My promise to him


It all started when I asked him if I could arrange a consultation session with him on any one of the free periods that we had during class. It seemed like he wasn’t free on Monday first period. Okay. But in his reply, he advised me to drop a subject so I could focus on three since only three are needed for university admission criteria.


How did I reply him? I tried to tell him I didn’t think it would make much of a difference since there was little time left anyway but he then said something about not being complacent and about it making a whole lot of difference. I felt like I was punched in the face and totally misunderstood. I tried to explain to him by saying that for me, dropping would be taking the easy way out. Then he said we should know him well and that he never teaches us the easy way out and that it was all about working doubly as hard and reallocating the spare time to the three other subjects.


It went on to become a string of messages leading to me feeling agonized, ambivalent, and somewhat confused.


Things started to get hilarious when he asked me if I was sleeping enough since I seemed sleepy in school everyday. I felt like crying at that point of time. Seriously. How come there are people who can sleep 2 hours a day and still manage to stay awake during lessons. I know for sure I am not one of them. Then he continued with another message saying rest was very important, blah blah. Then I almost laughed out loud as I replied, questioning him by using his famous ‘must at least study 18 hours a day to get a decent grade’ quote back on him.


Bollocks. I think he is one seriously misunderstood man. What he said, in actual fact, was that HE studied 18 hours in his school days. He asked US to study 16 hours a day. Reasonable? Damn, I think we all weren’t paying attention to him in class. Haha. Poor misunderstood man. Anyway, he stressed the importance of sleep, and so I told him how I tried, with much failure, to cut down on sleep time in the wee hours so I could study more. Failed miserably. But I was changing my study habits, so it should no longer be a problem.


At this point of time, I felt extremely surprised because I seldom speak during his class and even though I always greet him in a very courteous manner when I see him, I didn’t think he had much of an impression of me.
But he did, and he knew I existed. Which made me feel… important. :) and he went on to say that, he though I was studying very hard and that he was willing to do as much as he could to help me.


I cried. I cried and cried and cried and the tears started dropping on my phone so I had to keep rubbing them away as I texted away. I guess the teachers must have been talking to each other behind our backs. Stacy must have told them about me being the only student following the infamous ‘an-essay-a-day’ lifestyle that stacy bid us to follow.
But hey man, even before prelims you zhi was writing two essays a day. Now THAT’S a model econs student, not me.


But I was overwhelmed. Then I texted back, spilling everything, thanking him, thanking the teachers, told him about me feeling bad that I ve been lazy for most of the year and letting the teachers down and myself too, and never studying hard enough to reach that state of mind that I deeply covet, not for O levels, not for promos, and not for common tests. Not even for prelims. And how I promised I would study harder than ever before, harder, stronger, better.


And when he said he believed in me
I smiled.
I was crying but I smiled.


This is the kind of small thing in life that you look forward to, that spurs you to go on even when the rest of the world has their back turned on you, when you ve fallen behind and really feel like just giving up.


Now everytime my lazy bone starts to itch, or when I feel like im about to break down,
I remember
My promise to him.
And I smile.
And I have what it takes to go on.


Thank you, mr yong :)


ps. i guess i still lost steam the last few days. but oh well. =shrug=