Tuesday, September 20, 2005

New Equipment

While I was trying to figure out how to carry out this project without using a computer in the classroom, a magic happened.

On September 5, I received a brand-new notebook computer from a former student as gift. This is a long story.

In August, this student's mother called me up and told me that she would like to intvite me out for a cup of coffee to thank me personally for being her son's homeroom teacher during the past two years. I declined her invitation because I knew that she might want to give me a gift. I could sense the motehr's disappointment when her invitation was turned down. Several days later, the student along with other students came to my office to bid me farewell because they were about to be off to college. While they were leaving, this student came to me and told me in private that he and his mother had bought a gift for me but they felt disappointed for I rejceted their good intention. "Now the gift just sat there and was useless," he said. Then I told him that I would accept it. Three days later when the student brought the gift to my office, I was surprised because of its size. I asked him what it was, and he told me it was a notebook computer. I was overwhelmed, because the gift was way too expensive. He insisted that I should accept it because, for one thing, it would be used on teaching, and for another, he was not my student anymore so there should not be any sensitive issues caused by it.

This computer really solved my problem. In the beginning, I thought I could borrow the notebook computer from school. I managed to borrow two from school but they simply would not work. One was not able to hook up to the Interent and the other was too old to be connected with the broadband. There is still one that is supposed to be lent to teachers, but it is never there.

When the student was about to leave, he told me the notebook computer he gave me was in fact a gift to his "younger school brothers" (alumni).

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