Missing teaching & 365 Day Project, Day 139

Hey.

Oh, heyy.

Hey, you.

Oh, hey there.

(Anyway.)

I just spent two minutes trying to figure out whether the full stop after 'anyway' should be inside the bracket, or outside. That's my OCD speaking, and it's really, really, really getting annoying. I actually used hand sanitizer after every time a customer handed me cash at work yesterday, and I was going crazy trying to stop myself, but my hands felt dirty if I didn't use it, so yeahh.

(Anyway.)

*closes eyes, takes a deep breath, opens eyes*

I've been missing Karachi and Bay View (Academy) so much this past month. I would wake up and miss that feeling of excitement that I had while going to work every morning-I'd usually be one of the first teachers there just because I loved it so much. Yes, I was busy most of the time, overworked some days, even, but I loved every second of it. Well, the part where I had to proctor tests & exams, give detentions, yell at someone, not so much. But the rest? Oh yes. I would love to go back any day.

I miss my students the most, though. The funny ones, the ones who were different from everyone else-those I respect the most, cause they didn't try to fit in, they just behaved like themselves-the ones who made life interesting, all of them. (That sentence was really a fragment, but aah, who cares?)

I would hate to go back as a student, though, cause I hated life as a student there. I was bullied and I fought back, beating everyone with my grades and climbing up to be a Prefect, and then Head Boy. I earned all that, and I'm proud of it. I still did not like life as a student there, even as a Prefect or Head Boy. I remember, I borrowed Twilight from a friend because I was so curious to find out what it was about, and my classmates asked me if I liked romance and vampires and stuff. I don't, but I do like books, and learning something new, reading something new, even if it's the random-est thing in the world, is something that I love doing.

(Anyway.)

I was watching this video about where a guy asks, 'what would you do as a profession if money didn't matter?'

My answer was so simple; all I want to do is teach. Be back at Bay View Academy, have a house with a small farm or something, two dogs, maybe get married and have children (cause I've dreamt of my children, so I really do want to meet them), but, yes, teach.

I'm so proud of all my students-I may not have taught them much, I may not have impacted their lives much, they may not think of me much, but I think of them, and I'm so proud of them when they tell me how they're doing, how they're handling things, and it's this feeling that I did something good, that I helped make a change, even a small one, maybe, but I did something that was so supremely awesome, and I love that feeling.

(Anyway.)

I was on my way to class today and I smelt a smell that I hadn't smelled since summer in Karachi. So, I stopped, sniffed around for a good ten minutes-yes, I looked so crazy sniffing and smelling plants-but I found the tree and the flower that was giving off that smell.

Did you know that flowers attract bees/moths/bats/other animals to themselves with their smell or their look or their fruit? They do it so that the insect or animal can take that fruit or the flower attaches pollen grains to the insect/animal and the insect/animal takes the pollen, flies/walks away, and then disperses the pollen, so that the seed is planted for more plants to grow? That was, like, the shortest summary I could give.

Other orchids have an opening in such a way that the insect flies into the opening, and the sides of the opening attach pollen grains on the insect's back. The insect crawls through and goes to a different orchid and the opening takes the pollen grains from the back, and therefore the plant can produce more seeds.

It was amazing watching that video in Biology-I just love learning about (almost) anything and everything, so it was incredible how God has designed nature so operate. Just.. amazing. I'm still looking for that video, so I can watch the full movie of it.

Going back to the original point, I took a picture of the plant when I got back to my apartment at night, cause I didn't think of taking a picture in the afternoon. That's my picture for today.

365 Day Project, Day 42

My physics professor put on roller skates and moved around the class using the force of the air rushing out from the fire extinguisher.

Heart is a mess.

This shall be a happy post.

You can get addicted to a certain kinda sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end.

Listening to Gotye in the morning with the laptop's volume on full?
And singing along?
Amazing.

Pick apart
The pieces of your heart
And let me peer inside
Let me in
Where only your thoughts have been
Let me occupy your mindAs you do mine


I taught grades two and three this week. I usually teach from grades four to eleven, so it was an amazing change.
Such cute students too. I didn't have to raise my voice a single time. Loved it.

I love this poem that I wrote.
'Wows of the Future'


They stand facing the wind,
Everyone watches them.
They stand together,
Neither complete without the other.

The tall twenty-five year old whispers something into her ear,
She laughs and pulls his arms around her.
They stand in the second-floor balcony,
They watch the sunset together.

The girl is a doctor,
She works ardently at her hospital,
She changes someone's life everyday,
She will be a good mother.

The boy is an engineer and a pillar of society,
He works to change and improve life,
He helps keep the neighborhood safe,
He will be a good father.

Their love gives everyone else hope for the future,
The two hard workers help the society.
Everyone watches them with pride,
They let no one stare with envy.

The girl leans against him,
He smiles as she relaxes.
They wait to welcome their first-born,
The street waits with bated breath.

They are two diamonds in a sea of rubies,
Both made for one another.

Day One.

Today was Day One of my new job.

Oh wait, I taught here two years ago, so that means it's not a new job, is it?

Yes, I teach.. again. I should switch from engineering and do teaching instead. After all, I've been teaching since I was fifteen.

Okay, so I'm eighteen, which makes it three years of experience in teaching and one year of experience in all other work.

Anyway.

Today was awesome.

I went to school-and please don't ask me which one it is, I can't tell anyone anymore-and I was overwhelmed. After all, those teachers had taught me at some point or another. So I was their student.. and now their colleague.

(I'm supposed to put a picture or drawing here, but I am awful at making people-Furee Katt and Daaneiia make the best ones)

This is what I was like:

But somehow I managed to not run away-hey, everyone wanted to talk to me and find out what I was studying now and why I was standing there in the staff room.

And we had a long meeting, after which I knew what I was going to be doing for the rest of the year-which is substituting for any teacher in the Senior building, supervising/motivating the Prefects, and the third is a surprise for later.

And after the meeting, I was doing slave labor for my mom.. Who teaches in the Junior building.

Now I have a driver's licence in America. Which means that I'm used to an automatic car.
Needless to say, I need practice with the gear/shift stick. So I drove on the way home.

I WANT AN AUTOMATIC. THIS WAS ANNOYING.

And once we got to my uncle's place, we discovered that one tire had punctured.

God help me.

And when we put the spare in-this time mum drove, I was exhausted-and started the car, we found that it had really heated up.

Oh. Em. Gee.

But we got home.. and I miss my Suzuki Liana.. We used to have it-a wonderful car better than a Honda Accord-and sold it before we went. Now we have a tiny Suzuki Mehran. Life is a test, indeed.

Oh, oh, oh, fasting makes my brain go slow, so I forgot one important thing. I met a blogger today. =D

Updating my blog.. and talking to.. myself?

I have a migraine. I wonderful and huge migraine. I asked my mom why people have migraines..

And she said that she didn't remember where she had heard this, but..

There was a lady in the Holy Prophet's (Peace Be Upon Him) time who had epilepsy & migraines. She asked the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H.) to ask God to end her condition. He asked her what she would prefer: go to Heaven directly and keep having migraines & seizures in this life, or be judged for her deeds and never have migraines or seizures again. What would you pick? If, of course, you had migraines or epilepsy and knew what it was like..

I'd take having migraines in his life.. But it still hurts my head and I can't prevent it.

Yes, I pray to God to help me bear them..

And yes, I went to see a doctor. Two, in fact. They didn't help. Period.
Medicine doesn't help either.. And I can't sleep when the migraines are in the back of the head.

Migraines, by the way, are severe headaches which affect any one side of the head.. the front, back, sides, everywhere, or more than one side at a time.. And light and noise makes them worse.
Oh, and medicine doesn't help. Did I say that?
This is what my face is like when I have a migraine and I was in the middle of doing something important:

Yeah, they suck.. but I'm not going to keep on ranting about migraines.

So I was in the middle of applying for scholarships and online jobs when I got the migraine that made me so.. depressed? upset?
Sigh.
Anyway.

If I had known fourteen months ago where I would be and why right now, I would have.. I don't know, started looking at scholarships earlier?

In April last year, I moved to America for immigration. Happy, happy, happy, right?
I had my O'level transcripts evaluated, and I found out that it was equal to graduating from high school in America. Yes, I was delighted that I could go to university a year ahead of all my friends in Pakistan.

And I went to community college there with scholarships. It made life easier for my parents.

Today, 29th May 2011, I'm done with my first year of community college (which is, by the way, the same as a four-year university, just cheaper and you have to transfer to a university in two years). Yay. Now, though, my scholarship at the community college has been halved (no, not because of my grades, I kept those high enough to apply to Harvard, remember?) because of budget cuts.

Since I had known that it was coming, I had applied to universities a year early as a transfer student. Harvard was my number one choice-if your parents made less than $60,000 per year, you didn't have to pay. And I didn't get in-1500 applicants and 12 spaces. I asked them why I didn't get in and where I could improve. Guess what they told me? There was nothing lacking in my application and there was no specific negative reason why I didn't get in.
I wasn't dumb enough to apply to Harvard only. I applied at Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania too. They said no too.. And since they both had over a thousand applicants each, I didn't bother asking them where I could improve.

I applied to Cornell, SMU & Texas A&M too. Still waiting to hear back from them, though.

Then there was this university in California that a friend of mine told me that she was applying to.

I love my family first (always, always, always there for me) and then my friends.. Not that all my friends really care about me. I don't feel sorry for myself, my dad says that friends are only friends until the time that they need you. Which is so true. Like I said two years ago after my best friends stopped talking to me (and I didn't even do anything, they had moved to new schools): Nearly everyone is the same. You help them, then they stab you in the back, lie to you & leave you to rot.

If it wasn't for my family, I wouldn't even be around. And for the fact that suicide is not allowed in Islam. I'd have been gone in.. seventh grade :o

But getting back to the point, yeah, I love my family, and I'd do anything to keep them happy forever, even if it meant not getting what I want, like I want to go to university-it's not even selfish to want to go to university, now, is it?

As for the university my friend applied to.. She didn't get in. But I did.

So, you're probably thinking, yay, problem resolved, you can go to university, right? No.. I can't.. yet. I need to pay to go. And even though they've given me a 50% in need-based grants, I don't have enough-and neither do my parents after the costs of going to America, coming back, and having to buy back all the stuff we sold which is now twice as expensive-so I'm looking at scholarships and online jobs now.

Loans aren't possible.. Because no bank would give $25,000 for me to go to university.
Oh, and it was Santa Clara University which said yes and made my dream of becoming and engineer possible. Now, though.. It's all in God's hands, as it always has been and will be.

Santa Clara, is, by the way, awesome. At least in my own opinion.
I have to stay at a uni in America, too. Because of the immigration thing.

And if I can't transfer to university, then I'm going to try and get a teaching job here and take online classes-the very few that I can take with the amount of financial aid that i'll get at Richland.

I know that there are millions of people who would love to go to university and those who have worse problems than mine. Thing is, I'd happily swap with them. They'd do much better in my place and would be more thankful than I can ever be.

I sound like a thankless person, but I try to be thankful.. But I have to talk to someone to calm down at times like this. Even if I'm talking to myself.

Looks like I'll be teaching in August. That's something I love doing and I've done before, so.. lucky me. =)