Friendly vs Rigid

"Can I have you check out my paper? Oh- by the way, Teacher Chen. This is our parting gift to you. Please accept our heartfelt gift." The 20 years old man who called as 'student Peng' gave Chen Rumin a blue paper bag along with the paper that he asked for her to tend to.

"Oh, that was no need, but thank you for your kindness. I will definitely use it later. But, what is this paper? When will be the due date you need me to give it to you back? Is it an urgent?" Although she was trying to reject the gift, but she kindly accepted her students' heartfelt farewell gift. She placed the thick paper which was neatly organized and placed in a blue folder onto her desk.

She then took a look at the title before wrote the title to a notepad. It was a must-do for Chen Rumin to jot down any work that she need to do as a reminder. Afterwards, she made the note into two copy- one to stick on the folder and another into her reminder notebook.

"No need to rush, Teacher Chen. I only wanted to make sure that the paper can be checked before your last day here. You can call me upon you finish it."

"Today is Thursday. Next Friday then. Just to let you know, I still have another three other student's paper to tend to, hahaha. Look at this stack of paper." Chen Rumin opened a drawer under her table left side to show it to the student.

Although Chen Rumin was known to be the most strict and firm lecturer for the students to face on, mostly when it came to work assignment, but she was also known as a reliable teacher if they need her guidance or judgement on their paper. Whether its on the grammar or the content, she was a helpful teacher to every student that came to her.

Chen Rumin placed the blue folder along with other folders in the drawer then locked the drawer and put the key into her handbag. Whether it's her own work or the students' work trusted to her, she would keep them safe in a locked drawer so there would be no unfortunate event as she never know how and when people can have unforeseen greed or bad intention.

If something happened to her students' work upon her supervision, it would be undoubtedly her fault to not carefully keep them safe and confidential. She also made a rule that only the person who submit the work will take back the work, so she can help to avoid any work plagiarism or sabotage conduct.

She had been accustomed to such unfortunate event when she was studying in the past and as she saw how such unethical conduct can ruin every person involved, she did not want those sad case happenned to her students.

"What food thatyour class loves to eat? Do you guys enjoy friend chicken? Ehh no no. I heard that you are currently chasing your project deadline for Teacher Lim's class, is that right? Later, before you go to lunch, have something nice to drink to energize yourselves. Put it on my tab." Chen Rumin said while still with her stoic expression taking some material to go for her first class.

"Thank you, Teacher Chen. Here, let me help you." The boy tried to grab the materials but Chen Rumin politely rejected him though and walked away to her class. Although Chen Rumin had been in the teaching career for so long but she still insisted for a distance between her and her student as she was still vulnerable to any negative impression.

She was a divorcee and single mother with a daughter, on top of that. Thus, if there was someone who had bad intention want to form one, the possibility for someone to do so was high and it would be bad for both her and her daughter. Even by only kind gesture which students helped their teacher to bring materials or walking alongside the teacher, would give a lead or opportunity for people to do so.

It was a typical thing for people to be friends with approachable people and avoid rigid people. However, it depends on each people preferences and needs too. It applied well with how the students conduct themselves in their life. They naturally love to hang out with friendly and approachable lecturer so they can be at ease and not too guarded to be around the teacher.

Compared to teachers that gave them a feeling of comfortableness, they will instead avoid to get close with teachers that are too strict and cautious. They dislike the feeling and the need to always be on guarded and be disciplined as they would be tired of it. However, later the students would realize which kind of lecturer that fits well with their needs. There were students who did approach these lecturer just merely to hang out with so they did not mind much how the lecturers act.

Meanwhile, there were ones who did truly find one, who can guide them on studying so they would bravely approached any lecturers even if they had to grit their teeth, facing various kind of lecturer's 'unique' character. It would be a luck if they could find a strict one but reasonable, and it would be heaven if the person was both an easily approachable and reliable.

Everyone loves a smooth process. However, on the teachers' perspective view, such situation was not an thing to do. If the person was too easy to approach, and very helpful to the students, it may cause unnecessary attention as well jealousy towards the teacher. One bad intention was enough to instigate bad idea which later could ruin their teaching career. Considering those consequences, with no strong identity or background, many teachers would undoubtedly deemed such things as a scary threat for their reputation, led them to be vigilant against possible causes of their sufferings later. But then, later students would avoid them and still bad-talking about them for being so rigid.

Thus, to the end, it was difficult for each side to meet at one point and one of them would adjust oneself to the others. In this situation, it depends on the students to whom they will go as they were the ones who would adjust themselves to respective teachers they chose to go.

Chen Rumin being a perfectionist was distressing her students when she was so strict in her class, both in marking students' papers and evaluating their attitudes towards class absenteeism and work assignment. But she would be very helpful to those who came to her with intention to learn and improve their studying. A lot of her students would still approach her regardless of how rigid she was, because they know they need her.

In fact, after those students had their own session with her, they realized that the straightforwardness was more comfortable and smooth since they just need to point out what they need without the need to mind about other things. Simply said, Chen Rumin did her job as a guidance, and they did their job as students. Their relationship was simple as teacher and student. In addition, it was not like she would mistreat them or punished them by asking them to do things that out of ethical conduct. So, there were still students who hold their respect towards Chen Rumin so much that they did not mind about her strictness and even loves to attend her class.

##Rosehill Residence.

Beep Beep

On the bed, Chen Ziyi felt bored, so she took out her phone and there was a pop out notification from WeChat. She unlocked her phone and went to her WeChat account to see the messages.

It was from the group named 'Knight Warrior'. Why it named 'Knight Warrior'? She also never knew. The members of the group wall her classmates from ChenHe.

[Is the plan still on?👀]

[yes. How many of us will join the lunch?]

[Only the girls right?😎]

[why you want to abandon us boysss 😭]

[You boy would not be able to catch up with our talk later. So just stay at your home hahaha🙄]

[I can come protect you girls from bad people💪🏻]

[What thin boy like you can do?😂]

It seemed that Chen Ziyi forgot to read the previous messages because there were unread messages from last week. So she scrolled upward to read those first then to the recent one.

[Let's have a meet up!]

[Yeah. Since most of us are going to scattered around later.]

[When?]

[Hm. Next week? Lets have lunch together then walked around sight-seeing?]

[Nice.]

[still need to pack my things.]

After read all the previous chat to the recent one, Chen Ziyi typed her messages in the group. 'Where? What time?'