Billy

My mother, when I called her handphone from my old place, asked me, "Where are you now?" Hi, Mother, what's the point of having caller-id? Sometimes my mother asks the darndest things.

I was browsing at PageOne at VivoCity just now. (Sidetrack: I think can spend hours in there just looking at books, and wandering about. I just love books. One day, I'm going to have a room just filled with books and all my notes. Hoarder!)

So I was at PageOne just now. I caught sight of my mother out of the corner of my eye, and I walked towards her. However, when I reached the spot, she was gone. Thought she went up to the elevated area (Chinese books and Architecture), so I went up. And then I saw him. I actually stood there for a full minute, wondering if I should call my mother, or approach him. After internally debating, I walked up to him.

"Mr. M---!" He looked up, and smiled. "Heeeey! Oh my god, how long has it been! How are you??"

This is the man who tutored me for a good six years of my life, so you can say he saw me through adolescence. Then again, I was a good kid. Go to school, excited to go to tuition, then go home. Rinse and repeat.

This is the man whose opinion I trusted quite a fair bit, so when he said, "Go to VJC! You'll like it there!" I listened. You can say that without him, I wouldn't be here now. He managed to convince me to go to VJ, and that's quite a mean feat, cos back then I only wanted to go somewhere I was familiar with. I wanted to go to AJ cos half my classmates were going there. Like, seriously, almost the whole school wanted to go there. At that time, that was the best we could hope for. But he convinced me otherwise, and it's because of him that I went to VJ, and learnt for the first time that even though I know no one in a new place, I'll always make new friends. That's why I majored in Mathematics at NUS even though no one I knew was crazy/stupid/insane enough to.

I think without him, I wouldn't be where I am today. I'd have stuck with people I know, my world growing smaller and smaller because I'm too scared to step away from familiar things.

He's still a technology idiot, but he finally has a phone. He will never read this post, because he detests the internet and all other forms of modern tech, but still I need to say this, because I've never really realised this before.

Thanks so much for being my teacher, for guiding me through those years, and being a friend while maintaining the teacher-student relationship. Thanks for unknowingly nudging me towards the person I am today, and the teacher I will hopefully be some day. Thank you so much!!!