My renaissance

   There is always a point in life when one experiences down fall and being strong is the only way left. It brings back memories of my primary school days. My first three years of primary school wasn't what you would call ideal for a kid from a Chinese family.(you know those strict and stern typical Chinese families) I spent those years in a somewhat relaxed state as everyone in my family were busy and so they paid no heed to what I did. Since I had a strong basic due to my years of dedicated work during my preschool years (mastering BM through doraemon comics, English with Enid blyton and maths --sadly thru mental arithmetics classes which I dreaded and was forced to attend) I basically understood everything taught in class except for mandarin. In the end, the endless boring homework started to bore me ,hence I began to slack off. And as soon as teachers started teaching advance stuff beyond what I knew , my grades began to drop. 

   Teachers would make me stand in class or go to the office to see then personally (sometimes due to my disastrous handwriting) I remember at one point, a teacher snapped and gave me a lecture in class. I stood. My hand fidgeting and in the back of my head , a little voice urged me to say :" thank you for the lecture 谢谢老师的教诲" . I don't know where it came from since I know I was far from admitting that doing homework was good for me . But after the teacher finished her lecture and just stood there and stared at me in a disappointed , I mustered up all the courage and recited the words the little voice told me to say. Immediately, I saw the teacher's stern facade crumble replaced with a soft expression of relieve (and initial shock) *haha*  and in a soft voice, she told me to seek for help if I needed it and granted me permission to sit down.
   
    She probably said something else afterwards but I couldn't remember what . Anyways, since standard 4 onwards I was always in top ten. Was it because Of that insane 10 seconds of guts with  the teacher? Honestly nope. I still flunked my homework every now and then . But it was nice to know that someone was genuinely worried about my academics. 

 

   I started paying attention to my classes in standard 4. From rock bottom during the trials, I ranked 9th from previous 19th. I remember doing a victory jump followed by my signature peace pose before strutting over to get my result slip from my class teacher. I remember she announced it in a way that was something like " and the biggest surprise of all... " something like that. 

     
 I was what you would call a dedicated student who brought big and heavy dictionaries to tuition . But in all honestly, I think the academic improvement was due to my sister's threat of transferring me to some other school if I don't do well in exams. But yeah, no one knew. It was kind of sad that no one came for my report card ._. My best friend's dad had to get it for me since my parents were busy. 

 

 But I knew that 10 sec of insane guts left a mark in my classmates memories when our standard 6 strict science teacher ranted about how he never had a student who thanked him for his lecturing. And right that moment, I heard whispers of my name going around the class . (Should I be happy? I really don't know) 

   Do I regret slacking homework during those first few years? Hell no. I learnt so much more while I'm not wasting my time doing meaningless homework . I spent it reading books, crafting, reading books, and more crafting. Of course loads of TV as well, which taught me more about ethics and general knowledge than school can ever teach. 

   Making stuff always brought me joy. I learnt how to play alone and spend time with myself. (Truth to be told,wasn't good at socialising till I joined scouts and other activities.) Those years are valuable as I invested time in me .