Pasca Cikgu

Bulan ini genap 10 bulan saya meletakkan jawatan sebagai seorang pensyarah sepenuh masa di sebuah IPTA.

I first became a lecturer in 2007. It was an IPTS. I was only 23, with a few years of working experience in the creative industry.

Jujurnya sepanjang saya mengajar, saya tak pernah betul-betul rasa seperti seorang pengajar. Dalam minda dan atas kertas, iya. But deep down in my heart, not really. Saya budak, sama macam budak-budak. Saya tak tahu, sama macam mereka yang ingin tahu. Saya belajar, sama macam para pelajar.

I functioned as a lecturer, physically and mentally, yes, but emotionally and spiritually, I didn't exactly feel like a teacher. If anything, I felt like a garang sister. A grader.

Students needed me mostly because I marked their papers and assignments, because I graded them, because I passed them. That was the priority, the reality.

I only started to truly feel like a teacher in 2015, when I resigned. Why? Because since that moment and to this very day, my kids still come to me for all sorts of reasons. I don't mark their papers and assignments anymore, I don't grade them and pass them anymore, but somehow they still choose to find me. To share things, to ask things. They don't need to. I don't need to. I am not paid. But here we are, so far, still connected.

I am happy to be a full-time writer and performer today, after doing it for about 13 years. Like everyone else, I don't know what the future holds for me but I believe in His plans and I believe His plans are the best.

I am also finally a teacher, now that I am no longer a teacher. Isn't that beautiful and wondrous, my love?