Changes

What actually defines us? Is it our work? Family? Friends? Faith?..... Of late I've wondered quite a bit about that.

Having changed my work environment, I've had to go through a period of adjustments and it's still ongoing. I traded the known for the unknown, the familiar for the unfamiliar. And I didn't realise that the one moment of conviction actually unsettled quite a bit in me... and so here I am, at this mid point of my life, in a new working environment. And wondering whether I should have embarked on this change. 

Yet, for once in many years, I actually teach more than babysit. For once too, I seem to be concentrating less on remedial work. I waste far less hours at meetings so far too.... Students are more responsive.... though, they are a 'numbed' lot. Something about our education is all wrong. And I've spent far less time chasing and doing the mundane... well, it might change. I don't know. A lot in the our system is regressing.

I've also had flattering moments never experienced before. I shall call them my teaching moments... I'm teaching a subject which was my major but never really got to teach after more than 20 years. And yet sometimes I wonder why I did that when the subject that I have been teaching for the last 20 years is very easy for me now. It's so familiar that I can do it with one eye closed. Yet I am embarking on a new challenge. Why do a subject which required new preparations and mindset? And after having started on it, I find myself asking myself whether I really want that sort of challenge? ... at my age where the easy is what most only age would want. 

And every new place has its own culture too... I find myself missing a lot of the familiar old; friend... the space that I had, familiarity too. I find myself questioning about what is important to me and I have come to realize it's the same old things. Life is still about relationships... everything we have, the things that we achieve... actually they can be quite meaningless when not shared. 

Changes... I find myself not so gung ho actually about changes anymore. It is actually more unsettling than exciting now. I am actually feeling more tired, more hard pressed and at times wondering. Yet I also realised that changes are sometimes necessary. It forces us do some soul searching... It makes us realise what is important. And changes change us too...