The Trophy

Students at our school love to give gifts to their teachers. I'm not sure why--maybe it's an Asian cultural thing.

I've had some pretty weird gifts, including a pair of basketball shoes and an ancient Chinese compass, but usually I get neckties and wine. This year I told my students clearly:

Some of you will want to give me gifts, but I don't want any gifts. I
have everything I need. But if your parents insist, tell them: PLEASE, no
wine and no neckties. I don't drink wine and I have stopped wearing
neckties.

So, I collected some nice pens and pencils, which was sweet, since I want to be a writer, and some decorative artsy things that Poo likes, a half bear/half rabbit pencil-holder, some shirts, and, of course, foodstuffs.

But this year's weirdest gift was a trophy. On the last day, I put it into my bag, but it was sticking out, and everybody kept asking, "what's with the trophy?"

What could I say? It came from the further math class and they searched hard to find a twirling octagon as the crown jewel. It came with a nice inscription, too:

Wishing you all the luck in the (maths) world.

Thanks to you math will always be with us in our hearts + in our minds + in our books.

I have told them 100 times not to use the plus sign as a replacement for "and". Also, I see they can't decide between the British word "maths" and the American word "math". I'm glad I'm not their English teacher.

Anyway, the boys absolutely love the trophy. Thun like to pose for photographs with it and imagine he has won some sort of competition. Jason likes to use it as a weapon.