Greetings

The new term has just started and the whole Teh and Kopi phenomenon will resume again. Teh and Kopi, our sole reason for us to get out of the freaking boring lecture and to entertain ourselves with friends. Talking that short walk across the street or just going underground towards Kopitiam proved to be a more delightful experience as compared to having to sit and get tortured by the prof's verbal assault. While at that, most of you who have read this would most probably storied to your friends about your whacky summer adventure. These are the very few things that would certainly still remain intact in our head after we graduate.


I prefer to be in black and white as compared to grey. Grey, what is grey? It's uncertainty. It's a fusion of two. Blending two things together doesn't necessarily mean beauty. Grey makes you assume and in my own quote, "Assumption is the mother of all fuck ups". It's true. How many of us assumed things and it turned out disastrous? Of course things could turn out great but what are the odds?


That happened to me. It's inevitable to make mistakes because frail humans we are, we are always subjected to uncertainty and lack of information. With this, assumptions have to be made. Furtheremore, you tend to assume more when it comes to having to deal with human emotions. It's hard to read a person's mind. Body language? Well, that's a possibility. I know of people who can. But when it comes to affairs of the heart and when you assume that the other party have a certain level of inclination towards you, many are shy to express their true thoughts because truly, rejection is a pain in the ass. By now, you may have a certain mental imagery of what the other party is thinking and if that mental imagery doesn't come out right, it can be quite a shocker and you certainly need to do damage control immediately. Still frames of moments like this just makes you wish that there is a hole that you can bury yourself into straight away.

Black and white.

Grey.


3 months have passed and how colourful was your summer? Perhaps you could give one liners here to just sum up your summer escapades. Mine was truly full of life changing moments. It's about burning, it's about opportunities, it's about death, it's about being a street kid once again, it's about understanding street kids. Being an educator for 1 month truly opened up my eyes about the reality out there about why there are shortages of teachers when in actual fact, NIE is the haven for hundreds of future, qualifed teachers. It's all about objectives. Yes, objectives. Why do you want to be a teacher in the first place? For the monetary benefits? To pass time? Were they forced? Or was the main reason a cliched one, to make a difference in the students' lives. Lemme tell you, some of the teachers, get deluded once they are thrown into the gauntlet. Ask your fellow teachers if you don't believe me.

THe turnoever rate is so high because to a certain extent, these teachers are not equipped to handle difficult people. These students are difficult individuals. First and formost, you have to understand that before you can start to teach, you must first be in control. And in order to do that, you must enforce discipline. I guess, in the teacher's guidebook, they didn't say anything about this huh. Plus, the lecturer tells the wannabe teachers to avoid punishing the students in any physical form and motivate them if they misbehave or make any mistakes. HELLLOOOOOO. That's in the ideal world. Step into my school. I went around and even saw teachers telling them to do push ups outside class. For me? I have my own style. I don't need to do push ups and stuff. It's all about peer pressure and getting the right frequency with them. Former street kids like me, would be able to get along with these street kids better. But mind you, these street kids are smart and have ambitions, it's just that they don't have the motivation and guidance to faciliate the process of achieving their goals.


Some would like to be trained dancers, some would like to be a businessman and one kid wanted to be in Public Relations for goodness sake. Awesome. There is only so much you can do. For me, I cannot do much apart from telling them of my personal experiences and experiences from other people who have already made it in life. I told them the process of reaching their goals and objectives. One thing that I hope they would be able to grab and put inside their pocket would be this.

"Experience alone can make you achieve your goals at the end of the day. Education AND experience allows you to reach them faster. Education allows you to have options in life. Do you want to be stuck with only one option?"


Well people, don't be a streetlamp in life. Be a MOBILE streetlamp. Ya know, just, move around and shed some light to some people who need some guidance in their life. One thing I like about being a mobile streetlamp is that, sometimes, people paste stuff on you, sometimes, they write notes on you, telling you that they enjoyed your company and it was a blast while it last.

ja
welcome to the real world she said to me, condecendingly