On Being a Lecturer

Do you understand the feeling when you do something you really like doing and got paid with doing what you love doing?

I thought that could only happen to football players or singers. But now I know how that feels. It feels GOOD. I don’t feel like working, because I know how “working” felt like. Working is when you get up in the morning, feeling like going back to bed but you gotta prepare for that thing called work. Working is when you count every detail of your salary, every hardwork you’ve spent. Working is when you spend all weekend with sleeping and “couching”, and googling for another job.

I’ve been there. Coming home feeling extremely tired, physically, mentally and spiritually. Feeling like a human-robot, doing all the routine you know you can even do it with both of ur eyes closed.

Alhamdulillah. And beyond that. Thank Allah for He has granted my wishes  :”)

So what exactly do I do?

I teach. Teaching undergrad students, laughing and sometimes I do nag at them. Many of them ( I teach the freshman students) are still like a bunch of naught teenagers. But still a lot of fun.

Although outside classroom, actually I prefer to be called “Mbak”, but being called as “ibu” do change some things in my way of teaching, and their respect toward me. So I think I  kinda enjoy this “Ibu Shinta” thing, and I wanna keep it that way. 😀

Teaching is my passion. There’s always a pleasure, some sort of satisfaction after class. I do feel tired. Physically, and sometimes mentally. Because a few of my students could be really troublemaker or in some case they have issues in their life they need to share with me. And those issues are not small issues. 

I got paid doing my passion, yes indeed I do. Although my salary might not have so much “zero” in the amount, unlike bankers or oil company workers; but I’m still proud with it 😀

Once again, alhamdulillah.

I’ve mentioned above that I’ve been in the condition where “work days” seemed so hard to get through. There are also times when people underestimate me, since my position was nearly the lowest position, just two levels above cleaning service and security. And I often wondered, “WHY?”. But now I know why. Being a customer service brought a lot good things. The best part was I got to know a lot of people, different people with different attitude. Some of them were nice, some just weren’t really nice. There I learned the best way of understanding people’s character -well they say experience is the best teacher, right? and I learned the hard way to understand how it felt like to be in the bottom (although not the least bottom) of organization, then I learn to be a better person in this case, be nicer to the waiters and waitresses in the restaurant or any “service person”. It is not easy to serve people, especially when the salary wasn’t worth it. 

Despite of everything, I still miss those days sometimes. Being the “pretty girl” in the front desk (I had to always put on my make up), sharing thought with my kind and friensly co-workers, listening to the customers and their story of life… Without those hard days, I would not be in my position now. I teach communication psychology, and with an experience as a customer service, the subject sort of give a deeper meaning to me and in someway it influences the way I teach  🙂

Hopefully my students could really learn something that benefit them for all their life.