Delayed blog-housekeeping; Work stuff

I've finally changed the tickers below. It's really quite embarassing - prior to the change, Shalom's ticker was stuck at "Shalom's 1 year old!" for the past 13 months. With a photo of him at 4 months.

I also realised I haven't been blogging much last year - mostly because of teaching just sucks the time out from your life. Mondays to Fridays are way too short to do anything much... which is a good thing because it forces me to stare at every minute on Saturday and Sunday, just relishing every moment of it.

I've just done up my time table, and looking at it, I'm amazed I can even find time to mark. These few weeks have been rather exhausting especially with a 3 hr Speech & Drama workshop by Lorna Whinston every Thurdsay. 2 down, 6 more to go. That's 24 hrs worth of work time set aside for this course. I really wanted to siam it because I really couldn't manage my mountains, but mustered enough courage to confess to my hod that I haven't attended it. It's compulsory lah.

Anyway, I got promoted. I never expected to, not after I received my performance bonus of one month plus half a month top up and a 0.6 growth bonus, whatever that means. I received my PB notice right after Ben's, who got a TWO AND A HALF MONTH'S BONUS. He's amazing. I'm glad I snagged him as my life partner. I'd give him 20 and a half month's bonus for just being himself. Who ever gets 2.5 months in Civil Service?!?! So, you see, the promotion news came as a pleasant surprise, thinking that 1 month really is just, 1 month. When I received the email from my P, I almost wanted to delete it after reading the congratulatory message, but I thought, "Better not. Otherwise if don't congratulate people not very nice." And so I looked at the attachment and paused for many seconds when I saw my name on the list.

"Me? Promoted? Wah. Miracle!" I really never ever expected to be promoted. NEVER. Not so fast anyway. It really is a miracle of God. I just began full-fledged teaching last year, and I think we're supposed to wait for 3 years before getting promoted from GEO1.1 to GEO1A1 (for degree holders). My colleague nicely reminded me about my grouse with NS guys - they get promoted after 1 year because of their 2.5 yrs in NS. So after 1 year in teaching, all will get promoted. But not the girls. So I was never expecting this promotion, not after hearing awful news about many people who were passed up for promotion. My understanding? People take a really long time to move up the MOE ladder.

So, it really is a miracle. Someone actually told me that it could have been my contract teaching years being taken into consideration. Definitely not relief teaching though. Come to think of it, I've been with MOE since 2000. That's long. And I just got confirmed end of last year. And I'm still considered a beginning teacher. A 10 year old beginning teacher. Wah. I am a walking paradox. With all these facts, a promotion is unlikely.

Oh well. I just hope I don't have to start from the bottom of the new scale - meaning: pay cut. The starting pay of the next scale is lower than my current scale. I hope the number of increments will follow; otherwise I think I might very likely reject the promotion. :S If that's the case, then on the other hand (if we do continue with the number of increments) why do they still have the basic level (no increment) if people get promoted say after a few years, i.e. after a few increments?

Hmmm... quite confusing. I know trying to squeeze a few more cents is quite a challenge. I did try my best to get them to recognise my Murdoch degree many years ago, and they gave quite an evasive answer, which basically got me stuck at the diploma level though with a degree. That's quite a few hundred dollars difference. Now my colleague's asking me to write in to adjust my pay coz of previous working experience, which I haven't much. :( Some mid-career changers have adjusted quite a bit, but I haven't worked for that long outside... just 8 months previously? It's NIE that has taken my youth away, though during then I did pop twice. ;)

It's nice to receive the promotion, but the higher we climb, the thinner the air gets up there. I really hope I don't end up neglecting Abby and Shalom because of a silly ladder.