The Goodbye

I've been busy lately, so busy that I just unpacked my stuff from the boxes after almost two weeks. However this is one day I will remember, the last day I was at the school. The fifth grade teacher came over and said,"There's something wrong in the class, can you come take a look?"

Ha, lame excuse, but I went. As we approached the classroom, the kids were yelling,"NOT YET! NOT YET! COME BACK LATER!"

So much for surprises. And so I came back later, when I found them hiding behind desks and cabinets. I was like come on, let's save the trouble. Then they popped out and this went on...





I'm such a heartless bastard!

Tired...

Since the night I returned from far far away, I've been busy preparing presentation materials for various occasions. Value of design, value of a designer blah blah... having to dig through my past works. As I was preparing yet another presentation today, making a messy collage of stuffs that I've done in the past few years, it was a strange feeling. I can't say I felt proud or surprised by the collection of various products and projects that I've been involved in just a few short years. The feeling was "tired". I felt tired. I don't know if I am tired of design, or tired of pumping so many things out, or tired of preparing these presentations, or if I am simply physically tired. To look back, I did have rather exciting career compared to many others who I know, but I've come to a point when I either need a break, or do something really different. Enlighten me, please!

Got it!

As of April 16 2013, I am a free man! The cow is no longer a slave!

For as far as I can remember since my teenage years, something has always been on my mind, not in a good way. I have always been bothered by the thought of serving my military service. There had been thoughts of trying to escape it by legal means, but none of which is realistic. For all these years, I worked through college, grad school and propelled myself into the professional field building my career. I was doing well, but no matter where I was and how I was doing, I could never make a long term decision about my lifestyle, my career and pretty much everything to anything. Even making purchases like a TV or bicycle was difficult. It's because I know soon or later, I have to face this issue, the issue of having to drop everything I was doing and serve. I was literally a slave on a chain.

The years were sweet bitter... how so? I had some wonderful years being able to pursue my passion as a designer. I met countless great people and was offered countless great opportunities. Every one of it was hard for me to accept, because I know it was a matter of time when I will have to disappoint them, and I did. Leaving my job, my lifestyle and my pursuit to build my own life was not just tough for me but also for those who needed me to help build theirs. I not only dropped my life, I also dropped their expectation.

And so I was back home on the waiting queue for my turn to shave my head. I guess life is indeed planned. You see, when I was in college, I had the opportunity to volunteer in a after school day care center serving the under privileged. That was when the seed was planted when I begin to develop a passion for sharing with kids. After college, for some reasons I decided to continue with grad school although I had job offers. It was more like a tactic to drag on and delay the time of serving in the military. Then I graduated again and went on with my career, while my country was still waiting for my return.

This was then when I dug deeper into the so-called alternative service where instead of being in the military, I will serve in schools using my skill in English to help in teaching the language in rural schools. It was almost like a heavenly match for me, and made me glad to go for it. Had I decided to come back earlier, I may not have developed as strong of a desire to do this, I may also not have acquired as many techniques and skills through being in the design profession to utilize them on teaching. I may not also have met these awesome international friends who have helped me tremendously in bringing foreign culture to the kids. It was the right timing doing the right thing.

And today was the day I've dreamed about for the last 15 years. I received my certificate of end-of-service and I am now a free man, no longer bound by the law and restricted on the options I can have in my life. It's just me, and who I want to be.

And strangely, it's just another normal day for me. Not much emotion. No hyper anticipation, no sadness from having to leave the kids. Yes I was somewhat attached to these wonderful kids and would love to give them more, not it was sad for me to end this. Just like previous occasions when I was in the process of transiting from stage of life to another, I was not thinking of what I am about to lose, but what I really want to gain because of this departure. I was calm, not getting gittery over what's coming next. This is probably because I already have plans in my mind on how I am going to take my next steps. I knew what I am going to do and it feels great. For the first time, I can think in long term goals. For the first time I can fully utilize my capabilities and dedication on something I really want to. The kids asked me if I will be back. Yes of course I will be back. It may not be in the form of a teacher, but these kids are a part of my goal.

Well, no more silly kid quotes. That I will definitely miss.

Silly sisters

Just a pair of silly sisters who knows nothing but being happy.

一對傻傻的姐妹花,什麼都不懂,只懂得快快樂樂的過日子。

The Final Quiz

The bully case was an unfortunate incident but fortunately, it was caught on camera.

However, because of this, I had to cut a significant portion of the session recording from the video. Nonetheless, I hope this still gives you a good idea how the class went. Of course, a big thank you to all those who have contributed to this two semesters of classes, bringing interesting foreign culture to the kids and helping them see beyond their own world.

This coming week will be my last, and there are two sessions left with the last one on my last day. I have some ideas on what I want to do with these two sessions but can't decide which will be the best use of these two precious opportunities.

In any case, here's the video from the quiz. Thank you all and enjoy!

Exhaustion

Today has been eventful and exhausting. Not physically exhausting, but mentally. It’s also not because of my birthday, but because of troubled kids at school.

Any time when I am running a class that has to do with content that my foreign friends help created, I will record the class session as a way to return favor for these friend’s priceless efforts. Yesterday, I had a quiz session when students can get prizes for the right answers. It was chaotic and everyone was excited, but only today when I was editing the videos from yesterday’s session did I realize something unfortunate happened during the class. I call it bully. Others may want to be conservative and not call it bully because the term “bullying” now carries legal liabilities.

To start, the first kid is the famously annoying 3rd grade kid in my videos. Let’s call him Liao. He’s loud and sometimes obnoxious, but that’s because he has trouble handling his expression of emotions. However he’s a kind hearted kid. Everyone knows this, and every kid treats him as a friend, putting up with his yelling.

The second kid, Yang, 5th grader, has a rebellious tendency. He recently got into trouble for several vandalism cases which caused damage to the school, and his grandpa had to come to the principal’s office today to discuss his behavior and the damage cost.

Liao is an orphan and is cared by his relatives. They seem to love him like their own and I've never heard of family trouble from his end. Yang’s father is in prison for manslaughter, not clear about the details. His mom lives in the city far away to make a living and hardly visits him. Yang lives with his grandparents who also have to work to meet the day’s end.

Actually, this is a norm here where families aren’t together because of livelihood challenges.

What happened was, Yang, for no good reason, provoked Liao accusing him of not paying attention in my class when the truth was the opposite. In any case, Yang continued to intimidate Liao, hit him, punched him, pinched his ears hard, held his head against the table, tried to stab him with a pencil, threw stuff at him….. Liao then reacted like he always do, yell back, which attracted other higher graders’ attention. As they came to see what’s happening, they immediately put the blame on Liao because he’s always seen as the trouble maker, while Yang laughed away.

All this time, Liao stayed in his seat. He did defend himself physically once, and yelled back at those who wrongly accused him. Perhaps he’s already used to this, but one characteristic that I like about Liao is, even after being scolded, he can just turn around and start joking with you. He doesn’t really keep unpleasant feelings in for long. So as soon as Yang went back to his seat, Liao was back to focus on what’s going on in the class, raising his hand to answer questions and was just engaged as any other kid. There’s no way I could have forgotten what he just endured if I were him.

When I saw this video, I was shocked and more importantly, angry. I could not believe what Yang did, and mostly, could not believe what I saw in him from his bursting rage that came from nowhere. He picked on Liao because Liao was an easy target, and one who can easily become a scapegoat as Liao did in this case. If it wasn’t for the video, this incident would have gone unnoticed.

So I informed the school director just in time before the school ended. Yang, Liao and another witness were asked to stay back after school to clear things up.

And the summary to this part is, Yang mentioned all the stuff that was to his advantage, and claimed that he “forgot” what happened that led him to attack Liao. So we showed him the video and asked him what he thought of it. He did not say a single word.

I really don’t know what is really wrong with Yang. Obviously he has a lot of frustration, stress and negative emotions accumulating in him. The way his rage burst at Liao was really like a caged beast trying to release his detained energy. It was not something one will find in an elementary school kid. Perhaps it’s his frustration of unable to be with his mom as he once expressed his wish to be with her. Perhaps it’s his school life not going so well as he’s not allowed to join the baseball team he so desired since he doesn’t even do his homework. He’s simply not getting what he wants his way, and probably feels trapped emotionally. Nonetheless, there’s no reason to justify his actions of physical abuse and lying.

I don’t really know how this will be settled as this is clearly not over yet. However this isn’t all of today. As I left school and went for a run, I found out that one of my students isn’t home yet. It’s been 4 hours since the school ended. So on the way back, I was also looking for him. So this is a 4th grader and let’s call him Hao.

Hao is a kind kid as well, but not too sharp. He will never do harm to any one, but he often does weird things that gets himself hurt, like riding his bike straight in to a wall, or tie his shoe laces together(foot to foot) to see what happens, or go swimming in the sea during typhoon weather. I guess he just want to see what happens without thinking about what may REALLY happen.

At 4th grade, I taught him how to read time. He never learnt how, which really bazaars me. And that was when I realized why he’s such a laid back kid. He has absolutely no senses of time, and therefore urgency! He would wander around and play along the way home on the 3km route, not knowing what time it is and therefore not knowing how late it’s getting. He’s really just enjoying the moment.

Today, I finally found him and some other students playing at the fishing port, a place they shouldn’t be for obvious reasons. And today is the second time in recent weeks when he made his grandma seek high and low for him. He was just punished by his teacher two weeks ago for this same reason. He has already forgotten about it.

And this is where the exhaustion came from. It’s not physical since I still had energy to run my daily 7k. It’s the mental stress worrying about these kids. Even though I am just a passer by, someone who’s only here for a year and leaving in two weeks, I care about them because I know that what we don’t do for them will affect their entire life. A life time is such a terrible thing to waste, and I want to do whatever I can to help them make theirs good. There’s only so much one can do if you have no influence on their families. Sometimes, the selfish me wish I can take them in and do it myself.