The world of Tzu Chi (Vol.106)

TZU CHI 106 35 in an environment full of love. In order to take care of her, he stopped indulging in alcohol and never considered marrying, preferring to live only with his daughter. The effort behind success The fact that her dad could not understand letters sent by banks or government departments that were written in English or Malay, and that she was of no help despite her attending secondary school, made her feel bad. She also began to have sleepless nights worrying that if her father could not work in the future and she could not do anything because she had neither skills nor knowledge, what would happen to them? Inorder tofind the right direction, she read the stories of successful people online and found that they were constantly working hard and had struggled before achieving success. No one is destined to be successful at birth. The teenage child realized that she had been wastingher life all thesewhile.There and then, she recalled that every time she showed her academic transcript to her father, he always looked forward to seeing her good grades, but she repeatedly disappointed him. Despite the disappointment, Dad had never blamed her. Instead, he would encourage her by saying, “Do better next time.” Lai Ho remembered that she had been receiving Tzu Chi Study Grant every year since Primary 4, and each time volunteers visited her home, they would encourage her not to give up, to put in more efforts and work hard. With the urge to seek improvements, she was determined to change herself. She knew that as her foundation for primary school syllabus was not strong, she could not keep up with the secondary school curriculum. Therefore, she used the year-end holiday of Form 1 to repeat the subjects of the entire primary school, especially her weakest subjects – English and Malay. When she encountered new grammar problems, she would go online to find a learning channel and through the teaching of these websites, she gradually grasped the way of learning and increased her confidence in continuing her efforts. In order to improve her memory, she asked her father to buy a whiteboard to hang in the room. She would then do her homework on the whiteboard daily; and when she could not sleep at night, she would copy notes on the board and read them aloud. In order to revise her studies, she abandoned her favourite TV series, and more and more reference books and extra-curricular readings appeared in the cabinet. She spent an increasing amount of time burying herself in the books, day and night, determined to make up for lost time. When Form 2 class started, she found herself understanding and absorbing the contents taught more quickly. In the first semester exam, she was fourth in the class, passing all subjects. She even scored 60% for Maths, a subject she usually failed. The girl becamemore andmore confident in her learning methods. Other than paying attention in class, she attended tuition and used online platforms to self-study. In the second and third semester, she came up top in the class. When she went from the eighth class (for low-performing students) to the second class (high-performing students) in Form 3, her teachers and classmates were impressed. To practise speaking Malay and English, she talked to Indian and Malay friends whose English and Malay were good, to pick up the correct pronunciations. Now, she could speak both languages fluently. “The most comforting thing for me is that Today’s Sapling, Tomorrow’s Shade