ESL Blogs

          There was a drizzle when I came back home from my student's house! It was even not heavy enough to wet my hair, but helped cool down the hot weather of the coming summer in Hanoi. The tiny raindrop touched my face and my arms, quickening my steps to get home early.

　　　　Unfortunately, the hunger slowed my pace down, so I dropped into a street store to buy some bread to satisfy my rebellious stomach. The stores were all crowded with students and clerks, so it was really hard for me to find a store which has few customers at the end of the street. Though the buyers were sparse, it still took me about fifteen minutes to wait for my turn. While I was waiting, I recalled this morning class when all my classmates were eager to discuss my close friend's new online shop. Our "respected entrepreneur" was image-conscious and fashionable, but she was so clumsy that everyone decided to help her. Our monitor and some other girls were assigned to shipping, I was in charge of marketing (promoting her online shop on my social networking sites), some other girls were responsible for modeling. Who could imagine that an online seller had no accounts or emails on any social networking sites? It was really hard work for a new, inexperienced marketing manager (me), so I even had not finished up my meal before going to work.

"Hey sister. Here you are", called the seller.

　　　　Chewing a small piece of bread in my mouth, my student's question resounded in my head, "Are you terrified of gaining weight?" It was my habit to weigh myself whenever I came to my student's house because her mother, an overweight woman, bought an electric scale to keep track of her weight. Today, when coming there, there was a cute child whom I never met before greeted me, "Co, co". Two years ago, when children called me "co", I was so embarrassed because I was just a small student, not yet a teacher. However, I was now so happy when children called me that.

　　　　I must say I was not a good teacher today, but both student and teacher were happy, I suppose. Instead of learning English, we discussed physics. My student has taught me an important piece of knowledge. I thought Michael Faraday was the one who invented the first recorder. However, it was my student that let me know Thomas Edison was the inventor, not Faraday. I recalled a simple experiment when I was at high school. I told him to rub the ruler to the jeans so that it could attract small pieces of paper. He was so interested in it because it was new and also because he did not have to learn boring English.

- What is this phenomenon?

　　　　I was speechless because I did not remember it belonged to magnetic field or electric field, "I don't know. But is this funny?"

- Yeah, definitely.

　　　　Bidding my student goodbye, once again, the little child prattled goodbye to me, in a very funny manner, "Co, are you going home?"

- Yeah, I am. Bye bye.

　　　　I replied him in a very nice, lovely voice. This was the first time I found myself so sweet and coddling to another person, especially to a child instead of being cold-hearted and rude. Some days ago, my friend told me, "When you love someone, you will be naturally lovely without being urged". In this case, it is not that kind of love, but my good affection for the lively child also gave me a strong sense of loveliness. I may be hopeful about myself.

　　　　The drizzle has stopped, and the weather is cool. It is an ideal weather condition to have a nice sleep until 10 am tomorrow or more, I suppose. What a self-satisfactory feeling!