masterwordsmith-unplugged

This afternoon, I had tea with my goddaughter, Kat, and another former student, Daniel Jones at Swensen's, Queensbay Mall, Penang.

I taught Daniel Sociology and Economics (1990-1994) while Kat was my Economics student (1994-1996). As a young teenager, Daniel was very outspoken, cheeky and needless to say, very intelligent as well. I always knew that he would be successful in his career path one day and he is a force to be reckoned with in the banking/investment industry. Most of the guys in his cohort such as Kevin Lin, Ted Wen, Michael Huang, Hung-Ta (all from Taiwan), Soon Rhee, Nizam (Penang, KL) , Dr. Adrian Eng, Yee Liang and Jarod Ko ( all three in Australia) are happily married with one or two kids. It is my prayer that Daniel will settle down soon and have a brood of his own.

Kat has always been the lovely girl whom I love very much. She and her cousin Maybelene (who was also my Economics student - is currently pursuing her PhD in Economics at University of California, Davis) are my goddaughters and I look at them as if they were my own. I have seen Kat grow from a shy teenager into a very beautiful young lady who has so much love to give. I wrote about her in another post last week.
Today, we had a lovely afternoon at Swensen's just talking and listening to classical music. Are we mad? Not really. Daniel is a budding opera singer in Singapore and specializes in Italian arias. With his Vaio laptop, he introduced us to his favorite opera singers and we discussed The Marriage of Figaro, Carmen and Così fan tutte, as well as The Magic Flute and marvelled at how singers such as Pavarroti had the best enunciation in his singing. Amazingly, Daniel tried to convince us as to how Andrea Bocelli is not a genuine classical singer as he cannot hit the high notes and how his breathing may not be necessarily correct :-).

Not only is Daniel an opera singer cum banker but he is a fantastic photographer,who has been trying to convince me to get a good SLR camera :-), and also a fantastic cook, having worked as a chef for two years during his student years in Australia. When he showed me pics of his pineapple tarts and shared his exploits about how he made his layer cake with his mom, memories of my very pale layer cake came to mind (er...I took it out of the oven quite prematurely!!! and each time, my timing was wrong as I was always afraid that the cake would get burnt!!).

With all the talk about operas, singers from Pavarotti to Il Divo to Sinatra to Natalie Cole to Diana Krall, we agreed that we had to unleash the singer within us and belt it out at a karaoke session so hopefully, we will get a place to sing together (with others of course) at the top of our voices tomorrow!!!

It is always so lovely to meet up with my former students and I guess that is the greatest reward in teaching -to have the opportunity to mold minds, build lives, to strengthen relationships, to give of ourselves and our love to each other and to know that years down the road, the ties that bind cannot be broken. Here's another pic of Daniel, Patrick, Ganesh, Lee Yin and me at another reunion recently.
So to Daniel, Kat and my former students out there, especially those in cyberspace, please know that you all have a very special place in my hearts and I miss you all!!!! My life is richer cos our paths crossed and our shared experiences will always be very precious to me.