Biography 225: To stay away from a student.

 I had a student. We made a three-month contract to teach the programming language ASP. He was supposed to pay me TK 1000 per month. He used to come to our home. I had a deal with my brother that he would let me use his room for this tuition. Every month, I would pay him TK 100. Because I didn't want to take him to my room. I have used my brother's desktop computer.

I followed a book to teach my student organized. I had a plan for how I would teach him the significant and necessary things of ASP.

I don't remember now, but he probably used to come to our house on weekends. I gave my full effort, and it seems he learned whatever lesson I gave him.

At the end of the month, he gave me half of my tuition fee, TK 500, and said, "Please keep this." I felt he wanted to say to me, "This is what you are worth." Anyway, I am not a person who argues with people. I just told him not to come the next day. This tuition session is over. Later I paid to my brother TK 100 as I had a deal with him. No matter what, I always try to pay back as I had the deal.

Probably, my stuent didn't expect this reaction. He was so surprise. Like, I suppose to agree with his 50% less attitude. He said, "if you don't teach me where I will go? Please don't be so harsh on me. Please keep teaching me. I won't listen to you. I will come to your house next week, no matter I many times you say no."

As I said, I didn't argue. I just kept quiet. But I really wanted to avoid any unwanted situation. I knew my colleague Tania had an extra room in her house; she kept it as a guest room. So, I requested her to let me sleep one night at her home so that I could avoid my student. He agreed with a big smile.

It became a one-night out with a friend. Her husband sometimes joined us, like a friend. The couple sometimes argued about things that made me laugh. For example, her husband opened the fridge and started saying, "Why didn't you cook those green bananas? Now they're becoming yellow. What should I do with those? Now eat those with your friend, etc." The way he was saying it made me laugh out loud. Tania was also laughing with me.

I slept in her guest room. She took care of me like a mother. She gave me a beautiful blanket to sleep with. She also called our other colleagues to let them know how I got scared of a student and hid in her house.

The next day, I came back home and was relieved that the student didn't show up.

Biography 222: Celebrating payday

 One of my colleagues, "Laboni," started a new trend with us in Bangladesh. She said every month, we will celebrate our payday. After getting paid, all our colleagues will go to a restaurant and have lunch together. Everyone will pay their own bill, so there is no pressure on one person. And we will have a good time together by having lunch.

I continued it as much as possible. Later, due to a financial crisis, I had to stop it. I thought I might start it in Canada. But I found people are not that interested in having lunch together here. Paydays are weekly or biweekly, and everyone has a different work schedule. No one likes anyone. So, I even couldn't think of starting it over here.

Biography 216: My mother bought that ring

 My mother likes rings among all ornaments. I like rings, too, because they are less expensive, easy to carry, and easy to wear and take off.

On my birthday, Mom brought a ring. It was a little big, golden-coloured ring that looked like a gold ring. After my birthday, I wore it to the office. Shampa first noticed my ring, and she assumed I had gotten engaged. I didn't say anything; I just smiled. She couldn't keep her happiness inside herself, so she spread it to the whole office.

Many colleagues came to say congratulations. First I didn't get chance to explain, later I thought let them think like that. I am not getting married anyway. So, what's the difference. I can tell them after a couple of days. Let's just enjoy the fun right now.

Some male colleagues met with me personally and congratulated me. I felt maybe they had more feelings than a colleague to me. That made me think perhaps I shouldn't tell anyone about their misunderstanding. Let's better let them believe that I am engaged. This will be easy for me to handle the situation.

One day, Shampa had a doubt about my reaction. Because I was not telling anything about my fiance, I only brought my ring. I confirmed with her later that she was right.