Today in history of my life, 15/10/09

I have decided to pen down events or happenings that should be marked in my life calendar simply because it's ichiban (first) or memorable enough, at least to disclose to the public audience.

So today in history, is my first invigilation briefing for national exams, which is the upcoming O' levels. I will be still staying in my own school, assigned to invigilate the isolation room which is to house any sick students but can still continue with their exam. Teachers from 3 other schools were there also, words were exchange and gossip started among us. Seriously teachers can be like students too.

Today, after finish marking some sec 1 physic exam scripts, i got the sec 2 physic scripts today and i must say that it is easy to mark. Easy to mark because i just draw a cross and give 0 simply because so many questions were not attempted.

Today in history, i thought to myself, that i am glad that i have learn to adapt to situation and condition, but i am not sure myself if that is a good thing, because i can potentially lose my interest in a few days. Well... not entirely lose the interest, but more like i do not care whether it happens or not. Maybe happy that things happen, but will not be unhappy just because things do not happen.

And last today, it's tgiaf which is thank god it's almost Friday. Although i am not that religious and monotheistic.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

I learnt about Maslow's hierarchy of needs during my university when i was taking Management and Organization module i believe. Basically, Maslow's hierarchy of needs reflects on the needs of human beings to achieve happiness. More can be found on the wonderful wikipedia about the topic.

So this pyramid suddenly came up to me when i am evaluating my life. I have no problem with my physiological and safety aspects just because my parents have provided for me a relatively comfortable life. I am still trying to come to a conclusion about the upper levels, to what extent does the factors affect my happiness. Because i believe that the factors are based on personal preferences, like if one is happy with just having one good friend, no reason he/she should be any more unhappy than one who is not content with hanging out with like ten friends or something.

All i know is, my esteem level of happiness apparently have regular recession like the semi-conductor industry. In fact i think now i am going through some low self-esteem phase, which probably have to be overcome by some self-pampering or some sort. O well, what to do, even though i know that i am really quite lucky in various aspects of my life, i always wonder if anything i can do to make it better. But then again, i do not know what is better...

Distractions

Been lazy to update my blog, simply because i have been rather busy (or rather not as slack as before) at work. Teaching is not easy, but it is not impossible either. Basically these few months have been for me to adapt not only to working life, but apparently for me to understand new concepts, concepts that i thought i knew but apparently i don't.

After weeks of slacking at home during the weekends, i have decided to venture out and do stuff during weekends. Be it exercising or even meeting up with friends to hang out or do stuff, going out is simply a ritual, a ritual of life and i am trying to live it. With new experiences, i have been rather confused, confused about my ideology and my predictions. I thought i knew my path, but apparently things came up and threw me off my direction. The frustration felt familiar, like i have experienced it before. However, as much as i wanted to just let the confusion pass and ignore it, some part of me would rather the situation will turn out differently. Because sometime, the things you want maybe only be the things you want on the surface and vice versa.

Talking about teaching, it is not just about passing on knowledge, but like the new moto of teachers, to lead to care to inspire. Sounds familiar to me, much like the moto of OCS where it's to lead to excel to overcome. Basically the moto will outline the requirement of the job, which means i am suppose to motivate the students and care for them. Being a Gen Y (or X i am not exactly sure), we are a generation of selfish and self-centered individuals, i am not sure how much concern i can show to the students. Probably i am more interested in their gossip or something, but anyway this post is not about my teaching life.

This post is more about distractions, distractions that pull you away from your original direction. For me, this time the distraction is motivation, motivation to change, to change my current state of life. To no longer treat everything as simple and normal, but rather appreciate the small things in life. Because what else can i do when i am just ordinary, ordinary enough so that nothing spectacular will happen to me, or i hope so. Deep down, i do not know if i would want something spectacular to happen to me, because i did have a small taste of something that is spectacular to me and i must confess i do not know how to handle it to my biggest advantage. For now, my action will be just like a predator, just watch and wait before deciding on my next course of action.

True Blood

I have been watching this drama True Blood from HBO for quite a while now. Now it is into it's second season and 9th episode. True blood is a vampire themed drama, but it is not twilight styled vampire themed where a big chuck of the story is for teenage girls to go gaga over how good looking is the male vampires.

True blood talks about an alternate reality, where vampires exist in our society and co-existing around humans in the open. The show encompasses political aspect, where vampires are trying to fight for their rights in the society, much to the dismay and rejections of the churches because of the nature of vampire, which is thought to be an evil being. Apart from the political struggle, romance is an essential part of every story, so obviously the story of a forbidden love between a vampire and human is touch upon. Well, inside the show even vampires and humans are allowed to get married, so not exactly forbidden but frown upon by many people. There are also shape shifters who can transform into any animals he set their eyes on. Currently, the story also focus on a mysterious character, who seems to bring out the inner desire of human, especially the sexually component.

The story is set in the town of Louisiana in the United States and apparently all the characters who are locals talk with a funny accent. The show is getting quite interesting because of the mysterious character and a possible all out war between the vampires and the church. I'll leave behind the True blood opening credit, which i found to be rather weird.

Invigilation

Today is my first day and first time doing exam invigilation. This week is the common test week for secondary 1 to 3, which kind of reminded me of my times doing tests and exams in school. Exams were always boring for me, largely due to me being able to finish the paper before the allocated time. This resulted in lots of waiting and being a rather impatient boy back then, waiting is really a chore. Until i got into university, the exams were normally less boring, because more often than not, i do the paper until the end of the given time, and probably still got 20% of the questions blank.

Giving exam instructions to the students have been the topic between all the contract teachers, because most of us just came out from university, so we tend to recap the instructions given during our exams and tell them to the students. This kind of made me try to remember what i was told during my own secondary school exams, which obviously i cannot recall as well. But i guess the essences of what is being said should be similar.

Other than the boredom of doing exams, i can't really remember how my test or exam schedule went. The subjects which i am taking, physics and maths are all on Friday, which means that even though i might be slack for the next two days, i have no paper to mark, which kind of suck because i might actually need to use my weekend to mark (if i need to mark that is). At far as possible, now i am still trying not to bring work back, which i have been successful thus far.

The flaws of man

During my spare time i have been watching documentaries about the rise and fall of Rome and history of Britannia. Coupled with my few weeks of teaching in school, somehow i came to observe certain flaws of man.

Firstly, the resultant force of a group of people is not the summation of the individual forces of the people inside. A group has the energy to booster one confidence to do something that he/she might not dare to do as an individual, which may not necessarily be good. Of course team work is beneficial, but rioting as a group is truly hard to handle. This applies to students too, because a class of 40 has the power to bully the lone teacher, but if the class is reduced to maybe a class of 10, the class is like a tiger with decaying teeth and could hardly bite. Thus, the flaw of man is when man gather, it serves as a double-edged sword.

Secondly, society on the whole is irreconcilable. The elites will never forgone their power and influence so that the poor will a better life. And the poor will remain poor because they have no capital to earn more money, and the elites would probably come up with some reasons to justify why the poor remain poor. Moreover, every groups of people has their own interests and to align their interests such that it could possibly become a common interest is truly impossible. It is kind of just like how teachers think that students are getting worse these days, while students think that teachers are so boring and full of crap (generalizing and stereotyping which may or may not necessary be true).

Lastly, man probably has the eyes for the best and the worst, often overlooking the ordinary. We want the best, so we look out for the best. In our search for the best, we know the worst so that we can avoid them. Ordinary means normal, which is often equates to not good enough. Why am i ranting about such random stuffs? Because today in class i realize that i only notice the 'famous' students, be it for the good or bad reasons. But the point is, when i tell this to anyone, most of them will tell me it is normal. Which made me think, what is normal? Normal to overlook the normal people? Or is it normal to overlook the ordinary students just because they are not out to give you any trouble.

Weird thinking on my part, not to mention rather lousy English i reckon, but my mind is not functioning properly at the moment. I think i should blog more about my experiences and my thoughts in school.

Random political thought

For some unknown reason(s), i am actually grateful to LKY for fighting for equality among its citizens instead of accepting privileges to the natives in return for existence in the country. Else, now i would probably be a second class citizen with limited opportunities, especially in the public sector.