Sins Of The Father

I got the NUS academic transcript for semestral results in the mail today, and I opened it sitting at the coffee table beside Dad, who was also going through his mail. I did a quick scan to ensure that nothing was out of place, and I caught him peering at me over the rim of his glasses and the top edge of his letter.

Naturally (i.e. to say, with no choice) I proffered him the aforementioned mail-in-question.

"Wanna see my grades?", I ask nonchalantly. I know i've done well.

He took the letter, examined it with a look of intense concentration for all of 3 minutes (even though it was really only 5 important lines, and those were the list of modules i'd taken as well as the accompanying grades for them), and asked me this:

"So... Your score now is..."

"Well, Pa, it's a CAP system so A's get 5, A minuses get 4.5, and so on. It's written at the bottom of the paper. Like, first class honors is 4.5 and above."

"So your score is what?"

"Umm. After 2 semesters, it's 4.4."

He pauses, looks me in the eye and says with a straight face:

"Well, you're still 0.1 short, aren't you?"

And as I return his gaze, I can't help but observe a twisted flame of sarcastic mirth and impish mischief flickering in his eyes as his lips curl up in a begrudging smirk of pride. And I can't help but grin back in return.

Sometimes, we are more of our father's sons than we'd like to believe.