the tuition teacher
This is actually a sequel to this and this.
It was an ordinary afternoon. One of those hot sweltering ones that you want to spend doing nothing more than checking your yahoo mail account and reading those senseless forwarded mails that will cause you to TURN INTO A FROG IF YOU DON'T SEND THEM OUT TO TEN PEOPLE RIGHT NOW.
Wait a min. What's this...?
My heart did a little cartwheel when i saw a name that i'd never forget. LSM. He had sent me a cutesy forwarded email that was begging to be thrown into the junk folder. My eyes narrowed and i gripped the mouse tighter.
Cue foggy cinematic effects...
He was LSM.
A 3rd year medicine student at NUS, staying 5 minutes away from me, he was NOTHING that i had expected. In his first phone call with me, he asked a dozen non-tuition related questions and SANG me an old love song. I still remember sitting on the couch listening to him sing and thinking "nobody's gonna believe this, i haven't met my tutor yet and he's singing to me." Even before he came to my house for the 1st tuition session, we had met up for a movie at good ol' Jurong Point. To be brutally honest, he had a pot belly, stained teeth and pimpled cheeks. The first thought that popped into my mind was that i'm not sure if i'd want him to be my doctor in the future.
Within the first month of tuition sessions, i knew EVERYTHING about his past two relationships - the first in which he was the jilter and the second which he was the jilted. In between trying to understand the Born-Haber cycle, i found out that his first girlfriend was extremely gorgeous and popular but for some strange reason was incredibly devoted to him even after the breakup. While calculating bond and lattice energies, i listened to his recollection of the one-who-got-away, who was, in his own words, grosteque in appearance but he was still mysteriously in love with her after they broke up. I remember raising my eyebrows at the different plot climaxes of his sharings.
To add to the dramatics of his tales, she was his previous tution student who just entered junior college and due to violent objections of the parents...their true love was not meant to be. My eyebrows rose higher.
He offered to give me free lessons outside of our tution sessions and desperate to improve my grades, i accepted them gratefully. I spent a few afternoons studying in Jurong Point's Mcdonalds together and....listening to his sorrowful love stories. He showed me photos of the Gorgeous-Ex-Who-Was-Still-Pestering-Him and she was as pretty as he said. Inwardly i found it hard to believe that someone as bright and lovely as her will throw herself shamelessly at someone like LSM the way he had described.
Don't misunderstand me, his unattractive appearance had little to do with the opinion i formed. It was after a period of getting to know him better that i began to see his true colours. His arrogance had shone through the way he made me look at his lecture notes and sneered, "you don't understand right?", his insensitivity through the way he looked at me incredously when i made a simple mistake, and his selfishness from the way he was more interested in talking about his failed romances than my accademic progress.
Then the straw that broke the camel's back came just before my Chemistry Alevels and it was something that i'd always remember bitterly til this very day...
To be continued.
It was an ordinary afternoon. One of those hot sweltering ones that you want to spend doing nothing more than checking your yahoo mail account and reading those senseless forwarded mails that will cause you to TURN INTO A FROG IF YOU DON'T SEND THEM OUT TO TEN PEOPLE RIGHT NOW.
Wait a min. What's this...?
My heart did a little cartwheel when i saw a name that i'd never forget. LSM. He had sent me a cutesy forwarded email that was begging to be thrown into the junk folder. My eyes narrowed and i gripped the mouse tighter.
Cue foggy cinematic effects...
~~~
3 years ago, fresh out of college with disappointing Alevel results, re-taking the exams was like scheduling diarrhea. You know you have to, and you don't like it, but you hope it passes as quickly as possible, and no matter what, you know it will be pretty unbearable. Hopeless at Chemistry, i sought out a tuition teacher via an agency. He was LSM.
A 3rd year medicine student at NUS, staying 5 minutes away from me, he was NOTHING that i had expected. In his first phone call with me, he asked a dozen non-tuition related questions and SANG me an old love song. I still remember sitting on the couch listening to him sing and thinking "nobody's gonna believe this, i haven't met my tutor yet and he's singing to me." Even before he came to my house for the 1st tuition session, we had met up for a movie at good ol' Jurong Point. To be brutally honest, he had a pot belly, stained teeth and pimpled cheeks. The first thought that popped into my mind was that i'm not sure if i'd want him to be my doctor in the future.
Within the first month of tuition sessions, i knew EVERYTHING about his past two relationships - the first in which he was the jilter and the second which he was the jilted. In between trying to understand the Born-Haber cycle, i found out that his first girlfriend was extremely gorgeous and popular but for some strange reason was incredibly devoted to him even after the breakup. While calculating bond and lattice energies, i listened to his recollection of the one-who-got-away, who was, in his own words, grosteque in appearance but he was still mysteriously in love with her after they broke up. I remember raising my eyebrows at the different plot climaxes of his sharings.
To add to the dramatics of his tales, she was his previous tution student who just entered junior college and due to violent objections of the parents...their true love was not meant to be. My eyebrows rose higher.
He offered to give me free lessons outside of our tution sessions and desperate to improve my grades, i accepted them gratefully. I spent a few afternoons studying in Jurong Point's Mcdonalds together and....listening to his sorrowful love stories. He showed me photos of the Gorgeous-Ex-Who-Was-Still-Pestering-Him and she was as pretty as he said. Inwardly i found it hard to believe that someone as bright and lovely as her will throw herself shamelessly at someone like LSM the way he had described.
Don't misunderstand me, his unattractive appearance had little to do with the opinion i formed. It was after a period of getting to know him better that i began to see his true colours. His arrogance had shone through the way he made me look at his lecture notes and sneered, "you don't understand right?", his insensitivity through the way he looked at me incredously when i made a simple mistake, and his selfishness from the way he was more interested in talking about his failed romances than my accademic progress.
Then the straw that broke the camel's back came just before my Chemistry Alevels and it was something that i'd always remember bitterly til this very day...
To be continued.
Labels: life observations
