Tutor . Part 9
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Continued from previous blog post
That was when I thought to myself, yeah, My Dad loves me, too. 🙂
And so, about two years later, during my sophomore year, it was when my gold watch was “snatched” from me by a thief, as I was about to get on board a bus to school, I was devastated!
Anyway, the memory of that watch, stayed and what that watch represented in my mind, nobody could steal. 🙂
So fast forward back to the story of me telling my Mom, the first real mature decision I have ever made.
Tutor
I was crying when I gave my Mom my report card. And I was apologizing because I felt I failed everyone. First Quarter grade of D (1 point) in Algebra. Second Quarter, with a private tutor, a grade of F in Algebra, then in the Third Quarter, still with a private tutor, a grade of F, again, in Algebra. And in order for me to pass that grade, and advance on the next level grade, I had to get at least a B (3 points).
But I told my Mom to fire my private tutor. Because if I was to pass Algebra, I would have to learn and understand it. ON MY OWN. Because I am on my own when I take those exams that I have been very successful at flunking. Hence my report card. I guess the private tutor didn’t really help me, if anything, she just answered my take home assignments for me. LOL!
It was then that I realized that in order to pass critical exams, I have to exercise independent critical thinking.
It wasn’t just “I’m the teacher, listen to me,” because if I just listened, if I didn’t understand what I was hearing, then it won’t make sense. And it won’t matter.
I remember that episode of me crying to my Mom, telling her to fire my private tutor, because it was a waste of money, I wasn’t learning, and that the learning depended on me. And I will personally try harder and if I am to flunk and go to summer school, then I was apologizing like crazy. I felt guilty because I knew how much my parents were spending for my private schooling. (and the rest of my other siblings, all my brothers went to private boys schools, too, so did my sisters).
And then one of my older brothers (he is now a Mechanical Engineer), who was one of the brothers who loved to torture and tease me and make me cry as I was growing up just spoke to me “like an older brother”…. he was also studying and he just had a quick snack in the kitchen when he overheard me bawling and crying to my Mom on the dining table.
… “What the heck’s your problem?!!! Stop being a cry baby! Stop crying!!”
And so I told him. And still crying.
TOK! (That was the sound of his knuckles hitting the back of my skull! LOL! Smack on the head!)
“Didn’t I tell you to stop crying?!!!! Blow your nose! Wash your face!”
We are not a “huggy huggy”, most definitely not a “hugs and kisses” family. 🙂 at least not while we were growing up. I don’t remember any of my parents ever hugging any of us children, or at least, not me. I guess it was like a “generational” thing… some of my classmates growing up also had the same type… maybe it’s cultural, I don’t know.
Continued on next blog post
Related Articles:
The Basics . Part 1
Final Answer . Part 2
Varsity . Part 3
Clique . Part 4
Perks . Part 5
Complex . Part 6
Quarter . Part 7
Graduation . Part 8
Tutor . Part 9
So What . Part 10
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