Self-absorbed teachers riles me. Forces of the universe shall hit back >(
I was having a rather interesting SMS conversation with my sister just now.
Sis: E damned bird predicts an uruguay-spain final. Kns! I'm feeling very angry now!!! =(
Me: But the octopus leh?
Sis: Ocotpus says that germany will win e world cup. N ur reply is qte retarded, like e octopus is going to be accurate in its "prediction".. Hahaha..
Me: Ahahahaha you're the retarded one. Now we'd see who's better, the octopus or the bird ahaha
Sis: Haha.. This is such a retarded conversation.. If i can i'm going to kill e bird! Haha.. =X
Yea we were talking about how the animals are divining the World Cup results: Clash of Singapore's Bird vs. Germany's Octopus.
I have such interesting conversations all the time I cannot believe my luck.
This reminds me of abstract concepts like 'forces of the universe'. My sis believes that whichever team she supports would lose, because she'd jinx it. It's like believing that her team choices in Singapore would affect the team's performance thousands of miles away.
Don't we all, in many little ways, take after this simple act of 'support by not supporting'?
We want to believe that we're all useful in a way, and that we can contribute to our favourite team's success in their various endeavours. Perhaps that's why we all get so dispirited when shit happens and our teams lose, because we feel that our support for them was...useless. It's not so much for the team itself, but for our own ego as we feel that our 'contribution' towards the 'cause' did not help the cause at all.
We're all making ourselves up to be heroes.
And we enjoy it. =\
Recently I've taken to making random comments on Facebook via a certain account. Of course I didn't use my own account, I only have one mutual friend with this dude whom I clashed with, and it'd be too telling should I use my own account to do something like that.
He made a wall post on Facebook on how his class' history papers sucked because they did not follow his instructions, and I was bored enough to read through one years' worth of Facebook status updates and wall posts and comments, and I concluded that he's a self-obsessed person. Facebook updates are quite telling of one's character and level of humour, and I saw that he lacked in both. His updates were either deriding his class' efforts at the subject, or publicizing his next performance (he's a teacher cum singer).
So I commented on his wall post:
"I know it's completely unrelated for me to make a comment on this, since I'm not a student of yours (in fact, I'm not a student at all), but normally students don't listen to instructions because
1) they are apathetic towards the subject
2) they are trying to prove a point--that they do not need the instructions given by the teacher to do well in the subject.
By posting such stuff on Facebook, aren't you deriding your students' efforts in the subject, while inviting derision from others to your students? In fact, in a previous status update, there's someone who commented "Fail them all!" My years with humans have taught me that people normally react adversely to such denial of efforts, and so I feel that such acts of public humiliation would probably lead more of them to react like the aforementioned point 2.
I just thought that you, as a teacher, should know better than to post such stuff on a public medium such as Facebook."
That's about it. I really can't recall the exact words I used, and besides it'd be easy for him if he tries to stalk me using my exact words, it'd turn up on Google/Yahoo/any search engines, and then he can stalk me using my hotmail and decide that it's through my mutual friend that I decided to stalk and comment on the page using the other account.
He made a huge response, first deleting my other account from his Facebook, and replying the comment I made in a very standard way, putting down all my claims, by stating that I didn't substantiate, which I didn't bother to substantiate (because I couldn't be bothered). He also announced that he 'will spare no effort in helping and even SPOON FEEDING some of them'. Which, to me, is weird, because, to quote WK who quoted his friend who quoted from a dude:
The true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers - Willian Deresiewicz
Perhaps his act of 'spoon feeding' wasn't that professional after all, seeing as he's an A level teacher.
Teachers like him riles me. He's too self-absorbed, as can be seen by his wall posts. Have I mentioned that I stalked his older posts till last year April? Yea, I did that. Apparently he was on TV for some medical program, because he's afflicted by some disease.
Normally, when someone's down with a disease, he won't go around publicizing that he's got a disease because it's not something to be proud of. Of course, there's no need to shy away from the disease one is afflicted with, but there's no need to post on Facebook to tell everyone to watch TV about how much suffering one is going through, right?
I don't know what exposing one's weakness means, but I feel that he's just trying to gain sympathy from his students? Or something along the lines of 'I'm strong because I am doing this despite my illness, so people should respect me'. I don't get this mentality. You don't see the Prime Minister walking around parading his weaknesses (if any) during elections just to garner votes, right?
People who declare that they are disadvantaged are usually just trying to make it known that they are unable to provide their best. It's a good excuse that works. Sympathy marks are also given.
He's a guy, for fuck's sake. He's a man. He's supposed to act like one, and not go around running like a pussy showing a weaker side of him and flaunting it as an excuse for his INABILITY TO TEACH.
I know his ZHSS students love him and stuff, but it seems like changing schools caused a paradigm shift and he seems to dislike his students with a passion. I could feel it from his posts, I could feel it from the way he talked to me, and I could feel it
FROM THE WAY HE BANNED MY ACCOUNT.
Prior to that, he gave a very long-winded reply on both the wall post I commented on, and into my Facebook inbox. It was amusing, and I replied something to the effect of 'No, I'm not from HCI, I have X other friends and only 5 mutual friends with you, as a teacher you should be able to put this together and deduce that I can be from many other schools, if I'm even a student that is.
P.S. I don't think I'm the only one with too much time on my hands, your reply is so much longer than mine (;'
Obviously this message riled him, because I made so much sense. He got so riled he decided to block my account, and post on his wall, AND EVEN MAKE A NOTE, warning others against the perils of this online menace.
IT'S DAMN EPIC OK LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL I CAN'T BELIEVE A SUPPOSEDLY MATURED PERSON SUCH AS HIMSELF WOULD GO AROUND BANNING AND SPREADING HATE AHAHAHA I FEEL LIKE REPORTING HIM FOR 'SPREADING HATE' BUT I DECIDED NOT TO STOOP TO HIS LEVEL.
He posted 1338 words in his reply to my comment by the way.
I hate him with a passion and being a bored teenager I'd like to screw his life up. If only I can get screenshots and post on Stomp!. Any publicity is bad publicity for the school and would likely lead to the sacking of him from the school and death threats against my person if not for the anonymity Stomp! provides.
This reminds me of citizen journalism. I used to go to a Spinelli branch at some weird remote area in town to study, and as always I am a leecher and I've never bought stuff from there before. I leave during lunch hour and come back thereafter to leech on the nice seats. Then there's this dude who came over and told me 'Do you want to buy anything? No? Then please leave, go study somewhere else. This is not a food-court.'
I went like 'Orh', and migrated with immediate effect..
..and went to the Subway outlet just opposite Spinelli.
I was thinking of taking a picture of him in the Spinelli store, and uploading it to Stomp! to complain about bad service, but I decided that it's quite a ball-less thing to do, especially since my reply to him was, at best, pussified.
Behind the wall of anonymity, anyone can do anything without fear of social ostracism. It's feeding on this perverse, timid, side of humans, sating a humane need to feel important/powerful.
I am susceptible to this need, and I nearly fell for it there and then. But I decided against it--if I needed to settle my problems, it'd be face to face.
But this guy, this teacher, he's really too much. I recognize the fact that I'm fighting him under the cloak of anonymity, but to deny me of this anonymity simply because I riled him is...quite unbecoming of a teacher. How tempting it is to resort to Stomp!, I believe that the school would be a better place without him around.
I can't really accept teachers who go around proclaiming how much hard work he's been putting in for his students. Such things do not need to be publicized--students would know themselves. Putting it in a public medium as such and glorifying himself...if that's not self-absorbed I don't know what's not.
This is how I'm spending my 500th post--on a self-righteous, self-obsessed teacher.
Singapore's education system. Tsk tsk tsk.
My spare account died, my Restaurant City there perished (for now, until I recover the account, hopefully). I hope I did get my point across--that I'm willing to stick my neck out (in a way) for people.
-- 7/05/2010 08:21:00 PM
