I JUST WANT TO LIVE MY OWN LIFE.

My mother tried to ask about my salary and bonuses again this morning. What a transparent attempt to lead on to questions about job change and further studies. Countless tries in this direction by my well-meaning relatives/friends/friends of relatives/relatives of friends to get me out of my supposed 'dead-end job' because they feel i could be doing so much more, so much better, or earning so much more money have made me frustrated and numb to their nagging.

Is my job really THAT despised?? In the real world, when I tell others that I'm a teacher, the most common response is *raised eyebrows*, a forced "wow" followed up closely by a "how (insert appropriate noncommital adjective, like 'noble' or 'interesting'), and then a look that says 'I don't want my child to ever follow in YOUR footsteps because they'll be poor and stuck in a dead-end job for life.'

I hate it. I can't stand it. What's wrong with the work I do? And can't the very people I slave so hard for understand that I am doing this for their sakes??? Give me a choice? Sure, I'd have been an interior designer or professional photographer. That's where my interests lie. What would my parents/relatives/etc etc etc say then? 'Oh I wish you'd go back to teaching??'

Ultimately, what frustrates me is that their idea of 'improvement' is not MY idea of 'improvement'. Take a Masters', PhD, do a MBBS/PhD? Sorry folks, it's NOT what I want to do - it's what YOU want me to do. And why these things in particular? Well, they makes me a more prestigious person, a more qualified person, and perhaps, may I intimate, a better person for YOU to be associated with? Hmm?

My mother told me a story this morning, about how my uncle's disappointed in my cousin. Now, said cousin performed excellently in her Singapore-education-style exams, then promptly scooted off to Australia and got a degree in liberal arts (i think). Coming back, she worked for the Singapore Art Museum and ECNAD and fills her days with yoga, pilates and dance classes. She's obviously enjoying herself; why would her dad be disappointed in her then? BECAUSE he thinks she's wasting her life in dissipation. Unfortunately, she has a younger sister, and the parents' hopes are now wholly transferred onto her young shoulders. Perhaps she does not feel the pressure, because she's as blur as blur comes, and malleable to boot, but in the end which daughter will my uncle and aunt be more pleased with? The one who bent her dreams and desires to their will, of course. Who, subduing her individuality behind a mask of meekness, nods to whatever course her parents direct her on. Sheesh. What's the difference? Ask about one daughter - 'oh, *dismissive wave*, she's working at some dance company or the other, studied some major I can't even name' whereas for the other - *eyes brighten* 'studying forensic science in a good university, we have high hopes for her'. There IS NO BETTER OR WORSE life, uncle and aunt, especially since you are rich enough for both of my cousins to never have to worry about supporting you, so why do you disapprove of your daughter pursuing her own passion?

Am I having an identity crisis? Of course not. I am who I am, I am happy with who I am; but others who are not happy with where I am. Would I change my circumstances? Sure, but not in the way most people would have planned for me. I'm sorry, I live my own life, and I WILL have my own way. I understand and appreciate your sentiments, but it isn't the path I want to take.

Of course, all this is moot at the moment, given that I am still on bond and anyway need every cent of my 'supposedly' meager salary to support my parents, house and car. Looking back at friends from my secondary school, I see that they have chosen alternative careers too: a freelance baker, a teacher at a special school for the mentally disabled, a diving instructor, a feature writer for Her World. I presume, I suppose, but I believe one of the reasons why they could have taken up such careers is that they had no monetary concerns beyond their own. If I am wrong, forgive me; but precisely because of my financial situation, I am stuck where I am for the moment. Would I change to an alternative career, if I had the chance? I did dream of doing so once, but I believe I'm now too firmly entrenched in my middle-class work ethic to move so far out from the median. Anyway, it would probably kill my parents that the daughter they hope to be able to call 'Doctor' one day traipses off to dabble in interior design or something. Or worse, goes to Bible school. I'm just a step away from the *dismissive hand wave*, I know; I'm sorry if I have disappointed many. But I just want to live my life for myself and not for you.