AMBITION

I still remember when I was in Standard One, my school had this file for every student to monitor their progress. It is not a report card. It is some kinda yellowish file, which has all your information like, height, weight, name of parents, address, ambition, hobbies.. etc. wonder if I could retrieved it back from my old Convent school in Taiping.

My ambition since I was little was to be a teacher. I truly admired my class teacher, Mrs Lee. She is a very fierce lady. Nobody likes her. She happened to be my buddy’s aunt. Almost every classmate’s parents are teachers.

According to James, Taiping people are made of teachers or petty hawkers. When I told him, my dad is an army and my mom is a housewife, he said, that is why I do not belong there, which explains my early move to KL. (James’ way of explaining things) Anyway, James wanted to be a dentist. HAHAHAHA.

I don’t know why, but I wanted to be a teacher from Standard One way up to Standard Six. When I was in Standard Six, my class teacher was Pn. Rubiah. She is a Chinese married to a Malay. Had this big huge red hair, and all her dresses and shoes looked like the lady with heavy make up in “the Drew Carey Show”. But she is a really nice lady, no doubt fierce. As usual, nobody likes her, except me. I had a thing for fierce people.

When she asked me what I want to be when I grow up, my first answer was an affirmative and unassuming “TEACHER”, then followed by an unsure answer of “LAWYER”, then “DOCTOR”. Then she tried to brainwash me, saying that what is good being a teacher? Then dampen my spirits by saying there are so many other jobs more useful compare to being a teacher, with miniscule salary, and tonnes of exercise books to mark. After she made that remark, I still stick to my guns and wanted to be a teacher. She said, “You wanted to be a teacher since standard One!” Then shook her head wearily.

I was thinking, should there be no teachers in this world, where everyone shuns it for better paid jobs, high flying careers, etc how on earth these people would land with such jobs if we do not have these teachers to mould us since young? Teachers are the ones who help us to take the first steps towards learning, gaining knowledge and then, equip us with basics to face the challenges in the world.

However, when I was in Form One, my dream bubble burst.

The classmates from other schools caused so much trouble in school. (Seriously speaking, Convent Kota Girls are angels made in heaven or I was always with the goody-two-shoes back in school). Lesbianism, smoking, profanity etc.

Not to mention when I moved to KL (Selayang to be exact) when I was in Form Two, first time in a co-ed school, and being placed in second last class, I had a culture shock with teachers refusing to come to my class because of the levels of ignorance among my classmates, fights in school, vandalism, pre-marital sex and pregnancy, heck, I even refused to pay protection money to the “Tai Kah Cher” for being a newbie. Luckily, they didn’t beat me up. I didn’t want to join them to celebrate birthdays with their peers, they said they make people drink up disgusting things like coke with soy sauce, chilli sauce, tomato sauce and pepper. Then, there was no “Fear Factor” on TV. I did not succumb to peer pressure. Or you can say, I was anti social when I was in Selayang.

Sadly, I totally gave up my one and only ambition to become a teacher. Guess if I am still in Taiping, probably, I will make one of the statistics in the teacher or petty hawkers demography.