Time and Again

[36] I am an Asset in this World, Not a Liability

Isabel slept for 8 hours. She woke up at exactly 12:00 noon. She was relieved to wake up the next day from her worst nightmare with her head still intact on her shoulders. She turned the hands of the clock again at exactly 12:00 and instantly she went back to her youthful glow. 

Isabel took a bath as if it was the first and the last day of her life. She was glad that she was given another chance to make her dreams come true. She didn’t want to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity.

She chose her best formal dress and went to work.

It was Isabel’s first day of work at Cebu International Language School as an English Second Language Teacher. She couldn’t hide her excitement. 

Isabel was awarded as the class valedictorian out of the 10 trainees in her class at the end of their two weeks training. She aced all the exams.

She couldn’t wait to see her students. She wondered if her students were Korean, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Taiwanese, Iranian, French, or Thai.

She waited for her first student to come inside her cubicle. She burned the midnight oil just to prepare her lesson plan. She wanted her class to run smoothly. She didn’t want to be caught off-guard by her students unprepared. She sat on the chair confident that she would make an impression to her student and this was exactly the best profession that was suited for her.

Her first student was a Japanese guy who looked like a sumo wrestler because of his big size. He had lots of tattoo all over his body. He looked like an ex-convict.

“Good morning, madam. My name is Timon. I came from Japan.”

His voice echoed in the whole cubicle like a megaphone.

“Good morning, Timon. My name is Isabel. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, madam.”

They shook hands. Isabel stiffened from his iron grip.

“You may take your seat.”

“Thank you.”

“How are you doing today, Timon?”

“I’m fine.”

Isabel wanted Timon to speak more so that she could gauge him how comfortable he was in speaking English.

“Why do you want to study English?”

Timon paused for less than a minute to gather his thoughts. Isabel patiently waited for his answer. 

“I wanted to study English to change my life.”

Isabel listened intently. She was thinking that maybe her hunch about him was correct that he was really an ex-convict.

“I did something that destroyed my life.”

Timon paused and checked on his electronic dictionary for the term that would describe what happened to him.

“My friends influenced me to shoplift in the mall as a sort of initiation to gain their friendship.”

Timon paused again to check the word in his electronic dictionary.

“As a teenager, I longed to be accepted in a group, so I stole a lighter. I thought that I will not be caught because it was so small. When I was about to get out from the mall, I was arrested by the guards. And that was the turning point of my life.”

Timon paused to check on his electronic dictionary again.

“I was convicted for shamefully stealing a lighter. The friends I thought who would always be there for me, did not even care to visit me. Worst, my parents disowned me. They disinherited me despite the fact that I am their one and only child. Nobody understood my situation. Why would a rich kid steal a cheap lighter when his parents can afford to buy a million lighter, even enough to burn a building? Nobody cared for me. I became an outcast. For six months inside my dungeon, I contemplated my situation. I needed to do something good to redeem myself in the society and to win my parents back. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not after my inheritance. I just want my parents to trust me and to prove to them that I’m not a liability but a valuable asset.”