Page 64 - ELITE PLUS MAGAZINE VOL2

REFLECTIONS OF MY LIFEThose who came to study for a doctorate, especially in political science and the humanities, had the same objective, which was to make a career in teaching. The university made this the main objective and forced each student to train for at least one term, but even those who studied scientific subjects in most cases ended up spending their lives teaching or doing research in school laboratories.Universities – at least from what I could see at Cornell – consider doc- torate studies as an investment in prestige, because whenever they write books their graduates cannot avoid mentioning their university credentials in their biographies or, if they are scientists making discoveries, their alma maters will share in the credit.Therefore doctorate candidates receive financial support in one form or another. I have yet to see students having to pay for their studies from start to finish. At most they will only in the first year, while the university isn’t certain whether they will do well or not, and with that kind of capital invested, students are pushed to the limit to achieve excellence in their field of study.If they can’t keep up, they have to leave.The rule of the Faculty of Political Science to which we both belonged was that the body of teachers had to meet to assess each student once a year. Doctorate students with a B average would be asked to leave the programme or at best allowed to study only for a master’s. Those who had better grades would be allowed to sit for a comprehensive exam at the end of their second or third year of study, after which, if they passed, they would have to write a PhD thesis.If they failed the exam twice they would be invited to leave the university altogether.This state of affairs had Sing’smother studying like crazy because, besides fearing the shame of a dismissal, she also had to make sure she got top marks to secure her position as a scholarship recipient. If her grades were too low she would forfeit the money as well as her dignity.A father cannot replace a mother in all cases. Even though I had practically stopped writing my thesis, our plump kid was refusing to take this into consideration to defer to our timetable. When Sing cried for his mother neither I nor Chook had the power to shut him up. At times, as his mother and I studied late into the night, we heard muttering in some dark corner and turned around only to see our little darling, who had crawled out of the bedroom heaven knows when. His mother couldn’t help but take him into her arms and it was a few hours before she could go back to work.On Saturdays and Sundays we had no one to babysit so we took turns taking care of our child until Monday came around again. Sometimes we did so one hour at a time until everyone fell asleep, and when one of us looked after him it didn’t necessarily mean that the other could read or write in peace, what with vying for time to cook, wash the dishes, tidy up the place or attend to private needs.The end result was that, on her first dissertation, Sing’s mother got a C. Studies at doctorate level have no room for mothers.That day, spring wasn’t far away. Once our chubby child was asleep, my life companion stole back and silently rested her head on my shoulder. Before I could say anything, she broke into irrepressible sobs.“Is there anything I can do?” I asked softly.“No,” she answered in a muffled voice and went on sobbing.I kept frowning, thinking hard.The problem wasn’t the trifling matter of a student upset over a low grade. Before me right now was a young woman who believed she was as capable as any man yet saw herself defeated on a narrow battlefield because of her condition as a mother. The two persons who hugged each other in a corner of the ice-cold room were not like the other students, but human beings who had ignominiously come down from the mountain in a quest for the missing part of their lives.Were we going to lose once again?“Do you want me to decide for you?” I finally told her.“Decide what?” Sing’s mother looked up.“Let’s send Sing back.” That was all I could manage; I couldn’t utter another word.“Aren’t you going to miss him? You were the one who wanted him to come.”I looked away while silence thickened around us.The next day I went to fetch Sing at the babysitter’s at the usual time. That day I didn’t feel like taking him to any shopping mall but took him back to the house to play with him as we waited for his mother to come out of her lectures. After bathing and changing him I gave him an apple. He tried to bite on it but couldn’t as its skin was too elastic. I had to nibble on it and then I held it out to him. He used his three or four milk teeth to bite off a piece he crunched, his cheeks bulging, while smiling happily at his father.I hugged my child tighter than on any other day.5It was the same emotion I had felt some six months earlier when we had taken the train to go and see his big62 Elite+