At a crossroad

When my father was diagnosed with stroke in June, my whole family's life was shattered. Well, almost. We figure that we need to make adjustments to accomodate to his condition. He has been staying with my little sister eversince he was discharged from the hospital and now he is staying with my elder sister - for a change and also to lighten my younger sister's load who is now about 5+ months pregnant. We have employed a maid to help my mum to care for my father. My sisters and I are forking out an equal sum of money to pay for the maid's salary and levy.

I have been giving my mum a monthly token eversince I worked and even after I stopped working, I continued to do so. Now with the additional expenditure, I've been using my savings to pay for the extra financial obligations. It has not been easy. My husband has been paying for the family and kids' needs comfortably but now we've been feeling the pinch.

I was offered to do a freelance job at a Social Service agency to write reports. I haven't receive a single cent because the client hasn't paid. This is something I have to review and reconsider for future assignments. When you work on contract basis, your salary is dependent on the completed assignment and in this case dependent too on whether the client has paid. In this case, the client has some sticky issues to settle before the assignment is considered completed. Just my luck to get such a case. I hope the future cases will not be of that sort.

I'm also reviewing my job options. At the rate at which the report-writing process is going, I am considering if there is a need to do something else. FAJT is one promising option but that means that I have much lesser time for my kids. My second child is starting primary school next year and I know how she would do better with my support, Insya Allah. A consistent everyday monitoring of her work is necessary for her to do well. And I still have the other two children to monitor too.

Oh, God, make my stride easier. Guide me to make decisions which will bring success and happiness to my family in this world and the hereafter.

A new beginning

I've almost forgotten about this blog. It's been such a long time. The last time I blogged was about 1.5 years ago! Many things have happened. I worked as an FAJT. I gave birth to a pink bundle of joy on the 4th of August 2009. I now have a maid, with whom I have a like-don't like relationship with. Abdullah has started P1 in Irsyad, Amalia is in K2 and I'm enjoying my SAHM status,though it may be temporary.

I see blogging as a way to express my thoughts and chronicle my journey, or else I may not capture those moments and they may just be gone without introspection and reflection. They'd be a waste.

I'm not expecting any audience. This platform is just a way to express myself and get things out of my chest. And as an EL teacher, I need to write. I feel stifled if I keep everything bottled up inside. So, this is a new beginning. I want to begin blogging again so that I can improve myself, my family and the situation I'm faced with. But if I do have stumbled-upon-yr-blog readers, well, you're most welcome here.

My main concerns for now :
1) Abdullah's development
2) Amalia's development
3) Aishah's development
4) My development
5) Being a good wife
6) Being a reasonable employer to my maid

I want to use my time well. I got to start planning again.

I've been robbed.

I dreamt of it. Didn't expect that this will ever happen in reality. This is truly an embarrassment to the teaching profession because the robber committed daylight robbery, in the presence of a Senior Teacher who condoned and even approved of her action.

I knew of the fact that my seat in JYS was taken without my knowledge from a colleague whom I met by chance at Giant. I've been away from school as I was recuperating from chicken-pox. She said that my things have been moved and V had conveniently moved her things to my table. I was left with no seat. I then requested that colleague to reserve a seat elsewhere so that when I come back to work, I'd have a work table.

Anyone can have my seat and my table. Please go ahead. Please help yourselves. BUT please have the integrity to at least negotiate, discuss, request or just ask. When you take things without permission that's equivalent to stealing, robbing that only thieves, robbers, pirates, thugs and gangsters do. Not teachers. So if teachers do such acts, they do not deserve to stay in the profession. They should honourably leave.

So if you still have a doubt if some teachers have conscience, if you still question teachers' integrity, if you still wonder if some teachers have morals, this is the answer. There are some teachers who just don't have conscience, integrity and morals. They give a bad name to the teaching profession. I feel ashamed that they are TEACHERS.

Having chicken-pox at 35

Woke up one day with a few blisters on my face and one on my right arm. That was Sunday, 19 October 2008. On finding out about that, Abdullah announced, "Bad news!! Ummi has chicken-pox!"

On the second night, I couldn't sleep because I was itching terribly. I think it must be the time the blisters started to appear everywhere. I had a slight fever and was feeling weak.

I'm now having blisters alll over my face, neck, chest, legs, back especially the waist area and everywhere else. You name the location, I have them. They are mostly huge. They started out as though there's water in the blisters but now it seems to appear as though there are puss in them.

I applied honey, calamine lotion and ground neem leaves. Sometimes I even look like the soldiers trying to take cover deep in the forest, with the neem leaves all over my face and body.

It's been a week. I can't go out. I'm getting bored. And my throat is still hurting.

It's that time of the year again... Hari raya is coming..ramadhan is leaving

Ramadhan passes real fast. In about 3 days, we'll be celebrating Raya. I'm feeling nostalgic and retrospective. I want to be a better person. In trying to be a better mother, I sometimes become quite reckless as a wife. I am slowly wanting to make it a point not just to be a good mum but also to be a good wife to the children's father.

I've had enough

Whatever happens, I'll do my best this term. Enough is enough. Too bitter to express myself. I'm having a headache, heartache. It's bad. I'll hold on for a while but will stop. Definitely.

Here I am - exhausted.

The thing about teaching is the money is gd, the experience is gd when you get the gd classes. However, if you get the tail-end Normal Academic classes...God....you're basically getting HELL.

All my 4 classes are Normal Academic classes. They are not easy to manage. But I see some hope in them except this particular class.

When I'm mad with that class, especially the childish ones, I tend to let it out - not intentionally, on my children and my husband when I'm at home. It's so unhealthy. It's so bad. They don't deserve it, man....

It's almost 10 weeks - 1 term. I have a choice to leave. But the salary is needed and useful to pay for the kids' enrichment classes...and the other 3 classes I'm having are quite sweet. They've shown they can cooperate and respond to my effort. I wouldn't want to leave partly because of them.

Most important of all - My children need my love and attention. They seem to be getting very little from me these days and I'm looking into ways to improve the situation. At the end of the day, I want to be there for my children and my husband and I'm considering other ways of getting income - other than from MOE.