My Life Will Go On (22) by Junior Win

 

While I was writing my M.Sc thesis, the Ministry of Education announced the part-time tutor post opportunity. One who obtained M.Sc degree or still attending master classes or even who passed B.Sc Honors degree could apply it. It was the official announcement.

(I started to learn computer at home with my brother. At the same time I was writing M.Sc thesis with my father.) (Drawn by Maung Yit)

My grandfather was suddenly angry when I was trying to apply for the part-time tutor. He said he did not want me to be a tutor. Part-time was the first latter to become a tutor. He feared I would be transferred to Si Tway (Sit Tway – the very far place form Rangoon, western part of Burma, Rakhine State, nobody like to be transferred there.). I never saw my grandfather so angry and totally against my wish. I knew he quit his post as Assistant Lecturer at the University of Rangoon when he was transferred to Si Tway College. He did not want me to follow his step. But at that time I had only one aim – to be a tutor at the University. (It was too late to change my mind, grandpa.) By grasping that opportunity I became a part-time tutor (for 7 months).

In the mean time the Ministry of Education interviewed all the part-time tutors. It was for promoting their posts to become a full-time tutor. We hoped that the result would be announced within a month or near future. But the result did not come out for a year so far.

(While I was at home waiting for the result of tutor announcement, I was reading books, and poems with grandpa, and grandma.)

In 1996, I started to write – ‘My Life Will Go On’ in Burmese. (I did not know why I wrote. It might because there was no one beside me to listen my feeling, or it might because I was in debt 200 kyats in the past. This article would pay the debt that I owed, I thought.) At the same time I finalized my thesis.

My first article appeared on ATwayAmyin magazine. The editor was Maung Wun Tha. He was like an uncle to me. When my first article was printed in the magazine, I was surprised to see the happiest person in the world – my dear grandfather! He read it again, and again, and showed my article to every guest. “Look, her writing is looking like her grandma!”

(‘I did not want to be a writer like my grandmother. This article was the first, and the last, grandpa.’ – These words I said in my heart alone.) I still hated everybody called me ‘writer’. I was angry when my brother teased me as ‘once a writer, always a writer.’) But if that’s so, I did not understand myself why I write. The opposite feelings were raging in my heart. But I could not help continue writing second article, and the third. Before my third article appeared, –

On 26th July 1996, my grandfather was in stroke and unconscious and stayed in the hospital for four days. He died in peace on 1st August 1996. He only saw my two pieces of articles in the magazine.