Irony.

Nursery Rhymes 101 Adjunct Professor Ralph Chen

Sing a song of sixpence,

A pocket full of rye;

Four and twenty blackbirds

Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,

They all began to sing.

Now, wasn't that a dainty dish

To set before the King?

The King was in his countinghouse,

Counting out his money;

The Queen was in the parlor

Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,

Hanging out the clothes.

Along there came a big black bird

And snipped off her nose!

I came across this nursery rhyme in Lim's blog. It reminds me of my sec 1/ sec 2 literature teacher. She was very temperamental and I sweared she sent a shiver down our spine every lit lesson. 'Eccentric' was the most appropriate word to describe her. She was a plump indian woman with plaited hair. She was weird and her name was too - Ms Manual (I wonder if there is anyone else called Ms 'Auto'?).

We really hated her and feared her lit lesson. I remember on her first lesson, when we were slow in forming groups as we were all new to each other (sec 1 what!?), she shouted at us at her top of her voice. From then on, we knew we cannot mess with her. I recalled every lesson, she would walk in with her forehead knitted as though the whole world has offended her. If she caught anyone not paying attention, she grabbed the textbook and threw it into the dustbin (if you are lucky). Otherwise, she threw it out of the window. She screamed and yelled if her work was not completed. We feared her until secondary 2.

She became real nice to us and she would walk in with a smile that brightened our day. Don't ask me why the 360 degrees change in her. It beat me. However, the situation in other classes that she was teaching still remained the same. She still treated other classes like how she treated us in sec 1. My class became an apple of her eye. She joked and made us laughed. She taught us the above ryhme and we practised singing it over and over again. Just as we began to like her, she announced she would be leaving. We sang her this rhyme before she left. We took photo with someone we dreaded before. We suddenly missed someone who once sent our books flying. It was just so ironic. Yes, and I remember she taught us the use of this word - 'irony' in the lit context.