Feels Great

Friday morning at 8 am when my cellphone alarm finally gave up on me after 6 successive snoozes in an hour. I finally decided to just get up, go on with another bad day, and suck everything up. This is my morning after a few hours of sleep after being raped by a physics exam, a tedious biostatistics homework, and a shitload of reading for ALL my classes the day before.

I got to school and signed-in to my tutoring hours. Still sleepy. Missed my alarm sound- that waking sound has gradually shifted to a subtle lullaby. I decided to get coffee to counter it.

Sweet...no one to be tutored, and I'm alone in the center. I stared at my coffee cup and spontaneously submitted myself to the reverse effect of caffeine; I fell asleep like a narcoleptic.

The student assistant woke me up and I had a few people waiting for my help on a subject that I haven't cared about in a century. Oh great. These poor freshmen are about to be screwed on their chem final. I started answering their questions like "How do you go about solving this problem?" with red eyes and a confused "Huh? Can I look at the problem again?". It went on like this for a few minutes until I felt the sudden effect of caffeine rushing through my system like that idiot Tommy turning into the gay Green Power Ranger. Sweet. I breezed through the material and was able to make these students happy by matching my answers with the posted correct answers.

It seemed to be monotonous from then. I became numb to the routine (as I usually do every tutoring session) of digesting their questions, giving an answer, seeing confused and clueless faces, patronizing them while jokingly explaining the concepts, and seeing an epiphany on their faces. Woohoo. Big deal. They're probably pretending only. Used to it. I've got academic leeches who have sucked on my blood like no other.

I thought that was the case. I realized that it really wasn't when I heard the best compliment I've got in life. This girl told me with her brightly lit eyes that "OMG the professor never explained to us like you did on how to work out heat and phase change diagrams!" Honestly, I thought it was a joke. I laughed. So they had to reinforce her comment. Feels great to have helped people and to to have known that you have really done something.

Tutoring hours were over. I stayed overtime again. Didn't mind at all. It was worth it.