More on Waiting

This morning at 8 o'clock, I was there in my classroom, feeling really chilly and of course - lonely. The chairs, tables, locked-up computer, ceiling-mounted projector, whiteboards, pull-down screen, walls, doors etc. were great company, but not the main reason I went to class. So I sat down to wait, and it wasn't before 20 minutes' waiting, that the first guy walked (I could very well use the verb "strolled") in. And there goes 20 minutes of my life spent in idleness.

And I wonder, as I have wondered many years ago, when I was not quite a teen, that accumulated, how much of our lives we actually spend in idle waiting? The time we spent waiting to be picked up, for example, from school by a parent, or the school bus. I know I spent a lot of time waiting when I was in primary school, because I was fetched to and back from school by someone who at the same time ferried a few other children. So there I would be, waiting every morning and afternoon for the car to arrive. For most of my secondary years I had my own mode of transportation - my bicycle - but I still spent a substantial amount of time waiting every morning - for the friends with whom I cycled to school everyday. Oh, but I didn't need to wait for them going home in the afternoon, because no one would waste time dilly-dallying once the school's-over bell rings.

And I still spend lots of time in waiting, for various reasons, these days. For one, waiting for students, like I did this morning, is a norm. The bus and train by which I go home, require daily waiting. On top of that, we also wait for high-and-mighty employees with a "position" (the big shots ler) who looooove being late for meetings.

Well, there might be hundreds more reasons to wait, so I won't even start to attempt to list them all out. One day, perhaps, when I am really old, and can't afford to do anything else, I will attempt to compute the estimate of the total amount of time I spent in this lifetime, in waiting!

For the record, I am right now waiting for my kaki's to go breakfast (or, looking at the time now, I'd rather say "brunch") with. But I won't say I have waited in all idleness, because I had written a post, at least, although this couldn't be considered productive, from my employer's point of view. Right then, time to check my emails - hey, they could be work-related, for all you know! ;)