Self Satisfaction..!

It’s great to be working again…!

Before I had started working, I had the whole day in my hands and just as much feeling of being wasted and becoming worthless as bills in water. Any working person filled me with an envy and wistfulness I cannot describe. I eyed people going briskly about their business and longed to be a working person again who has some important task at hand and a purpose in his mind.

It costs me plenty of strain, pressure and hard work yet I have no complaints that now I have to get up at 5 0′ clock in the morning leaving warm and cosy bed to make preparations for the day. I take bath, worship, cook breakfast and lunch meal for S, prepare H’s bottles, his breakfast, then wake him up and feed him while his eyes are still half shut, then iron clothes if needed; then I rush to change my clothes and get ready and then hasty teeth brushing and bath for H then putting on his clothes, shoes and all, then packing my bag and taking a brisk 10 minutes walk to the metro station, changing the train and taking another after which again a 10 minutes brisk walk and finally I am in the school. All this in barely 4 hours yet what a satisfaction it gives me to be a person of some value again…! Its not because I am earning money; its only because I have an important work on my hands and a work which I love doing. Working gives me a better self image and a sounder reason to care for myself then before.

I guess it is so because I had always been a working girl and so being entirely at home somehow didn’t suit me. Housewives had always horrified me and I enormously dreaded to fall into the abominable category myself.

Now in the crisp mornings when I find striding people primly dressed,  short on time, going for work, I realize with certain pleasure and self satisfaction that I am one of them too.

It is truly great to be working again…!

My German Kindergarten...!

My school is going on well enough. New session has started. A lot of new faces can be seen in the team as many have been fired and many ejected after 1-2 month trial period.

When I had gone for my interview about 4 months ago, I was so surprised that they asked me nothing, nothing at all. They just wanted to see my certificates which I didn’t have except just a few. Then within 5 minutes, yes within 5 minutes, they fished out the contract papers for me to sign and the manager took me inside the school to see the classes and meet my colleagues….!  The super speed and the absolute absence of any difficulty in the interview led me to believe that they take in any walk ins. But now I realize that I was mistaken. Two teachers who were good and old enough in the team have been fired because they were found to be not so good with the kids. A plenty othesr were recruited but dumped for the same reason. In the last 4 months I have seen at least 7-8 teachers to be fired. So it is clear now that my circum viat satisfied them in some respect even before the interview.

I find it extremely interesting to learn about their method of teaching and conducting school. The German laws state that no child under 5 years old should be taught any thing unlike in India where as soon as the child turns 2, he gets formal admission in a school and starts learning.

So we spend a couple of hours in school where we sing rhymes and songs, tell them about various informative things, build their vocabulary and language, do projects to develop fine motor skills and intelligence, eat, sleep and play and play and play. The whole environment either for students or for teachers is extremely relaxed, tension free. The student teacher ratio is excellent with every 5-6 students there is one teacher.

The whole school has barely 40 children, the number of students I alone looked after in my class in India..!  The school meetings are least like meetings; they are rather like cheerful merry get togethers where we eat and drink pleasant things and crack light hearted jokes about just anything. There are no  inspections by the manager. If we have been told to do something it is believed that we must be doing it and any thought otherwise just does not occur to the authorities. In India, the very sight of the principal used to send the teachers in a titzy and made them visibly nervous and the principal or the head was synonymous to unpleasant checks rather like a dreaded police raid on criminals.

The children love me and miss me when I am absent. Parents regard me plenty of respect and I enjoy every minute of my work here. H, too has thoroughly settled in. He is now in a different group and enjoys himself so much there that he often refuses to go home. Initially everyone thought that he was a spoilt kid when he used to cry all the time to be with me but now everyone knows that he is an intelligent child and that he knows a great deal which elder children even do not know.

So we both are having a nice time and indeed we both are learning so much. I hope and pray that  it goes on and on…..!

A tragedy. Papa died...

Back again after a long time.

The trouble in coming back after a long gap is not knowing how and from where to start. Such a lot has happened in between…!

I had begun doing my job well enough and only about a week had passed by when papa became ill. He wanted to have an operation for incontinence but the medication prescribed prior to operation disturbed salt levels in his body and he started having foot swelling due to water retention. The medicines to cure this in turn disturbed his blood pressure and caused excessive urination in addition to sinking of heart, troubled breathing and too much weakness. The next day my sister in law took him to the doctor and he was put on glucose drip. All his tests turned out fine. Only potassium was found to be low so he was administered a dose of potassium along with the glucose drip and within 15 minutes his pulse starting dropping dangerously and before anything else could be done he breathed his last..!

We left for India immediately for performing his last rites.

We stayed there for one month to make all the final arrangements which was more brutal than the death itself. The merry house which always used to swarm with relatives and visitors and had relics of mummy and papa in every nook and cranny is shut up now with most of the stuff gone. It is highly unlikely that it will ever return to the same state. Neither am I going to be the same again. I had a special relationship with papa which skirted more on friendship than father-in-law ship. We too were more like friends who talked, loved, fought, teased and admired each other and shared a lot of other things which we didn’t with others. We two had been very fond of each other since the first moment of our acquaintance.

I miss him badly and I am sure I can never forget him. May God rest his soul and give him peace.

After returning back from India from the terrible ordeal of losing my dearest papa the next thought on my mind was my newly acquired job. I was pretty certain that I must have lost it. Luckily I hadn’t. Had it been in India, I cannot have expected otherwise.

My colleagues and the manager were all so sympathetic and concerned that it freshened my wounds once again and also gladdened my heart that I were amongst people who truly value humanity and simple human emotions. 

Nearly 3 months are about to pass and I remember him every single day. Sometimes I get an uncanny feeling that every thing is still unchanged just like before and on going home I would ring him and talk to him telling him about the weather here or some happening at the school……

H is horribly letting me down...

Just when I had commenced feeling really proud of myself for having taught H all those fantastic things which often a lot older kids do not know, he has rudely proved to one and all that I was wrong, grossly wrong ! Only two days at school have shown me how badly lacking he is in his basic behaviour.

Since two years, both S and I had firmly ensured that we never over-protect and spoil H,  he has proved successfully in just two days that he is exactly that – a spoilt brat. He cries all the time if I move as much as an inch away from him, keeps me fearfully clutched, wants his favourite toys, screams at the top of his voice, throws everything, refuses to eat or drink,  and disobeys every instruction. He only wants two things, mama and trains, that’s all.

He still drinks milk from his bottle and has to be spoon fed only fine puried select foods and still wears diapers all 24 hour.

Yesterday, I had to attend a staff meeting with him on my heels and he turned it into a nightmare for me as well as others too. For a while he was quiet so long as he kept joining train tracks but the moment he tired of it he started throwing the track pieces saying the track was broken. He further threw which ever toy, car, aeroplane, blocks etc were offered to him. He demanded juice and when given, instead of drinking, he never would have drunk it anyway, he immersed his entire hand into the liquid ! He suddenly noticed ABCD on a magnet board; I hopefully thought it would engage him at least for next few minutes but he violently struck  all the magnet alphabets off the board ! At one time he gleefully threw a solid wooden block across the table. Two teachers were just lucky enough not to get a black eye or bulges ! I could sense their unexpressed irritation and eyes rolling at my back !

I am deeply upset. It seems so hollow to profess that I have spent years of my life in disciplining others’ kids and absolutely resent over loving, over protective  parents. His behaviour is casting a grim shadow not just on my parenting but also on my professional skills. What right have I to tell parents how to discipline their kids when I can’t my own?

I am going to change my dealing methods with Henry and see if strictness and firmness will succeed where love and affection has apparently failed.

By the way, here in this school we have staff meetings every fortnight. All the teachers assemble together in a predecided room and discuss school affairs over hearty snacks.... 

My First Day at Work

After a long long time, well, 5 years to be exact, I once again started out early in the morning to go to work. Going to school as a student is much different than going as a teacher; firstly you don’t have the option of absconding and second there is no fear of cutting up a bad face for home work not done. I hate doing home works…!

There was some unexpected disruption on S-Bahn route so the very first day I was nearly 20 minutes late. The school is a nice colourful little place with lovely little children from all countries of the world. Similarly my  co-workers too are from every corner of the globe. They were polite and welcoming enough. The working inside the school is entirely different from the one I was used to which leaves me a really broad scope for innovation but for the present I have decided to observe first and then project my ideas. Wouldn’t do to make enemies so soon !

It was really cute to see those tiny little kids play with toys, trying to sing to a guitar, put on their bibs and eat their breakfast / snacks etc with tiny colourful forks, put back their dishes, and go to sleep with a cuddly toy and a pacifier.

H gave me lot of trouble. He continued to cry the whole time as he wanted to be with me only but I hope this will passes soon and he will adjust like every other kid.

For the present, I am basking in my new found status. Shedding the sticky ”House wife” tag is glorious and I hope it stays this way for a long time to come. Keeping my fingers crossed…..!

I have got a job

Dead fed up of my house wifing limits, I mailed my resume to some schools feeling very sure I would never be called up. Well, yesterday, I received a call from a school calling me for an interview. Far from being happy, I was extremely dejected because my already blear prospects seemed all the more bleary because I didn’t have required certificates, degrees etc to show them; I had left them all in Lko thinking they would never be needed. I didn’t have any experience certificate either – I had never bothered to obtain them from my past employers. And saddled with a restless toddler who can throw tantrums and refuse to behave himself any time he thought fit was another hurdle.

The last obstacle was easily run over as S agreed to come with me and look after H. And the remaining obstacles, to my great luck and greater disbelief, just never arose. They quickly went through the sundry certificates and sent me to tour the whole school for a look !

My work permit is now under process and I am finally a working woman once again !

What is even more gratifying is that they have allowed me to keep H in the same school absolutely free of charge; we need to pay only for his food,

so when all the other foreign parents struggle to get their children enrolled in a school and pay heavily for it, I will be getting H in a school for no cost and plus I a getting to work too for a decent enough salary. The timings are suitable too and it is easy to reach the place so I can manage home, job and child together.

I am verrry verry happy…!!!

Just can’t wait to start……………!