Crossroads

Today represents the transition between two distinct phases of my life. 

Yesterday I bade my student life farewell. Tomorrow I'll stand before my class, a teacher.

There are many things that remain the same -- family, friends, values, faith, goals -- but with the other things, life rarely stops to let us catch up. Let tomorrow come!

J

 

"Many here do not have the basics in academics as most were never  enrolled or allowed in the mainstream education system. Most are not even able to write their names. Could you teach some to write their names so they can sign their monthly wage slips? A daunting task?"

I spent no less than 4 hours with this big guy today, as we sat down to write his name : Jia Yung. We never got past "J". The abovementioned daunting task, amplified by the words of head of the centre ("many have tried teaching him and have given up, discouraged") seemed like a challenge - and so we flipped page after page of his worn-out notebook, trying to get the letter right. I decided to stop teaching only when he gave up trying - and we kept going, because he never stopped trying.

For hours, Jia Yung learnt and re-learnt those 3 strokes that form the first letter of his name. We advanced from tracing 12 dots to 6, to just 2, and occasionally we would try writing it without any dots, but the outcome was never always a perfect "J". At times, the letter was a singular downward stroke; at times, he made his own versions of the letter. He would laugh when that happened, and then he'd go back to trying the real "J" again, unperturbed by his forgetfulness and failure. Now and then when he got it right, the smile of achievement beamed on his face, if only for a moment before he had to re-learn the letter again.

I wish I could say we finally got it right, but we didn't. This sort of task would take months to master and requires a teacher who would sit with him every day for the next 6 months, drilling into him those 3 strokes: "straight line…down…up!" (my utmost respect is for the full-time volunteers here). Yet despite the seemingly insurmountable task, each try always began with rigour, determination; he never stopped wanting to get it right. Jia Yung didn't write his name in his exercise book today, but he will some day, because he knows it.

What a great display of persistence...

"The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less." 

Tim Keller, The Reason for God

The empty space

The scene was impressive: physically challenged, wheelchair-bound residents found their mobility in the able-bodied ones, who despite being mentally challenged could push them around. In the garden, the older ones poked at the soil in the pots to plant their seeds and tilted their bottles to water their plants - despite their twisted, frail hands - while the younger ones looked on to learn.

Then, out she came from the darkness of the corridor, with a crooked smile and a clumsy walk. She shook our hands as if we'd been friends for ages, said a few things we couldn't comprehend, pointed outside to tell us her friends were returning from work - smiling always.

We excused ourselves to take a tour around the home on our own, and she walked with us, eager to be the one acquainting us with the place she had known for so long. I've always admired their innocent friendliness. At the corridor, we passed by a board of photographs; each picture had a name below it.

There, she pointed to an empty space in the middle of a sea of smiling faces, saying something indistinct we couldn't understand, "Kawan…". Pressing her finger against that empty blue space where a photo once was, she repeated herself, but this time, gesturing with her right hand. She was trying to say something important.

"Kawan"

"Kawan kamu?"

"Ya"

"No more?"

"Ya"

And then I understood. "Your friend, no more?"

She nodded, still smiling her unassuming, crooked smile. But this time, her face betrayed an ineffable sadness. In her childlikeness, she had wanted to show us a part of her little world - the home - but first she wanted us to know her friend: a faceless person whose story we would never know about, yet was so important to her in life, and now in death. That empty space was not empty for it meant something dear to her. 

That day, I saw more humanity in a place than I've ever seen in most places.

Cik Cheong

So it's official now: I'll be posted to SMK Gemas for the next 2 years (located about 45 min - 1 hour from Bukit Beruang), and I'll be teaching History. Come November, we will be sent to 'teachers' bootcamp' at the Institute, and in Jan, we will begin teaching in schools.

Predicting that my subject was either going to be History, English or Geography (or a combination of these), I insisted on only teaching these 3 subjects to my 2 test subjects students at a tuition centre here, as a way to familiarize myself with the syllabus and prepare for the Fellowship - and it's been fun, but challenging at the same time. I'm amused when I think of my students sometimes. Both are Form 1 students, a boy and a girl, who hate each other's guts. Yet when one of them forgets to bring something, they make up with each other just for the moment, to borrow whatever it is from the other - after which they then resume their squabbling. Like most students who have the opportunity to be tutored, they complain about their school teachers a lot.

It's funny, because my mind raced back to my days as a Form 1 student, upon being told that I am going to be teaching History. Cik Cheong had been my History teacher then, and who could forget her? A tiny-framed, shrill-voiced, bespectacled Chinese lady whose eyes bulged beneath her glasses everytime she emphasized a point or lesson to us. Cik Cheong had a way of making Sejarah an art, literally, for she made us colour our notes with colour pencils and decorate our notebooks with portraits of historical figures and pictures of artefacts - which I hated, because I was never good at art and drawing.

Cik Cheong was the most likeable teacher we knew, and she had this gift of relating with us as a friend without losing her place as our teacher, and we always looked forward to her lessons! She knew how to make a dry syllabus interesting, and in many ways, she made the dead historical figures come alive during our lessons. What a great example to aspire to...

Next History class, I'm going to get my students to draw this :P

To dream - and not make dreams your master

Stories of great social enterprises rarely begin with nods of approval, handshakes of agreement and pats on the shoulder. Most of them actually begin with laughter, or raised eyebrows, from bemused hearers and bystanders.

I'm realising that cynicism is really 'expired hope'; no different from milk that turns sour with time. Cynicism is to inspiration what a clogged pond is to a fresh, fast river, teeming with life. We need a fresh perspective all the time!

Theodore Roosevelt once said,

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, ... because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat"

If you are trying, and are being laughed at, remember that it is a privilege to be in your position; a privilege many squander away in exchange for the comforts of watching from the stands, instead of fighting in the arena.

^"Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me."

Nothing really prepares you for difficult decisions, not even the stories of heroes from your days of childhood; heroes I would read about and admire. And now that this privilege/opportunity has come, it's so encouraging to know: "My Father will honor the one who serves me".

All this is nothing compared to what I have received.

Boston/New York!

So I've arrived at Boston and will be here (and in New York City) for the next 2 and a 1/2 weeks. It's absolutely COLD here, -7°C outside, and weather forecasts project the temperature to worsen for the next few days - not that I'm complaining, I love the snow!

On the 13-hour-flight from Tokyo to Chicago earlier I was seated next to a Tibetan monk and a Taiwanese student. After a few attempts at communicating with each other in English (and failing to do so miserably), we then settled on the universal language of sleeping. We did pretty well at that...

I've made a 'hit-list' of places to visit/things to do for the next few days, and Jas (she's being a wonderful host) and I will be meeting John on Fri to hit New York too. But here's the list:

• Walk along the Freedom Trail
• Visit the New England Aquarium
• Walk along Charles River
• Check out the Harvard Museum of Natural History
• Take pictures of lighthouses at Boston Harbor
• Have Clam Chowder at Boston's oldest restaurant: Union Oyster House
• Snap pictures of the Statue of Liberty
• Visit the Empire State Building
• Walk to Ground Zero
• Take a picture with the bull and bear at NY Stock Exchange
• Walk about Time Square and the Bronx
• Celebrate Lunar New Year at Chinatown
• Build a snow man!
  

The Joy of the Outdoors

"A traveler.

I love his title.

A traveler is to be reverenced as such.

His profession is the best symbol of our life.

Going from--toward;

it is the history of every one of us."'

-Henry David Thoreau

I love the outdoors. Early in the holidays (Nov last year) I decided to make the best out of these precious months by doing what I think is valuable, knowing that this semester break would well be my last (then comes working life - a whole new adventure of its own). Since then, 5 hiking trips have happened.

Chilling Falls

I love the idea that you could enter a totally different world after just a 45 minutes drive and a 2 and a half hours climb, and be able to share that experience with friends and acquaintances. The joy of hiking is found in the camaraderie of friends achieving a common goal and enjoying the reward of it; I once tried solo-hiking and found it to be extremely unpleasant and lonely!

Tabur West (above). Went there twice with two different groups of friends A less-trodden path, which led to a higher cliff, at Tabur West
Magnificent view at Broga Hill (above), where I got to spend the morning with old buddies, Wai Wai and Ian
Nick and Jared (above), at Tabur East
Sheer cliffs at Tabur East

Perhaps the reason for this compelling urge to hike every chance I get lies in the notion that there are still countless places yet to be discovered - and that no two are the same. Maybe it is an 'adventurer's complex': an odd, puzzling feeling when a person becomes both satisfied having traveled to a new place, yet, unsatisfied with the greater realization that there exists many more places and people to be experienced.

What is sure is that life is a passing vapour. And it shouldn't be wasted on the things that don't matter! Life in itself is one great adventure.

The Evils of Staying in the Crowd

In the early hours of 13th March, 1964, Kitty Genovese was murdered just a few steps away from her apartment door, out in the cold. Her neighbours heard shouts for help, some even saw what had happened, but no one came out. After stabbing her twice Kitty Genovese's attacker fled the scene, but realised he didn't need to when no one bothered to respond to his victim's cries; he later came back to stab her a few more times before raping her.

Social psychology calls it the "Bystander Effect" - when social responsibility is diffused in a crowd of onlookers/bystanders who witness to a particular incident they would otherwise have engaged in if they were alone. In a crowd of bystanders, everyone assumes the other person would help, thus no one does.

It is an intriguing social occurence, especially because it opposes the popular notion that crowds are 'good'. It challenges the age-old belief that the 'majority rules', and that the 'people are always right', while proving that people are, by nature, self-perserving and selfish. And while we are very acquainted with the positives of the 'crowd', being told that there is safety in numbers, and being taught that so much more could be achieved with the hands of many, I know the 'crowd' can rear its ugly head too. These are the dangers of only staying in the 'crowd':

1) The 'crowd' swallows the goodness of the individual and brings out the worst in humanity. Faceless, nameless and devoid of any personal responsibility, the 'crowd' is a social monster that survives on the strength in numbers - but take its members away, and you will notice how the 'crowd' falls silent and loses its strength. Hidden behind the faceless mask of the crowd are individuals who are lured into exchanging their personal opinions and individuality for the false strength of a crowd. Where there is no responsibility, there are no consequences. And even when the crowd is wrong, no one is guilty.

2) The 'crowd' is lethargic and always happy to remain where it is. Because it is adverse to change, it is also often trapped in the trenches of inaction and complacency. Clouded in a false sense of security, the 'crowd' is able to fend off its conscience, and need not do much because everyone is comfortable. Teamwork is difficult in a 'crowd', because a crowd tends to be directionless anyway.

3) The 'crowd' rarely rewards initiative and punishes different behaviour. In school, whenever a guy in our circle of friends did a humourous thing, or made us laugh, the deed was often celebrated, no matter how terrible it was (skipping school, cursing at the teacher, etc), but a person who was too 'right'/good would not be accorded the same reception. Unless we rise from the pressures of conforming to the crowd, we are slaves to the majority - and there's no guarantee it is always right.

Let's move beyond the 'crowd', and make things happen!

When wills collide

"Submission is only necessary in a disagreement. When two people already agree there's no need to 'submit'" - Colin Hurt