Alma matters

One of the great and fun activities during Hari Raya is visiting friends and relatives, including people we wouldn't normally visit in our daily life, such as teachers from our alma mater. They would mostly be at home and there is no need for an excuse since people are expected to visit, and not to mention the free foods. Another activity that is more exciting, if not equal, is when the teachers commented on how their pupils and students have changed after the years. Unfortunately I didn't have the opportunity to visit any of mine during the recent Hari Raya, which makes the experience in 2008 to be more valuable.

There were eight of us I think, having a chat at Madam Wan's house, when someone asked her about the changes in us. When it came to my turn, she said that I was no different than the last time she met me, which was almost 4 years before that.
"You?" she asked rhetorically, tilting her head a bit which is familiar to all her students, "I rase you tak berubah." (Yes, she uses KL slang)
It was quite a surprise hearing that, as I believe I have changed in a few aspects during the time I've left the school. However considering the fact that she knows me very well, I accepted her words and they remain in my memory as a bit of unusual comment.

During my first year in Syed Putra, there is this class that always goes back very late on Tuesday, which is chicken day. It is the day the dining hall served chicken at lunch, which was like the tastiest dish in the whole week and also meant the food will be less than enough. The students from the aforementioned class normally complained that it's their English teacher who was at fault, releasing them much too late hence causing them to miss the chicken. At that time I thought she must be a very wicked and garang teacher, to apply such a horrible mean of toture. Three years later when I was in my honeymoon year, or so they called, another class happen to suffer the same fate. Much to my confusion however, the students are mostly laughing by the time we rush by for lunch. It remained a mystery to me, until in form five when Madam Wan became our English and class teacher.

The class responded quite cordially the first few weeks but after a while the class began to grow warm to her happy conducts and pleasant manner. The complaints on how we missed our all-important-chicken-on-Tuesday began to grow less frequent as the day passed. I myself was quite okay with her, as in my past experience I was always easy to avoid trouble with the English teachers. Madam Wan then started to assign us to write essays to give to her. I can't remember the themes but I think the first fews was about childhood memories or something that can be written from personal experience. It is a good way to start people to write because it is much easier to relate a story from the past than to write an analytical essay. However I, who was never comfortable telling about myself to people, wrote  fictitious stories, normally of problems and dilemma, which ends with someone dead at the end(I still do it nowadays). After two essays, she wrote comments on my essay, something about my stories not following the idea of the title/theme, which I perceive was not in her approval.

Afterwards I went to met her personally, where she talked me into writing something real(AND logic) about my life. So I wrote about my house and gave it to her for correcting, followed by comments and questions from her about me.This repeated itself and it was not long before my face became a familiar face at the teacher's room during recess. Tea during recess consisted of some kind of kuih that is in nature mostly unsavory which is naturally disliked by the students(and sometime barbarically thrown at the television in the dining hall). Hence it was nothing to me to miss eating at recess, though sometimes it worries Madam Wan that she offered me some of the food she bought.

English class has always been quite fun to me but English in form five was in fact very fun, and less stressful in comparison. Madam Wan gave less laborious exercise and sometimes during class when we did Latih Tubi, she would left the class to our own device. During times I finished the exercises earlier than the others, I would cautiously lay my head on the table, and sleep. My friends normally warned of her return but one day I heard a voice asking, "Mengantuk ke Faris?" I sprang up and saw her walking to her desk, without looking at me. I began to busy myself, looking at the exercise when she added, "Faris, kalau dah siap, nak tido, tido lah."
I shyly continued as if I heard nothing. Later the same thing happened but that time she asked what I was reading under the desk, which received a fast thrust of my hand under the table and a zipped, apologetically smiling mouth. After a while she stopped saying anything to me when she came back and discovered me doing anything in my 'free' time, so it became very fun to me. I did my works quickly and the rest of the time I spent it 'wisely'. Best kan?

Another memorable part was when the whole class got low marks in an English test(I think it was trial) due to strict new marking system. I got 69 marks for that test, which warranted a plea for extra marks, right? Madam Wan however said forefront that no extra marks will be added to lower the bar. As usual during recess I went to the teachers' room that day, bringing along with me the test paper. We talked as normal and I asked a few questions regarding the exams but as I was about to leave I decided to ask for an extra mark. She did gave me the extra point, which sent me beaming back to my class. However later she came to the class and said it is not fair for her to give only to me one mark. She decided to give it to the whole class, so everybody's mark was raise by one, which for those getting 58 and X8 etc, was raised to X9.
"Ala, lagi satu markah ja lagi pulak," one of my friend blurted out, before he realized Madam Wan's looking at his face.
"Fine," she said. She ended giving everyone two extra points.

It was apparent that I spent a lot of time talking to her and in the end I opened up, asking her for opinions on important and irrelevant things. She's like a second mother to not only me, but most of her students and we turned to her in most of our confusions, as adolescent is full of those. She's also one of the one who made me chose Engineering over Medicine(no, she didn't say anything bad about medics), which is considerably a turning point in my life. In short she played quite an influence in my 23 years of life.
Thank you Madam Wan.
Selamat Hari GURU! (yeah teacher's day is in May and this post is intentionally published in October but hey, I just feel like it and it doesn't matter what's the date, right?)



I've missed the chance to visit her during the past Hari Raya and though I haven't contacted her more than a year now, it is just hard sometimes to reach out to meaningful people, especially your teacher.
I guess she was right after all.
I haven't changed much.

5 Baiduri Dinner

Here's a dorky me, with Madam Wan. 

Standing is the ever small Nat. Thanks Nat for the aggravation, making me look away from the camera. Grr.