부족하다

부족하다
Insufficient
Not enough
Inadequate.

Today is teachers' day celebration. It was a tiring day for me. Being part of Staff Welfare, we left school at 9am to the lunch venue while everyone else was enjoying the concert in school... I was the usher. Had to direct aunties and uncles up and down the stage. I basically stood at the side of the ballroom for half the lunch waiting for the VIPs to finish their segment and I would direct them back to their seats. I was appointed being the youngest in the team =.=
I was hungry. At the end of lunch, returned to my seat and gobbled down morsels that colleagues kindly scooped for me. Still hungry. Munched on nuts on the bus back to school.

Nope. Not many gifts and cards this year. I aint Ms Popular. Was popular back in Year 1. Now Im Year 3. Probably a jaded boring teacher in the eyes of the students. Only the sec 4s showed much love. I dont know. Every batch differs I guess. This year there were merely several notes from specific students. The rest? Especially my form class whom I only teach CCE... :/ Is it that Ik not good enough as their teacher?

Most inspiring... most caring... team player... individual contributions... none of that. My peers went on stage! Newbies and batchies. I do not have abilities like them. Instead, I struggled, not with teaching but with syllabus and exam papers and managing myself for much of this year. Not so much of teaching. Other teachers are well loved by their students. They have the charisma. I dont. I teach the way I am. Animated, jovial, serious, persistent - me.

So today I wonder whether I have had too high expectations of myself. Maybe I should aim lower. I put in A LOT of effort for tasks that I am assigned. Probably the tasks were too minute to impact sufficiently.
1
To be honest, I felt insignificant today. Ushering the VIPs which was redundant. Disappearing from school but no one really knew anyway. Im just behind the scenes. Wearing a sparkly star on my shirt which was afterall, inadequate; merely garnered stares on the bus and from my form class early in the morning. Anticipated more notes from faces I have come to know but did not.

Are there teachers in the midst who have just been doing their part but never got recognised in their entire career? Maybe keeping low key but maintaining a stable career is sufficient for them. I could be like that.
But what will happen to my goals to climb high to prove myself and to lead?

You know, work has been increasingly tough, I cry at least once every semester. I dont know how to manage work, relationship, family time and more importantly, personal time.  Stressful times make me easily agitated and more sensitive to comments and actions. Frequent bouts of temper and bf might lose confidence in me as a partner. I no longer meet with my friends.

But I like my school and colleagues and my job, still.

How should I proceed from here?

TL;DR: Today, I felt inadequate as a teacher.