V - the story of: brand
Friday, November 02, 2007

« brand »

I'm not sure what I'm going to blog about now.

I've taken it off Facebook and my msn screen name...simply because not many people read this blog. Understandably too, it's very self centred. It's another outlet of my thoughts and feelings besides my journal.

I came home on Monday after a sweaty badminton session with Layla, Marcus, Ibi and Odo. It's becoming quite regular. Enjoyable, I guess.

Dad cooked. Gave me a few instructions. Then he left. And it was just me and Daniel in the house. Again.

I didn't know what to do. He was so uncooperative when I asked him to come off the computer. Unidimensional, is what Mel described him as. How true. He was so antagonistic when I politely asked him. Then for 3 hours, he was mithering me to allow him to go back on in the morning. I didn't allow him. I said that my rule when I'm looking after him was no computer games until 6pm, or until he finished his tasks I set him. As soon as I said that...I remembered Mum. I remembered all those times she spent praying with me, or those times I was made to remember verses, massaging me when my back was to the door and immersed in my world of anime, self-conscious paranoia and football.

A friend recently posted a video about a teacher, Taylor Mali, expressing his passion to teach. It wasn't to show them the beauty of the world, or force their ideals onto them, moulding youth into becoming their personal army of mindless puppets. Rather, this teacher just showed that regardless of how much money he was paid, or what his pupils thought of his techniques or teaching styles, he made a difference. It set off a long train of thought in my head. All those ruthless businessmen now, were probably bored by their teachers in school, sat on their desks thinking to themselves, "Why waste time here when I could be out there earning money by myself? I don't need this guy to teach me." and their was their mark of independance, the teacher's brand of difference. Adolf Hitler, apparently, developed his hate for Jewish people because he was bullied by one when he was younger, and thus went on to teach all generations that Jewish people are the scum of the Earth; Hitler's patented brand of justice and difference left a scar in history, ringing forever.

What does this have to do with me?

Suddenly, I'm taking the role of "teacher". Even more, I have become the "guardian". Many people can be relaxed about this. I SHOULD be relaxed. It's not in my inherent nature to be worked up about something excessively...yet when it comes to Daniel, I have to iron out my problems and see to it that he's going to see this life through...suddenly, I nearly feel like a FATHER. And it's a strange feeling.

However, moving that aside, I set Daniel some practise SATS questions from English, Maths, and Science papers. On top, tried to get some extra curricular activities there, like "practise guitar/piano for twenty minutes"...or otherwise. The thing I included Mum in, was the learning the bible verses...I found a book called "God's promises". It shows you all of Jesus's Names, or titles from the bible, such as Jesus our Lord, Jesus our Saviour. These are all backed by verses...and I make Daniel learn two from each title. I made him learn John 3:16 the other day...and I've never felt so overwhelmed by my responsibility. This is a taster of what is to come in the future, in my family. But God, as you see this, his anger and impatience to get on the computer, his uncooperation, his nonchalance about you, his hormones that rage and war inside producing words of discouragement and rebellion, let this be my prayer; as you see him and you see me, I want to let the world know that I'll be damned before I let him slip away from You, or from a healthy lifestyle beyond what he knows as "safe".

Although I've got the flu at the moment, I'm not going to let it deteriorate Daniel's teachings. This family is going to pull through together. And Jesus, You're at the head of the helm. Please give us some directions.

V

Labels:

「€Œ 12:28 am 」 » Comments:




(0) comments