

Well, the always-hectic month of March is approaching; we'll see how that goes eh..

The first four

It has once again been an incredibly hectic start to the new school year, and truth be told, after all these years, it has still not gotten any easier to cope with it in spite of the increasing years of experience under my belt. This is partially due to there always seeming to be more things to do, some of it out of sheer necessity (e.g. marking), but others at best falling into the "good to have" category. Hasn't helped that i find myself remaining as distracted as ever, and that i probably take as hard a line on myself to deal with this as i (by nature) do on my students, which is to say, not a hard line at all.

The experience has made me more aware of my own strengths and shortcomings as a teacher though, which has really helped me better come to terms with what i am suited to and what i should avoid like the plague. Thankfully, in many circumstances i've had the opportunity to ease away from those duties that i could never see myself doing well, which is a marked improvement from how things were in the past (which at least from the eternal optimist's perspective has helped shaped how things are like today for me). However, i've still had to deal with a lot of negative or at least unhelpful sentiments that run through my head from time to time, which i think will remain as something to keep a watch out for in the year ahead.

Goodbye to Hols

Every year i try to get myself more psychologically and physically prepared for the eventual reopening of school, but it never really pans out. This year, of course, is no exception. Even with trying to give myself a bit more time between arriving back and the start of the new school year, i've barely made much decent use of the extra days, at least as far as work-related matters are concerned. Truly, work is work and holidays are holidays, and seldom ('never' would, thankfully, be an overstatement) the twain shall meet.