They're almost gone...

The corridors are quiet as the school gets ready to wind down on the second last day of the school term.

The staff room is quiet, except for a few teachers shuffling about. Outside, it is unusually silent. Perhaps because of the O level practical exam tomorrow, no one seems to be around, not even the Sec 4's, who were still hanging around school in the afternoon last week.

Last week, I watched some of the Sec 4's as they took a break from their studying and played captain's ball, haze notwithstanding. They were squealing and screaming, their young shirll voices reverberating through the damp air.

"I'm going to miss them," I thought to myself, and steeled myself to walk away from what to me was a scene of inexplicable melancholy. Just put on your ear phones and walk on by and don't feel so much.

A colleague shared with me today the sense of rejection she felt when a student who had been confiding in her for the last 4 years suddenly became very curt towards her.

"Is that what it's like when your child grows up and finds you irritating?" she asked me.

I suppose so. My students haven't told me to mind my own business. But now, knowing they have got newfound wings, and are going to leave me soon, and that I'll soon be a distant memory to them, you can't help wondering -- perhaps a teacher really shouldn't feel too much for her students. Just sayang them when they're in your care, and when it's time, send them on their way, with your prayers. Parting is inevitable.