My first full-time job not really

 Hey everyone..

So I rounded up 2019 with 4 posts.. Look at 2020, I guess it'll end with 2 posts ... 

What's the occasion that called for this post? Well, all the stars aligned and I finally feel like a have a little bit of free time today in addition to not feeling like I'm gonna doze off without getting my sugar rush from bubbbletea every few hours ...

In the spend of 6 months, many things happened. Firstly, I'm no longer working in the same school where I did my internship. I think many of my friends are still confused and thought that I am still working at my previous autism school, nope. Did not manage to secure a full time position there and I'd like to think that it is because of my mediocre university grades. 

But guess what, amidst this Covid chaos full of retrenchment, pay cut and unemployment, I actually found a full time job! HURRAY, blessed! Hence, I would proudly announce that I've officially started my first full time job, as an educator, at a special needs secondary school as a Literacy teacher. (Who is also teaching science, social emotional learning, vocational guidance and PE all at the same time) WOHOO~ Hmm.. more info? I currently have my own Sec 3 form class, they are very noisy and they ignited the fire that I never knew existed in me ... :>

I don't think I want to leave this post as a : update, I'm alive and here's what I'm up to enry because some other thoughts/ plans/ decisions creep into my mind today and I feel like addressing it. Being someone who thinks aloud, the blog always gives me a space where I can type (speak) as I think. 

Here goes nothing!!

It was a fateful Tuesday night where I was on a long bus ride home. Mindlessly scrolling through Instagram feed, enjoying the posts and insta stories of my talented friends. Well for those who don't know, a dancer's feed is very different from a normal feed. Every other post/ insta story you scroll is a dance video. So I was going on and on watching video after videos of a few dancers.. and damn, their growth is insane? 

So because I don't really hang out with a lot of 'professional' dancer friends, most of my friends (that maybe just graduated like me) are actually at the pursue of another spectrum of success. I don't know since when that 'earning, saving and making money' became something so important to me that I find myself buried in 'chiong and earn more money while you are young and have energy' mindset nowadays. Maybe because of that uncertainty after graduation, you know you are no longer a student, what now? It's time to be a contributing member of the society, it's time to accumulate as much wealth as you can. I would confess that I have never ever had a real savings account until this year and I have never ever set myself down to plan my finances up till early this year as well. Don't get me wrong, it is ESSENTIAL to have savings in today's time and age and I'm glad I picked up this new skill. Along with it are many lies I started to create for myself, out of again the most compelling need these days: To feel enough. This 'pressure' to be the abovementioned really created a lot of unhealthy mindsets in me that I will attempt to unveil toady.

*Do note that the information written below will be purely personal and first person, and I will attempt to not generalize it on anybody but just sharing my one-sided view. In my plea to be completely honest with myself, I hope there will be no judgements here as even I am in the process of understanding this journey. I do feel the strong urge to put a disclaimer to every sentence I say given how sensitive media content is taken these days but let's not go there...

1) Overly protective of myself

-being very defensive of my personal efforts

-realizing that the standard I have been grading myself on since the past is outdated. 

-it is not longer enough now. 

2) Working blindly

-excuse of earning money to reach that financial goal before more things can be done (true to a certain extent)

-extreme fatigue

-time just keeps passing

-people are getting to places but I am still stuck here. Feels like shit, I so desperately want to move on from here, do something about it and get somewhere!!

-true that everyone has different goals in their life, 

-all along I am quite certain of my goals/ dreams 

-why am I not doing things to get myself there, maybe I think of myself as hardworking but I am far from doing enough  

-Even my new journey as a teacher, I start asking myself why am I here? Is this where I want to be? Yes it is a job that sparks joy (CHEH I mean it is very meaningful and it impacts the younger (future) generation, one of my guidelines when I was job hunting. Also because I hate people discriminating/ having prejudice of things they do know understand and judge people down, yes being ignorant)

Yes I know I am here temporary to try and kill two birds with one stone. Earn money that could make my dream more 'realistic' since I am not betting my whole life on it and even if I fail I will not come back with nothing. Is this is a mandatory/ sole choice I have, to reach what I want? What if the pursuit of this very goal collides with the very end-point (dream)? Do I have the capacity to work it out and make a safe journey there? Or something else has to be done if not I would only end up settling. 

I do know for a fact that these conversations here makes me very sure that the dream that I have is the most important to me and I want and I am getting there one way or another, even if it means sacrificing other things in the end. Am I at the stage where I need to choose already?

Another question that I keep asking myself: Am I teaching because of passion or am I teaching because of money? Reason behind asking this question is that teaching classes poses a lot of trade-offs for the things that I can do for myself to work towards my dreams.

If I am not teaching classes/ that frequently, I could be: 

1) self- training/ taking dance classes that can really help me take steps towards my goals

Advantages of teaching classes:

1) Decent source of ++ income 

2) Platform to experiment with my choreography, dancers to build my work with. But these are only a very small pool of students and most of my classes are kids and intro students

The obvious downside of teaching class is that I am not very actively working on myself as a dancer.   

The train of thought is as follow:

1) Teach class --> money --> Safety net --> dream

2) Teach class --> no time to upgrade myself sufficiently --> fail dream

For now, I still holding on to belief number 1 hence I am still doing the things I'm doing. But this intriguing night is really make me question my decisions once again. Since I have this analysis now, (maybe) I'll come back another day before 2020 ends and decide on THE REAL CONCRETE ACTION PLAN I WILL TAKE TO GET THINGS MOVING.  I mean I WILL BE BACK!!

Go hard or go home? 

Sorry to put you through these bombarding of words and my laziness to write in good structure and sentence halfway through because it's 11/11, time to cart some items.

BYEBYE~