Defending Myself..

A recent spate of events, conversations and perhaps my blog entries have had family members, relatives, friends and acquaintances create a negative impression of me. I've been labelled as being high-maintenance, a spoilt brat, a snob amongst many others. I normally do not bother about others' opinion but this time, I find it mentally disturbing.

To get the record straight, yes, I do like to patronise at air-conditioned cafes and restaurants but I do that only once a week, which is the weekend. Weekday lunches are consumed either at home or in the school canteen. And seriously, most of the time, I would rather starve than eat the school canteen food. Since I suffer on weekdays, I feel that there's nothing wrong with paying more to enjoy a better ambience and better food during the weekends.

Next, driving. If driving a car makes me spoilt, then more than half the population in Singapore are spoilt brats. Furthermore, I find it ridiculous that I've been labelled 'materialistic' for wanting to own a car of my own in the near future. I hope these people would put themselves in my shoes. I've been fortunate to have a car at my disposable since I obtained my driving licence. It's only natural that I would want to maintain my current lifestyle.

Moving on to purchasing expensive goods and leisure. Again, how often do I do that? I reckon it's probably once in two months or even less. If money can buy happiness and boost the economy, what's wrong with paying to get enjoyment? This is especially when it's my own hard-earned money. Talking about that, Dad has kindly sponsored my David Tao tickets as my birthday present. Haha. By the way, I just did a quick calculation on my spendings. I spend less than 20% of my income per month for myself on all these so-called enjoyment and expensive meals. I do not have the luxury of enjoying free meals from my boyfriend because I do not have one. Even if I do have one, I'll make sure I pay my own share unless it's a special occassion.

Next, snob. Yes, I ignore the noisy and irritating kids. But that's because I understand their needs. Come on, they are kids. It's hard for them to shut up from 7.30am to 1.30pm everyday. Of course, I definitely would not tolerate mayhem when I'm teaching. So when do I ignore them? I do so when I'm reliefing classes, those whom I would only see probably once in my life time. Contract teachers tend to relief a lot because they are deemed to be the most free among all the staff. I always feel like quitting after I've finished reliefing a class. The noise level can be terrible at times but I allow them to talk because it's a free period. No point shouting at them to shut up since they have nothing to do anyway. And I do not look down on any kid. I've come to accept the fact that people come from various backgrounds and different people have different academic abilities.

I know I've been complaining a lot of my job. The downside of this job is that most of the kids do not appreciate what teachers do for them. Only a handful of them come out with "Happy Teacher's Day" cards or presents on Teacher's Day. But come on, at the end of the day, what is it that I really hope to get from them? Gifts? Being friends with them? Getting 'A's for the subjects that I teach them? No, none of them. I just wish they would be able to find a niche for themselves and be upright and responsible human beings. The fact that they've ended up in neighbourhood schools speaks much about their academic ability. If they can't excel in their studies, I'm sure they excel in other areas. That's not the most difficult part. Teaching a child to be responsible is the most arduous task in the world. Why? Just look around, how many adults are actually responsible human beings? If we can't even lead by example, what do you expect of the child?

For once, I shall be divulging some rare moments which makes me want to stay on in this job. The first was my Secondary 5 Malay student. His Mathematics is totally horrendous. He can't even solve a basic algebra question. We both had a good laugh when we saw his Maths Prelim results. I found it amusing because I've not seen anyone score so low for a Maths paper. He laughed probably because he was used to seeing this kind of result. He told me, "No hope already lah. Sure get F9 for 'O' level." This was my reply to him, "Don't worry, it's quite hard to get F9. There are definitely people who are worse than you." He looked up at me with a sense of hope. "Really? I thought I'm the worst already,' he queried. From then on, he became more motivated during my Maths periods and started asking me how to solve questions. His previous teacher told me that he spent most of his time joking around with his friend during her maths period.

The next touching scene was with one of the students from the class of Devils. It was announced to the class that I was supposed to be their new English teacher. But due to 'unforeseen circumstances', I didn't have to take over them. So their current English teacher remained. One day, while I was walking past that class, one of the students asked me, "Cher, how come you never teach our class? You say you supposed to teach us what." So I explained to them that there was a last minute change on the administrative side and asked why were they so concerned anyway. His answer, "Nothing lah, we prefer you actually." I'm not sure whether it was a frank answer, but he sure made my day. The real reason must be because I was less lenient with them as I once got them to play some IQ game in the middle of a comprehension exercise.

This has been a rather long entry but all I've been trying to do is to defend myself, that I'm not as materialistic, spoilt, snobbish or high-maintenance as you all think. I'm sick of hearing such accusations and I'm simply too tired to explain myself to each and everyone of you.