Uninspired

This is something I painted today. Feeling uninspired, unmotivated is  a horrid feeling. I walk around feeling listless...itching for something extraordinary to do, longing for something to captivate me and inspire me so much that I wanna sing it, write it or paint it, but nothing comes to mind.

Sure I'm greatly inspired as far as my teaching work with children is concerned, and am GREATly inspired by the continuous work we're doing in the Remote Village. But I'm really "empty" in the inspiration/creative bank. Being a creative person...it's really an unpleasant feeling. I can't quite describe it...it's like waiting for that rainbow or something "wowzers" to hit me that makes me want to jump, makes me wanna work till midnight, makes me want to create something. But here I sit, painting stuff like the painting above and the ones below..which is even worse..all painted half heartedly..with no direction, planning or goals in mind. 

Pathetic water lilies?

Perhaps the state of my mind?

And believe it or not....I even sat down and made up this meaningless song...that'll prove further to you, how unmotivated I have been.







I desperately want something to "stir" me..to bring up the creative side in me again..or I'll continue to feel agitated, "lifeless"..with nothing exciting to do, till the next trip somewhere into the jungle. Am I making sense anyway? coz you know, the uninspired me is affecting the stuff I write too. *sigh*                                                                                                                                                                   

Blues Clues

See all these pictures?Can you guess???? well...our friend Jo has been watching a little too many Blues Clues show. She's disobeyed the "No drawing on anything, except paper rule." I found these footprints on my toilet bowl, pail, chairs, etc etc. When I asked her why she broke the rule she just replied "ooppps...please forgive me mum, pleaseeeeee?????? I just wanted Nel to find the clues..." and she said it with such innocent eyes.

 Well..I let her off this once, err...5th? 6th?  time..

but her daddy was not too happy about the footprints. Anyway..she gave me this drawing later..which I thought was rather nice, completely drawn by her, based on her memory. As you can see..Blues Clues and Angry birds rock in her world.

the female version

However, Mermaids remain as her top favourite for several consecutive years now..in fact, as far back as I can remember...it's always been mermaids, mermaids first.

drawn Sept 2011. See the arrow? Mummy is now a mermaid! haha

This sweet letter came with the mermaid, sealed in a self made envelop. :)

remote village n Jo's insecurities of late

Sometime ago I wrote a post on Teaching my children about Giving where my children contributed towards buying rice for the poor, from their own pocket money. They gave willingly, and this trip again, both my children donated money towards the rice fund, on their own will.

Well we visited a similar village this weekend. Another lovely trip. My older Nel, mingled well, and was really helpful during the entire trip. Jo was helpful in terms of cooking, she helped us prepare meals for  the poor. However, strangely, she's become very over protective of me when the kids come around me.

This started last week when we visited an orphanage and some 48 kids below the age of 6 came running up to me saying "pao pao" (carry me), clinging on to me, refusing to let go. Jo who was standing next to me at first, walked off to a corner. She sulked for several hours after, cried and said she felt left out. I had to spend a lot of time then explaining to her why those kids were so needy, and reassured her that I loved her more than anything. She was ok after that.

However, during the visit to this village, as I was teaching the village children art, I caught her sulking and feeling insecure again. I don't understand, as she's never been like this before. I hope this is a temporary phase that will not last.

Little children help carry siblings in a sarong.

Sunrise over the village

Local villager selling her crop

Village kids out to play early in the morn..

very very hungry children who dug deep to get even scraps to eat..

 A Special child..living happily in this village

this baby didn't even try to get rid of the fly..but many of these children have skin infection

Story Telling -The sleeping Beauty (Dormouse)

My children love stories, and because of that we're members of 2 libraries which we visit frequently. It's a lot cheaper to borrow then to buy tonnes of books, plus my nose would get terribly runny with all the dust from books.

Today at the library, Jo picked up this book entitled Sleeping Beauty, only Beauty here is a Dormouse. I placed it on my piano and decided to do an impromptu story telling, singing and telling as it came. Well..they loved it so much, they made me do it twice. It worked at getting their attention. :)

Story telling should always be attractive and captivating to the listener, ..it has to attract the child. So one should use the voice, facial expression and hand gestures freely. You could also include props, puppets, pictures or piano as I did here. You'll know what your child loves best. :)

Here's part of what I did for story telling today, video a little shaky, taken by my child.. (I do realise that I was reading a little too fast here...well, was afraid batteries would run out, and it did!)

Faces

Oh my blog...how I've neglected you in recent days, which means..oh how I've neglected the usual activities with my children too,, since this blog's pretty much dedicated to stuff for my children to remember. haha... Things have been hectic, but it's all back to normal again now, that is, till Christmas comes around.
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Faces....faces cross my mind each day after work, faces cross my mind before bed...faces of children..of children without parents..abandoned, rejected.. Children forced to defend themselves, sometimes forced to become aggressive and crude, and sometimes left to become so timid and extremely afraid of the world. That's what's been on my mind.

I once wanted to  be a Child Psychologist. I remember getting an acceptance into a university in New Zealand to do Child Psychology, but my mum, reluctant to let go of me at 17 kept me back, and I ended up doing music (which is also my passion). Not by coincidence, by the nature of my job today..indirectly, I've come to learn, and have been learning so much about children..specifically about children who have no real home. Blame it on PMS or mid age hormones, I've sometimes found myself
crying for them.

When I look at the statistics of abandoned children in Malaysia alone..I ask "What can I do?" Last weekend we took in 2 children. When I dropped them off after the weekend, many children at that home ran to the gate to take a peek at us. I wanted to bring them all home, but reality says, I can't, I've got limitations.

My dear husband looked at me and said "Remember the Starfish story? A boy once found thousands and thousands of starfish swept up to shore, left to dry and die. That little boy, wanting to rescue the starfishes, began throwing them into the ocean one at a time, to rescue them. A passerby came by, laughed and jeered at the boy and said "Are you crazy? There are thousands of starfish stranded, how could you possibly help?" The boy replied as he rescued one more starfish "Well, it made a difference to this one."

I was encouraged by that story. In the end, I conclude we cannot save the whole world, only God can do that.  What we can do is make a difference in the lives God has purposefully placed in our lives. I know, He has placed some of these children in my life. I can honestly say, I almost audibly hear His voice saying "Martha, this child, yes, this particular one, will you take him/her under your wing. Make a difference, love him/her as I would."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

StART Society "I believe" Concert Rehearsals

It's counting down 2 days to our very very first ever concert! Woo hoo!! The students have worked really hard at putting up a good show. Teachers have also worked extremely hard trying to put everything together. It's not so easy considering that we're trying to coordinate 8 houses (shelter homes) of children, their schedules, and rehearsal time. Today we had our first dry run and it was quite chaotic. Firstly housing so many children all at once was noisy business. Then coordinating the flow of the concert, holding up area, rehearsal area... woo...it was one big messy fun. :)

Well tomorrow we'll have a proper full dress rehearsal. Wish us all the best. If you can PLEASE come support our concert. I've said this before... most of these children do not have parents who will come watch them. So we're trusting and relying on you to come cheer these children. Will you be their "parent" for the night, encourage them, support them and support our cause. Make a difference. See you there, Civics Center P.J, 12th or 13th Sept 7:30pm. For more information please call StART Society at 79545423 or 0163911252.

Below a few video clips of rehearsals in progress..enjoy. :)

1) Teacher Tony and Little Stompers


2) Dance/Drama- Mad World


3) Little Break Dancer


4) I believe Dance. Check out the hand stands and cartwheels! :)

GCC Farm

What a lovely day we had. We started for Bentong early in the morn, and after a quick breakfast of beef soup noodles, we made our way to GCC Farm. It's a fairly new farm, with lots of work to be done. For right now they've got a little school going for OA children, a few goat pens, geese and chicken.

Just a few random shots below, followed by 2 videos of goats which I enjoyed taking. :)

Part of the OA school and dormitory

Random shot of flower found in their garden

 The area surrounding the farm, lovely and serene.

 We hiked up this slope...

 Then up this hill..

 Where I spotted this grasshopper (shaky shot I know..could've been better)

And this was the view from the top

We visited the goat pen, and this goat said "Yo mama..ain't I handsome or what!"

This one called out to me and said "yo mama...me likes you. You like me smile? I got nice teeth. yeah!"

and here's the same fella with his silly grin. hahaha..

And then em females came out and said "Yo mama leave our men alone and go find your own kind." hehe...

Video 1-Sneezing Goat.


Video 2- Testing goat reaction. hehehe..I had fun doing this, don't go thinking I'm mad now, coz i'm not..but just having fun. :) Enjoy.


Finally...the evening was wonderful. Unfortunately my battery went flat at this point. Spent a lovely time at Shahrul's Liberation Farm. My girls had a lovely time swimming upstream in an area near the duck pond. Water there is very clear and lovely. Certainly a refreshing treat after all the trekking in the morning. Dinner with lovely Shahrul and Jorg was wonderful. :)
That's all for today...signing out..~Martha.