Birthday celebrations has always been a hassle, ever since secondary school days. This definitely has everything to do with the misfortune of my birth date falling within the exam season. And not just any exam season, but the exam season. The dreaded final lap where your past misdeeds in class finally catch up with you and the "Make it or break it!" signage looms ominously overhead without respite.
It wasn't so much the fact that you can't exactly celebrate the day but truly, the cruelty is having to work twice as hard on that day. Besides bemoaning your parents for not conceiving you on a more considerate date, you also desperately looked forward to the day where you can progress from a phase plagued with examinations to another where your life no longer revolve around semestral assessments and that you may finally celebrate your birthday in a dignified manner.
It must have slipped my mind then, the year I pledged myself to the Ministry of Education that I would uphold honour and integrity in the discharge of my duties as a teacher. The second phase of life I was so looking foward to, now entails roughly 200x the amount of examination preparation required in phase one, within the same cursed season, on an annual basis.
Two years sped by without many distinctive memories of how the special day was spent. In the next couple of years, the day was only remembered after it was past. Five years in the service, the day ceased to be special.
But over the years many have tried to put the day together for you. There's your parents, guilty as charged though they were, appealed to you to travel home to have a bowl of the customary mee sua with hardboiled egg. ("Sorry Mum, but paper is really due in a day, can't I trade up for an angbao instead please?"). There's the group of best-friends-forever-colleagues who assured you they have your birthday in mind all the while, and they really have prepared a present for you, when you can see that they are up to guts level in papers and marking. You mumbled some ineffectual "It's ok, don't worry please!" wishing they'd just forget the inconvenient day. There is hubby-dearest too, who'd bravely attempted to keep up with the birthday cake cutting and candles blowing affair. Apart from forgetting the candles on one occasion, and leaving behind the cake altogether on another, killer-looks stating "Stay away! Papers in progress. Grrrrrrrr!" must have finally taken their toil on the poor man, for him to despair and humbly surrender by the 4th or 5th year. There is also the particularly sweet little boy who could be coaxed into singing you a birthday song over the phone, which, more often than not, only accentuates the loneliness on this day.
And then came the students.
Students: a species definitely not of the human race, possesses none of the intellectual capacities nor restraints commonly acknowledged as virtues in humans. Before morphing into adults, they appeared incapable of receiving instructions that include terminologies such as "NO", "DO NOT" and "NO WAY". That first year you were caught off guard with their enthusiasim and proffered 4kg fresh fruit cake. Upon recovery, you thanked them with a stern look and admonished them with a "please don't do it again." This second year they turned up with what appeared like twice the number of students and two cakes. As 40+ students belted out a raucous version of "Happy Birthday to You!", you just didn't know what to say. There is something incredibly touching about a bunch of students sneaking off to get cake for your birthday. It gave you belief that you might have done something which meant something to them afterall. This something might not bring them every success in life, it might not stretch them very far, but while it lasted, it was enough for a couple of kids to dash out on a wet afternoon and bring back a cake for your birthday.
28 September will always be a beautiful date to Mrs Soon because You have been very good to her.
Thank you class.
It wasn't so much the fact that you can't exactly celebrate the day but truly, the cruelty is having to work twice as hard on that day. Besides bemoaning your parents for not conceiving you on a more considerate date, you also desperately looked forward to the day where you can progress from a phase plagued with examinations to another where your life no longer revolve around semestral assessments and that you may finally celebrate your birthday in a dignified manner.
It must have slipped my mind then, the year I pledged myself to the Ministry of Education that I would uphold honour and integrity in the discharge of my duties as a teacher. The second phase of life I was so looking foward to, now entails roughly 200x the amount of examination preparation required in phase one, within the same cursed season, on an annual basis.
Two years sped by without many distinctive memories of how the special day was spent. In the next couple of years, the day was only remembered after it was past. Five years in the service, the day ceased to be special.
But over the years many have tried to put the day together for you. There's your parents, guilty as charged though they were, appealed to you to travel home to have a bowl of the customary mee sua with hardboiled egg. ("Sorry Mum, but paper is really due in a day, can't I trade up for an angbao instead please?"). There's the group of best-friends-forever-colleagues who assured you they have your birthday in mind all the while, and they really have prepared a present for you, when you can see that they are up to guts level in papers and marking. You mumbled some ineffectual "It's ok, don't worry please!" wishing they'd just forget the inconvenient day. There is hubby-dearest too, who'd bravely attempted to keep up with the birthday cake cutting and candles blowing affair. Apart from forgetting the candles on one occasion, and leaving behind the cake altogether on another, killer-looks stating "Stay away! Papers in progress. Grrrrrrrr!" must have finally taken their toil on the poor man, for him to despair and humbly surrender by the 4th or 5th year. There is also the particularly sweet little boy who could be coaxed into singing you a birthday song over the phone, which, more often than not, only accentuates the loneliness on this day.
And then came the students.
Students: a species definitely not of the human race, possesses none of the intellectual capacities nor restraints commonly acknowledged as virtues in humans. Before morphing into adults, they appeared incapable of receiving instructions that include terminologies such as "NO", "DO NOT" and "NO WAY". That first year you were caught off guard with their enthusiasim and proffered 4kg fresh fruit cake. Upon recovery, you thanked them with a stern look and admonished them with a "please don't do it again." This second year they turned up with what appeared like twice the number of students and two cakes. As 40+ students belted out a raucous version of "Happy Birthday to You!", you just didn't know what to say. There is something incredibly touching about a bunch of students sneaking off to get cake for your birthday. It gave you belief that you might have done something which meant something to them afterall. This something might not bring them every success in life, it might not stretch them very far, but while it lasted, it was enough for a couple of kids to dash out on a wet afternoon and bring back a cake for your birthday.
28 September will always be a beautiful date to Mrs Soon because You have been very good to her.
Thank you class.
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