The Office

It's 5o'clock in the staff room. As if we were heeding some primal urge, heads pop out of cubicles to scan the aisles and rows to see who's left in the staff room. If company is agreeable (and it usually is, since it is the same handful that always stays late), all work grinds to a halt and Happy Hour begins.

Happy Hour is that magical time in the staff room when worries about deadlines and workload are ignored. It is the time when the teachers (at least in the Eng dept) feel free to tell jokes, banter or even openly insult. Happy Hour is the compensation we get, it is what we live for, when we know that work-life balance means that you work 10 hours a day in the office and then balance it out by working 4 hours at home.

Happy Hour is the decompression valve we all need, after marking, doing admin, doing admin, doing admin ad nauseum. It allows us to voice out the snarky comments we have to bite back when marking. It finally provides for us adult conversation, wit (ranging from sarcasm & barbed comments to word play involving extended metaphors. But usually just sarcasm & barbed comments).

Below are some gems from Happy Hour:

When discussing what to wear for the staff dinner (theme: Movies)

Pocahontas (to Hot Cubie Mate (HCM)): You should come as Lara Croft.

HCM: No...I don't have any clothes that will do as costumes!

Yogajunkie: Maybe I should come as Lara Croft. I have the perfect shorts and boots.

*silence* Then,

(Pocahontas, HCM, Adonis & the one with OCD): BWAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHA!!!!

Yogajunkie: Ok...maybe I'll just come as Lard-a Kraft (Adonis: bwahahaahahaaha)

Pocahontas: Yeah, FRIDGE RAIDER. Yeah, your top should have food stains on it!

(all: Bwahahahaahaha!!!)


E.g 2

Yogajunkie (busy cleaning workspace).

Adonis: What are you doing?

Yogajunkie: I'm trying to get this cleaned up for Teachers' Day.

Adonis scans papers, files & pamphlets on desk. You know what that's called? What you just said?

Yogajunkie: being hopeful.

Adonis: No.

Yogajunkie: Being optimistic.

Adonis: No.

Yogajunkie: Delusional

Adonis: No.

Yogajunkie: Then what?

Adonis: Archaelogy. What you have there, is an excavation site.

Yogajunkie: Bwaahahahahaaha!

Planning your perfect day

Planning your perfect day

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It could be so much better than this.
I could be so much better.
There's a chasm between who I am right now and who I know I can be.
If I were wiser
More disciplined
Less afraid
More adventurous

In the past, the list would have gotten me down.
But not anymore.

Cos I have done it before and I can do it again.
I will get there.
I will be better.

Step by step.
No more unrealistic expectations.
Keep positive and my eyes on the goal.
I will get there.

:)

I'm in hiding from lots of things

From work
From expectations
From mum
from failure
failure failure failure.
It's as if every where I look I keep getting reminded of what a failure I am.

Fail at making kids understand.
At getting them interested.
At getting ok work from them.
At getting marking done on time.
At getting admin shit done.
At getting the damn CCA thing together.
At getting logistics right.

Fuck this.

I will no longer have expectations.
So that I don't feel like a fuck-up when I walk out of class.
When kids don't understand simple instructions.
When colleagues look at you with that expression

If they keep fucking piling things on me

I'll do it.
The bare minimum. Grit my teeth, submit it.
Don't obsess over it.

That's what you get for dumping things on us.
Overloading.

WE ARE NOT THE FUCKING ANSWER TO ALL OF SOCIETY'S PROBLEMS, OK, YOU GET IT, YOU FUCKTARDS?

Just grit my teeth and see it through the week.

Cos I'm not caring any more.

Vee Day

Just a brief post to commemmorate VeeDay

Loving Myself
I'm so proud of me! First thing I did after waking up was to work out to the Tae Bo Cardio Circuit 1 DVD and Yoga Zone Power Yoga DVD. 400 calories in 1 hour! Woo hoo!

Loving Family
Mum taught me how to make dhal today. It's pretty easy and tasted really good. Am gonna have this a lot more from now on. Plus, for the first time in months and months I got to eat with my family...the bro was back from camp! It was so nice to just talk while having lunch. I realise that I miss my family!

Loving Friends
Finally managed to meet Peeps after months and months! She was late, as usual. We had a smoked salmon sandwich (I started eating fish again, officially, last December), Earl Grey Tea and our customary Mud Pie at Coffee Club. Good conversation & reminiscing. Mr BS joined us too, and he showed off his new Hush Puppy moccassins!

Loving Mr BS
We went for a "Story Telling for Adults" thing at the Substation. The theme was love in the stories of cultures around the world. It was not as interesting as we'd hoped it would be...I think the selection of the stories could have been much better. Some of them felt like...you know when you hear a long joke, and you're waiting for the punch line and it never comes? Or it's really lame? Yeah, some of the stories were like that. But there was one that Mr BS really appreciated and that was the bizzarre one of how a condor shat out parrots. Honestly!

Walking around town, I saw a couple of students who were damn excited to see me with Mr BS. That's the thing about teaching...it's awkward when your students see the normal you. It feels like you're setting a bad example! Just cos you're holding hands!

And then we walked to Coffee Club again cos I wanted to eat the smoked salmon sandwich again- I dunno it just tastes really good! There, Mr BS discovered that the online Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that he had downloaded is not the actual one that JK Rowling wrote but fan fiction! He discovered this after he made some very weird comment about Harry dying in the Ministry of Magic and I gave him a very weird look. But the quotable quote of the day is:

(After me explaining the story of the Deathly Hallows from Beadle the Bard)
"Oh....so those are the deathly hallows! I was wondering why there was no mention of the deathly hallows in that book I read, even though the title was "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"

Sigh. Mr BS just proves the stereotype of men missing the obvious.
But in a way, that's good cos then he's really amazed when I mention something that is clear to everyone- it makes him think I have super powers. Like today when I had a tiny lick of the Middle Eastern hummus thingy he ordered. I had proceeded to telling him what was in each dip and he just couldn't believe I could taste all those things.

That's really why men carry their balls on the outside. Cos if they were inside, the men would just miss them.

Feeling Out of Sorts

So I thought I'd blog out my garbled emotions.

I always thought that if I could get Mondays right, I'd just sail past the whole week. You know, that sinking feeling you get on Sunday evening because you're just not ready with your lecture/ assignment/ lesson plan?

I totally nailed Monday- Woke up early, had my dhal and brown rice all packed to "ta pau", walked to school in record time, wrote out my to-do list, got good feedback on a task I'd submitted to the boss last week, got all my resources for an upcoming task, hot yoga-ed (it was so good!), zoomed off home, got food ready for Tuesday, packed bag and slept thinking that Tuesday was gonna be awesome as I had no meetings planned and got to skip an otherwise-compulsory event as I had stuff to do for my CCA. I thought I'd get home early, get started on 2 tasks, do a yoga dvd, cook for tomorrow and then have an early night.

What I did instead was come home, eat a Reese's peanut butter cup, watch last night's Friends recorded on HubStation, totally ruin my body-clock by taking a nap from 6 to 7.30 and then feel so disgruntled that I could not settle into either of my two tasks.

I then gave up and went to cook for tomorrow when I realised I didn't have the ingredients I need. "Never mind," I thought. "I can try my Yoga DVD!" Except that it's a Power Yoga one, I know that if I do it now (10.30 pm) it's going to keep me up all night and then I will not be able to walk to school tomorrow which will totally ruin my day. Plus, due to an earlier refusal to do yoga, my hamstrings have become so tight that I can't even touch my toes today after yesterday's yoga session.

Urgh I hate it when one thing goes wrong and everything just falls like dominoes. I get so upset when my plans change that I just give up on getting anything right. I write off the day as an off-day. Which is such a waste of time- I mean I can't waste 1/7 of my life having an off-day every week right?

Meanwhile, the deadlines are looming again and I feel pressured. I do NOT want to submit substandard work. I just feel like I'm wasting SO MUCH TIME stretching out stupid simple tasks when I can just ignore the nagging thoughts that I should be doing something else.

I think I really should not come home early from work. Home lulls me into a false sense of security. Perhaps I should just stick to my earlier resolution to stay at work till 5 daily then leave work at work.

Sigh. Everything seemed to be going so well.

I think I'll just go and sleep.

I hope tomorrow's better.

Early morning walks to school

Means you have to leave home at 5.30 am.

So why am I still up blogging about them?

Because I just wanted to tell you

How awesome it is

When it's dark-becoming-light

and cool

And you're all alone

Save for the the occassional bus

And you're walking, fast

racing with your thoughts

or sometimes strolling

and reaching out to that Something-Someone Out There

And wishing/ willing it to be a good day

And getting your thoughts together.


I've become so grateful

For the time and leisure I have.
For my legs
For my schedule.
For my body that has learnt so quickly just when to wake up.
For the shower in school that wakes me up and makes me feel so fresh and alive and glad for the hour I had.

By myself.

While everyone's asleep.

Testing, testing 1, 2, 3

I've really been trying very hard to follow what I should be following- be positive, be loving, submit to His will.

But boy, do I feel tested today.

Small things- can't find my favourite limited edition lipstick, couldn't get all that I'd planned to do done, clutter around me cluttering up my head, couldn't go to the gym...

Makes me feel so utterly useless.

But I think I handled it ok...prayer helped. I keep praying for wisdom and perspective and just His companionship, that these are inconsquential.

We were discussing God's/ Guru's will during prayers on Friday and Sunday and I realised that despite the emphasis placed on submission and negating one's own will and obeying God's, I hardly think about doing this. I still have so much pride and believe that my own rationalisations are right, when I know that often, they are there to just defend my own will though my conscience speaks against it. A mixture of pride and lack of perspective.

So, that's that. Still upet about the lipstick, hence I shall count my blessings:

Going to the States to meet my Best Friend

That I have this worldwide congregation and how so many that I have contacted in the various US cities are so happy to meet me, bring me around, accommodate me.

Being able to afford it, even getting a bonus when so many are being retrenched.

That I have tomorrow to make things right for myself and to those I disappointed today.

**********************************************************************************

Ok, now on to other things: went for YET another wedding today. Grrrrr. Mr BS, ARE YOU LISTENING???!!!
Seriously, everyone's getting married, or at least has some plans. I'm just sitting here growing old and moldy. But really, sometimes I doubt I wanna get married yet cos it's so BLOODY FREAKING EXPENSIVE! And in the wise words of GM: Never get married when you can't afford it. Don't take on debts just to fund the weddings as it will lead to lots of headaches later.

So I shall go on Austerity Drive II (Austerity Drive I didn't work too well, but I'm an optimist) and save my ass off so that whenever Mr BS realises that I'm too good to be sitting around molding away*, we'll have the moolah to get this shebang on the road. In the meantime, I shall become a hermit and not go for anybody else's wedding** so that nobody will ask me when my turn is.




* Don't try to tell me that I should just propose. I have. Many times. Hasn't worked.
** Except SS's wedding of course. No one misses their best friend's wedding.