i'm throwing out secondary and jc files ruthlessly, but i'm not very sure why i hang on to my a-maths file. i couldn't ever make more than a 6 or 7 in it, even on a good day, and dropped it the first chance i had. mrs kwan forced me to stay in her class to audit instead of having a free period, and that just made me hate and fear it more. i tried my best to wriggle out of it in rj, but no amount of pleading would move the maths hod to let me off it because they couldn't send a rj student out there without a-maths. for the first three months desmond and minyin used to give me amused and not too exasperated instruction in the rj library while i threw maths notes about annoyed and unresigned and generally being pathetic. i got a 3 finally in the 'ao' exams and have now forgotten everything about it. so probably the only reason i cling on to my maths file is that i keep thinking one day someone will teach me all this all over again, and this, i said to poach last night, has probably to do with mr tham, my jc 'ao' maths tutor, who's the only maths teacher who's ever made a difference for me. mr tham got me to be less reluctant to come to class and much more confident. he made me feel that i could do maths if i tried hard enough. it's true i don't really have much "maths sense" (i am told jo-li said to ms teo about me: "she has no maths sense") but i wasn't stupid either. i just - wasn't very conventionally logical in maths (mrs ng complained that i made up non-existent rules) - and then i was not the hardworking, methodical kind either to succeed in lower school maths - always careless, impatient, and a huge loafer. add to the lack of ability and inappropriate temperament i had the wrong teachers - under very "blur" and laissez-faire mrs sia i didn't build much of a foundation, and later i grew to hate and fear it under people like thin-lipped, sarcastic mrs ng and blunt, demanding mrs kwan. under tham i still was flighty and careless and not terribly hardworking, but i felt guiltier about it and put in effort more often to do my daily prep. i felt too i had to do well and to stay at the top of the class. it's true that in our small class of four abysmally bad maths students achieving this is no more than becoming the one-eyed king of the blind, but even that was something to try for - the rest were failing outright most of the time or getting 6s and 7s, whereas for the first time i was getting 3 and 2s in a maths class, even the occasional 1. it made me reconsider my assessment of myself - if we were all a bunch of maths idiots beyond teaching, then i should also be flunking like everyone else, how come i'm actually getting high Bs? clearly then i was learning something and maths wasn't as impossible as it seemed. and tham was tolerant of deviation and play in maths - and "stupid questions" - maths became more game-like - and i was more interested in it. he coaxed and counselled too; some days instead of teaching maths he gave peptalks. some maths teachers made me feel i was a stupid kid who couldn't do maths, which probably wasn't entirely untrue; most disapproved of me and made me feel i was a wayward deliquent who wouldn't make the effort, which is closer to the truth but of course just made me hate them and play up to that horrid reputation. tham never made me feel either. tham saw my flaws and flightiness and saw too, my anxieties and lack of confidence, but made me feel that although i was weak in maths and had done myself plenty of disservices over the years, he thought i was essentially a bright kid and someone who can do maths if she would try, and it was the first time i felt a maths teacher didn't dislike me.

i went back to college to see tham last year but they said he isn't there anymore. i looked him up in the residential directory - there are only two thams of the same name, so i'll probably find him, and with any luck he'll remember me. it'll be good if i can see him on teachers' day, or during the sept hols coming up in 2 weeks. and i might try to teach myself maths again.