hey peeps! first off, congrats amenda for nearing the end of your job stint or in other words your liberation:P today i have 3 things to blog abt haha


Exploited
...at the place where i volunteer to teach. even though it is at my own will that i volunteer, im beginning to feel i have been exploited as cheap or rather free labour. i've just received my new teaching schedule and i can't believe i have been given 11 classes a week. given that im committing 3 days a week, that works out to be abt 4 classes each day - almost w/o any break in between save for a 45 min lunch (which i believe is a right). even though i really don't mind teaching, im beginning to suspect if they have used my services too liberally.

first of all, 3-4 classes a day - am i as good as a full time teacher there or what? in fact, im not even sure any teacher actually teaches that many classes a day considering the length of a school day there is pretty short, and each lesson is pretty long.

also i can't understand why i have been given an additional subject to teach (geog). for a brief period of time, amanda taught this subject and i know now that she isn't available to do so, they need a replacement. but why me? surely there must have been someone who taught before amanda right? so why can't they revert back to that arrangement? i am inclined to think the teachers have been given a much lighter workload at the expense of volunteers (in particular, me).

i know complaining abt the work has no place in volunteerism. but i just find it ridiculous that this certain establishment has to rely so much on volunteers

Bad Service
long time ago (immediately after the release of the A level results), i went to apply for a few australian universities (unsw, uwa, uni of adelaide). at that time i was told all application fees will be waived by the agency, and i only had to pay for certain aptitude tests that were required by 2 of the unis (namely uwa and u of a). so i paid to sit for uwa's test, the ISAT, in april, as soon as i could. it says on the ISAT website that results will automatically be sent to the relevant universit(ies) that we have indicated we are interested in when we applied for the test. i got my results in may, thinking that my application would automatically be advanced. meanwhile i thought the agency would ring me up regarding payment of university of adelaide's test closer to the medicine deadline. but this was not the case as i have just found out.

as the deadline for medicine applications across aus approached (june30), i got worried so i rang the agency and enquired abt my applications. it was only then that i found out i was expected to
go down personally to the agency to make payments for both uni of adelaide's test (known as the PQA) and the application fees (whatever happened to the waiver?). so anyway i decided to just pay as soon as possible which i did the very next day.

at the agency, i also asked abt my uwa application. one of the staff told me to email my ISAT results to my agent (who was not present then) who could then forward it to uwa. i was puzzled because recall that on the isat website, results will AUTOMATICALLY be forwarded to the relevant unis) i decided to talk to my agent personally via email so i left the place w/o probing further. the staff didnt seem to know the procedure very well anyway.

so as i am typing this, i have just received an email from my agent that to proceed with my uwa application, i am to make payment once more for the application fees for uwa (this is another AUD100, and another failure to fulfil their promise of a waiver at the very beginning).

but whatever. lesson learnt is dun be over reliant on agencies like this.

On a happier note
appeal to nus fass successful:) Praise the Lord!