Hello, I blog!
I share all my sporadic and toilet thoughts in here, because I am random like that.
How to stop a kid from crying
Just imagine you’re in a public place. Doesn’t matter if the place is quiet or noisy to begin with. Nearby, you spot a couple with a really young child no more than three years old. For some reason or another, the kid suddenly starts bawling at the top of his/her little lungs while the parents struggle to control the kid (but in vain).
Grarrr, when will the kid just shut the fuck up already? Most of us would think.
Well, one of my best friends has this theory of how to get kids to quieten down. Kids often yell, scream and cry for attention. Positive attention, she says. They want to be mollycoddled by the parents, and basically have the parents fall to their knees coaxing the life out of them just to get them to stop crying.
And when the parents actually give in, they are reinforcing the behaviour. In future, the kids will resort to making one hell of a noise to get what they want because … well, it worked before, didn’t it?
So, she says, what if we gave them attention that is contrary to what they want instead?
She continues. The next time you see a kid crying, look in their generation, point and laugh. She assured me that so far, this has had a 100% success rate for her.
This evening, I decided to put her theory to the test.
While queuing at a restaurant, this kiddo standing nearby suddenly began bawling loudly. The mayhem lasted for a good two minutes and showed no signs of slowing down. The younger cousin and I were trying our darnedest best to hold a decent conversation but it was hard when every sentence was punctuated with an even louder wail.
In a mixture of exasperation and bemusement, I decided to share my friend’s theory to the younger cousin.
“So you see, my friend has this theory. Next time, when you see some kid crying somewhere and the parents can’t seem to calm them down, you should just start laughing at the kid.”
That was when I did a live demonstration – on that kid.
Imagine me looking straight into the kiddo’s eyes and laughing. Not a loud, MUAHAHA kind of laugh – but a slightly muted version of that. Well, I was trying this for the first time, so I wasn’t quite sure about err … how the parents will take to it.
And damn, it worked.
The kid clammed up instantly and looked straight at me. Big wide, innocent eyes. As if wondering “waiiiiiiii is this girl laughing at me?”
And it was back to blissful silence.
Awesome. My friend is such a genius.
Caveat: I doubt the parents were very pleased, though – because the kid’s dad was constantly shooting me disapproving looks after that. In response, I returned him a look that was meant to say well, it seems like I can control your kid better than you. (;
Hey, stop coughing at the back of my head!
I told off an elderly uncle sitting behind me on the bus en route to work yesterday morning.
The latter had been coughing violently for several minutes, directly aimed at the back of my head. I could feel the force of the wind at my hair, and the latter made no move to block the flow of whatever grisley grimey germs that were flying out like little invisible projectiles from his mouth.
The coughing stopped for a few seconds, and I thought okay, perhaps it’ll come to an end here.
Then, he started again.
Enough was enough.
So I spun around. “If you need to cough, please at least cover your mouth. Thank you,” I told him curtly before spinning back to face the front.
The coughing stopped instantly, and any subsequent coughs became muffled.
Mission accomplished.
I happened to be sharing about my day with my mum later in the evening and the above story was brought up. Upon hearing that I had actually been telling people off on the bus, my mum’s expression changed into a look of pure horror.
“How can you do that? Next time don’t do that! Some people will get violent and will punch you, you know?” My mum exclaimed.
“Well. If they even lay a finger on me, it simply shows their lack of civilized behaviour, aye?” I responded.
“No point getting yourself injured what!” Mum tutted.
“I’ll risk it. Better than having all sorts of germs crawling around in my hair. And if I didn’t bother to tell him off, I wouldn’t know how long more would the coughing have gone on.” I reasoned. Gee, if I hadn’t – I think I’d have gotten a free hair wash during that bus ride.
“Next time, be more tactful lah!” Mum advised after a moment of silence.
“Tactful? TACTFUL?!” I exploded. “Was I not tactful enough? I even thanked him!”
“If I decided to not bother with being tactful, I would have screamed something like ‘CAN YOU STOP FUCKING COUGHING AT THE BACK OF MY HEAD?!’ which I REALLY felt like doing at that moment!”
That was when Mum burst into peals of laughter.
“Okay, okay, you’ve got a point.”
With that, ladies and gentlemen. I shall leave you with a reminder that should you ever leave the house with flu-like symptoms, please please please cover your nose and mouths with a tissue should you need to err … expel anything. Not because of any fear of meeting people like me, but because it’s basic civic-mindedness. Kthxbai!
Humankind – Eet ees doomed!
A best girlfriend has summarized what I generally feel about humankind oh so beautifully in her blog.
life is unfair, and that is personally a huge problem area, as i, for the life of me, cannot stand injustice – and day after day, i see things, hear things and read things which enrage me. things showcasing the hard fact that people are cruel, selfish, inconsiderate and evil, that they love stereotyping, gossiping, slandering, elevating themselves and putting others down; that people continuously repay good with evil and i remember asking c. in tears and consternation, “how can people be like that? why are people like that?†and i repeatedly asked where human decency was. (source)
I too, find myself asking the same question time and time again.
Even though I’ve long accepted the fact several years ago that the human race is doomed, I still find myself getting shell-shocked (which later leads to extreme fury) at the many injustices that human beings do to one another.
The prevalence of the internet only makes it all worse. The cloak of anonymity further releases one’s inhibitions, leading human beings to do further wrongs to one another without fear of reparation – although that is a separate issue altogether.
It was only today I discovered that – while I always thought I was a realist – there are several aspects in which I am more of an idealist than a realist. Human behaviour is one of these aspects.
Then again, who am I to judge? I have been dealt with much shit from some people around (which too, made me yell “why the fuck are people like that?”). But likewise, I have also been dishing out my fair amount of shit to other people. So all’s fair and square I guess. For now.
I still cling on to the hope that somehow, someday things may change.
That people will act with more consideration for other people, to pay more attention to others’ feelings, to learn to see things from other peoples’ point of view, to think more logically than emotionally, and for people to be more aware of what they are doing (perceptual salience of oneself leads to one’s conscious attempt to portray oneself more favourably).
But yeah, too lofty hopes up there.
Meanwhile, I’ll just live my own life and not let any of the shit get me down, or get in my way. When it comes to creating my own happiness, I will have to take charge – because the world is too screwed up to derive happiness from any other source. Not to mention how I have awesome friends for support. (And them, likewise!)
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