Viaje de una hora

Listen to silence

Feel the energy of earth

One would be amazed 

Hey there. I've decided to start with a haiku i came up with about listening to the earth. Listening to the silence and feeling the crowd of emptiness all around.
I've always went everywhere with music in my ears and whenever i forget my dearly beloved earpiece, it may seem like it was not going to be a good day. Yes we live in such a time when blocking our ears out with music is much more comforting than being around people (sad but true). I decided not to go far, just around my housing area and the things i came to find and see, made me a little ashamed to have lived here for twenty two years and not realize.

How some trees have been cut down and re-planted, how there are diferrent tinges of green to the grass at different areas

How little plants grow amongst the trees, and yes they have grown quite big and i have never noticed (and also the fact that today, the grass may be full of leaves and tomorrow all the leaves are gone. Never actually stopped to see the difference and the people who work to keep our grass green - aprt for that little glass bottle hah)

How the bricks at the nearby drainages are actually not of the same color (i don't even know when it was changed) lack of attention to particular details and i call myself an artist hah

Look, more little plants growing on trees and they have grown quite big actually. You can hear the sound of animals rustling the trees atop, sound of little insects in the ground maybe crickets maybe some other insect I don't know (I never could hear that when I was with my music all the time so it was quite a discovery)

I took a different route than the one I always took when walking home and saw these little pink flowers growing on the fences of the badminton court. There were quite a lot of it. And it has been quite some time since I last played badminton. That explains much hah

They even did plant pruning and the area seems a bit more spacious but i never took the time to look up and see all that

See? I can see the roads outside (the area used to be blocked with huge trees)

The leaves that accumulated on the roofs and there was actually a little bird that was on it but i wasn't fast enough 

 Little things which are actually everyday norm, I should have seen and heard. And at random times during the hour, there would be drops of water falling onto my skin and hijab but nope it was not raining. You could even hear babies crying from any area of the estate and cats purring and things being dropped from high floors to the ground (i got confused with purring cats and crying babies, they sound almost the same to me hah)

Definitely made me realize that yes! I can live without my earpiece and sometimes the loud silence brings so much content that I should start to appreciate it more.

So let me close of with another haiku after the the viaje de una hora-

No need for music

Can't one find comfort in still

And not lose herself?

Shahirshaj-

Playfulness and creativity

Hey there. So speaking of playfulness and creativity, I personally believe that it is something that starts from young. It may or may not be taught to a certain extent.

When young, parents tend to buy building blocks and puzzle games and coloring books to develop and stimulate their brains to think and be creative. In this era, many children are seen with big iPads and phones (some even bigger than mine, how funny) to ensure their kids keep quiet in public or so that they do not disturb while elders are talking. I, strongly go against that mentality because children need to learn hands on from young. Imagine your kids growing up and not knowing how to use  pencil and draw. Scary!

When kids are given the freedom of toys and puzzles and games, they tend to think more and how to solve and how to play around with what they have. Yes at times it seems like the easiest way out to hand a child a phone and watch videos so they keep quiet but back in the olden days, there were no such technologies and parents still manage to keep their child disciplined. Why not now? Playfulness is a necessity (in my opinion) for the growing child. They should be given the freedom to do what they want (to a certain extent of course), to learn how to be creative with their toys, their coloring books, their surroundings even.

Playfulness and creativity definitely can be taught from a young age and it also depends on the upbringing of the child. The fact that technology has taken over this (maybe eighty percent) generation is quite a sad thing to see but I hope that there are parents out there who still believe in "old school" teachings for their children to develop creativity on their own and to play around with soft toys and building blocks and puzzles and such.

I'd definitely want that for my children.

- The other two parts to this topic can be found on Lulu's and Hafizah's blogs cause this is a group work and we decided to split it into three parts for better understanding. Till then

Shahirshaj-

Número uno

Hey there.
I guess i will be seeing you alot these weeks (apart from the fact that i'll blog occassionally on strangerousdangerous. So , first lesson of Pensamiento Creativo;

getting to know classmates? new group mates? Oh, they're Lulu and Hafizah.
Interesting facts about Lulu:   She's got a pet dog also named Lulu hehe
                                              She has never seen henna/mehndi before coming to class
                                              She has seven other siblings back in China (that's not a                                                       norm in SG)
Interesting facts about Hafizah: She eats sambal (chilli paste) but not chilli sauce (!)
                                                Oh, she also does not drink milo (whaaaat)
                                                She used to play with flour all around the house when she                                                 was younger
Interesting facts about Me? hah: I sometimes listen to music in languages I don't                                                                  understand
                                                 I watch plenty (and i mean plenty) of wrestling for a girl
                                                 I used to be much of a boy (like a tomboy)

Yup i think those facts are indeed quite interesting don't you?

So here goes;

Lulu, who used to be much like a boy, went shopping with her pet dog, also named Lulu, to find some henna which she has never seen before to do mehndi for her seven siblings. While walking around, she spotted some sacks of flour which reminded her of her childhood, playing with flour all over the house when her wrestling programme was on. She watched too much of it though. Lulu wanted to get an energy drink after all the walking but all she saw was milo which she does not drink. She decided to get some fries to go so she can eat it with sambal when she reaches home while jamming to some songs of different languages even she doesn't understand. Apparently Lulu does not eat chilli sauce.

Pretty strange don't you think?

See you on the next.

Shahirshaj-

Test test,

hey there. testing. cumma.