Charming teachers and beautiful classmates

"Sawatdii kha", Ajahn (teacher) Sirimaat would always say charmingly.
"Sawatdii khrap", I would always reply, hesistantly at first.

I would steal glances at Serene. The other girls were pretty, but they didn't hold my attention. Ah.. the simple pleasures of life in Arts faculty.

Ajahn is christmatic; her demeanour calm. Like a mother, she nurses us patiently. She is always encouraging and supportive, waiting for us to sputter the next complete sentence. Often times, to our sheer horror, what we said would be either grammatically incorrect, or semantically incoherent, if not completely childish-cow is bigger than pig-dad is at home-she bought coffee at Orchard Road-you get the picture.

"Very good!" Ajahn would always cheer us on in thai. Language classes has been the most engaging in school, benchmarked against the amount of day-dreaming I do in other classes. The occasional flushed-face terror at not knowing what I was supposed to say because I was not paying attention to the reading list is enough to jolt me up and rip me away from my wanders, promising not let myself drift again. Non-language classes are still better; i can day dream all I want.

As I am writing about Ajahn Sirimaat, she gives me a call asking how I am, because I have just skipped her class. Lying that I was not feeling well, the call ended abruptly. In reality, I did not feel like going to class, but I uphold my pledge to write positively, knowing I will be happy doing what I do. Between whirlwind romances and positive changes, all good things must come to an end, and I must now wander again.