Going by the disproportionately negative internal reaction i had to something that happened today, i think i can say that i'm finally checking out of this job. and it's also something interesting i'm discovering about myself. so here's what happened. i found that my schedule in the town intranet had been updated. someone put in an event for an "english conversation session" with the primary school kids. again, glorified babysitting. the thing that upset me was that it was put in my calendar without my permission, which implies that i'm expected to join. granted, the nice coordinator did send me a formal message/invite later, but i hadn't agreed and now even more so, i'm not going to agree.

so that's what i discovered about myself. i don't like people assuming that i'll do things for them, especially if it's not within my job scope, and even more if it's something that i don't feel inclined to do in the first place. if i'm being completely honest, the main reason i'm so opposed to attending is because i don't feel like it's worth my time to do this for an hour after work, especially since about half of the kids are less interested in the "english" bit and more interested in the "play" bit. i don't blame them. but to me, it means that they don't need a native speaker there. i will do my best to get out of it.

coincidentally, the superintendent intercepted me on my way out and said he wanted to have a chat with me about my working hours. apparently, i'm working too much! with the old timecard system, i could manually fill in an earlier end time and claim the off-in-lieu on another day. but since the town hall decided to switch to electronic timekeeping, that doesn't become possible. or perhaps i should say that doesn't become easy, because it will involve me logging into the system, editing the relevant times, and sending them up the chain for approval, which is an additional step that the manual time cards didn't require. while i believe that at least part of it was motivated by concern for my work-life balance, he also did tell me that my working overtime was causing them to exceed the budget that they'd set aside for my salary. the intentions are not completely noble here. i'd actually consulted some of the singapore JETs about this situation before, and the general consensus is that i'm being too nice. to his credit, the superintendent did suggest shifting my working hours when necessary, like starting and ending an hour later. it'd be interesting to see how this turns out.

-random thought of the day: Maybe I need sleep.-