If there are two things that I constantly pray for, it's patience and a sense of humour.

Patience as half the time, I am constantly nagging the kiddies to "do your work", so much so that I sound like a broken record player. The kids who come to tuition are usually all tired out from school, and see going for extra lessons as nothing but a chore. I don't really blame them, so I try and make the lessons as interesting as possible. Ultimately, however, work is still work. Things need to be done no matter how much you dress them up to make it look like play.

So I joke, cajole, threaten, bribe and use all ways and means humanly possible to get them to do their work. And kids nowadays are hard bargainers, who see tuition as an entitlement rather than a privilege.

As for a sense of humour, it certainly comes in useful whenever the kids drive me nuts. This includes not passing up homework, whining about having to do an extra piece of worksheet and general complaining. I usually shoot back with a witty retort, and once they have a good laugh, they usually do what I say. As the song goes, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

This also comes in handy whenever deadlines pile up and there's a whole stack of worksheets to mark. Its especially frustrating when they don't take tuition homework seriously, and make a mockery of a composition title. So when I ask for a nice, normal composition, they give me something akin to an action movie directed by Michael Bay.

So I laugh it off, even as my tears fall down and smudge the red tick marks on my worksheet. If life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

At the end of the day, maybe I should just skip all that and pray for sanity. Yes, that should settle my issues once and for all.

PS: My facebook wall isn't working properly even though my settings allow friends to post on them. I'm not the only one with this problem. Bleagh. Facebook sucks.