bruised up

i've found the fourth bruise on my left ankle.

wrist, elbow, sheen, and ankle. taken altogether it's the ninth, i think. i've lost count.

somebody knock some sense into me and tell me to move on big time. and give me the courage to do so.

******

lotsa things have happened on the work front. changes... things i've committed to... i really need alot of strength and belief at this point in time. i'm still trying to find sources of support i can gather from the nooks in my life.

i've just agreed to another 3.5 years of my life in the service.... 2 years of diploma and 1 yr of service agreement. honestly i'm still so unsure and scared.. i'm not sure if i'm making the right choice here.

there's so much controversy hanging in the office atmosphere now because of the way my management dealt with the diploma.. or rather, the way it dealt with colleagues who refused to take the dip. many of our young ones are leaving... the colleagues i'm fond of and hang out with.. i see the way they are dealt with and i'm sad. i know that if my management do not need me one day i'll be dealt the same way. there's so much anger floating in the air and so many pple discontented with work here.. everyone's too stressed up with the amount of work and resentful with the management. and yet here i am, another 3.5 years.

and then my work attachment. i'm gonna be attached in bukit panj*ng pri school starting this tues, lasting 3 weeks. my days of 7am - 6+pm are gonna start. which means, i'll have to be up by 5am and leave by 5.30am. and it's not the timing and travelling that scares me. granted, this is a great learning opportunity. but so much is expected from me out of this, as the "pioneer" on a work attachment. i have to write a report at the end of it and present my learnings to the whole branch.

generally work has been extremely stressful. no words can describe it and i dun wish to attempt. let's just say i'm given increasing project work... about 5 projects.. and it's not just the amount of work, but the increasingly tough and high level work. for example, i'm recently put in a task force to examine mental he*lth in our children and it's apparently morphing into a few years long project. just defining mental he*lth is taking us months, and my specialist says what we're doing is equivalent work to phd research. i'm working with pple who are phd status, all from each field of specialisation in different branches, i've to try to think and analyse at their level, present on a regular basis to them and my director, and be shoot at with their phd brains and phd mouths. i'm lying through my teeth if i say i'm not freaked out. i dunno how i do it.

and this is just one of my many projects.

and my many projects are just half of my workload. i still serve schools, although this part of work is the one i enjoy most. come august, i'm gonna have 8 schools because my senior is gg off to take her phd and i have to take on some of the schools. my supervisor hinted that she's going to let me front some schools independently. honestly, i feel so unprepared.

i'm so tired. this job is taking so much of me. it requires me to have every kind of skill i can think of. i have to be intelligent, speak impeccably (most of my colleagues speak perfect standard english), have good presentation skills, be able to facilitate workshops and events and meetings, have creative and fast ideas, i have to have time to read up for professional knowledge, i have to learn alot of things quickly from everywhere (different learning dis*rders, how to differentiate them, how to arrive at a diagnosis, strategies to help schools/parents/children, referral process, tens of assessment tools - how to conduct, how to score, how to interpret), have good research and statistical skills, have to reply to tens and hundreds of emails daily, be able to write good reports (feedback forms, parents report, assessment report, psychological report for referral, policy papers, research papers), good professional communication skills to talk to Ps, hods, teachers, parents, external professionals, learn "assertive" language because i provide consultation and give pple advice, know how to deal with pple at different levels (boss, team leaders, supervisor, colleagues, children, school pple), juggle a few events in one day and rush to each one and be able to mental switch immediately, be able to skip lunch, toilet, water breaks.

on the bright side, i've definitely learnt alot in the past yr... interesting things that i do in school.. things that i've seen and encountered. i've assessed hearing impaired children early this yr, met children who are adopted and whose natural parents abused them and were jailed, met lots of parents who cry, who scold us, who are in denial, met a parent who is deaf-mute and has to write on paper for us, met nice Ps, not-so-nice Ps, nice teachers, bitchy ones, conducted a couple of workshops for nice and not-so-nice Ps and teachers.... blah blah blah... and i still really like working with children. in fact i've just bought cute animal stickers which i will give out to my kids from now on.. :)

sigh i dunno... i like my work here and i hate it at the same time. i'm jaded, feel abused and used.. yet when i go to schools i know my duty is to the children... and then i give my best. but how long more can i run i don't know... i really need so much more courage. i hate the bosses... the rules the policies the culture... i like most of my colleagues. but i can't respect the pple i work for. at the end of the day, i must always tell myself, i'm working for the children, and tt keeps me going.