The Yarn Ball

knitting is one of my hobbies... but it has changed ever since i started it... it has become an exercise to save me from hyper tension and bouts of depression that i can undergo.

Knitting for me has turned into a therapy and not just knitting but everything related to knitting is like a medicine to me. from yarn buying - to casting on - and knitting - purl knit purl knit - bind off - stitch and sew - all of these are medicine to me.

before i start knitting i have to make a yarn ball, the wool is available in the loose form that u can not directly knit from so i have to make a yarn ball that in itself is a great exercise in patience and reflection!!!

just imagine making a ball with a seven ounce yarn and u wind it around a paper or ur hand first and then the ball becomes bigger and bigger and u keep doing it... unable to stand as the yarn is around ur knees [if you get up it would get all tangled up] and sitting quietly thinking and doing what you are doing... keeping to the task silently...one get a lot of time to think about things that you otherwise not get a chance to think of.

just this evening i made a yarn ball with TV on but after sometime i lost track of what was on TV and started peering inside my own world. :)... thinking of what should i do to shed off the feeling of being burned out and ignored... of what i can do differently next time and how to clean up the mess that my procrastination has created around me...and after i finished making the yarn ball... i got up and started putting things in order .:)

Happy knitting

I Realize - then...

in one of my earlier posts i hv written that realization is the step towards change... now i had this conversation with a colleague and she said that our life is too complicated and we can simplify it. we r so much into worldly things that we hardly pay attention to Allah and Prophet (PBUH). she said, for exapmle if we start wearing an 'abbaya'  [a loose coat worn by Muslim women on clothes] we would save so much time that we spend fussing over clothes every morning!

i said ok, when u realize that why don't u do that! she said, i just don't have determination, what will ppl say and we have to fit in with the society.

after this i realized that 'realization is not always the first step towards change' :(

BURNT OUT...

I like being a teacher in my own particular way.

But management is always telling teachers what a good teacher is supposed to do ... I wonder who will going to tell them, how management is supposed to treat the teacher. In this country teacher is a meagerly paid, over burdened, ignored, humiliated and belittles creature. No matter where you teach, people will always end up saying, "but you have an easy job, you are a teacher." someone said, "we are in the business of people management."

Teachers should be considered a person as important as a scientist, a law maker and even a law keeper, because it is the teacher who is supposed to shape the nation's behavior. Someone suggested that teacher can take up to 28 periods a week and school management made sure that they all do. Over burdening them with substitution and extra duties. In turn the teachers does everything else except teaching and feeling burned out.

With the loads of workshops conducted by schools telling teachers how to be good, the result is zero.... the teachers still dislike being a teacher, having to go to classes, putting up with students, who don't even take you seriously and parents, who treat you like personal servants.

In one of the workshops, they told us about loads of things that we shouldn't do to our students, but there was not one suggestions about what to do when a certain situation arises.

Another point was a child's behavior is the reflection of the teacher's or parents' behavior; fine, being a teacher I am responsible for my behavior with the students, but how the hell I am responsible for parents' behavior at home? Gimme a break!!!!!! [mostly parents don't even listen to our advice at PTMs abt change of the behavior with the child]

"Write down a diary note", this the comment or suggestions that I hear when there is a problem, only to find out that all the diary notes were torn out by the student!!!!!

Then there is professionalism of fellow teachers. Topics, such as, management, planning, communication skills,training are good but no thanks, they are not working out. People - the helping staff - is often unprofessional and try to get personal. Procrastinating and lethargy prevails over them. They can come up with one thousand one reasons for not doing what they were told to do and at the end of the day emphasizing their importance!!!!!!

I don't think that I've a solution for any of these problems, they are just the problems.

One more irritating situation is the linguistic capabilities of the ... umm...everyone. Either we should be proud of the language that we speak or learn the language that we are required to speak at work. I always have problems with language skills of people. [ basically i hv a problem with ppl]. For example, during one of the training sessions, the trainer asked if anyone of us can define "icebreaker activities" and most people thought that activities used to end the boredom are the icebreakers activities!!!!! Worst is that they are not ready to learn even!

Treating parents and students as customers is one of the drawbacks of private schools. I know many teachers who want to own their students in their own personal way; but the management and the parents create hindrance in the process. Let me reassure everyone reading this, in no way a teacher is the enemy of the child, they love the children, and want their very best, but give them a break, stop telling them all the time, what to do and how to do!

Personally, I'll never treat my students like customers, because then I can never be honest with my profession. I might never be able to satisfy a customer, but as a teacher I do my best to satisfy my students.

Customer  is a tricky term to deal with and brings up the image of a hardcore corporate setting; but school brings up nice, warm image of teachers and children, formal yet friendly, neat with a lot of interaction taking place, let it be like this ... let the students be students and teachers be teachers. Don't turn students to customers and teachers into customer services personnels!!!! [i wanted to be a teacher... not a customer services officer]

So, the workshop on 'Customer Services' is useless for teachers. Instead the workshop on dealing with fussy parents and living up to the expectations of students would be more welcome and realistic.

and in the end i would like to request all the people in the school managements all over Pakistan that please treat your teachers with respect, care, love and affection. they run your schools 'businesses' and satisfy your 'customers'. they train your children to be good and successful citizens of the world society and achieve their targets... [which most ppl think that teachers failed to achieve]

and i like being teacher in my own casual way and i'll never do anything to become what they expect of me :P

Today's findings....

i wonder if any one of you felt disloyal when not learning?

i experienced it today. i went to attend a workshop in school. it was basically for maths teachers, but they always put computer teachers with the maths group... so there i was ready to get bored (or so i thought) and waste my time (as a precaution i took a copy of reader's digest with me)but suddenly i felt disloyal to learning!!!!!! i felt as if i was not doing what i was supposed to do there... so i started paying attention and found out these things.

* a circle touching all the sides of a triangle is called an inscribed circle
*to draw means that we do not need compass and
* we are ruled by coordinates (here i forgot spelling of coordinates and wrote it with 'Q' and then i remembered that it's written with 'C'.
*space and time are coordinates
*if you cease the motion of earth the times stops
*time is the flow of events
*quantum mechanics says that if events stop taking place, the time will stop.
* speed is the way through which we can get free from the gravitational force.
* if you are unable to identify all the atoms of hydrogen, then you can say that they are symmetrical with respect to each other.
*global symmetry
*local symmetry
* global means universal
* local means [trainer to forgot to mention this]
* in theory of relativity time will lose its global symmetry.
* twin paradox!!!!! [to lengthy to explain here simply story of two sisters, one moving with the speed of light and one in the normal earth's circumstances... time - a fraction for one and ages for others]
* before big bang time is considered to be zero.
* invariant means never change!!!!
*The zero time is called 'Max Plank Time'
* there are three types of symmetries...
1. Reflected 2. Translated. 3. Rotational
* reflected means inverted by negatives, but the resultant is same. example ur mirror image. [trainer forgot to explain other two!]
* periodic functions repeat themselves after an interval of time.
* sine is always odd.
* cosine is always even!!! [i thought it other way round]

so all this info might not be useful for me in practice because of the subject that i teach [information and communication technology] and the level i teach [4 and 5!] but i felt good after taking these notes. i felt back in my element! :) and in the end it wasn't as bad as i imagined it would be :)

teacher's day

i really wanted to write badly about my teachers today, but somehow i didn't get much time..so all i want to say is thank you teachers for giving me experiences that you gave me :) and when now i am a teacher myself, i realize how difficult it was to put up with me and all the questions that i had [and i still have]

:(

'rebelling' was such an interesting post, but due to some problem it was not published, khair i removed it... it was a lament about the new tax that government is imposing and the attitude of the government, and the minister saying that corruption is their right!!!!!!

now that pervaiz musharaf as well want pardon and jump in the active political scene, things are very confusing... i generally don't talk against the government, though i don't own it as well, [i never went to vote and caused my father to get angry with me!!!] because i believe that it's all for our best, but lately i don't see the point!!!!

help is all that i need.