Friday, December 14, 2012

The Hobbit

Yesterday after teaching for 6 solid hours without a break, I went to watch The Hobbit with Ianthe and Jiahui. I was completely exhausted, but the excitement of the movie kept me going. Hooray.

Today during lunch I realised that it had been a good number of days, exactly a week ago to be exact, that I managed to have a good sit-down lunch without a million things needing to be addressed weighing on my mind. Similarly tonight, after work, Jean and I managed to grab a nice dinner together. A proper dinner without rushing or eating trash. Hooray.

I can't wait for 4pm tomorrow when my work week will be over. So tired! My thoughts are becoming incoherent. 

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Preserved Vegetable Soup

It's been a hell of a hectic week, and looks like this upcoming week is going to be one too. YE GADS.

So on the I-hate-my-fucking-schedule part, there has been no proper change, but I've spoken to a few people and they've promised change of sorts shortly. Also I've spoken to my mentor and she's helping me too. So fingers crossed on that end. I am grudgingly plodding along in the meantime.

One of those classes in the branch-I-hate is a damned class. They have abandonment issues stemming from their last two teachers, who dropped them like hot potatoes in favour of other things. At the same time, I've never seen a class with so many argumentative and talkative students stuffed together in one room. Last week, out of the blue, one even randomly said to me, "if my mother was like you, everything would be a disaster". Then he went on to act normally for the rest of the class. BLAH. That was the last class of my entire teaching week too, so needless to say I was extremely perturbed. Damnit, I do dread dealing with that class.

Today I got called for a last minute class, which threw a veritable monkey wrench into my plans. As a result, I ended up rushing the whole day to teach that one class. At least the children were incredibly cute, because they were only 8. One boy even proudly told me he wasn't even 8 yet, because his birthday was on 20th Dec. Needless to say, it was odd when they asked me whether they could go to the bathroom, and I said yes, and they stared at me expectantly. It wasn't until I wondered why they were not going, and getting pestered a second time ('Ms. Wong, Ms. Wong, I really need to go to the toilet urgently!') did I realise that I was supposed to escort them to the bathroom. Oops. Well, I've never taught such a young lot before.

Last week Wednesday, I came home extra late from the branch-I-hate and found my mother oddly asleep on my bed. I woke her up when I came into the room, and she told me that she had bad news to tell me. As my mind raced of all possible horrid scenarios (someone died, she got fired...), she said "your brother broke your laptop". Uh.

Stunned, I walked over to my desk and removed the handwritten note that she'd placed on top of the laptop. Most perversely, I noted the laptop had been put back together nicely, like a completed puzzle. When I lifted it however, the screen came off from the keyboard and the speaker bit fell off onto the table. WTF. When I spread it out flat, it looked like this:


I spent the rest of the week and the weekend mourning the unnecessary death of my laptop, all the while wondering HOW it was POSSIBLE for something like that to happen. On Monday when I finally cracked and went to buy a new laptop, I spoke briefly about the problem to the Epicentre guy, and he suggested it had been dropped from a height when it was open. Bloop.

So anyway, spanking new laptop. Not that I wanted one though. The thought of the added expenditure depresses me to no end.

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For the past two nights, with dinner, we've been drinking this awesome preserved vegetable soup. It was given to my grandma recently by our remaining family in Guangzhou. An update since then: the old man died a few years ago, but our families are still in touch. His wife, the lady holding up the baby in the photo, made the preserved vegetables herself. Boiled in soup with chicken bones, it's the best preserved vegetable soup I've ever tasted. The soup tastes also buttery, with a definite umami sort of lingering taste. For a simple and homemade ingredient, it's one of the best I've have. I have since concluded it's the amount of love (ohoho cheese alert!) that they've put into making it that makes it taste so wonderful.

Joaquin is coming in less than 2 weeks! I'm greatly excited :)

Saturday, December 01, 2012

Tired and Depressed

It's the end of Week 10 and I feel miserable. This week I got an assignment that sent me to the faraway branch of M/s L two days a week indefinitely temporarily. It takes me about 1 hour 20 mins to travel each way. That means I'm deprived of sleep. At the same time, I dislike the area because food isn't readily available, unlike the other branches. To top it off, colleagues who joined after me managed to get their permanent assignments, while HR is still fumbling with mine. One colleague was randomly given a Saturday class of 10 year olds that I really adored.

I'm just so frustrated and unhappy that I don't really know how to begin.

Really, really frustrated and unhappy.