Kuala Lampur, Sept. 22 -- I spend much of my working life telling students to listen.

Listen to the instructions. Listen for the main idea. Listen properly before you answer. I am an English lecturer, so listening is not only something I want from my students, it is something I grade them on.

Then my birthday came and my students handed me something I could not grade at all.

They sang the moment they saw me. Someone had clearly organised it, because the singing kept happening, class after class, all day. And then the flowers came, bouquets, held out by students who suddenly looked shy after all that noise. Anyone who knows me knows flowers are my weakness. And there I stood: the lecturer who always has something to say, saying nothing ...