This is Tiny, a little chubby hamster that my student, S dreamt and wished so much to have. It is a Syrian hamster which is a medium-sized hamster, slightly bigger than its Roborovski cousins. S had been telling me about Tiny for months, showing me its photo too.
Last year, when S's birthday was approaching in few months time, she had been looking forward to having Tiny. Tiny is one of the many hamsters she saw in her tuition center, waiting to be adopted. She had been looking at them everyday and she finally wanted Tiny, because of its golden brown fur colour. Since then, she had been saving her pocket money so she can get Tiny a decent home. She had even planned to bring Tiny for this upcoming Chinese New Year visiting, so she also set aside an amount to get it a jogging ball or carrier.
S was really serious with this adoption, thus she went to study up how to take care of a hamster. Everytime I saw her, she was enthusiasticly telling me her plans: where to keep Tiny, where to let it out for a play, what type of bedding is suitable, how often she needs to buy food for it etc.
S was of course doing the countdown three months before her birthday! I too, tapped on this enthusiasm and made her write essay about a proposal of how to take care of a Roborovski hamster and put all the information from her "research" into words and paragraphs. She wrote a decent essay happily and WITHOUT objection or grumbles with me. Hahaha!
To encourage her, I told S I would sponsor her an item for Tiny if she was allowed to keep it as her birthday present too. She was really over the moon except for one thing: she has yet to ask if her family would allow her to keep it!!!!
When her birthday came, her aunt and also godmum didn't agree to her request but saying that they would keep in view. So, S was of course disappointed. However, she sent me this photo and asked me to write about Tiny so everyone can know about Tiny.
Well, I too think Tiny is an adorable hamster. The least that I can do is, share this interest with S, though it is not a happy story ending for S. She still goes to her tuition center and plays with Tiny.
I like to watch hamsters stuffing food into their cheeks. I find it very amazing and cute, like this one:
Thank you for reading about my sharing of my relationship with some young people I tutor! Besides tutoring them academically, I love to take interest in their lives too and build friendship whenever possible.