Reflections

I need to care more. In a nutshell, that's what I've learned through the whole of today. In the beginning, there was a beach. Then there was a watermelon. Two, actually. A cutting board and a huge kitchen knife showed up shortly after. Brilliant. Why didn't I think of that. What's summer without beaches AND watermelons? Yet I couldn't come up with that after all these years. It's been a while since last time I went to the beach more than once a summer. Muriwai didn't disappoint. Not so crazy winds this time. Huge waves tho. Towards the end I hit another one of those washing machine types. Needless to say I retired shortly after.

Then off we went, all of us five adults, to house-sit/kids-sit 9 kids as their parents went off for dinner. I intended to learn as much as I can out of it, thinking I was ready enough to absorb as much as possible. I was wrong. I learned that girls want to be pleased, want others to do what they want them to do. It's not about winning or losing with girls. And with kids, boys or girls regardless, it's about diving into their worlds and the heck with anything else. I'm far from that stage. Took me about half an hour to figure that out.

Then came dinner time. After a few attempts of smooth coercion from my comrades, a kid refused to step out the TV room and have dinner. So I decided to step up and invoked one of my most archaic weapons: Cao Cao. Or to be more specific, his governmental system, Rewards And Punishment. I put on my strict voice and threatened him with punishment. Two rounds later, he gave in. For a moment I felt good about myself. An hour later, the kid threw his ego around again. This time I was having dinner. I didn't see what happened, I only heard the noise from the next room, but I knew this little dude was harassing the girls. After two rounds, the matter was resolved peacefully. Etta weaved her magic wand around a bit and came out the magic trick called Positive Coercion, as I'd like to call it. The matter was resolved peacefully. And so I learned how far behind I was in skills.

Not long after, the little dude went back to take it on with Etta again. His buddies were reluctant accomplices this time. And this time I jumped in, still with half-eaten dinner at hand. Out came Cao Cao again, but this time I've learned my lessons a bit and kept my voice lowered. "You guys still want your milk tea?" Three little heads nodded. "Then behave." Cao Cao level 2 won the confrontation bloodlessly. As a side note, those milk teas were actually promised and were due to be delivered about half an hour back. I purposely held them back until they'd ask again, as a backup weapon. And it did work the way I wanted them to. A copy of Sun Tzu's Art Of War somewhere must be glowing with delight.

Much later, another little story happened. There was this Japanese kid that's been on a PS2 for hours, replaying the same stage over and over again. After watching him for a while, noticing that he began talking to me whenever I sat there, I asked him in Japanese, dude is this really fun? He smiled and didn't answer. He must be thinking, "Oookkkaaayy creepy old man, don't get too familiar with me...." After a while he began explaining, in English, what he was doing and why he liked it so much. My mediocre Japanese failed me, so I continued in English. I asked him, what else do you like? "Umm... this." Okay, how about sports? Basketball, soccer, rugby? "I don't like them, all they do is run around." Excellent answer, though it put me in a tight spot. How about swimming? "Oh I tried swimming yesterday, didn't like it." And so I was stumped. At that point, almost my entire background came to the fore. I'm a gamer myself, I treated this gig like a job, I'm individualistic, and I'm philosophically open-minded. So I thought, if that's the case then this is your rightful place, have fun.

As I moved on elsewhere, a while later Etta came in, again armed with her favourite trick. As I listened in, I quickly found out that the kid had once said "I'm really good at this." Then it hit me. It's not that he's enjoying the game itself, it's just that it connected to what he's good at. It turned out that he's good with his hands. So, for some unknown mystery, Etta got him to draw with the other girls. Insanity, I thought. But it drove home my point. I need to care more.

At that point I was tired, fatigue finally set in. I borrowed Andrew's ipod, got myself a book as drum pad and two pens as sticks. I sat myself on the kitchen bar, and started practicing. It was my autistic moment. After every turn of the song I would go around, checking if everything was fine. I got through about five or six of these rounds, not bad at all for a day when I thought I wouldn't be able to get practice time. Everything went downhill for my body after that. Half the kids were glued to the screen watching The Princess And The Frog, and then Astro Boy. The other half were with Etta, drawing and showing off magic tricks or whatnot. I could barely summon any more energy.

Not long after Andrew left. I cleaned the kitchen, unable to think anymore, as my body went back to Starbucks-mode. It was still about an hour and a half until some of the parents got back. To say that fatigue got the better of me is an understatement. As the TV blared, and the remaining six kids, bleary-eyed though they were, roared out laughing as the hilarious moments they've been expecting came up on screen, the three adults slumped on their chosen spots and slowly withered. Ccl half-died first, Etta sometime later, while I still managed a laugh or two at the jokes that were too adult for the kids to understand. Inside, I withered about half an hour before either of them.

In conclusion, it had to be one amazing day to get me to write this long again. I would do it again, make no mistake. It's a very valuable experience, and I'm not entirely happy with my C- performance.

But before I get another shot at this stuff, I need to learn to care more.