After a year of teaching...

I have been teaching here in MSU for almost a year now (exactly one year in June) and I’d like to say that I have truly enjoyed the whole year. I have learned so much, not only about myself, but about a whole lot of things as well. I’ve tried so many things. There are so many things that I have come to realize. And, I know that there is still a whole lot more that I am going to learn and realize.

One very important realization I've had is the fact that teaching really is it for me. It’s when I’m teaching that I feel I am at my best. I always enjoy teaching, even if it sometimes gives me migraine attacks. There was even one time in one of my last period classes that I had the worst migraine attack and so while I was explaining the use of conjunctions and transition words, tears were falling down my face. I couldn’t stop the tears as it felt like my head was really about to explode! I continued and my students could only stare at me in shock! Hehe:) Oh, but that’s getting ahead of myself. I mean, I wasn’t planning on writing about that… yet. :)

Teaching really makes me happy. People who say that teaching is the most boring job on earth can’t be more wrong. Teaching, in fact, can be so interesting if you want it to be. And, I truly believe that it keeps a person young. I’ve also realized that with being a teacher comes great responsibility. Yeah, I know, I know... That’s a cliché you’ve probably heard or read a dozen or so times, but it’s just interesting and even funny when you actually get to experience how that feels. You’d realize how true that expression is.

There are so many things that I used to do or things I sometimes would really love to do that I can’t do because I am a teacher and I have to live up to the job. Living inside the campus keeps me around students all the time. Knowing that students are around, I need to act the way I’d want them to act in given circumstances.

For example, there was this time I so wanted to pick a fight with this very rude waitress. Ei, I’m usually nice to waiters/waitresses, but there are just, you know, waiters/waitresses from hell! That one time, the waitress was just so rude I wanted to strangle her with her own hair! Now, normally, I’d have given such rude person a piece of my mind, and loudly, too! But, since I was in a place that was swarming with students (some from my classes), I couldn’t do that. I had to keep my cool (which isn’t exactly like me) and talk nicely to the rude waitress as if I was the one at fault. When she just wouldn’t stop, I emphatically told her to treat customers nicely if she wanted people to keep coming to their place! The way she was going, I would have already broken something on her face. I swear, she was that bad! I tried to stay as calm as I possibly could and ended up saying very slowly: “Pasalamat ka, Miss, at nirerespeto ko ang trabaho ko kundi baka sa Infirm ka pulutin!” (Miss, you should be thankful that I respect my job or else you’d probably end up at the Infirm!)

I actually couldn’t believe that I was capable of keeping my cool that way. With a waitress that bad (read: super lousy service) and rude, I was really surprised that I could muster such calmness. I’m really hot-tempered, you see. And, it actually felt nice. I mean, I knew that I was just acting the way people would expect a teacher like me to act- a model to students, but I really thought it was nice. I realized how serious I actually am to live up to being a teacher. I usually don’t care what people say about me. Now, I’m more careful… for my students. I am not saying that I can’t/won’t do things that I want to or the way I want to, I don’t think I can ever do that or be like that anyway. The thing is I want to be a teacher inside and outside of the classroom. I just want my students to be the best persons that they can be. Funny because, now, it’s the students who are making me strive to be the best person I can be. Everyday, I am trying.