Once upon a Paris...

I mentioned in my blog post long ago that I was posted to a very small town about an hour plus away. In that small school in the small town, I was perhaps something out of the ordinary. You see, I was different. My first day reporting to the school, I went with my father and his driver. Since the school did not need me in the first place, my father just took me there for formalities' sake and had wanted to take me to Putrajaya to sort the problem out. (By the way, my dad got himself a driver after his by-pass surgery a few years ago and not because we are very rich or anything like that).

So anyway, since the department made the blunder, the headmistress received a call from them to tell her to take me in (even though the quota was full). So, there I was for 4 months. The town was so small that there were only 4 blocks of shophouses in the 'town centre'. And most of the time, the shops are not open. ALL the shops are also closed by 6.30 p.m. So, my arrival and the special case of the department asking the HM to take me in must have been something rather exciting to the folks in that town.

I travelled daily for a week and a half when the price of petrol was at its peak. Transportation alone cost me more than RM 70 per day (coz my car guzzles petrol like crazy and the toll fare was more than RM 10 per trip). I travelled because I didn't have anyone to rent a place with. Rather than having me to travel almost 4 hours daily and spending so much on petrol, my father said that I should rent a whole house on my own since the place wasn't too expensive either (big news to people around there as well).

My kind colleagues were worried because I was going to be staying in a house with 4 rooms alone. I told them not to worry as I planned to bring Charlie along to accompany (and protect) me. Yup, Charlie, who is friendly to everyone. But, hey, my landlord wouldn't let me bring bigger dogs over. So, anyway, I suppose in the eyes of the town folks there, I was their local Paris Hilton. LOL...

                                                           

                    

                    Low Quality Imitation

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The pupils look forward to see what I would wear to school every day. They scrutinize the brands of bags that I use. They complimented me. They whispered to each other in front of me, talking about what they liked about my appearance that day. Their comments spurred me on to look better every day. And, at the beginning, I didn't even try to look better to please them. It was just that I was the only Chinese lady teacher who had more than 10 different outfits to school. No offence to the other teachers intended.

However I hated the "no-lifeness" in that small town and however I dislike their scrutiny of what I did and when I did what with whom, I basked in the adoration of those people. I enjoyed being praised. And I took the effort to look good so that they have more nice things to say about me. Hehe...that is a good cycle, I think.

Transferring to this current school, the people aren't as simple and nice. Whatever you do would attract criticism. You wear nice clothes, some would praise you while some would say that what you wear is not appropriate or wouldn't even notice that you are wearing nice/new clothes (which is better than being criticized). You wear make-up and the teachers strongly criticizes you at the back for not allowing your pores to breathe. When you are in this kind of place, it just gets you down and you end up not doing anything to make yourself look out of ordinary or look good. This, my dear friends, is a very bad cycle. We'll all end up looking like old aunties very soon.



By the way, I googled for this image. Somehow, I ended up with Indian 18+ photos for my search for "aunty"! What has become of this world?? Sheesh!

I think I'm not going to care about what those people say. I wanna look good! I wanna be local Paris Hilton again! I'll lug Charlie to school in my back pack tomorrow! LOL...