Goals and my experience at One World

Oh my, the new year has started, and not a single blogpost. It's highly unlikely that I'll be able to blog as frequently as I did last year with the already crazy first week!

But I'll make time. Writing is a release for me. I believe that powerful writing can lead to powerful change. Like Lingkang said, I seek to add 'the lyrical' to my writing, enabling it to 'sing'. (Disgrace reference)

Goals for this year:
- A greener VJ
- To maintain relationships (family, friends, etc.) and not allow studies to compromise on these precious bonds
- To grow in God, avoid being a lukewarm Christian

Trite as it may be, we wrote a letter to our future selves last year. meaning the 2010 self wrote to the present self. The last sentence I wrote reads: 'May you not feel guilt ridden reading this because I KNOW you have achieved the above.' I hope I don't disappoint.

I have also realized this strange phenomena of me needing the visual impact of books on my bookshelves. Never mind I don't read them, they just need to be there to comfort me, to be that external narrative to take away the self-centered me turning inwards and obsessing about how my own narrative unfolds.

Today, I helped out at One World International School and the children there are by far, the most vocal children I've ever seen (or heard), in a constructive manner, not the annoying Mummy-I-want-that-toy way we hear all too frequently in shopping malls. They respond to what you're saying and don't hold back in giving their inputs. It's very refreshing. At first I was very taken aback because I guess I'm just used to the old adage that 'children should be seen, not heard' and the kindergarden/ lower primary school manner of queuing up and placing your finger on your lips as you traipse through corridors. Also, I felt threatened in a way as if they were questioning 'authority'. But I soon realized to set down my prejudices and background influences, especially if I were to connect with them.

They astutely question things at the most basic level and one got to know how to answer them. They will just simply jump in mid-sentence and share about something they identify with. Like "Yeah! In England...", "My mommy couldn't run because of the haze." This 10-year-old knows policies of Barack Obama and a young girl of age 7 has heard of the Haiti Earthquake and is aware of the ongoing floods in Australia, I'm impressed. I think one thing I have to learn to do around kids is to treat them like adults and not belittle what they know, or can understand. I myself have gone through the stage where adults, not knowing how to treat me, have underestimated my intellectual capacities and hence unconsciously spoke in a condescending manner which did not sit well with me and wouldn't with them either.

And their comments are the pinnacle of cute-ness.
"My baby sister says, 'I want to throw this in the rubbish bin but I don't want to throw this in the rubbish bin.' And I know she means she wants to recycle."

Another girl recycles 90+% of her trash at home.

I think pedagogy is something worth looking into especially in the area of my interest, environmental education. I think at my age, everyone is so caught up with life's conveniences that it's hard to convince them to lead eco-friendly lifestyles if they have to go out of the way to do it. There are way too many climate-deniers and cynics out there. To me, at this point, the effectiveness of education is limited and therefore the only way to convince them is to elevate eco-friendliness to the same convenience level as the conventional way of doing things such that they simply do not have any reason to adopt the former.

That's why Article 6 means so much to me and its implementation in primary schools is so valuable in cultivating a lifestyle from young. We really have to engage with our government who agreed to Article 6, and ensure follow up is involved.

Ok, back to work. There's VIP Initiation tomorrow and I'm to give a speech to advice the incumbent IP1 as an old wise sage of an IP4 (Wait, I'm that old? Oh no) I think one great thing about the IP is that it's a step towards the culture I experienced today at OWIS, having developed my personal voice through it. Still, I wish such a culture can trickle down right from the start...