L Made Me Remember Jn

I don't even remember when I last saw her. It was nice to have met her, L, recently. The conversation continues...

Towards the end, there was a little twist of "plot".

L : You know Jn?

Me : Of course. We still contact each other regularly.

L : You know what. Sometimes we may not know how we may have affected our students. Jn and I are in the same church and I know the pastor's wife pretty well. The pastor's wife told me, Jn aspired to be a math teacher because of you.

Me : Huh?! Erm...

I was dumbfounded. He never said that (to me). Of course, I don’t expect (cannot imagine) him to utter those words. Haha..

I remember scolded him (nagged at him) the most (in his class) . He was never hard working and hardly submitted any tutorials. Those that he had submitted, I was sure he wouldn't need them for revision either. They were of such slobby quality most of the time. He failed most of his tests or at best obtained a borderline pass. However, in his second year, he participated in a mathematics competition and topped those who had participated in the college. Kaoz.. He has the brain! Still my "nagging" continued.

It was so "bad" that once (during his second year, in early term 3, I think), he questioned (not in the nicest of tone) why I bothered about his studies and his future at all. He claimed that it is his future and he will be responsible for it anyway, suggesting that I should leave him alone. But, you know what? I continued (much to his annoyance, I supposed) as he hadn’t shown any sign of improvement and didn’t seem to have any sense of direction. But of course, I changed to a much softer-approach when dealing with him then. Haha..

I don’t know when he started changing actually. I remember feeling a little strange (but glad) for him to approach me (voluntarily) for consultations after his Preliminary Examination. I really didn’t do much as his questions were all so specific. Nevertheless, we poured in some quality time to set things right. It turned out right!

When he got into NUS and told me he had decided to major in Math and had planned to teach, I was… erm… only too delighted. I was delighted not because he said “math” or “teach”. I would be just as delighted if he had said other subjects, other professions. I was delighted plainly because this fine young man all of a sudden had such a sharp sense of direction in life and knew what he wanted!

I am still very proud of him. Still, I don’t think I had done anything extra-ordinary. You would have done the same, wouldn’t you?

- - - - - - - - - -

懒人的愿望

你一定要走吗？
可不可休息一下。
像我一样，偶尔睡个懒觉，
偶尔发呆，偶尔出错，
偶尔闹情绪，偶尔耍赖.......
你一定要如此坚定、严格的向前走吗？
弄得大家都精疲力竭的老了！