Courage to Go out in the World and Fight

It was this advertisement for the posts of SSE-English in School department Punjab somewhere in the month of Novemeber and after scrutiny of all documents, they took Interviews and Computer Assessment on 31st Dec 2011. However, final lists of selected candidates are displayed on 02-02-2012 in which they selected only 10 candidates against 12 seats in our Tehsil. The most heart-wrenching thing is that I am on 11th number in Final list with the difference of 0.23 points.

Candidate before me obtains 60.803 and my score is 60.568

The thing which is troubling my mum is that the previous candidate’s 2 points are increased suddenly without listing in pre-merit list (a jump from 52 marks to 54). Yeah, obviously it pained me too but…..its life! And ups and downs are part of life. Isn’t so?

What I did to Tackle the Problem?

I visited the place where the final lists were displayed and I lodge my complaint with high authorities there. They have called us to come on Monday (06-02-2012) and discuss the matter with DMO or whatever. In my application, I clearly mentioned the injustice done to me without providing any justification. I also tried to be humble requesting them to select atleast all 12 candidates as per their recruitment policy.

My Future Actions:

I have registered my complaint to Provincial Ombudsman with the subject that recruitment policy is not entertained as per rules. I am looking forward to file my case at LHC if higher authorities pay no heed to my objections.

The Faith is only in Allah in this Blessful day of Rabbi-ul-Awal….

O Lord, You are The Supreme Authority and All Power is with YOU….

 

My Interview Experience for English Lecturer Post

There were three members in the panel.

Member 1: Please Introduce yourself.
( I mentioned my academic qualifications and teaching experience)
Member 1: Do you have any interest in Current Affairs? (Upon my positive answer, he asked me) what do you know about 18th Amendment? Can you tell us its 3 – 4 key points?
Member 2: Have you read Chaucer? Which particular Work? How many characters are introduced in ‘The Canterbury Tales’?
Member 3: What were the social and political aspects prevailing during the Age of Chaucer?
Member 2: Tell us three literary periods of Shakespeare? Can you name some of his famous comedies, histories and tragedies?  What is the theme of Hamlet? Can you name the characteristics of an Aristotlean hero and its incorporation in the tragedy “Hamlet”?
Member 3: Have you read George Eliot? Which specific work of her?  What about Jane Austen? Tell us her common theme in all her novels? Which poets are the contemporaries of Jane Austen (Romantic Era)?
Member 2: Can you differentiate between the characters of Goneril and Cordelia in King Lear? What was its general theme?
Member 3: What is the meaning of P********** (dont remember)
Member 2: How you take Wordsworth as the Poet of Nature and Wordsworth as the Poet of Man? Can you tell us the names of his poems which are there in the Intermediate syllabus? Can you tell the summary of ‘The Solitary Reaper’? What about the poetic diction and subject matter of Wordsworth?

Member 2: Change the narration of the following sentence.. “He said to me, “Let me come in!”

Thank You!

 

The U-turn in the journey

14th August was the day when Irum baji told me about the announcement of vacancies in PPSC for lecturership posts. It was Abbu g’s wish to see me as a government lecturer. (Though I always used to be double-minded). 5th September was the last day of submissions of applications. I did make a mistake while “Applyng online” and had to visit the PPSC office later on. Date of test was not announced initially so I was quite nervous and could not pay full attention to preparation even before Abbu g’s brain hemorrhage on 7th September. He stayed hospitalised for 17 days and I totally forgot about the test-taking.

After dad’s departure to Heavens on September 25th, I was shattered and went into a deep trauma. I was completely devastated. Date of test was 3rd October and I knew only one thing that my dad had prayed a lot for my success. Each time, when I used to sit with him, I asked him “Abbu, pray more as my preparation is nil” and each time he said, “INSHALLAH you will get through it, I know my LORD will never disappoint me”. And his words of courage took me to the examination centre on the day of test. It was the first time, he had not put his hand on my head to wish me good luck. Soon I departed, I looked at my cell phone’s screen, waiting to be consoled by his voice that there would be nothing to be nervous. When I was inside the examination hall, I was seated next to the window and then this feeling encapsulated me as someone was there, watching me through window from the blue sky, sent his wishes and love.

His prayers were certainly listened. I have qualified the written test.Irum Baji was the one who told me this news last night. And I literally started trembling with joy, pain, nostalgia, excitement … I don’t know. I wanted to share it with my father, to let him know that he was right. He is right everytime.

I am nervous even more now when I am here all alone, no words to motivate me, no voice to push me, no one to have faith in me, no hands to raise for me and no person to inspire me.

Interview is expected in the month of January and I have to start preparing it not for my ownself but for the one, who always had felt proud in me.

 

Another chapter is going to close Soon!

When I joined this school as teacher on March 15, 2010 I was really thrilled and excited. I had a proper plan set to impart every bit of knowledge and in return attain whatever I could to prove myself worthy of this profession. And today, no doubt I have certainly reached that aim.
Now I am quitting it for my dream’s sake… the one which I overlooked quite often merely because people want more from me and now its time to live for one’s ownself….To live up my own dreams and hopes.

I haven’t given up. I am no more ‘nobody’. I will never let this opportunity go….NOT AGAIN!!!

Hoping for better Tomorrow…!!

 

I’m movin on…!

 

Good things come to those who ask, seek, knock

I am feeling lil bit panic today right after getting the call from my boss. Though I didn’t talk to him by my ownself rather handed over the phone to dad to appear the excuse real but still I am feeling disappointed at ‘his’ dazzling attitude.
It seems some fault lies with him at some point. He often summons us to meetings with no clear agenda and each time I just don’t want to go to his meetings or to come into face-to-face conversation with him. He is really a jerk for a boss.
Well I must confess here that I have lost focus and motivation as I no more feel challenged in this job. All I want healthy and productive work environment where I can work at my maximum potential. Secondly I feel undervalued as our boss is rarely appreciative and understanding.His attitude is consistently condescending which makes me restless. Thirdly I have got bored of mundane routine as I feel we have got no options other than follwing the same tasks repeatedly.
Piece of Advice:
If you wish to achieve higher level of job satisfaction, you have to maintain a balanced approach towards work and life. If work takes place of all the other things in your life, sooner or later you will start resenting it and then fell discontent at work.

 

Bill Gates: Eleven things they did not and will not learn in school

This has been attributed to a number of people over the years. I’ll use the current plug-in (Bill Gates) because, well, because he’s Bill! Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! To anyone with kids of any age, or anyone who has ever been a kid, here’s some advice Bill Gates recently dished out at a high school speech about eleven things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world. By the way, this lesson is just as applicable to us adults.
Rule 1 – Life is not fair – get used to it
Rule 2 – The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3 – You will NOT make $40,000 right out of high school.
Rule 4 – If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5 – Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping-they called it opportunity.
Rule 6 – If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7 – Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8 – Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9 – Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time!
Rule 10 – Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11 – Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
I’ve recently been asked by several readers if I thought there were still good opportunities in the IT job market. After all, these folks are being asked to pony up the cash for expensive training and testing, whether it is boot camps, CBT’s, online training, tech schools or any number of other options. Some have experience and others don’t. And let’s face it. In the extremely competitive marketplace we exist in, the shouting and touting regarding making oodles of money by becoming a computer expert can get louder and more confusing every day.

What is the best approach to getting into the business? This is also a common thread in these inquiries. Many people without experience are learning that spending a fortune on training materials, boot camps or tech schools does not guarantee a high-paying job. In fact if you read the message boards at http://www.CertCities.com, you’ll find more than a few disgruntled people who have taken the plunge, only to get the cold treatment by potential employers, or shoved into a level one tech support role. Hardly what they were led to believe.

I won’t be popular by saying this, but they should have known better. I recently looked into my local classifieds, and I didn’t see ONE SINGLE REQUIREMENT for an MCSE, MCSD or MCDBA. Now, that’s not to say they aren’t needed, and I do believe the certifications are valuable, but employers, especially in the IT field, tend to look for a very specific skill set, such as Oracle DBA, C++, Visual Basic, Unix, PowerBuilder and so on. And they ALWAYS want a minimum amount of experience. To be fair, I decided to try a similar search with the Boston Globe, since that area is a HUGE technology center. Only 20 results came up under MCSE, only two of which were Help desk, the rest were a minimum of four years experience plus a host of other required skills. One of the help desk jobs required three years of experience, the other asked for twelve months, but required network and Compaq hardware experience.

At our local ITEC show, I counted no less than twenty (20) exhibitors offering training courses. Some were CBT; many were Microsoft Authorized training Partners. There were classrooms, boot camps, tech schools, even a city bus that had been converted into a mobile training center!

This reminds me of the gold rush of the mid 1800′s, where with a few exceptions the only people that made any money were the ones selling tools and supplies. It almost seems as if there are as many people trying to sell training solutions as there are looking to get trained. The market is so competitive that it reminds me of the stock market. A whole bunch of people in a crowded area shouting at the top of their collective lungs in order to be heard, and each one trying to make a buck (that is, after all, the American way!) but each one just adding to the confusion.

I’ve spoken to roofers, chimney sweeps, teachers, truck drivers, welders, students and many other trades that make up the fabric of our society. The theme is always the same. Each person wants to take advantage of the higher salaries, but they aren’t sure where to start certification wise as well as training wise. Well, let me tell you, neither am I. That’s not to say I can’t help you by pointing you to resources that will help you make a decision. In fact I’m dusting off a reprint of an article we ran in our October 2001 issue. You’ll find it at http://www.certifynow.co.uk. CertifyNow is rated as one of the top certification sites in Europe. If you are in the EC market and looking for great local news, reviews and information on IT certification, this easy to use and informative site is definitely a must. I’m gonna have to charge them for that one!

Take the time to evaluate your situation. Go to your own local newspaper and look at the ads to see what skills are needed. Pick up some books, or check out the many free resources available on the Internet and see if you like the work. It would really suck to drop a bunch of money on, say, a web developers certification only to find out you really don’t enjoy what you are doing. Or getting an MCSE only to find out that you’d rather write code. My old Agricultural Science teacher in high school gave me this advice. Whatever it is you decide to do, make sure you enjoy it, because you’ll likely be doing it for the rest of your life. That may not be completely true nowadays, with all the specialized training available, but we all know it’s no cake walk changing careers in mid-stream. Or, as an eloquent friend of mine once said, “Starting over sucks.”

Enough said.

Ben Ice, Editor
The Cert Times