they say people change part deux

when i was 10, my english teacher, who was also my form teacher, wrote a neat little comment in my report card.

"gregory is an intelligent boy who speaks his mind, and would do well to be more meticulous and put more effort in his mother tongue."

besides that the results were ok. class conduct was Good. i nosed around and found some Very Good's and a few Excellent's. i quickly came to the conclusion that owning a penis automatically limited one's potential to obtaining a Good title. well except for that superquiet dork guy. he got Excellent. what a dork. this was lesson one in gender equality for me. anyway i digress, back to that teacher's comment...

so when people write critiques on you, you tend to see only the things you want to see. well maybe not you. maybe its just a me thing. im weird--no, special that way. o shit, digressing again. stop distracting me. anyways. well my special brain automatically disconnected my eyeballs after the comma--its about mother tongue for pete's sake. who cares about chinese. i dont eat rice; i eat potatoes. well i didnt actually think like that 12 years ago, just that in hindsight, now i realise what my subconscious was telling me: greg, effort and mother tongue does not a meaningful sentence make! and whats with this "meticulous". do you know how hard it is for a ten year old boy to match up to this word? its a stupendous, horrendous, incredulous, not to mention a completely ridiculous feat. now any or all of those four would have been more fair for someone of my gender and age bracket in 1998.

and then, there was this part about me speaking my mind. i didnt really understand that part. but i tried to--

is she trying to say that i spoke whatever came to my mind? or..hold on--maybe shes referring to my great ideas coming from my great mind? after all i am an intelligent boy?

WOW i was totally loving my teacher at this point, until i went home and showed the report card to the folks and--well if you know what happened to narcissus, you know the ending to my horror story.

the denouement: wow i was totally hating my teacher the next day. thanks alot, ms geetha. i went from intelligent boy with unique vocal confidence to boy with no-mother-tongue-only-glib-tongue. cut my life into pieces why dont you...ohh the tragedy.

okay enough wallowing in the pitiable past--fast-forward a decade. im 22. ahh much has changed hasnt it. lets see...still a fucking smartass, still unrestrained in opinion--ok this isnt looking good--still lazy, still suck at chinese, still only Good but not Very Good. holy crap, nothing has changed hasnt it? man, im horrible at this life thing! oh well look on the bright side--at least i still have my penis.

yeah i just checked.

hows that for meticulous?