To My Beloved Students...

I once shared a story of how I was frustrated with one of my students whose parents were too ignorant that he's supposed to wear glasses. He couldn't see clearly; caused his backwardness and made his classmates shun him out.

It's only been a six months project for me and my husband. He drives me to the tuition center three times a week and diligently waited for me. We both sometimes sacrifice our dinner to get there on time.

I am about to put it to a stop as I need to concentrate on putting on more weight for the poor baby inside.

I wrote a straight forward message to the boy's parents. If they want him to be able to learn, he needs to be able to see to be able to read. Today, he looks like the clever Harry Potter in his new glasses, still timid but smiles a lot more in the classroom. At Std 3, he's going to start from ABC again but I hope someone will help him out on that.

I am pleased to see their latest test results, they fared better in English than Bahasa and half of them got A's where many improved from always getting 50's now up at 70's. Some started to mimmick me when they want to express themselves, like saying 'Oh my God!' 'Oh, I'm sorry!' 'Please may I?' 'But how?' If I could take off my teacher's helmet, I would just squeeze them to death.

No more one way communication, they are slowly getting used to sharing something back to me though it's still in Bahasa. It's all I wanted to see, that there's a sign of life, instead of separating themselves; boys with boys, girls with girls - fearful of wrong answers or stupid remarks... those silly things.

I know... if they just can't speak or learn English, some of them has talents for other things, like probably turning into a Malay comedy actor, a very enterprising kedai kopi owner, there's nothing wrong with that, it doesn't mean they are losers. I hope if it happens, they would do it passionately.

The people I respected most is the runner of the centre, Shaan and Santha (husband and wife team). I don't know how they pull it through just charging RM90 per mth for three subjects per month 8pm-10pm daily. There's definitely no boundary in terms of race here. They teach with

intuition, we share the same sentiments with why some students are over sensitive or just wouldn't speak. I would write more about them one day.

These little kids, though got scolded over and over again, would still come in front and kiss our hands before they go home and yes, it is even accompanied with eye contact, not just the Muslims kids, the Chinese and the Indians too!

I thank two people who got me here. I learnt abundance of humbling things; mystellar for introducing me to this place and my husband who drove, waited, starved and shut his mouth from telling me to just rest though I was going through unstable period in my first trimester.