In Continuum.

Nina

Standing just a few inches above my shoulders, Nina would stumble into the classroom with a bag that almost always seems too big for her. And that is saying a lot, since she already has a broad and stalky physique. She reminds me of a tree with a thick stem sometimes, rooting itself to the ground at the front of the class. It'd take quite some effort to move her, and that is not even the strongest aspect of this woman in relative to her ideas and opinions. It was the first day of school when she crashed through the door - almost literally, under the weight of the stack of notes - into the classroom with students that were uncomfortably quiet.

I remember the way her dark figured loomed over the lot of us. Thelast teacher that looked remotely like Nina was boo-ed out of the classroom by my class back in Secondary School. I hardly remember her name now - probably because of how bad she was as a teacher. She was a substitute teacher for chemistry because our original teacher was away on maternity leave or something. Because of a shortage of teachers back then, we were given a teacher fresh out of NIE - and you probably know what that means. When you have a newbie teacher straight out of training school and into an all-boys school, it'd be as good as throwing a handicapped man into the military. It was an ultimate torture for her, and it didn't help that she is probably the worst teacher I have ever met. So a few curses were thrown at her, along with paper balls made from torn yearbooks. It was pretty chaotic, and she left the school the day after.

For the next few weeks, my fears were dissipated soon enough, with the distance between herself and the students closing with every lesson. It became more like a gathering of sorts than a lesson, like a conversation with a good friend over a cup of coffee perhaps. After all, English lessons aren't supposed to resemble a morgue in the first place. That was the case back in my older school days, when nobody enjoyed those long dreadful lessons on a random weekday afternoon. Nobody cared too much about grammar, adjectives, conjunctions and punctuations. Everybody cared only about whether our watches were synchronized with one another's, so that we'd be able to count down to the end of the class together. In Nina's class, nobody wanted to lessons to stop, nobody wanted the next lesson to start. Because over the weeks, we became great friends with one another, comfortable with each others' presence and were genuinely interested in everything she had to say.

Most of us must have remembered the day when she came into class with a box of chocolates, telling us to finish every piece before the quiz started. It was a box of home-made chocolates, and I asked Nina if there was a catch involved. 'No, no catch' she said, and told us how to make chocolates. Those chocolates were probably the mbest home-made chocolates I have ever tasted, and I told her that the moment the coated layer melted like snow flakes on my tongue. I mean, how many teachers actually make chocolates for their students for no reasons at all? It was a couple of weeks before mid terms, even further away from the final terms, and I saw no reason why she did whatever she did. She made them because she felt like it, she said, and I thought that was really cool of her - going that extra mile not as a teacher but as a friend. I mean, my friends don't even make chocolates for me on a random basis.

Part of the reason why I enjoyed my first taste of university life is probably because of this very woman. I personally believe that a large part of school life is based on the kind of teachers you get, more than the sort of friends that you make. You can make friends at a local coffee place, at the mall, at the library, or in a bar with cups of beer in hand. You can have the same kind of company anywhere, but that is not the case for teachers at all. You don't come across teachers that you feel comfortable with, or teachers whom you feel like you can cross that distance and be friends with. Mr. Ragu came close last time, but I never felt that connection between the two of us. He was interesting, but he always maintained that distance between the student body and himself. Nina however, crossed that distance and made us feel at home altogether - something that I am rather grateful of.

There is a reason why - when told about my ESL tutor - people from other classes would have their faces filled with much envy and jealousy. After all, Nina is famous for being - cool. There are times when you tell yourself," Wow, this thirty-something woman with a child is cooler than I am!" But then again, it's one of those things you forgive yourself for, because it really is pretty tough to top somebody like Nina. She is not hesitant to share her ideas and thoughts with the class, even if they might not be the most conventional of ideas. That is something I feel, that is lacking in a lot of teachers in Singapore. After all, I think the English language really requires to expand your horizon, and not have your views confined by what the society tells you to think, or wants you to think. She is the kind of person who follows her ideals, never allowing anybody or anything to come in the way of her procrastination.

At the end of the day, it was inevitable for us to part. It was the last lesson of the semester, and there was a silent gloom in the air. I didn't want the lesson to end, nor did the rest of us that enjoyed her classes immensely. All that is left after the class would be what you have learned, and what you have experienced, which is pretty much it. You can't have her all through your education life, because that'd be selfish of us. I guess for me, there are more things than just the skills I've learned, but also this friendship that I've created with her as well as the rest of the class. She is probably the only teacher I'm going to say," Want to grab a cup of tea?" if I meet her on the streets one day.

On the card that we secretly wrote to her, I thanked her for all the time that she dedicated to the class - despite it being just a part of her job. I wrote about how her nickname for me - chin - isn't the most flattering name in the world, simply because it means 'penis' in Japanese. However, I did thank her for being the kind of teacher that I've dreamed of, the kind of friend that I love, and the kind of person that I respect whole-heartedly. This is the moment where we head our own ways, and I dearly hope that you will be a hundred percent Nina, and so much more.

Thanks for being - you. Really.