Snippets

Finally, i am able to rummage through a great deal of complex maths equations and come up with something for my next experiment. i thought i had lost it all, the derivation, integration, Diophantine identity, Taylor's expansion...etcetera.

Glad that i still have it due to my strong foundation back in my pre-uni days. This, i have to thank my dad. My dad instilled the importance of maths to my siblings and i since young. But back in those days when i was in primary, all that i thought of was to have fun in school (and after school) and i sucked in maths terribly. Since he was a maths teacher in secondary school, Dad would be furious if we did bad in the tests. I remembered that once i got 38 marks for my maths in Primary 4 and was so worried that my dad would freak out when he reviewed the paper. So, i only showed him the paper early in the morning when he wasn't fully awake,

"Dad, this is my maths paper. Erm, can you sign here...fast? I have to hurry, the bus is here." i used my left thumb to conceal part of the number "3" so that it looked like i scored "88" instead of "38" and pointed to the space for signature with my right index finger.

"What's your score?"

"Erm...88%" I lied.

"Good, here you go."

Sorry Dad, that I lied. Probably you knew that I was lying then, but you just let me off. I am grateful that you rescued me from the abyss with the intensive yet fun maths tuition classes from Sec 1 to Sec 3.

~*~

This new girl from China in my lab told me the other day that my spoken english is quite good. That very same day, my Singaporean friend from another lab told me that my "England is very powderful*." Thanks to my mum, for forcing me and my siblings to converse in English since young. And yes, my mum was a English teacher in secondary school. I remembered the entire Ladybird's Peter & Jane series my mum bought for us, the Enid Blyton's, Delight Magazines, The Star and New Straits Times, Reader's Digest...etcetera. Vividly, I could still recall the times when my mum made me sit on the kitchen floor and read the novel aloud, passage by passage while she cooked, stopping occasionally only to correct my pronunciation.

Now I understand how well you have prepared me for this world. Although i may not be the best, but I am far better off than most. Thanks for the head start, mum.

~*~

When you start to develop man-breast, it's either you are filthy rich and old, or you are not working out hard enough... I am not rich, so now, instead of playing badminton on Thursday and squash on Friday, i think i am going to start jogging in the morning before i go to school. But first thing first, need to buy a pair of sneakers.

~*~