July 5, 2010

Not Everything is Nice and Peachy

Don't you feel like this year's moving a little too fast? Well, I do.

Now that it is July, things are getting pretty hectic at the office. There are tons of stuff to do and half of them are beyond my control. This includes getting new students for my research and a time-slot for data collection sessions.

I thought I had everything covered 4 weeks ago but as fate would have it, some of my respondents decided to screw with me by not returning my questionnaire. They did Task A (Essays) and Task B (tests) but NOT the questionnaire. Why? Because their tutors who are such geniuses told them to do it at home. UNSUPERVISED. And you know what happens when you give students stuff to do at home without telling them it's important right? They just won't do it. There was no pressure from the tutors whatsoever so the kids just didn't bother. I can't begin to explain how shocked I was when they told me this. I just stood there like a frozen statue. 

Point is, the data's tainted and now I'm left with only 15 respondents.The fact that I've paid a second examiner to do the second marking for ALL the essays makes me feel like...I don't know...like I've been ripped off I guess. More than half of the essays are useless now cos I can't correlate the scores with non-existent questionnaire scores. This means I have to do everything all over again in exactly three weeks' time.  Three weeks before my balik kampung trip. There goes the siren of my panic button.

All this crap plus the cold shoulder treatment from the academic manager of College X made me feel so defeated. And last Saturday I went to the cathedral for my usual volunteering shift in that state: moody and volatile.

When I got there, Mr. Q was so pleased to see me cos I had invited him to Alva's birthday party  the previous week. He obviously enjoyed the treat and couldn't stop gushing about the  food at the party. He was yakking about the chicken herbal soup and the noodles and how delicious they were bla bla bla. I told him "Glad you enjoyed them" with a tone that signaled END OF CONVERSATION cos I wasn't in the mood to talk. But he just wouldn't stop you know. He went on talking about hubby's chicken nibbles and the herbal soup (again!) and the noodles. This herbal soup + noodles conversation went on for three more cycles in the period of an hour. At one point, I got so annoyed that I looked away when he was talking to me. I hated feeling so rotten in church but all I wanted to do was shut him up with a mop. He just wouldn't stop! I think he  is seriously weird. I mean, he's like 45 years old with 13 years of guiding experience, working with people etc. but he couldn't even read my facial expression.  

Lucky for me, a Singapore Airline air hostess came just in the nick of time. She wanted a tour of the cathedral so Mr. Q was more than willing to oblige, seeing how gorgeous the lady was. So off they went. After 20 minutes, he was done with the tour. I could see that he was heading back to my spot so I quickly went the opposite direction and headed to the door. I didn't think I could take another version of his chicken nibble story. I wandered outside the cathedral and saw a bunch of kids doing the Haka.




After taking a few pictures, I felt better. I still thought Mr. Q was a moron but I wasn't mad anymore. I decided to end my shift a little bit early and headed to the souvenir shop across the street. I bought a few stuff like printed towels, Kiwi soft toys and of course some cool fridge magnets. And then I got home.

 
This post doesn't have 'the moral of the story' or a hidden lesson etc. It doesn't even have a good closure. I  just wrote aimlessly cos I needed the therapy. :)




8 comments:

Octavia said...

HI LIZZZZ.....can't WAIT to see YOU!!! anyway....would like to give you a bit of retail therapy heheh....tolong sia cari nice fridge magnet from NZ buli?pweety please...no need pricey just want a souvenir as i'm collecting around the world magnets too...:)

carolchs said...

Haha, sama ja intention sa sama si oct ni. and seeing those fridge magnets in the picture, i 'secretly' wishing one of them is for me. heheh.

gbeejipp said...

Sometimes things just do go right. Pity for you but I'm sure you'll get thru it. And those bunch doing Haka, you all them kids? They look older than you. LOL

Lizeewong said...

Oct and Kay - Buli ba kalau ko..hehehe. Consider it done :)

Jipp - Ya ba..Those are high school kids trying to make a quick buck by performing in the streets :)

Octavia said...

hey then in that case i will take the initiative to officially introduce both of you (kay and liz) to each other. we can do breakfast or lunch or dinner heheeh.whenever we're all free... siok oh my two buddies know each other...what a small world :)

Lizeewong said...

yes oct...small world indeed hehe..lunch sounds great :)

Enniebelle said...

moi, a good therapy. these days, my posts are also peppered with bitching moments! Hah, i once put a stop on a man conversation. I said, "thanks for the conversation but this is all I can handle for today. I'm not in the mood for conversation anymore" kind of rude but you have to give equal shocks to people yg inda pandai paham org punya facial expressions/body language!

Lizeewong said...

Ya ba..sometimes org nda paham2 ni kan susa :)