The Voice of English

Ever since I have taken the path towards being an educator, the oath of writing an essay a day and the willingness to teach English, I have been criticised. People question my motives. People wonder why I sacrifice so much time. Some people wonder why I even bother, especially considering that it is English that I adore.

Today, I have answered all of those questions in one simple gesture: the act of kindness and understanding. Today, I have liberated myself from self-labelling as a 'future educator'. Today, despite needing one more year of essay writing and group work, I have granted myself the label 'educator'. 

Today, I witnessed yet another student who has fallen into the cracks of our education system, and that student is one of a Chinese descent. Chan* has been in Australia for around two months now. She is not at all fluent in English, and she had always been sitting around doing nothing when I taught her class. Two lessons ago, I found out about her origins and took her onto my wing. Ever since I found out, I have been describing instructions to her in a simplistic manner so as to ensure her understanding.

There was something special about today, though. Having set homework tasks based on Romeo and Juliet in the last class, I had not expected Fiona to even comprehend any of the task choices. I was proven wrong. Upon asking the students as a whole in today's class if anyone had completed their homework, not one person had responded. They all either looked down, looked up or looked sideways. "Well," I said, "that's very interesting because Chan, who knows hardly any words in English, managed to write an alternate ending for Romeo and Juliet with the help of a translator." the entire class was dumbfounded.

Having volunteered to help Chan fix up her internet account in the IT department, whilst waiting for the IT people to return to their workstations, I stood with Chan in the hallway and spoke to her about her life in China compared to life in Australia. "I have so many options here," she told me. "In China we have boring subjects. We don't have cooking classes even." It occurred to me that we take our education system for granted here. We indeed do have many options. After that brief discussion, Chan said, "homework?" and proceeded to open up her English folder. She pulled out a tidy sheet with handwriting on it, which was the alternate ending to Romeo and Juliet. 

I asked if she could read it to me just so that I could check whether or not she had written it, at least f she could read it out she would have some sort of understanding of it. And she did. She even laughed at all of the funny parts, marvelling at how humorous her writing was. She was glowing. I asked her if she wanted to read it to the rest of the class when before we finished from the IT department. She looked down, and said "maybe they laugh. Maybe they make me embarrassed." I told her "if anything, they should feel embarrassed that you can write something in another language!" 

She did not end up reading it. But I did guilt trip the rest of the students by mentioning her completion of a task. And in the entire delivery of my lesson, she was smiling. She was fully attentive, trying everything that I asked of the class. All it takes is consideration. I imagined myself in another country, that speaks a language foreign to me and I cringed. Chan is so brave. It is not fair for those who are not familiar with English to be left behind. English is an important means of communication, and students born here that are fluent in it should grant themselves lucky, because out there, there are students who have no idea about what is going on, and they are looking for somebody, anybody, to assist them in learning.

It just takes that extra effort. Not at all strenuous, and all the while extremely rewarding. For the rest of my stay at my placement school, I will continue to ensure that Chan is receiving every bit of help that I can offer because she is one of the students who has a care for what I have to say - why would I not want to hear what she has to say as well?



*name changed to protect privacy of the student

A Costly Talent

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I have never quite been a fan of compliments because I do not know how to react to them. This has always been my problem, and it especially was in existence when I had 'happy birthday' sung to me when I was younger. Though, I do admit it still gets to me now. However, now moreso than 'happy birthday', there is something else that I am not a big fan of when it comes to compliments.

And that is the classic compliment, "wow, you are so good at art!" Thank you. Really, I appreciate the compliments that I receive for my artworks, it keeps my spirit high and almighty - and that there lies the problem, for when my spirit is high and mighty and my bank account is high and mighty and my university art unit is high and mighty, then crazy things occur wherein I lose a great deal of money to ensure my consistent receiving of compliments. And today, that happened.

Today I spent just under three-hundred dollars on art supplies for my new art unit. They were compulsory, but had I not been graciously encouraged by my artistic admirers, then I would not have been caught in a situation where I feel like I am paying with my flesh for something that will go to some unit results. To be honest, something more than just paint or pencil goes into my artworks. Invisible blood, sweat and tears. I go through so much effort firstly to devise the concepts of new artworks, and then comes the execution. Both do not occur on one day each, as much as I would love them to. They take up my mental and physical stamina, and these invested things are priceless. 

Having lost so much money thus far that I cannot afford to lose on artworks that have been seen and critiqued once weigh out the feelings of my so-called talent. I feel as though I am doing all of this for no reason. I am not capable, or I might be, of opening my own gallery, though the choice was granted to me today in my second art unit, a unit where I also have to spend around this much money on supplies. I just wish there was some sort of support system for artists so that they could acquire all of the pricey things at ease. Had I not had some sort of income, I think that I would draw far less. Unless I stalk areas of wet concrete with a wooden stick in my hand. 

Art itself should be priceless, and its supplies. I wonder every day how Picasso made it before he was famous - how did he afford all of that paint? All of those canvases? It frightens me. It also frightens me how art is becoming less and less of a thing in secondary schools. All this money, all that disappearance of art classes, all that effort going to the same pay cheque as someone teaching another subject like Japanese, I am beginning to wonder if Art is a useful skill at all.

Kickstart

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For many, university is a place of academia, a step closer to achieving a career goal, and a leap deeper into student debt. That mixture is what I aim for, however what I consider university to be to me is a kickstart back on track with my life.

When I am on a break from university, I feel as though my life is jumbled up. I fall out of any routine that I once had, and I ruin my sleeping and eating patterns. I lose myself again. All the gain that I would have gathered from every sense of my wellbeing flies away from my grip, and I again fall into the well of despair that I annually attempt to pull myself out of.

I celebrate the coming of holidays as much as any other student, though. I finally acquire headspace. I start plotting places to go, things to do, things to see, road trips and projects and such, and I indeed pursue them - the thing is that  pursue them all too fast and they are over early, leaving a lot of time for me to, yes, procrastinate.

I suppose then any course that I choose to undertake in the future, including the courses I have taken and the course that I am taking, are utterly worth the price that I one day must pay back. Along with paying for an access to education, I am paying to get my life together. I am paying for clarity, for direction, for self-worth. 

I have met amazing professionals, most of which still communicate with me to this day. I have been reborn as someone that I never saw myself as being. When I was eighteen years old, I had no idea what I wanted to do, and if one asked me where I saw myself in ten years I would have honestly replied with death. I was in a bad place, mentally, and I saw no light at the end of the tunnel I caught myself in. I did not see a way out, I did not see any educative possibilities. I thought that I would acquire a job and live off whatever job I acquired - I had no luck. I thought that I could live off youth allowance, and I did for a while until they required me to either get a job or study. I went job-hunting again and failed, so I decided to enrol in any mere course. I chose Professional Writing and Editing.

I loved that course, but I was highly distracted with my youth and my inner confusion. I did not know who I was, and I still had no sense of direction. I dropped out of that course when I had not long left to complete it, and sought after Information Technology. I flourished in it. I was the only girl, and that was to my advantage because I always had help whenever I needed it. I excelled in web design, programming and project management - I was beginning to see myself as in I.T. expert, until I had a networking class. I tried to pass but failed, and again, gave up on the course. Then I was stranded.

Until the Diploma of Education Studies came along. I was surprised that I had gotten into it, and I did not take the first semester seriously at all. Something then lit up inside of me when I heard the possibility of being able to get into the Bachelor of Education if I pass the diploma. I suddenly wanted that opportunity. I me into that diploma thinking that I could never get into university, and then I was given the option, and I took that option by the reigns and steered it in one direction: up. Now, I am pleased to say that I am excelling in what I do, and I am enjoying what I do.

But I want more. I hunger for more. The Bachelor has given me a kickstart into the educative life, and it has pushed me to want much more than a teaching job at a local high school. I want to study beyond this and hopefully lecture. I have a dream that one day I will walk into a lecture theatre and place my powerpoint presentation up on the projector and talk about that topic for a whole hour, and later go in-depth for three or so hours. I am education hungry, and I have university to thank for that, for now it has kickstarted my realistic career goals.

Give whatever you doubt a chance, because sometimes the things you doubt turn out to be the things that you need. They could be the colour your life is missing. Unless of course those things are drugs, cigarettes or alcohol, because, you know, they are not good for you.

Clinical Small Talk

Just about almost every type of doctor I have visited has inquired about not only my interests but my sense of direction in life, whether it be my general practitioner or some sort of specialist or surgeon. 

Today I had an appointment with my former surgeon and current head specialist. I sought after him in order to maintain with myself that there is something wrong with my sinus. This man had operated on me when I was seven years old, and he took away my Tamagotchi while I was being anaesthetised; to this day, I have yet to be reunited with it and it pains me so considering they are now worth well over thrice their original recommended retail price - but that, of course, is besides the point. This man has not met with me ever since I was a lost and confused seventeen year old about to graduate from high school. I do not remember what we discussed but I doubt it had anything to do with future plans.

"I first met you as a little girl, then as a teenager, and now... You're a woman!" Yes, doctor, it appears that way but please do not ask me - "so what are you doing with yourself?" 

"I am studying the bachelor of education." 

"Ah, yes, nice! And what are your main focuses?" 

"English and art."

"So you enjoy English?" 

"Yes. I do."

Why the small talk? Why the unnecessary discussion of future plans that are not quite intact? What defines a woman? Why does my path matter? This small talk reminds me of the awkward talks that one has with a former college acquaintance on the worst of days in the shopping centre whilst one attempts to ironically avoid all sorts of people. 

While it may very much appear as though I know the direction that I am headed, well, considering that I am now "a woman", I do not. Life has continued to take me on all sorts of twists and turns and though I once feared this, I am beginning to enjoy it. My varied academic endeavours have not placed me on a set path and this assists me in ridding my life of the one thing that I loathe the most: repetition. Life is strange, it should be embraced with a 'go with the flow' sort of  way. And the people who interrupt this flow are people like doctors.  

They are so certain of their lives from the set path they have taken in order to heal and repair, that thy rub their authenticity on the faces of others. And this does not necessarily only relate to doctors, rather all sorts of professionals in any trade: hairdressers, waiters, beauticians, checkout clerks, bakers, butchers. It is as though they assert their authenticity when they ask for a sense of yours and they grow when they find out that you do not have one. 

So I wonder if I am truly set out to be an educator, or is this path created in the current in order to tell these professionals that I too have a sense of authenticity of my own to assert?

The Impact of Teaching

"The average American will meet ten-thousand people in their lifetime. Ten-thousand people - that's a lot of folks; but if every one of you changed the lives of just ten people, and each one of those people changed the lives of another ten people, and another ten, then in five generations, a hundred and twenty-five years, the class of 2014 will have changed the lives of eight-hundred million people. Think about it. Over twice the population of the United States. Go one more generation, and you can change the entire population of the world."

This is a large concept to grasp, that so little people can affect so many others. It applies not only to America, but also to the rest of the world that the average human will meet around ten-thousand people in their lifetime. And just like negative aspects, so too can the positive circulate around the Earth's population.

One form of circulating positivity is the path that I am currently taking: the path towards teaching. A teacher is no longer just an authoritative figure; not only a parent, nor just a guardian, rather an agent of change. A teacher has the ability to throw one's world upside down in a matter of words. The phrase 'you learn something new every day' is used constantly in an educative environment and it is threaded into the learning atmosphere almost subliminally. Though some students do not wish to be there, they, without a doubt, will be learning things in the entirety of their day. And these things are not necessarily only based on the curriculum, but they can be things associated with every day life.

I am estimating that there are around six hundred students currently undertaking the Bachelor of Education at my university - in total, despite how many years they are into it. And I am estimating that since we will graduate as teachers, that we will be exposed to more people than the average person, thus I will up the average number of ten-thousand to twenty-thousand people. With those calculations at hand, that means that collectively, all of the people currently studying the Bachelor of Education will, in their lifetimes, impact the lives of around twelve million individuals. That is just over half the population of Australia.

The power of education is incredible. Though he does not refer to it directly, Admiral William H. McRaven in the above video encapsulates in the first couple of minutes of his speech just how powerful the impact of one cohort truly is. Prior to that moment, I guarantee the graduating students of the University of Texas did not know just how big they are in such a small world. 

And then I got to thinking; I recently just completed a unit called Rethinking Australian Studies, which ultimately was taught by non-stereotypical looking Aboriginal people who brought forth to our class the need to break free from the stereotyping and tokenising of all Aboriginal people, and brought into light the atrocities committed at the time of European settlement in Australia. The unit went much deeper than that, though, much deeper than the mere 'Sorry Speech' Kevin Rudd delivered - it required us, the students, to choose something to protest for or against, in terms of pro-Aboriginal rights. 

I initially was uncomfortable about the entire idea. I was frightened that the Police would give me a bad record for having to physically take photographs of myself with my protest poster in a public place, and I was worried that I would the get the message caught up and whatnot. Everything, though, turned out fine. In my class I met dozens of new people who I made an impact on with my poster art, I made an impact on my lecturer and two teachers, and made an impact on the people in the city that day who gawked at me standing with my group and our protest signs in front of the Parliament steps. 

And it has made such a difference in my life. There is an uncountable amount of strangers who I probably impacted on with my poster alone, that I have not yet met, yet they count on the people that I have actively changed. Every reaction we obtained would have then caused a chain reaction - those strangers would have gone home, gone to the pub, gone to work, gone to a fitness class and they would have told their friends or family members or co-workers about what they witnessed in the city, who later would have told their friends, family members or co-workers. It is an ongoing reaction. Imagine all the impact everyone would make if more people took a stand for various aspects of social justice. 

And that is the beauty of teaching. Not only are teachers the only teachers, but so are the students. I learn so much from going on pre-service teaching placement. I learn from the staff I meet, the fellow pre-service teachers I meet, and the students. Life is an ongoing lesson. We all matter. We all make a difference. Each choice we have impacts not only ourselves but also others - think about it: change one thing that you did today, whether it be a different setting or a different way of answering something or a different person you sat next to; how much difference would that have made? Yes. A lot.

The Holy Modern Day Pilgrimage to Endeavour Hills

According to my religious background, both God and Jesus are there whenever I need them - they are just a prayer away. Actually, that also applies to every other saint including Mary herself. Today, the presence of Mary in the physical sense was unfortunately missed.

So one Lebanese woman told another Lebanese woman who told another Lebanese woman who told my grandmother who told my aunty who told my mother that there was a crying statue of Mary here in Melbourne, an hour away from where we reside. Naturally, my parents deemed it a great idea to, despite the wet weather and the tendency of the car windshield fogging up and needing the air-conditioner to be switched on thus causing an annoyance to my face and my sinuses, drag me along on the one and a half hour trip away from my comfort zone to place me in a strange environment where a statue was personified to the point where it cried.

Now, seeing as everybody seems to get my religion mixed up because of my Middle-Eastern ethnicity, and since September 11 shook everyone's perceptions on Middle-Easterns, I feel that I need to clarify my beliefs before I go on. My father is Catholic, my mother is Greek Orthodox, and I lay somewhere in the middle of those two religions. I celebrate two Easters, two Christmases, two Halloweens, and one birthday, with an additional day of celebration because of my name day. When I was around four years old I was hit by three cars and I managed to survive with a piece of holy bread left in my mouth so I believe a higher order had some part to play in that. I have faith that there is some protective power watching over me, or so I hope, but having said that I do not like to rub my religion in people's faces and I expect the same to be done back to me. 

This pilgrimage, despite my faith, was not a fun one for me. Any university student would agree that winter school occupies all that is left of one's time, and if I am not partaking in any work I am thinking about it, and if I am not thinking about it I am preparing for it, and if I am not preparing for it I am doing it - it is a vicious cycle. Thus, you can probably assume why leaving my house today to venture to a statue was not my fondest of options but it was the only one I had - apparently I am assumed to hate my family if I spend an entire day away - again, something people of Middle-Eastern backgrounds suffer, I mean, understand.

So almost two hours of direct contact with an air-conditioner later, we made it, and to our surprise, not to my surprise though, the house was not open. My grandmother had told my mother that it opens from Thursdays to Sundays, alas it actually opens on Thursday and Sunday. Another carload of faithful Lebanese people parked beside ours. Our families shared their dismays and we drove back home, completely forgetting about the entire journey.

Was it worth the trip? Well, it gave me some headspace but clogged my sinus. It gave me some time away from my computer screen and allowed me some time to listen to my many desired genres of music on my headphones. In modern times, the love of religion is fleeting. I appreciate it for my extended time here, and for the warmth it brings me on days where I fear things. I just wish it preached more on the need for education so that I did not look like an enemy to my family. But I do not expect that - even the government does not seem to understand.

Inspiring Children

Studying a four-year long course can have its downtimes, especially when it comes to leaving your bed every morning. Studying a course about studying so that you can inspire others to study too can also have its downtimes, yet there are precious gemstones that lie hidden every now and again.

Yesterday, I came across one of these precious gems, at a moment I least expected - the moment right before I left class. I was one of the four left in the class, the other twenty-two having ran off as soon as they handed in their work hours earlier, and my friend and I stayed behind even considering we finished hours earlier, while the other two worked on their essays, attempting to finish before four. Now that all of that was over, we all began packing up our things. Amongst the ruckus caused from the clattering and zipping of bags, a classmate said something to me that will resonate within me throughout my entire teaching career.

"Remember that origami frog you made us make last year for your science presentation?" I had a quick blast to the past in my mind, and recalled the time when I uploaded an instructional video of myself on YouTube making an origami frog for a mini-lesson in class, just in case I stuffed up. My classmates kept up well and truly and were each able to make a paper-frog that could hop around. I did not know, though, that it would still be spoken about a year later. "Yes?" I replied.

"Well," she continued," the other day I happened to be in my niece's bedroom and right up on the top shelf, on display is the frog that I made in your mini-lesson!" I had to stop for a minute to absorb it - how did it get there? Why was it there? "It turns out she kept my frog that I made in your class and she is now so inspired by it that she has ought her own origami kit and is making all these wonderful origami objects!" I could not believe it. A little person that I do not know has been inspired by something I set forth into the world through a minuscule lesson, a lesson that I thought was only for a mere mark that would be forgotten after I had graduated. Boy, was I wrong.

Something that I once thought so little of is now the basis of inspiration for a little girl. Something that I once considered irrelevant to life is now the meaning of life for that little person. Something that I thought was unimportant is now so important for her that she requested that her mother bought her an origami kit, that she took the time to clean her top shelf and reserve a large portion of it for my idea. My mind whirled. And then it dawned on me: we can impact people without even knowing, without even considering it, without even planning it.

I still remember that day. It was such a drag. I did not feel comfortable teaching a lesson. I ddi not feel comfortable standing in front of people I did not know to make them do something that they probably did not want to do. I did not know what to do with the topic I had chosen, which was about the life-cycles of frogs, so I stuck with the idea of folding one and watching it hop across a desk. To my surprise, it ended up hopping into someone's life and changing it for the better. I may have just inspired that little girl to think a little more creatively each time she is faced with a problem. Maybe she may go on to inspire her friends in the classroom to make objects out of scrap paper. Maybe she will become a paper artist, making paper sculptures. Maybe she will become a pop-up book designer. Maybe she will run a paper company. Who knows?

But what I know for certain is that my simple act paved an entirely new path for her. And that is the effect we teachers have on the world. One little footstep at a time, one little activity, one little idea can make a whole heap of new ones. We aspire to inspire. 

Divergent

I amuse myself sometimes. Actually, I amuse myself all the time. I also amuse all sorts of people. But more than being amusing, I also am confusing in terms of my divergent nature, how I fall into several descriptors that differ from initial thoughts of me.

The main descriptor that amuses me and confuses others is the fact that I have decided to embark on an educative journey. It is something that most everyone I meet does not expect. In fact, the last thing they would expect me to be on the journey towards being is a teacher, a role model, an educator. The way I talk, the way I behave and the things that I do scream otherwise and it makes it difficult for people to believe me when I claim that my area of interest lies in the world of academia, of learning to learn to teach.

People simply cannot fathom that a person like me who speaks more street-talk than not will be the director of a classroom one day. They then begin to fit the pieces together when I consistently begin to drop words that are too large for them to comprehend, and soon come to the acceptance of the fact that I may lecture their sons and daughters in the near future. And that is what I certainly love most about myself, the fact that I am not who I appear to be. This can go brutally awful, though.

Not in favour of this amusement is the parents of these little people. If a parent saw me at a party, or at the shopping centre or anywhere else I journey through, they will consider me the last person that they would ever want near their child, let alone the last person they want instructing their child. I have befuddled the parents of the students that I work with, though, on my placement rounds. One particular mother became more obsessed with me than her daughter was. I remember sitting at the back of the car on our way home from an abandoned mental asylum and my cousin turned around and asked me, "why is there an Indian lady smiling at you and waving?" It turned out it was her. Her daughter was asleep in the back of her car, so her mother decided to do all of the waving. I rolled down the window and had a miniature conversation with her across two lanes on a main road - it was fantastic!

My mentor teachers also judge me upon my appearance and my quiet nature and my "unwillingness to show initiative". I soon also amuse them when I start teaching, and I have had several occasions where some of my mentors have become jealous of my bond with the students, particularly one from primary school. I cannot help it. I will not compromise my ability to connect with students immediately so as to not make my mentors look bad. I am there to gain experience and I will "show initiative" in my own ways. 

And that is what teaching is all about, in my opinion. Being divergent. I could not care what the educator of my children will look like, smell like nor would I care that they enjoy listening to rap music and swearing a little too much in each sentence that they say. What I care about is their ability to connect with my child so as to allow my child to confide with them on an educative basis. And that is who I am for children that I teach. Parents need to judge based on practice not on physical presentation. 

Maya Angelou

I have always had the misconception that life is infinite, that those alive who I admire who are out of my reach would one day be in my reach, and that there is plenty of time for everything. Yesterday, I was proven wrong. I should have known that there was a particular reason for my solemn evening. 

I saw a trend on Facebook, a little notation on the right side of my web browser that said 'Maya Angelou' - without reading any further, I was content for one that my main source of inspiration was being mentioned, atop all other things in the world, in a place where intellectual muses are usually overlooked. So I briefly revelled in that moment alone. Then, I read on, and I could literally feel my intellectual realm shatter inside me. All that I stood for, education-wise, was shaken with an internal earthquake that bounced off and away from the richter scale.

My one academic muse was dead. She had left the earth. She was gone. That was it, all she had worked for, all she had achieved, all the lives she had touched, it would now mean that it would not matter after the media has used it to their benefits, until an enthusiastic poetry teacher or educator or literary or historical genius dropped her name out of the blue, connecting it to the topic at hand, and her name would penetrate the ears of many and slip away, sticking only with a couple or a few students who will, not for long, focus on her name because they will feel that it will be best to return to the task at hand so as to pass and one day reach near the level of Maya Angelou's impact on the academic world.

Eighty-six years, and in those years she achieved more than what most cannot achieve had they lived thrice that amount. I am bothered. I am saddened. But above all, I am grateful. I never had the chance to meet her. I never had the chance to live up to my fullest potential so as to get some mere form of recognition from her, nor had I ever had the chance to write her a letter, all of which I should have done, and I wish I had done. Time slipped away. And upon looking for an address for contact, I have found these two things, both of which illustrate how quickly a chance can escape:

Sorry, the person you were looking for is no longer available, more like. I am grateful that I lived in a parallel world to her, so that at least I did not have to look in a mere history book to stumble upon her. I hold up high the values her work has nestled in me about my appearance, about my womanhood, about my curves and my femininity and my voice and how I can impact the world too, as a future educator.

I am grateful for Dr. Maya Angelou and her impact on the world and myself. And though I never had or ever will have the chance to show her my gratitude, I will always carry her story with me for future generations and I will always remember her many gifts.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” 

- Dr. Maya Angelou

University: Sink or Swim

I am so overwhelmed at the moment. Just when I thought I could get a grip on university and its requirements and the whole teaching gig, I cannot. It has taken its toll on me simply because it has scared my interests away, and now they lie elsewhere and it has become strikingly more difficult to get them back.

As a pre-service teacher, I am experiencing the backstage scenes of teaching, the curriculum and the repetition in it all. Students think they have it bad when teachers repeat everything, but to teachers it is habitual and required. I am losing taste in all of this because I feel that I can be more, that I am capable of more than wasting my life away repeating things to people who have their minds on other things. I can be more than eating an apple during a lunchbreak at a dull coloured desk listening to the coughs of colleagues. I can be more than a nine to five job – five in the morning, that is.

It is just too demanding, especially for a person with such broad interests as mine. If I had things my way I would live in a secluded house on a secluded hill and write for a living, painting and drawing in my spare time. Nothing else would be of any importance. And I would thrive that way. My passions have not been spreading out to students too well, I think, and that is why I am feeling less passionate. Though, it is hard to feel passionate when you have a curriculum laying out your entire year in principles and expectations.

Days where I think teaching is not for me, I wonder what is, and I wonder what suffices. And then it all comes down to money. If I had a copious amount of money then I would own that secluded house on that secluded hill and I would not have to worry about anything at all, and I could output my dreams onto canvas and paper with no deadlines and no hesitations. I would have my headspace and my peace whilst keeping all that I desire. But life does not work like that.

Life requires you to communicate with people you would rather not breathe near. Life requires you to be things you are not comfortable in being otherwise life packs its belongings and rolls on without you. Though we cherish deceased heroes, we do not talk about them all the time. They are just as forgotten as the past season until it comes up again and I loathe that. This makes me feel that all of this is worthless. What is the point of me going out of my comfort zone only to be even more uncomfortable?

And then I remember the excited look in some pupils’ eyes. I remember my dedication pouring out of me and into others, and I feel empowered again. Though I might not be classified a hero for the world, I know I might be the hero of some. Time will tell, and though it is difficult I must pursue. Whenever I hear a person demean a university student I will offer them one of my unit guides and watch as their faces drop. Because it is only in experiencing something when we learn about it.

I will sink and I will swim and I will sink and swim again. But that is the life I have chosen and that is the life that will bring me closer to that secluded house on that secluded hill.

Late

Yes. Late is something I always am, lately, but not to things that are due or appointments that I have made, rather late to things I have promised, such as delivering an essay a day.

I see my current lifestyle as problematic because it does not quite encompass who I want to be, entirely. I have no time to express myself creatively unless I am able to produce a powerpoint presentation, whereI fully do express myself and receive a whole lot of gratitude towards my effort in my powerpoint presentations from peers that I otherwise would never have spoken to in my entire life. That is quite beneficial, yes, but I still am not fulfilling myself entirely yet. 

I suppose tutoring people also takes a toll on me. I am getting money for giving parts of my intellect, filtered intellect actually because younger children fail to understand most of my vocabulary, and I sit there waiting for them to finish a simple task, a simple writing task or mathematical equation and they take their time sharpening their pencils or blowing their noses or refilling their plastic bottles of water and it all drains away their parents' money and I sit there wondering whether teaching really amounts to something or whether some students just want a leading figure in their lives, one that is not either one of their parents, and I think that there is the problem - I am getting paid to be a guardian.

Being a guardian has its price, though. Now the children I tutor all are too dependent on me, and I hardly put in any effort, or maybe I do and I do not recognize it as much as they do. But, what I am beginning to realise is that the schools they attend, two, one higher class and one lower class, are failing to meet their needs to the extent where I am hired to help them meet them. This should not be the case. Rather than chasing the curriculum, schools should also take the time to assist all of those children who are falling behind. Teachers, after all, are getting paid to do so. What about integration aides? This whole teaching thing is a joke. 

Last year at one of my placement schools, a young girl had a speech difficulty and the government gave her a test to do and she apparently scored 'more than average' so they would not give her school the extra funds to support her. Regardless, the integration aide had helped her out a little, and left on numerous occasions when she would get too frustrated to even bother understanding what to do with her. I could not bear to witness this, so then I took over and I boosted her creativity with a few words and a lot of smiles, and soon enough this girl began to write like never before.

Similarly, another girl who spoke no word of English was struggling because she was left in the classroom whilst waiting for an ESL school to accept her. She would literally just sit there as everyone spoke a different language. The teacher would give her books to read and things to write but she would not do either because she was not capable. I decided to use the Vietnamese girl next to her to translate things I said to her and things she said back to me, and soon enough we began communicating with pictures, and it worked. She would await another mini lesson from me every time that I had placement, and soon enough she began reciting words of her own in English just by looking at the pictures.

I have also come across autistic children who performed better with my aid than the teacher's or the integration aide's. Some teachers no longer put in that extra effort, though I am not so sure that they ever did. It pays off, not financially, but spiritually, to help a child who really needs it. Maybe the education world would be a better place if this were the case.