Growing old disgracefully and proud of it

THE funny thing about Friesian cows standing in a field is that they all seem to look in one direction, either to the right or left. Whether there is an obvious reason for this, I do not know but maybe that is where the term "herd mentality" comes in. It takes one brave cow to look the other way.

This draws a parallel in humans. Large numbers of people act in the same way at the same time and this implies a fear-based reaction to peer pressure, which makes individuals act in order to avoid feeling "left behind" from the group. It is also the fear that tongues will wag and doing something differently is certainly "not the done thing". I was born in a small town and boy, did people talk. Private business was public business and not surprisingly uncommon behaviour was great fodder for gossip. That is why most people possibly avoided doing things differently and therefore imposed upon themselves what William Blake would call "manacles of the mind". Then, I moved to the city where people still talked but we were too busy eking out a living and minding children to bother with what they were talking about. Now, I am back to living in a small town and even though we have progressed into the new millennium, strangely some things do not change.

There was once when I was wearing this lovely pair of canvas shoes with cartoons on them that were hand-painted by my former student. The moment I walked into the petrol kiosk to get a cup of coffee, I saw a group of school girls and they started whispering. Through years of experience of observing non-verbal communication, I could tell that they were aghast that a grown woman had cartoons on her shoes. Certainly very eccentric indeed. An interesting read is Growing Old Disgracefully by Rohan Canduppa where she quips that the expected behaviour of a grandma is to have a kindly face. She must knit and wear cardigans and be mildly shocked at young people's antics. Most of all, she must never have sex or even think about it. So, it is absolutely delightful to read Jenny Joseph's poem Warning, where the first few lines say, "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple, with a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.... I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells and run my stick along the public railings and make up for the sobriety of my youth..." This reminds me of the time when I wanted to buy an ice cream cone. The accepted code of ice cream eating behaviour is to purchase one with or without a flake in it. So when we passed a shop that sold ice cream cones, my better half asked me whether I wanted one. I said, yes and could I have two flakes in it? Shocked, he said, "This is not the done thing." So we drove by the shop without buying any. Then, we passed by another shop. I asked him to please pull the car over. I went into the second shop and bought myself a cone with two flakes.

Don't get me wrong. I am not trying to be difficult and purposefully trying to be a social menace. I certainly do not condone vile acts of treason or looting or being selfish and disrespectful. Having said that, sometimes I can tolerate meaningless chatter and bad language and being bored stiff in a pub watching others share their private jokes and down liquor for the sake of "blending" in if there is good reason to do so. But I do believe in standing by your principles, knowing that you will not put up with what you are not comfortable with. Most of all, I like doing things creatively -- that has always been the plumb line for my actions. If that exhibits a lust for life and liberates the mind and soul, why not? Just the other day, we passed by another shop selling ice cream cones. This time, my better half asked, "Now do you want three flakes even?" Source: http://www.nst.com.my/mobile/opinion/columnist/growing-old-disgracefully-and-proud-of-it-1.107569

A tale of two frogs and a vat of cream

Once upon a time there were two frogs Frank and Fiona that fell into a vat of cream. Frank lamented and despaired and succumbed to the watery death. Fiona decided she would not give up without a fight and started to paddle fast and furiously only to realise that the cream had turned into butter and so with her webbed feet strongly anchored on the buttery base she leapt out of the vat into freedom. I heard that story when I was a child but it baffled me because I had no inkling of how cream could be turned into butter. But now I know because I have just participated in an event organised by the Limerick International Women’s Organisation- a butter making session conducted by Imen McDonnell.

It was a hands on session and as I shook the bottle which was filled with cream, I could literally see the cream curdling and turning into butter. That immediately got me thinking. When put in a tight situation will I be like Frank or Fiona? Do I look at the waves around me and hold my head in my hands and wait for the inevitable to happen or do I try to make sense of it and get out of it? Seeing a new born baby kicking and screaming as it enters the world convinces me that we are imbued with a fighting spirit. As with many things, with time this spirit can either become more emboldened or quelled.

Vincent Van Gogh said, ‘If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.’ I totally agree that we need to try to find out what we can or cannot do. With trying, there will be failures and when we face our failures and forgive ourselves, we know that we still have the fighting spirit. It is certainly easier to be negative than to be positive in a world that is often harsh and unkind – be it at home, at school and at the work place. Someone once asked me how a person can keep on having a positive outlook on life. My reply was to make a conscious choice in cases where we have two options: to fight to survive or to retreat to despair. I believe that a fighting spirit is emboldened by circumstances. Immigrants to new lands seeking survival and fortune are often very hardworking and driven. I saw that in my ancestors and I can see that now in many of those who have come from the Eastern bloc and are working in Ireland. Those who knew little English took it upon themselves to improve by going for language classes. I see hardworking waiters and waitresses cleaning tables and always on-the-go. The ‘one-chance’ mindset also helps to propel the fighting spirit. If we are brought up to understand that we have only ‘one-chance’ to study hard, to get that scholarship or to get an illustrious career, then we learn how to be focussed, to be disciplined and to make decisions at an early age. If we are brought up to know that to succeed is to work hard and not to depend on others, then that is the code of ethics that will drive us. A fighting spirit and self esteem go hand-in-hand. It is like the chicken and egg story and I do not know whether it is the fighting spirit that increases self esteem or the other way round. But there is nothing to lose if we start by building up self esteem. When self esteem is low, we think that ‘everything is about me, me, me’ and everyone else seems to be ‘attacking me.’ We start comparing ourselves with others and what follows is disappointment, jealousy and blame-shifting. We blame others for our present state, never ourselves.

But when we are self assured of both our strengths and weaknesses, then everything is about ‘what I can do to make the situation better’. If we see someone else who is more successful, instead of feeling small, griping or back-biting, we can make that the desire that drives us to better ourselves. Maybe we need to say to ourselves what Lauren Bacall once said, ‘I’m not a has-been. I am a will-be.’

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/a-tale-of-two-frogs-and-a-vat-of-cream-1.100579

Problem Solving Made Simple

Problems whether they are big or small plague us . Some of us have inherited the worry-wart gene and we get uptight unless we can fix the problem within a certain time frame. Problem solving gurus teach us that we must dissect a big problem into tiny bits, then solve the tiny problems, one by one. Figuratively it sounds logical yet to do that literally is a problem in itself. Perspective is also an interesting facet to consider. A problem may seem humongous to a child but if he relates it to an adult, then the problem can actually be very miniscule. That is where good communication comes in: between a parent and a child or between a student and a teacher. The person who is not afflicted by the problem can be more objective as his emotions are not entangled within the problematic web. A student once came up to me and was upset that her idea for a group business project was not well received by the rest of the group. She had always been the leader of the pack but she had just joined this new discussion group and she was not ‘proven’ yet. There was already another leader in the group who had been there since the group started and his idea was well-received. So I advised her to take another stance – to go along with the established leader and learn new things instead, while assuring her that in no way was her idea lesser in value than the one agreed upon. With some reluctance, she took my advice. Two months down the line when the project was making headway, I caught up with her again and asked about the progress of the project. She was beaming and said it was going very well, and she was happy. She said she also learnt a lot about herself in the process, the good and bad, as she worked alongside the new team mates. Her idea might not have been the one chosen by the group but she had learnt other life lessons, the most important being sometimes we lead and sometimes we follow. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Either way, we are still learning and we can excel in whatever we do. How many of us do actually realise that a huge problem can look smaller when we have had a good night sleep? I can think of numerous occasions when the big black cloud loomed over my nights as I tossed and turned wondering how to solve a problem. Most times, when I woke up the next day, the problem did not seem so big after all. Better still, through some miraculous means, in the cold light of day, the problem had solved itself. The funny thing about solving problems is we sometimes try every method when the answer lies right beneath our noses. Let me illustrate this with the common problem of foot pain. It is a sad thing when you discover that you have foot pain. It is even sadder when you do not know the cause of the pain. Like an unwelcome guest, foot pain gradually catches up with the senior citizens of the feminine fraternity. Reasons often linked to foot pain are ill-fitting shoes, wearing stilettos when younger, falls and sport injuries. If truth be told, I have subjected my poor feet to all of them. Sometimes, well-meaning older folk tell us that ‘wind’ might have something to do with the aches. So we try pain-relief drugs and alternative cure-all remedies like reflexology, traditional medicated ointments, poultice and wraps but the pain stubbornly refuses to go away. Now, that is a problem. Having exhausted all possible remedies, a pragmatic person told me: if the foot hurts, see a foot doctor a.k.a. a podiatrist. Now, why did I not think of that in the first place? I googled for a reliable podiatrist and made an appointment. Strangely for such mysterious foot pain, the answer was simple enough. It all had to do with posture and the need for orthotics. Imagine all the months of needless pain if I only had the right diagnosis sooner. So for now, the countryside walking trails are on the top of my to-do list again this summer! Source: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/problem-solving-made-simple-1.95311

Fading Art of Letter Writing

Four decades ago, we looked forward to a man who came to our house on most days around the same time except weekends. He used to ride a bicycle with a bell attached to it. He was after all the friendly postman. Nowadays, with all the internet gizmos we hardly get anything interesting from the postman (the bicycle has made way for the louder and faster motorbike) except official letters, unwanted mail or bills. A sad development indeed.

As I am presently living in the countryside, I am stepping back in time as the postman here still cycles and he is the regular guy in the neighbourhood where everyone knows him by name. His bag which is plumped with letters is green. When I was in my teens, internet was unheard of. The only way to live life outside the familiar was through books, movies and letters. Books and movies still entertain us now but letters from pen-friends belong to the dinosaur age. I had a friend whose sister had put an advertisement in a European music magazine in the 1970s and she received hundreds of letters from curious Westerners who wanted to know what was happening in this part of the world. Needless to say she had to sieve through the letters to select the pen-pals she would keep. So her sister brought the rest of the letters to school and distributed to all who would like to have a Western pen-pal. I chose an Irish.

We corresponded for years exchanging information about nasi lemak, coconut trees, lamb stew, River dance and leprechauns. A letter would take 7-10 days to arrive. Then the letter would be read and re-read. Usually it would be written on very thin writing paper if sealed in an envelope or on an aerogramme. Letter writers are usually stamp collectors as well, so I would carefully cut around the stamps and soak them out. For special occasions like birthdays, we would send little gifts. I remember sending a small pewter plate to my pen-pal. Sometimes the gifts would go missing and we would accuse the postman of stealing them. The topics in the letters were varied and innocent ranging from things that happened in the classroom, in the town and in the family. The most exciting part perhaps was when photos were exchanged. There was also miscommunication. Once when my pen-pal saw a beautiful rainbow, he casually wrote and asked whether I had seen a rainbow in Malaysia? Mortified, I explained to him in great detail how a rainbow is formed and Malaysia being in the tropics has plenty of rain and sunshine. He was talking about the aesthetic and I the scientific.

He sent me a lock of hair (which I still have today) and I sent him mine which he said would make a fine paintbrush. He was merely stating a fact about the strength of black Asian hair but I thought he totally unlike the romantic Hollywood filmstars. Through it all, letters that were much awaited for forged a great friendship. So lately, I decided to find out whether the art of writing letters to pen-pals still exists. I looked through a family magazine and was surprised that there was a whole page dedicated to making friends, not so much friends overseas but within Ireland itself. What caught my eye was the way such advertisements are worded these days. Now there are short forms everywhere like: WLTM (Would Like to Meet), SD (Social Drinker), GSOH (Good Sense of Humour) and ALA (All Letters Answered) to name a few. Most of the advertisements are very amusing and appear sincere enough. The range of people seeking pen-pals could be anything from 20 to 80 years of age. There is one advertisement that reads: Single soft-spoken man in his 60s seeks sincere lady for companionship with a view to marriage. Lives a quiet life. Has car. Can go for rides. I could not help suppressing a smile at the mention of the car and going for rides which to me is not exactly like owning a private jet and going for flights. I later found out that because most of these people live in the country, having a car and going for rides is seen as a treat and a getaway from the mundane for some. However, pen-pal advertisements in a local newspaper are completely different. With the exception of a few, most of the people in the advertisements are seeking for a fun time, and for floozy relationships with no strings attached. The long and short of letter writing is that it is very rewarding. As we celebrate our wedding anniversary this month, I know that it was not by coincidence that I married the same pen-pal from Ireland so many years ago. Source:http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/fading-art-of-letter-writing-1.90324

Keeping Afloat After the Sinking

The Titanic hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on the tragic night of April 14, 1912, and sunk two and a half hours later. 100 years later, I was at Belfast, at the Harland & Wolff shipyard where the Titanic was built. In my hands were copies of the St Louis Post-Dispatch which bore the screaming headlines ‘1302 lives lost when ‘Titanic’ sank; 868 saved, the Russian East-Asiatic Radio telegram (M16307) that read ‘Women and children in boats cannot last much longer’, the music score of the hymn ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ allegedly the last tune played by the ship’s band and even the menu of the luncheon served on that day.

No one could be at the site of a historic disaster and remain unmoved.

On board the Titanic was also a broad spectrum of passengers ranging from millionaires to seekers of fortune in the New World. Each passenger had his own agenda whether he was in a first class room with a marble toilet or a third class open berth sharing toilets made of iron. But then again, irrespective of their status or their private agendas, they were subjected to ‘another agenda’ beyond their control, mainly the gift of life or the end of it. The Titanic had gone down in history as the ship that was unsinkable or ‘designed to be unsinkable’. This reminds me of the frailty of men and Murphy’s law that "anything that can go wrong will go wrong". How many times have we witnessed our well-planned schedule go completely berserk because of an unforeseen circumstance? We all have our good days and our bad days. If we see ourselves in the bigger picture of things, we would save ourselves the agony of mulling around in our own despair when things do not go according to the way we hope or plan. For most professional or personal matters, I like to work within time frames and deadlines. It gives a sense of urgency to knuckle down and tackle a problem head on so as to achieve the desired results. It helps us put up with a less than desirable situation if we know that the ending of it is within realistic time. The Titanic also had survivors who lived on to tell their tales, Margaret (Molly) Brown, an American with Irish ancestry being one of them. Her survival gave her an international platform to talk about political and social issues like miners’ rights, women’s rights and the development of the juvenile court system. Because she was given a second chance in life, she went on to make the most of it. It has been said that she achieved more in life after her brush with death than before it. A second chance in life helps us remember that each day of living is a gift. Then we will be more careful how we choose to live it and how we choose to treat others. We love routine and the familiar, nothing wrong with that. But sometimes making the effort to step out of our comfort zone will bring us to a different kind of experience. It is easier to have tea with your buddies than to arrange to have tea with someone new. It is easier to give up hoping to make friends than to try and try again. It is easier to buy things for yourself than to think of buying or making something for another person even though there is no special occasion. It is easier to look down at the pavement when you walk down the street than to look up and greet another passer-by We could be many things if we make the concerted effort to step out of our familiar selves once in a while. We could be that Stradivarius violin that had been kept hidden all this time. Unless it is played, no one can know its potential. Nothing makes me happier then when someone comes up to tell me that I have brightened her day or that I have stood beside her when she was broken. No one would ever wish for a disaster to happen and yet when it does it shakes us up to re-examine our lives, our relationship with others and our concept of time. Ironically death has the uncanny power to jolt us to the reality of how precious life is. Many times we put off topping up the petrol tank in our cars and then become anxious when the red light comes on and we worry whether the car will stall. The people we live with or we mix with do not come with bright red warning lights, but they do give us signals when they are running low. Many times, we fail to pick up these signals until it is too late.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/keeping-afloat-after-the-sinking-1.85769

Teachers' Day: Teachers do not know everything

LEARNING Mandarin is the trend in Ireland these days. This is a spin-off from a recent visit by Chinese vice-president Xi Jinping and his delegation of 150 business leaders and government officials to Ireland to foster trade between the two countries. As I sat at the back of a classroom watching a teacher from Shanghai teaching Mandarin to a group of Irish, I saw that she had to contend with students whose ages ranged from 5 to 40 within a class. She also had to deal with the Irish-Chinese who spoke some Mandarin, and Irish-Africans and Irish-Hispanics who had no knowledge of the language. There was even a child bawling his eyes out because of first-day blues. Yet, the teacher encouraged her students and conducted the class with great patience and I was greatly impressed. Unfortunately, for every effective teacher there are many others who chose teaching for reasons other than the passion for teaching. Sometimes, teachers forget that students are people too. Harsh words and labels can crush a child’s self-esteem. It is said that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me”. This is absolutely not true judging from my memories of how some teachers spoke to us when we were young.

I had a primary school teacher who never quite liked me. She asked me to go to the office to bring back a map of Asia to the classroom. As all the maps were rolled up and stacked at one corner of the office, I took some time to find the right one and bring it back to class, only to be snarled at. She said: “What took you so long? Did you go to China?”

Even Physical Education time had its blues. I was into netball and because of my height, I was the shooter. It was my first try at the game, so I had trouble shooting the ball into the hoop. All I could hear in the background was a teacher yelling “Butterfingers! Butterfingers!” When my friends forgot to bring their shorts, the teacher made them run in their knickers. The richer children who had nice, store-bought terry towelling panties did not have much of a problem compared to those who wore home-made floral, polka-dotted or striped cotton panties that were big and secured at the waist with elastic bands. That stigma can haunt a child for her entire school life. Callous words still abound. Personality clashes between teachers and students exist. Worse still, there are teachers who practise favouritism. I can still remember one female Form Six teacher who always singled out a dashing student in Literature class. The rest of us felt that we never existed in her class. At the other extreme, the Economics teacher never spoke to a brilliant student because he challenged her on an issue once. She excluded him from all her discussions and we could feel the tension for the 1½ years during class. I have friends who left school early because of bad experiences with teachers. A teacher, who is sensitive to a child’s need and presence, is an encouragement to a young spirit. Conversely, a teacher, who continually puts a child down, limits his advancement. Children learn to be part of the adult world through experiences. A quiet teacher may find a vocal student a threat. A conservative teacher is uncomfortable with a student who is creative in expressing herself. We need teachers, who not only accept themselves first, but also accept differences in others. There is a link between the inner development and self-understanding of the teacher and what education is all about. It takes professional courage, commitment, interest and the humility to acknowledge that teachers do not know everything. Happy Teachers’ Day!

Read more: TEACHERS’ DAY: ‘Teachers do not know everything’ - Learning Curve - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/channels/learning-curve/teachers-day-teachers-do-not-know-everything-1.83388#ixzz1vMHBLJ7B

DRAWING THE LINE ON GOOD PARENTING

WHEN we first bought a chinchilla for a pet, we fussed over her and gave her an interesting diet of grains packaged under the name of Charlie Chinchilla. Now, this particular type of chinchilla food came in an assortment of colours -- red, orange, green and brown -- all mixed together. So, she feasted happily on the grains, but we noticed that she was leaving out the brown ones. We suspected that the brown ones took longer to chew and being smart and picky, she chose all the other colours. As types of pet food go, some suppliers will stop importing some brands. So, when we discovered that Charlie Chinchilla was no longer available at our local store, we had to buy a different brand. Just like babies being weaned off a certain brand of milk for another, we had to do the same for the chinchilla. This is called "challenging" where we mix pet food from the familiar brand with the new brand, and slowly decrease the portion of food from the familiar brand and concurrently increase the portion of the new pet food brand. To make the situation more difficult, we discovered that the new brand had only the brown grains that the chinchilla rejected. We watched anxiously as we saw, how true to her nature, the chinchilla would unearth the coloured grains even when we buried them beneath the brown grains. I was starting to get worried. What if she rejected the new brand altogether and died of starvation? I would carry that guilt with me all the way to my grave. Then Audrey, my 18-year-old said: "Don't worry mum. If she is hungry she will eat." On the first day, when the coloured grains ran out, the chinchilla took a look at the brown stuff and scampered away. On the second day, she even climbed over the food bowl to pee over the brown grains. Then she rolled up into a ball, went to the corner of her cage to sulk. She was making a statement indeed. Was I worried? Yes. I was already wrecking my brain on whether I should take a two-hour drive to another pet store. I had heard that they stock up Charlie Chinchilla pet food over there. On the third day of the hunger strike, a miracle happened. I saw the chinchilla take the brown grains into her padded paws and slowly, but surely, began to stuff them hungrily into her little mouth. This reminds me so much about how we bring up our children. Most modern day parents tend to spoil their children rotten, giving in to their whims and fancies. We see children throwing tantrums at supermarkets, students challenging teachers, children shouting at their parents, children challenging teachers, parents blindly defending their children and the list goes on. There is a proverb that says "Train up a child the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it". How true. I have seen how boundaries help mould a child's character and how discipline, that goes hand in hand with love, produces responsible and stable adults.

Professor Amy Chua's method of discipline in her controversial book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother speaks about how we should imbue our children with living skills rather than molly coddling them in the name of love. I have read the book and seen in talk shows over the television how Irish parents fight over her methods. For those who argue incessantly that the child should be worshipped and put on a pedestal, I would like to hear their views again in 30 years' time when that child becomes a man. Although I do not totally agree with Professor Chua's methods, I agree with the underlying principle that a parent's dedication to train a child right and to prepare him to embrace his future independently will not go unrewarded. As parents, it is not easy to do the "right" thing when others are simply pleasing their children for fear of retaliation or of losing them. The strict but loving parent, who teaches basic values and manners, who chooses to draw the demarcation line of who is the parent and who is the child, is sadly labelled as the ogre of today. With Mothers Day coming up, I am reminded of my strict and loving parents who taught me the meaning of building relationships, independence, self worth, perseverance and tenacity, and I have passed on the legacy to the next generation. I can never thank them enough. Read more: Drawing the line on good parenting - Politics - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/nation/politics/drawing-the-line-on-good-parenting-1.81055#ixzz1u5JGXDsh