2 former students...doing law in london

i remember them for different reasons.

shang chatted non-stop when he visited the college library back in 2000. amused me with his highly articulate, somewhat stubborn relentless pursuit of knowledge and stinging critique of singapore's education system. he knew what he was in for though he was only 16 then. one of my finest students who kept discussions going even though the entire class was dead like a mortuary. incidentally, shang always topped gp and escaped certain execution when he admitted writing close to 10 pages on the possibility of the 3rd world war in the a-levels gp exam. obtained a rare distinction for that innocent stunt. his intellectual passion must have got him away. he applied for law , got rejected twice but grew to understand he will never be happy with ntu's mass com. he would not settle for less. fought one more time and entered law on his third try. now tackling comparative legal studies on an exchange programme in London. his blog http://shangjun.blogspot.com/ details his journey.

i know he's happy :)

aziz didn't quite fit into his arts class. some judged that he was arrogant. but none knew he was diving into in a zillion community involvement projects which were not even accredited by the college. like me, he loved the outdoors and mastered rock-climbing, diving, mountain trekking and other height-defying stunts straight after his As. never knew him well till we met up for drinks and runs separately after the exams. discovered he was a much misunderstood soul who was far too mature for his peers. ziz was the top arts student that year but still, did not manage to get a place in law (what is wrong with our law faculty?!?). well, he just left for better shores, this time to UCL (ironically better ranked, i was told!) for legal studies. he said he will change. i know that will be (delightfully) inevitable. and it is good.

2 lawyers in the making....and many many others whose lives i've been privileged to share and know. having taught them was only a fraction of the story. .. being a part of their formative search helps me experience a deeper sense of pride for what what they will eventually discover in another land... letting themselves be found along the way.

There is only the fight to recover what has been lost

And found and lost again and again; and now, under conditions

That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.

For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business..

t.s eliot: east coker