(1257) A stubborn daughter

When I first met my present landlady, she was selling economy rice as lunch. My son and I often turned up lunch time hoping to see shell fish fried in eggs. After two months, she sent her daughter to learn English from my son. At that point of time the girl was twelve years old. As the mother confessed that she married a stubborn man, it was therefore not unusual that she begot a stubborn child. While exasperated with the difficult daughter, she said once that it (all the effort, money, time ...) could all be in vain that the girl may not make it through university. I begged to differ at that point of time, saying that things often were better than they seemed to a parent in distress.

Now is exactly five years later. Her girl just restarted school after three and a half months of enforced holidays due to COVID-19 shut down. Her class of 38 was split into three portions to comply with the rule of social distancing. Lower Forms were pushed to the afternoon to make room for smaller classes. Prior to the social lock down, the girl's last monthly test of Accounting was 38%. In November and December 2019 she opted to spend 8 hours a day co-writing a novel to win a prize instead of getting help in learning Accounting. (She did win tablets with four other friends.) SPM, GCE O-Level equivalent, was to be held in March 2021 thanks to COVID-19. She talks about going into Business Studies majoring in Finance. While one does not need to keep Accounts for that line, the understanding, the ability to grasp at the figures in general are essential. The girl could consistently score A or A+ in Mathematics, why is it that she could fail Accounts? One reason could be she refused to memorise terms and concepts.

The problem then is attitude and not aptitude. Plus lately she turned up one morning to wake my son and me at 5:30 am to ask for four colour photos to attach to her Moral Folio. A month ago she came to print pages of text for her Accounts Folio, at that time my son said why not print what she needed for the Moral Folio. Her reply was that it was quite a long while to the dead line. Interestingly she was sure she said am and not pm. Still, for 5:30 it would only be logical to say pm. It is customary not to inconvenience those who do one a favour.

Looking into the future, I wonder if her dad would blow a couple of hundred thousand ringgit over her pre-university in Finance and later fork out more to change her major once she found out that Accounts is part of business studies. Suppose if he refuses to waste money over a change in major, would she make it through the degree?

I am finally forced to agree with her parents that an education degree would make more sense to this girl. I think of my youngest child's good friend Sharon who holds an educational diploma but is doing very well in telemarketing.