Parade (Part 2)
The English Table would always be something memorable to my college life, but college life, is not always about having fun. You have to study, you have to work if you wanna buy stuff. Speaking of which, a large part of my second year in CUHK is composed of jobs, cause I wanted to buy something, urgently.
New Asia Ch'ien Mu Library Assistant
Last year August, I accidentally "destroyed" my 4-month-old laptop by stepping on the charging wire, which dragged the whole laptop onto the ground. It was 100% wasted (and I still haven't got the hard drive fixed yet). The diddly squat I just got from working in the Book Fair for MetroBooks there at the time was never enough for me to buy a new one. I needed fast dollars, so I sent my CV to a lot of companies who were hiring, including a company which sells WIFI routers and a library in my university. I ended up working in a computer shop in Mongkok selling NETGEAR WIFI routers for the rest of my summer holiday (At first I was not happy about this, I really didn't want to stand all day selling stuff, but then I started to rake it in, I'd never made HK$7000 in 2 weeks before!) And in the meantime, the New Asia Ch'ien Mu Library also hired me.
Working in the New Asia Ch'ien Mu Library is by the far best choice I'd ever made. Can you believe a job only required you to choose 5-6 days to work 5-7 hours every month but still offered to give you one of the higher salaries across all part-time jobs in CUHK? In my case, it was already tempting enough to sign the contract.
My work there was just like any other normal library assistant. I needed to check in/out the books for my fellow students, and answered their questions. Sometimes I had to grab the books requested by students from other universities. And on Saturdays and Sundays, I had to staple the newspapers. And when closing during weekdays, I had to switch off the computers in the library and do some statistical work. So all in all, it was not a tough job at all. In fact, I would even feel extremely bored at times when there was no one around the Enquiry desk and I was tired of surfing the Internet.
Still, the working environment was freaking awesome, the bosses were nice to work with and always provided all kinds of help. They always shown great care and chatted with me, making me feel like family. I was treated snacks regularly too! And one of my bosses even let me carpool! I totally loved this job!
On 20/4 (Sun) is my last day working at the Library, 2 months in advance compared to my colleagues cause I got an internship (which I will explain more later). The whole library only had 3 working staff: my boss, the cleaning lady and me. And thus I relieved my position in low profile (not my choice, I was expecting a big finish...). Knowing that would be the last time I could stand behind the desk, I snapped this pic as a memento.
Working in the New Asia Ch'ien Mu Library is by the far best choice I'd ever made. Can you believe a job only required you to choose 5-6 days to work 5-7 hours every month but still offered to give you one of the higher salaries across all part-time jobs in CUHK? In my case, it was already tempting enough to sign the contract.
My work there was just like any other normal library assistant. I needed to check in/out the books for my fellow students, and answered their questions. Sometimes I had to grab the books requested by students from other universities. And on Saturdays and Sundays, I had to staple the newspapers. And when closing during weekdays, I had to switch off the computers in the library and do some statistical work. So all in all, it was not a tough job at all. In fact, I would even feel extremely bored at times when there was no one around the Enquiry desk and I was tired of surfing the Internet.
Still, the working environment was freaking awesome, the bosses were nice to work with and always provided all kinds of help. They always shown great care and chatted with me, making me feel like family. I was treated snacks regularly too! And one of my bosses even let me carpool! I totally loved this job!
On 20/4 (Sun) is my last day working at the Library, 2 months in advance compared to my colleagues cause I got an internship (which I will explain more later). The whole library only had 3 working staff: my boss, the cleaning lady and me. And thus I relieved my position in low profile (not my choice, I was expecting a big finish...). Knowing that would be the last time I could stand behind the desk, I snapped this pic as a memento.
I'm checking me out!
Hereby I express one last gratitude to my former bosses for their care and help and I wish them all the best.
Water Rocket Workshop & Catapult Workshop
And during the second semester, I added another new entry to my job list, all thanks to Johnny. Without doubt, Johnny is the BEST. FRIEND. EVER! Back when Johnny was still in Hong Kong, he was working in a tutoring centre, and then he handed the job over to me before he went back to Australia. I was honored and I treasured his friendship even more. He just graduated and got a master's degree, so Johnny, if you are reading this, congratulations and my hearts totally goes to you! Besides all those homework tutoting stuff, the centre also held some workshops for kids in a youth centre in Lok Fu. When I was a little kid, Mom always signed me up for a lot of workshops in tutorial centres, the recreational centre of Dad's company and the YMCA youth centre in Lam Tin, like Chinese Calligraphy, drawing, lantern making ... Sometimes I would picture myself as a tutor teaching kids all kinds of knowledge I knew, cause deep down inside, I always had the (false) belief that I could do a better job than any of my tutors, cause I was fun and awesome. So thanks to Johnny, I was offered the chance to prove myself.
That was the youth centre I was teaching in.
That was the first time I was surrounded by so many little kids, They were very lovely and cute. Sometimes I really wanted to squeeze their cute little faces, cause they were too adorable. What made me even happier was they loved me. They loved to be around me, with numerous questions they wanted to ask, and unlimited stories they found interesting. I didn't think I did a good job though. I mean, what kind of tutors would try to teach the concepts of torque and the calculations to a couple of 6-year-olds? But the funny thing is, the kids would say they understand what you talked about. I suspected that was their strategy to get me into "hardware mode" as soon as possible and fast forward to the building-the-water rocket/ catapult-part. Anyway, I still had an awesome time with them and I was happy they felt the same way.
Maths Tutoring
The Workshops were not a regualar thing. So I felt like I could handle one more part-tme job.During my job searching back in August last year, my CV was noticed at a education agency and they kept offering me jobs (annoying~~). Finally I accepted one. So for the whole semester I had to go to Ma On Shan every Wednesday to teach some primary school kids Maths. I already mentioned that in a previous post (http://kevlaichungsing.blogspot.hk/2014/02/post-attack-part-1-homework-homework.html), so this is just a follow-up.
I love kids. But those kids? They were really a pain in the butt. I guess that's because my role changed. At first I really enjoyed being called "Lai Sir". (In Hong Kong, students are used to call their teachers [Surname] Sir or Miss [Surname]) No one ever called me such a cool name! But then I realised "With great name comes great responsibility". I had become a teacher, besides teaching, I had to handle discipline and all those boring and annoying stuff. In my eyes, they were always out of control and incredibly hyper, kind of like me as a kid. After this job, I started to feel a bit sorry for my primary school teachers. Every time when I tried to teach something, the kids would try to change the subject and do whatever they want. "Lai Sir, do you play Minecraft?", "Lai Sir, I haven't jotted down what I should do for homework, can I do it now?", "Lai Sir, you got a cellphone, can you play Minecraft on it?", "Lai Sir, I forgot something in the other classroom, can I go there and get it back now?", "Lai Sir, I don't want to write my name on the notes, can I write "Minecraft"?", "Lai Sir, I also want to write "Minecraft" on my notes!", "Lai Sir, you already finished teaching this set of notes, right? So can I put them into the trash can?", "Lai Sir, did you just have a haircut? So handsome! Have you played Minecraft yet?" I could feel my mind nearly explode, normally when I encountered this, I would already start shouting (or even throwing punches), but you knew you just couldn't do it, you already got wore down by their adorable faces. Besides, I never played Minecraft before (my friends assure me it is a great game, but I'm too caught up with Bioshock: Infinite and , one of the best games I've ever played), but the relentless effort of those kids to try me make me play Minecraft just made me sick of this game. What makes it worst is that I'm really not the kind of person who can scold people or "make "threats", the kids catch the fact really quickly and start to take advantage of that. One time, when things were starting to get out of hand and I didn't know what to do, a teacher in this school walked inside and started to "handle" the stuff for me. I knew it probably was just an one-time thing, I couldn't count on luck or the teachers here to do this job for me, so after 2 weeks, I finally gave up and compromise, I let them do whatever they want at the last 15 minutes of the lesson as long as they let me teach first. Sometimes I would play them some interesting videos or songs just to gain their attention. After a week or 2, the situation was lightened and I could finally catch a break. My reputation as the "Coolest and Most Easy-going Teacher" had spread. The kids started to show some respect and treasured me more. And I started to have more respect to primary school teachers.
On 30/4, I finished my last lesson, and would hand my job over to another person, let's hope these kids would go easy on him. Oh wait! Why would I hope for that? These kids aren't my problem now, yipee-ki-yay~
I love kids. But those kids? They were really a pain in the butt. I guess that's because my role changed. At first I really enjoyed being called "Lai Sir". (In Hong Kong, students are used to call their teachers [Surname] Sir or Miss [Surname]) No one ever called me such a cool name! But then I realised "With great name comes great responsibility". I had become a teacher, besides teaching, I had to handle discipline and all those boring and annoying stuff. In my eyes, they were always out of control and incredibly hyper, kind of like me as a kid. After this job, I started to feel a bit sorry for my primary school teachers. Every time when I tried to teach something, the kids would try to change the subject and do whatever they want. "Lai Sir, do you play Minecraft?", "Lai Sir, I haven't jotted down what I should do for homework, can I do it now?", "Lai Sir, you got a cellphone, can you play Minecraft on it?", "Lai Sir, I forgot something in the other classroom, can I go there and get it back now?", "Lai Sir, I don't want to write my name on the notes, can I write "Minecraft"?", "Lai Sir, I also want to write "Minecraft" on my notes!", "Lai Sir, you already finished teaching this set of notes, right? So can I put them into the trash can?", "Lai Sir, did you just have a haircut? So handsome! Have you played Minecraft yet?" I could feel my mind nearly explode, normally when I encountered this, I would already start shouting (or even throwing punches), but you knew you just couldn't do it, you already got wore down by their adorable faces. Besides, I never played Minecraft before (my friends assure me it is a great game, but I'm too caught up with Bioshock: Infinite and , one of the best games I've ever played), but the relentless effort of those kids to try me make me play Minecraft just made me sick of this game. What makes it worst is that I'm really not the kind of person who can scold people or "make "threats", the kids catch the fact really quickly and start to take advantage of that. One time, when things were starting to get out of hand and I didn't know what to do, a teacher in this school walked inside and started to "handle" the stuff for me. I knew it probably was just an one-time thing, I couldn't count on luck or the teachers here to do this job for me, so after 2 weeks, I finally gave up and compromise, I let them do whatever they want at the last 15 minutes of the lesson as long as they let me teach first. Sometimes I would play them some interesting videos or songs just to gain their attention. After a week or 2, the situation was lightened and I could finally catch a break. My reputation as the "Coolest and Most Easy-going Teacher" had spread. The kids started to show some respect and treasured me more. And I started to have more respect to primary school teachers.
On 30/4, I finished my last lesson, and would hand my job over to another person, let's hope these kids would go easy on him. Oh wait! Why would I hope for that? These kids aren't my problem now, yipee-ki-yay~
Epilogue
So now, where am I? I'm spending some quality time writing this blag at Master's House while Master, Yoyo, Clifford and Sam are playing Left 4 Dead 2. Fine! I know you don't wanna hear this right now, so let me try it again. Yesterday, I just finished my first meeting with my supervisors on what I've been doing this 3 weeks. That's right. I already started my internship. I assure I'll get to that later, this dude has to go save the others' asses from a Tank, man! I promise there would be something exciting coming up later. Stay tuned!
Kev
Parade (Part 2)
Reviewed by Kevin Lai
on
7:53:00 AM
Rating:
Reviewed by Kevin Lai
on
7:53:00 AM
Rating:
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