Reality Bites

I know, I know.

I’ve been so busy, I’ve abandoned my blog since God-knows-when and despite it all, you’re still here, reading my rants oh-so-faithfully.

Work’s been hectic enough – there have been plenty of things happening lately, and I don’t even know where to begin.

First of all – work is great. The students, as always, are the highlights of my job, but after about five months reality starts to set in. Already I’ve been in an argument with another teacher because of differences in principles, but we’re okay now. I’ve also started to learn which colleagues I feel safe being around and which ones to avoid. Come on, as if you’re friends with everyone at work?

I have never been good at the whole basa-basi thing, so when I don’t like someone, I won’t act as if I do. Because if I do, then that would make me a hypocrite. Terrible, I know. But I guess this is one of the flaws in my character that is so difficult to change.  Trouble starts coming when it’s quite visible that I’m one of those people who are picky in making friends. Yes, it does sound terrible. I am picky. There, I said it. The thing is, I just don’t see the point in being friendly to people I can barely stand. And we all know those people exist. And these same type of people tend to want to find faults in people like me, because professionally speaking, I’m fine with what I do. And yet, after five months, I’ve started to get criticised for things that have absolutely nothing to do with how I perform at work.

Like putting on weight. Like being too outspoken in which I ended up with the label ‘bossy’. And when I started to behave, I was told I was too quiet and looking too sad. And later on, I was told that my shoes were the wrong type of color, despite having been wearing them since the past five months and they have only been noticed now. And just today, I started to get told to do things that were not a part of my job description.

I’m starting to think that perhaps the ideal working place really is just a dream. I’ve always been the naive self as usual. But a good friend of work always kindly reminds me the following words, “Take it or leave it? Take it!”

Yes, despite the reality that’s setting in, I’m thankful nevertheless, because I have a job, while there are plenty of people out there being unemployed. I know how that feels. So when I start to feel exhausted, I remind myself again of the time when I used to not do anything – waking up at noon, browsing the net without purpose, giving too much attention to the news and the whole world (that I couldn’t change), and contributing nothing to the society.

Looking at the bright sides. It was always nice when the students actually paid attention to what I taught them. Some of them still remember the bits and pieces I said – recently I’d been poisoning their minds about the importance of looking after our environment and the effect of global warming – and I was glad to find out that they’d understood better and had started to take responsibility towards these issues.

Most of them also told me that they liked being in my class because I got them to talk – even the quiet ones – and thus slowly building up their confidence to use their English.

At times like those, I wouldn’t want to change them with anything else.