I have always felt I am different. Thank you for reminding me there is nothing wrong with that!
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” – Steve Jobs
Other really inspiring quotes from him here.
Lucien is nearly two-and-a-half and I love being with him at this stage. I think now’s the time when I am really enjoying being a parent. My child is interactive, playful, talkative (sometimes making sense, sometimes not), independent, funny but growing too quickly. This is when I wish there is a slow-motion button for my life right now, so I don’t let this all whizz by so fast.
For some weeks he has been resistant about going to playschool twice a week. In the beginning he would be sobbing uncontrollably on the floor when the time came to go to school, kicking and screaming so hard that it would be impossible to put his coat and shoes on. His father bore the brunt of this all. Purely because I had no physical strength to be battling with a little angry bull on the floor. Over his shoulder his father would put him, and carried him to school like a pig off to the slaughterhouse. And of course the little pig would wail and put up a good fight along the way.
Recently the situation has improved. Sometimes he gets anxious when he knows the time has come for us to take him to school. But he no longer cries, kicks or resists. He lets us put his shoes and coat on. He walks there with us. He doesn’t cling to us at unfamiliar settings where there are lots of other children (e.g. indoor play centre), or feels worried about being with other kids.
I took him to school on Tuesday. It was proper pissing down with rain so I put him on the pushchair and stuck the raincover over to keep him dry. He didn’t whimper or cry on the way or as we approached the building like I thought he might. When he got to school and I unbuckled his seatbelt, he jumped off and headed into the classroom straightaway. I had a quick chat with the teachers and as I turned around to leave, he said loudly, “Goodbye, Mummy!” and gave me a big wave.
It broke my heart a little.
Although I am massively pleased he has now embraced going to playschool (he probably doesn’t find it worrying now that he is familiar with the environment and teachers, and he now realises we will pick him up after), it’s a bit sad to realise as your child gains more and more independence, he is going to need you less and less, and the gap between you will grow and grow. He will want to start to do his own stuff, develop his own world and interests, make his own friends, and you will no longer be his universe. He will no longer look at you as if you mean the world to him, the way he did when he was a baby.
It is very bittersweet for me.
I tolerated it. She sat on me for two years. Intially she sat on my neighbour, but somehow she changed her mind and chose me instead.
She bought me a colourful pillow friend some months into the job. Fed up with the boring blue cubicle, she went to IKEA to get some pretty cloths, some plants and the pillow to do up her space. You know, give it a bit of identity.
I have seen her weep, heard her laugh, listened as she screamed at students over the phone, eavesdropped on her private conversations with her closer colleagues and watched her typing away at her laptop and rummaging her drawer for food.
She has a little fat round butt and she loves to plonk it down on me. Her favourite is to kick off her shoes and sit cross-legged on me while hugging the pillow. Sometimes, when she is tired, she tilts back her head and shuts her eyes for a while.
Today is the last day she will sit on me. I saw her cleaning out her cubicle since last Friday. She took away my pillow friend and the jacket covering me yesterday. I feel so bare and alone now.
But in two days time, this new guy Wee will come and rest his rear on me and make this place his own. I wonder what he would be like. Would he find me a friend? Dump things on me? Push me gently into my resting space under the desk when he leaves at the end of every day?
I hate meeting new butts and getting used to their smelly farts. I wish we only had one owner during our lifespan. “Can we?”
p.s. if you don’t understand, ask me my new colleague’s name.
Yesterday I had my last lesson with my crazy, “hyper” class, as they termed it. The Mechanical Engineering boys (and two girls) who are always so loud, active and would start their silly Capoeira or Malay dance moves out of the blue at the back of the class. Somebody would crack a joke and they would literally roll on the floor laughing.
Trying to keep them still is a feat. I almost always lose my voice. And I’ll develop a headache from all the noise and the buzz of activity.
But I love them for their passion and enthusiasm. For their sense of humour and the willingness to take on any activity I give them. To do it with pride and seriousness. And thus, I was willing to give them all the energy I could muster at the end of the day, so we could all have fun through learning.
Yesterday, being the last lesson and all, we put away the workbooks and tried the Egg Drop activity and afterward The Line Game taken from The Freedom Writers.
Amazingly, the groups were so good – 3 out of 4 eggs survived the fall from the College’s fifth storey. Usually, only 1 egg per class would remain intact. Not knowing so many groups would emerge as winners, I didn’t prepare enough chocolates as rewards so I ended up taking them to the canteen and buying them drinks instead.
I feel the saddest leaving this class. I will miss their crazy antics. I will miss this class where a fight almost broke out in my lesson and where another boy tried to hurt himself. There is a lot of synergy yet a lot of exclusion and bullying.
I just wished I had more time to do more with them. To make them understand more about behaviours, emotions and consequences. To see them grow.
I’ll miss them, but not my croaky voice and throbbing head. Guess you can’t have everything.
Through my tinted glasses 