Mummy, Papa, thank you very very much for providing me a (very) good basic school education. Mummy, thank you for those repeated visits to so many schools, trying to get me admitted mid-term, despite having to listen to the frustrated (almost insulting) responses of many principals. Thank you for the fact that despite the need to have me admitted to a school, you did not compromise on the basic quality, environment and values that the school exhibited via its teachers’ behaviors and other organizational practices. So when I was admitted, you took me out with no hesitation and no delay, when these basic standards were found to be lacking, despite the fact that it just further lengthened my at-home no-school status. Papa, thank you for providing the financial means for the sustained education. And of course, thank you to both of you for all the other regular logistic and every other kind of task that is required to keep the machinery running for the child to go to school everyday. I repeat, I have many many times felt very thankful and grateful that I know how to read and write, and each time, I have felt very thankful to you Mummy and Papa, for that.
And now, thank you to graduate school. For further teaching me how to read. Today I experienced the sublime pleasure of that “more advanced” level of reading. Right through the time while I was reading what I was reading, I was feeling thankful to graduate school. For even while I was enjoying what I was reading, a parallel thought and knowing was that this is being made possible due to having indirectly learned “how to read” in graduate school. A bit during masters and more during the two years of discontinued PhD.
Thank you. With my arms mentally raised to some unknown un-named undetermined force: Thank you for giving me the ability to read.