One is faced with such dilemma when working with a child with some sort of disability. At some point, the line is blurred between attitude and disability. Is what the child doing, an action of someone without the capacity to manage himself, or a choice to deviate from what’s expected?

One of my students came late to class today. Dragging himself to school, he said that he felt dizzy on the MTR and in his state of dizziness, he somehow managed to work his way to school. His helper sent him off at the MTR near his home because she didn’t have enough change of cash to go in and out of the station with him. This 11 year old child, diagnosed with ADHD and dizzy from his medication, traveled alone on the MTR (with one change of station) for more than 30 minutes on his own. I don’t want to imagine what would happen if something would have happened to him on the ride to school.

Slightly worried, I sent an email to the mother. I wanted to understand the context of his condition and the medication that he is taking. His medication seems to be making him more tired than he usually is and he probably spends more time fighting off his dizziness than focusing in class. So it’s not really helping when it comes to increasing his attention span.

The mother replied saying that she would be glad to meet with me. She also said that she is tired from the child’s behaviour to lose things all the time (hence she wanted him to take the prescribed medication).

If I didn’t know any better, I might have been appalled by her reply. The idea of medicating a child for a condition which in my opinion, can be worked around (not worked away) with good strategies and gentle discipline, once sounded like an excuse. An easy way out to a complicated situation of a child.

Instead, I found myself empathising with her situation. It is not easy for me to work with him in class, with the different strategies that I am trying. What more a mother, who sees him in all of his good and bad days. What sounded like a ‘condition’ to me, is probably a ‘bad behaviour’ to her, because she has seen his better days when he has made good choices for himself.

I am not sure what I would have done in her situation. What else could I have done? Was it the child’s choice to be careless and lose his belongings ever so often, even after countless strategies and days of practising the same skill of keeping one’s belonging? Or perhaps he simply couldn’t do the very simple task of making sure his wallet is in his bag, so that his Octopus card is safe and he can go home on the MTR every day?

I honestly don’t know.

 

Reading about the first Parliament sitting of a new Malaysia reminds me of my love for the nation in a geographical location.

When will it be my turn to #jombalik?

Oh Lord, I pray for patience and guidance as I wait upon my next steps beyond Hong Kong.

The road of childhood gives a different feel when walked a decade past childhood. 

Where once there has been heightened insecurity, now the fear of walking later into the night has lessen. Boldness comes as one grows in the strength of the muscles. 

Where once the houses have looked big and overwhelmingly adult, now they look smaller and more manageable. Sizes are perspectives and they change when one stands taller and straighter to be able to look things in the eye.

Where once there has been unwillingness to travel a few steps beyond what was the usual boundary, now there is only curiosity and audacity to walk further. Once, the length of walks were limited to the last house at the end of the road. Now, the last house is wherever your heart and the willingness to sweat take your steps. 

The road is the same. The length of the road, the tar on the road, even the landscape of the roadside grass.

But I. I have grown.

Bolder. Stronger. Tougher.

Have you ever stood in one corner of your room and thought to yourself – “I have never seen my room from this angle before. My room looks…slightly different from this point of view.”

 

 

Uncertainty gets me jittery.  Correction.  Idleness and unemployment gets me jittery.  Waiting, waiting and more waiting for something to happen gets me jittery.

When one is unemployed, time seems to stop for a while. One doesn’t age, because there isn’t a progression of something.  No progression of moving up the ranks, of going places, of actively learning something new for a purpose.

Nor does one grow younger.  One is just..there.  It’s an interesting period of life to be in – if one lets go of the actively searching for jobs and just BE unemployed.  Let whatever that comes, comes. Let people approach you.  Let opportunities come to meet different people.

Right now, I’m just here.

A presence, a human collection of characteristics, experiences, ideas and relationships…with not a job title.

It is then when you realize you’re probably afraid of being inside for too long.

Shoes face outward to ensure that leaving is as easy as slip and go.

Which also means that you don’t want to stay inside for longer than you need to be.

Whatever is going on inside is probably failing to pique your interests, unimportant for you to attend to, or should be attended by someone else…not you.

Or maybe that’s just how you are.

You don’t care about what is going on inside, but are made to be inside.

Or you actually care.  But you want to live a touch-n-go life, having a breadth of experiences.  Never mind the depth.

That is why you always go in, but also always leaving your shoes facing outward.

“Should old acquaintance be forgot,

And never brought to mind?”

Never, my dear furry friend.

But, should it never be brought to mind, we’ll “take a cup o’ kindness yet, for days of old times sake”.

I’ll remember our days and miss the days that we’ll no longer have together.

Pass on well, dear friend and companion. You have been good to me.

It’s there, but it’s not making itself known.

It’s around, but it’s not in focus.

It was there, but not it’s no longer there.

There’s something about the mind and the memory that knows when a thought is about to be penned down.

It chooses to take a rest for while in the deep recesses of the mind.

And appears at the moment least prepared, with no pen to write with, no paper to write on.

It’s time to flex the mind and the writing muscle again.

Often when I drive on the road, I’m surprised (and frustrated) to see really powerful cars (models unknown to me, but they sure look like they have some powerful engines) going at 90km/h on the fast lane. Like, really? You’ve got the power to go at a speed that I would love to have but I can’t because I’m in my small Myvi which so far, I’ve only dared to push to 130 – 140km/h. And although the poor Toshiba engine revs and slaves under my command faithfully, I feel that I’m stressing it out. One can’t really “cruise” along at 120km/h in a 1300cc Myvi. 

 

On the other hand, these Toyota Camrys, Nissan Almeras and heck, definitely some BMWs, could well go at my speed of 120km/h and beyond…but they are not! Worst of all, these powerful cars are going at the speed of 90km/h on the fast lane.  Like, really.  Which is frustrating and surprising to me because these untapped abilities have so much potential to provide driving pleasures of speed and comfort at the same time. I’m pretty sure that going at a speed of 120km/h, these cars don’t leap and jump like beetles over bumps and holes like my Myvi. Neither do they feel like soaring eagles as they go along a curvy highway. Of which, I’m sometimes jealous of because my Myvi transforms into a jumping beetle and a soaring eagle at different parts of the road.

 

Frustration and surprise aside, I begin to do a forced association between humans and cars. You see, I begin to see how these cars are like humans. These untapped potentials in BMWs and Nissans that I see are like the untapped potentials in people that I sometimes meet and know.   I’ve met people who are like these fast cars, born (and bred) with the abilities and capabilities to go fast and furious on the fast lanes of life, flashing everyone aside in order to reach somewhere at the shortest amount of time. Well, maybe not the immoral part on flashing but generally having the potentials to move faster in life than the general population.

 

But the surprising thing is, they’re not. They’re not living their lives on the fast lane and they are definitely not flashing anyone. They are living life comfortably at 90 – 100km/h.

 

Going back to the roads. Further thoughts came up in relations to the drivers. If these drivers of powerful-but-slow cars are males, I’m sure they know how powerful their cars are. Should that be the case, this means that they choose to drive slowly.   Now if these drivers are females, and provided that these are not skillful and/or speed crazy female drivers that I’ve known and met on the roads, it could be that they do not have much knowledge and/or the interest to test out the speed of their potentially powerful cars.   Being comfortable at 90-100km/h without knowing the feel (and possibly joy) of driving at 120 – 130km/h or more, is quite a waste I must say.

 

If it’s the latter, then well, it’s like so many of us (males and females) who do not know the depth of our potentials, or what are our potentials at all for that matter!  We do get a little comfortable in life when we can actually rev it up a little to go a little faster, a little further.

 

*clears mind* At the end of the post, I think here’s what I’m trying to say. If you’re driving a nice big car, please drive a little faster. And should you choose not to, please don’t hog the fast lane because although you’ve got a nice big car, there are others driving small-not-so-powerful-but-faster cars than yours who are using the fast lane. Please do move over.

 

At the same time hey, like cars, maybe you’ve got hidden potentials in you that you have yet to live up to!