Lego...

... these are some of our Lego men, accumulated as the kids grow. And this was taken after their 'bath'. 8)

We didn't have the opportunity to play with such toys when we were kids. They were out of our parents' reach. But it was a toy that we dreamt of owning. So, when we got our first kid, he became our excuse to get them. And we'd fix them up first ourselves since at the time of our acquiring them, our boy's motor skills were at best still rudiment. LOL!

But even back then, money was scarce for us. With modest salaries, a kid in tow, study loans to repay, we had little spare. However, Lego was one of few luxuries that we allowed ourselves. We would hunt for good bargains wherever we went. The mid and late 90s were times when quite a number of supermarkets were winding down. Closing sales meant we could sometimes get Lego with a 70% discount! So we hunted, scrooged and bought.

It's hard to find Lego toys where we are now. The shopping complexes here don't seem to be stocking them any more. And this is one toy that got more expensive with time... My gal can spend hours building and rebuilding her Lego... and they're really durable. Our first set is as old as our boy and though it's a little 'discoloured' from all the handling, the lego bricks are still good.... Every once in a while, I'd still take them out and give them a good wash.... But Lego, they're not just toys for our kids but also our excuse to revisit our childhood in our adult years! LOL!

The Other Queen... by Philippa Gregory

My 38th book this year! This one came highly recommended from SM. And I thoroughly enjoyed it, the history buff that I am. It's in the form of narratives from the main characters.... Mary Bothwell (Queen of Scots), George Talbot ( the Earl), Bess (his wife). I actually read up a bit the history of Mary, Queen of Scots in the midst of reading the book. With the Net these days, info is so easy to get.

The book is about old England when she was divided into Papist and Protestant. Like today, religion too was used as a tool to unite and segregate. The Protestants were seen as forward looking. The Papist stood by the old ways.... the need for a mediator between Man and God, etc. Religion has been the foundation of power bases, still are in many countries. In our country today, there is also the same folly. We divide people by making the trivial, major issues; what we wear and eat, how we pray etc... In the end, while the little and ignorant people slug it out, the power remains in those who control. That's the lesson from this book.

And those in power mete out harsh punishments to the little people. And there is also fabrication... pretenders like the advisor to the Queen, Cecil, who was not from the nobility but ended up as one... you can make parallel comparison even with our current situation. There's a former PM here who seems to have forgotten his Kerala roots too and anoints himself more native than the natives.... Who says history is boring, huh? If anything, history keeps repeating itself. LOL!

The power of seduction... from ages come, a woman's power of seduction can be a very enabling as well as incapacitating tool. And you find men swooning after beauty, manipulated like puppets on strings. Beauty can make even the strongest of men dance to its tune... till they get what they want. Then the tables are turned...

Status of women... PP pointed me to a site which says that it will take UK another 67 years to reach parity fo pay between men and women. Women have it better now than ever in recorded history I would say. But women have always lost out to men. I am glad I am living in this century. And I also touched a bit about emancipation of women here.

Men of power, women who dominated... this book has it all. This is a very nice and mind provocative read.

Personally, I don't make much distinctions between Catholics or Protestants; same God. When God created Man, he gave him the ability to choose.... so the choice each of us make... if you believe there is an Almighty, some day you'll have to answer for yourself... so all these moral policing, coercion, politicking of faith.... they're just political play tools for those in power, as has been in ages past and even now.

2 more to go and my amended target for this year would be achieved!

Do you hear what I am saying???

We have so much chatter going on now. If you count computer chats in, our lives are filled with em. Yet, I wonder whether people hear what we are saying. Cos very often, upon 're-conversation', I notice that many things said in a conversation actually never registered. And sometimes you walk away feeling, it's just a polite front that the other person put up.

People hear but they don't listen. Perhaps I should rephrase too, people read but they don't register. Hearing without listening, reading with comprehension. They're the same. My F5 students just sat for their Trial Exam.... this year, I must have done the format of a formal letter 3-4 times! Yet not a single one of them got it right! Unbelievable that something as simple as a layout didn't even register. And while each of the lesson was going on, most of them nodded their head and said they won't forget.

To be a good friend... one of the essentials; to be a good listener. But these days, I guess most of us are too buried in our own problems to listen to others' problems. "Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone." Old age wisdom that still holds true.

One More Reason To Get Onto FaceBook

One of my son's school's former student committed suicide very recently. I am brought back to The Lotus Eater, the way he did it. And the irony was he marked his day he was going to take his life on FaceBook. I took a look at his list of friends... just slightly over 600 of them. And yet none saw it coming... despite him putting up RIP as his last post and it kinda got spurred.. I read his postings and it's depressing.

Love does go awry in life... relationships break. The heart suffers great loss and life can feel meaningless as a result.... that's what many of us would go through. It's bad enough for anyone as it is but for a teenager, it is more likely to signal the end of his world... The pain will pass but they don't understand that. So while that moment lingers on, it feels like it will last for eternity. Hence the hopelessness.... the young mind can be very reckless.

He had so many friends, and he kept marking the day on FB, each day he wrote as if it was a countdown... yet none could save him. A boy, not even an adult. Teenage years are very stormy. Teenagers often feel a sense of loss, a feeling of not being loved, a suspicion of persecution, so many things. Even with assurances, some still fail to see that what they perceive is not what it is. And rejection is the worst....

An anchor in life. This generation lives life on a chase... and in the great big chase, everyone forgets to help them shape an anchor in their lives. Without an anchor, it's kind of hard to find rest in a storm... and you sink.

Friends abound everywhere but you wonder whether they are for real or just superficial. I know kids who have over 1000 friends on FB, yet they lament their loneliness... Am reminded of Proverbs 18:24; A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. I guess in our world made frenzy by the chase of everything, we find little time to cultivate true friendships too.

Of course, on hindsight now everyone sees his intention clearly... what seems to be amiss here is the lack of foresight and caution from those who read the messages he posted. So parents, get onto FB if your kids are on... you can hover from a discreet distance and monitor the going ons. I've talked to many parents and told them the need to be their children's friend on FB, but most just shrug it off and say they do not have the time..... It's sad to see a young life snuff himself out like this... I am sure there are many who loved him. He just didn't see it!

Velcro parenting...

First they had this Helicopter Parenting... where parents are ever present, hovering over their children, showing extreme concern and paying real close attention to their children's experiences and problems, making all effort to shield their kids from the unpleasant experiences. Helicopter Parents often become Lawnmower Parents cos they mow down all the not nice things out of their kids life.

Fast forward 15-20 years and these Helicopter cum Lawnmower Parents have now become Velcro Parents. Because they are so involved in their children's lives; down to the every minute detail, the children's lives become their mission. I supposed it also evolves into a mission with no end. So these parents stick onto their kids like velcro. They follow their kids everywhere, clear the path for them, negotiate for them, even right up to their uni doorsteps.... basically, continue to parent them as if their kids do not have the capabilities to cope for themselves.

And the end result???? Delayed Adulthood. Everyone needs to learn from their own experiences. We've a whole generation of kids deprived of that 'learning experience'. Theirs are lives of unbelievable smoothness... most of them go through very little pains and very little responsibilities. Sheltered, their growth also become stunted, hence the delayed adulthood.

Studies show that the young adult are likely to change as many as 8 jobs before they hit the age of 30. And dig this too, they are more likely to move back to live with their parents, leech off the parents. Delayed adults seem to think that if they don't like something, they just don't continue... and since the bukit behind them is so solid, they move back to the bukit which will continue to shelter and protect them from the elements of life!

We often talk about milestones in our lives... finishing secondary school, then perhaps a university degree, a job, marriage, family... Delayed adults go through perhaps the first 2 without much hitches. It becomes tricky at Milestone 3. They don't stick around long if they don't like their jobs. Milestone 4 is not such a big deal now that cohabitation is the in thing; no strings attached. So, they don't get to Milestone 5 or if they do, it might be a very New Age kind of family.... supposedly the embodiment of responsibilities picked up from Milestone 1 to Milestone 4. Everything gets stunted cos there are too many protections, what with the helicopter and lawnmower problems pushing and mowing down every problem, every slightest bit of discomfort that their children go through. The kids go through life thinking that pa and ma will solve their problem.

Paradigm shift in 21st century parenting????

Emancipation...

Women have come a long way from those old days where they were more or less objects to be owned. This is from the current book that I am reading, a book about Mary, Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth I...

A woman has to change her nature if she is to be a wife. She has to learn to curb her tongue, to suppress her desires, to moderate her thoughts, and to spend her days putting another first. She has to put him first even even she longs to serve herself or her children. She has to put him first even when she longs to judge for herself. She has to put him first even when she knows best. To be a good wife is to be a woman with a will of iron that you yourself have forged into a bridle to curb your own abilities. To be a good wife is to enslave yourself to a lesser person. To be a good wife is to amputate your own power as surely as the parents of beggars hack off their children's feet for the greater benefit of the family.

Excerpt from The Other Queen, by Philippa Gregory

From a conversation with colleagues... we were just talking about how each of us wear so many hats now, and how we've had to multi-task, like it or not. We work outside and at home. And all of us agree that it's tiring. Yet none of us want to give up the former for the latter. It's not just the financial independence that work offers but the opportunity to get away from the home. Both places can be maddening but one tends to eat you from the inside more.

The above extract stands true to many I would think. There's a saying that marriage is a bed of roses... I bear in mind that roses come with thorns. Being pricked by thorns can be excruciatingly painful cos big or small the thorns, they hurt nevertheless.

Look into any studies and you will find that most of the housework is still done by the wife. Somehow men still feel that their main job is just to go out and work to bring back the dough. And that the house is the woman's domain. When I send and pick my girl from tuition, I find that a disproportionately big number of 'drivers' are mothers. How many of us can say that their husbands will pick up the broom (or vacuum) to clean the floor when it is dirty or even pick up stuff that clutter the floor? The number is few. And these are the nitty gritty things that sometimes drive us up the wall.

Women in history... I can't help but conclude that women seem to be more on the 'losing' end of everything. Women and emancipation?? The need for emancipation is the proof that there is inequality. This is after all still a man's world.

The Dangerous World of Daniel X... by James Patterson

Book 37 and getting there! 8) Think this is the 4th of Patterson's books that I've read this year. He's actually quite a versatile writer. From the deeply divided America of the KKK era, to the sophisticated world of high flying private investigation and now to the kind of sci-fi story that I try to teach my gal to write. I was hooked from the minute I started, first, mainly from amusement from what I was reading. It's definitely a kid's book.

Daniel X, Alien Hunter of bad aliens bent on destroying Earth. And he's got special gifts which enabled him to do the 'superman' stuff. His parents came to Earth to hunt down the bad aliens but were killed by The Prayer; a very bad alien on top of the Wanted List of bad aliens. It felt like I was reading a Marvel Comic, only this was all words. Found it fun that I finished it in 2 days! ... anyway, I had so much waiting to do here and there. The Ipod came to the rescue again! 8)

Just a fortnight ago, I was trying to spark my gal's (and her friends) imaginations by asking them to write an ending to an alien (that looked like a marriage of pig and snail) invasion. Kids don't do stuff like that in schools these days over here. Everything is rote and set. Very dull and boring. So, I found it highly entertaining to read a full length book with a high dose of imagination, the fluffy kind. I must get my girl to read this.

Anyway, the story ended well. Daniel was duped by Bad Alien No 6 on The Wanted List and was taken on a space ride back to his home planet. Suffice to say, events were turned around and he saved the day for his home planet. He, a mere 15 year old boy killed Bad Alien No 6. A nice read for kids, this one, clean too 8) ... and also adults who want a dose of superhero saves the day 'thingy' for light entertainment. I'd give this 2 thumbs up! *grin*