Him and him

Him #1:
Yesterday, just half an hour before I knocked off, I was hanging around the office counter, chatting (and destressing) with some colleagues when the door swung open and L appeared. There are some youths that have a special place in my heart (I can't explain why), and L is one of them.

It was a surprise to see him, because we've always met in school and never at my centre. He is one of those rare cool, good-looking boys who never fail to earn secret compliments from me and my colleagues. Why, yes, we do look forward to eye candy at work!

He had come to "whine", as he so put it. He was demoralised that some teachers kept insisting that he was not good enough to take his O levels this year, and should have gone to ITE instead. I hardly get angry for students, because I usually try to take an objective stance. But yesterday, I was really quite angry, because this was a student who once attended school for only half a year and decided that that needed to change because he wanted to work hard for his N levels.

He did well enough for his N levels to be promoted to Sec 5, and now he is being discouraged from pursuing his Os. He even tells me: "I wouldn't have come back to school if I wasn't serious about my O levels right?"

Angry!

Him #2:
Today, I received an unexpected phone call from A, another of those rare cool, good-looking boys. For 15 minutes, the 17-year-old was bellowing over the phone and his voice was hoarse from all the shouting. I really felt for him, the sense of never being good enough for his guardians, knowing that he has nothing left in this world except these guardians whom he feels blames him for coming into their lives. It was a very, very sad phonecall for me. I truly did not know what to say, except to listen to him go on and on, expletives and all.

Heartwrenching...