Hope to Hoax… Again

Last week was a screwed-up week, starting from Monday. I learnt a lot, but it was a terrible experience & I hope I don’t ever have to go through it again. I asked myself if this trial was meant to strengthen my character… but currently I’m still not sure if it did.

Or maybe the reason that I’m still unsure is because this Monday screwed-up pretty bad too… which could possibly explain why I’m still not in the right state of clarity to figure out why in the world did all that happen last week & how I have really benefited from that newly traumatic experience.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, I don’t know), this Monday was almost no different from last Monday, considering that both started to get screwed-up at around the same time of 3pm on both Mondays. Yeah, I still can’t believe that even both the timings could be that coincidental… or maybe it was planned or intended by God for some reason, which I can’t yet figure out.

I walked out to buy lunch at slightly past 1pm this Monday & while I was waiting for my two packets of fish-ball noodles (that stall was taking an awfully long time today, I don’t know why), I suddenly received this phone call.

It was a call from Feng Shan Primary School. Rubiah, the school admin staff, asked if I had submitted my online application form for relief teaching & whether I could come down for a briefing by one of the teachers (Miss Han) who had to take urgent leave for one month. Today was her last day, before her long urgent leave & this was why the school needed to find a relief teacher urgently.

I guessed that Rebecca had given her my contact number, as she had agreed to assist me with this last week. But I was stunned to receive the phone call, yet glad that finally I would get a chance to teach in a primary school & experience how it would be like to be a teacher. At least, it would definitely help me gauge if I had the qualities to be one, should I apply to the Ministry of Education (MOE) again in the near future.

Seriously, I was glad for this opportunity & thanked God in my heart, while I was talking to Rubiah over the phone, while still waiting for my fish-ball noodles. It was only a one month contract, but I was eager to give it a try & at the same time, to earn a bit of income to sustain my savings account, which apparently caused my ATM card to be unavailable for use for the second time, due to insufficient funds to even withdraw or use it as NETS. Trust me, it’s an unpleasant feeling to realize that it’s the second time that your ATM card can’t be used because you have run out of cash again.

I was so glad for this opportunity that I immediately sent SMS to Rebecca, her Dad & my Mum… as well as immediately telling my Dad when I came home with my fish-ball noodles. Uncle John didn’t reply yet, but my parents & Rebecca were glad… & so was I. It was such anticipation to be able to see how it’s like to teach young little kids, especially when Rubiah had told me that I would be assigned to a Primary 2 class. That would like a test to see if I could handle little kids. Yet at that point of time, I was also filled with apprehension coz I have no idea what the syllabus is like, how the class is like & I’m expected to start work the next day.

I started to eat my first packet of fish-ball noodles… & never did I expect this lunch to turn out as disrupted as it could possibly be! Halfway through my lunch, I received a call from Rubiah saying that she had called MOE & was told that my online application form had not been submitted yet! In fact, it was only saved as draft!

I was completely stunned… although I did remember getting into some technical glitch about sending that online relief teaching application form via the MOE website, I did check back at that website subsequently & saw that my status was under consideration… which meant that it got through, I think… if not, how could it be under consideration?

So I put down the phone & went online to check… & this time, I ran into the same technical glitch again! My login ID & password was rejected & I could not go into my application form to re-submit! In fact, I couldn’t even view my application form details! I started to feel afraid…

Before I hung up the phone, Rubiah had told me to call MOE, should there be any problems with this online submission. So I checked out the MOE contact number via its website & called the customer service centre to seek help about this. That lady took quite some time to check, before coming back to the phone & told me to leave her my contact number & she would call me back as soon as she could find out what had happened. I was getting worried already…

After some time, she did call back… but this time, the conversation ended by telling me to send an e-mail to a certain MOE e-mail address, telling them about the situation & asking for my password to be reset. I called Rubiah to update her about my situation & she apologized that she would not be able to hire me in this case, coz my application is not in the system & it would take about 2 - 3 working days to resolve this technical problem first. I was understanding & told her that it was okay, coz I wouldn’t think it would be a good idea to hire someone to take over me for just one week, while I settle my technical problem, then kick that fella out & come back to that P2 class to teach. It would be too disruptive & my heart told me that I should not do this at the expense of the children. So I thanked her for her time & put down the call.

Even though I was cool during the phone call with Rubiah, I grew frustrated after putting down the phone. I clearly remembered that my first sentence was, “God! Why are you making a fool of me?” I was very angry. Why did He have to raise my hopes & subsequently those people whom I had told the good news, only to turn everything all topsy turvy & throw me back to square one, once again, in just a short span of about an hour? Why?!

It was the same thing last Monday. I called MDIS to postpone my job start date, solely because I hoped to go for the STU job interview. But it ended up as a hoax & sent all my hopes crashing… & also to my parents, Rebecca & her parents. And now this! This week! A new week! A new Monday! And the same thing had happened!

I couldn’t even finish my one packet of fish-ball noodles! I had like 6 or 7 phone calls within that short time (with Feng Shan & MOE) & I still had to put my plate of noodles aside to check the MOE website & re-try & re-try entering into the online relief teaching application form screen. I prayed, but it still didn’t work. I was so upset & felt like I had been raised up & thrown back to the ground again… & for the second time in between two consecutive Mondays.

I felt so terrible… & Rebecca had a tough time talking to me over the phone, coz I was just so angry & pissed off with the situation & with God, coz it was so out of my control… & I couldn’t see how it could get any worse than that. And all this had to happen when Feng Shan Primary School needed to get a relief teacher in the next day. Great… what a way to lose a job opportunity… & a chance to experience teaching for itself.

Suddenly everything that appeared totally vanished & I’m ended up with nothing just like how the early Monday morning began. Worse still, I had spent many SMS telling my Mum, Rebecca, her Dad & also Sean (coz we were supposed to meet later for dinner). Many SMS had been sent each time I had new updates too. I kept sending SMS after SMS to postpone the meeting time with Sean till a later time… & even send him an SMS to cancel the meeting, before later sending him another SMS to tell him that all this hype was crap & I could meet him for dinner again at the same time, same place. I felt like a fool… & a fool who had wasted so many SMS & saliva over several phone calls. I was so discouraged.

After that I ended up watching a DVD at home, while brooding about all this crappy nonsense that had happened, when I received a phone call from Uncle John, asking what happened & ended up trying to say a few words of encouragement to me, coz I was so discouraged… & I was glad that he could tell that I was, without me not saying it. I remembered him saying that maybe God is trying to test me, etc… but I replied apathetically coz I just wasn’t feeling able to properly take in his encouragement, though I appreciated his words & effort. I guess I’m just not ready yet…

Strangely, Adecco job agency called some time later & told me that I had been offered a two-day temp job at Spire Research & Consulting Pte Ltd. I found out about the job scope & said that I would take it… starting work tomorrow morning from 9am – 6pm. It was only about two days work, but I guess it was short enough for me to take the chance of accepting this temp job… though I was quite surprised coz I had never heard of a two-day temp job before. Not from a market research company, at least. But it’s only about two days, at $7.50 per hour… so no harm giving it a try… & find out what I can learn from this experience.

The day ended with a dinner at NYDC & movie with Sean. The movie ‘The Fog’ was just average, though I think the script was quite bad. The storyline was messy (well, at least I think it was) & there was just a lot of fog here & there, making me laugh inside my heart, coz the film producers must had to keep on producing smoke to seem as if it was a fog. And it was a HUGE fog in the show, so it must have been quite a task… but it wasn’t scary or exciting at all, coz the storyline seemed like a mix between the ‘seem-a-like’ of ‘Final Destination’ & ‘The Pirates of the Carribean’ style. Hmm… but it was a good time of catch-up with Sean…