lost 6 premieres on 2 feburary 2009, and for that, i've been re-watching the entire series (from season 1) just to be up to speed with the plot, the twists, the narrative of the story. oh, and for evangeline lily.
something that struck me was just how ridiculously close jack and kate were immediately after the crash, and how improbable it would have seem for sawyer to be in the picture.
by the third episode, jack and kate were already engaging in "verbal copulating" (no, not phone sex - they don't have phones on the island - just the teasing of each other)in the words of charlie. and anyone who watches the show would expect them to be a couple then.
fast forward to season 5, and kate is torn between jack and sawyer, and all three of them don't quite know what they want and just what the hell is best for them.
what i realised watching everything the second time around was just how frustrated jack was with kate's equivocating. all the lies, all the secrets, all the deceit, all the broken promises, and with kate (beautiful as she is), things are never as they appear with her.
and that's how sawyer, with plenty to hide himself, got into the picture.
communication. communication has got to be the key to ANY relationship. and because jake could not reach kate, could not communicate with kate, their relationship became increasingly estranged. (i'm still rooting for jake and kate by the way - firstly because jack is only of my favourite characters and kate is just gorgeous, and sawyer has juliet now anyway.)
january was a rocky month for me and my student, with him attempting to skip lesson bu running away from home more than once, and with his attitude in class poor. finally, about 2 weeks back, i sat him down and spoke to him, saying that he already is old enough to be responsible for himself and his decisions and asked him about just what it is that he is unhappy about, either with me personally, or with my classes.
turns out, he felt too stretched by my weekly assignments and my expectations of those assignments and with me not knowing how just how he felt, i was reprimanding him for a perceived lack of effort on his part whenever he handed in a perceived substandard peice of writing.
i know for sure that me can do much better, i had seen him turn in quality peices of work, but he felt it was too draining to continually do that every single week.
and finally i realised: i had been trying far to hard to push him, to get him to improve that i could very well have gotten him to lose his motivation and passion for learning; all because i failed to communicate effectively with my student.
my grumblings notwithstanding, this is a student that i care for very much, perhaps because i've taught him for close to a year and a half already, and also because i truly want to help him improve his english, which is rather poor. and i believe that we are making steady progress, but i almost lost it all because i did not communicate.
now, his zeal to learn is back, he's no longer complaining about how much work is being given (partly because i've learned that discussing with him and coming to a compromise is a much better way get him to understand why he has to work hard) and most importantly, i've seen dramatic improvement in his confidence in himself to apply the things that we've learned.
granted his still no oxford scholar yet, but i'm confident that if he continues to work hard, he can get a very decent score for his english come psle this october.