A Little Bit of Innocence on Tuesdays | Blessing

A Little Bit of Innocence on Tuesdays (Part II)

Leadership is the most common theme amongst all business school applications. Describe a time when you have exhibited leadership, tell me how you had led and motivated others blah blah blah, but I say the ultimate display of leadership is when you can hold undivided attention from all, I repeat, ALL 20 five-year-olds for more than five minutes, actually three will probably make you a rockstar (to kids that is).

If you fail to lead a group of adults, it can, to a small extent, be attributed to someone else's lack of responsibility. We inherently assume that everyone is a responsible individual because we have been taught to be for years. Your failure is partly a result of someone else's inadequacy in following through with his/her responsibilities. This also holds true the opposite way. Your success as a leader stems from your team members' diligence in completing their allocated tasks.

On the other hand, your success and failure to hold a group of five-year-olds' attention is entirely based on you. They have yet to learn to be responsbile individuals, which is to sit still and listen. Their short attention span is not a consequence of ADHD but purely because of the nature of being a kid. They start talking about chocolate when you are telling them about flowers is simply because you are b-o-r-i-n-g.

After my 2nd meeting with the class, I quickly learned that not only must I go with the flow of their questions and remarks, otherwise I lose their attention, but must also steer their focus to the scope of our activity, otherwise the activity would go nowhere. Easier said than done, just like everything in life worth doing.

I know it sounds cliche but what they say about how much you learn from working with kids are all indeed true. I learn how to be truly innovative, none of the thinking outside of the box crap, as in the sky is the limit type of innovation. I learn how to really flex mental agility, with 10 million questions ranging from how come the sky is blue to are you going to bring us candies all coming at you at once, well you get the idea. But honestly, best of all, I learn how to indulge in being a kid again. And boy, did that feel gooooood! ^____^

So have I become their rockstar, you ask? Well I got them to do this...


which is rockstar enough to moi! >_^

(Took me almost 3 months to post part II partially because I haven't upload the picture above to my computer until, well, today and partially because, as always, laziness. =P)

Blessing

兩個多月不見，怎麼中文的標題是英文"Blessing"？是否忘了怎樣寫中文？說真的，要我用中文寫作其實是件很困難的事，我是在國際學校長大的"西港女"喔！(如看見錯別字，請告訴我，多多指教!^_^) 用"Blessing"是因為最近小女子對一段陳年往事有些新啟發。

好心和愚笨的我，好玩唔玩，玩做媒人，結果變成兩男一女的局面。（我已說了"愚笨的我"，這點你不用再提醒我。）得米的男子對我說想得到沒得米的男子的"Blessing"(祝福)，如果可以舊事從演的話，我會這樣回答他...

得米男: I want his blessing.
小女子: Blessing? Why is that even necessary? You are already dating her. In fact, the best blessing that YOU can give him is not to happily show up with her in front of him to make him feel like a loser because you got her and he didn't. Give him some time to recuperate his now hurt ego.

中文版

得米男: 我想得到他的祝福。
小女子: 祝福？需要嗎？你已得到美人歸，幹嘛要人家的祝福？相反，你不在他面前大搖大擺地和美人一臉幸福的出現是對他最大的祝福。
(看，中文一句，一針見血，能代替英語的好幾句，這是我一直以來堅持要學寫中文的原因。)

要是當時有這樣的智慧，坦蕩蕩的告訴他，他這樣的想法害人又不利己，無聊到極，能否讓他想清楚第二日就歡喜地帶著美人去找沒得米男要他的"Blessing"是多麼的無聊和殘忍？

你想說，往事已過，何需從提呢？因剛過去的週末碰見了得米男和他的"美人"，撩起了這段一直讓我有點遺憾的往事，總覺得整件事情可以處理得有體面一些。我是一個習慣反思的人，會在自己的過去找出能做得更好的地方，好讓未來遇到類似事件時，能處理得更恰當。經一事，長一智吧！智慧是從經歷裏磨練出來的，就如下次要我做媒人我也會三思、三思... =P