Fine! Next please!

Quite a while ago, I had contemplated continuing Japanese with my current teacher.

My classmates didn't like him one bit. They say he talked too much, that is bad enough. But the worst thing is, the things he had said aren't the least beneficial to us.

In other words, he talked too much rubbish in class.

I had differed in my opinion.

You see, when I started Japanese, I was always nervous. I freaked up when I needed to go for class, because I hadn't understood a single thing. (That was another teacher. She is supposed to be quite good.)

But you see--a teacher-student's relationship needs some amount of chemistry.

This teacher, albeit talking too much, had made me comfortable in a certain way.

I think it is because he makes a lot of stupid comments--which made the exceptional students feel that he is wasting their time, but had made me feel comfortable instead.

Anyway, that was how I had thought a while back.

...

I have been learning Japanese for a year now.

Right now, I am in the last phase of the Intermediate level of the school.

I am still not fluent in the language. But I think a very very simple conversation is possible. I may stutter and pause due to a lack of vocabulary, and I will probably not understand exactly what is being said, but I can still fathom a bit.

And I am proud of my own progress.

So when my teacher tried so hard to convince me I shouldn't be taking JLPT 3, I wasn't the least impressed.

(We would need a recommendation from him to take the exam since we should be taking JLPT 4 but we are skipping a grade.)

To begin with, I wasn't taking it in the first place. It was the girl beside me who had wanted to try it. For me, I would be in Guangzhou doing my one-month Chinese literature/ economics/ politics class (I can try to take it in Guangzhou but it is going to be a big hassle trying to contact the university and the such).

He kept telling me how the deserving classmates have been scoring 80 and above for all their tests and hence are ready (and hence, since I hadn't ever scored 80, I am not...).

Perhaps, I should really feel incompetent, and to a certain extent, I do.

When I go for make-up class, I see people getting 98 marks or 95 marks for their test. In my own class, people get 99 marks.

I, on the contrary, get 73 marks. Sometimes, I scrap by, managing 60 plus marks.

In class, I don't understand the Japanese my teacher mutters. Or maybe he is not muttering. I thought he was.

So yes, maybe I should feel ashamed.

So maybe, it is not so much about other people being exceptional, just that I am unachieving.

Whatever it is, as a teacher, you have no right to dissuade me.

That goes against the motion of a teacher, does it not?

You may not support it because you feel that you don't want me to risk rejection and failure. Your job then is to tell me the test is hard and I will need to study doubly hard.

...

I was hesitating for a while whether I should even continue with Japanese.

I guess I should.

Even if next year I am still not good enough for JLPT.

You know. I know what I need to succeed in the language. Maybe because of my fetish with the brain and its behaviour--I know just what I need.

So I guess, perhaps a more worthwhile question is, will I be committed to better Japanese?

But anyway, I have decided to not continue with the school. Or the teacher.

I have to agree with my classmates this time: It is time to move on.