A comment on kindness

As a student, I can say that I've seen both sides of the coin. I've seen success, and in the same vein, failure. I'm no stranger to failure: I failed my driving test twice before passing, and I failed the first year of my A-levels before having to go back a year, and actually making a good go of it.

During my degree, I was doing fairly well, until my third year, when I bombed out in spectacular fashion. Thinking back, I can trace this to my second year and a particular incident where a mentor shouted at me. This incident stayed with me for quite some time, and unknowingly ate away at the slivers of self-confidence I had just begun to build. Please don't hear this as an attack on that particular mentor; I forgave that person so long ago and we all have bad days—I just seemed to catch someone on one of theirs.