Randomness

I decided to swallow my pride, stop ranting and be more patient with my older students, who are notorious for complaining about their grades. With eyes closed, I gave them the highest grade so that they wouldn't bug the living daylights out of me. I feel that I'm compromising what I believe in, but, I have no choice.

Aside from rectifying the grades, I have to stay. Stay. S-T-A-Y. Rinse. Repeat. Ok, this is another neuro-muscle that I need to flex. I need to inject this word into my system again. For someone who's always been left behind and now used to leaving, too, this is going to be a tough call.

Perhaps, there's no other way but to do this and it's part of my training for my next exam.

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On the penultimate day of family week, we had randomly travelled to a nearby province and met a long-time family friend who was in a financial slump and is undergoing dialysis treatment. In a nutshell, he was able to share that he had to ask his daughter to stop studying because he couldn't afford it anymore and he's worried that if she cannot continue her education, she will not be able to find a job if he would eventually pass away. I told him then that I could let him meet one of the school officials in charge of the Alternative Learning System once the new year rolled in.

Fast forward. He sends a text message to my sister asking if we could meet up after his dialysis treatment. Since my sister had a class, I volunteered to take him and good thing my dad also said that he'll come with us. So we finally met the department head and it was obvious that he felt that he really needed to help our friend's daughter not only by offering her the 10-month system for free and a job as his student assistant if she passes the exam. It was a relief for our family friend that his daughter could study, take the exam and hopefully pass to be able to skip a few year levels and go directly to college/university or work, if she should choose this option. 

After the meeting, I treated them to lunch before they went back to the province. It felt really great to be able to help them out. My dad said that he really pitied our family friend since the latter used to be really rich, as his family used to own a chain of supermarkets. Well, life is like a wheel, sometimes you're on top and sometimes you're not. And so the wheel turns...