Friendship

What makes a person your friend? Money? Status? Or just the fact that he can make you laugh with his jokes?

Should friendship be limited to a bond formed between people of the same generation? Yes, it's easier to be closer to someone who is from the same generation as you do but do you ever try pushing the generation boundary further out? I mean it IS possible being friends with other people of different age group, right? So, I wonder why people don't normally do that. Isn't it great to be your parents' friend? Your boss's friend? And the most intriguing one, to me at least, is the bond between teachers and their students.

I was always curious about how far you could push the boundary or the limit in the teacher-student relationship. Of course, not to the extreme sex scandal-paedophile teacher kind of relationship. I mean it as an honest kind. Only until Form 6 that I realised it's actually possible to be close with your teacher or mentor. I always felt inferior when talking to teachers. It was during Form 2 or Form 3 when I first became close to Ms Ooi. But that time, I bet she treated us as just kids, I wonder what would it be like if she's still here. I'm still angry of the fact that I wasn't able to pay my last respect to her because of family occasion being near to the date of her funeral. Maybe it was then I started questioning the traditions and superstitions the Chinese practices.

Certainly, it's the bond between teachers and their students that causes me to make the decision to be a teacher myself. People always ask me, why not be a lecturer instead of being a school teacher. My answer would be the same, school teachers will get to interact with students more often and closer than lecturers do. Maybe it's just me not letting my school days go. But recently, I changed my mind to that perception. My supervisor proves me wrong. Lecturers DO interact with students quite closely if they want to. Most lecturers build a wall when they were talking to the students. Get past the wall and it will be a completely different thing. I've always try to get along with my teachers (the ones I think are nice people, of course) because you can see things at a different point of views from our generation. I'm glad I met Mr Ong in Form 6 but there was still a small hurdle there, maybe because he has a son of the same age group. Really feel like you can learn alot by being around the older people. Many people complained about their FYP lecturers but I'm just happy to have mine. Dr Hassan really helped me alot in my project. The fact that he said we were in a team of research rather than as supervisor and student during our first meeting makes me truly respect him already. And today, he told me that I am the first student who is ever this close to him and he treats me as a friend. Whoa! Feels damn appreciated and acknowledged! I'm not doing this to get good results or what, but I'm really curious how teachers can get connected to their students. I'm still desperately trying to figure that out with my students. Hard to get them to be more open to me. The problem might be them, might be me but one thing for sure, the fun of being a teacher is you're not going to be able to expect what is brought to the table.

One thing for certain, an educator is what I want to be, teacher, lecturer or tutor. Whatever it is, this will be my future. Can't wait to see what will happen!

*orb away*