Emo and work "no can do".

It was raining this morning. I was feeling absolutely grumpy as I wanted to catch the bus at 6.50 am, but it didn't arrive till 7.30 am, and I was caught at the bus stand in the midst of the rain. By the time I arrived at the centre, it was already 8.30 am.

I was annoyed not so much that I arrived at 8.30, but because I had a tutorial for one of the other courses that I had to attend on Thursdays at 5pm, and I thought I was going to have to skip it today.

I was mulling over it the entire morning, thinking of what to say to the mentor, if she could allow me to get off early so that I could catch the bus and get to the university in time. My attendance for this tutorial was also taken down, so it was important that I did not miss any of the tutorials.

Finally, one of the other university students told me that I could negotiate the hours with the mentor, and I could replace the hours should I had not done them.

Which is what I finally did.

I told the mentor that I did not want her to think that I was slacking off, or that I did not want to help out in the classroom, if that was what she thought. The mentor was supportive enough that she allowed me to get off at the same time I did last week, and she discouraged me from skipping my tutorial.

She was wondering why I had a tutorial on a Thursday, when the other students didn’t, and I told her that they were all Year 1 students, whereas I was not, and was taking a combination of differe nt intake courses as a result.

Anyway, the other thing was that, I felt that the spirits of the individuals in the classroom (children, classroom assistant) was rather low this morning. I also saw the classroom assistant crying (which I could immediately discern it to be a personal issue), and

As it is, I tried to cheer up, so that I would not be feeling as low as she was. Having one staff feeling low is bad enough, without the need for two other adults to be feeling just as low as well.

I was really praying hard this morning after coming into the classroom, as I really did not want my emotions and worries to affect my performance at the workplace, and that the entire atmosphere would lighten up. Which, fortunately it somehow did.

It is known that it is not appropriate for a staff to bring personal issues to the workplace, especially in a service that involves young children, but I would state that it is difficult for a human to always be able to divorce their emotional state from their work place state.

Somehow, being at the workplace with all the children around helps me not to ponder so much on the issues I have at home, because I have to focus on the children instead and my Duty of Care I have towards them.