Practice makes perfect

The past few days were disheartening for me. This despite the fact that I had reason to be cheerful after my podium finish at the Bangalore Ultra 50K, held on Sunday. There were spoilsports for me and I have relegated the experience to the garbage dump, where it has always belonged. There is one good reason to smile though:-) And that is that Bryan was able to pass the IITian Pace entrance test. This brought a lot of relief to Monsoon who agonizes a lot over Bryan' carefree attitude. I can immodestly state that his success is attributable to yours truly:-)

Bryan has a home tutor for Math, a mistake we made, thinking that he would do better if he did not attend tuition classes. Well, he has been displaying a lackadaisical attitude to his studies and the result was a mediocre performance in his first terminal exams in Xth std. The panic button was now pressed and we had to move quickly. If he has to attend classes next year, it had better be a reputed one. IITian Pace is one of the elite ones and realizing his math knowledge was less than average, thanks to his tutor (or maybe Bryan is more to blame), I had to spend several evenings pacing up and down the living room, with a stern expression while he worked furiously on a tough question set I had specially purchased. It worked! He was able to tackle difficult problems on trignometry, co-ordinate geometry, P & L, linear equations etc, with elan.

On the day he gave his test, I was running the Bangalore Ultra. When he finished his test he told me it was good but he was afraid about his being in the list of selected students. I told him that he had practiced enough and that this is all that was required to succeed. I drew out an analogy and told him that I wake up at dawn just to wear my shoes and go out for a run while most people are asleep. He understood that this had brought me several successful marathon finishes. He got his answer that practice makes perfect, when he was informed the result of his selection by IITan Pace. He was so happy, he ordered Chinese food with his own allowance and promised Dojo a full chicken. Unfortunately, he has not kept his promise to Dojo and when I reminded him last night about it, he said, "Arey yaar, I said it in my excitement"!!! I have now to teach him that promises such as these are not made to be broken. Dojo, poor chap is clueless about all the excitement but he is happy when Bryan is happy because he is the first to be at teh receiving end of Bryan' ire, should Bryan be in a foul mood.