When I Teach Them, I Feel Hope

I really wish to tell you guys about what has been going on recently in my life. Anyway, I didn't have much time to do so because there are a lot of things to do as there are a lot of things that have changed in my life. Yes, I'm working now. Despite of the debatable definition of "work" itself, I consider myself having a professional career.

I have at least four jobs. An assistant, a teacher, a reporter, and an administration staff. However, in this post, I will focus on my job as an assistant lecturer and a teacher. I'll talk about the other jobs later in next posts.

The first one, as I mentioned earlier in my previous post, I'm an assistant lecturer. Hmmm... I guess I won't talk much about this job. I enjoy teaching, giving academic advices to my juniors, but... teaching college students is much more complicated than teaching school students, if you know what I'm saying. Other than that, I was suddenly struck by the idea of "it's-all-about-the-money" cliche problem. Well, I won't elaborate more on that. :P

Realizing that I cannot survive living only as an assistant lecturer, I tried to find other jobs so that at least I could eat. Yes, I used to work as a translator with a quite reasonable salary but I didn't find the office hour suits me. Somehow I realized that I'm too headstrong to obey all the rules there (Anyway, I've met some great people and got some experiences. So I win some, I lose some. And that's life. I know). And so I decided to make a "rigid search" (as Alex Perchov from the movie Everything Is Illuminated said) to find a suitable job.

I have applied for several different jobs and have done several different interviews. Some of them failed due to my unconvincing appearance/performance during the interviews. Some others failed due to my doubt on the contract/agreement (including the salary, the location, the work hour, etc).

Anyway, I was finally accepted as the teacher in one of the Bimbels in Jabodetabek. I gave extra lessons to highschool students, especially those who wanted to enter universities, more specifically, Universitas Indonesia (the university that I have a love-hate relationship with). It's a lot of fun because this job doesn't tie me with 2-year contract or 3-million penalty (if I couldn't commit to the contract. And obviously I couldn't because I'm planning to take a Master degree next year) and offers me more flexible time.

And the students are so funny and honest. For me, they're just like angels. I know that sometimes they don't obey the rules, they've always been procrastinating, and sometimes they laugh overly out loud. But I like them. Seriously. When I teach them, I feel hope. I can see in their eyes that they're overexcited about everything. Including about their study and their future universities. And for me that's good. It's a lot more fun than seeing some college students (including myself back then) that already lost their ways in university, confused whether or not they should continue their study or take another SIMAK/SNMPTN/UMB just to runaway from their current college life (even though there's no guarantee that they would do better in other faculties/other universities).

These highschool students are different. I know that some of them were disappointed that they weren't accepted in UI. But I feel hope in their eyes, and they're not afraid to take SNMPTN and UMB to achieve their dreams (even if SNMPTN and UMB don't offer higher probability for them to be accepted in UI). But they don't give up. Some of them are realistic enough to realize that being accepted in UI is such a difficult thing to do. But they haven't given in yet. That's what makes me happier to teach them than to teach college students. When I teach them (these highschool students), I still feel hope. I feel "future" in their eyes. I feel grateful being given an opportunity to teach them.

Okay, I think that's all that I can say at the moment. My sister reminded me to take a bath so that she could use this laptop. Thanks for the reminder, sis. Bye, readers.