The World of Tai Tai

Happy New Year, Tai Tai,  A year of joy and tears has just gone by, and now there is a host of new challenges awaiting you. You should be confident in welcoming the new year, don't you think so? But some ashes of the past still cling onto your feathers, not letting you fully rejoice in the newly dawning day. Very soon word may get around about your ugly past at your new station. How would you cope with this horror? Does that really matter to you?  Remember you told yourself that you would start everything afresh.  So nothing should pose fear to you.  Be the master of your own mind and decisions.  Believe in your conscience.  Bygones are bygones, they play no part in your future. But stress still silently creeps in.  You can hardly sleep at night.  You often wake up with a start in the dead of night, cold sweat breaking all over your body. Why are you letting the past get the best of you? Somehow you know you should stand u...

On registration day, due to time constraint, I arrived at school around seven on an empty stomach and was immediately overwhelmed by the rapidly multiplying crowds of parents. I gave in to nerves and despite having been briefed on what to do the day before, I did not know what to say to the parents.  A colleague passed by the classroom and I jumped at the opportunity to ask him questions. He cleared my doubts patiently and my hands stopped shaking. I uttered an inaudible pr ayer and the collection of fees began. I counted the money and issued the receipts carefully, trying my best not to create any mistake. But still, once in a while, I forgot to ask one or two parents to sign their attendance. At one stage, I overcharged a parent and the mistake could only be fixed by the time school reopened.  Halfway through the session, my vision blurred and my stomach protested. I tried to rally all my faculties but the prodding hunger kept wavering my concentration. I was desper...

                                   A new chapter of my life had finally begun! I failed to shake off the first day' jitters and forgot to clock in by having my fingerprint scanned. The number of teachers at my new station blew me away, twice as many as that at my former school.  Despite the butterflies in my stomach, I was able to stay awake throughout the meeting. The different way the meeting was conducted, plus the cordial atmosphere made me feel welcomed. From time to time I kept reminding myself that bygones were bygones, and that I should not let my past blunders get in the way of success again.  A few minutes into the first hour of the meeting, nature called and I went to the toilet. On my way back, due to my being unused to the surroundings, I had not the foggiest idea where the conference room was, and found myself ending up in strange, dead-end corners. Soon a lady ...

Farewell Lunch with other outgoing colleagues Realizing that I had gradually been losing my footing at St. Joseph's, I determined myself to apply for a transfer last September. Over the next two months, my life at school was a disaster. Due to increasing reports that I had not been doing my core business well, I was constantly chastised mercilessly by the principal.  To add salt to the wound, my personal documentation was a mess and the principal always made me stay back after school to get things arranged properly. Sometimes, he did not allow me to enter my lessons unless everything met his requirements. Many a time, I dreaded coming to school.  It was beyond me why I had time and again fallen victim to rumors - he teach broken English( sic ), he read novel in class( sic ).  Of course, I did my teaching dutifully, but certain quarters thought otherwise, and found great joy in casting aspersions on my ability. From time to time I had a burning urge to call their...

The title is originally 'A Realisation As An Overaged Art Student' but it was changed to something cringeworthy. Many young children between the ages of six to fifteen hunched over the tables in the sitting room, sketching and painting.   At the age of forty-five, I was by far the oldest student, overweight, too, and somewhat shabby looking.   Sitting in an inconspicuous corner, under a freezing air conditioner, I surfed the Inter­net on my ipad to hide my discomfort. One by one, more kids poked their heads around the door, entered the house barefoot and took their seemingly pre-assigned positions in the sitting room. When Vaz, the elegant art teacher in her late fifties arrived, she frowned at where I was sitting. “This is not where you sit,” said the lecturer cum artist, while beckoning me to follow her into a little room beside her office.   She handed me a beginner kit and frowned again when I told her that I had forgotten to bring my coloured penc...

Two weeks ago, at around 9 p.m. Papa had an attack of gallstone pain and we rushed him to the hospital.  His limbs were stiff and he hardly responded to us.   Upon arrival at the hospital, the medical team was busy with some accident victims and no one cared a hoot about Papa.  Anne went around begging for help and her persistence caught the attention of a young Malay doctor. CPR was immediately performed on Papa and after three hours, he came around.  For five days, Papa was hospitalized, his arm hooked with an antibiotic drip to reduce the inflammation of his gallbladder. Papa is now back at home. He would undergo an operation in two months.  I hope Papa could hold on that long. There is a risk about the operation though. As a Parkinson's patient, his chances of survival are low, and even if he pulls through, he may be reduced to a vegetable state. But we have no choice.  Without the operation, there is no certainty when the pain attack ...

Another picture I painted. To me the tigers mouth is a bit small.

Took the challenge to paint a tiger. Not easy but what a learning experience! Should be able to finish by next week.

At school, I have always been reprimanded for my bad English.  It does not mean that I teach broken English all the time.  Every now and then, my head of department tells me that some parents have complained about my poor proficiency. When I ask her to give me their contact numbers, her face is a mask of uneasiness and she will  claim that they wish to be anonymous. To find out if my English was really inferior to that of my colleagues, I secretly checked their record books one day and found out that their lesson plans were riddled with lots of atrocious errors.  Occasionally, I enter their lessons as a relief teacher and I will take it upon myself to scrutinize their students' exercise books. What I usually find out never fails to give me a shock. Many properly written sentences are crossed and the so-called correct ones suggested by the teachers are totally ungrammatical. Let me share with you one of the examples:       * The book belonged t...

Since my father was taken ill, I have been taking a school bus to work.  Every day, I have to wake up very early in the morning, do my ablutions in a half-asleep fashion before waiting outside the gate for the bus.  Surrounded by darkness, except for the dim street lights, most of the residents are still in slumberland. The morning air is cool and the stillness is occasionally punctuated by the sound of housewives stir-frying rice and the slow trickle of traffic plying the road in the dis­tance.  I stand drowsily at the gate, watching my dog scratching itself as the time creeps by. At 5.20 a.m, the sleek outline of a school bus, heralded by two flashing, yellow orbs of headlights, looms large at the junction to my neighbourhood. When the bus stops at my gate, I heave myself on board.  Mr. Teo makes sure that  all the bags are consigned to the boot so everyone has space to sit.   Despite the fact that I am a forty six year-old teacher, I rece...

My art teacher gave me a good scolding(unreservedly harsh) for overlooking some minor details in this painting. With her help I finally got it done but the wrong number of pipa strings was beyond repair(most pipas have four strings, only a few have six). My art teacher asked me to give it a title. After much thinking I decided to name this piece 'Light and Tune'. At the same time, a thirteen-year-old boy had also finished his first acrylic painting. Isn't it an artistic work?