Monday, May 30, 2011

Hate = Poison

I have two kids. Impressionable kids. Little Miss is at that stage were she haven't decided whether she wants to be stubborn or impress me all the time. Little Hero is more transparent, mainly because he still wears diapers and drinks milk, and he depends on me to help with all that.

And then I went blog-hopping and blog-reviewing that I stumbled upon this thought-provoking entry.

Let me sum it up for you if you don't have the time to read, though I strongly suggest that you do. The author, a one Aries, wrote of how parents or adults basically, can influence whether or not a child love or hate someone.

Now, I have always grappled with this issue. Should I tell my kids if I hate or is angry with someone, or should I just let them be? See, I can't even stand some of my siblings, for really, heinous things they did (barring things like rape and murder). There are cases of drug and domestic abuse in my family. And yes, I know people can change, I don't doubt the human capacity for change. But the thing is, in this case, change is taking up too much time and causing too much pain (emotional mostly) for me to see it a worthy cause (to wait for that particular person to change for the better).

Here's the thing. I want my kids to decide for themselves. But not before I am done with their 'foundation', you know what I'm saying? I'd like to be able to impart and instill the values and ideas and principles first before letting them decide for themselves. That in itself is lifelong learning, not something born in mere days. But 'foundation' you know?

Speaking of which, I am also mindful of the fact that by basically saying that it's okay to hate, which is perfectly okay to someone who is almost 30. But my kids are seven and three. Still think it's okay then?

Breaks my head a little thinking about it. Breaks my heart a little bit more though.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Ignoramus

An ignoramus is an ignorant person. If there's more than one, it probably should be ignorami. But since I am typing this on a notepad, offline and don't have a spellchecker, Imma let it be the singular form.

Ya see, I am supposed to participate in a focus group discussion. I've been to a few of these and here I am again because 1) I actually believe 'they' really2 consider what the participants say; 2) I am an attention-whore who loves the undivided attention of the discussion moderator; and 3) Once you go to a few of these babies, you'll get hooked somehow and you JUST have to go again and again.

Okay, I lied, the 'token' is RM150. And I get to escape the kids for a few hours (pinch of salt, people, pinch of salt).

Okay, so what's so ignorant about that? Well, for one thing, despite passing by the building for a gajillion time, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to get from my office. I literally broke out in a cold sweat, printing oodles of Google map for direction to the damned place. Yes, I don't have a GPS, because I like to rough it up (yeah right).

Another instance of my ignorance is, despite depleting 1/725th of the tropical rainforest in the form of my printed Google map, I still missed the turn that I was supposed to take, the one I have taken a thousand times before, the turn that takes me straight to Mak Ngah's place. If I were made fun of this fact in the future, I shall blame a big-ass bus that seemed stationery right in front of the UN Building, that made me missed the friggin turn (actually, the bus is trying to make the turn I was supposed to make but the road was so congested, making the bus non-moving for a bit).

So I had to make a U-turn, big deal. A huge-ass U-turn, but at least by then I knew for sure which turn I was supposed to go into.

Anyways, long story short, I made it to the focus group discussion venue in one piece. Upon entering the international ad agency that organized the whole she-bang, I was told dinner is served and was taken to the agency's pantry where three lovely ladies (first impression) were sitting. There were O'Brien's Sandwiches which I never had and wasn't all that impressed with anyways; and some coffee or tea.

Okay, so the three lovely ladies, they were birds of a feather (fill in the blanks yourself). I don't mind this, I could easily be in the same situation if it was reversed (as in, me in the a group of three lovely lady birds of the same feather... umm, yeah... and there's another lady bird who's not of the same feather -- what is it with this post and all the sayings!). But thing is, if it was reversed, AT LEAST, the one left out can understand the conversation...

Thing is, the three ladies were speaking in their mother tongue. Me, most of the time, I speak in OUR mother tongue, the MALAYSIAN mother tongue. Bahasa Melayu or the Malay language (and yes, I write in English, this blog is, after all, a release). The three ladies, were carrying on and on and on in their mother tongue. There were only four of us there. I was like *crickets*. What the hell am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to say?

On and on and on they conversed, with the minimal English words peppered here and there (I think I caught 'epidural' at one point, so maybe they were talking about childbirth), so naturally, seeing that the focus group discussion was for mothers, I can totally relate, if I knew the language, that is. So I sat there, kinda dumbly, not knowing what to do...

You see, an ignoramus is someone who is perhaps oblivious to the bloody obvious.

These three ladies? You be the judge.

extra prescription. the whole focus group discussion merits another entry on itself, by virtue of being one of the most ridiculous one I've been to... btw, I have quite a high tolerance of ridiculous, so that's saying a lot...

Thursday, May 19, 2011

The Promise

I made a promise with myself. When I started this blog.

I made myself promise, that if I find this blog to be too much work, I'd just stop it.

This is supposed to be some sort of sanctuary for me. A literary catharsis of sort.

I write daily for my work. I do freelance writing as well. And if I must write for my release, then it shouldn't be forced, now should it?

I miss writing here. I miss reorganizing my memories of my two kids, the shenanigans they're up to now and then.

Maybe I shouldn't be too averse to work then?
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