i was thinking about quitting even before starting as a CHAI tutor due to concerns about coping with volunteering and taking 5 classes at the same time... but a day at the center today made me change my mind. i mean i really want to stay on and see how it goes. it's not that i was particularly drawn to the adorable autistic kids; in fact, i really wasn't. it was mainly because through observation sessions today i could really see for myself that there was some 'method' behind interacting with kids. the very friendly behaviorist tried to explain the kids' behavior and how tutors ought to facilitate/encourage the kids to interact...prior to this, when i did play with kids, i was just totally random and didn't even think that there were so many cues we could pick up... the observation skills, patience and sensitivity required of a tutor convinced me that there's perhaps a lot i could learn (not for any particular purpose, but learning for the sake of learning?) but it's seriously tiring! from observing my own housemates do parenting... CHAI tutors engage the autistic kids... i have concluded that parenting really isn't an easy task, esp if you want to do it well. really pei4 fu2 all those parents out there... which makes me wonder how it was like for my parents...haha but my mum alwyas likes to 'boast' how guai1 my sis and i were when we were little.... but now that i think about it, i must have been a little mystery if i were this quiet little kid walking around, staring blankly at ppl when they ask me stuff... =P er, just kidding.

this is random but was just rereading paragraphs from the Little Prince and feel that everyone should read it =P i wonder why there aren't more ppl who appreciate or read beyond its seemingly childish conversations. it's so beautifully written...You are beautiful, but you are empty..... One could not die for you...

Excerpt from Chapter 21...

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me, like that, in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day..."

The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you... One must observe the proper rites..."

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near...

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you..."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added: "Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses. "You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world." And the roses were very much embarrassed. "You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you, the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.

And he went back to meet the fox. "Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose..." said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

actually i also dunno what these things are, but found them strewn all over the ground while trying to hike up a trail at Tilden... initially i thought someone dropped a pile of rusty screws on the ground, but upon closer examination they were actually some kind of acorn-shaped fruit! and i was so amused by these well-formed thingies that i decided to collect some of them to attempt to take a nice picture. yes, i'm trying to take better pictures, but progress is slow. but hopefully i'll get there, some day. =) and i realized that i am perhaps not really cut out for hiking... ppl just enjoy admiring trees, nature etc, but i do random things like pick up funny fruits from the ground and lag behind everyone else. or spend 3 min trying to take pic of this pretty orange flower jacqui plucked for me...
tomorrow my monopoly over the house shall end cos housemates are coming back... and within 5 days two of Kai's fish died... even though i really tried my best to remember to feed them... sigh. fished out one guppy on Sun night and there's this stationary gold one at bottom of tank lying on its side. dunno if it's sick or dead... =(

a frivolous research question

i for some reason have recently become rather aware of how many authors dedicate their books to their spouses for the support given to them throughout the whole process of writing... or words of gratitude along the lines of, "if not for him/her, i wonder if i could have pulled through this"... of course ppl acknowledge the help and support of colleagues and family members too, but i get the sense of ppl being esp grateful that there's like this ONE person he/she can always rely on/ who is always there for them...
and i'm really curious. is such emotional support really crucial? i suddenly am thinking if any study on correlation/ relationships between say, marriage and authorship has been done? like to what extent can we really be self-sufficient; self-reliant? out of those bestselling works (be it books, art, films or what not) we have, how many percent of the creators are married/ have had long-standing, happy relationships with their partners...can any meaningful and more structured investigation be done to look into this? is there even any causal relationship between 'unflinching' emotional support (which i guess can be best estimated using marriage, though not exactly very accurate also, since ppl marry for so many different reasons) and corresponding success of person? hmm...... right at this moment i realize i'm actually trying to delve into how true the "saying"--' behind every successful man there has to be a woman', is.
possible Econ thesis for next sem? or pysch/sociology project?? any suggestions/ comments out there? =P am i being totally weird to wonder...