dictation

it's getting later and later into the night;
yet i'm still here, finishing my administrative work.
packing my bag, settling some stuff, and oh,
learning my stupid chinese dictation.
there's one long verse with about hundred plus words.
and it just reminds me of one person: Mdm Anna Lin.

when i was back in p6,
i had this saddistic teacher called Mdm Anna Lin.
well, her homework was something i couldn't use Ms Peh A-maths to compare with,
and she always come out with crazy ideas to 'torture' us.
like, oral practices, in which she insist us on MEMORISING the conversation;
and also something known as essay writing;
back then we had to write about 500 words. at least.
and also something known as newspaper reflection.
about 500 words also?

but no doubt she did use a child's play to torture us.

something known as dictation.

so, we had dictation about twice every week.
and we're suppose to memorise passages for dictations;
unlike the english ones in which you can talk cock and write cock.
every passage is about 100-200 words;
and usually we get about 20 passages for each dictation,
needless to say that there is two dictation every week.

to every primary school kid that might sound kind of ridiculous;
well that was my time back then.
teachers came about the hard way.

and everytime we'll always get so scared about dictation.
and also the consequences we'll face it we get a slight mistake.
you get to copy the sentence for at least 50 times.

of course, everytime we grumble and complain about her,
and also launch fireworks when she never came to school,
which was like once in a blue moon.
well, who the hell wants a saddist for a teacher?
and then we had about 3 practice papers every week-
those past year papers you spammed all the time back in primary school.
comprehension, composition...oral, dictation.

it was hell back then.

but i never knew the high heat melt me into a sharp sword.

her skills prove useful when time arises;
my good marks were the results.
all her newspaper reflection made my critical essays the best in the cohord;
all those oral practices made me a talented speaker.

ironically, those dictations not just only trained me the academic way,
memorising sciences and literature;
yet it came into handy use for memorising drill commands.

i must say i feel thankful to her for all the 'shit' i get in the past.

sometimes in life you only learn to cherish when things starts to show results.

frequently i looked for her back in my old school;
but not till six months ago.

she was one good mentor that taught me the way of life- literally.

and today i am a mentor myself;
teaching cadets, training them, preparing them.

i always thought what is the best module to get them improve in the fastest period.
but Mdm Lin's methods are just too handy to use.

those hardcore pumpings, non stop mark times;
chicken dances, one way route marching.

on the surface i know that my men hate these;
deep down in heart i know it is for the best of them.

perhaps when they realised everything,
i'm just like my teacher;
nowhere to be found.