Life and Thoughts and Work 3:57 pm
I will be in Italy with students for a week until Tuesday afternoon. Will see you all then.
Hopefully this trip will be exciting, and energising. If the students need me to energise them then I think it will be hard.
I must relish this time away as much as I can.
Life and Thoughts and Work 7:43 pm
Well, the june “vacation” is here, and I guess not a day too soon. At this point, strangely I don’t feel that energised by the fact that I don’t have to wake up early tomorrow. Maybe I will get used to it soon.
Anyways, for the next week, I will be in Italy. Not a new place to me, hopefully some new insights this time.
Some reflections on the half a year that has gone by in a flash.
I think I have allowed myself to become too consumed by my occupation. In some sense this has been good because I feel more acutely aware that this might just not be what I want to do. At this point, teaching in a village in Vietnam or Laos is quite appealing.
Some new friendships found, others found wavering. Have not yet come a conclusion about that. I realise perhaps I don’t live for myself enough. Is there a way to live for myself and God at the same time? Jesus said to be first one must be the last and serve all. Yet when one tries to do this, one feels very lacking because we are but human. And we try. So is it possible to balance this? Where to draw the line is the question.
I find myself thinking that I won’t be unhappy if the posting truly comes that I will be posted to MOE next year. But where though. The possibilities in MOE are many and wide ranging. At this point I’m thinking it would be difficult to be working harder and as unsupported as in my current position.
Well before I know it, the year will have ended and the curtains will fall on 2.5 years at VJC, and another 2 years (ish) of bond time. It is time to reassess what I want to do.
I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a part time masters in a finance related field. It does sound doable and appealing at this point, particularly at SMU. I don’t know how to go about doing my finances for this though hahaha…
Life and Thoughts and Work 10:38 pm
I finally realised how much of a help just some downtime every day can be. Yesterday I rested and did absolutely nothing for about an hour. Today I went and bought some clothes after work, when there was work to be done.
It felt refreshing. I enjoyed shopping hahaha. Never thought I would see the day. I guess I just needed the break.
I think I must enforce these downtimes. Runs are just not enough I think.
I will be going to Bintan sometime during the June holidays for some me time. Those who read this are welcome to join me, but I’ll be going either way. Maybe 3D2N of total do nothing.
What must I do to stop feeling this inexplicable angst? Like suddenly I feel like telling everybody to just go fly a kite if they don’t like it.
I think I am not praying hard enough, or listening hard enough to the promptings. It is very hard to live up to the prayer of St Francis. Perhaps that is why he’s a Saint, that we all fall so miserably short. Are we supposed to feel so miserable in the process though.
The prayer tells us to pray to give rather than to receive, to understand rather than to be understood, etc. If only I had the strength. I ask for this strength every day, and it gets me by, barely.
Teach me what I must do to, because this is not how I want to live or feel.
I think I just need to go somewhere and have some ME time. Anybody got any recommendations?
I was thinking Hong Kong for a short trip, or even back to London where I can really kick back and be myself again but thats going to cost me and its rather drastic isn’t it.
Life and Thoughts and Work 7:28 am
Well, perhaps I can now look back on a rather dark and stormy day in my life and think about how and what went wrong.
I am one who needs meaning in life, in my search for meaning, perhaps I had the misguided notion that we should matter to other people and this might be meaning. These days I get very irritated if and when people treat me like backup. Hey, don’t like it don’t bother man.
Then I realised, why should I expect thanks and gratitude? In the first place, people are people and they’re just like that. You find the few gems that actually care about you and don’t let go. Second, look at all the thanks He got for all the work He did, what could I expect? Does it mean I don’t carry on? No. There’s the story about the 10 lepers He cured, and only one came back to thank Him. No, we do not expect thanks.
And I was reminded of the prayer of St Francis. We are called to turn the world upside down. It is in giving that we receive, and pardoning that we are pardoned. Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.
Tough prayer to live up to, tough man St Francis was.
Work is getting a bit too monotonously time consuming and unenjoyable as well. I’m no longer sure this is what I want to do, even if I stay in Singapore. Perhaps I’ve not shared my thoughts with all of you lately. If I had a choice, I would just go off to some nearby country and work in the rural areas, teaching, building houses where necessary and leading a simpler life. But well I don’t have a choice for the next 2 years, and till now it has seemed to be always this or that. Teaching here or teaching elsewhere. I’m not so sure anymore.
The system here is stifling and I don’t think we are doing the right thing for our youngsters, nor are we being fair to teachers, who get ribbed for getting a SLIGHT pay raise, while consistently working at home till midnight or past midnight most days, and through more weekends than I care to count. For such hours I might as well be working in a bank.
Long holidays? Maybe its to make up for the weekends I burn without getting any off? Maybe its to make up for the days when I get to work when its dark and leave when they lock the staffroom, and then proceed to starbucks to work until its closing time? Without respite except for a run in the evening on some days?
Going to MOE HQ might just be less work. If I stay in school next year I know what requests I’m going to be making.
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