Of piranhas and pirouttes

So here i sit, staring blankly at the screen...


What have I been up to after the whirl of crazy law exams? Well for starters, Ive been teaching little kids English at a tuition centre and I rate it as the best job ive had so far, in terms of job satisfaction. Sure I had to chafe and grate and squeeze my vocal chords to make my intentions heard amongst a classful of little piranhas with cute faces all clamouring for attention around the live bait that was me, but I guess Im just a huge mushbucket waiting to be let out of the closet when it comes to kids and their wide eyed gullibility.

Amidst being set up as the designated station for glitter application central for their parent appreciation cards( Mommy Daddy I love you for all you've done for me)and simultaneously having to deal with glitter stuck on my ass and kids trying to eat them, I reached a few epiphanic milestones:

1) I will set up a shrine for my former school teachers in devout reverence of the

shit they had to put up with while trying to shove knowledge down our screaming

throats.

2) I will always gape in admiration at a family of more than 3 kids, all well

behaved. Either the parents use non conventional methods of disciplining the youth

or they really are super star parents who've mastered the art of child management

(who can say they've really learnt) through experience.

3) I am definitely not ready to have kids for the next 10 years or until Ive

outgrown my own 6 year old kid in me( though i suspect he's a non ager). But then

again this 6 year old alter ego is what helps me connect with my students.

Speaking of paradoxes...

4) Its more challenging to teach kids but that I prefer teaching a class full of

rowdy kids to a one on one session with some awkward young adult who's a year or

two my junior. That very same awkward young adult would also be even more awkward because he won't know whether addressing me as Miss would be too formal for someone who's just a year his senior and also if addressing me on a first name basis might be a bit rude. So the result is that the AYA( awkward young adult) ends up "aheming" to get my attention whenever he needs to say anything or when he needs me to check his work.

5) That it takes real mad skills to manage a class full of rowdy, robust, hyperactive

12 year old kids and so far ive met only one person whom i admire for being able

to do that without raising her voice and that is Miss Nanee, the tuition centre's

owner and principal. Where I had to yell to bring what im saying to their

attention, Miss Nanee with 10 years experience under her belt manages to stride

in, get their attention through her cheerful but firm demeanour and gasp(!)

actually get them excited about learning!

6) That it's a fresh experience and would add that to the list of experiences that

make me feel law school is bad but not THAT bad.

Stories With Sad Endings: Wilsky The Otter By Ju

This short story was written by my crazy little sister Junior. I found it so funny that I felt I simply had to share it here on Cloud 9!Hahha. Enjoy!


Wilsky was an otter. But an unusual one, he had a shiny butt. The other animals in the jungle liked his shiny butt because when it's dark, Wilsky's shiny butt shines. Wilsky lived alone in a little otter cave. He had many otter friends. An otter girl fell in love with him one day... well, maybe not with him but with his butt.

One day, Wilsky realized that his friends were really not his friends but his butt's friends. Wilsky's butt shines more than ever whenever it gets attention. Whenever Wilsky talks with his friends, they look at his butt... not him. Wilsky was lying down in his little cave and then he fell asleep feeling sad.

Wilsky heard a little voice. It was his butt. It said "SEPARATE, SEPARATE". Soon, Wilsky realized that his butt was separating from him. It hopped out of the cave saying, "I'm too good for you. I don't deserve to be connected to you". Wilsky didn't have his butt anymore. He was surpised and at the same time a little happy. People can now appreciate him for himself, not his butt.

When Wilsky went out of his otter cave, he saw his butt in a jacuzzi with its girlfriend. It was shining like the sun. His friends were all sucking-up to him. Wilsky went to talk to his friends but none of them payed attention to him. Wilsky felt sad. He was just an ordinary no-good otter without his butt, he thought.

Then suddenly, he woke up. He was dreaming. Wilsky looked at his butt which was shining more than ever. "Still here and not alive!" said Wilsky to himself. When he went out of his otter cave, he saw his friends. He asked them, "Hey guys! I wanted to ask you guys something. Are you guys my friends because of my butt?". "Of course not! You're our friend, not your butt. Okay, fine. Maybe sometimes we pay more attention to your butt but that doesn't mean you're not our friend. And besides, we don't like you because of your butt, we like you for you, your personality" said one of his otter friends. "Oh shucks! Really?" asked Wilsky. "No, of course not!" said the otter, laughing with his friends "We just like you for your butt! Hahahaha!" .

Wilsky commited suicide the next day.


For more wacky stories please log on to: iStory

Bubbles and cyanide: a paradox?

I wish to go back to the days when a bubble blown with care free thoughts glistened in the sun and made my day. I yearn for the days when I never failed to be enraptured by the dewy beauty of roses. I envision past days of listless lying on the sofa and thinking how big everything around me is. And being excited when a familiar, beloved face made loving noises and coo-ed my name...I wish i was a child again. No one can ever perceive the world through a child's eyes. It strips the hypocrisy, pain, falsehoods, dogma and unnecessary complexities...it lays the world bare, an artist's impression of the reality as it is without prejudice-true to its primal existence.

This bareness is exhilarating, breath taking,like shards of truth slicing hard into flesh yet the child's dimensions allow only receptory sensations akin to the soft purr of velvet against skin. Truth and clarity are fresh faced visitors welcomed with tiny embracing arms smudged with crayons and mud. Peace is a permanent resident, requiring no visas, taxes or any of those tiresome government documents to verify it's content lodging in the sunny dell of mirth. Curiosity is at its peak;it fledges its magnificent wings and is soon airborne amidst fluffy white clouds and a slowly shuffling seascape of cotton waves and silver sand dunes. Nothing ever lost its spark, a frog pond, a ribbon wrapped over an ancestor's memorabilia of love gone but not lost, a brown paper bag with a bulging peanut butter and jelly sandwich sealed off with mom's kisses. It does not feel the pain so addictive in the adult's world where narcissism and self hate go hand in hand, justified into daily human norm by Freud and others.

The harsh ambiance of the stark adult's world has no time or patience for the child's world. If the child's world and the adult's world were to collide, the adult's world would shrink in hostility into a brooding black hole, a cornered mangy dog starved of love, beaten and trampled on to fulfill the manifestation of its name. Yet it would remain, a gaping wound on the gradients of innocence and happiness yet to be tainted with materialism. I can imagine the wound throbbing and thrashing like a speared eel awaiting its sombre death on a spit fire. Soon the mists of confusion would seep out, a cyanide genocide of every child's Once-upon-a-time....