A Cup of Pulled Tea

Tea Drinker


## Trigger for this post: Let's make a wallet but...

Dad gave me a new one. So I shouldn't make a wallet because I am obliged to use the gifted wallet, right? Giving gift
isn't just about making someone happy. The one giving is also hoping the recipient to like it. If you like it, you'd use
it. If you don't like it then you have to weight between risking the giver liking you less, or you like the giver more
than your fashion (read: whatever) sense.


Speaking of which, my dad bought me a gal's shirt for raya once and I wore it. He didn't know it was for gals and I wore
it because I'm loyal like that. Naaaaaah. Actually I didn't know too until some uncle pointed it out and his three
daughters wore it (ok I made this part up for laugh). "Doh bakpe pakai baju puang" is enough for laughs and me to
remember 30+ years after.


Yes I'm not thankful, am I.


I don't know what is it about me that looks at a gift and go "is this useful?" instead of "this person went through
all the trouble to get me this". I remember a religious quote and hopefully I am able to live this one better:

    "Be thankful and happy even for a drop of water in a pouring rain."

Of course this quote was meant for us to be thankful for what God gives you even it seems trivial, seemingly useless and
doesn't make sense. We don't have the full map of where we're heading in life so trust the One who knows, yes?


On a rather flip side, how many times did we buy something we thought we needed but end up finding out not really
needing it right?


Anyways... I thanked Dad for the wallet. Everything moved from my leather Fossil wallet to this new one. We'll grow to
like stuffs after a while. Am sure will like this one too.





Gift


## Tiptoeing on a tight rope 400 feet in the sky


When you have a 10-year-old kid in a 17-year-old body, you will resort
to more psychological approach to things. Reverse psychology (the version where instead of u psycho-ing that person,
u end up psycho-ing yourself instead), Coercion (you coerce yourself into his line of thinking and then coerce yourself back out of this delusion),
Responsibility Invocation ('no. God says you can't cut off ties with your kid'), Hardball (you remind him, and yourself, that no...
you can't afford stuffs. Thank you reality for having my back on this one) and other tactics I just can't think of right now,
but I'm so adapt in them, it's second nature when the time is right.


So when you play this game with your kids, you play a long game. You mention stuffs you'd figure that will lead him to
conclude what you want him to conclude. Like school. We try to put it in his head that school's a necessity. He gotta
try and make it work. You get the idea. You're not a master manipulator so when it works, your happy and at the same tike
feels like even a small puff can push your effort off balance and fall 400 feet down.


Then comes some kenduri or whatever event and you bring your kids. Kiddo see your friend that they recognize or adore and
they chat him up. Here's where whatever you try to plant in your kid's mind can get undone. You roll your eyes
internally with  a smile and figure out how to damage control later.


    "Yes school here is bad. Teachers are like this that bla bla bla"


    "We don't learn anything useful in school. Dah tua lupa"


    "Just DIY your education. Better."


These guys... too much listening to Youtube motivators.


It's not that what they say is not true. It's just the kind of truth that doesn't do him any good. His condition doesn't
make it easy for him to get self-motivated. So any self-motivation spark in Youtube that you think is useful to you,
doesn't work for him. You'll just get him angry over how bad school systems are and then he can't do much about it
because the thing you preach is actually self educate which is a challenge for him to do.

I use the word 'challenge' lightly. It's close to gila-babi-susah-ko-tau-takkkkk but we layan geng toxic positivity
so...


In other words, you're just making it harder.


So if you want to talk to other people's kids, be safe. Just encourage them to do their best, be a version of themselves
they can be proud of, and you know... boring stuffs. Don't preach. Stuff you say might not be in line with
what their parents trying to do for them. If it's important for you, preach your kids. Other people might not want your
truth.

When You Talk To My Kid


## Reboot

Oh hey. I've been trying a few times to start writting again. It isn't easy. Oh you know how it is... you write it down and jussst as you want to submit that post... you ask yourself can you do this regularly?

Most of the time this is enough for me to delete whatever I wrote but now it's different. I'm just going to write.

Coz I'm TD and TD writes therefore he is awesome.

I'm moving out of blogger for no other reason than being macho and DIY the heck everything. Luckily hosting is still free and it's just the domain name (which i pay every year anyways). Other than that it's just my time.

Feedbacks (aka comments) is probably going to be a bit tricky. You guys are just going to have to mail me what you think and i'll put it up on the blog manually somehow. hahaha. Later la bagi email. Awal2 ni you guys sure cakap "write la, we'ols janji baca". Then I write long lenghty stuffs I get one view: me. or two views: me refreshing the page.

So hey. Do take care. Catch you in a bit.


Can it be that the tea drinker is actually going to attempt writting another post? gasp!

A Cup of Pulled Tea

Gift

When You Talk To My Kid

Blogging in 2022