infpsagittarius - Tumblr blog

[infpsagittarius]

17/4/2023 (Mon)

Today my brother and I took our parents out for lunch. We went to have chiuchow cuisine.

It was smooth, my parents didn't press me on the questions like when I'm getting married and having babies that kind of things. Everyone was pleased with the food and experience. Then we went to a cookery equipment street for my parents to buy a knief and a pot for cooking soup.

I think by taking parents out, my brother and I feel better about ourselves. Of course my parents probably also feel good. But the ones taking them out also feel good. I guess I'd feel very guilty if I didn't take my parents out when I could. My parents did not know how to treat us growing up, but at least they didn't do bad harmful things that broke the family. They have also fulfilled the parental responsibilities that they knew of. I hope they can enjoy the fruit now.

When my father walked up the stairs in the MTR, he walked so slowly like an elderly. In my impression he was just an uncle, but now he looks like an elderly... He's 65 right now afterall. It's my first time realising he's kinda old.

My father told us that now he has hives. We went to buy some cream for him. It's kinda scary to realise that when you get old you can have so many problems. He also wanted some Japanese pills called 'save your heart' and it was almost HKD 1000 for 200 pills.

For the friendship apartment, I have a lot of passion for Rose recently. I'm a little upset that over the weekend she didn't contact me much because she's pre-occupied by her bf. And when we talk, she doesn't ask much about me. I'm trying to gauge her interests level on me like how ChatGPT suggested.

We went to shenzhen for the first time and two days later she suggested drinking bubble tea in shenzhen and we went again. And we kept contacting each other on the following days. And these few days I do wanna see her or when she's in our building but she's the one visiting and she never tried to find me. Anyways, over the recent years I've found that it's so hard to find friends with whom I can have good chemistry. I've even kept hanging out with a 'friend' that I didn't like since I didn't have friends. So I want some progress with this one.

[infpsagittarius]

2023 Easter Holidays (11 days)

1-2/4 (Sat- Sun) I did nothing much. Spent the weekend with Dim as usual.

3/4 (Mon) Nothing much, being lazy in the name of having period.

4/4 (Tue) Wrote my essay in the library where Dimi studies. I reached out to a friend Princess in our friend group who works in the uni and we had lunch nearby. For some unknown reason, the conversation was kinda forced. I was trying hard to avoid the dead air. She wasn't giving anything much. She told me she just finished the confirmation interview of her PhD. We only had lunch for 45 min and called it a day. She went back to her work and I went back to the library when none of us were in a hurry. Maybe with some people, it just doesn't work. She is just a few years younger than me but she's the Disney princess type and is a lot younger than me in the soul I guess. Anyways, it was like our second meal date and it didn't go well.

At night I invited another girl Rose from our friend group to go on a day trip to a city near us the day after the following day and she was looking forward to it. I was very excited too when she expressed that she would love to go. I was a bit afraid of rejection since we have never hung out one on one. What if she didn't want the one-on-one right? So we chatted and planned for a hot spring. She asked me if I mind naked hotspring??

5/4 Another day to study for Dim.

6/4 I met up with Rose at 11am at the train station near us. We chatted non-stop with very natural flow. We talked about her parents' love story in the train. She told me she doesn't want long-distance relationship like her parents had. It was so easy to talk to her. We reached the city and we got into a mall and another mall in order to find our target roast fish restaurant. We talked a lot through out. And then we went to the spa place for hot spring. She was more inclinded to getting fully naked than wearing the one-time bra and panties that the place provides. Afterwards we went to the snacks and drinks bar in the spa. Hot spring, unlimited coconuts, non-alcholoic drinks, fruit and ice-cream were provided. We laid around on the sofas there and chatted a lot. We mostly talked about our boyfriends. We are both in the intercultural / interracial relationship, where our guys are from the Slavic cultures so we had a lot to talk about. Then we went to have dinner and then got back to HK.

What I like the most from the trip wasn't the activities or the food, it was the feeling of friendship. I have only had maybe one close friend to go on a girl trip with in that city before. But we are now only distant friends. The experience with Rose let me realise that I can still have a friendship like that. Just two girls enjoying each other's company. I felt that I could really be fully open with her. And she's the sweet and thoughful type who would not be as selffish as the distant friend that I had. We also had the chemistry. It has been a while to be able to have that chemistry with a girl friend. I decided I should show more affection unlike before. So I hooked my arm around hers. Before it was always the other girl hooking her arm around mine. But I don't want the stagnant progress with girl friends anymore. If I find someone I like and we have the chemitry, I should show more affection I think.

7/4 I had dinner with my ex-colleagues. With this group of funny people, we meet up say one a month and we do talk about our personal things. I found out that after I got the confidence in friendship, I was not afraid to ask more personal questions even in a group setting. So I like that I could eat nice food with them and also exchange more personal things with one another.

8/4 I had lunch with Dim and then I got the message from Rose saying that she misses that city and wanna go. I am totally spontaneous so I said let's go! We were gonna find a cafe and spend some time working. The outdoor cafe was fine but no wi-fi no power socket, I didn't get any work done. But it was ok. We went to have dinner. We talked a bunch again and I feel really close with her.

9/4 Dim invited his classmate and the classmate wife to come over to our area for lunch and visit our building. It was an eye-opener to see how his classmate is just like Dim, ready to study anywhere anytime, feeling guilty to relax for 2 minutes. The wife is like me a bit, always cooperating with husband's study plan but also wants attention. She is like me a bit growing up with gender inequality in the household.

10/4 We had lunch with buildingmates and played VR and then had dinner with one of the mates. I think this kind of gathering is good, although it takes me to plan...

[infpsagittarius]

2022 Christmas holidays

I had a very fun and fruitful 13-day holidays for Christmas.

On the first day I met up with ex-colleagues from my last school. I felt that I really vibe with them way more than with my current colleagues. I'm the nice one in my current school group but already almost the meanest one in my last school group - they are all just soo kind! I love to be friends with them actually.

Then Dima and I went to a Christmas party - eastern European/ slavic based. People were mostly PHD students in Hong Kong and mostly come from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan etc. They were sooo quiet and reserved. I was so shocked about the vibe when we arrived at the dinner. Not just me, another girl who arrived way earlier and was involved in the cooking with them also felt the same. Just so shy, quiet and reserved, is that a PHD thing or a slavic thing? I met PHD students who were total party animals before so most likely a cultural thing.

Then on Christmas I went to the AR game centre to play an AR game with Dima and 3 other blockmates. It was fun and scary. Dima said he was totally distressed. I feel bad that he hadn't been able to relax even the interviews were already over.

Then we took a day to kinda organise and pack for our trip to Hanoi, Vietnam.

Then we spent 4 days there (the first day we only arrived and went to bed so it didn't count). I wouldn't say it was relaxing since the roads were always busy occupied with motorcycles and cars. We were alwasy anxious trying to walk. We kinda gave up and called a Grab even it would be an 8-minute walk from Google Maps. But, we did eat a lot of authentic Vietnamese food which I didn't see in Hong Kong. We did see three shows in four days, two of them were live music in bars and 1 was the traditional Vietnamese Puppet water show. We did visit a lot of museums and learnt a lot about the history. We were treated very nicely by the people in service industry too. So the trip was worth the time and money. I wouldn't say I would ever go back again since my style of vacation is to relax. The hustle and bustle just doesn't suit me. Also, I have learnt to be more grateful about how previledged I already am. People there are so poor. I kept asking myself, if I were born there, what would I do to break out of the poverty? It's easy when you have money since you're from another country looking at them, but think about if you were a local and born in poverty, how could you actually get out of that and climb up the social laddar?

It makes me feel that, Hongkongers, including me, are already so priviledged. We are so specific about so many things, like quality of food, quality of our staycation hotel rooms, environment that we are in etc. You might say, yea, but I work and I suffer in exchange of money to enjoy all that stuff, but hey, look at the locals in Vietnam, they work a lot and they suffer too but they are just surviving.

I was soo blue and down 2 days prior to going back to work. I really just don't wanna face all the hectic work and the upcoming class observations. Every day at school it's like go go go go go. Every day I live in a rush. Every day we need to attend meetings and be somewhat mentally abused by the boss. But think about the high salary you earn as a teacher here, think about how you don't need to be micromanaged by some disgusting people working in an office, think about the holidays you get, think about the future possibility to work part-time, think about how all your friends from the last school are going through the same observations. Pay your due and everything is temporary.

Being grateful is so important. We need to have gradtitude to lead a happy life. In fact, things in your life aren't guaranteed.

[infpsagittarius]

Immaturity

Sometimes I wonder why I'm so immature. I mean it's just a freaking class observation. It's not rocket science. It's not presenting something I have no idea about. It's just presenting your daily work with preparation. Come on. Grow up and don't be all stressed out over small things.

[infpsagittarius]

Dream of the mother-daughter bond

So yesterday there was an activity day in my school. One of my students wore a very beautiful dress and we took a photo together along with another pretty girl who I didn't know. I sent that pic to my husband saying that "I'll be happy if I have two daughters".

This morning in my dream, my student was my daughter. I could feel my unconditional love for her and her unlimited love for me. The love for each other was totally mutual, reciprocal and vast. She is trusting of me 100%, and I love her 100%. It's so weird because she's my student in real life you know. Today when I saw her in class I felt weird a little, like her face reminded me of my dream and the warm fuzzy feelings I got.

I guess I really wanna be a parent soon. Hopefully after a few years when things have settled down. I kinda think that the love between parents and children are 100% if the intentions are good. I hope to have that. Parents will always be the kids' biggest cheerleaders and the kids can always trust the parents for their own good.

[infpsagittarius]

Updates on my life

It's the beginning of a new school year. I've jumped to a new school for 27% of salary increase. It's now very close to a legitimate teacher's salary and I'm happy about that. I mean basically I'm working like my last job but the salary is way higher so I think the jump is worth it. And it's true that no matter where you go, you will meet new people and possibly form some bonding too. I do miss my old colleagues and the vibe with them though. But nothing lasts forever. Even their dynamic has changed with the addition of new colleagues.

So new school, I'm teaching P.2 and P.5 with the addition of afternoon zoom supplementary classes almost every day. Yup. So 590 minutes of am classes and 180 minutes of pm classes in a week. So 770 minutes a week. Around 13 hours of teaching a week, that's around 2.5 hours of teaching daily. Duty time= 60 minutes a week. Not too bad at all.

In my last school I had 810 minutes of teaching in a week and 150 minutes of duty time.

The teacher behind me has 790 minutes of teaching in just the morning. She has 90 minutes of duty time too. So maybe I do prefer doing 770 minutes but spread out to pm too.

Yea but like whatever. Why am I flooding this entry with numbers anyway. I gotta admit that I'm strugging with my P.5 students since they are hyperactive and hard to control. I can shout and look really strict but I do feel like it's a facade. I can see the experienced class teacher is earning way more respect than I do. It's maybe she is really passionate about the students and really caring and giving. She gives out this mama vibe that whatever she does is for your own good. Not like us new and young teachers who just know to control the discipline without knowing how to love the children from the heart. Last year I was with the newest of newbies and I didn't learn much regarding how to love the children from heart or how to talk to parents. It's okay at least I'm always open to learn.

Apart from work, I'm hanging out more with the mates where I live and I enjoy that. We play boardgames over wine, talk about stuff, went kayaking and hiking too. As I grow older, the definition of friendship has changed over time. It has been a long time for me to see friendship as "girl friends who I can share everything with". Now for me, friends are the ones who are willing to hang out and who I can share a good time with.

My education is also going right now. I'm going to classes two days a week and I was nervous the first few times going to the English one and it revelaed a lot about my social anxiety. R rasied a point - people who think they are introverted, are they really introverted or they are just insecure? Maybe I'm really just insecure. And where does it stem from? Looks mostly?

Oh that's why I'm also bracing my teeth too. I hope it's gonna do something.

OK so new school year:

new job with higher salary and more people to learn from

hanging out more with friends and forming more meaningful relationships

going to school to get a necessary and non-expensive postgraduate degree

bracing my teeth

The things I wanna improve more:

Make use of my free time (evenings after work, weekends and holidays)

work out more and lose fat since I've almost never lost my fat sucessfully

Continue to learn more and meet more people and form relationships

plan for fun activities and make memories

[infpsagittarius]

A few obervation working in a school

I have been teaching in a local primary school for almost one year. I would say that this one year has been interesting. New tasks at work, new workplace vibe which is totally different from my previous industry and new mode of communication between colleagues. Due to Covid I also had to pick up some e-learning tools. I will now discuss some observation of working in a school:

Teachers are more arrogant than people of other industries

-Money

They are more arrogant due to different factors. Money is one. To give some background, a fresh graduate out of university earns from 12,500 HKD to 18,000 HKD a month, given that they didn’t graduate from a degree leading to a professional job. In the context of Hong Kong having the highest property prices around the world, that kind of salary is pretty much nothing and looked down on. Fresh graduates 20 years ago earned this same amount of salary too.  For medicine degree graduates, they earn 60,000+ HKD. For law graduates, they earn between 20,000 HKD to 45,000 HKD. These numbers are all rough but they are more or less like that. Ok so for education degree graduates, they did not have to have the best scores to enter the degree (like law or medicine), but once they graduate, they earn 35,000 HKD a month without having to further earn chartership through more exams (like architects or engineers).The threshold to enter the education programme is low (especially in my time most people who entered the programme are like below average to average students). The starting salary is high, higher than most law graduates. 

With that kind of starting salary, they might feel really proud of themselves. Also, teaching and working in a school aren’t really that hard. You don’t have to constantly learn something new like in other professional jobs. They would have this feeling of earning high salary without having a super draining workload. So they would not comprehend why so many people couldn’t earn as much as them. I have heard stories of the young female teachers would totally look down on guys who don’t earn more than them and would only go for professionals who do. That’s at least how much they think they are worth.

-They aren’t locked up in the office dealing with colleagues and supervisors all day

In most office jobs, even in big corporates, people work within a small team. Teammates and team leaders sit closely to each other usually. And they sit at their desk throughout the day usually. So if you don’t like some of your colleagues, would you Eff with them in an obvious manner when they are sitting just next to you? Not really. Most people want to work in harmony. Some people don’t, but they still do not want conflicts around them all day long (given that they aren’t sociopaths) So even the mean ones fake their niceness once in a while. But for teachers, interacting with other teachers aren’t something they have to do on a daily basis. Interacting with students is. Sometimes they do have to interact with other teachers, like meetings of deciding to do the same things to students, or holding activities/ training students in performances together etc. But still, these aren’t something that they have to do every day. And working with other teachers are usually of a short/ temporary nature (Unless you’re like really senior and everything in school is under your care). So while teachers are supposed to be role models to students in terms of showing politeness and respect to others, some really don’t. Especially the young and unseasoned ones. If they don’t like you, they might throw documents at your desk while you’re at it. They might look up to the air when passing you by in a corridor. They might yell at you in a harsh way while there’s a conflict. What kind of consequences do they have? They just up and leave once they offend you and then you don’t need to interact for another two weeks. 

Without the need to be right next to the co-workers all day, some teachers don’t know to respect other and they aren’t shy to show their rude and arrogant sides.

Oops gotta go. Allow me to end the article in a rush. 

[infpsagittarius]

Post Trip Thoughts - Friendship and really Living in a Country

Well I’m back to Hong Kong from our visit to Bulgaria. Now I’m doing this mandatory 7-day hotel quarantine. After my arrival I read something online about how people keep coming back here have Stockholm Syndrome, we know we have been abused here, especially after you have experienced the really green grass from the other side. Well it’s only temporary, I hope. It’s not forever, I hope. 

This one month trip in Bulgaria had me learned a lot more about the ways of lives and the culture there, much more than all the other times in the past. It was different this time because Dima’s brother and cousins, who were still children and teenagers in all the previous times that we visited, are now adults. The youngest one would be Dima’s brother and he’s already 18 years old.

About the Cousin of my Husband and now my Friend - Mimi

His cousins are now living in Sofia the capital and being adults. My dear Mimi is renting an apartment there with her boyfriend. They have been living there for 2 years. They go to the same company. 

It’s so different. When I first met her 7 years ago, she was in her last year of high school. All the other times I was there, she was an undergraduate living with her family. The prior 2.5 years that we couldn’t visit was the time that she graduated, got a job and moved to the capital. So this time was the first time that I saw this adult having an adult life and we are more like friends but not relatives like all the times we met and parents were around.

We stayed in their apartment for a few nights. I enjoyed her and her boyfriend’s company. We talked a lot over wine. I feel like we have really become friends. I enjoy her friendship more than from my friends in Hong Kong. But she didn’t pick up the call when I called her after I returned to Hong Kong. The best she could do was texting. That was disappointing. But I know, out of sight out of mind.  And we are both more inclined to introversion and that doesn’t help either.

Relatives as Friends

Anyways I’m glad that this friendship has bonded. There’s something special about relatives. They could be like friends, because you don’t need to see them if you don’t want to. But if you like one another, you are definitely more than just friends because you know they can’t just disappear in your life. They will stay in your life for all of the celebrations that you’d have if you live close to each other. And you’d have history with them when you flick through the family albums. And there’s always a group of people together so the exit would be harder. And we have so many mutual people that we know and we could talk about and judge together too.

My Friendship

Looking back at the dynamic of my friendship, I have like two closer friends who I have known for 10 years. But we are not close. We don’t talk usually. We may see each other once a month or every two to three months if we are in the same city. We don’t text we don’t call. That’s the “friendship” that I have. When I have problems I don’t turn to them. When I’m bored I have no one to call. I can say that I’m grateful that my husband is my best friend and we can talk about everything, but hey I want some close friends too for say, second opinion? For empathy and understanding when my best friend husband doesn’t have? My friends and I don’t have many mutual friends either that we could all party together or have some gossips about. We don’t have the sense of belonging. I’m sure out there many people have that with their friends. But in my case it doesn’t happen.

Anyways I found out that it’s not that uncommon to not have friends. It’s way more common that I thought. Just like Mimi, she has her boyfriend and one best friend. Monday to Friday she’s with her boyfriend living and working in Sofia; at weekends they go back to their town and see their families and her best friend. That’s already very eventful and full.

Life in a City State vs Life in a City of a Country.

That’s like another thing that I want to talk about. OK put aside all the definition of what a city state is, what a state is, and put aside all the political topics like what a speical adminstration region of China is that kind of thing, living in Hong Kong does feels like living in a city state. If we take a train to cross the boarder to the nearest city to us in China, they use their own currency and speak a language that’s not our mother tongue. So living in Hong Kong is like you live in a small city, but if you don’t like it, you don’t have other cities to move to and still feel like you belong there. Ok if we move to a city in China, we aren’t the citizens there. It’s not like Americans moving from one state to another and still feel like they are in the USA. For many Hongkongers, we are born here, we work and live here and we retire here. We live in a small city for the whole life, where 7 million people live in a space that from one end to another takes at most 2 hours of bus. It’s small and it’s packed.

Alternating between City Life and Town Life (and Country Life)

That’s not what I want to talk about though. What I want to talk about is I could see from Mimi’s example, living and working in the capital and still get to travel to her own town every weekend for a change of scene is something speical to me. If their hometowns aren’t close to where they work they would definitely make small weekend trips to other towns too. When there’s a change of scene, there’s a change of air. You can forget about the stress of your weekday work. You can see people that you don’t get to see on weekdays and treasure the time you see them at weekends. That’s something that we don’t get to do.

We’d live in a concrete jungle and still be in the concrete jungle at weekends. Best things we could do is to go hiking/ beaches and get some time in the nature at weekends. But don’t forget, it’s packed here so no matter where we go, there will be people around you basically ALL THE TIME. So yea even going out at weekends is stressful and you don’t have a change of scene. Don’t think that visiting parents is a change of scene because apartments here are small and if too many people are in the same apartment it’s uncomfortable. For us, we’d just be over and have a dinner and leave because there won’t be space for you to sleep over and if there is, it’s still pretty uncomfortable.

Yea so I’m kinda jealous that people get to choose city life, town life or country life when they live in a country. Say my in-law alternate between town life and country life, and the cousins alternate between city life and town life (sometimes even country life). Or say my friend in Germany she also goes to different cities and towns at weekends, or short trips in other European countries when they have holidays.

Ok that’s why Hongkongers travel all the time pre-covid. Just like Singaporeans who are legitimately living in a city state. All the long holiday that we had we’d be in Thailand, Japan, Korea, Taiwan or even China, the nearby places. Ok that’s fun too and all but I also want to have a choice to just drive one hour away and I have a change of scene in a town and withdraw my city life, insteading of arriving the airport 3 hours ahead to take a 2-hour flight to go to another country and have a fear of waste of time and over compensate by buying too much and eating too much there. 

Many people here also pay thousands (HKD) to live in a luxirious hotel at the weekends with their loved ones in order to get the “change of scene” espeically during the covid time. To me, that’s just lying to themselves. You pay too much for a hotel and the food in the hotel for a change of scene being locked up with your family. Ok all these “Staycations” aren’t that bad as I have personally experienced that. I mean it’s better than nothing although it’s not ideal. Still it’s way afar from being able to drive to another town just like many people who live in a country. You’d see how people live positively here, finding all the ways to make their lives better. 

Ok enough vanting. I just feel like I need to write again because there are all these thoughts in my mind which I want to organise and put down in words. It’s a really good way to know your stance and meditate in a way. I will do some work now before my quarantine dinner arrives.