I Was A Teacher - A Memoir (Part IV)

I WAS A TEACHER- A MEMOIR

(PART IV:  POST- TEACHING CAREER)

Every human-being's life secretly has in it a destiny.  Sometimes, destiny is like a ripe fruit which we just grab and eat.  Sometimes, destiny is like an angry storm whose devastation the more we try to avoid, the more aggressive and cruel it gets. When we are young and inexperienced, we are usually paranoid that we can change the whole world at our will. When we get older, we are more judicious, we learn how to accept what is unchangeable.  Anyway, in my opinion, destiny is overall fair to every human-being born into this world in the sense that when all doors have locked you in, it gives you an exit.

Dream Came True

You may or may not believe in miracle, but it did happen in my life and not just once.  After a few years, my dream had finally come true:  I was able to put my feet on an escaping boat to make the one-way trip of my life without money, without even a promise to pay. For three days and nights I had riskily sit there by myself outside the boat cabin with one arm wrapping around its pole to keep me from falling into deep sea down there.  For three nights I had had a chance to contemplate the sight of sea at night and astoundingly find out how glamorous, quiet and lonely it was. For the first time I saw the immense of universe, the limitlessness of space and for the first time I did feel the taste of freedom in the air that I was breathing. Actually, I knew and knew very well that it was a late trip and I was stepping from a stalemate to another.  Despite full understanding of the situation, I anxiously accepted and bravely faced the new stalemate of my life.  Anyway, wasn't it true that I had learned how to be a friend of stalemate?

Idol

On those days of my teaching career, I had tried to be an Idol of my students intellectually and physically and did live like one.  Just before I left OMon after the training period, one of my students admitted to me that they considered me an Idol of their hearts and no need to say you can imagine how flattered I felt at that moment.  The second time I heard the same thing was when I came back from refugee camp and went over the school memories with my old students. My teaching career was overall over-rewarded.

These days even though I don't believe in the concept of Idol anymore and living as an Idol is absolutely a no-no for me not to mention it may be ultimately foolish and ignorant, I still love the way I led my life as a teacher: actor-like, romantic, passionate, dramatic and unrealistic- the way which you can afford to live just once in your whole life. Even though there are still some regrets here and there upon looking back those days, there are still some things that I wish I hadn't done or had done in a different way, those days of my teaching career is A TIME TO REMEMBER of my life, which I can never afford to repeat. 

  

Later on, after my teaching career in Vietnam, I did a teaching job for another few years in refugee camps, but I never ever considered myself a teacher any more nor did I consider those folks I taught my students.

Arthur Burton Had Died

On these days of my overseas living, sometimes a few of my old students living outside Vietnam still make some efforts trying to get in touch with me.  But all they received was the endless "beep, beep" sound from my phone. They didn’t know that their then teacher no longer existed on this world. But I know and know very well that "Arthur Burton" had died a long time ago, and the most honorable thing we can now do for him is to forget him. The past has closed some of its historical pages.

The End

08/29/2010

Jefffey Thai