Child Language

The first (and perhaps the last) proper lesson I had for the week was a lecture on ‘Child Language’. Like wow, me taking a lecture on child language? Many people will scorn me. After all, I do not make an effort to keep my distaste for children a secret.

I tell people very honestly (I’ve even told many children straight-to-the face before) – I do not like children. (Well being kind and merciful I don’t say, ‘I don’t like you’ but instead I say ‘I don’t like children’ – which they either don’t understand or they will reply ‘I don’t like you’ to. It’s complicated.) I’ve said it in many of my public speeches; I’ve said it in interviews; I’ve said it in dates. And I mean what I say. I don’t like kids.

While I am perfectly fine with looking at children and toddlers on the screen or at a distance, and I can even extol them and applaud them and get excited or pleased by how cute and pleasant they are (AT A DISTANCE), please, let’s keep the distance quo as it is. I can’t stand being in their presence! It doesn’t matter if I can see them, since I do not deny the fact that my eyesight (and field of vision) is probably greater than theirs (illogically logical), but if I am within their field of vision, and they are gazing at me, now that is a problem. A dangerous problem. And that’s when I don’t like them. Otherwise, poster babies? celebrity smiley kids? Go ahead, make me happy, at a distance!

So in the lecture was I disgusted? Was I bored? No, in fact, I was highly entertained, amused and cheered up. Unlike my peers, who will probably want to make use of what they learn on their own kids in the future, I don’t, and I could purely enjoy the lecture while laughing at the silly kids and all the bizarre tests and experiments researchers do on them to enable us to have enough content for such a study. We watched tons of videos of the stupid silly (and in mortal words, CUTE!!!) things the kids do, as they grow up from stage to stage phase to phase – and their progress in language, and you’ve got to admit it, they are cute. On screen, that is, even the most ridiculous thing that would be irritating annoying noisy frustrating in real life becomes cute. Thanks to the screen. See how important the job of a videographer and editor is?

I can’t deny the fact that I enjoy laughing at children. Yes, I was once a child, but so? No big deal. I have no issues with them, I have no issues with their personalities, their race or gender. Just the phase that they are at. Childhood. It makes me hyper sensitive. Especially toddlers, and those at the threshold of infancy and childhood. I mean, you can’t communicate with them?! How irritating is that? I seriously don’t appreciate a kid thinking I’m an ice-cream and coming to me to lick me. Just stay away from me. But even so, I prefer to laugh at something I understand. If I don’t understand you, I will not laugh at you until I understand you. If I don’t understand a joke, I will not laugh at it until I understand the joke. Because the greatest idiot lies in the one who laughs at something he doesn’t understand; the greatest egoist is the one who laughs to hide his ignorance. So I will learn more about kids! So that I will have greater pleasure when I laugh at them! Knowledge, we seek to gain in all possible ways. However, in this discipline, just give me the theoretical, and spare me the practical training. Seriously, there are enough people in this world who loves kids and wants to help them. There are a lot of other unadorable people out there who needs attention.

That was interesting. I’m glad I went to the lecture in spite of every single temptation.

cha.

Read this story, The Teddy Bear.

Such a nice little story. Too bad fictions don’t happen in real life. Even if we ignore the possibility of wear and tear of a bear of several decades, isn’t it sad that the bear is condemned to an eternal vicious cycle of misery? The baby boy will grow up, and will leave him. Sure, maybe he will have a son too, and will come back for the bear, but the son will grow up too, and he will leave too. It’s such a pathetic little tale of hopelessness.

Yet why do people smile at such tales?

I was taught in one of my modules last semester that all fairy tales are somehow twisted. Recall Three Little Pigs, and how they cooked the wolf in a pot? Remember Hansel and Gretel? Okay, so the old witch was angry at them. But they ate her house (made of sweets), so she had reason to be mad. But what did Hansel and Gretel do? They killed the witch in the oven! (and stole her money!) Like erm… if you think about it, fables and children’s stories aren’t as decent as they pretended to be. So we wonder how do people grow up with violent tendencies and killing intents? Why wonder?! Isn’t it a miracle that you grew up without being all too violent, considering the fact that what you grew up with were such… expressions of bloodlust?

(Fans of the Grimm Brothers will persecute me.)

Yet why do people smile at such tales?

It’s to fulfill our secret human sadistic natures, isn’t it? To do that, and to make our children like us too.

Despite that, the fact that you and I prevailed means that there exists the one thing that is necessary to negate all these violence.

After all, we live in hope.

cha.

3 months of sleep

Being a polyphasic sleeper is not the way to go in a time like this.

My desire to get into a coma for 3 months and do nothing but sleep hasn’t been stronger. So selfish, yes, but so necessary.

I’ve slept 20 hours today already, but it’s not enough, I don’t feel better.
Haaa. I need to sleep 24 hours a day to recover.

I shall go back to sleep, and hopefully, the next time I come, it won’t be 3 months later.

some things remain a distant dream.

Roses will die;

I am the kind of  person who usually gets chocolates instead of flowers. [I like neither.] So when I get flowers, I cannot help but let them die. You just turn your back and the next moment, they are dead. Such pitiful creatures of the Earth.

but I realized; that even as they died, even though they have wilted;

the white rose still stands apart from the red ones.

even though they darken, you can still tell the white rose apart from the red.

Even in death, your legacy remains.

We live in hope.

and perhaps, some peace.

Cha.

I never understood why they thought I was obsessed.

was bored in printmaking class so I did what I was most familiar with.

really, I am not obsessed. just a bit over Z-ealous, maybe.

zealous. so apt.

peace. cha.

的的确确是阴天。

I shouted. Do you know how to shout? You don’t. Let me teach you one day. Stand before this picture and shout your lungs out. Shout.

Change of Heart.

不要为你有一个好配偶祷告，
要为你的配偶有一个好配偶而祷告。
因为当你的配偶有一个好配偶，
你很自然地会有一个好配偶。

The card-game.

I can’t find it.

On WAH

In tutorial. Western art history. Caravaggio and Vermeer. Prof looks amused by the presentors. Not making sense. Boring. Shall google Vermeer myself. Don’t sleep. This is not the time to steal. Headache. Cellgroup later.to go, or not. Not a question, I already know my answer. Stay strong. Heart. WAHahahhahahahahaha..