When the teacher became a student

Teaching was a passion I unintentionally discovered. Unplanned. It wasn't a "Seize the day" moment either.

I was unemployed for like two or three months, maybe. I don't remember. It happened many years ago. All I know is I didn't have anything to do when a neighbor came and asked me to go with her to her church. Well, I just went with her because I thought "Heck, why not? Staying home is boring." Besides, she paid for my transportation expenses, which wasn't much but since I was unemployed at that time, every penny counted.

So, the service hadn't started yet by the time we got there and I remembered standing kinda awkwardly because I didn't know anyone there and there were many people but it looked like they were busy with their own business and didn't care much about my presence among them.

I wasn't an introvert, but being invisible like that made me feel awkward, and I wished we could go into the room and just sit and do some people-watching before the service started.

A tap on my shoulder startled me. I turned to see who it was, thinking I had probably stepped on somebody's toe.

Someone, I don't remember her face, smiled and nicely asked if I would like to help her in Sunday School class.

Since the service hadn't started yet and I was feeling awkward and bored there, I didn't give lots of time to say yes. My neighbor didn't mind either so off I went with that person to Sunday School class. We passed 3 rooms, I think. She took me to the biggest one and once I walked inside... I was taken aback. 

The room was filled with kids aged few months old to three or four years old. They looked so small, loud and fragile. 

Hey, don't give me wrong. At that time, I had almost zero experience and interaction with kids. My baby sister passed away two decades earlier and I had never done babysitting or had kids.

Dear God, what should I do to these kids? Would they understand me if I talk to them? How would I be expected to teach them?

Well, it turned out they just needed Sunday school teachers aides so my job there was just handed out papers, pencils, crayons, toys, greeted them, exchanged a little chit chat with their moms and that was it. Easy peasy.

I did it quite well, I guess, but the one that really changed my perspective came from this young boy who was there by himself, parents were probably attending the service. This boy needed to go to the toilet and without hesitation he came to me and told me that he needed to pee.

I honestly thought all I needed to do was just took him to the toilet and he would do all his business by himself.

I was wrong.

The pure trust he showed me really shook me. I mean, that was my first time taking care a kid who needed to pee. I wasn't his mama, not his teacher nor his immediate family, but he trusted me and felt confident that I could do the job perfectly and I wouldn't do bad things to him.

That was a game changer.

I had never been handed such a huge trust all of my life.

I knew it by then that I had fallen in love with these kids and I wanted to be among them but where would I find a school that would employ someone who didn't have teaching degree or teaching experience as their teacher.

I learned from experience that when I was meant to do something, sort of destined for something, the doors would all open for me and there would be nothing impossible.

Few weeks later one of the kid's mother asked me to tutor her eldest son. She found out that I speak English pretty good and her son wasn't so I was hired to tutor the boy.

Two or three months later, she informed me about his son's former kindergarten that needed a teacher. She encouraged me to go there and talk to the headmaster about the job vacancy.

I was still very much skeptical, and also doubt, that a school would hire someone like me with no teaching degree or teaching experience to be a teacher in their school.

But to show my appreciation to the lady, I went to that kindergarden and I met with the headmaster. Since I thought I was just gonna see the school and talked a little with the headmaster, I didn't even bring my application or resume.

Before I left, the headmaster said "Come next Monday."

That was it. I was hired.

So fast. Simple. No requirements. 

I went home and when my late dad asked how was the meeting, I told him it was ok and I got the job.

My parents were just as surprised as I was.

But heck, who cares? I got a job and I got what I wished.

From 2005 to 2011 worked in that kindergarten, first as teacher's assistant then to English teacher and for the past two years before I resigned, I was trusted enough to be a full teacher in Playgroup class.

Was it fun?

Oh yes!

Was it thrilling?

Very much!

And when they completed their two or three-year education, I watched them change from babies into youngsters, ready to walk the world and conquer it.

I was happy and proud of each one of them.

They made me felt like a mama bird watching her baby jump out of the nest, spread her/his young wings and fly away. 

Well, from 2005 to 2011 I became not just a teacher, I was that mama bird. 

Many years have passed and this former kindergarten teacher found herself as a student of the universe, learning about herself, life, people and God. It has never been easy. There were many times when I hated everything that I had to learn and wanted to quit. 

For the record, I am not the very best nor outstanding student of the universe.

But somehow, I kept going.

The time, place and people may be different, but the things I learned through them were not just about skills. It is not just about getting knowledge nor getting smart. It, foremost, is about knowing myself.

Tired Being a Blogger or Am I just Shifted My Interest to Vlogging?

 That is what I have been thinking lately because despite having tons of ideas to write about, strangely, I seemed unmoved to sit and write them down. I don't know why.

I started blogging on September 18th, 2010. Yep, almost 16 years ago.  I worked in a small Christian kindergarten at that time and I wanted to document the activities I had in my class, and my students progress in a media where their parents and I could read.

Later, I kinda mixed it all since I put it as a diary and you know how diary works, you write anything in a diary, right? So I wrote about my students, my parents, my dogs, my traveling, my thoughts and so many other stuff in this blog. I don't have any niche. Well, that's just to give you a picture on when I started this blog, why I started it and what I wrote.

Ok, so back to the title: "Tired Being a Blogger or Am I just Shifted My Interest to Vlogging?"

But before I go on with it, I think I should say that I didn't just lose my desire to blog over night. It wasn't like I woke up in the morning and I just lost my interest on it. Nope. It happened slowly. From being regularly made a post almost every day to few times a week and then it went lesser like just one post a week that soon became one post a month, followed by one post when I felt like blogging.

It sad but it happened.

Maybe because I grew older and my focus shifted and I had more responsibilities, plus, had to deal with many obstacles, grief and changes.

Well, after I moved to America, I have more time and energy to spend on me and on my life. The question is why didn't I start blogging again?  14 months later I suddenly remembered "Oh yeah, I have a blog. Why don't I start to blog again?" Which I did make a return on December 2025 but could only keep it up for two months before I went back to silence.

Where did I go in March and April? Life didn't stop. In fact, I went to many places, ate lots of yummy food and life made quite few progress. But why didn't I go back here and write them all down? They would make great posts to read.

Well, ever since I found CapCut some time in 2025, I started learning how to put my videos and photos altogether and turn them into into a video. And I love it. I can't get enough of it so I keep making it and since I love taking photos and videos, I have plenty of materials to turn into videos. I set up my own channel in YouTube and so I have become a vlogger.. haha..

Vlogging and blogging are two different things, of course, I am happy to say that I am a writer, a blogger and also a vlogger. However, though vlogging requires more time to do than blogging, I found vlogging more appealing and challenging to do. I get more stimulation from the photos and videos that I took rather than blogging.

Blogging and writing used more of my mind and imagination, to me, they are very much influenced by mood. When my mood was not good, I lost interest to write as I couldn't connect myself with my mind and imagination didn't work. I couldn't focus nor absorb myself into the story.

So yes, I would rather vlog than blog. But I should blog again. I am gifted with a restless mind and I need to calm it. Vlogging does calm it a bit but the mind keeps saying it is not enough and fills it with stuff that I know I should write them down. So yeah, I will be back here with stuff, thoughts, articles or stories.

See ya later then. Have a great day and don't forget to count your blessings and not just counting your bad lucks. Well, do both to make them balance *wink wink*

Bye Bye January, Hello February

​Time flies fast when we are busy, right? Haha. Nope. It doesn't applied to me. I am a stay home wife, no jobs yet, not even the remote one, and time still flies fast for me. Why? I think it is because when we are not waiting for something, time goes fast.

Anyway, today is 7th February and it means I have been living in 2026 for 31 days in January plus 7 days in February. That makes 38 days in total out of the 365 days. That's awesome. Why is that awesome? Because around the world there were people who couldn't have those 38 days. Some life had even ended before 2026 arrived while others could only spend 1 day or 2 days in 2026. A former coworker passed away on 19th January and he was only 34 years old, so much younger than me.

https://youtube.com/shorts/clfId4I9EEQ?feature=share

Alright, why talked about death? That sounds sad and gloomy. Well, it's not about death, it's me appreciating and being grateful for the life God has given me. I consider myself very much blessed to live this long so I can see, enjoy and learn lots of things in this world and sharing you few of them through this blog.

Life isn't perfect, even the richest, famous and successful people won't go a day without whining and complaining about stuff or feeling down and miserable few times in a day. Every living human being in this world do not have perfect life, perfect job, perfect body or perfect marriage. So, each one of us discovered those imperfections and learned to live or to cope with them. Some changed it. They worked extra hard to change it, to perfect it. 

Some things can be changed to make them better than before. For example, some disliked their faces so they make their faces better by using makeup or undergone plastic surgery.  Other example is some people go job hunting to get better salary, better work environment or better coworkers than their present job.

But how if the present situation is not the one that we can change? I have a friend who has auto immune disease for years. It makes her had to quit her job. She spends her days battling with her condition, which making her depend on medicine, she had to have many surgeries and had been through many medicine side effects and complications. Her goal is just to life day by day with less pain and no complications. She can't change her present situation. She can only make it less painful.

For 38 days in 2026 I learned mostly about patience when dealing with things I cannot change. Unfortunately, patience is not in my character. Even with all the lessons God given me through past experiences, patience is still not my strong trait. The difference between then and now is in the past I refused to reason, but these days I try to be more accepting and go easy with it. One soothing thing to know is that every new day brings me closer to the things I am waiting to get.

In the meantime, I try to live my life the best I can. I wake up and do the routine stuff. I have made chores schedule. At night, when people already asleep, I stay awake and do my blogging, writing and vlogging stuff, these are the things that bring color to my life and they are my comfort. Yes, I'm not doing them just for comfort. I have dreams and goals for them too. I want to write books or write in books app. I want my YouTube channel get more viewers and subscribers. Those are my goals and I'm working on it. Every time I blog and vlog or making Instagram and Facebook stories, I am actually doing self training on those skills. I'm trying to change the things I know I can change.

But there are things I cannot change. Time and weather are among the many things I cannot change. It's frustrating. I want time to go even faster because it means it will bring me to the place and day that meant for me to get my dreams come true. You see, time plays a very big role in every thing. Well, I didn't meet my husband until it was time for us to meet and boom! We met online. That's one example I can give you. So it doesn't matter how much you work or try or do everything, if the right time has not arrived, you won't meet the right people to work with or your project to get the promotion or your talent got spotted by a talent scout or after trying so hard to get pregnant for many months or years, you finally get pregnant when the right time has come. This is why I put time in the top list of the things I cannot change and thus, frustrated me so much and so often.

Weather is definitely one thing that nobody can change. Those geniuses people can only make weather predictions but so far no one can, say, stop snow from coming or lower the heat. Yes, this one is also frustrating.

Somebody made this prayer.

It's a good prayer, good advice and I'm still working on those 3 subjects: Serenity, Courage and Wisdom.

By the way, before I wrap this up, the YouTube link (below my picture) is a reel that I made for Instagram and Facebook stories. I thought you might want to see how was the last day of January and the first 4 days in February were like.

If I let this go for too long, I might...

I need to remind these stuff to myself:

If I let this go for too long, I might...

Go into another blog hiatus

I've been in blog hiatus for two years and I can't let myself go into another hiatus, not after I had written in my post on the last day of 2025 that I would blog again. That was actually one of my 2026 resolutions and it still is.

I just got caught with the freezing winter, vlogging, swinging mood and the constant feeling of not having enough energy to run my day. Winter blues, loneliness and boredom are bad mixture.

Well, I shouldn't make excuses but those were and are the things I dealt with on daily basis.

The good thing is, I have started writing again. I join this writer's group in Facebook and about 2 weeks ago, I saw its flyer on my newsfeed. They were announcing about one year writing event. One story every week for a year. Should have at least 700 words  in every story.

I had published five anthology books but after the last book, my life went into a twirl and I lost interest in writing though it doesn't mean that my mind went blank from stories, no, I had so many stories filled my mind and sometimes it drove me crazy because I didn't want to write but yet there were many ideas came to my mind, asking to be written into stories.

So after gone into more than two years writing hiatus, I thought I needed an exercise and I enlisted myself in that writing event and whoa! Once I got back into it, ideas just flooded in. While other participants found it hard to reach the 700 words term, I found it hard to keep it under 700 words. Lol. Yes. In the first week my story went up to 2,221 words and the second week was 1,837 words. I was like a bursting dam.

I am a writer, can't deny it. It's not just a hobby. It's a passion. But since it's not a job, there's no pressure for me to write and this has good and bad effects on me. First, I haven't made any money out of it, at least not yet. Second, I don't have self discipline which means I don't set any writing schedule. 

Some time ago I read somewhere about this writer that said writers need to have a writing daily schedule and she suggested to write 100 words a day. Well, it's good way to practice if you want to become a novelist but either I'm an ADHD or I had been tied to schedule most of my life from the time I was in school to the time when I became a white-collar worker, my free spirit was crying for freedom and so I couldn't and still can't tied myself into a schedule. The only schedule I have since I became a full time housewife is for the chores and still, I go flexible on it.

Anyway, do you think I need to have a schedule? Say, Monday to vlog, Tuesday to blog, Wednesday for the writing event? Haha. I dunno. All I know is that I have to blog or I might go into another blog hiatus without me realizing it.

Maybe I should blog at least once a week.

I just remembered, I used to make this blog bilingual: Indonesian and English. Starting this year, it's only in English, so to my fellow Indonesian who read this, I'm sorry. You can copy paste the text in this post to Google Translate.

Hey! I'm still here!

Yes, I'm Keke and I'm still exist. The year 2025 is almost over and I have been in a very long hiatus. My life has changed a lot. I'm still the same person but a lot has happened and they made huge changes in me and in my life, I don't even know where I should start sharing it to this blog.

All I wanna say is from this moment I will blog again. Well, I don't know what things I'm gonna write so I'm just gonna write whatever things that came to my mind and pushing to be out.. ha ha..

Um btw, I'm not a teacher anymore. The last time I tutored was probably in 2022. 

This blog's name is The Teacher's Diary but the teacher is no longer a teacher so I won't write about teaching. 

I think I have become a student and my teacher is this universe so I'm going to share the stuff that I've learned from the universe.

K. See you and Happy New Year.