Being Different
I'm totally exhausted and overwhelmed with all the things piling up this term. Despite having being in service for 5 years, somehow, I still lack the survival skills a good teacher needs, the inability to refuse someone who asks for help in some form and of course, still grappling with the relentless marking and endless meetings week after week after week.

Yup, I'm TIRED. Tired of all the nonsense I'm facing at the moment. While teaching may not be the most tiring job on earth, it may still remain as the most strength-zapping occupation ever. In comparison to my peers, I don't see them slogging at their computers after work, still furiously marking and keeping themselves awake at the stroke of midnight. Maybe it's just me? The perfectionist at work. If not for the grace of God sustaining me spiritually and emotionally, I probably have succumbed to temptation and would have thrown in my letter of resignation a long time ago.

Teaching to me means so much. So much more than a mere job. So much more than just trying to bring out the best in my angels. To me, teaching is a calling. Sometimes I wish I have a bottomless heart so that I can provide all the love, care and concern so many of my angels need. Sometimes I wish I have more time for lesson planning and exploring lesson ideas instead of having to slave over mindless and pointless meetings and committees. Sometimes I wish I can spend more time listening to students who need someone to speak too. Sometimes I wish I am not so affected by what I see, hear and feel. But the truth is, I am. I am just as vulnerable as you are.

I distinctly remember a close friend's husband, J, trying to dissuade me from entering the teaching profession. I was a lot younger but ten times more naive. This was the conversation in the car:

J: Are you sure you want to be a teacher? Teaching's not as easy as it seems. I have friends who quit teaching after 3 years.
Me: I've never felt so sure before. I want to be a teacher.
J: You're still young. Why not consider going into teaching after trying something else?
Me: That's precisely the point. I'm young. If I find teaching unsuitable for me after 3 years, I'll still be young when I exit after my bond.
J: Eh...you don't look nor behave like a teacher.
Me: That's why! I want to be a different teacher.
J: How different? Like GTO?
Me: Yup, something like that or even more. I want students to know that there are teachers who are different. I want to zoom into school on a Harley, make students love their lessons and change the stereotype of teachers.

Looking back, I was seriously naive. After all, how different can one be? After 5 years, I'm beginning to feel jaded, cynical and deeply disappointed. By selfish students. By unreasonable parents. By what I had set out to achieve. By what I have not achieved.

Now, I no longer feel the desire to want to be different. I no longer have the energy to throw starfish back into the ocean. I don't feel different from others at all.

Now, I'm just one of them. Just doing my job, staring vacantly into the distant, dreaming of riding on my Harley. Maybe one day, I will dare to be different so that I can break free from the chains of homogeneity.

One day.

I'm going to be different.
- posted by NaNa @ 7:11 AM