Are you afraid?

by HyunSeung Lee, Suh Jangwon, and Ko Tae Young (Elijah)

A school can’t be run with teachers only. There are many other workers who don’t teach, but do other work. Office workers are part of them. We’ve seen most of them but we don’t know much about them. They aren’t related to our school work, so actually, we don’t care about them much. However, these people are actually related to our work. They are doing the work required to run. They allow the teachers to focus on teaching us. We think we have to understand who they are and what they do in SSIS to get familiar with them. We interviewed one of them, the one we should talk to when we are late to school. Do you know her name? She is Stella (Wang Zhuo Ya), and she is in the High School office.

Her Chinese name is “王卓娅”(Wang Zhuo Ya). She was born in Chang Zhou, on the 11th of March. Since her hometown was a farming town she spent her childhood playing in the gardens and fields, running around and catching the butterflies. Her high school life was hard, just like the other Chinese people of her age. (We were surprised that “the most memorable time” in the lives of two who we interviewed was same; it was the time they spent in high school, since there was too much schoolwork.) After graduation from university she found work, but she didn’t like her job there. Then she heard of the international school in Suzhou. Therefore, she quit her previous job and moved to Suzhou Singapore International School in April of 2006. That was before she married, so she was still living with her parents. During this time, the biggest change she experienced around her was the arrival of new technology. For example, people can go anywhere they want very quickly with their cars instead of just walking, and people don’t get water from wells anymore.

She’s working in SSIS now, as the High School Secretary. Her job is to manage various kinds of documents related to the school. She comes to school by bus at 8 o’clock, and goes back home at 5 o’clock. Since she thinks the school’s food is good, she doesn’t bring food from her home. What she likes about this school is the mood of SSIS; for example the relationships between people aren’t hard. She doesn’t have a goal for her job for now, but she’s working hard on every day’s tasks.

If you are trying something, first time is always very hard, but soon, it is going to be easier. Therefore, just try to talk to people who work in SSIS even though you are scared. Soon you will be talkig to them more often, but remember, behave yourself. Trying something new is better than just sitting down and doing nothing.