助人为快乐之本

我自认是一个称得上乐于助人的家伙。
特别是遇到乐龄人士，我更是会不留余力地尽力给予他们方便。
主要是因为我了解随着年纪增长而开始衰退并非他们的意愿。

我也知道自己基于种种原因，没能为自己的长辈做到一百分。
而很多时候，一些非亲非故的人也会为我的长辈们尽心尽力。
所以我很坚持，我能帮的我就会帮，因为别人也在很无私地帮助我们的家人。

但在一些情况下，有时真的会让人哭笑不得。

坦白说，我帮助人，应该算是不求回报。
当然，帮助别人有时候是希望以后别人能回你一个方便。
但说实在，我的爸爸妈妈把我教导得挺不错。
助人为快乐之本这个道理，是打从心底生了根的信念。

所以我很照顾一位与我同桌的老太太。

老太太约莫六十出头，寡妇一名。
数星期前闪到腰，到目前还在进行物理治疗。
每次上课，都是由他的干儿子接送。
原则上来讲，那位干儿子应陪同老太太上课但他只出席过一次。

老人家腰痛还坚持上课，身为小辈，已很佩服。
上完课要她一个人走下楼去候车，也不是很放心，所以我都会陪她。
送佛送到西，到了候车的地方，我会待到扶她上车再离开。
老太太顺理成章，口头上认了我这个干女儿。

今天上完课，与我出双入对的胜鹏遇见熟人便留下多聊几句。
而我，就单独陪着老太太等电梯下楼。
老太太劈头就问：“胜鹏是你的弟弟哦？”
要把我俩的关系解释清楚，一匹布那样长。
外加样子有像，常人都会如是误会，所以我回了一句：“算是吧。”
“那你有拍拖吗？”
虽然感觉事有跷蹊，我还是摇了摇头。

老太太的脸亮了一下，继续说了下去。
“嗯嗯，要不要我介绍我的干儿子给你认识？我的干儿子那天说想找你吃个饭呢。”
我心里认真囧了起来，一边干笑。
“吓？没事吃什么饭？”
“没什么，他说你真好，那么照顾我，想请你吃个饭。”
*继续干笑*
“不用啦，没什么大不了的。”
“吃个饭罢了。你们都是我的干儿子干女儿，ok啦。”
*不停干笑*
“再看，再看。”

先不管人家干儿子怎么想，老太太头上的角都跑出来了啦。
这样来给人杀个措手不及，看来我的功力真的很浅。

老太太呀老太太，别搞得我那么为难,好吗？
让我默默帮助你，别耍那么多花样，可以吗？
我真的不觉得自己额头上刻了“可怜没人爱”这五个大字叻。

话说，最近好像有点桃花朵朵开的迹象。
啧啧啧，狼狈死了。

最悦耳的掌声

掌声，一个人的一生中，或多或少，一定接受过。

身为一个教育者，在被允许的情况下，我都会鼓励学生为别人鼓掌。
一来，让接受掌声的人知道自己被承认进而增加信心；
二来，让鼓掌的人习惯给予别人称赞，不再那么含蓄。
（有发现华人特别吝啬称赞与掌声吗？都是那该死的封建保守思想。）

但个人来说，我并不特别想别人为我鼓掌。
就是那种，你给就给，不给也罢。
你给得起，我受得起。

前几天，我发现到，那是因为我还未找到对我来说最悦耳的掌声。

在一阵喧哗中，轮到我走上前呈堂。
当我开始说话时，喧哗声明显下降，但窃窃细语依然此起彼落。
由于我不是什么大人物，就算想发作也无权，也只好当它耳边风。

就在我开始示范唱一首配合课本内容而改词的儿歌时，全场突然鸦雀无声。
我也乐得没人打插我的兴致，唱得好快活。
就在最后一个音符落下后，大家还是呆呆的坐着。

然后，有一个人开始鼓掌。
然后，有更多人鼓掌。
然后，全部人都在鼓掌。

虽然还不至于到 standing ovation 那种程度，但真的很爽，很爽。

原来，最悦耳的掌声，是在别人从瞧不起你到肯定你中产生的。

Teabag

I'm not sure if anyone else in this world came up with this metaphor before, but I assure you this came from my own head. If it happens that you've heard this else where, it's either it started from me, or I have a twin soul living somewhere.

So what is this great idea I thought of one fine day when a friend was spilling her heart out to me? It was probably because I had tea the same day, that I decided, feelings are like teabags.

To put it simple, think of your experience with a teabag.

It's one that was recommended by many, or written on the label, to be the one that suit you best. But you will never know, until you rip open the packaging and take the first sniff. It smells pretty good, acceptable, probably going to be even more amazing once you take a sip and the flavour rolls around on your tongue and between your teeth.

And so, you put it into a cup of hot water.
Maybe dunk it in a few times, to speed up the releasing of flavour.

If you're an impatient person, you'd drink it a little to soon and the taste of the tea would be plain.
If you're a patient person, the tea might just be right for you, which timing would take a bit of experience to master.
If you're a person who is too careful, more water may have to be added because the flavour got too overwhelming.

So what has all this got to do with feelings, really?
I seriously think I must be a genius in disguise to see the similarity.

By chance, you stumble upon an object of affection, probably by the packaging or by word of mouth. Then you thought, hmmm maybe this could work, I should give it a shot. This is where you start to consider. Since it's closely related to the heart instead of the head, most people would simply decide to go for it. Refer back to example of impatient people. There isn't a chance for the tea leaves to release sufficient flavour into the water, and so you thought you needed to add in sugar etc to spice things up. But as the teabag continues to soak in the hot water even with the presence of sugar, the flavour becomes more intense and might just turn bad because sugar was added too soon.

But in the case of someone who is too careful, the object of affection, after too much consideration, might be out of date, purchased by other people, or that the initial excitement of finding one such object subsides. Unlike the simple step of adding more water after over-soaking a teabag, weighing the pros and cons for too long cannot be undone to retrieve back what was missed. It is not like wine, which is another story for another day. And over-soaked tea often has this bitterness to it that's hard to ignore, what more liking it.

Jumping too soon into a relationship before getting to know someone properly is as bad as waiting for too long. The problem with being too early is that when you see the underlying true personality, you probably get the shock of your life. As for waiting, it is usually the case of watching the person walk off with someone else, or that you find a new interest. Also, you probably thought so far ahead that the person is actually condemned for a fault s/he might (or never will because it didn't happen!) make. The bitterness of a cynic seeps in.

Life really does need some recklessness. At least, after a few sipping-too-soon failures, you'll know you just got to wait a bit longer. But to start right off with waiting too long and tasting the bitterness of an over-soaked tea, you're probably too put off to try drinking tea again. And that, is a kind of #firstworldpain.

水瓶事件（二篇）

用了三年，比男朋友还忠实长久，上课一定有它的亲爱水瓶，弄丢了。 T_T

下课前进班，明明还带着。
过后回到办公室，因为肚子饿，泡了杯牛奶喝。
阴天，办公室比平时冷，又泡了杯浓浓的美禄。
事隔很久，才发现落了水瓶。

去过的地方都找过了，可是就是下落不明。
那种慌张，非笔墨所能形容。

因为身份是老师，不能坐在那闹别扭闹情绪，哭喊着要别人帮忙把它找出来。
虽然说回到家不会被妈妈骂。
难道，老师像学生那样丢了水瓶，也应该去问一问遗失部的负责老师？

2008 do a little, change a lot
reduce reuse recycle

瓶上的字，已深深烙印在脑海里。
真的十分难过，希望明天能找得回……

**************

无独有偶，林家兄妹的妹妹，对我的“聪明水”水瓶十分喜爱。

明明只是一个坐过飞机越洋过海的矿泉水水瓶，但那小瓜深信是我“十分聪明”的秘诀。

昨天给妹妹补习时，她就吵着要喝我的水。
反正小孩子，就随她去了。
今天到他们家给哥哥补习后走下楼，妹妹趁我和外婆交谈时，拐走了我的“聪明水”。
“老师老师，我可以喝吗？”
“嗯啦嗯啦，要喝就喝。”
“雅虎！”
外婆顶了她一句：“老师的水香一点的hor？”
“其实是因为水瓶上写着“聪明水”啦。哈哈！”

走到门口了，她还是不肯乖乖把水瓶还给我。
看见她那模样，“好啦好啦，水瓶送给你算了。”
“真的？！”
（看了看外婆，应该是征求意见，外婆的眼神传达着“你别不要脸啦！”的讯息）
哥哥还插嘴，“给回老师，不要乱乱拿人家的东西！”
“就一个水瓶罢了，给她吧。哈哈！”

回家的车程，我想到就笑，又想到又笑。
到家跟妈妈说，她也是笑到歪。

一个伤心，一个笑翻，上帝还真的是富幽默感。

Angry Bird, Happy Human

So, reformatted the laptop.
And reinstalled Google Chrome.
Updated the extensions too.
And caught up, albeit a little outdated, with the piqued feathered creature adventure that Chrome conveniently included in its browser.





Not too shabby for the first day.
Only a few more to refine for 3 stars.
I'm addicted all right. XD

捉字蚤

很想把压在胸口上的那团闷气靠文字把它一点一点地排出来。
却清楚了解除了自己的脑袋，没有一个地方是安全的避风港。

想过以打哑谜的方式将思绪记下，却将违反记录思绪的初衷。
而朋友们互相认识，我不想被不断的猜测搞得终天疑神疑鬼。

活那么大，还真的没试过将一个秘密守得这么坚持这么拼命。
看来对一个不小心可能失去的，我比想象中更怕，更舍不得。

屈指算一算，有七年了吧？是偷偷生孩子，都进一年级了哩。
靠，如将此毅力转化到工作上，不用十年可当教育部长了啦。

Genetic

I suppose if you were to ask any female whether she wants to have kids of her own and the answer is no, it's probably due to her dislike towards children in general, or that labour pain is scary, perhaps even the fear of never losing that extra pounds. It's rare, practically nonexistent, to hear one say, "I don't want any child to bear the genetic defects I have. They don't deserve that."

Given the amount of physical disadvantages I've experience since young, if only I could find a way to ensure my offspring do not end up with what I had. The inconvenience caused by such shortcomings aren't exactly my main concern, but rather the potential damage that can be done to the self esteem of a child. I don't think many can have the opportunity as I did to regain what's lost.

A boy in my class seems to be experience some health issues as of late.
Top grades, good looks, loved by everyone.
Simply put, perfect.
I'm not sure if the condition's temporary like viral infection, or that a sickness such as migraine will be an on going struggle for him.
I pray he's not going to be burden with either.
But the mother did mention she doesn't have good health records to begin with.

I don't know. Does a child really deserve to go through strings of inconvenience brought by genetic defects simply because 'womanhood will be incomplete without the labouring process'? Or it's just fated? Maybe I might end up with no kids after all.

又一梦篇

有点觉得，最近好像越来越接近竭斯底里的状况。
表面上好像风平浪静，暗地里，连夜乱梦。

梦什么？
梦见一位绅士。
绅士怎么啦？
绅士就是Mr. Right。

梦中的绅士，时时与孩童玩得不予乐乎，搞得浑身是伤。
而我，嘴一边训话，手一边敷药，心一边心疼。
画面真实的来，有点过于梦幻。
情节梦幻的来，也有点真实。

噢，我的世界怎么了？我的脑筋怎么了？
我的理智难道在面对现实时用尽了，到梦里会那么义无反顾？

CoincidenceS

I remember either reading this somewhere or another, that coincidence aren't that rare in life if we pay more attention. But for the past 20 days, it just kept happening till it's not freaky anymore.

Scene 1: (April 12, 2011)
On a normal day, I don't really have the luxury of reading the newspaper before going to school. It's mainly because I rather sleep the extra 15 minutes, or that I had to leave earlier to school. But on this day, I somehow insisted on reading the Nanyang 副刊 before preparing for school. And saw this.


It was the first time I heard/read about anything related to G6PD deficiency. The little I know about newborns are from when Min was a tiny dot. At the age of 6, there's only so much medical information I could comprehend. I only knew that infants who appear to be yellowish had to be expose to sunlight for some time in order to prevent 黄疸病 (Jaundice). Given that I'm not going to be a mother myself anytime soon, and that none of my friends faced the same medical condition, I dismissed the article as I did with most.

However, upon getting to school, I saw my little class monitor walking to the staff room with a pair of parents. My initial worries were that the parents came to complain about whatever happening in the class, but turned out those two are actually parents to another boy who just came back from New Zealand and enrolled into my class.

After settling him down in class, I took the parents on a little tour around the school. And as the class teacher, I asked them about what I should look out for when dealing with their son. Doesn't require a genius to realise where this is heading, no?



Scene 2: (April 22, 2011)
It's a Friday night and after getting home from tuition at about 10.15pm, I sat down comfortably to start on my newspaper reading. Earlier over dinner, I told M about this trip the school teachers organised on the 21st of May. I signed up to go along for a 2D1N trip in Kukup and UK Farm. And guess what I saw on the newspaper.



Scene 3: (April 29, 2011)
Another Friday which totally worn me out. I was very tired but M wanted supper, so i stayed up waiting for her to finish another episode of her Korean drama. After half an hour, I gave up trying to keep my eyes open and retired to my room at 11.30pm. Exactly 5 minutes later, that episode ended. Oh, the irony. So she came in to ask if I would still go out for supper with her, because she's been craving so much for this burger with pineapple slices sold in front of 7-11. Tired but wanting more to accompany her, I changed out of my home clothes and soon we were eating the pretty amazing Ramli burger with pineapple slices. It wasn't until 2.15am that we got home. I swear my eyes were just gonna roll back into my skull to fall asleep but I somehow wanted to read a bit of Jughead.


(Read the entire comic here: 1, 2, 3)



Scene 4: (May 2, 2011)
On Saturday April 30th, I insisted to go to Sunway Giza during tea time because I fell in love with the concept of Hour Tavern ever since reading about them on Nanyang. While there, M told me to drop by Village Grocer and pick up some stuff needed. Amidst shopping for tomatoes and butterhead, I saw there were cut pumpkins for sale as well. Recalling how much M likes pumpkin soup, I bought one to make her some later in the week. And the recipe of the day in Nanyang is, jeng jeng jeng...





Frankly, I think it's pretty amazing. Now, if only I could blabber out 4 numbers to solve all the problems money can solve.

In A Week

Ever feel like you live your life in weeks rather than in other time measurements?

On Sunday, I loath the coming of Monday.
On Monday, I wait for Wednesday, the halfway to Friday.
On Tuesday, I tell myself, it's not so bad after all.
On Wednesday, I rush to fight the work pile building since the beginning of the week.
On Thursday, I start to slow down because there's a whole weekend to do everything not done.
On Friday, I thank high heavens that it's the weekend again.
On Saturday, I wonder where all the time went.
And the cycle repeats.

Currently, I really hate Fridays to a certain degree because I have to enter 3 different classes for 6 periods back to back from 12.40 till 4.30.
And then there's tuition.
Things are so hectic and endless I don't quite grasp how time passes.