Strawberry joined the basket

24 April. Tuesday. Woke up at 5 and wanted to study… but failed and fell asleep..

Got to the library and study! And then rushed to Vschool. And yet again they let me waited, so I studied while waiting. Oh and, a new student they got, an 11-year-old boy who loves strawberry. Guess what name am I gonna refer to him then? xD

Even after the break, Mrs A was WISE enough to spent another half an hour on some meaningless speeches, and then demanded the kids to finish off their comics in 30 minutes. Idiot. She doesn’t have to worry about zombies, then. Zombies eat only brain, after all.

And, you know what? She believes so much in science that it sounds SOOOO funny when she was telling the kids that “but scientists know that…”… one day when someone define “science” properly to those kids, I bet they will get extremely disappointed to learn that science is not what Mrs A has been suggesting…

Nah, science is but another approach to knowledge, as time passes, it will be treated as how we are treating alchemy right now. By that time I might already be dead, but I am pretty sure it will happen as long as 2012-12-21-like events do not take place before it does.

As I have been saying again and again, teachers’ characters are extremely important, because kids typically learn their values and concepts from their teachers! Almost all Malaysian English teachers speak terribly lousy English, and the result is self-evident. So, if teachers are to be ignorant and believe ignorantly in science or whatever without questioning, their students will probably end up that way…

Of course, parenting plays an equally important role, but parenting is just another way of educating! Education is important, yet not because a good education creates intelligent kids, but rather, it’s because a poor education eliminates the creativity in kids! Who fucking cares how intelligent you are? I’d rather you are a creative person. And mind you, I am using the word “creative” in its broadest sense.

I asked Strawberry for the reason he transferred to Vschool, and he said it is because he simply hates (yes, he used this exact word) public school. When I get to know him better, I will ask him why. Also, there are more than one private schools around this area, that’s another question I would like to ask…

Instead, Damburger was happy to share with us how was bullied in his previous school. He has bad temper, he said, and other kids often purposefully provoke him and will laugh at him if he gets angry, and he always does. So, he retreated, and his parents allowed him to. There is something wrong with his parents… I heard his dad often spanks him with a belt… that family sure has some problems.. but I have no right to question… yeah..

Anyway, it seems to me as if Damburger came to Vschool not because he was bullied, but because he was a bully and was therefore expelled. Yeah, he is such a bully. lol. Strawberry sat very far away during lunch time because he was afraid that Damburger might snatch his foods… since he has always been doing that to Tomyam. =3

Back to the library. Studied sociology, and verified download speed of 4200kbps… I wonder if PPS was kidding me. It probably was 420kbps, but it was really freaking fast! Yet, the internet in Linfield is pretty unstable… I do not know why though…

Got home with Cheryl and reached home at about 5.30… Bathed, studied, dinner, and… Ed was trying to unlock special features of that disc golf game… this family is weird… the housewife often forget to do shopping and often don’t feel like cooking.. the husband does work but he spend so much time on things I can hardly understand, including that highly imaginative baseball game… different values we have got, I suppose.

Studied like crazy and slept at 10.30 or 11… woke up at 5 but decided to continue sleeping… oh but I have got 2 quizzes tomorrow!

Jyyer

Mr. A the Murphy

16 March. Friday. And so, Reggie has learned to wait outside my door early in the morning.  I got tired with this dog… Well, his behavior won’t be reinforced, so I guess he will quit doing so soon.. And, the cats seemed unhappy. Perhaps no one feed them last night? I gave Aria some cat food. Adagio eats indoor as always.

Cheryl told me that Ed went out at about 3 o’clock early in the morning. Well, his job is not quite fun. lol. And so I got to college and started reading Fruits Basket Manga (FBM?). Yup, it is not as good and as touching as the animation, but the animation doesn’t has an ending… so, I figured that I should read the manga, at least for once. ><

Psychology class. Before she return our MVC paper to us, she commented that many of us provided incomplete answer and blablabla, and I was thinking: well, I thought my answer is too short… And then she returned that to me and I got a full mark. lol.

Hmm, at the end of the class we were introduced to an experiment that compared preterm infants with normal infants, in order to find out if something is in born or has to be learned.. I figured what the experimenter was doing right away, and wanted to answer the question issued by my prof, but the next second, I saw a problem with that method…

Someone else answered the question, but he didn’t saw the problem… I went to Prof Linder and told her that my thought: preterm children usually learn slower than full term children! So the comparison doesn’t make sense. She understood my point right away, and said “I wonder what he will say about this”. Oh, she knows the experimental. I see.

Look at its tail!! So cute!! I saw this little thing as I left Pioneer, heading towards the library.

On my way to the library, I came out with some lines for my new song. Meow. And then I wasted my time doing nothing productive. sigh. And when it is 12.30, I walked to the Vschool, and I was about 5 minutes earlier. But now, Mrs A told me that I can use the projector, and then… this Mr A asked me to use the TV. Whatever…

I have no idea who to make the TV work, so I asked for help, but apparently, I shouldn’t have. =3　Instead of helping me out, Mr A spent more than 10 minutes “lecturing” me that if I need to use any electronic stuff, I have to come very very early, blablabla. Murphy’s law? Whatever, I wanted to work on the TV and we can discuss about it after that…

p/s: According to what Kevin told me, Murphy’s law states that… toasts always fall jam side down. LOL. true story, isn’t it?

BUT, Mr A was annoyed. Mr A suggested that he is very very very experienced and I should keep quiet and listen to his bullshit. In order to make sure that I will, he threatened that if I don’t, “I think you will need to find for another school to volunteer in”. I was like: not again? And so I smiled at him and waited for him to finish his basically meaningless speech.

I figured that if I worked on the TV myself without asking for help, I would have settled in in 2 or 3 minutes. Well, a wrong decision was made that day. Blablabla. Seriously, I do not blame Ed for giving me such a suggestion, since he has no idea what kind of school it is.. and Mr Floyd was smart enough to “ignore” Mr A, when Mr A went to him and asked to build a relationship with Linfield. LOL.

p/s: Mr Floyd told me about that incident when we met at Riley the other time.

Seriously, the time when Mr A was “interviewing” me, he talk about how good he is, and how good his school is, and that they provide some very awesome and high quality education, but all I see is just… some ordinary education that I have been criticizing. The worse part is that, even though he claimed to have traveled around the world, and that he is the principal of an international school he…

Well, he is not willing to accept the others’ value systems, or perhaps, he does not even want to see them. Kimchee live with them and, well, he is closer to me than to them, and, he expressed his negative feelings toward them to me. Basically, Mrs and Mr A do not even accept Kimchee’s values on foods, just like how Mr A ignored my value on “solve the problem first, and review the problem later”.

The Vschool, seriously, is a good example that shows what I called the dysfunction of a systematical education system: it ignores the actual purpose of education. Why? Why memorizing all those shit so hard, but never connect those shits together? Why teaching everything explicitly? That is soooo ridiculous. But most schools do it. =3

The crucial point: how could a SCHOOL with 3 students ever be allowed? You know what? It violates the principles of education. When children have little socialization and little diversion, I can’t see how that kind of education is going to serve the purpose of education. Seriously, this school has a problem.

Let me tell you the truth… Some international students somehow has to go to international school, and they have no choice. So, Kimchee and Tomyam have no choice. Tomyam used to study in ordinary high school but was later forced to study in an international school. Now what about Damburger? He is an American…

Have I told you the reason? Well, Damburger always get bullied when he was in public school, so his father has decided to send him to somewhere “safe”. Seriously, I see that as impeding the growth of a child. I mean, to send a child to a school with 3 students. Ostrich approach, it is. His dad has chosen to ran away from the problem instead of solving it. Nah, that has nothing to do with, after all.

Wait… I went too far away, didn’t I? ==”　Okay, that day we have only 1 and a half hour. They were busy doing something and I had to wait for them downstairs… And as soon as they were really, I started by asking them to draw something, just to give them a warm-up, and to see how good they are.

It turned out that Tomyam performed much better than the other two. After learning some simple skills and stuffs, I am sure that she will do much better; much better than the drawings of hers pinned on the pinboard. Damburger is still a kid and his coordination is still developing. Kimchee has no confidence at all. ==”

After the warm-up, I went into explaining what perspective is, and what it does. They are confused with the sentences, basically because they can’t imagine what they tell. So, my crazy examples served well. With those outstanding examples, they got what I wanted them to understand. They learned the power of perspective.

p/s: I know I am special! I have learned so many things by myself… lol.

And so, I gave them 45 minuted to draw another drawing, in which they have to draw a background. Tomyam did well, but of course she has much more to learn. Damburger tends to overlook 3D elements. Kimchee, seriously, not just lack of confidence, he was not willing to listen to me. =___________=”

Wait… seriously, when I was 13, I guess I did better then they do. And all of them are above 13. ==”　Another proof for the power of culture? Or maybe, some people simply has no interest in drawing? @@　But then, Damburger and Tomyam had drawing classes before in the Vschool… so I will say, this might be showing the power of holistic teaching.

p/s: I was never taught the elements of drawing explicitly. We simply draw, and our teacher comments. That’s all.

I was expecting Mrs A to give comments and help me on some teaching skills, seriously. I hope she can help me in improving my skills, since, well, I am lack of experience. She was taking notes while I was teaching, and so I expected her to say something, but… she said nothing. 0_______0　I simply can’t understand them. =________=”

I walked back to college… It was 3.30. I used internet and asked Ed when he will be done, and he said, in 20 minutes. He came about 50 minutes later. And I waited for him since I had no mood to do anything….

Got home. They all left for a play which I was glad that I declined the invitation. I had a crazy book to finish, and an assignment to write. =3　And so I got some foods to eat, and watched 2 episodes of FB… you know what… I need to… watching it makes me feel better. =3

9pm. Let Aria in and fed her. It was raining outside. Adagio was lonely and wanted to play with me, but I could only play with him for awhile… I guess he was feeling lonely because no one was at home except me…

Studied. Turn on the lights outside at 10.30 because I know they will be back soon. And at 11.20 I stopped reading. Sleep….

Jyyer

The Fucking Beautiful Lie

13 March. Tuesday. I woke up at 7… after many attempts. lol. Studied pronunciation until 8, and rested until 8.30. Cheryl came down and told me that she had to leave earlier. She should have told me earlier. ==”　But it was fine. I rushed and we left at around 9.05. Oh yeah, we have got to walk up the hill to get to the van because of this:

Another snowing day. It only started snowing like about 6 or so, I guess, but it stacked up quickly, because it was a very heavy snow, with big big snow-drop. @@

And so, I was dropped at Riley at 9.30. Left for the Vschool at 10.10. Snowing heavily outside… even in town. But the town is full of heat generators, such as human beings, so it is too warm for snow to stack up… I walked in the snow and started singing “She loves you” for no reason. By the time I got to the school, I was all wet. ==”

Mow look at how big the snow was. =______=”　Even my phone’s camera can easily capture it. =3

So this is their exam week? So Mrs A discussed with me about the unit I design. I do not know how but she was able to totally misunderstand me and started an argument for no reason. I tried my best to re-explain, and re-explain to her, and finally she said that… well, she said that I was rude. 0_______0

I was like: LOL. Oh yeah I forgot how but I remembered that she also said something like this “you are not going to tell me what to do in my school” and “I don’t think I want you to teach them (the students)”. The fact is that, it was as if the two of us were in two completely different conversations.

Why? I figured out that she didn’t understand some of my words (I guess I have probably miss pronounced them?) but was not willing to ask for clarification, instead, she was so smart that she started using a lot of “high” terms she learned from her education major, knowing that doing so will only confuse me. =3

So, I got into the “repression” stage. Seriously I thought of emailing the other guy and tell him that I will accept his offer and volunteer at his school, but still, I repressed feelings and, I pretended that I had a cold. I was shivering like how John Lennon described in Jealous Guy; from inside. LOL.

So we tried to sort things out. And that was when I realized that she took all my words wrongly. The fact is that she was not willing to ask, but simply try to explain. While I was asking lots of questions, she didn’t answer any of them; she did not understand any of them. That was miserable. A waste of time. She was so annoyed that she told me that I was wasting her time. LOL.

It turned out that both of us was talking about the same thing, well but we were not able to understand each other. Hmm, communication problem, as she said. Seriously, I realized that this school prefer conformation, so next time I will just keep quiet whenever she has something to say. After all, it is not mine. LOL. Thanks her for reminding me that. xD

Oh but seriously, both Mr and Mrs A are, very, or… actually, kind of too proud of their experience. They had traveled all around the world and has seen the education system in many countries, and just as Mr A was not able to understand the situation in China but insisted to understand, they are… seeing only what they see. =3

How good are they at teaching? I have no idea. But I heard something interesting… Mrs A, when she was teaching Kimchee English composition, she did a practice with him by asking him some questions about an article, but… she was speaking so fucking fast that even I was barely able to hear what she was saying. ==”

Kimchee is not very good at English, and has a problem understanding what other people say. She knows it very well. And she knew it. But she did so. Of course he asked if she could repeat, and she… purposefully did it sooooo slowly for the second time, I was all surprised. She sounded as if she was ridiculing him. ==”　And of course, Kimchee got very tensed up. =3

p/s: Kimchee has just arrived at the states and Mr and Mrs A host him. He stays with them. There is no reason they do not understand his English standard. Oh btw I learned this only recently from the kids. =P

Another notable thing about this school is that… it is annoyingly systematic. Every unit has to be designed for an exact purpose, and it has to be, yes, has to be explicit. I have been arguing for years that explicit units teach nothing to the students, but still, this private school that claim to provide “high” quality education, is doing it. =3

And, most annoyingly, she applies her systematic teaching formula on art; even drawing has to be systematic, or in other word, dead. So what does it mean by art? I was very tired with her. But since it is not my school, heh heh, I will ignore it. xD

By the way, just a note… Kimchee the Korean kid fitted completely into my expectation. I think I can predict future. =________=”　Not just how he looks, but even his personality was predicted!! But it is no good news. =3

I was given quite some time to spend with the kids. I learned more about them.. I think Kimchee is gonna be 17 this year, or is already. Oh by the way, Damburger cheated in his test; he wrote notes on his palm, but we all kept quiet about it… so we chatted about our cheating experience. LOL. And I told them about what happened to me when I was at grade 4. =P

They left to the park at 12.45, and I walked balk to college… and then, all of a sudden, someone stopped by. It’s Connie! Have not seen her for a long time. Well, she offered to fetch me to the college because it was raining… she was actually heading for another job, but she saw me and… I guess she felt the obligation..

p/s: Her smile looks very fake, but we all know that she used to be a cop, and that must be the reason. We all know that she is a nice person, that’s enough. xD

And so I got to the library at 1. And got a very bad mood from the Vschool. Seriously, that old woman pissed me off. I am surprise that I was able to repress my feelings. =3　That is a good news. lol. The truth is that, I am only taking 12 credits this semester, and if they fail me, I will be kicked out of Linfield, and therefore, back to Malaysia~ That will be nice, but… nah, I don’t wanna waste all the money I have spent here. ==”

Seriously, it is hard here in the states, simply because I HAVE to care about what others feel and think of me. I hate being threatened, but this Mrs A seems to enjoy doing it. Hmm. Seriously, I won’t give a single fuck to what people think about me if I am back in Malaysia, but this is not Malaysia. =3　Whatever I do will cause a big impact. I got to be careful, and so Mr Neko (means cat in Japanese) wrote:

Life is wonderful by itself, but it gets annoying when some people keep bumping their lives into ours.

And so I started doing my pronunciation recording, on the heteronyms. However… the program crashed when I have just finished part one… sigh… life was terrible that day. I predicted that it might, but I never asked for it to happen. ==”

So I have to re-record everything… And by the time I finish, it was already 8.15pm… I was keeping my stuffs because I wanted to use the toilet! But the Joshua came it. He figured that I always use individual room, I guess. So I let him look after my stuffs for me while I left for toilet. xD

And then we chatted about various stuffs… And I can barely remember what we have chatted about. ==”　But then I received a text from Ed saying that he was coming so I left, and Joshua too went looking for his friends.

And, I SAW THE GUY. I have no idea who he is but… I guess I saw him before in college… I won’t say that he is handsome or cute or whatever but, I can’t take my eyes off him because… he looks very similar to someone I have seen on a Korean drama. ==”　But he looks more like a Chinese actually… oh and he noticed that I was staring at him as he left the library. ><

I had a bad day, but still, I laughed hard on that day. Maybe I did not want others to know what I was feeling? I kind of contacted Panda. And I miss my little brother (hmm, should find a nick name for him…), even though he was always so lazy to ever reply me. ==”

And so Ed came. Venus and Jupiter were in very close conjunction that night. The sky was clear because it snowed and rained hard earlier…

It was that day when I, again, thought about making my life easier. I asked myself: why don’t I just pass all my courses, instead of attempting to ace in every single of them? But I know well enough why. Because I might want to get into graduate school, and I won’t want to spend my parents money. =3

I hate being “controlled” or limited. Seriously. I hate being forced to do something that I do not like to. I thought about living a simple life, and be contented about it. For that moment, or even now, I hope that I have no dream. No dream. I wish I am special, that I have no dream to strive for. I wish I am ordinary, that I have no dream to dream for…

The truth is that, throughout all these years my performance has been getting better and better (everyday, as described in Beautiful Boy by John Lennon), and almost all of my lectures from college, and teachers in high school, they understand me pretty well. But now, my profs are like… “aliens” to me, so are the people around me. =3

Sometimes, I even have problem understanding what my host family think of me. As I said, I won’t give a damn, or a truck, if I was in Malaysia, but no, now I am in the USA. Everything I do counts. It is so stressful here. Fucking stressful. If you understand what I mean. Fucking stressful. (there is a movie that described what this means, actually…)

For all these years that my life have led me to, whenever I worked on something, I get the desirable result. But now, things seem to be different. After one and a half year of 4.0 CGPA, I can sense that my life is taking a shape turn. I know what Ed means when he told me to enjoy life. But I bet Jennifer will understand me better, since she faced this before, too.

p/s: Jennifer is Kevin’s elder sister, who perform very well academically, as Cheryl told me.

And so I got home at 9.10. Had dinner at 10. Bathed and it was 10.30. Soon it was 11. And I spent 40 minutes writing diary…. Time is as annoying as life is. ==”　You must have realized that I am very, VERY, away of how fast it passes by.

The situation now is that, if I failed any of my subject, I will be kicked out. It sounds impossible that DingHong will ever fail a subject, but in America, (most of) these people do not give grade base on your papers or performance… seriously… if any of those “aliens” dislike my “misbehavior (as viewed from an ethnocentric perspective)”, they can fail me, without telling anyone the reason…

simple as it is, my destination is under “aliens” control. is this another example for sociological imagination?

Every Sunday, I think that I have worked real hard and that I will catch up with the classes, yet, every Monday I will be informed that I can never catch up; every week I tell myself that if I can stay alive throughout this week, I will be fine, but when the following week arrives, I will tell myself the same fucking lie. =3

An so I named this post this way: the fucking beautiful lie.

p/s: The Vschool also tell lie, on their name cards they exaggerated how good they are. seriously, they do.

Jyyer

Angels born in hell

Le Singing : No angle born in hell~ could bread that Satan‘s spell~
Le Friend : But angles ain’t born in hell!
Le : … … (speechless)

He/she has probably no talent in literature, I doubt if that is true though; he/she might as well simply doesn’t has any sense of art. People like this are abundant. Who are to be blamed? Well, politics, the societies, and the education systems.

What does it mean by “No angle born in hell could break that Satan’s spell”, then? Some might ask. Let me answer you will a simple way:

Our society = Hell
People born and living in the society = Angles born in hell

I hope you can understand what the line means by now, or you really need to have a better look at the world. ;)

The line is from Don Mclean’s “American Pie”.

Jyyer the GayCat