the•truth•shall•set•you•free

if you din know what the title of the previous entry meant, its clearly stated in this entry's title.

as you already know (if you dun, pls read the previous entry for greater clarity), i went to taiwan recently. well, this trip, as with all others, waz not w/o its fair share of hiccups.

first up, i waz slated to report to sch on the 4th day of my trip. but as i had already booked and paid for the trip, i waz torn between not wanting to not report on the first day of work and losing 300 bucks if i backed out of the trip (and the refund will only see light half a year later). so i waz in quite a fix, and tho my friends prayed for me that i wld be able to go in the end, i waz actually tempted to pray dat i wldnt be able to go, so that i wun step on the wrong toes even before i start work.

anyhow, i din pray for the latter, and thank God dat my principal waz understanding enough to allow me to go, and dat God caused me to have peace with the final outcome of the 'crisis'. eventually, i became the first (possibly) person in the history of the education scene in singapore to take unpaid leave the first 3 days of work, citing 'holiday' as the reason. (the interesting thing abt this episode waz dat the principal asked me wat waz the learning pt for me in this booboo i created [booboo coz i shldnt have planned for any holiday before posting/reporting dates were out, but oh well...], and i waz duly taken aback. coz i waz stunned dat suddenly, everything seemed like a learning experience. anyhow, i replied "dun plan holidays before posting is out?", with an enquiring and uncertain tone, not sure wat answer the principal waz looking for, and the principal replied "(i need to have more) organizational awareness" hmm...)

anyhow, so i left s'pore for taiwan with a heavy heart (altho i got peaceful-er along the way), thinking if i wld miss alot of impt stuff happening the first few days of work, or if tongues will be wagging in my absence, disapproving of how a newbie shld be absenting himself on the first day of work, or dat i wld be given weird looks when i really reported on friday, with a really bad first impression set. i waz really quite worried, and kept praying abt it. but really, there is nothing much to worry abt, coz even if the bad things did happen as i imagined, i wld not be able to do anything abt them. and the best part is nothing bad happened (as far as i see and sense so far).

when i returned on fri, the staff waz generally still quite nice to me. the 2nd-in-command waz most understanding - she waz the one who kept telling me its ok before i went when i waz apologetic abt the booboo, and she even asked me how my trip waz when i returned. the only other guy posted to the same sch as me waz also quite friendly and chatty. my dept pple welcomed me gently and my dept head did not say anything abt my absence. the rest of the staff, when they did see me and notice my presence, did ask for my name and if i had eaten lunch and all the stuff you wld normally say to a new person. there waz a veneer of nice-ness. my only hope is it goes beyond the surface.

another grp of pple dat i thot waz really nice were the admin pple. as i came back fr the trip and thot more and more abt it, i realized i had caused a whole slew of trouble for them. here's wat..
1. they had to apply leave for me.
2. they had to get relief for the classes i waz slated to go into.
3. if not, they had to get the teachers whose classes i waz supposed to take over to take back their classes (when they thot they cld finally get rid of them.. hah)
4. which makes me the culprit for more and more pple.
5. they had to repeat any and all instructions they had told the other new guy.