Monday Blues

Well like I said before, the weekend just flew right by. I must say I felt as if I wasted a good amount of it. Sadly it's gone and I've got another whole weekend a head of me again.

Today started like any other. A jam again to work but not as bad as last Monday, even though it did start much earlier at AMK Ave 5... but the traffic kept moving at a very slow crawl. It still beats being stuck and not moving and just wasting petrol waiting for the car ahead to inch forward. Any hoots, I got to work without incident and the work day begins once I step into the office. Granted I don't start officially until 0800 hrs but after arriving at work at 0730hrs, there just isn't anything but to start work. So buzz the computer comes on and I'm glued to the screen. But today I had to meet my boss at 1030hrs, a very nice idea for the top management to find out what's happening with the staff, there is no other superiors around and its a free and easy discussion and feedback. My new boss is so frank, it's scary. But I like her style, she tells it like it is and she'll tear into you if you screw up... which is all fine with me, just don't screw up! She shared something very sensible today. She asked us to prioritize 4 points. In no particular order, she wanted us (the new staff) to arrange the most important first and list the least important last. So the first thing she mentioned was... managing yourself, then... managing customers, followed by managing colleagues and finally managing the boss. So we all had a go and we all failed badly. So embarrassing.

So anyway the suggested sequence of prioritizing those four areas are as follows. Now you must remember that we are arranging this in direct relationship with today's working world philosophy. The squence goes like this...
Most important - Managing your boss (no 1)
- Managing your customers (no 2)
- Managing your colleagues (no 3)
and the least important - Managing yourself (no 4).
If you don't agree with this model of priorities. Don't worry, like all leadership and management ideas, it works for some and not for others. But as things go, the boss is most important because we must learn to deal with our bosses in this very challenging and demanding professional landscape. Bosses demand the world from us, they all want something done yesterday and if we can't communicate to them and manage our boss, we will never be able to finish anything and everything else (the three other points) just falls apart. Now if we can manage our boss, we will be better able to manage our customers as we will have our work in check and better provide quality time/work to our customers. If we can take care of both boss and customers, then colleagues shouldn't be a problem because we have already managed so well. Which finally leads me to the last managing yourself. If you notice, everything has already fallen into place and if no 1, 2 & 3 have fallen into place, its a given that you have also successfully managed yourself. Still don't buy it? Fine cos I felt that managing yourself was top of the list. but I can see what my boss was talking about... and at the end of the day, I firmly believe that everyone working must be flexible enough to see and understand other points of views. See the value in these points of view and how it might better balance the overall picture. So enlightened I went back to work.

Sadly I couldn't find that balance as I was swamped with work after that morning meeting. Ha ha ha it seems funny now but I am so hopeless stressed out that the work is coming from every angle that I just prod along. Granted... I'm still surprisingly managing and everyday that passes, I've found that I've learnt something new and I'm better for it. So with every day I go to work and make it to the end of the day, I am a little better to face the next. I am just stressed that they have thrown me in the deep end and its a sink or swim scenario... a test of my mettle. So tomorrow is another day and I hope to make it a success, the work is cramping my mind but I'll just have to get through this period, my bosses have told me that this is... a trial by fire, it is the worst time in the year and I'm going to be better off if I make it. I think I got suckered into coming in at this time, but I can say I ain't bored. So it is a positive change from my days in school. But I would like a little bit of a break to rest. December... that is when the sanity is restored. Until then, I will make it another day tomorrow at work.

Weeeeekend!

hey its the weekend again. What can I say its been a terribly hectic and busy week. The new job has really been a handful, there is just so many things to learn, so many procedures and protocols to follow. I can't believe I've just been thrown into everything at such a nasty time of the year when they are at their busiest. They must really think well of me or they are just really desparate. Well whatever... don't want to talk about work as it'll soon catch up on me with every weekend just flying by.

Oh I went back to college today to check the progress of the kids and their artworks. I'm very impressed with some of the work, almost all of them have finally taken ownership and showed a really engagement. I must say that I am a little saddened by the fact that I will no longer beable to see these young creative talents develop and mature. Sigh but absence does have a way to make the heart grow fonder, and I do remember that not too long ago I was very tired of being in the classroom and that I was doing no one any favours by staying there. It was time to move on and go, let a new teacher who has the passion and the drive to take over and work their magic on the next batch of young eager minds.

I am in awe of some of the older teachers who stay because they still love what they do so much. Those few quality educators who come in daily to inspire their kids and really love what they are teaching. Those teachers who continue to learn and to adapt to those multitude of new personalities every year. To those wonderful teachers, I raise my hat and bow to you all because you are what we need, educators with passion and a love of learning and a desire to share that love of learning with every student under your charge.

Hip hip hooray! Now I have the difficult task of deciding when I'm comfortable enough financially before I take that leap and go back to uni and do my bloody post-graduate education after talking about it for so many years. But seriously, its such a scary idea to be unemployed and without a monthly paycheck, but Ohh to live the student life again. I can't wait...

First Timer

Its the weekend! I love the weekends, it is the time when I can choose to do anything I want. I could choose to sleep in, or wake at the break of dawn. I could choose to go out all day and waste my day sitting at a cafe and watch the world go by, or bury my head in work and finish all the stuff that just keeps piling up during the week. I love the weekends, the freedom. This small freedom that I appeared to have lost when I was teaching. If there is anything I can say about my six years of teaching, it would have to be HELL!

Most of the kids are wonderful but its the other adults one has to work with that really can bring you down. There are so few enlightened educators around. I was fortunate to have made some really great friends at work, but they were few and we were sadly out-numbered as we ran into more stubborn bureaucratic and small minded individuals than I would have ever imagined. These people who were going to mold the minds of our next generation, seriously terrorised me to no end. Don't get me wrong, it's not as if I couldn't compete, I did quite well as a teacher I thought. For the very short stint in education, I can safely say that I felt I made a difference to quite a few of my kids. But I just couldn't take working with people who had no appreciation for the love of learning. These fellow educators who claimed to plan programmes for the benefits of the kids, were really only doing it for their own portfolio... more often than not, or just yes men who couldn't bear to say no to their superiors even though the ideas were poorly conceived. Fellow educators who should be banding together to think of better ways of communicating with our kids to inculcate a love of learning and a desire to experiment and experience, really just wanted kids to follow rules and sit quietly in classrooms. I admit, I grew tired of fighting with the people whom I had to call colleagues. I admit I got tired of hearing about their small and petty complaints about students who misbehaved. But if only they had the time to look at themselves in the mirror and see how very difficult it was to work with them because they just weren't professional and skived at every opportunity, pushing their responsibilities to others and always had a ready excuse to not work as hard. Educators who were supposed to lead the way to show the importance of life-long learning to our kids... but when asked to attend IT application courses or any courses for that matter would bitch and nag about what a chore it was. So I have quit. I have left that behind because I was tired to seeing such hypocrisy.

Do I miss my kids? Yes I do.

Do I miss the job? Yes sometimes. But I don't miss the people.

But today I have work to do, for even though I have quit my teaching job, I find myself willingly going back to the college where I taught to help the kids. But it is such a great feeling to be going back to help my kids without the need to speak to those small minded individuals, but I do so miss my few teacher friends in school.

Will I ever return to teaching? Probably not, but I am never one to shut a door or burn any bridges. So perhaps, but there must be greater professionalism and dedication.

I now hope to make an impact in another field of education, but I do so miss being on the frontlines and teaching kids. So perhaps this weekend I start something even better, I can continue to help my kids on my own terms and not have to deal with the small minded individuals who always had an agenda which normally involved the furthering of their career but no consideration for the kids and the idea of education.

Throbbing Pain

Couldn't sleep cos my knee has been throbbling with pain. Age has a very nasty way of telling you that you are nolonger a young man and that all the old sporting injuries come back to haunt you big time. My left knee was severely screwed up during my army days. Yes during those memorable sweaty and stinky moments when some moron found such joy screaming and drenching another person's face with spit and forcing everyone to do silly things like running to far off trees in the distance under impossible timing, only to make you feel small and insignificant because you failed and then ordering you to hit the dirt to bury your face in the muddy ground because you were like a worm in their eyes and needed to know it before you could hold a weapon and fight for one's country. Yes I am sore about my army days and I am really sore. My knee is killing me... Oh I forget to mention, during one of those terribly hot days on Tekong Island and the dreaded Standard Obstacle Course in full battle order. I was found wanting as I neared completion of the course, I had only to jump down a wall and it would be the end for that torture but instead of planting my two feet firmly on landing, I crunched my left knee and my life hasn't been the same since. Sure the army paid for my operation and my physio for over a year, but the reality was that my life hasn't been the same since. I have to walk with a limp and on some days like today, it hurts like hell. No compensation because during what I thought was a caring OC who came by to see me shortly after the accident, turned out to be an official interview to decide whether the army was libel. Such misleading questions like asking me about how active I was before joining the army and have I ever fallen on the knee before. Jeez I was a super fit kid then, I played and tried everything with wheels and kick, ran with or hit any ball shaped object with much gusto, I grew up fighting our neighbourhood kids because it felt good to have a punch up and sure as hell I had many a spill which left scars on knees, elbows, butt cheeks, broken tooth and dislocated fingers. But my knee never busted on me until that faithful day. Any hoots, I lost out on a serious sum of compensation and all because I was very proud of my childhood and the boyish adventures I experienced with my brothers, friends and other neighbourhood kids.

Oh well, talking about childhood friends... a dear childhood friend is getting married today in far off Greece. I should've been there but since I just started my new job, it wouldn't be a good idea to ask for a four or five day leave in the midst of the busiest time of year. I guess I'll just have to take him and his lovely wife out for a fantastic dinner to make up for not attending. Really wanted to be there and see a old partner in crime take that step into marital bliss. *GRIN*

Life was so much simpler as a kid.. and the body healed so much better then too. I guess I can't complain too much, life has been good and what's a little pain and some loss of sleep. I'm still around to experience new joys in life, I just have to take it easier and watch out for that bum knee. Smiles!