Red-Furred Tiger
I went down to So Hour on Saturday and Sunday--rather a hectic trip down to the place, but my sister wanted durians and I wanted to skip the extra class that my Chem lecturer was having. And then one thing led to another and suddenly I found myself on the bus down to the farm.
Everything there is still the same as it was before: cousins swarming the place, grandparents lamenting our thinness (but rather halfheartedly, since both I and my sister have put on quite a bit of weight), aunts in the kitchen brewing lovely smells (and food), and of course, loads of fresh fruit hanging off trees and overflowing out of baskets.
I myself don't eat durians. The family legend is that my mom ate far too many durians while pregnant with me, and so I was born sick of durians. It is therefore fortunate that this is also the season of jackfruits and mangosteens and rambutans and a tonne of other species of fruits that I only know the Chinese names of--cat's eyes and dragon's eyes and I haven't any idea whose eyes, except that they were amazingly juicy and tasted chokingly sweet.
Naturally, everybody was quite... taken with my hair and new glasses. My cousins began shrieking when I told them the price of my glasses, and my grandfather was, I think, rather shocked when I strolled into view.
You see, he's a very traditional person, and the traditional view has always been that coloured hair belongs on people who skip classes, smoke, drink, couldn't give a hoot about their elders, etc: in one word, trouble. And I've always been his favourite because I'm the eldest (proving that age does have a few benefits), and because I've always done moderately well in school. And now here I am, the academic star of the grandchildren, with hair that could shock the average monkey out of its skin.
It didn't take too long before my grandmother saw it too and was shocked, but she recovered quickly. So did my grandfather, and it wasn't too long before they were giggling about angmohlangs (red-furred people: an euphemism for whites) and tigers.
In fact, I think I just managed to get stuck with the nickname Tiger again. Of course, my family and my ex-classmates call me that for different reasons, but the result is still that I get called Tiger. At least I'm used to that name.
I think I might be going back down there this weekend, since a week of holidays is coming up and my sister's going back to Patience. One week in the hostel can get mighty boring, and since I foresee that my next chance of gorging myself on good old home-cooked food won't be till next year, I think I'll go down. Cheeky's going down, too, but of course he (being rich) will be going to the capital city of So Hour (imaginatively called New So Hour). I'm going down to the farm.
...oh, and the details of the AS just came out, two days earlier than expected. The breakdowns of my results follow, in the stated format:
......Paper 1 / 2 / 3 Overall
Chemistry A B C b
Biology B A B a
Physics B B U b
Math A A a
The odd thing is that I thought the Physics practical (Paper 3) was easy at the time; yet almost everybody failed it. Still, it can't have carried too much weightage, since I still got a B (although it is, I think, a weak B). I'm also surprised that I got a C for the Chem practical (which was terrible at the time)!
As for Biology... well, all I can say is my practical lecturer is going to have words to say about people who get better grades for theory papers than for practicals. It's one more reason for me to do research instead of developmental stuff: I can handle ideas and theories better than physical apparati.
Kelvin, unfortunately, wasn't so fortunate as I, and he got rather worse results (although I don't have details).
Everything there is still the same as it was before: cousins swarming the place, grandparents lamenting our thinness (but rather halfheartedly, since both I and my sister have put on quite a bit of weight), aunts in the kitchen brewing lovely smells (and food), and of course, loads of fresh fruit hanging off trees and overflowing out of baskets.
I myself don't eat durians. The family legend is that my mom ate far too many durians while pregnant with me, and so I was born sick of durians. It is therefore fortunate that this is also the season of jackfruits and mangosteens and rambutans and a tonne of other species of fruits that I only know the Chinese names of--cat's eyes and dragon's eyes and I haven't any idea whose eyes, except that they were amazingly juicy and tasted chokingly sweet.
Naturally, everybody was quite... taken with my hair and new glasses. My cousins began shrieking when I told them the price of my glasses, and my grandfather was, I think, rather shocked when I strolled into view.
You see, he's a very traditional person, and the traditional view has always been that coloured hair belongs on people who skip classes, smoke, drink, couldn't give a hoot about their elders, etc: in one word, trouble. And I've always been his favourite because I'm the eldest (proving that age does have a few benefits), and because I've always done moderately well in school. And now here I am, the academic star of the grandchildren, with hair that could shock the average monkey out of its skin.
It didn't take too long before my grandmother saw it too and was shocked, but she recovered quickly. So did my grandfather, and it wasn't too long before they were giggling about angmohlangs (red-furred people: an euphemism for whites) and tigers.
In fact, I think I just managed to get stuck with the nickname Tiger again. Of course, my family and my ex-classmates call me that for different reasons, but the result is still that I get called Tiger. At least I'm used to that name.
I think I might be going back down there this weekend, since a week of holidays is coming up and my sister's going back to Patience. One week in the hostel can get mighty boring, and since I foresee that my next chance of gorging myself on good old home-cooked food won't be till next year, I think I'll go down. Cheeky's going down, too, but of course he (being rich) will be going to the capital city of So Hour (imaginatively called New So Hour). I'm going down to the farm.
...oh, and the details of the AS just came out, two days earlier than expected. The breakdowns of my results follow, in the stated format:
......Paper 1 / 2 / 3 Overall
Chemistry A B C b
Biology B A B a
Physics B B U b
Math A A a
The odd thing is that I thought the Physics practical (Paper 3) was easy at the time; yet almost everybody failed it. Still, it can't have carried too much weightage, since I still got a B (although it is, I think, a weak B). I'm also surprised that I got a C for the Chem practical (which was terrible at the time)!
As for Biology... well, all I can say is my practical lecturer is going to have words to say about people who get better grades for theory papers than for practicals. It's one more reason for me to do research instead of developmental stuff: I can handle ideas and theories better than physical apparati.
Kelvin, unfortunately, wasn't so fortunate as I, and he got rather worse results (although I don't have details).
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