On my way home I see students in colourful uniforms, chattering away, it must be exam time because the fragments of their conversation almost always involves….“Hey how did your paper go?” … “Not very good, I hope I make it through” or I see segments of what looks like question paper shredded into pieces all over the sidewalk….some poor student definitely did have a very bad, never-ending 3 hours in some cold hall.
I remember being there, having done that, it is strange but I can still taste that fear of result day, of wanting so much to have done well, but that gut sinking feeling that you could possibly be staying back in the same grade. “Oh God what will I do if I fail, all the kids will laugh at me…and my parents, they will be disappointed in me, I wonder if Dad will cane me?..” Oh I totally do remember the feeling.
Today I see these young faces and the past come flashing in multicolour. In them I still see the same hope, the same dream and the same desire to know what the future holds in store. They have the spirit to conquer the world and the innocence to believe that they can do it. How I envy that innocence, that spirit to keep going in the face of adversity.
It never fails to strike me as I walk pass them that they are my past and that I am their future. In a few years time they will be where I am, doing what I do and maybe even wondering what I wonder. It is half a circle of that full circle, one day when I am quite old I will walk pass a young officer and think “hey I have been through that….I
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