The Curse of Beauty

Haven’t blogged in month… i think the last post was in may… so its been agggeesss.. half a year…

Well i was just doing some chores for my parents, while I was pondering something that was spoken to me many years ago… well about 3.5 years ago anyways… I was at the time consulting the school psychologist at the time… and she mentioned how she rarely had to counsel anyone with any serious degree of depression or any fears of rejection or peer opinion. I asked her what the the most common cause for counselling was, and her answer was that most of the students that seek counselling are girls, girls that most would consider very beautiful. Apparently, those people struggle to socialise, particularly with the opposite gender, because people do not feel like they are good enough to be around them.

For a while, I couldn’t understand why that could possibly happen. It baffled me that those girls, whom are extremely popular and liked by all, would struggle with anything social. They had such power and influence. Although, at the time, even though there where people I liked, I wouldn’t socialise with them or hang around them… I’d say like an awkward greeting and walk off… and the feeling was the constant gnawing thoughts of “why would she even like a person like me?” or “what chance do I have when there are so many other guys who are stronger/smarter/sportier/better looking/more outgoing etc.?”

I suppose beauty in such a sense… is very much a curse. Noone seems able to relax or be themselves around them, especially when interacting with the opposite gender. Maybe that's how girls would find it, I dunno. You either get guys that are just sleazy and just plain creepy, or they are withdrawn or stuttering messes around you. Awkward either way, and uncomfortable in some cases.

I suppose I’d formerly categorise myself as the latter, withdrawn and stuttering… but I suppose even now, so much energy and effort is required to be myself and not relapse back into the old. It’s like a struggle between wanting to talk and socialising… and why bother trying… you feel inadequate to approach, yet you want to… You talk and you feel like a nuisance… and you try to be yourself and to get to know them, yet constantly expecting to be rejected or cold shouldered/ignored…

Its intriguing and kind of sad how those who aren’t extraordinarily beautiful would be envious and jealous of those who are, or be unable to be themselves around those who are. And those who are beautiful can find it such a burden to carry.

There is no analogy that I can think of that can describe Love… It’s something that we crave for it, we strive for it, we live and die for it. It might feel fantastic and cause your spirit to soar when it is reciprocated… Uneasiness, discomfort and awkwardness when it’s unrequited… Or soul crushing, draining and shattering when rejected. There is nothing that can be used to compare to it. Yet there is nothing that can replace it… this urge and desire for love is almost primal…

Being a christian and all, some might say “well, we have Jesus, isn’t his unfailing love sufficient?”. Well, Adam, the first man according to the bible, even in direct communion with God and all his creation, was given Eve as a partner and helper. There was an urge for a relationship other than the one with God and nothing in all creation, other than Eve, would satisfy that urge. You can’t get away from it… You can’t try and ignore it by filling your life with something else, like pets, or hobbies or games.

Anyways… I’ve sidetracked a fair bit… I suppose the point is that, beauty can be such a curse. Yet it is only a curse because we desire love; and love… is something that one cannot run or hide from. Well you can try… but you can’t run.

That is all…

This thing called love.

I think most of us would agree that our lives are driven by love for something or someone. Whatever it is that you like most during that period of your life will be the driving force of that period of your life. It is something you will almost constantly think about whenever you have a spare moment or even when you should be focusing on something else. Whether it be your family, friends, loved ones, or even material objects like cars etc. I guess most people will want to find someone they love and to be able to spend time with the people they love. Love can bring great joy and comfort into our lives.

However, love can also bring great pain and sorrow into our lives as well. If a loved one is suffering you will share their burden. If a loved one passes away you will grieve over them. If someone you loved turns away from you, you will feel broken because of them. If you like someone who doesn’t like you back, you feel empty because of that.

I guess for me, my life has revolved around the very last one that I’ve mentioned. This thing called unrequited love is something that has always pestered me at every turn. It leaves a heart wrenching feeling every time you think about it. Every time you see this person you will keep wishing things were different, you try to be normal but instead you become extremely self-aware. Even after you leave the place where you saw the person, they are still constantly on your mind and you’re still agonising over the reality of the situation.

Some days I wish I didn’t have to love at all… to give up the potential joys of having love and bypass the guaranteed pains of love. But that would be impossible… because that would be desiring not to be human. I hate watching romantic movies because it causes me to think about where I am at… and thus it pains me greatly to watch those kinds of movies especially really idealistic ones like “a walk to remember” or stuff like that. But I guess if I was in a different situation then I would like those kinds of movies because it would relate positively to my own experiences.

But I guess these things can’t be helped… I guess all I can really do is pray that one day I will find what I hope for. nyeah…

Self Reflections…

Some days I feel that deep inside I’m a perfectionist… Crushing myself over every little mistake even if the consequences of those mistakes didn’t matter. Some days I still feel like I am weak and pathetic, unable to live up to my expectations of myself. It’s those days and moments that make me act the way I used to act before I became a christian. I feel that if I am unable to meet even my expectations, what would other people expect out of me and what would they think of me… It’s why I hate team sports… you have other people’s expectations to meet… You are expected to be at a certain position or to know where a certain teammate is and you are expected to move and perform in a certain way… I was bought up playing individual sports… and so I have trouble keeping a wide perspective on the game, to be able to focus on the peripheral activity and process all the team information at the same time as focusing on the opponent right in front of me… When I fail to do something properly (not counting when I’m clearly outplayed, that’s fine… I can admit to losing, its when I screw up personally that is the problem…) I beat myself up over it… When I feel tired from running around, I feel like I shouldn’t be feeling the pressure… that I should be better than I actually am… that I am weak…. If I do talk to anyone, I always end up talking about my mistakes, and trying to make excuses for them….

Its time like this where I can barely communicate with anyone… I avoid people’s glances out of fear of their comments on my lack of ability… I feel really awkward and hesitant to talk about anything with anyone because I feel like I am inferior enough as it is… and that they will somehow, for some reason brush me off… It’s times like these that make me feel really anxious…

Before I became a christian, this was my everyday life… I hated who I was…. but even after being a christian… this… old self of mine… resurfaces every once in a while… especially in times when I need to work with other people… doing things that I am not particularly good at or brilliant at…

I don’t even know why I’m typing this… I just feel like I should spill this out somewhere… I feel like I have giant attitude/mood swings…. but its more about how I perceive myself. One moment I am optimistic and carefree… the next second I am a pessimist and emo….

nyeah… that is all…

Remembering Instructions...

I understand why my parents would sometimes get angry at me, sometimes I intentionally postpone and procrastinate from doing what they want me to do, like doing chores and stuff. Sometimes I unintentionally forget about things, which sometimes has resulted in me double or even triple booking a specific time frame because I have forgotten my previous commitment... (which shows how things I find highly important can override the memories of the less important things to me that I am still obliged to do.)... Sometimes I remember parts of the instructions and forget the other parts... Which is what has just occurred to me... Tonight my mum is away at a competition and won't come back home till 8 or 9 or something... And she said that dinner will be steak, and told me to prepare in advance so that when she gets home, she can cook quickly... She told me to cut up some stuff as well as prepare to steam vegetables... Well... I only remember that I need to cut onions... but I don't remember how many... I know I need to steam cauliflower for 4 minutes... and I assume that she meant use the whole thing... But yeah... When she comes home, mum will be frustrated again lol... Ah well can't help it... I've cut the onions... now I should probably go and cut up the florets of cauliflower... I think that's what they call em...

Things I have learnt from teaching swimming...

I think I've learnt many things from becoming a swimming instructor... including somethings that other people don't get a chance to learn until they become parents, which in a way is a good thing. I guess personally, I find great joy in teaching in general, and teaching a life essential skill such as swimming makes it even better. So I guess the first thing I've learnt is how to reinterpret a concept into lots of different analogies and different approaches for people to understand. If a kid doesn't understand what needs to be done with one method of explaining the exercise, you have to reinterpret the exercise or the explanation in another way so that they get it.

The second thing I've learnt would be awareness, and I think I'm still working on it. Being able to monitor all the children in the class and make sure none of them have jumped off and drowned themselves, which proves to be difficult when you are distracted from monitoring because you are trying to explain or correct another kid. It's a real challenge on your peripheral vision as well.

One of the major things you learn is responsibility. In a class you a responsible for the lives of 4-8 other children, and you are also responsible for their swimming "education". So by doing that, you organise your priorities differently, and you learn to put other things aside while you are teaching. No matter how cold I am, when I'm in a class, I've learnt not to care about how cold I am, because there are more important things that I should be concerned about. No matter how I would be feeling on that day, sad, happy, mediocre, depressed, excited, whatever, when I jump into the water, it all goes away and the focus is the kids and their swimming. Which has served as a great distraction I guess, and now that I've said that, I feel like a workaholic... lol...

You learn great endurance, because you learn to be able to do the same thing day after day, teaching the same thing all the time. And although the people change, the stuff stays the same. Like I said before, you learn to ignore your own situations and focus on others, enduring the cold, the heat, the sun, the rain, the wind and whatever else the environment can throw at you. Yer...

One of the major things that you learn is authority. Learning how to lay down the law is important, because face it, water is dangerous if treated wrongly, and you can die from it. You are responsible for their learning so, being able to show authority, and being able to deliver consequences to misbehaviour. You have to be able to command their attention and make sure they do what they need to do so that they can learn.

Gentleness is a major thing as well. You have to be gentle with kids, not in the physical gentle but the way you talk to them and instruct them. You have to be able to show authority and deliver consequences, but gently. Kids have no problems with showing emotions, and often show undue emotions. So gentleness is extra important. Also some kids are scared of the environment or certain skills, like swimming on their back. Without gentleness you would never be able to teach them those skills.

You also learn to multi-task with extreme efficiency as you have to do so many things at once, you gotta monitor the kids, correct their strokes, be yelling at some other kid simultaneously for misbehaving, and the hardest one is to simultaneously run two different programs for the same class if the needs of the individual students are too different. The later happens on a friday, I have 3 6yr old boys and a 10 yr old boy in that class, 1 6yr can swim, 2 6yr olds can barely swim and the 10 yr old can only swim breastroke, which is not the main stroke we teach in Australia but in most asian countries, it's the first stroke. So 3 freestylers, 1 breastroker, and the 10 yr old boy has a fear of water already so he is not capable yet of swimming on his back at all... and so I toss between 2-3 different exercises at one time and keeping an eye on all of them, which can get slightly stressful at times...

Last but probably the most important one, Patience. My patience level has gone through the roof since I've become a swimming teacher. Some kids learn like bricks, they never get it and no matter how hard you try to reinterpret things, they just don't seem to be able to coordinate themselves in any beneficial manner. But they come back to you week after week, and you have to keep trying, and trying... and trying... and hope that one of these days they might understand and be able to coordinate. It can be frustrating when they don't seem to understand and you've changed people several times in the classes yet one extra stubborn child remains while everyone else has come and gone to higher levels. You also have to be patient with their behaviour, you tell them not to do something but they keep doing it, and you keep telling them not to do it but they keep doing them. One of my instructors told me that what they would do if a child refuses to listen to instructions to stay seated for their own safety, you let them put themselves in a haarrdd place... A place where they struggle for air... Just enough to instill enough fear to not muck around anymore without drowning them... Which sounds extremely cruel... But, pain teaches lessons and we learn from pain I guess... I haven't myself tried that one out on live subjects yet and I'll avoid the need to...

I thought I might also include tolerance as a main thing. I have this one child... Who is extremely bad behaved... If you have seen worse, then you deserve a prize, If you managed to teach and make them learn, I will give you a medal. Because this kid and his little brother are hellish. Other children when they are bad behaved, you command them to stop and most will stop, and worse case you yell at them once or twice and they won't do it again. But this kid... The whole complex would be able to hear this class, generally he is by himself in this class too. He will not listen, he always wants to muck around and to wreckless things but he can barely swim. He will scream and cry unless he gets his way, and he will attempt to pinch and bite you should he get to that point. And he's also not afraid of running away by jumping out of the pool and running out. You haven't seen my commanding voice until you've watched this class, because it is hell unleashed. He will backchat every sentence you say. I have pretty darn good patience, and I have pretty darn good tolerance too... but I absolutely dread this class, every saturday. If I was that kid's parent, he'd get owned from slaps ay... I dunno how they were raised but they are monsters. Normally I could make sure he doesn't run away, because he's the only one... and no way I'd let a 4? year old kid get away from me, and I also have the necessary strength to control him as well. You'd be suprised how strong a kid can be when they are desperate, and this kid is desperate to do the wrong thing. Today, I upgraded one of my best students to another level which was to the level of this monster of a child. The good student was an indian kid and would keenly and obediently do everything I told him to do. And he improved so fast and he absolutely loved swimming and he would give it everything he had and he would have been absolutely smashed after his first lesson earlier in the morning with me. Some odd reason he had a make up lesson in his new level later that morning... same class as the hellkid. The absolute best and the absolute worse placed in teh same class... It was a waste of a make up lesson as I had to spend much of the lesson controlling the other kid and could only spare half of my attention and one arm to teach him. The kid ran off once, and almost ran out of the pool centre, though my boss prevented him from exiting, which allowed me to corner him (which meant leaving a child unsupervised which I really shouldn't have done but had no choice, but I knew the good kid wouldn't do anything and he didn't he sat and watched and waited, fantastic kid to teach). I then had to pick him up off the ground and pry him from the door frame which he was holding unto in hopes of not getting back in (not because he hated the water, but because he didn't want to do as I told him to and all I told him to do was to swim with a frigggin kickboard...)... Obviously he wouldn't stand a chance as I pulled him straight off by walking with him, he then started to pinch me, but I was wearing 3 layers of clothing so no chance there either :P... and I saw his head move towards my forearm, and in the most evil tone I could muster, I whispered into his ear "Don't you even DARE think about biting me, Don't you even DARE..." I think that scared him enough to not bite me but still he was a pain... I spent the rest of the lesson teaching the good kid with one arm while I constricted the other kid with my right arm to stop him from moving, which meant I used a fair amount of strength, but the more he struggled the harder I had to squeeze to keep my grip... Not my loss... (There is a time and place for everything, and that was not the time to be gentle... seeing I do have some legal responsibilities as well as moral and occupational responsibilities). But yeah... There was no other way to handle such a kid... I had the most heavy split personality in that class... I would have a cheery soft voice talking to the good kid and correcting him and laughing, and turn into heavy, loud, angry and hoarse commanding yells the next second with the hellkid... While I was constricting him I simply ignored his screaming and crying (fake) and tantrums... but meh... I simply took all the necessary steps in the gentlest way possible, because I generally reason with bad behaviour giving them a chance to change before I pulled out my angry voice/face to stand it down. But that doesn't work with this kid... So I took it to the next level lol... Physical "imprisonment" with a strong arm...

O well... I'm tired from work... I only had 5 hours sleep last night... I worked at reception for 2-3 months before I got my license to teach, and reception is getting busier and busier so my boss is thinking of switching me to reception because I know the computer system stuff and everything else... and thats for saturdays specifically... which means I won't get hellkid.. but that might mean I also lose teaching the awesome kid whom I want to teach cos he's friggin brilliant... so it's a toss up... lol... but given the choice I'll probably do reception... unless the awesome kid comes another day orrr I somehow get rid of hellkid and give his curse upon another unfortunate soul :P

*edit* What was ironic was that the hellkid called me "Bad"... for commanding, yelling, and punishing him for his appalling behaviour that no other kid apart from his little brother can show. Which means that hellkid here, thinks that what he is doing is RIGHT... and that he should be allowed to disobey instructions at his free leisure... And I wasn't about to have my authority undermined by some maniacal child... So I enforced it, with mercy and reason... but then with force when I had no other option... lol... but meh... My brother used to teach hellkid... but he was too lenient, never got him to do anything that he didn't like or didn't want to do... And pretty much just played with him... So the kid is always saying "I want Daniel, I hate you!" or other crap that I don't care about... Different approach I guess... I put learning first and use fun as a medium or reward... And since the kid never wanted to listen and learn, he lost all his rewards. I let my students muck around and have fun... but too a point... and only if they continue to do as I ask when I ask them to do it. So in the time that I'm not getting them to do things, they can do whatever they please within certain safety limits... so most kids like my classes as I am least strict on "free play"... At school, we always got told that whatever things we wanted to do that they let us do was a privilege and if we step over the lines, we lose it (like trip mines, you step over, you get your legs blown off)... I'm simply applying what I know is effective...