What makes a genius or a successful person?

这世界上真正能成功的人，不见得是最聪明的，也不见得是学历最高的，而是最能面对问题、锲而不舍的人。－刘墉《做个快乐读书人》

English translation:
A really successful person is neither one who is the cleverest, nor is the one with the highest academic qualifications. Instead, a successful person is one who makes steady and consistent efforts in confronting his / her problems.

谁坚持得久，谁就是天才；谁自己要强，谁就是天才！－刘墉《做个快乐读书人》

English translation:
You are a genius if you persevere the longest.
You are a genius if you want to be strong.

The Day I Overslept :<

Today was my most sinful day as a teacher! Instead of being woken up by my “菊花台”ringtone alarm, I was woken up at 9 plus by my “大长今”ringtone, which I set for phone calls. (I place my handphone beside me on my bed to wake myself up. Usually, this method works better for me than alarm clocks because of the phone's vibration.)

That ringtone suddenly became a nightmare to me as I opened my eyes and recalled that today was a Monday, a SCHOOL DAY! All my drowsiness instantaneously disappeared and I quickly looked at the number of the incoming call. It was from General Office! Shit! I didn't bother to answer the call as I was panicky! At the same time, I received Sin Yi's sms, saying that she felt terribly uncomfortable in the canteen's toilet. Oh dear! I was not even physically in school YET! As I quickly washed up and got dressed, I was reproaching myself for being late, for being unable to attend to Sin Yi and at the same time, quite worried for her condition.

I was in time for my 3/5 lesson, which started at 10 o'clock. I had to conduct the lesson in a rather husky voice as I had not eaten or had barely drunk anything. (Of course, I deserved it!)Later, I found out that Sin Yi did not even request to go home and rest. She must have been feeling terribly sick the whole day...

The whole school seemed to know about it as the teachers and HODs were surprised to see me as they thought I was on mc or was away for a medical appointment, and they all enquired whether I was ok. I just vaguely replied, "Ya, ya, I'm ok." I urged them silently: I'm already remorseful. Please stop probing or showing "acts of concern" to save me from further embarrassment, ok?!

I guess this is one of the pains of growing up! My students often felt nothing when they overslept and did not come to school. At the most, I just call their parents up and they receive nagging from me and their parents. Things are so simple for them! How I envy you guys! But once you become an adult, such seemingly minor mistakes can become one of the worst sins as you are then loaded with RESPONSIBILITIES and GREAT EXPECTATIONS to fulfill, failing which, you will then need to experience a whole lot of negative implications and consequences. I'm not exaggerating, my dear students! This is REAL in the working world! So while you are still young, correct all your mistakes and don't let them become your habits.

Belated Youth Day Message

Dedicated to all my current 3N students (though I only have the opportunity to show it to my form class),

You can never guess how thankful and blessed I am to be your teacher!
Because of you guys, I feel happy in this school!
Because of you guys, I find my worth as a teacher.
Because of you guys, I learn more things about teenage culture.
Because of you guys, I GROW in a myriad of ways.
Many thanks to all of you! You've enriched my life and have added more meaning to my existence.

You are my sunshine!

HAPPY YOUTH DAY!

God's message to me

After I blogged about my relationship with my mother, as usual during my weekly charismatic session, I heard someone said the following in Mandarin,

"You only have ONE biological mother and father. Be sure to treat them well before they leave this world."

At that very instant, I knew this message was from God to me. Though it sounds very cliche, I feel that it is a tremendously useful reminder for me, and for all of us reading this entry right now!

Thanks be to God! :>

How to love without conditions?

When you love without conditions, you support the freedom of others to choose
their own way, even when you disagree with them. You trust them to make the best
choice for them. You trust God's plan for their awakening. You know that they
can never make a mistake that will cut them off from God's love or your own.

- Paul Ferrini

How I wish my mother could apply this principle!

Empathy

Today, my mum said that she hated me. She once again said that she resented seeing me because she felt that I resemble my 'wunsan' (you need to read this word in Cantonese) dad more and more.

This is not the first time. Ever since that 'wunsan' unrepentant dad left, my mum keeps making this remark. Tears welled up in my eyes. In the past, she wouldn't say that to me unless I made a severe mistake that had greatly disappointed her. But nowadays, she often makes this remark at the slightest mistake I make or even when I do not do anything wrong. I felt immense pain. I mean I have always been like my old self. If she finds me clumsy or inefficient at doing household chores or having whatever bad attributes, why didn't she complain about it in the past? Why does she detest me so much now? I am really puzzled.

About a fortnight ago, I prayed to God to restore my relationship with my mother. Soon after, when I attended my weekly charismatic group's activity at St Peter and Paul church, I seemed to receive my answer when Father Thomas, my most revered priest, explained the concept of empathy. He firstly established that empathy is not the same as sympathy. Sympathy means you pity somebody, but you still view yourself and the other party as TWO SEPARATE entities. On the other hand, when you empathise with someone, you can put yourself in the other person's shoes and share exactly the same emotions, thoughts and perspectives as him or her. In other words, you can look at the world from his or her angle, and you will regard yourself and the other party as ONE entity. He also added that we should show empathy towards our family members as we are more aware of our family members’ circumstances. Upon hearing this, I realized that I am also guilty of not showing any empathy towards my mother and I have been too self-centred, always conscious of my own feelings only.

Thereafter, I tried to hold my temper and to remind myself to show empathy to my mother whenever she made any unreasonable remarks again. However, I am unsuccessful and still feel upset or angry each time she criticizes me and her anger towards me is not reduced to any extent either. I do not know why. Either it is because my efforts to control my temper is not evident enough or my mother has been oblivious to my subtle changes in my temperament. I'm not saying that we don't love each other anymore. She still does lots of things for me and still nags at me out of concern and I still pray for her and we still do laugh and chat, but I really don't understand why she increasingly finds it difficult to accept me as her daughter.

Today, I eventually resolved the problem by telling myself that I did not do anything wrong, so there's no reason for me to be angry or upset. I need not feel angry if someone else is at fault. After that, I felt more at ease.

I guess showing empathy towards family members is easier said than done, at least this is true for me, as maybe to a certain extent, I also expect my mother to empathise with me, especially my work condition. When she can't do that, that's when I get disappointed too. I won't expect outsiders to understand my situation, therefore I may be more understanding to others.

Oh dear Lord, I confess I am not capable of showing empathy towards my mother. Perhaps the second divorce and my incorrigible dad has left her an indelible emotional wound. Please heal my mother's emotional wound and grant me the strength, will power and compassion to forgive and understand her. Please help me to die to my selfish self.

P.S. Please kindly leave me a comment after reading this entry. If you are my student, you can try telling me what you can learn from this posting or share with me any similar experiences, ok?

Touched by my pupil's cookie!

It was a typical meet-parents session on a Saturday morning. When I saw Agnes Ong coming into my classroom, I thought she merely wanted to submit her English file as she was holding it. I asked her to put the file in my locker and to my pleasant surprise, she gave me a big cookie and told me that it was meant for Teacher Appreciation Day (this ‘festival’ suddenly sprang up in my school on the last day of term 2); however, she was not present in school on that day as she was helping out at the National Achiever’s Congress (NAC) at Expo. I accepted her cookie, with much contentment, as I thought to myself, “At last, I get something from my darling 3N pupils.”

In the evening, I spent some time browsing through some of my pupils’ blogs. The more I read, the more fascinated I become! I find those personal entries rather captivating, especially when they talk or complain about incidents happening to them in school. They are really vivid personal recounts, rich with emotions, except that these entries are not in standard English. Ya, I realized my new nickname and the words pupils used to scold me and other teachers behind our backs. It is indeed a great discovery! Don't worry, my dear pupils, I won't breathe a word to anyone in school.

Then, I came across Agnes Ong’s blog and I realized that she purposely went to the food fair at Expo to get Mr Lee and me something special that is not found in Pasir Ris. Wow, I was so touched! Thank you very much, Agnes Ong! Despite the cracked cookie, it really warms my heart to know that you took great effort to show your gratitude towards us, teachers. Once again, thank you very much and the cookie was crispy and delicious!

Tough Love

“Although being nice can be a worthy attribute to cultivate, it must never deter
us from speaking the truth and from loving in tough ways.” (Extracted from Living Faith)

I have always appeared to my pupils as a nice and friendly teacher, to quote their words, someone who “cannot be fierce one”. It looks like my greatest challenge is to learn how to love my pupils in tough ways, such as by insisting on certain standards. Otherwise, I may end up spoiling them. How I wish I can be as firm as Mr Lee SK.

Joy of reconciliation

Remember my confidant who sort of let me down in the previous entry? Well, we had not been smiling with each other for a week whenever we saw each other in school. Honestly speaking, I didn't feel good about it. I mean she was once my refuge and had provided me with great timely comfort whenever I was deeply troubled, but how could we become like sworn enemies?

After last Sunday's mass which preached about loving each other as Jesus loves us, I felt strongly encouraged to reconcile with her, but I knew I was weak. I confessed to God that I really found it difficult to so-called forgive her, but I asked God to grant me the strength and the will power to do so because I'm willing to try to reconcile with her. Forget about who's right and who's wrong, I tell myself. Maybe to start with just a smile and that will be enough.

Praise God! On Tuesday when I met her at the canteen, we BOTH smiled with each other, almost at the same time. She even came to me and we had a short chat. After she left, there was a surge of joy flooding into my heart and I thanked God instantaneously for helping me to reconcile with her. I can't believe it! I am capable of forgiving someone! Later on, peace resumes in my heart as I do not need to worry about this strained relationship anymore. Now, whenever we meet each other, we'll say hello to each other naturally. God has repaired our relationship! Thanks be to God!

Why I create this blog

Recently, someone whom I used to confide with in school has made me very disappointed. I lose trust in her though I think she never divulges my secret. However, I still feel the desire to communicate with someone out there, despite the fact that I don't quite trust any adults anymore. Inspired by my students' blogs, I decided to create this blog to satisfy my need to pour out all my feelings. Hey, isn't that ironical? I don't really dare to confide with anybody, yet I rather write out everything that happens to me on the web and let the whole world see! Am I mad? I don't know. I just know that I feel better after blogging. That's all I want.

Not only that, I hope that my students would be able to understand me better as a REAL HUMAN BEING, with varied emotions, thoughts and real life struggles. I admit that I'm not a 100% good role model. I do have human weaknesses and am still GROWING UP and LEARNING and MATURING! I may encounter the same problems as you are facing at this stage, my dear students, and if you could feel enlightened in any way by my personal stories, then my blog would have accomplished its most "divine" mission! Hee! Hee!