a couple of days ago, it suddenly occurred to me why Mr Humphreys sounded so familiar. He reminded me of an English teacher in secondary school, Mr John Lachlan Mackintosh.like Mr Humphreys, Mr Mac also lived in a HDB Toa Payoh.
I remembered Mr Mackintosh made quite an impression on the first day he came to our class. He was one of the very few young, male teachers what i would term a rather conservative girl's school that i came from. so it was no wonder he caused quite a stir. he had a careless attitude about him. on his first lesson, he paced up and down the row and talked in a booming voice, and he tried to throw a marker back to the whiteboard when he was standing quite a dist away from it. it landed in its correct place with a loud crack. but when we checked the marker later, it was bent.
Somehow, this man's antics made him a very interesting teacher in class. i would always be on the alert for the next funny thing to happen. there was once when he propped his leg on the overhead projector while teaching, and the discipline mistress happen to passed by our class. the next thing was, he was asked to speak to her outside. ha we neva knew what the conversation was abt but it was all pretty funny imagining that it was becos of his ungainly posture in class.
there were many many such episodes, some which happened in our class, others related by equally bemused friends from his other classes but my memory is failing me, i can't possibly remember all of them. Coincidentally, he was the ECA teacher-in-charge for badminton. He would come to our practice everynow and then, but of course it would be boring for him. he would just sit there for a while, talk to the coach a bit, then he d go off somewhere else, to a corner to mark his students' homework. did he ever jpin us for a game of badminton? i vaguely rem he did, but i cannot be sure. nevertheless, one thing remained clearly in my mind. there was once i sprained my ankle in the middle of practice, just before the tournament. i was angry and upset with myself. i had no choice but to stop practice and go home, while the others continued. usually, you dun feel that Mr Mac is a very caring teacher unlike some other teachers. he was well-liked for his easy-going refreshing attitude but he din come across as caring. but then, when i sprained my foot that day, he sent me out to the front gate, and lent me money to take a cab. on the way out, he also told me some story about himself getting injured when he was playing hockey(?) in school. well, that was really a very rare thing for him to do, becos i seldom heard him talk liddat.
i went on to my next two years in sec sch, and he din teach the upper sec classes except for history which i din take. later i heard that he had to go back to scotland becos his father had passed away. today i hear that he is still in scotland and had succeeded some position of his father's. our paths might never cross again, but i hope he is happy and doing well wherever he is.

i also dunno why i chose to tok abt this. it is perhaps a weak attempt to revive part of my ailing memory. so many things have happened in my life. i really struggle to keep each and every of the good ones in place.