Choices we make

"So why did you go into teaching?"

This is one question that I've constantly been asked, especially when I'm meeting new people. Don't know if I've said it before, but I'm just going to share it with you guys anyhow.

To be dead honest, I never (ever) thought that I'd end up in teaching some day, back then in the CCHMS days. I would scoff at friends who liked the idea of marking tonnes of horrendously-written assignments, having to face rebellious students, having students nickname you behind your backs... the list is non-exhaustive, but I guess these people who I laughed at in the past will be laughing in my face pretty soon.

When I applied for a place in university sometime after I've graduated from TP last year, NIE was my pretty much the fifth and last choice. I'd wanted to get in NTU's maritime studies so badly because I thought it'd be pretty cool to be a ship broker few years down the road or something along that line (I wasn't even sure of what I wanted to do!), but I guess I just wasn't good enough. NIE offered me a place instead, but I wasn't too keen because of the reasons that I've listed in the previous paragraph... and students in NIE had the reputation of ending up in NIE only because their grades aren't good enough for other courses in NTU, SMU and NUS (however we want to defend ourselves, it's true to some extent). While that really may be the case for some of my school mates (and me), I've met people who have been thinking of becoming teachers since many years back; people who are in NIE because they want to be (the people I used to scoff at).

My options at that time were 1) to wait for another year before I apply for maritime studies a second time (you know how much I hate waiting, don't you?), 2) enrol at the Australian Maritime College (my parents weren't really supportive), or 3) take up NIE's offer of a free university education, receive monthly allowances for a period of two years and be guaranteed a job when I graduate. It's not hard to see which one I picked.

Fellow NIE schoolmates and classmates always have stories to tell about how they were inspired by some teachers whom they've been taught by in the past, so much so, that their lives were changed (for the better hopefully) and that works out to them aspiring to change the lives of others too. Sad to say, I've met some really nice teachers, teachers who'd go the extra mile for their students, but no one's ever left such a great impact on me that made me want to teach. I don't know how true the stories are, or are they just saying for the sake of saying, because, I'd really just stumbled onto this path.

But I'm not complaining, for making that decision to take up the offer. Everything's great so far, and I think I'm extremely happy where I am right now, having met so many nice people from school, and experienced what I've just experienced in the observations. It's not going to be a smooth ride (for sure!), I'm sure there're going to be killer papers coming up really soon, and my future kids will probably be giving a hell lot of headaches in time to come, but really, I think I'd be able to manage all that.

My life hasn't been changed by teachers or anything like that, but I do hope I'd be able to make some difference in my students' lives when I start teaching. It's going to be a fun ride, let's all hang on tight!