Speechless

Not very often you would find me speechless. But I am..totally speechless.

I received a phone call this morning from one of the top private school for boys to inform me that my son won the full (high school) academic scholarship.

I am in total shock.

My son is in grade 7 this year and will be joining high school next year. End of Jan, when the Scholarship date was announced in the newspaper, I showed it to my son. He went through the list of all the private schools in Australia, picked the one school he would like to join and applied to write the test.
I don’t like to keep all my eggs in one basket and suggested to him to apply for scholarships to other schools as well, rather than just one school, because it is the same test for most of the schools. He refused. He only wanted to join one school

He wrote the ACER scholarship test few weeks ago. ( The same test, where he wrote he would ban discrimination if he had the power to ban one thing and I said, I would ban narcotic drugs). When I asked him, how he did the test, he informed me that he wasn’t happy with the way he answered and I assumed he will be going to a public school. ( I was tempted to tell him off for not applying to more than one school!!)
For three weeks prior to his scholarship test,He woke up on his own  at 5 am every morning, went through various sample scholarship tests ( online).

I never woke him up, never sat with him and never taught him. (I go to bed very late and am not a morning person !! so there was no way, I could get up at 5 to wake him up!)
Besides,  I felt my children should take responsibility for their own future. I don’t want to push them to achieve greatness. They are capable and should be able to do things by and for themselves.
I explained to them that I can’t afford private school fees ( 20,000$/year )  and if they really want to study in a private school, then they must work hard and get the scholarship.

My son did it. I will not steal his thunder.
This victory is his..his alone.
I am so happy for him.

And I asked him what would he like to tell the world?
He said with his trademark sheepish grin, Mom,  tell the world that “I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul”

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.      
W E Henley.

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