girl guide

With the exception of the stint at Kumon which ended abruptly with a voicemail summary dismissal, I tend to stop working at a job weeks, months even, after I think/announce/wish that it's over. It is an unwelcome and inconvenient pattern; but also a seemingly indestructible one.

This morning I gave another campus tour, despite my student-no-more status and the token sum I knew I was getting paid. However, unlike the time I crashed my car on the way home from the Sunflower the day after my supposed last day, or the time I wrote off said car whilst delivering for said restaurant some months later (in order to pay off the insurance excess on the first-mentioned claim), I did not regret today.

I have a gift. (over and above the gift for vehicular collisions) Under-12s are just crazy about me. I don't think it too immodest or exaggerated an assertion. I have N, N's friends, Kumon students, tutees, friends' siblings/offspring, and campus tour participantss like today's to back me up. Hardly a third of the way into the tour my PC Yr3s were ready to kidnap me back to school with them.

I didn't always know that I had this gift. For a time I mistook it as me merely regurgitating or channeling whatever I'd observed mum and her colleagues do at primary school. But if they were my inspiration, I must say that the pupil has overtaken most of her unwitting teachers.

If only I cared less about money, or being judged based on my occupation (those who can't do, teach), or the illusion of a more performative place in the world, I might've more fully exploited the one gift I'd been endowed.