As we are organising a reunion this Sunday,
I tried my best to contact all the buddies as well as our dearest teachers.
I met Ms. Cheong accidentally on the street the other night,
and invited her to join,
by the time,
I also expressed that we were finding Mr. Sam,
one of our class teachers,
she told me that she could help as she knew someone,
who used to work with Mr. Sam together in University of Macua.
Today, Ms. Cheong called me,
giving me the news that Mr. Sam has passed away for few years.
I felt very sorry that we didn't know this until now.
We once in a while talked about Mr. Sam,
and wondered how he was doing,
we though he might have immigrated to Singapore.
We just knew he was very old,
but didn't take the action to visit him,
especially after his retirement.
He was a very nice guy,
he taught us history and was our class-teacher (Senior 1)
Before he came to Macau,
he was a professor of the University of Lan Chau in China,
he was very knowledgeable and made our history classes very interesting.
He was a tall gentleman,
he always spoke slowly and walked gently,
and his action was very eloquent.
He gave a lot of freedom and respect to us,
just the first year high school kids,
we could vote, choose or decide when the majority agreed,
including the election of our prefects, our Christmas party......
which were quite different with the other class-teachers.
I was a quiet student,
but I remember well that
though I could survive with the other tough Math classes.
the only time I failed my exam during my high school was his history in Senior 1,
I knew I don't like history at all,
as I hate to remember things,
only Math, English and Biology were my favorite subjects.
However,
even though I needed to attend evening Portuguese classes and do housework at home,
I did study hard for all the subjects,
.
I learned from a careless mistake,
for the exam schedule,
I copied the wrong date for the subjects -
instead of preparing for the History exam,
I studied Geology for that date.
As a result,
when I got the exam paper,
I was totally emptied.
I still appreciated Mr. Sam,
he gave me 50+ for the grade,
I knew I could not answer most of the questions at all.
For the next exam day,
I needed not to study Geology very hard,
as I have prepared already,
but the cost was very high.
I felt very bad,
as I was the "prefect" of the class,
but I failed in his class.
Mistake is mistake,
we make mistake sometimes in life,
however,
one mistake couldn't ruin our whole life,
we can still survive,
I learned it.
After our graduation,
we still kept contact with Mr. Sam,
and he started to teach in University of Macau,
then, we lost our contact,
we miss him,
and wish him peace in heaven!
