Having lunch with my mommy friends is always an enjoyable experience. One mom talks about her experience taking her son to his college entrance exams. Another tells us the never-ending saga of her daughter’s on and off relationship with her boyfriend. And still another talks about her sometimes wacky adventures at her new job. In between bites of takoyaki and tempura, we have a lot of laughs, interspersed with little bits of mommy wisdom.

Listening to my friends, I noticed how fervent they are about taking care of their sons and daughters, husbands and partners, mothers and fathers, family and friends, colleagues and co-workers. As mothers, we are genetically wired to be nurturers, to enhance the lives of those around us. Unfortunately, we sometimes forget to take care of ourselves. Caught up in the hundred and one things on our to-do lists, penciling in some time for ourselves is oftentimes a luxury, if not a purely accidental treat.

Every so often, one of our students would drop by our center and show us his report card. He’d point out his improved grades and proceed to thank his tutor profusely. Whenever I witness such acts of sweetness, I whisper to myself, “God bless our teachers!”

Yes, where would we be without our teachers? Next only to our parents, our teachers opened our minds to the wonderful world of learning. They were thorough enough to explain the hardest concepts and patient enough to answer the simplest questions. They challenged us every day in the classroom with their pop quizzes and graded recitation sessions. At the time, we hated these impromptu tests of our abilities. Little did we know that we were actually being trained to think quickly on our feet, something that would come in handy once we got out to the real world.