"ding!"

I am hit by a sudden urge to let go of my entire teaching career to pursue another love - the outdoors. I don't care about the pay cut (just a change of lifestyle will do) and I don't care about the prospects that I probably have in my current position at work. The thought of taking up diving again and going all the way to becoming a master diver so that I can gain employment as a dive master and take fellow divers for diving trips as a living is just SO appealing right now. The thought of doing something out of pure love for it is beautiful. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching too. But along with teaching comes stress, monday blues, the dread of meetings, not being able to complete marking in time, exams, setting papers, typing minutes, disciplining kids day-in-day-out, the rigidity in the f*cking system... get the idea? I don't have to face any of this if I am doing something like diving!

When I was at Redang last month, we thought about the jobs that those "snorkelling boys" had. Man....to be snorkelling in the beautiful waters every day, to take digital photos and deal with the photo-enhancements to get them ready for print and orders, to conduct briefing sessions before you take a group of snorkellers out to sea, to be in touch with nature all the time, and not to mention a healthy tan all year round. To do all this for a living is blissful! Sure, the pay isnt much (I suppose) but the job perks are in the job itself. At least to me. Here's a job that has very little stress (at least from my angle)...I mean, I don't imagine the job to have the same stress that I face everyday now.

Do I have the courage to give it all up? I love teaching too. But I will never know if I could do well in something else if I don't ever try, right? How??? What am I cut out to do in this world? What is my contribution? What do I get in return?

Carp Diem!!