Prefinish

I was coming home yesterday after a late afternoon spent marking, with my head throbbing faintly with the entire answer key that I had inadvertently memorised after marking thirty-something comprehension scripts. The last time I felt this was during the run-up to the A Levels, when we had also put our brains through such punishing routines of memorisation and recollection. At times like this, I picture my brain (or at least the English part of it) being dunked into one of those smoking vats of liquid nitrogen, so overheated it is with information. And on the homeward bus, passing through Little India with the sun slanting behind us and blessing everything and everyone outside in gold, I wistfully thought about the Army and my time in 6SIR, when, if the meaning was not already simple, could be forced into neat compartments that would simplify it. Who would bemoan the loss of the potato's original shape after one passes the spud through a grater? Now, I deal in diversity, and my task really is to emphasise the difference and, more importantly, the harmony that can exist in the difference. But understand that once in a while I yearn for something that, if it isn't simple, is at least simplistic.

*

Anyway, approaching the end of my three-hour break from work - two of which was taken up by the homeward commute. Luckily, I like homeward commutes, or I fear I would have quit long ago on account of the time spent travelling everyday. But the slow rocking of the buses and the electric songs of the trains are comforting to me, and the feeling I get when the train passes Tanah Merah and arcs over a viaduct that thrusts it up till there is nothing but sky outside the windows - that feeling itself makes up for the day that had preceded it that had made that moment possible. It is, in a way, deepened by the stress and work that must precede it; the troubles of the day anoint this moment with meaning.

My marking load has increased now, even though I've been processing scripts at best speed for the better part of two weeks. Currently, I still have to finish marking 2 classes' comprehensions, grade 2 classes' feature articles and mark and grade 1 class of expository essays. And next week will oblige me to give all my classes one last comprehension exercise, before I can really say I've wrapped everything up. This regime is definitely unforgiving; it eats up so much time.

The worst drawback about the marking, though, is not so much the fatigue that comes from it as the foregone outings because of it. Ms. Ong is approaching her last day of teaching this week, and for the first time since her graduation she won't be a teacher, and she won't be employed. It's a big thing, and we had had vague plans to spend this week's afternoons whiling away time and the sum experiences of all these years with her (with the high probability of wetting our whistles to go along with it). But in an ironic twist, all of us have been swamped with work this week, and so this milestone hovers on the brink of slipping away unmarked. Hmph...unmarked indeed.

Anyway, some of the kids have started asking why I will be stopping on May 10th. I won't bother being coy about this: it feels really good to be appreciated like this. And I do think that after sixteen weeks we've built something that works well in class - possibly even in spite of what I've brought to class rather than because of it. And honestly, a part of me does want to continue this, for who would not want to keep up something that works and is worthwhile? But like I said before, the value of it lies in its temporality, and the amount of effort I'm putting into it now is because I know that there is a deadline that will not be broken. If I were to teach until the end of the year, I don't think I would be able to sustain the motivation. I would like to hope so, but I don't think it will be the case.

So, bringing my teaching stint to a dignified and clean end here would be in the best interests of all parties involved, I think. That is, of course, not to say that a complete cutoff of ties is called for; indeed, I will be interested to know where some of my kids will end up in the future, for there is a lot of good potential here. But accepting an end to this stint, acknowledging that my time is required elsewhere and facing this fact stoutly and appreciatively, is the way to go.

And I have had a good run, I think. There is a lot that I am grateful for; that, after all, it has proven to be enriching beyond my wildest expectations. But why am I talking in the past tense? The run is not yet over, and it is not quite time yet to start eulogising about this experience. But the end is in sight, and I am envisioning what form it will take, and I approach it not with dread or with eagerness, but with appreciation of its inevitability and a determination to make the most of what's left.