It infuriates me to be wrong

The first two days of the holy month of Ramadan were quite extraordinary.

As ever, on Friday I was leaving Bukit Mertajam with much difficulty. I admit the place practically always gets me down but as I said before I would never ever leave Alor Star because there are the two most wonderful kids I've ever known, Amelia and Delia.

The first class was great, but the rest was either bad or terrible. I finished the last class at 10:30 and went straight to bed. In the meantime and in the depth of the misery, I scribbled down the following:

It infuriates me when the person who is in charge of Alor Star asks me for some extra work and immediatelly remarks that extra hours for me means extra hours for them as well. True, she would have to spend more time chatting and reading her novels...

It infuriates me when I am willing to give up one of my good classes, so that one teacher could handle two classes of the same level and the overall quality and efficiency of our teaching would improve, only to hear Sylwia categorically insisting on having the two classes.

It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I'm right. -- Moliere

Today was far better. I had so much fun with the youngest kids. Delia had her birthday on 3 October and I gave her a story book about Marco Polo. To me, these children are the greatest explorers of all time and this is what I wrote to her:

Like travelling and exploring,
learning is a great adventure, too.
Marco Polo was one of the greatest travellers of all time,
and by learning you can become just like him.

Today, she brought the book with her and she told me about how much she liked it. Finally, before I left Alor Star, I was invited to an annual ceremony for kids leaving their kindergarten, where Amelia is having some dancing performance. Can't wait for that!

Yet this wasn't the end as the journey back was quite remarkable. The evening light saw me utterly spellbound by the greenery of the paddy fields, flocks of birds high up in the sky (some birds are supposed to be migrating from China now), Gunung Jerai with its peak shrouded in clouds.

In Scotland, where it is almost incessantly just cloudy, I often experienced this interesting thing when the rare strips of sunshine made their way down on the Earth through a crack in a layer of clouds. I was always fascinated by this company on my many rambles and I came to call it a God's window.

Now, a God's window like that opened above its peak just as I was speeding on my bike past Gunung Jerai. I stopped by the roadside, trying to come to terms with the meaning of such a startling beauty.

There's been a thing playing on my mind for a couple of weeks. I've been trying to admit that I'd felt lonely most of my life, but the God's window carried a message. All this way I might not have been alone after all.