Relying on the Internet provided by the school was a huge mistake.
Ali stared at the same page he had on the computer screen five minutes ago with disappointment. Tired, he closed his eyes to get a bit rest before opening it again only to disappoint himself all over again.
He took off his glasses while massaging his forehead. He had spent the entire night researching and collecting the teaching materials that he found on the Internet, then carefully organising them in his personal Google Drive folder.
If he had known how slow as a snail the school Wi-Fi would be that morning and had he not dozed off on the keyboard of his computer, he would have got them printed right away at home the night before.
He even made an effort to arrive at the school an hour early to conquer the printer all for himself and print out those materials he needed.
His slouching back immediately straightened when he saw the downloading progress started speeding up till 100%. Out of excitement, his knee accidentally hit the cubicle desk causing the slight movement of the things on the desk.
"Sorry. Sorry." Ali remarked when Miss Laila looked over the partition between their desk, concerned.
Similar to him, she was working on something on her computer as well. They had only managed to exchange simple greetings the day before after the school ended as she rushed home and Ali was packing up to leave.
Again, similar to the day before, each of them was too occupied with their own work to engage in a conversation. Therefore, despite being desk or cubicle partner, Ali knew nothing other than her name is Laila and she was also the class teacher and taught the Form 4 students like him.
His first impression of her was that she looked youngish and looked almost like a high school girl herself with her small stature. Ali wondered how she survived being around school girls whose many had the height and weight that could easily overpower her.
Her outfit enhanced her youthful look. She wore a headscarf pastel pink in colour around her head and covering her chest area, a pastel pink blouse adorned with lace of small white flowers and a long-wrinkled skirt in light grey colour, as well as sturdy low-heeled brown boots.
She was rather shy when Ali first greeted her. Despite feeling worried for her, Ali was thankful that he got the person with a similar personality with him sitting right next to her.
Truthfully, he was quite wary if his cubicle partner would be as talkative as his cubicle partner in his previous school. He did not want to be in a deep dilemma that he had unknowingly got himself into in the past.
As an introvert, he enjoyed being alone and working in silence more than anything. Up to this day, he still wondered what had driven him to take up the job as a teacher when all he wanted each day was to have less and less interaction with people.
However, his previous cubicle partner was the exact opposite.
Although he is the senior among the two with nearly fifteen years working experience, he never loses his newbie enthusiasm and that might be the only thing that Ali envied of the man.
The man sincerely enjoyed being around people and would often be found gossiping with the female teachers at the school canteen which was separated from the students.
He often invited Ali to join in much to Ali's dismay, and often Ali refused. Naturally, he was tagged as 'Mr Arrogant' and viewed as antisocial by the senior teachers although they were pretty discreet about it.
The situation here was no different. However, what made the school better that the other is that the new teachers and the senior teachers were not seated together.
One look at the staffroom, one could tell that it was divided into three without any partition. The left division was full of cubicles for the 'junior' teachers which are those who had taught at the school for five years or less.
Meanwhile, the right division was for the teachers who had taught for above five years. Behind it, there were two small rooms, one is the pantry complete with the refrigerator while the other room is the prayer room.
The laughing Mr Andi called those two rooms the privilege of being the senior teacher as it was nearer to them than the junior teacher.
When Ali asked him how it could be a privilege if it is accessible to all, he burst out laughing to his face before giving him a meaningful look and then changed the topic without giving back any answer.
Before they separated, Mr Andi suddenly grabbed him by the shoulder and gave him a side hug. "I hope you are going to stay here for a long time."
Although Ali was thankful for the man's friendliness and hospitality, deep down he regretted asking Mr Andi to be his unofficial tour guide. His alternating personality left Ali more confused as the time went by.
As for the middle division, a long wooden conference table was right in the centre where all teachers' meetings would take place every day. However, some teachers used it as a place to share their homemade lunch or snacks with each other and gossip with each other to pass the time.
Ali stole a glance at the Angry Bird clock on the table that clearly did not belong to him. He had twenty minutes left before his class started.
After managing to print half of the materials he wanted, suddenly a tab popped up on the screen displaying a warning that automatic update will take place.
As soon as the sixty seconds passed by where Ali had frantically used to save his documents, the screen immediately turned blank.
What in the sorcery is this?
Astonished, Ali moved his mouse several times, hoping for the screen to light up once again but to no avail.
Feeling tired and defeated, Ali let out an exasperated sigh while looking at the file on his table which was half filled with the worksheet he had prepared for his students. Seemed like luck was not on his side that day.
He was hoping that the worksheet could help him to discover the student's level of understanding and make it easier to devise a plan for his future teaching. That will have to do for another day.
As Ali stood by his table readying himself to leave for class, suddenly, he heard the familiar clicking sounds coming from the back door of the staffroom passing by his table.
He casted a side eye as the woman passed by him, followed by a man clad in a white dress shirt and a black trouser. The man's tie which was bright red in colour immediately grabbed Ali's attention as it reminded him of the famous ex-President of the United States who is often seen wearing them.
Ali wondered if there was much significance in it.
It did make the man look confident. From the man's single tie, Ali imagined the man's wardrobe might be a huge contrast to his own which usually consists of dark and gloomy colours.
"Everyone, pay attention!" Madam Zhang clapped her perfectly manicured hands while eyeing each and every teacher who was engrossed in preparing for their class of the day, with the remaining minutes left.
Beside her was a man with slicked back hair and a beard covering up his chin up to his ear. His skin was very fair, causing any slightest tinge of red to look prominent on his skin and at the moment, the red colour was very apparent on his ear, almost matching the colour of his tie.
Despite wearing the bold coloured tie, the man's expression was not bold at all.
He was rubbing his hands together nervously the whole time. When Madam Zhang whispered to him, he bit his lips while bowing his head a little, subconsciously trying to match his height with her.
After nodding to each other for a bit, Mrs Zhang continued, "We have a new teacher today. Please introduce yourself."
The man gave a deep bow before introducing himself with a beaming smile, "Hi everyone. My name is Scott Lee Wellington. You can call me Scott. Please take care of me." His resonant voice sounded pleasing to the ears.
The other teachers clapped in response. Ali clapped as well while breathing out a sigh of relief that he was spared of the burden of having to introduce himself in front of everyone. He could not imagine how awkward and tense it would be if it was him that was put on the spot rather than Scott.
Though, Ali would not spare his students from doing the same as he did the day before and would never do so in the future.
Despite being the only foreigner in the room, Scott seemed to be able to adapt himself well as he took it upon himself to approach every single teacher in the staffroom and greet them with a friendly smile.
When he reached the last row of cubicles of the staffroom which includes Ali's, Ali was already about to leave the room.
Although Ali's hand was full with a black ring file in his right hand and the textbook in the other, Scott insisted on shaking his hand. With a bit of struggle, Ali managed to shake the man's hand which he responded with a firm handshake.
After exchanging handshakes, Scott suddenly moved closer towards Ali, much to his surprise. He whispered with a low voice, with his eyes directed to the other teachers in the room. "Do you know why they keep asking me how long am I going to remain here? It is such a strange thing to say on someone's first day."
Ali pursed his lips together. He got an idea obviously with the odd experience he had dealing with the rude student and the domineering principal, but Ali did not dare to voice them out. Plus, his situation might be different than Scott's.
After all, the man seemed friendlier and from the way his colleagues reacted when Scott approched each one of them politely, there was a high chance that he would be well liked by the others at the end of the day.
Ali had no intention of ruining such a good prospect for the man. Thus, he resorted to giving the man a vague answer instead. "You're asking the wrong person, actually. I have only been here a day more than you. There's not much I could say."