'Stuck'? Not Me.

A dear friend emailed me a video on 'How Did I Get Stuck Here' by Joe Stowell.

I appreciate the sending of the video although I am not very interested in watching it. It should be about how we should not blame this and that for being in the bad places that we are. Perhaps my grumbles about my job has become too glaring on Facebook.

But I think she misunderstood me. I don't for a minute blame life or God or whatsoever that I am in the situation that I am.

If I really do blame anything, it's myself, my decisions that land me where I am.

The greatest hatred and resentment I have is my inability to make good decisions.

We are defined and shaped by the choices we make.

I make bad decisions. I live with them and their consequences. I don't ask how in heavens I get stuck in certain circumstances. I know I have to go through them for reasons I know not, but I am counting myself really fortunate now, because I have been through much worse.

One of the worst experiences was to endure being treated as a lower-class animal when I was working in a foreign-culture study centre. I had offended people out of ignorance and did not know what was wrong with the things I said. But often, people just took it personally and thought I deliberately attacked them when I never meant anything negative.

For instance, I casually complimented a co-worker that she had a straight nose. She was thoroughly offended! You'd think that anybody would think 'a straight nose' is a compliment. But she retaliated that I had a flat nose. I didn't know what was wrong with my 'compliment' until my supervisor told me not to comment on others' physical features. She later revealed that the co-worker in question had gone through several operations on her nose and paid $7000 for it.

I am sure something else must have given before the co-worker took to me so badly, although I feel that she must have felt highly strung about her nose that she reacted this way. In the first place, if she'd loved herself enough, or felt comfortable enough in her own skin, she wouldn't have started on her nose job journeys. But I seriously didn't have any idea. It was much later that I realised these different-skin-colour people probably didn't think that I was fit to talk so 'intimately' with them. It was also from then that I was convinced that it was true that they continued to live in the colonial master era. This is really why I would never send Coco to a lesson conducted by 'native speakers'. They are here to earn your money while laughing big ass off you.

In any case, I have never blamed life for the difficult journeys I have been and am going through. My favourite authoress had a character who appeared down and out after having gone through multiple highs in his career. He broke his leg, was quite penniless and unemployed. But he did not wallow in self-pity. He said,"Mountains or valleys, I enjoy every moment life offers." or simply '享受当下'.

For some reason, the word '当下' is very powerful to me.

A few weeks later, I will not face this situation that I am facing now.

When I look back on the nasty experiences I have been through, I feel that they are often useful in shaping my beliefs in many things that I have been naive or ignorant about, be it human nature or relationships. What did not break me truly have made me stronger. If I hadn't gone through those ordeals, what I am facing now can be really painful for me. For a woman in her thirties, what I need now is not bashing of pride or self-esteem. What I really need now is a wall of strength to withstand the bashings and the ability to deal with these political nonsense.

A couple of months later, I will be out of this school. Whether they block my posting to other schools and I quit or I get to go to another school, I won't be around to stay.

I have quite made up my mind. If this is the school that I am going to stay for another year, I really would rather quit. For all the restrictions and lousiness it has to offer, it has destroyed me as an educator, for the time being. I refuse to stay destroyed.