fly with mhe

With the entries I posted, I’m sure you’ve come to know the nature of my income generating job. You’ve known of the struggles I endured to defend myself though there were times that I wasn’t successful. I get to receive punches, kicks, spits, slaps, shoes thrown, etc. every now and then and I just address it as part of the job. Why? Because even if I wanted so much to restrain, scold or punish her, she wouldn’t even understand why I had to do it nor would she understand that it hurts. Unless maybe if  I do to her what she does to me, revenge. NO, can’t. With the case of the ADHD kid, it was his impulses that made him do it. And that’s what he is trying to control. That’s why he is my student. Patience is an essential virtue in my line of work, much patience that is. Even if my student had punched me on the head 5 times, 2 on my back, 1 on my right temple, 1 on my right jaw and 1 on my face, I could only cry from the pain. I could not hit her back or restrain her with my anger, I might hurt her and I don’t want to do that. My license will also be at stake. I just don’t want to mind it and concentrate more on how I can help my students. Even if sometimes, waking up to another teaching day is hard, much more when upon entering the gate, my students would then show hyperactive gestures. Expect that I’d be stern with my ADHD kid and merciful with my MR student. My Bipolar student was also different, I still had to get to know her more. As well as my other 2 students who were not so difficult to deal with anyway.

I am very glad we have Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I sometimes wish that there won’t be Tuesdays and Thursdays to deal with. Hehe.. I’m glad there’s Fridays to end the workweek. Saturdays and Sundays to wake up late, have some alone, quiet time without my students, leisure, meet up with the youths, jam with them and be recharged.

Thankful also to the food that relieves my stress, even if it makes me fat.

Finally, I’m done with my reports, but not after watching Star Trek 6 : Undiscovered Country. Hehe.. To say, I rewarded myself in advance with this one.

Back to my topic, made 3-pages and 4-pages report per child and another 2-pages for a new one. Much browsing, scanning and reading through preferences like books, notes, articles on the net, even previous reports I made for my old student and reports from other professionals forwarded to me. Tedious job we say but necessary for the child’s progress, where the child is right now, his needs and capabilities. More so, getting to know the child more and knowing where best to develop and address his skills or learning.

Finished my report at 4AM with some background music from my stored files. In the morning however, continued my reward of finishing the Star Trek movies my brother had in his computer. Watched Star Trek 8 : First Contact and Star Trek 9 : Insurrection. Great movies to watch on a break though.

When we started our class, my student was talkative and was her usual self. 1o minutes into our time, she wouldn’t do the task I asked her to do. She was blabbering about the chalk, about standing up, kicked her shoes, slapped me with the book and threw the manipulative tool. Suddenly she sobbed and said something about spanking. It was about halfway on our class. I didn’t get her so I tried to appease by comforting her. She stopped for a while. Slumped on her chair, looked at me and said something inaudible again. Sobbed some more. This time she was really in tears and her eyes were red and wouldn’t stop crying. She just hugged me all those times while saying something.

I told her Nanang about it and found out that she was spanked by her older brother last night. Pitiful girl. She felt the rejection but couldn’t understand why she was beaten. She has feelings, genuine feelings. Children with mental retardation does. They just don’t know how to understand and express it appropriately.

Finally done with our seminar. T’was a day of wits and confidence. As you may know, I shy away from the stage, much more, speak in front of a  crowd. But I’m glad, really glad it was over despite the headache and muscle pains in my feet from standing too long, moving around and facing the crowd with a happy and unbothered smile. Hahayz.. The quirks of being in front, emceeing while coordinating the staff and people involved. Anyway, what’s done is done, as Aslan had said.

Glad our boss treated us for Halo-halo at Chowking, Limketkai Center as a celebration of the just concluded seminar. It somehow appeased the headache. It wasn’t even obvious as the whole staff were joking around, not minding the weary body and tired minds. It was still a long table of loud-talking halo-halo eaters.

And, unexpectedly, I saw one of my students, my favorite one. We didn’t have summer class so expect that I did really miss him and his sweetness. He was with his caring older brother and beautiful mother when he saw and called my attention. In a surprise, I almost ran towards their table. I’m glad I was at Limketkai Center, at least I still had the decency to behave. Hehe.. I was really glad I saw him. I don’t know if he’ll enroll again in the coming school year, I do hope he will. He is such a sweet lad. The type that he would try to choke me or try to wrestle me, but those were his type of sweetness, games to him. Get this, he is much bigger than me, bigger than my older brother, and much muscular than my younger brother. After a week of absence from our class, he would search for me in every classroom, ran towards me then give me a big hug with his big weight and a smack in my back or he would pull me relentlessly to get my attention. He is that sweet. No wonder he is one of my favorites. And he is teachable and patient as well, just as long as he is not irritated. But then again, I already know how to appease him whenever he feels irritated in class which seldom happens and only when he is sleepy and tired.

God, thank you for the smile after a tiring day.

My week was a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. It also ended with confusion and exhaustion.

Had an eye check up last Saturday. My right eye was hit by my hyperactive student with a pencil last Wednesday and since then, it won’t stop excreting a little water and getting itchy at times. Good thing it didn’t hit my iris. As my MR student’s dad is an eye specialist, my boss wrote a note and had my eye checked for free. I had lead infection he said and gave me an antibacterial eye drop, for free again.

However, this afternoon, an incident gave me an opportunity to smile gracefully and made me empty my mind on the things that concerns me much this week. Well, he just came in the middle of our jamming, grabbed his guitar in the middle of a song to teach our guitarist at that time (not our usual guitarist) the chords of the song we played then gave him back his guitar and grabbed the microphone and sang. I just listened to him sing his heart out, and he was even in tune though it was not the usual songs I would hear him sing. It was a joy to witness him do that. Since I came to know him, he has not only changed and matured, he has also developed his musical skills.

Wanna guess who the guy is? He is one of the Cugman Boiz, of course.