I am so so sorry if I take forever to reply to smses. No I have not disappeared, although sometimes I do wonder if it is possible for me to be forgotten, to be completely wiped out of your memory if I keep really quiet for long enough.

Anyway, thanks to my sexy fiance, I got another job as a Primary 1 teacher at a student care center near NYJC. So now I hold two jobs, one as a teacher and one as a tour and tram guide, and am effectively overworking myself. From 7am-1.30pm I feed the kids breakfast, make sure they do their homework, teach them, stop them from literally killing each other, force them to bathe, feed them lunch and send them off to school. I have lunch after that and I go straight home to sleep for an hour before rushing out of the house at 4.30pm to make it just in time for work at 6pm. Yess the Night Safari is so very very far from home. It takes at least 1 hour and 30 minutes to reach my destination because of the stupid massive traffic jam around Ang Mo Kio MRT station. I work until around 12 midnight, collaspe into a coma at 2 am in the morning and drag my corspe out of bed by 6am the next day. Neat huh. Haha.

Had supper with my dad last night and he asked me, "Work so hard for what? Siao ah?"

I don't know. Is it the money? No, not really. I'm just tired of waiting for something to happen. I want to go out there and do something for myself. I want to make myself useful. And I'm really learning a lot as well. I have to be a lot more assertive, confident and independent. I have to be extremely bubbly, cheerful, talkative and friendly-all of which I'm not. I have to make friends. Oh god. You have no idea, no idea at all, how hard it is for me when all my life, I have taught myself to be defensive and over-protective and suspicious of people and their motives. I have to think on my feet and make my own decisions when I'm so used to just, hiding in the background, pretending to listen to instructions when I'm really just doing my own things. I have to learn very quickly because people don't have the time or patience to wait for you to get used to anything. They want you to get the job done as fast and as well as possible. Its so very very tough because there is so much that I am not. There is so much I want to be and as hard as I try, I do get extremely frustrated with myself. My heart seeks utterly impossible perfection and when I don't meet it, I punish myself with the most cutting criticisms my mind can come up with. I know perfection isn't possible but I don't know how to stop the insatiable desire, the self-loathing. I know I can be better, stronger. I know I just need time. But sigh, I want to be so much, so much more, and its really really not easy. I guess nothing good ever comes easy huh. If it did, we wouldn't appreciate or treasure it isn't it.

I have 9 monkeys in my class, pretending to be boys, and 3 girls- one of whom is named Faith, who I must declare, is an absolute angel. Tehe. I am not kidding when I say they suck the blood and energy out of me. They fight, scream, cry, lie, steal, cheat, manipulate and rebel like there's no tomorrow. Apparently, I am the 7th teacher they have had. 5 quit within a week. The one before me, this 54 year old woman with teaching background, was so fed up with one of the monkeys that she tied him up with a rope and hit him. Obviously, she was fired immediately. Goodness. I would never, never, ever do that. Although I can understand what drove her to such insanity. I mean, I have come very close to strangling them myself. Haha.

There is an Indian teacher who used to teach them, but requested to be transferred to teach the next door Primary 2 class. She told me that most of my kids come from single parenting families and that's why they behave the way they do. They spend a lot of time at home alone, watching Jackie Chan and other excessively violent movies. When they come to us, they imitate the punches and fist fights they have seen and they intentionally hurt each other. They use words like "fuck" and other Hokkien vulgarities. 7 year old kids shouldn't know these words. They shouldn't. They shouldn't because they are so very innocent. And I feel so sad for them because I don't want them to lose their innocence when they are so young. I don't want them to know what the world is like. Not now. Its too soon, too early.

These kids know what its like to be abandoned, suddenly, abruptly. I mean, even their previous teachers have done that to them! They need me to love them like the mother they never had, or the mother that is never around for them. They want me to give them all the attention in the world, hug them, praise them, nag at them, kiss them on the forehead and put plasters over their bleeding hearts and wounds as I fuss over how dirty and sticky they are. I do what I can but they deserve so much more than what I can give them. What I can give them isn't enough. I just wish there was more... It isn't enough. It isn't enough even though it has to be.