Sore Throat and Addtional Worries

I've been feeling really drained every day and my voice has degenerated into a low growl because a flu and a sore throat combined just took the fight completely out of it.

Taught a class yesterday and the blessed little things were giggling at the hoarse gutteral sounds that issued from my throat.

After that we brought the normal technical class for their national education trip to the merlion, and I finally learnt the significance behind the merlion! The lion's head represents Sang Nila Utama, who discovered Singapore, and the fish boday represents the fishing village that Singapore used to be.

I just reread what I had written and discovered that I'd used "boday" instead of "body". Curse these weird secondary school keyboards!

Anyway, the boys were totally uninterested in what the tour guide were saying, and it didn't help that he was pretty old and he didn't understand them. He didn't try to meet them at their level, and used bombastic words like "entrepreneurship" and "innovation" and "emulation", which turned them completely off. They couldn't see the relevance of the tour at all, and a tour which was supposed to be interesting turned into a long lecture by the tour guide while the boys fooled around behind the class and muttered about him to themselves.

A funny Malay boy who creates a lot of trouble during class but who has a good heart (he was very tender to an old man during the visit to the old folks home) was making lots of noise during the tour guide's speech. I sat down next to him and he said he found it really boring (and I agree). "Maybe you find it boring, but give him some face lah," I suggested. "You're so charming but you don't choose to exercise your charm on him meh?"

"Cher, why you want me to give him my face lah cher?" He said with the funniest expression. "My face got only one so handsome, you want me to give him for what? I want to keep my face lah cher!"

Sadly, I couldn't control my laughter. Many of them smoke, and get into trouble because they bring cigarettes to school. So now they only smoke at home, and some of them are trying to quit but the others just don't see the point of it. They don't see the point of studying at all, and thinking long term is difficult for them.

We passed a grand old auntie sitting beside the Singapore River and puffing away on a thick cigarette, and the Malay boy said, "Hello Auntie! Auntie you smoke ah!" "You don't smoke meh?" The wrinkled auntie retorted nonchalently. "Auntie I do lah, at home, but here cannot because of - " and he pointed to his school uniform with a goofy look.

He isn't trying to quit, but I'm deliberating over what to say to him. I want to tell him that his face looks ashy and his lips are blacker than usual because of his habit, and I want to tell him that sometime soon he'll start getting breathless and tired more easily. But I don't want to hurt his feelings. So I'm still thinking about what to say.

I didn't know attachment was so tiring...