Some friends have asked me as to the Health promotion board thing.... As I said in my post, I rejected her offer.

Why? A variety of reasons I guess....

I'm not too confident of my skills on a professional basis. I know that I'm skilled on an amateur basis but when I look at the professional ones...... (00) "I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!"

Also, there are a dozen other things to consider when setting up shop like this. Finding the printing companies, liaisoning with clients... all of which I think will be damn hard to start off once I start NIE. I don't want to be torn between tuition, NIE, and design, otherwise all 3 areas will suffer.

I know down along the NIE and education road, I will be severely banging my head along the way for this lost opportunity. ["Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"] But for now... If someone is going to pay me, I'm going to make sure I'm worth every blardy overpriced cent of theirs.

And it doesn't mean that I never will take up illustration/graphic design on a pro basis. I will always keep this as a sideline. Hopefully when I settle down in teaching, [if tat will ever happen] and shave off my tuition students, I will be able to balance the two better.

In the meantime, renshuu...... and *bang* *bang* *bang*

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For now, here's an interesting thing that happened during the signing:

My two suretys were my mother, and my uncle [father's brother]. Now, my family has always been more on the ang moh side, [hence producing a banana potato like me] and my uncle also is more particular about language. [used to scold me and bro for using "lah"]

The signing was in the MOE HQ, base center for all education in Singapore. When our number was called, we went up to the table with our witness, who seemed to be a young lady, probably a clerk, and who spoke to us like this:

"So ah, I explain to you the contract hor. If the signee breaks her bond ah, this is the amount you will be liable for. However ah, in case of things like accident lah or death lah, the Ministry will take a compassionate view lor."

And this went on for the entire briefing.

I have to admit though, that at first, the lady's Singlish went right by me. For one, I'm blur. (^^!) For another, I was too busy thinking about when I could get the papers signed and get outta there. But I did notice at one point that my uncle had his arm propped up on the table, head resting on his palm, hiding his mouth the entire time. It was only after we left the auditorium, that he burst out laughing, saying,

"You know AH, you can tell AH, that lady didn't use to be a teacher LOR. Because AH, if she teach her students like that AH, the whole education system AH, gone LIAO LOR!"

(^^!) Best LOR......

Although you have to admit... That lady was working in the Base Camp for all English-language education in Singapore. And she had to be a product of the Singaporean Education System. And if she's talking like that to all the potential English teachers......

I wonder how many of them thought the same thing that my uncle did? :p