Only 8 out of supposed 13 parents from my class made the effort to be in school today. Lain semua kelabu asap! Anyhow, I suppose, having met most of them last year when I had been their children's form teacher, I wasn't nervous nor apprehensive this time round. I surprised myself by collecting my thoughts prior to the main meet-up in the classroom, making mental notes of their children's general progress and individual achievements. (Last year, I had slightly panicked and was a bit of a scatterbrain with regards to speaking to the parents.)

Alhamdulillah, everything went smoothly. Despite the fact that a few parents were particulatly meticulous (just fusspots in other words), I think I handled them well by being calm and open to feedback. There will always be this type of parents anyway, and being flustered or defensive will never solve anything.

It finally occurred to me how the displays of the kids' work came in useful. While I spoke to parents on a one-on-one basis (they had been given queue numbers during the registration at their point of arrival), the rest simply admired the various artwork and group stories that their children had made. That kept them busy, heh heh. I also put up some self-made resources and games that the kids had played with sometime during lessons, so some of the curious parents went over to check those out.

My moments of gratification arrived when some parents personally thanked and informed me that they could see the improvement made by their children, especially in Spelling. That added the glow to my face! :-D I was so happy and thankful that my kids had benefited from my lessons. It really made up for all the discipline moments that I've had to endure. Alhamdulillah! All thanks to Allah. :-)

To reward myself, I'd then purchased a packet of nasi lemak (*Note: Nasi lemak - rice cooked in coconut milk and sometimes pandan leaves, eaten with condiments such as egg, fried anchovies and grinded chillies mix, called sambal) from my favourite canteen lady. Her sambal was damn shiok!

And now, back to my marking! ;-p