The English Teacher

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I used to like English periods in school. I was taught by a very good teacher - a teacher, who actually started cutting down marks for wrong spellings and misuse of tenses in zoology practical record books (she had a masters degree in English and Zoology). She was a very strict teacher, who would pinch the ears if poems weren't memorized (you see, science says, pinching the ear activates nerves that help you remember forgotten things!). But, if you haven't memorized a poem in the first place, there is nothing to forget and so, you end up with pink ears and begin to dislike and fear English periods. While this was the case with most of the class, I was on the other side of the spectrum. She actually liked me! I was like a pro at that age (atleast I would like to think so, because she liked me :D). I used to memorize poems, and I was better than most of the students in grammar and spellings. I could write short stories.. those McMillan books came up with the weirdest exercises and topics for essays and short stories. It so happened that one of my short stories about a friend was read out aloud in the class by my teacher. I was embarrassed about it than being happy (I feared my friend would give up on me for my English writing skills. Thank god no such thing happened).

 Today, when I sat to type out a mail, I realized how my ability to converse and write in English has drastically depreciated over years. Mainly because, I double check where to place a comma in a sentence, I use the spell check to correct spellings of the not-so-complex words generally used in formal conversations. And I suffix sentences with an 'ah' like 'came-ah', 'sat-ah', during conversations. Yes, I am a software engineer and No, my English teacher won't be so proud of it.

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