Ramblings #1

A week passed as quickly as the lightning strike. A week of holiday, or should I put that in quotes. A teacher is not one who has a holiday in the true sense unlike those 9 to 5, 5-day week workers. A teacher is most often on the roll, 24/7 and 365. Whatever "holidays" that we have is spent thinking of how to improve our teaching, how to ensure students learn, and most importantly, how to retain the enrollment. Of course, there are teachers who let all their hair down the minute holiday comes. They'd just drop everything related to work, and head for Paradise Island, sign up for a romantic escapade package or splurge in shopping. I suppose these are the teachers who know their work like that back of their hands. Dump them into any relief class, and chances are, they could deliver well, impromptu without a magic wand.

I have tried, but to no avail. In fact, even before the holidays began, I started planning what to do. 

Unfortunately, reality is that, whenever I'm home, there are errands to run, and other non-teaching stuff to do. Holidays ought to be the time when we relax, but not me. I wonder if I'm abnormal in that way. Ironically, I'd be silently clamouring for holidays. But I must admit that I do have a few days a year when I'm very laidback (that's bad sometimes) and just daydream. 

You're paid a salary each month, so you have to work. And the amount of salary you get commensurate with the job you do, though not always true in dire situations - and I'm not referring to natural calamities. 

Hmm, how many more years do I have? Err... approximately two decades more, or longer, since I have loans to pay up. Will I get to the point when I could sit back and relax under the coconut tree on Paradise Island, sipping coconut water with my other half (if I'm already married by then), and watching my children (if I have any) building sandcastles on the soft, sandy beach, and I would have nothing to think of but waiting for time to leave this world? There are many who have reached this pinnacle part of their lives - I hope to be in that fraternity some day.

Yeah, some day.