I WAS TALKING TO A FORMER COLLEAGUE A COUPLE OF MINUTES AGO.
she made me come back to the memories i had at the school i taught for close to three years, and then asked me to leave after a nasty rumor came out. she made me feel every ounce of rage i had for the people who stepped on me, every inch of insane sadness i felt when i stepped out of the gates and found out i could not teach again.

i am thankful to that colleague; she gave me more reasons to smile even more. she told me about how troubled she was for the past nights, thinking about the underlying sh** that was happening in school, and how she felt like hers was a lost cause. simply because she couldn't do anything to help anyone who needed to be helped - the students who were deprived of creative and ingenuitive thinking and learning, and the teachers who did not have ample academic freedom or at least a safe environment to think out loud, without being stoked or questioned or booted out.

i told her i was lucky i was asked to leave. eventually i realised that. because a place like that can suck you dry of your passion for everything - to teach, to care, to help, to explore, to rebuild, to generate ideas, to become your fullest potential. they just freakin' suck you dry of all the smiles you can share to other people: genuine smiles that can make another human being smile back. 'cause you're too damn tired, too boxed, to insanely undermined.

i am surprised they even call it liberal education, because there is nothing liberal about keeping kids' thoughts and potentials in a boxed world - making them think they are far better than everyone else, that they can be snotty and cocky about it - flambouyantly prancing in the streets, but in essence have no idea what the real world is actually made of.

i pity the kids i left behind. it's been close to a year and my publication kids have not issued a single publication; the magazine has been shelved for close to a year, and so all the news there is stale. the radio kids are back on air, but still just online; who listens online all the time in a developing country? oh well, i don't want to pry. it's not my school.

so i'm not posting this on tumblr. why? because most of the kids who have been so influenced by the powers that be that they are far better than everyone else (to the brink of developing a swollen head) might read it. and take it as a backstab. i don't backstab; real friends - teachers for that matter - stab you in the front (by oscar wilde). so i'm telling you, just watch your front.

still here.
finally with genuine smiles, after three years.
hey.