The Education system is a joke.

No carrot. No stick.

No carrot: Our salary is trash and there is zero incentive to rise up in the ranks because the workload is not proportionate to the pay increase. At GEO 3, I can easily go home at 2pm for 3 to 4 days a week. For $400 more a month, you need to take on a fuckload of responsibilities and roles that make you stay back for 3 to 4 days a week. $400? I make that in 1.5 hours / 2 students (per month) as a private violin teacher. $400? I give you sua. Imagine the reward for doing good work is more work. That sounds so familiar. Platoon 1 finish doing stores? Go help Platoon 2 do. Lmao. Imagine M*E have to put rules in place to ensure that teachers do not moonlight too much. Fk you, you think we so free so much time and energy arh, weekday teach finish weekend still wanna teach some more? You really want to stop moonlighting then fucking pay us more you retards.

No stick: Basically for a male teacher, as long as you don't touch girls and don't put pinhole cameras in the toilet, there is no punishment for being a bad teacher. M*E will never give up hope on you, they will send you for courses to upgrade you and train you bla bla bla. To some extent, I can see where they are coming from. Not everyone is a distinction teacher. Ahem. But to see so many GEO 4 and 5 people doing absolutely nothing and being at that rank simply because of time is just sickening to many teachers. They are basically abusing the system where there is no reason to sack them from M*E and they can just continue cruising along being as mediocre as they can be. Hmmm.. why does that sound so familiar? An ITE drop out sign on become 3rd SGT and being an absolute degenerate can continue having a job in the S*F. Hmmm.. 

Teachers who actually have the passion and talent for teaching would absolutely see through this system and leave. Better pay, better environment, less saikang in private. Teachers who stay are generally people who have seen through this system for what its worth and just continue milking it for as long as they can. Who doesnt like to go home at 2pm?

Here's the guide to go home at 2pm:

1) Tell your RO you want to prioritise your family. Not interested in going to the leadership / teaching / specialist track for the time being (forever)

2) Do as little as you can. Be as dumb as possible. Offer as little as possible. If you know how to edit videos, don't be a moron and say it. Act blur live longer. If you are given a task, achieve the bare minimum and dont try to value add. Ask for the template and just blindly follow. Don't kay kiang take initiative and offer better suggestions. Leave it for the people who wants to promote.

3) Aim for a C- in your performance grade. C- is the magic threshold. D you will be put on probation with no performance bonus. C- you still get PB and the BEST thing about C- is that you CANNOT be promoted for 2 years. That is an absolute godsend. If you don't get promoted, you will not be given more work, if you are not given work, you would have less opportunities, lesser estimated potential which means you go home at 2pm.

4) Doing all those above would have 2 outcomes. 1 would be you staying low profile and hence just fly under the radar being a fked up mediocre teacher. The other would be the school might post you out to another school for them to deal with your fuckery. Either way its fine because going to a new school just means more honeymoon periods since they can't arrow you too much in your first year and things would come slowly. Win-Win. Repeat step 1.

Personally, I have my own boundaries when it comes to teaching. I will never compromise my students learning. I still take pride in being a distinction teacher that provides fun/differentiated lessons in a safe environment. However when it comes to stupid shit saikang that has nothing to do with teaching, I offer absolutely nothing to anybody except negativity and whining. You arrow me to do, I will do, but expect shit work that is done last minute because I dont give a fuck and you have no time to make me redo. Not happy with the outcome? Next year get someone else that cares to do. What you gonna do? Gimme a C-? Yay! You wanna give me a D? Come observe my lesson and learn the difference between you and I. Ask the SLs come also. See how you write your report to justify =)

See? No carrot. No stick.

Teaching is just a job to keep you employed from 730 to 130. The real money comes from what you do after 130. Or you can just go home and have some me time before your child comes home. Or you can just sleep so that you have the energy to deal with your child later on.

When I leave the education system, I will probably make an actual video to teach people how to exploit the system. Just like in Maplestory, I had to make a video teaching people how to bot so that it becomes a huge problem before it gets fixed. In RoK, I had to make a video teaching people how to exploit the migration system before it got nerfed. In DragonNest, I taught my entire guild how to exploit PVP prefixes for all classes till we took 8 out of 10 spots in leaderboard and it eventually got nerfed. 

Sigh. Why must like that? It seems like the people coming up with such systems are equally fked up and mediocre. And they get paid alot of money. What a joke.

Control.

 "I am so desperate to be in control of my time and life you have no fking idea".

6 months have past since the previous post. I also told Zoe everything that was bottled up because I really felt very negative and that feeling suffocated me. The straw that broke the camel's back came when she got pissed off at me for something absolutely retarded. For about a year since my maids departure, Arelia has been going to kindergarten. I was the one who woke her up, prepared her milk, wash her privates (sometimes backside if she shits), brush her teeth, change her diapers and uniform and together with my father in law, sent her to school. Can you imagine waking a 2 year old toddler at 6am everyday and convincing her to do all this stupid mundane routine stuff? The amount of rage from her and the amount of control I need to have was insane because I needed to reach school on time as well. Now why did I have to do all that alone? Because Zoe was teaching in a far away school which required her to leave by 6am. So it was all up to me. Totally fine. I did not say a single word of complaint. Mind you that was including her 3 gym days. There were days where my daughter would not even see her Mom for an entire day from the moment she open her eyes till she closes her eyes. Not because she is busy. Totally by choice. For an entire year. I kept my mouth absolutely shut which in hindsight was not a good idea. It just made me extremely negative and I had literally zero outlet (which explains the previous post)

Fast forward to 2021. Zoe got transferred to a new school that was OPPOSITE Arelia's kindergarten. It was already pre-discussed before-hand that she would fetch Arelia to school since her own dad can fetch them both to Arelia's school and she can just walk opposite. One night she came up to me" Eh Papa, tomorrow you continue to do all the usual stuff and send her to school." I was like wtf? why? "I don't know what to do and how you do it and I need some time to adjust. New school will be very tiring bla bla bla bla bla... why you cannot understand how difficult it is for me?"

I lost it. I totally lost it. Difficult it is for you? You? Difficult?

Yes, I totally know what to do when I first started. Lol.
Ya, only you tired. Lol.
Sure, I am the one not understanding.

What I don't understand is how someone whose entire career and job training is dedicated to taking care of kids have the balls to tell me she don't know how to take care of her own kid. 

What I don't understand is how someone can try also dont try and say dunno already. If its somebody elses kid sure fuck it. Your own kid. Hello. Try also never try give up already. 

What I don't understand is how I did EVERYTHING and uttered ZERO complaints and somehow I am still the one that cannot understand how difficult it is for her.

What I don't understand is how she thinks a 3 year old with all the morning routines already established for a year by me can be more difficult then me starting at 2 with zero prior scaffolding.

What an absolute failure of a Mom and Wife. 

In hindsight its totally my fault. I KNEW I was going to be a terrible father. I KNEW I was irresponsible and inconsistent. Yet when Zoe got pregnant, I only suggested an abortion but didnt push for it hard enough because I was not in control. 

Come to think of it. Since when have I ever been in control in this relationship? I did not want to have a wedding ceremony. Did it anyway. I did not want to take wedding photos. Did it anyway. I did not want to do any of her fucking customs because 10 years in the relationship I have never seen a single teochew trait coming from her or her family and suddenly she needs 4 random pieces of gold that she will never ever wear. I did it anyway. Did not want the baby. Had it anyway.

I vividly remember a conversation we had in Ajisan years ago when we visited Michelle after she got her first baby. At Michelle's house, we had this conversation where someone asked her "Are you ready to be parents" and she replied "Nobody will ever be ready". And that statement tilted me so I discussed it with Zoe over dinner. I think we were not even married at that point. I remember being very condescending towards that statement because as a teacher, I have seen so many parents who are failures. Being ready for a kid means you need to know HOW to parent. What kind of language to use, how to scaffold, what are the values we want her to have, who plays what role (authoritarian / disciplinarian), setting up rules and boundaries and expectations etc etc. The amount of time and effort to raise a child is fking insane and I was sure as fk not ready to be one.

I remember when Zoe came to me with the pregnancy news I was making a bossing video for Maplestory. My first instinct was "Can we abort? What are our options?" I totally didnt want the kid but due to societal norms and expectations, I remember the final verdict to be "Our financial capability allows us to have a kid and her age is 29 so just nice no need to go through alot of health checks and baby is less likely to have defects"

That was the mistake. That was a defining moment in my life that if I could change, I 100% would do it differently. I lost control of the subsequent 20 years of my life because of that 1 mistake. I lost control of everything in the relationship because of that 1 bad decision. If I knew what it would take, if I knew what I had to sacrifice, if I knew how incompetent my partner was, sigh.. if I knew. 

Paraphrasing a joke from Dave Chappelle on the stance of abortion. It is the women's unequivocal right to choose whether they should abort or keep the baby. Her body her choice. However, if  they do choose to have the baby, the man shouldnt have to stick around if they dont want to. His money his choice. If women can decide to KILL the baby, the man can at least ABANDON it. Right? Think about it. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoudH-RPnEE&ab_channel=NetflixIsAJokeNetflixIsAJoke

Fast forward back to me being a terrible husband that doesnt understand how difficult it is for his wife to not even try to be a mom. I lost it and said everything and more. Basically everything from the previous post. This time round. I will be the one in control. I am at the state where I am extremely ambivalent about the outcome (reminds me of the Rat (Pariston) in HunterXHunter). If we divorce and Zoe wins custody, fine by me. Lesser work for me. If  we divorce and I win custody, fine by me. I am the better parent and my parents are better grandparents as well. GGEZ. 

Fast forward 6 months. Now Zoe is the one doing the morning routines. She cut down her gym days to 1 and things are slightly better now that she is taking a little more initiative. It pains me that I have to purposely take steps backwards just to give Zoe the opportunity to learn to be a better mom. I have to purposefully engineer scenarios so that Arelia can show her love and appreciation for Zoe more than me. Now let me be absolutely clear that when I say I am a better parent. I am purely comparing myself to Zoe. Compared to other parents who truly love their child. I only have the pedagogy but not the love. Its like knowing how to do martial arts but no strength. I also told myself, if an accident happens again, my statement would be "Abort or I leave with Arelia".

My life. No more bullshit. I decide.

Control.

Mid Life Crisis. Divorce thoughts. Negativity. Self-Destructive Spiral. Who am I really? Is this the life I want for the next 30 years?

Typing this at 4am in the New Year. 2020 passed by so quickly. 

Referencing my post 3 years ago:
" My dear Arelia, I will try my best to not have feelings of resentment towards you. I will try my best not to be a bad role model for you. Goodbye to my comfortable beanbags. Goodbye to my nice padded flooring. Goodbye to my days of rowdy gaming with my 猪朋狗友 late into the night. Goodbye to my privacy of having my own room. #为了你我忍 "

Once again I marvel at my own foresight. It is actually painfully accurate to what my life has become. From an avid gamer, to an emasculated fat fuck, I dont even know if I can finish typing all my thoughts or I will just give up like my previous posts, just like how I always give up in real life.

I have always wondered, what went through my Dad's mind when he decided to leave my Mom and I. I am slowly but surely starting to empathise. I have never hated my Dad, I'm more like Naruto where I never really knew my own Dad well enough to forge any meaningful connection hence the lack of sadness. To a certain extent, I had this feeling that my mom was part of the reason why he left. The constant condescension and passive aggressiveness with unrealistically high expectations almost made me take my life when I was barely 8. I could still remember thinking about it constantly, opening up the kitchen drawer and taking out the biggest knife and running my thumb along the blade. Opening up the window and staring down, wondering what it would be like to just take the leap. One thing that stopped me was basically the logic that both methods would not guarantee death and I really hated the notion of going through alot of pain and suffering and yet not die. Come to think of it, I wonder if I was in the US and guns were lying around would I still make the same decision? 

I also made plans to leave the house for good. I still remember the entire plan that I crafted for weeks. I saved up $27 in my snoopy wallet. It was alot for a Primary 2 or 3 student back in the day. I made a list of places where I could steal food without getting caught and I would go to public swimming pools to bathe / drink from their water cooler. Back then I was not allowed to go out on my own so the plan was to just not take the school bus home. I told my grandma about the plan because I trusted her and I wanted her to bring me food if I ever ran out of money. She ratted me out and my mom secretly stole my snoopy wallet hence putting a stop to all my plans. Life was slightly better after that.

Fast forward to now. 2021. I truly appreciate the effort my mom made to raise me up and I can totally empathise how difficult it must have been. Doesn't mean she didn't destroy my childhood, she totally did. But I understand how difficult it was and now she is really trying her best with Arelia. 

Here's my hypothesis: My dad actually didnt want kids. My mom had an abortion once. I was not the first child. By the second child (me) my mom decided to keep the baby, my dad was a free-spirited chef that liked fast cars (F1 macau racer once) / gambling / smoking. My mom was a university lecturer. The 2 of them absolutely dont click. Basically my mom's family was poor in China and my dad's family basically bought a fk ton of stuff for them like washing machines and bicycles and clothes etc. So basically my mom married a fuckboy for money/family. There is no way they could stand each other when their core values are so different. He would gamble away all his money until no milk powder money etc. bla bla bla basically he was too immature to start a family and hence divorce.

Divorce is something that has gone through my mind constantly these few years. Is Zoe really the right person for me? Is she settling for me? Am I settling for her? We share close to zero common interest other than singing. Sure we both like to travel but the places and style of travel is vastly different between us. I seek to explore while she seeks to relax. Nonetheless small thing. She hates gaming. She doesn't watch the same shows I watch. We basically have no common interests / topics between us. At this point, I simply view her as Arelia's mom. I have no desires for her, because I simply don't respect her intellect. I don't see any value in talking to her, she is unlikely to provide me any value other than being Arelia's mom.

Being Arelia's mom is actually good enough for me to just trudge along in this relationship. But sadly / unfortunately, her ability of being a mom is fking terrible. As a fellow teacher, it is actually pathetic to watch as I am the only one disciplining Arelia. Many a times her absolute failure of being a mom would make me so upset that I would just storm out and takeover while venting all my frustrations on Arelia. Over the years I have just grown to accept that she is a simply a bad disciplinarian. I am 100% sure she knows how I feel and often she would just throw Arelia to me simply because it is the easier option. 

Long story short, the only things she bring to the table is that she cooks 1 meal a day for Arelia. I can easily do that. She liases with a part time helper to clean the house. I can easily do that. She orders things necessities like toilet paper / washing powder etc online. I can easily do that.

Every single routine that Arelia has started with me. I send Arelia to school, I pick her up from school. I bathe her, I wash her backside, I teach her how to brush teeth, I even taught her how to fold toilet paper and clean her own peehole after urinating. Fking unbelievable. Bed time routines, eating routines, establishing boundaries, everything me. This was all fine.

She signed up for a gym membership. Sure. Her money, her choice. Her passion was exercising and I am of course supportive. Thinking that she is a rationale responsible thinking adult, I am sure she would know her priorities. Unfortunately thats where my respect for her started to dwindle. She would go to the gym 3 times a week at night. After putting Arelia's dinner in the cooker, she would just be gone for the rest of the night. Leaving me to fetch / bathe / dry hair / play / feed / wash bowl / wash backside / change pyjamas / read story all by myself for 3 times a week. 

Unbelievable. 

When Arelia is finally taken care of, is it time for my own passion? Unfortunately because Arelia is sleeping, I can no longer play games that require me to talk / communicate because my voice could potentially wake her up and guess who's the one to go in and soothe a crying toddler? The one and only thing that defines my life, the one and only thing that makes me happy, is gone. I am relegated to playing mobile games with a $4000 gaming setup. Alone.

Unbelievable. 

What have I become? Who am I really? Is this the life I want for the next 30 years?

The straw that broke the camels back was when I had a fever + a splitting headache on one of her gym days. I told her explicitly that I was not feeling well, was breaking out in cold sweat. She gave me panadol and just left. 

Unbelievable.

I really think I don't need her in my life anymore. She offers close to zero value and her existence tilts me to no end. It is a constant struggle of watching her fail and watching her hypocrisy. She told me one of her resolutions was to spend quality time with Arelia. The next week she went out 4 out of 5 nights.

Unbelievable.

On Saturdays, I have private violin lessons in the morning till the afternoon. After my first lesson, I have to buy breakfast for her, pick up the car from her parent's place, drive back, have another lesson, drive Arelia to ballet, drive Arelia back to my mom's place, drive out for dinner, drive her and arelia back, return the car and go home by myself. Despite the fact that the car is from HER parents and she also has a driver license. 

Unbelievable.

After ranting for 3 paragraphs, I am starting to sort some thoughts out. It just seems to me that I am very upset with her lack of initiative. To the point that I have lost respect for her as a human being. Every time she steps out of the house I question her value. If I can do it by myself, why do I need her? Alot of people have noticed my significant weight gain this 2 years. I have also sorted my own thoughts out and wondered why. I came to the conclusion that I was stress eating and also somewhere deep in my heart, I think that the fatter I am, the lesser "ego" I have. By lowering my own value, I hope to limit my own wandering mind of what-ifs.

Unbelievable.

I need someone who can bring out the best in me. I need someone who can challenge me intellectually, to have opinions that are interesting, to have ideas and conversations that can bring our lives forward. She is not it.

At the bare minimum, dont tilt me. She tilts me. 

Now the more important question comes. What can I do? Personally, the ideal outcome would be that custody be granted to me and SHE pays me alimony. I am a better parent and we both know it, her parents know it, my parents know it. I should definitely do it while Arelia is still young just like how my Dad left early.

I will give myself and Zoe 2 years. 2 years for her to prove that she is worth something. I will take the next 2 years and lose weight. 

This time round. I will never make the same mistakes I made. I know exactly what kind of person I am looking for, everything has to be on my terms. No more fking marriage. I need to find someone better than me both spiritually and intellectually. 

Happy New Year. I guess that's the most convoluted, depressing, negative way of reminding myself about my 2021 resolution.

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Lmao I found this rant 6 months later still in draft form. Fk it.