Random Thoughts by Pauline

September 24 2014 Wednesday     

Ice Bucket Challenge

For the past months, you must have all come across photos or videos showing celebrities or friends taking up the Ice Bucket Challenge for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients. How do you feel watching these people enduring this ice cold shower in various forms? I, for one, don’t feel like watching! But as a fund-raising activity, it is extremely successful. According to the press release of Hong Kong Neuro-Muscular Disease Association on September 8, a total of $20 million was raised, 20 times that of the target amount of $200,000!

 

The Ice Bucket Challenge requires nominated participants to be filmed having a bucket of ice water poured on their heads and then nominate others to do the same. As can be expected in this internet era of social media, this activity has gone viral and attracted tremendous public attention. Prior to the challenge, public awareness of ALS was minimal but now we have become familiar with the disease.

 

I feel uneasy seeing people suffer even though it is for a good cause! This reminds me of Operation Santa Claus, a charity drive originated in the 1960s long before the time of the internet and is still very robust! The name itself suggests already that it takes place during Christmas, traditionally speaking a time for giving. Popular DJs would pull crazy stunts including jumping into the chilly Victoria Harbour, reading poetry on roofs and climbing flagpoles. 

 

Anybody wanting to take the challenge must have a strong heart and must also find a safe place and do it in good weather conditions because news reports abound with accidents and even tragedies of these good Samaritans getting heart attack or being electrocuted while performing the act!

 

Random Thoughts by Pauline

September 5 2014, Friday

 Young calves

The Chinese saying goes like this: New-born calves are not scared of tigers.

This is what came to my mind as I watched in admiration those young people on screen. They were screaming for justice, barricading streets, holding overnight vigil and getting arrested right in front of our eyes. I have the greatest respect for their courage and determination. But as a teacher, a parent and a grand-parent, I hope their deeds are informed choices. I am not worried about those organizers old and young because they know why they are doing what they are doing.

Calves are ignorant of what injury tigers can inflict on them and so they dare the tigers! Do these young followers know what they are fighting for? Do they know they might be physically injured or get a criminal record that would affect the rest of their lives? Now university students are crying out to boycott classes! These young people have exhausted the last ounce of energy to get themselves admitted and yet they are now skipping classes! And organizers are even encouraging secondary school students to join in! Legally speaking, these students are only minors.

I know fighting for a cause does carry a romantic appeal but as in all romantic affairs, there is a price to pay. Only mature adults who are well informed of the whole situation and who can afford the price should tread this path. 

Random Thoughts by Pauline

July 15 2014, Tuesday          

Detachment

 I never know "detachment" is a virtue until I attended the workshop entitled "The Virtues Project - the Singaporean Experience" delivered by Dr. Phyllis Chew, Professor of National Institute of Education, Singapore. She explained with stories how the 52 virtues can help create caring campus and kinder children. Because of time constraint, she could only elaborate on several of the 52 virtues. 

One of the stories went like this. Dr. Chew had a doctoral candidate who kept postponing the completion of her thesis. It had been close to 5 years already.

Dr. Chew asked her to withdraw and yet she pleaded for half a year more saying that her child was taking up too much of her time. That had been the reason presented all these years though her daughter was already 10 and there was a domestic helper around. Dr. Chew asked us which virtue could help her. I looked at the list of 52 virtues and asked if the virtue of "detachment" could. I was right. It was like an awakening – very often we are depressed, distracted or disorientated because we are too attached. Our body and soul are into that something or someone. We grasp it or him/her as though there would be no tomorrow if we let go! We lose objectivity. Then it’s time to back off a little to give ourselves and the people around us a chance. The virtue of detachment can be helpful. 

All the participants of the workshop agreed that they would not only try to implement the Virtues Project in their schools but would also apply this positive mentality to their own lives as this can bring about peace of heart and energy to move on. If you want to know more about the Virtues Project and the 52 virtues, please visit:http://www.virtuesproject.com/education.html

Random Thoughts by Pauline

July 2 2014, Wednesday  

To tell or not to tell

 I am that kind of person who writes own feelings all over the face and verbalizes thoughts without modifications. Of course, experience has taught me hard lessons that I cannot simply pour my heart out to anybody anytime anywhere I happen to be.  I have to practise euphemism and delay criticisms preceding each negative comment with two compliments etc. I think all these are absolutely necessary when it is professional relationship we are talking about. 

 

But then when we are among family and friends, we become relaxed and less tactful assuming that we can be our true selves. When friendship develops, conversations become more personal. Words become more direct. Do we still have to decide what is to be said and what not? These days, with the widespread use of the smart phones, sharing has become more than just chit-chat. Messages, photos and videos are posted on the Facebook. We used to say “I am telling this to you only!” We might have to think twice. When friendship falls out, secrets might be broadcast for the whole wide world to know! 

 

Maybe we should re-visit George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four written in 1949 or The Truman Show, by Andrew Niccol written in 1998.

Random Thoughts by Pauline

June 21 2014, Saturday                

Trading places

It was around eight in the morning. The lift stopped on the fifth floor. In came a woman and a little girl of about five. They had to be mother and daughter as they looked so alike, the same round face and sparkling eyes. As they walked in, the girl was clinging to the mother’s legs nagging her at the same time.

“Mom, I want to be you! You don’t have to go to school.”

“Mary, I want to be YOU!”
This dialogue brought back to my mind a movie which I used for students’ school-based assessment 11 years ago - Freaky Friday, a 2003 film based on the novel of the same name by Mary Rodgers. It stars Lindsay Lohan as Anna Coleman and Jamie Lee Curtis as her mother. In the film, their souls are switched due to an enchanted Chinese fortune cookie. The whole story is about how each copes with the new role and the problems that come along ending with mother-daughter relationship improved and their identities switched back.
Trading places or swapping identities has been the theme of many stories such as the popular children’s story of The Prince and the Pauper. It is a novel by famous American author Mark Twain first published in 1881. Set in 1547, it tells the story of two young boys who are identical in appearance: Tom Canty, a pauper who leads a miserable life, and Prince Edward, son of King Henry VIII. The two boys get to know one another by chance. Fascinated by each other's life and their strange resemblance, they decide to switch clothes "temporarily". Edward leaves the court for Tom to be the prince. After a series of adventures and the death of the King, Edward and Tom switch back to their original places. Edward with first-hand knowledge about the life of the poor is crowned as King Edward VI. He vows to be a good king and in gratitude he bestows honour on Tom.


How many times has such thought of swapping identities come to your mind? And if you were given such a chance, which person would you want to trade with? The person you love most, hate most or envy most? And how would you persuade that person to accept your offer?


I know which person’s identity I want to assume but I am sure he would not want to be me!

http://wn.com/freaky_friday

Random Thoughts by Pauline

June 13 2014, Friday 

The Circle game

We all have such an experience – a state of captivity and numbness. These are days when we simply surrender to life’s challenges which might be something overwhelming or the last straw on the camel’s back or sheer boredom. We feel like trapped in a maze too exhausted to attempt the escape. "The Circle Game” featured in Joni Mitchell's third album, Ladies of the Canyon, released in 1970 comes in handy.

We're captive on the carousel of time

We can't return we can only look behind

From where we came

And go round and round and round

In the circle game

 

This is the burnout syndrome. Faced with mounting challenges whether from work or family, we are so exhausted that we stop fighting back or we find ourselves simply stifled by boredom. Whatever the cause may be, we have to re-activate ourselves by first examining our situation. 

 

Is it a situation we want to be in? How long can we stay there stuck? Why are we there? Is it the best for ourselves? These are solid questions we have to answer!

Want to stay in the situation – same job, same relationship? Then get re-energized to improve it. Get help if the challenges are overwhelming. Voice your objection if the workload keeps increasing or if the relationship is upsetting you. If life is too monotonous, create new dimensions. Break your routine. Make new friends. Start a new hobby.

Want to uproot yourself from the situation, make preparations for the change to come. Take it as a project and plan it but not to the greatest details. That would be too nerve-wracking.

Life does not have to be a circle game. Make the present enjoyable and look ahead to a known future coloured by surprises that you can handle!

 

 

Random Thoughts by Pauline

June 5 2014, Thursday          

 When a man loves a woman

How do men show their love to their ladies? A poem or a bouquet? A diamond ring or a watch? A sports car or a yacht? A hug or a tender word? Some quiet moments together? A walk on the beach? All these are too good to be true! Such scenario only exists in fairy tales, movies and dreams! Any girls who harbour such fantasies will definitely go crazy! Yet even a mature lady like me, I do sometimes entertain myself with such an imagery – a surprise kiss!

 

As a romantic relationship develops, the man and the woman become husband and wife and then father and mother, gone are the sweet talks and even the physical appeal. Their conversations are never about how they feel for each other but always about the third party – the children, the pets, their careers etc. Soon the wives find that the time spent with the husbands are always in crowds of friends or relatives or colleagues. They are not spending time alone anymore! Wives dare not make the moves as all ladies won’t! They are waiting for their husbands to re-discover their femininity. That sometimes is hard when the wives have long decided to reveal their true selves in front of their men. While women can tolerate men’s receding hairline, big tummy and untidy habits, men secretly pray that their mates can retain their youthfulness. When their wives can’t satisfy their fantasy, they look elsewhere! These days, they don’t have to look too far.

 

Once the first unfaithful step is taken, the husband sees everything wrong in the wife! Yet the wife who might have smelt disloyalty endures hoping the derailing is only a fling and the man will soon be back body and soul! He might and he might not depending on the pull factor. He keeps the wife and the family as they provide a safe haven he might have to go back to!

 

Here is part of the lyrics of The Carpenters’ "Love Me For What I Am" which sums up how a woman feels the change in her man.

We fell in love

On the first night that we met

Together

We've been happy

I have very few regrets

The ordinary problems

Have not been hard to face

But lately little changes

Have been slowly taking place

You're always finding something

Is wrong in what I do

But you can't rearrange my life

Because it please you

You've got to love me

For what I am

For simply being me

Don't love me

For what you intend

Or hope that I will be

And if you're only using me

To feed your fantasy

You're really not in love

So let me go

I must be free