One Foot Forward

I haven't been keeping up with writing here, because I've been terribly busy lately, as is usually the case when the end of the term approaches. Steadily worked my way through the compositions, and now I'm right in the middle of marking a bit more than 80 comprehension scripts. These are not so hard to mark; they are just tedious, and I begin to get depressed because I find myself having no choice but to fail so many people. I daresay that the passage we took out of Lewis's The Four Loves was too advanced for Secondary Two comprehension. Too many convoluted sentences that make it even harder to comprehend the convoluted arguments; Lewis's writing requires a certain degree of prescience and precedence to understand, I think. On the one hand, you need to read really carefully and be perceptive about how he uses language. But on the other hand, there is also a sense that you'll really only fully appreciate his writing if you already know, on some level, what he is talking about. Your individual past then becomes a key to unlocking his text; his work becomes a catalyst to vocalise things that you already knew but never formally understood why.

But to ask Sec 2 kids to do this is a bit much, I think. I see massive moderation in the near future.

Anyway, in between ticking scripts, I've also had my last lesson with my ProEd class. I'm going to have to give them back to their real teacher because she's returning to work tomorrow. A part of me doesn't want to, even though one less class means that I have 10 periods a week only, and on Thursdays and Fridays my work commitments effectively end at 9.30am. It's only been four weeks, but I feel like we've established some kind of rapport and working standard, which, I think - I hope - has given rise to steadily improving abilities. I am training them to use English, but on another level I also want them to learn to be writers, and I think I see the beginnings of promise in that aspect. And anyway, you don't work with people for four weeks without forming a sort of attachment to them. And all this will be taken away soon, for better or for worse.

But I've finished my piece, I've said what I wanted to say, and everything's set to make a clean break. And soon, my 2F stint will become the stuff of memory and nostalgia. I hope they remember what I've said.

And also, tomorrow, YJ is going to fly off to Melbourne to start his medical course there. Had a farewell thing for him yesterday, starting in the afternoon. The guys had dinner, I believe, but due to my comprehension commitments I only joined them after that, at KHwee's place. And it was a night of Munchkins and poker; for myself, not understanding very well how poker works, I fell asleep at 2am, to the sound of chips chattering their way from hand to hand, shouts of surprise and cries of dismay forming the crescendoes of the table.

It occurs to me that YJ is only the second of our class to leave, the first having been Sots on the PSC scholarship two years ago - our China classmates notwithstanding, of course. After all this waiting, after all this time, we are finally starting down the next leg of our journeys. With one foot on the new path, and one last glance backwards - I imagine that every time someone leaves. We move forward, always moving forward, but we will come back. Our path may take us elsewhere and far away, but we have already seen our destination and know that someday coming back will be necessary.

Heh, I know I shouldn't wax lyrical about these guys. It does them a disservice, in a way, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't stand for it for an instant. So I'll say this straight out - I don't know what the effect of up to a year apart will have on the solid bonds that we still have after almost five years out of our old class. The last time we parted, I had not expected anything to remain after the first year, and thank God that I was shown to be so sorely mistaken. This time round, the conditions are again radically different, but I find grounds for hope. And whether or not the hope will turn out to be disappointing or surprising, I find that having the grounds for hope itself is already a privilege in this often dark and uncertain world. And this privilege - these people - they make me feel ridiculously lucky.

*

I haven't been out on a Sunday morning since I finished Army, and this morning, between leaving KHwee's place and going to church, I had one glorious hour filled with the early clarity of morning sunlight. The day, empty of happenings and still being birthed, seemed clean and promising. Anything was possible; later, these options would narrow down and close themselves off one by one, but at that time everything was still yet to be. And walking through the streets of Kembangan, I was mesmerised by the play of light on the buildings and the roads, on the people stirring in the quiet streets and the traffic whispering in the distance. I haven't had a moment of such clarity since the time I booked out on Good Friday and found my way, that morning, at Marina Bay. To recapture it this morning was magical and breathtaking.