No, it is not the results. That was last night. Today I had a new "high".
We met at 8.30 pm and by the time I got back to the car, it was 1.20 am. Boy, he has grown.
I must have said at least ten times "I'm so happy for you" tonight. And he knows it. He has changed. Much. Very much. And I told him before we parted, that should he mention to his mum about our meeting this evening, he should let her know that his teacher is very happy for him. I told him that I may not have played any part in his "transformation" but I'm still genuienly happy for him.
He was not satisfied with his L1R4 of 20 points and studied on his own for one year and resat the O level exams. This time, he got 10 points. He then went through army and is now studying at the polytechnic. He has 5 CCAs now - to make up for lost time, he said. He does his work in school in between classes and CCAs and rests when he is at home. He said he needed the rest so that he could do well in class the following day, so that he could do well enough to get the As he wants.
He was a quiet student in class. Not the most obedient, and often falling alseep on the desk. I suppose school was boring for him but since he was almost always able to perfowm well in the tests, I usually let him be. Tonight he told me that school was too slow for him and that was why on some days he chose not to go to school. He said that teachers would be teaching the same things for weeks when he has already learnt them the first time round.
During one parent-teacher conference, I spoke to his mum and told her how smart her child is. I told her that he learns very fast in class but is not keen on pushing himself further. He said that I was perhaps the only person who spoke good about him, even though at that time he didn't really bother about what I said and could not remember exactly what happened. He remembers that I told his mum something nice about him.
We talked about many things tonight. About how he has beaten runners at the poly and how he wants to improve his timing further; About how he can't recall what happened before sec 2 and how he has no recollection of his primary school days (in Hong Kong) at all; About how he detached himself from "those friends who were not going to help" (him) achieve his targets; About how he thinks people should work for themselves and how nature should be allowed take its course ...
This is Charles, and I'm so happy and thankful that we met tonight.
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