Chapter Seven: Sick and Tired (~jinghan)

“Ah… but what happened to your negative?” I ask my student knowingly.

“But didn’t I factorised it out?”

I look at the page again. Shit. She did too. I’m being out-mathsed by a yr12 student.

“Oh damn you did too! You’ll be teaching me soon!” I joke, “It’s not my fault, I’m sick.” I make a pretence of coughing.

She laughs. “Yeah, yeah, excuses excuses.”

Out loud I laugh. But, no, seriously, I am sick. All I can concentrate on is how cold the air feels on my skin despite the two layers of clothing I am wearing and how I feel like I need to pee. Urinary tract infection: it sucks. I haven’t recovered from my cold from four weeks ago, and my immune system is seriously struggling to keep the little armies of bacteria away. Is this what it feel like to be old and have your body failing you?

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. And to make things worse my boyfriend is at a party (in Adelaide no less). If only I could talk to him then everything about my whole week would seem worth it*.

I flop my bag in the middle of my room. Pop two antibiotic pills from the packet, swig some water and swallow. I slump at my desk knowing that I should be doing my complex analysis assignment, reading that library book that is due in two days, and packing for the camp I have to get up at 6am for tomorrow – all at the same time. God the camp. Is this even a good idea? My body may not be up to it. How am I supposed to inspire first-year students to be leaders of society and valuable members of a team when all I want to do is pee. Instead of doing anything productive I stalk facebook for someone to whinge to.

Sometimes you come across the right person to talk to just by chance.

We converse about boyfriends. And ex-boyfriends. And how the phrase ‘ex-boyfriend’ comes with far too much stigma. Somehow on the side my bag gets packed. Complex assignment isn’t due until Wednesday, I tell myself.

I’m already feeling better. “Hey I should look after my ailing body and go to bed. It was really nice talking though! We should do this again some time. Good night.”

But of course one must always do something more on one’s computer before actually shutting it down. And for some inadmissible reason thinking about boyfriends leads to thinking about the future, in turn lead me to the Teach for Australia** website.

I had heard about Teach for Australia, getting paid while getting a teaching diploma sounded pretty sweet, but it wasn’t until I went to a seminar on Tuesday that I found out what it was really about.

“The dots on the opposite sides of a die always add up to seven. Draw in how many dots would be on the opposite side of this arrangement.” The man giving the seminar showed a picture with six dice. “How many of you think you can answer this question?”

Everyone puts up their hand.

“In low social-economic areas how many students do you think got this questions right? 25%. That’s right, one in four students from a low social-economic background can’t even comprehend a simple visual adding task.”

I sat edgily on my seat glancing at the clock. I have to leave in five minutes, three, two, one, I’m still engrossed in the seminar when I realise I should have left five minutes ago… I rush to my other appointment but my mind is on wanting to know more about the graduate program. Teach for Australia is like everything I ever wanted to do with my life all rolled up together!

It’s 11:30pm I should have gone to bed about half an hour ago, but I am engrossed by the website. At the moment only 85 graduates from two years’ intake are doing the program, there must be thousands that apply, eek! I go through the application form and consider what my chances are and how I can improve them by the time I need to apply for a graduate program next year. There is nothing else I want to do with my life more than this. The stakes are high. I want to get in. I will get in.

It reminds me of the story I heard in another seminar, where the speaker talked about a boy he heard about whose life dream was to work with David Attenborough. The guy did absolutely everything he possibly could to improve his chances: a biology major, a film studies course on the side, a work experience placement with BBC broadcasting. It just so happened that word go to David Attenborough and he was offered a job without even having to apply for it. At the time I was only inspired by the fact that the guy knew what he wanted in life to exactly, but perhaps the other amazing part of his story is the clarity of his determination…

“What leadership roles have you undertaken in either the workplace or co-curricular activities?” Asks the preview-form on the website.

I’m going on a camp tomorrow to inspire first-years to be leaders and valuable team member. Yeah ha. I’m looking forward to this. Sick and tired may stop me from doing some thing, but it sure ain’t going to stop me looking forward to camp no more.

— —

p.s. please do not look at the time stamp of this post, and then compare it to the time when I first said I should go to bed…

*Warning: this is the sort of delusion that attached to expectations leaves you feeling more frustrated when you realise your boyfriend is not the solution to everything. But if you just need fuel for your bad mood, I highly recommend it, it burns real well.

** The Teach for Australia website, it’s terribly uninteresting, you don’t want to look at it, you certainly don’t want to compete with jinghan for a position…