Monday, September 11, 2006

Teachers' Day Pressie

Ok I just managed to find time and upload a picture of my Teachers' day present this year...

Pinky!
My current student is one of the brightest child for her age I have ever came across and I sometimes really wonder why she needs tuition for. She gives me little gifts for every occasion I can think of actually, to the extent I found it ridiculous. Yes she is a sweet, smart and naughty little devil who asks me the most mind-boggling stuffs in the world like such rhetorical classics "What's nothingness?", "If nothingness is really just nothing, then where will I be?", "Gosh, every year somebody dies in my family, so where do our souls go then??". I don't know what her mum fed her since young (but I know she doesn't really eat much decent food) and for a primary 5 kid, it's even more mind-boggling how on earth such questions just seem to come to her as natural as eating ice-cream and stealing tidbits from the fridge when she is supposed to eat proper decent meals. And when she went to her friend's house to celebrate christmas party, she came back to me with all sorts of questions why everyone was so happy -- that Jesus was born AND when He died -- when 'funerals that went dong dong chiang downstairs and those for her dead relatives were always sad with people crying'. I didn't really think her mum anticipated all these before her daughter came to this world; neither do I when I first started teaching her 2 years ago. It felt like a sort of nostalgia coz I used to bug my own tutor about such things when I was her age (but not till that extent.) I used to find excuses to buy presents for my tutor too; I don't know why but I just felt generous. And being the only child back then before my noisy siblings came to this world, I was lonely and quiet most of the time. She was kinda like my only speaking companion and answered all my questions with direct honesty and sincerity unlike other adults. Looking at my student now is a quiet reminiscence of myself back then when I was young. She shocks me just as much as I shocked my tutor all the time. As her mother (in her 50s now) puts it, it's probably just destiny that her daughter loves me so much she can't accept any other tutor whom she tried to find (at least a dozen) to substitute me whenever my life gets busier. This is really bad, I thought. I once told my student she can't rely on me forever; she has to learn to accept help from other tutors. And all she said was "Huh but I don't know what they're talking about and they don't even understand my questions!" I had to laugh. All of them must be wondering what the hell makes this seemingly innocuous girl tick -- from the little shocks she can deliver to utmost innocence and perfection. Because I wonder too.

Thank you Angeline, for your sweet little present. May God bless you and your family always.

Posted by Atlantic Amethyst at 12:23 AM

Comments: Post a Comment