The One about Gratitude

My previous entry apparently struck a chord among many of my ex students who had hear me religiously proselytizing about this quality that I held so dear. Many students would remember the "lectures" I gave during those "teachable moments" to reinforce this. I am saying the one quality which I believe will define a great man from a good man - "Gratitude". Sorry if I do sound deterministic at times like this, but this is one trait which I hold strongly in my beliefs. In fact I was pleasantly surprised to get this mail in my email mailbox this morning when I logon.

Now I would shamelessly quote from the mail.

"hello mr ng,

i havent gotten a chance to speak to you much since a very long time.even though we had the bbq,there was no much chance for me to talk to you and stuff.that explains this rather sudden email doesnt it.

so i was just wondering what you were up to in your new school,new environment,new kids and of cause no more nonsensical ij girls.read your blog and while reading your most recent post,i thought of something you taught us in sec 3 - one which stayed in my heart this long.
you once wrote on the board "gratitude" and told us that that was the most important word so on and so forth.and i was just thinkin bout it.

i dont know if you know but i was asked to go back to ij for honor's day'06 where i received,well my prize for coming in first for my combined humanities.i had always wanted to message you before to thank you and to inform you that i was goin back and things like that but the hectic jc life never gave me a chance to.i guess i shldnt blame whatever jc life or anything cause i know for sure that if i had really wanted to there wld have been enough time for me to squeeze out abit of time out of my busy schedule to message you or something.i know this mail is a little late,afterall honors day is already over and things like that but i just wanted to thank you for all that you have done in terms of my academics,you were there and tried your best as a history cum social studies teacher,making sure that your students got whatever skills that they needed in order to face any kind of questions during an examination!(though i remember that for a certain exam there was a certain question that was an attempt of phrasing it cheem but faild thus causing everyone to misinterprete the qs!haha) anyhow back to this,and i probably have never said this before, but you were the best form tcher a class could ever asked for. it was good to be able to be in your form class and at times work 'hand in hand' with you as the class chair.thank you for all that you gave to the class, made everything so memorable.

not only were you there as a teacher, you were there as a friend and a mentor. giving valuable advice whenever we needed it. the difference between a secondary school tcher and a jc tcher is that the secondary school tcher cares alot more for you then the ones in jc.haha. its true. but o wells. thanks again mr ng for everything. from sec 3 and sharing the "white monkey' joke with us to going through sec 3 adventure camp, parent tcher meeting, mid years then final years, the whole gruelling sec 4 year, preparing us for the o's as a amaths,history,social studies tcher and a mentor cum friend, to the sec 4 self awareness camp, mid years and finally the o's. encouraging us constantly and giving us your full support. thank you for having faith in us! we got through it together as a class.

yes gratitude is one important word.
thank you mr ng for the many things you have done for us. it will definitely not be forgotten!

hope you're doing fine now,
take care.
god bless!"

Hi amanda
It was nice to hear from you even though I am no longer in IJ. I apologise for not being there as a form teacher to award you with the prize for it would seem so inappropriate, even though deep down inside I would love to just hand the prize over to you. I am definitely surprised that my personal mantra of life would one day be an impact in some way or another to my students. Ye gratitude is indeed something important and I am thankful for the honour to be a part of your life which you felt significant and memorable and I am glad that I have in some way or another be a part of it. I am happy that all the Sec 4/4 have move on to your new phase of your education. Deep down inside, I do miss those times in class when all the class antics never fail to amaze/frustrate/anger/please me.

Thank you for the kind reminder of what I am here for.

Mr Ng
Sometimes I just hate myself for being so sentimental :(