She walks into class, spreading her positive energy and excitement all around. She smiles in her usual sweet manner as her eyes twinkle passionately. Her smile really has the power to make anyone forget about all their worries. Watching her teach Chemistry is an experience in itself! Proactive and effective, her teaching clearly displays her love for the subject. I always thought that there was something seriously wrong with the people who like Chemistry; she changed that thought of mine. The way her head tilts and her eyes pop out is pretty amusing.
The doubts I come up with in Chemistry are just out of this world. Once we were discussing organic Chemistry and I said, “Ma’am, I can’t differentiate between the various organic compounds. They all look the same to me”. She said, “You’re dyslexic when it comes to organic compounds”.I’ll be honest; she made my day by saying that! Never in my whole life had anyone ever understood me so well until on that fine day when she called me dyslexic. Seriously speaking, organic Chemistry and I have a very strange relationship. I’m sure CIE reels under a state of shock when my Chemistry paper is checked. They see impossible and irrelevant compounds drawn so boldly in the paper. Maybe they also consider trying to make some of those compounds. Just saying, if anything destructive happens in Cambridge University’s Chemistry laboratories, I’m not to be held responsible. I was just trying to finish off my paper somehow; they took the random crap I wrote too seriously.
Chemistry has usually been the first paper we give in our internals, so once we’re done with it we badger her and keep asking whether she has checked our papers or not. “What you all had done in paper 5” she laughs. We laugh and wonder the same. Once somehow I got one mark more in Chemistry than in Physics. Her level of happiness was so high! I had never seen her happier. That PTM she couldn’t sit still. She was smiling wide and was extremely happy. If one mark could make her so happy I’d deliberately get less in Physics in the next internals! I’d leave the Physics paper blank if she wants! She keeps telling me that I have a mental block for Chemistry. Every time she says that, I wish she taught another subject.
When she’s clearing my doubts she’s all fluent and clear and very confident about her explanations. On the other hand, this is me –“That exists? Huh? Oh! Wait, what??? Uh…How on earth?! Oh! Now I get it! Okay never mind. I’m still blank”. She then sighs hopelessly, opens the textbook and points out the exact thing that the question asks for. ‘Oh! That exists here! Maybe I should consider reading the textbook’ I think to myself. Jokes apart, having said all of that, she has a record with me, at the end of our session somehow or the other she manages to drill the concept into my unwelcoming mind.
I have probably been one of the most difficult students she has taught, but she never lost her patience with me. I might have lost hope in myself, but she never did. “Keep your target high” she always said to me. She always tried to explain the concepts to me in each and every possible way. Her explanations always make things seem so obvious. When she explains certain answers to me I feel I could get 100% in the exam. That feeling lasts only until I try a question without her around. Sometimes just looking at her helps! That’s why I always consider keeping a photo of her with me during the Chemistry exams. One can never be too well-prepared for Chemistry!