San’s family journal

After my father passed away until now, things never seem to slow down for quite a bit as we have a handful as well with Yen’s mother broken hip-joint. The recovery process is quite slow for Yen’s mother and it is rather tiring to travel to Wangsa Maju frequently. 

When I left my house this morning, I noticed that the grass in the little “garden” has grown to an extent the “garden” is hardly visible. The only time I am able to spend on the “garden” is on Saturday morning when Grace is at the nursery but Yen’s mother has taken up all those slots. I can’t find anytime to exercise as well… unless I do it after Grace is asleep just like last time. But before I actually do it, it already sounds very difficult. *Sigh* 

Then… how about my PhD? How about serving in the church? How about giving Grace more quality time? How about keeping myself fit? How about going back to Klang to pay my mother a visit? Life just can be so tough if you start to go into the questions one by one.

I have rejected the offer from TPM College after much consideration. Actually it was a good opportunity for me to advance in my career, as they were to take me in to work as a head of school/dean or something like that. The problem that came with it was that they were not able to give me the title as I don’t have PhD but operationally wise, I am the head/dean. Sounds fishy huh?

Well, the main thing that I couldn’t accept was that the contract or probation period was 2 years and it is not a good idea for me as the college might go anytime and Yen is still studying without constant income. The other thing is that the COO was there just for troubleshooting; she might be going anytime also. Then whatever thing she promised would just leave with her. 

So… though it was a golden opportunity, I guess I just have to pass.  

I went for an interview yesterday about the post of lecturer at TPM and they want me to join there urgently. But the problem is that they would like me to do the administration job as well.

I also learned that the college was no doing well for the past 4 years since they established the college. They changed the management team on January this year and managed to turn the figure from red to blue according to the COO that gave me the second interview.

They are willing to give me 20% more than what I am getting now but the job will be very demanding as it is like revamping the college inside out. Another thing is that I will be on contract with them for two years but the other normal confirmed staff benefits are still there.

 So… should I stay at cozy but filled with stupid management personal place or join the college which is demanding but run by wise management team?   

My direct selling friend told me that I should go into the world and whack the future out of nothing. So, it is basically to do nothing but building the business in order to retire young and retire rich. No doubts direct selling is a good business to go into, but what is the point of pouring all my energy and time into the direct selling business while I am not able to tell whether I am going to live tomorrow? I would rather spend time with my family instead of going out early on the morning and coming back late at the night. 

There are people who are very successful in direct selling and also achieved a balanced life style. For me, it is no point in doing part time direct selling as most of the time you will just end up neither here or there. It is not possible for me to give up the only constant income of my family and go into direct selling. Well, I guess that are their cups of tea and not mine. Am I giving excuses or am I just plain lazy?

Yen’s mother had a broken hip joint on 6^th of July and operated on 8^th of July. She is recovering at her brother, Peter’s place. We try to visit her as often as possible and we have spent two weekends at my brother-in-law’s house sort of taking care of her.

Grace was not sleeping very well at Peter’s house and was fussy and irritated during the nights and the result was devastating. With all the house chores pilling up over the weekends and not enough sleep, I guess it is a long way to go before everything can be back to normal.

I will be starting to give tuition on this Thursday and I have not through with the preparation yet. Though the tuition center is not paying much, but I guess it would contribute to our financial needs one way or another. At least the pay can cover our bills

This is another normal June semester and nothing changes much except the number of student that I am handling. One of my classes now has 81 students and this is the largest class I ever have. All together I am handling more than 150 students over 4 classes of different subjects. 

When you are having a class with 80 students, controlling the class is an issue. And our Vice President of Academic on yesterday sharing session told us that we need to be accountable to our student’s performance. So… let’s see… I have only about 14 weeks together with the students and I have to make sure that they pass my subjects. Well, if the management wants us to kick with one leg, at least they have to become the other leg that supports the one that is actually doing the kicking. Have you ever seen a leg is kicking in the mid air? It is a common trick here.

It was a shock to me this morning when I found out that Shearwey Ooi was murdered in the newspaper. I would expect a missing case told by a mother has become a murder case. Our society has a lot of sick people indeed. 

Though it is still too early to decide on who killed Shearwey or she was killed in an accident. But the way the parent and her boyfriend handled the body of Shearwey did raise a lot of questions. Whatever it is, children killed in a domestic environment is getting common nowadays. It really saddens me when witnessing all this events unfolded.

I have been serving this college for 8 years. I asked for promotion to become senior lecturer October last year. They told me that they did not have the promotion criteria for the staff. Whenever I ask the department head, he would push to the director. When I asked the dean, he would push to the HR department. When I asked the HR department, they would push to the head. So… basically everything is just going around the circle.

Then, now the management says that they are coming out with the criteria and until now they have not finalized the thing. What the hell is with all those people? They are getting good salary and don’t bother about the staff. Just imagine that you are queuing up to buy something and when it comes to your turn, the seller says that he wants to increase the price.

The problem is that I cannot leave this company as I wish because my wife has not constant income and still studying. I sure hope that I could leave this college, which is led by stupid management that could not even think of simple buying thing logic.

I use to surf the net of something fun to relax myself. I came across this cute voice of two small angels. I thought Grace’s voice is cute but it seems like there is more somewhere out there.

Grace picked up one of the advertising flyers from the letterbox yesterday evening. She saw the car advertisement, looked up to me and asked me to buy her the new car. I replied to her that I have no money to buy her the car. Do you know what is her reply to me? She said it was only a new car (ma). 

It was really a funny moment but it did remind me of the golden age of no worries. Anyhow, I am lucky as Grace didn’t insist on buying that car.