DIE

I am so tired. So tired. Kid in school made me so angry. I have never railed at a kid so bad before. Today I have experienced literary cliches. I hear about how this idiot in my class beat up some other kid. "Her mouth pursed into a straight line." I called the victim and perpetrator (P) over and enquired about the incident. I heard said perpetrator's shallow drivel of a reason why he pushed a boy down, hit him on the head with a water bottle and kicked him on the arse. Apparently, victim has tripped over P's leg. I felt my eyes narrow slightly as I viewed the impending death of P. "Her eyes hardened." Wow! Literature becomes real! I'll bet my secondary 2 lit teacher never saw me learning the lesson this way.

Twice I'd gone to search for the big-voiced, grandfatherly and frankly drill-sergeantish old man who was the "Stick" to all the little kiddies still to immature to understand "principal" - they all knew the terror that was Drill Sergeant. However, twice I'd gone looking, and twice said Sergeant was not at his desk. That was it. I had to deal with this little pest myself. I took the pest to the third floor and screamed at him for a quarter hour. I was so angry even my grammar went down the drain. I came back in the foulest of moods and even my class shut the hell up.

Talking to P's mom, I realised that I had finally admitted that I had reached the end of my rope. This kid... This kid... I'm giving up on him. How can I help someone who doesn't want to be helped? I feel like Jesus at the garden of Gethsemane in Jesus Christ Superstar, singing the line "After all, I tried for three years... seems like thirty, seems like thirty... could you ask as much of any other man?"It might not have been three years, more like a year and a half; but it fucking feels like thirty regardless. I keep feeling that I shouldn't give up on P. He's just a kid (like Chucky is just a doll), and he doesn't realize the implications of his actions (like a rabid wolf doesn't realize the implications of biting people). Then again... I hate him.

Is it wrong for me to hate him? I tried so hard. I really did. For the past year and a half, I tried. I begged his classmates to give him another chance when they couldn't stand him anymore. I asked them to be friends with him and help him remember to be good. I did that twice, not wanting him to be ostracized from his peers. He refuses to listen when they tell him to do things and kicks their bags in. Little dumb ass got himself ostracized. I get so many complaints about him everyday, and I honestly hate... hate the sight of him. Why?

Because he makes me so angry. He doesn't think before doing something stupid. He doesn't believe that what he is doing is wrong. He will promise to be good and try his best only to fuck up five minutes later. I've never been so angry with a kid in my life than today. In the beginning, I believed that he could be helped. I tried and tried to get him focused on his studies and settle down, to think before he did some stupid fuck up thing. His stupidity has only continued to this year, and I cannot take it anymore.

He's 8... I'm 25. I should hang in there and try again and help him. But I'm only human. I hate him. I don't want to talk to him. This got personal today when I realized he just wouldn't - refused to think. He wanted to be naughty plain and simple. There was no problem, no health issue. There's no family problem that causes this despite what he says - how can I believe him when he lies even to the school counsellor about how I see way he behaves and plays in class.

He just wants to be an unruly little beast. How many times must I cram the "Think before you act' routine down his throat? How many times must I grit my teeth and explain things to him with mock calm? All the love, patience and effort I put into helping him and it's come to nothing. What a waste of my fucking time. I may be wrong, but right now, I don't care. All my efforts are wasted. I cannot help him if he cannot help himself. If God gave this little blighter to me to teach me something, I'm damned if I know what the lesson fucking is. Don't give up? Control your temper? Help the ones you hate? If that is the case, God, you'd better show me what the hell I should do because I've tried everything short of killing him to put me out of my misery. Tell me what the hell I should do for P  before I change my mind.

Because I can only take so much time marking without distractions (and Brightside, my favourite RP distraction is AFK), I decided to google for random things. The first thing that came to mind was "Teacher Marking". I found some pics that spoke the truth, but some were just downright lies - like those hair products or bust augments that promise RESULTS GUARANTEED.

Lies:

Do you want to know why they are smiling? Do you? Because they're holding only one script each. Just 1. Only 1. If I had only 1 student, I'd be smiling too. Ironically, these are stock photos. Are they supposed to show what a clean and professional job teaching is? How wonderful marking is? Granted there are rare moments where marking is a joy, but most of the time, it's dreary pain where you realize that you're an inch away from photocopying the whole stack of worksheets again to make the lot of them redo it, if it weren't for the fact that you'd only have to mark those too.

Truth:

And it has been done. I have submitted my first assignment for university. I feel understandably proud of myself, though my next assignment looms before me now. I put in a lot of effort, so much so that I am tired. I wonder if I'll be able to keep this up till the end.

This year has been unbelievably hectic for me. I can't believe how much I have to do in school. I can't believe how tiring classes can make me. I can't believe I'm doing all this on top of a new puppy in the house. Something has to go. I've chosen my fresh water fish tank. Sayonara. It's swarming with malaysian trumpet snails anyway, which disgust me to no end because not only are they horrifically unsquashable, they also swarm around like roaches. And just as amphbians are to Brightside, I despise the sight of roaches and all roach-like organisms. Fucking disgusting creatures.

Therefore, I'll move my marine tank, which is prettier and melts MTS, to my freshwater tank, which is bigger. Bye bye MTS. I'll cook up toxic sludge for you to die in - just for you. It'll make Captain Planet cry, but what the hell.

With one less tank in the house, I'll have more time on my hands. I'll also be able to dedicate more time to Lady, who's so retardedly cute, and Bonnie, who's just retarded (no, I jest. I love my old bitch Bonnie, even if she hates my new sweet young thing). I'll also be able to study and work on all the crap I have to finish for school.

I've told my mother about my intention to trash my freshwater tank, and understandably, I think she will be pleased with more room for HER (despite the fact that I do all the work and bought the fish) marine fish to swim in. While on the phone with her in Malaysia, I pondered telling her about Lady, whom she still has no idea about yet. My heart raced just at the thought of it and I decided not to.

In the first place, I chickened out.

In the second place, I knew she'd just get mad in Malaysia, not enjoy the rest of her holiday, insist the dog be gotten rid of, refuse to listen to me when I tell her the dog's poo doesn't smell and just be forever stubbornly biased against my poor Lady - whose only crime was to be cute and poo and pee and sometimes step in it because she's excited to see me.

Therefore, I've decided to go 'Surprise!!!1' when she gets home. Lady's cute retardedness, gangly, uncoordinated walk and soulful eyes won my dad over in a day. I'm hoping that same magic will work on mom, and I can employ the Homer-Style cop-out of: "You laughed! I'm off the hook!"

In other news!!

A nine-year-old Malaysian boy in Singapore has written a painting application for the Apple iPhone.

Lim Ding Wen created the finger painting program, known as Doodle Kids, for his two younger sisters aged three and five.

"Doodle Kids is an extremely simple program that can be done by anybody. Everybody can program - if Ding Wen can, so can you," he wrote.

Surly Cur says (1:34 AM):
WAAAHHH
he's the sort who'll mysteriously disappear one day
and work for the MOD
in a bunker
churning out hacks to govt computers in china and shit

Brightside says (1:35 AM):
yeah. totally.

Surly Cur says (1:35 AM):
if Ding Wen can, so can you
fuck you!

Brightside says (1:35 AM):
LOL
Go on my son
hahahahahahahahahaha

Surly Cur says (1:35 AM):
just crap on my diploma right now
crap on it

Brightside says (1:35 AM):
what a heading

Surly Cur says (1:36 AM):
and all the hours it too me to learn fucking JAVA

So far today I:

• paid $500 to the university for my degree program
• sent two kids to the vice principal (who's so scary even I'm afraid of her)
• buried a dead bird (I have a feeling I'm now the 'animal' teacher)
• taught a kid how to wash her hands to kill germs (because she'd handled said dead bird)
• had bonding time with my Kampong Club (3 pupils who were in my class last year who for some reason hang around school to chat with me)

So far I had fun today ^_^ My class seems not in the mood to make my life difficult. I just might give them a treat later.

I am in the core organizing committee for the Children's Day Concert.

This was news to me. Thankfully, there is still some time to scrape through by the skin of our teeth as it were. I have been relegated the task of singing the Children's Day song with the kids. Okay, that I can handle. Now the question is... whether or not I would like to put up a performance of my own...

I've always wanted to perform something for the kids. I'll be honest here - the adoration of children is quite an ego boost. Also, I think I can bring something of their popular culture into the concert. Sure it's fun watching teachers publicly humiliate themselves on stage for the sake of entertainment, but Children's Day is also about enjoying what makes them kids.

I had a little trickle of a thought in my head of singing the theme song for Gundam Seed while Some Gundam Video plays on the screen behind me. But... I'm scared. I'm nervous. Performing of kids is worse than performing for adults because they're honest without most social breaks. Being boo-ed is not fun. Maybe I'll let fate decide. If my colleague's boyfriend agrees to lend her his Xbox 360 so she and I can have a public battle on stage, then maybe I might also sing. Yeah.

Everyone knows work is shit. However, today that theory has become academic. Observe these series of events to see how this well known theory along with some behaviour modifying drugs, can alter the events of a humble school teacher:

8.15 - Wake up earlier than usual, feel tired.
8.45 - Leave for work to... work. Feel tired on the way. Drink coffee (aforementioned behaviour modifying drug).
9.30 - Arrive at work. Work. Meeting at 10.30.
10.30 - Attend meeting. Talk about work. Feel sleepy from tiredness, rain and possibly-subzero air-conditioning. Drink coffee.
12.15 - Feel twinges in belly. Go poop.
12.20 - Proceed to do Hall Duty. Need to poop. Stand on stage and nag at 500 children. Nagging alleviates need to poop.
1.00 - Duty done. Go poop.
1.20 - Pooping done. Make strong tea. Contemplate going home early but find that staying in school with incessant pooping is less troublesome than going through red tape to go home.
1.30 - Go poop.
2.15 - Pooped out. Fire in anus. Not having diarrhea fun. Red tape to go home early.
2.55 - Leave school.
3.20 - Go to doctor's. Get Meds. Need to poop seemingly reduced once out of school boundaries.

Diarrhea caused by too much coffee, imbibed due to the need to do work. Ergo: work -> shit. Mathematically, the increase of work in relation to the amount of fecal matter produced by an individual can be represented by the equation of w=5h!7

(P.S. only true nerds would get that equation. If you don't, you're probably more socially acceptable than I am. However, let me help you.)

Warning - serious complaining and whining to come. You have been warned. If you do not want to join me in my wallowing in excessive self-pity, then I advise you to leave now.

It's amazing how one look can cut into you and ruin your day. I usually have duty in the hall on Friday. My job is to tell those little darlings to sit down, shut up and read. I also remind them to do the aforementioned tasks should they forget, usually after a time span of three minutes. However, this day, I had fish with me. I bought them for the school tank. I ate a hasty lunch before heading to the tank and dumped them in. By the time I was upstairs, it was 12.45. My duty started at 12.30.

So I'm thinking - okay, FUCK. Then my supervisor, a nice lady I truly and honestly look up to, comes up to me with the microphone and asks, "It was your duty today, right?"

Cue hasty explanation of need to dump fish in tank before they died. I was actually sputtering my apologies.

And then came The Look. I don't know if I were being oversensitive, but I bet you didn't know you can cut someone's heart out with a look. It was the look of disappointment. It's the kind of look your mother gives you when you bring home the shit grades and break her heart. It was also mildly fed up.

I was crushed. I took over the duty and shut the kids up. Then I ended up... mildly demoralized. I began to think about all the areas I lacked as a teacher, and all the things I needed to learn to just... be a good teacher. I wrote to my supervisor and asked for advice. I spelled out my shortcomings and asked for help. I was worried about my grading at the end of the year, then again, the hell with it. Why worry? If I get graded down for asking for help, then the system is fucked. If she is the woman I look up to then help will come.

This depressing email ended up deflating my enthusiasm for class, and my english lesson was the most... boring... ever. I bored even myself. It was horrible. I don't think it was the Look she gave me so much as it was the impetus to self-examination, and realizing that I have so far to go.

I think my biggest problem is procrastination. I always seem to wait until something becomes urgent - trying to find the toilet only when I need to shit, as my dad says. I need to break out of that  damn bad habit that's ruining me and my career. If I let procrastination screw up my career then I'll be the biggest damn idiot in the world.

Besides this personal habit of mine, I really do feel as if there's too much on my plate. A lot of it is my fault - I get excited and want to be part of some school initiatives that interest me. I need to learn time management skills. I need to put into practice some ways to get me off my ass and working smarter.

You know what I need? I need a self-help book. The Belgariad is great, but I don't think Garion and the Orb of Aldur is going to help me work better.

I guess this was just one of those days.