The piece of tofu

The festival in my city is over! My mother and I are so relieved. We can finally take a break from running a “hotel”. From now onwards, we'll be back to a slower pace of hosting people. And perhaps I can catch up on more important things and hobbies.

The past ten days were an interesting first-time experience for us managing a peak tourist season. We met people from United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Norway, Belgium and China. Some became closer to us than others. Some had interesting stories to tell us. Some were more curious than others to learn about Sri Lankan culture and our way of life.

It fascinates me how we choose to open up to complete strangers sometimes, with a level of trust that we don't even show to non-strangers and how sometimes interesting friendships develop. For example, although I am a very suspicious introvert, I find myself more open to talking to strangers while I travel. It's not the case when I am in familiar surroundings with not-so-strangers.  It's also interesting how different people get more or less out of the same situation by the level of openness and curiosity they choose to display.

The highlight of our ten days and a good example of guests making the most of a situation is perhaps the story that follows.

We had a documentary photographer and his wife who were on a "pilgrimage" across several Asian countries capturing various Buddhist traditions and festivals. I think it was a fortunate coincidence that they decided to stay with us. Communication was a bit of a challenge since we didn't speak Chinese and their English wasn't too fluent. However, by the end of ten days, they considered us as an adopted family and we considered them the same. 

They relaxed in the mornings doing a bit of cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping for food, playing the guitar (extremely well) and getting in touch with their families on Skype. By evening time, they left to the city with their camera equipment to cover the festival. For a couple of days, we observed them with interest and they did the same with us. We tried to anticipate their needs and made them as comfortable as we could. The turning point of our relationship was a piece of tofu. Yes, a piece of cold, white, raw tofu. One afternoon, my mother offered them a small piece of home-made tofu. To our surprise, their faces lit up and the wife hugged my mother and exclaimed “Thank you, Mom!”. I suppose they never expected to receive tofu from a Sri Lankan family or they probably missed tofu dearly since they had been traveling for 4 months. Shortly afterwards, they invited us to a grand home-made Chinese vegetarian dinner. It was the best Chinese vegetarian meal I had eaten in a long time. The tofu was cooked in an authentic Szechuan style (called Mapo Tofu).

The hosts were invited for a dinner by the guests

One night they called us at 1:00 am for an emergency. My brother and I went to investigate and found that they have not been able to go to the toilet for nearly an hour because there was a big (harmless) spider on the shower curtain. My brother relocated the spider to the woods and everyone was happy. My mother was able to answer them on questions related to Buddhist traditions, she let them borrow books from her library, took them to a temple nearby and taught the wife how to wear a sari. My father showed them around our garden and helped them to carry their photography equipment to the river for a photo shoot. My brother took them around in his tuk tuk and gave them new local fruits to sample. We had more meals together. Talked about travels, cultures and family backgrounds - even if they weren't in perfect English.

The photo shoot at "Ritigala" - said to be the last Kandyan King's bathing spot

After what seemed like more than ten days, we parted. There were some tears and promises to improve on English speaking skills, keep in touch and to meet again. We also gave them a parting gift that included a book and a rubber spider. 

Not every guest encounter turns out like this, but this one was certainly interesting.

Esela Perahera

The city I live in is gearing up for a huge festival starting tomorrow. This annual festival called the Esela Perahera is held in July/ August and some refer to it as "the most colourful pageant of Asia". For 10 days, a huge procession of Kandyan dancers, drummers, jugglers, fire-breathers, whip-crackers, adorned elephants and more will parade through various narrow streets of Kandy town as a mark of respect to the sacred tooth relic of the Buddha. The relic is housed in the Temple of the Tooth (aka Sri Dalada Maligawa).

A short clip of the Esela Perahera

Hordes of devotees, tourists and locals will be pouring into Kandy in the next few days, making the town very congested! Thankfully, this time of the year also happens to be cool, windy and without much rain. Most locals who have lived their entire lives in this city still try to catch the spectacle at least on one of the days, knowing very well that it will involve brushing with hundreds of strangers on the streets, sometimes struggling to hold on to a few inches of ground to stand, because it is indeed an impressive sight.

Our family was invited by some friends to watch the procession from the comfort of one of their friends' shop balconies. We also talked about taking a load of snacks and drinks to share and kill time till the procession passes us. Our snack menu includes things like fried peanuts, biscuits, boiled chick peas, pickled fruit, fresh fruit, cake, etc. As a child I remember we (all the younger ones) try to count the number of elephants in the procession and compare notes later. My last count was forty-two although the procession is said to have up to a hundred elephants! I'm guessing many elephants got away while I reached out for snacks or got carried away eating.

I also remember a time when elephants that were brought to Kandy from various parts of Sri Lanka for the Esela Perahera would come to bathe in the river beside my house. We enjoyed watching them play and bathe in the river from a distance. It seems like they have found a different location for bathing in the recent years.

This time though, I have mixed feelings about participating as a spectator of this grand procession that has cultural, religious, traditional and nostalgic significance to me.

In the past, Asian elephants were used in warfare and labour that required strength. As these roles are now redundant, elephants (in captivity) in Sri Lanka have become a symbol of wealth and power. It is not uncommon for temples, powerful figures and some Buddhist monks to own at least one elephant. They are also used in numerous religious processions, celebratory events like weddings and animal shows for human entertainment.

Almost all elephants that seem tame to humans are captured in the wild. A more fitting word would be "snatched" from the herd. Most are caught very young as they need to be "tamed" from a young age. It is said that they undergo a training period consisting of torture, starvation, abuse and solitary confinement to "break their wild spirit" and fear a human keeper enough to obey their orders. Unlike their African counterparts, Asian elephants more suitable for training. They can't be domesticated (as in the case of selectively bred animals) so although "tame", captive elephants are pretty much the same as wild elephants. Therefore, they are kept chained and mahouts (elephant keepers) always carry a sharp hook to remind the elephants of obedience.

During the Esela Perahera, captive elephants are made to participate in a procession with thousands of bystanders, heat and noise. Some of the bigger elephants carry chieftans on their back. During the procession, they sometimes step on smoldering pieces of charcoal that fall off the torches and are regularly prodded by the mahouts with hooks. Sick elephants are probably not spared because participation means a day's wage for a mahout. One elephant on a rampage in a congested town could easily end up in a catastrophe. So underneath beautifully adorned garments, adult elephants walk in chains that are often too short for the animal to take a natural step. This is perhaps a fitting analogy for the Esela Perahera itself. Beneath all the extravagance, there lies commercialism (yes, even our family benefits from incoming tourists to Kandy) and worse, untold suffering for the hundred elephants.

A chained temple elephant in Sri Lanka. Source: The Dodo

While the elephant-mahout bond is said to be a a special one, usually for life, not every mahout is kind or an expert in the needs of elephants. Mahouts work hard to look after an elephant and depend solely on the elephant for their livelihood. So the only means he can feed his family and a 2-5 tonne animal (that eats about 150 kg of food a day) is to take his elephant to as many events, religious processions he can, or simply show them off to tourists in return for a fee. In a way, religious events like the Esela Perahera support the livelihood and sustenance of many mahouts and captive elephants respectively. However, it is a vicious cycle.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species has categorised Elephas maximus as "endangered" and the population count is on a downward trend. In Sri Lanka, there are threats like elephant-human territorial conflicts, capture of juveniles in the wild and an ivory demand (which is smaller in extent compared to Africa).

A herd of wild (female) elephants and their offspring spotted at Minneriya National Park (Sri Lanka) during my last visit in July 2016. Scores of them gather annually in this very spot while on a migratory route. 

It is indeed a sad case that in the 21st century, with so much accumulated knowledge in Science and collective conscience, we continue to uphold and glorify traditions with a darker side. It is even sadder that we humans exploit animals in the name of religions that preach kindness and non-violence towards them.

Elephants are special. Like pandas, they elicit a feeling of fondness in many people (if you disagree, you haven't seen a baby elephant up close). They are the largest land animals on Earth. They are highly intelligent and social herbivores with complex emotions. They have the longest gestation period of 18-22 months for a mammal and elephant calves depend on the mother's milk for 3-4 years. Even if those facts don't impress anyone, few would argue that a hundred shackled elephants covered in magnificent costumes are better than a hundred elephants roaming free in the wild.

Setting up a business

Right about the time I stopped blogging in 2014, my family started a major construction project. It is no wonder that my mental faculties were far too occupied to enjoy leisurely pursuits like writing.

It started out as an idea to build a tiny affordable annex which could be rented out to a local family. The main drive for this was so my parents would have a supplementary income while I was unemployed during postgraduate study. Or so I initially thought.

When the idea went through all members of my family, it didn't take long for the idea to grow and evolve into something quite different from the original plan. Our family is divided between high-risk and low-risk takers in the ratio of 2 : 2. My sister being the ambitious one gently nudged us to take a bigger risk by tapping into the tourism industry. My mother was excited about the prospect from the start. The two low-risk takers were hesitant at first, but considering the facts at hand, they slowly warmed up to the idea and tweaked it to a more sensible one.

Many telephone, Whatsapp and Skype conversations later, it was decided that we were going to have a small bed & breakfast inn for budget-conscious travelers. Since we happen to be located in a popular city of historic/ cultural importance in Sri Lanka, it seemed worth a shot. Worst case scenarios included a failed business or being summoned to court for missing on housing loan repayments. Best case scenarios included a successful business or even simply ending up with an additional comfortable house.

This was the first time our family worked together on a project of this scale. It was no easy task to coordinate things when we were all in three different countries. Jobs were divided according each one's abilities and personalities.

My mother was the "Construction Manager/ Buyer" supervising and coordinating things on site with the contractors, vendors and other authorities. Despite our regular input from overseas, she is the real hero for completing the construction phase. My sister was the "Advisor/ Master Decorator" who gave an artistic touch worthy of a small business. I was more of a laid back "Project Manager/ Financial Controller" giving the yes/no to anything that involved costs, taking care of a multitude of details that the others missed and constantly pointing out things that needed improvement. My foster brother worked alongside the contractors so the building probably has more of his sweat and blood than any one else in the family. My father didn't play a very active role in the construction phase except perhaps keeping us grounded when our imaginations stretched far beyond our budget. Also I presume, he'll be the one to bail us out of jail some day when we fall back on housing loan repayments and the authorities come to seize the property!

Clearing the land in preparation for construction. Unfortunately, many trees and plants which were dearly looked after by my father were uprooted to make space for this house

From the ground

Slowly taking shape

Ta daa! The nearly-finished product

The major part of the construction project was completed in about 12 months' time. Looking back now, it feels like a dream. In December 2015, after much effort, stress and sacrifices from all family members, we were ready to welcome our first guests. The house was complete with 3 bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining hall and a laundry room. There is more to be done, but we had to stop when we ran out of financial resources about the same time that I quit my job.

Every adversity in life comes with valuable lessons and experiences. For us, the project brought our family members closer than we had ever been before. This was the perfect team building activity to work together, enjoy the successes and failures, mend strained ties as a result of prolonged periods of separation and appreciate each other more - while this "baby" of ours grew from a small idea to a tangible structure.

Not only that, it was a huge learning experience. We all learnt about things we never knew about before the project commenced. My brother for example, being extraordinarily skilled, picked up the basic skills of masonry, carpentry, welding, wiring and tiling while working as an apprentice. Someday, he should be able to easily build his own little house. As for myself, I didn't know that careful planning of building layouts and obsessing over minor details would greatly appeal to my over-thinking nature (IKEA was my new best friend for inspiration).

The end of the construction phase signaled the beginning of the operations phase, which was another new subject in itself. My sister's knowledge and experience in the hospitality sector proved helpful in setting up things and shaping our mindset to a service-oriented one. Again, we had to learn a lot - about catering to various types of guests, housekeeping, managing reservations, finances, getting various licences, networking with tour operators, upgrading facilities, marketing, etc - from scratch. My mother who's very extroverted and my father who's genuinely helpful and informed have been assigned front office roles while I support them when I'm around. My mother is also the Head Chef since she is a great cook. My brother continues to support us in minor construction work. 

I happily settled to doing the back-end job of managing the online presence of the business. Also, since I don't have a lot of other practical skills and we can't afford to employ anyone yet, I have been left with the not-so-fun role of Head Housekeeper. And for someone who spent many years being a "happy bachelor" away from family, devoid of any household responsibilities, and sometimes even sneering at householders for having to clean houses regularly, it looks like I've been served by the Cosmic Joker.

Life does throw you curveballs. Helping to set up a family business was nowhere in my list of personal goals or priorities, but here we are. On the down side, this project set me back financially, forced me to take the difficult decision of returning to Sri Lanka to pursue a no-so-ideal local degree and miss my highly independent life in Singapore. On the up side, the time with family has been invaluable, just like peaceful natural surroundings I wake up to every day (and which I have dearly missed for many years), the food and the abundance of pets. And it is dawning on me that Sri Lanka (though far from being a perfect country) is perhaps one of the best places on Earth to study nature and wildlife.

Whether the recent decisions I took were good ones remains to be seen. Till then, I am going to make the most of my stay here. As I typed some parts of this post sitting on the floor outside my front door, my dog stood guard by my feet, I heard birds chirp and noticed that the soothing winds which brushed over my skin also caused the leaves in the garden to rustle.

Hello, my new life in Sri Lanka.

Day 1 of 66: Another determined start

Hello my dear friends (and others who accidentally stumble on this blog),

Some of you are recipients of a spam-like email notification since you have showed some interest in Shuri/ Shuri's cathartic blogs in the past or have/had a personal blog. Actually, I figured that making a public pledge to all of you will help me fight procrastination and make me accountable in publishing even one low quality blog post per week. It is kind of like a paid gym membership that will force you to drag your initially-lazy butt out of the house. I know, it's terrible that it has come to this.

You can unsubscribe from the email notifications at any time by dropping me a message. I won't be offended. Also, I know that spam emails without an "unsubscribe" option are super-annoying.

A few of you have encouraged me to keep blogging though I constantly question the quality of my content, my grammatical abilities, value to others, the purpose of writing incessantly about oneself, and at times, even my honesty.

However, blogging regularly helped me in the past to be more expressive in real life, reflective, grounded and gave me a good means of coping with some of the unpleasant sides of life. It also made me take myself a lot less seriously and kept me entertained - which is good. Occasionally, some thoughts expressed in this blog have led to deeper conversations and new friendships, which I consider a bonus.

I would be very encouraged if you had a personal blog to share, but I know it is not easy to maintain one (refer to paragraph 1 above). So if you prefer to read quietly from the sidelines, please be my guest.

Happy reading (and thanks for the support).

~ ~ ~

Here I am, after a blogging hiatus. It only feels like yesterday that I stopped blogging despite the 18 months of not doing so.

Like an old rusty automobile engine, it is going to take a lot of effort for me to return to writing and keep at it. And, according to a Huffington Post article, it takes 66 days to form a new habit! Yikes.

Anyway, just to get ourselves updated, I left Singapore in early June. I now live in Sri Lanka in the comfort (mostly) and familiarity of my parents' home (my mother even saved my childhood blanket) surrounded by chaos, greenery and several pets.

Unlike the movie, this is a 31 year old woman's story to finally find a real job that involves saving animals

I'm also a post-graduate student studying Environmental Science (finally!) and part-owner (a.k.a. housekeeper) of a small guest lodging. It has been somewhat a culture shock returning to live in Sri Lanka after 12 years. I'm hoping to go into more details in the blog posts to come,

....but before that, let's publish this auspicious post so I would be very embarrassed not to return to write the next post.

Bugs, Hobbits and Adventures

Every year, I seem to be hit by at least one debilitating attack of acute bronchitis.

About 2.5 weeks ago, I caught a flu bug. Through a combination of factors - such as low immunity, lack of rest, overestimation of one's physical strengths, underestimation of how badly cold/rainy weather can exacerbate respiratory problems, gluttony and negligence - it developed to acute bronchitis. And that cost me 4 visits to the doctor, 5 days of medical leave this month and some strange side effects of the prescription medication such trembling fingers, blurred vision, headaches, nausea and disturbed digestion. I'm still not clear of the disease, but surely getting there.

The care and concern received from family, friends, colleagues and doctors have been overwhelming and great in aiding my recovery so far. Also, I've discovered the benefits of drinking apple cider vinegar with honey when a colleague made me try some.

Shu, for your sake, I hope there were some lessons learnt in this experience. Like NOT going on a hike to the Botanic Gardens when you were given 2 days of medical leave by a doctor TO REST.

 Nearer to the Tanglin Entrance of the Singapore Botanic Gardens

Swan Lake, Singapore Botanic Gardens

It was good weather to be outdoors!

I even found a reptile to stalk

These orchids were called Golden Showers. However, back in Sri Lanka they are called Kandyan Dancers because of their resemblance to dancers of a traditional dance originating from my hometown.

The outing turned out to be good for my soul, but bad for my lungs.

At the peak of the wretched disease, my parents began to worry obsessively about me. Mostly because all my housemates had left the country on their respective holidays.

Mother : If you are not careful, the next stage is PNEUMONIA (aka. death in the Dictionary of Mothers).
Father: Do not drink anything cold or eat anything right off the refrigerator.
Mother: STOP entertaining that cat and change your linen because there must be cat fur lying around!!
Father: Do you have any of the herbal oil I gave you? If you apply that before sleeping, you will have some relief from congestion.
Mother: REMEMBER to inhale steam before you go to sleep! And cover up.
Father: If you don't recover, may be you should fly down home so we can look after you.
Mother: DO NOT touch cold water!
Mother: STOP showering in the early mornings and getting exposed to the cold air outside! No wait, STOP showering altogether for a few days.
Mother: I WARNED you that you are having a bad spell according to your astrological influences. Are you remembering to be religious and all that???
Father: Why don't you let your mother come over there for a few days to look after you?

Shu: Whoa! No, that won't be necessary. Let me ask around to see if any of my friends would like to babysit a bronchitis-ridden patient for a few days.

Luckily, I found a willing volunteer. Ryuu, to the relief of my worried parents, very kindly agreed to leave behind all creature comforts and watch over me last weekend. You know, in case I died from pneumonia according to my mother. Ryuu ran to my aid from the room next door several times when I woke up in the middle of the night with coughing fits and brought me hot water to soothe the throat. Thank you immensely, Ryuu. I owe you about two month's supplies of lentil curry.

I would like to say the same about myself in being a good nurse. Unfortunately, human patients in my night watch will not receive the medical attention they need since I probably won't wake up to hear their calls for help. I promise I'm a better nurse during the day watch.

We made the most out of a depressing situation by doing a movie marathon of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013). That was fun and compulsory because I planned to catch the finale of the series this week. I've grown 2 years older since Mr Peter Jackson started the The Hobbit movie series in 2012 and ended it this month! And 4.5 years older if I counted the time since I first read The Hobbit.

Hurrah!! A day off for Christmas and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) awaits.

Merry Christmas to all the children out there!

It's the holiday season when people are smiling more and feeling generous, regardless of their religious beliefs. I wish people were like that the whole year round. Then maybe fewer innocent children will die in the hands of psychopaths.

I spend far too much time deciding on gifts to my giftees. I only realise after I buy the gift  that I spent HOURS in deep meditative thoughts trying to picture the perfect gift for the giftee, given the information I have about them. I tend to forget where I am, or how late in the day it is, or that I haven't checked my phone (which is on silent mode) for awhile or that I didn't have dinner while I browse through carefully selected stores.

Today, my mission was to buy two small gifts for a set of 3-year old twin girls. The stores are filled with expensive, useless and potentially toxic things for children and to find something my giftees will benefit from was a task that took me nearly two hours. I've never met the duo, but their loving mother is one of my closest colleagues and through her, I've heard so much about these two little people in the past two years. As I gather, they are in the entertaining age of learning to read and imitating what adults say.

Seriously Shu, how hard is it to pick something for two little girls??? 
Just pick something pink and girly. 
*Looks at a Barbie interactive sticker book to paste clothes on dolls* *spits*
*Looks at several gender segregated "Books for boys" and "Books for girls"* *shakes head* 
No! I'd rather get them something educational or at least age-appropriate and gender-neutral
How about Roald Dahl or Enid Blyton ?
Urgh. They are only 3! They can't read that well yet.
But do you have a big budget?
No, not this time of the month when I'm on peasant-mode.
Then, just pick up something!! They are kids and they'll only care about your gift for a few minutes before they forget all about it!
True. Then I should get something the parents will be involved in. Like a bedtime story book!

After much deliberation and sorting through shelves of books and piles of toys, I found two books which I liked very much on first glance (No, the large pictures of animals had nothing to do with it! *grins*). I read through the books to ensure it was age-appropriate and useful for the girls.

Somehow, reading the books made me remember how awesome my parents are. And I was immediately hit by waves of emotions and strong memories of how the both of them brought me up when I was younger. I may have gotten a bit teary too. Somehow, it didn't seem to matter that I'm almost 30 or that the recipients were just 3-year olds; the essence of the book applied to anyone who was fortunate enough to have felt the warm embrace of loving and caring parent figures.

Yes, my daddy drives us home safely when all of us have fallen asleep while travelling on very long journeys and he endured many hardships while working overseas to put us through a good education.

Yes, my daddy is good at many subjects like Mathematics, Physics and English. He's very organised and patient. He has green fingers too.

Yes, my daddy used to make sure I was well wrapped, strapped (and awake!) while riding to school in his motorbike. He is still very concerned when I fall ill.

Yes, my daddy did buy me my first bicycle and taught me how to ride it. And he's bought me many cool toys like a TV game and a microscope.

Yes, I used to fall asleep on the couch while watching TV and my daddy used to carry me to my bed.

Yes, they both look very good in pictures of him and my mom in their early twenties!

Yes, he doesn't always crack jokes, but when he does, they usually hilarious!

When I was a kid, I used to suffer from excruciating ear pains and kept them both up through the night with my bawling. He would place his large hands over my ears to keep them warm till I calmed down.

Yes, he does that ALL the time! He would be very restless if he didn't have gadgets, appliances and vehicles to fix.

I'm not sure if my Daddy tried this when I was a baby.

Yes, my Daddy is one of the kindest and gentlest souls I know.

Yes, my Daddy's never short of ideas!

And how fortunate that he is my Daddy!

Yes, my Mummy is so adventurous that I've been to many interesting places and situations in her company. She's always pushed me to be bold and open to new adventures!

Yes, I made my Mummy run in circles around the house and tell made-up stories, just so she can feed me a plate of food. Most Asian children are spoilt like that.

Yes, my Mummy's been very protective and watched us over like a hawk. She still tries to help in every way possible even though I am miles away from home.

Yes, my Mummy's taught me countless little things that still make good sense and has made me the independent and strong willed woman I am today.

Yes, my Mummy is very pretty! Even in her 60's.

Yes, my Mummy's the one in the family who loves to hug and kiss everyone the most!

Yes, my Mummy still does when I go home for the holidays. And she constantly thinks of her children who are overseas whenever she makes their favourite food.

Yes, my Mummy does love perfumes!

Yes, after my Mummy managed to catch me (a once-mischievous kid) first. If not for her perseverance, I would have been very happy to go for months without a bath.

Yes, my Mummy loves to sing and has a huge collection of tracks in her internal jukebox, spanning several languages!

Yes, my Mummy is always warm and I still feel safe knowing she is around.

Lucky for my Mummy, I am a deep sleeper! She even used to give me haircuts while I was asleep.

Yes, I used to tag along with her to most places she went, mostly clinging on her handbag. No matter how old or independent we get, our mothers will always look to us as their children.

I'm sure the twins won't feel the emotions I felt when I read these books, but I hope they enjoy them, when I hand it over during Christmas dinner at their house tomorrow!

This year, I couldn't be home to celebrate my nephew's 7th birthday with the rest of the family. Instead, I had to send his present early through one of my friends flying back to Sri Lanka. Through a lucky coincidence, the gift reached him on his birthday day after travelling many miles across the seas, just moments after he cut his cake! It wasn't too hard to pick his gift which included a Minecraft Construction Manual, a few dinosaur eggs from the zoo gift shop which I hear just hatched in a jar of water and a glow-in-the-dark plastic skeleton as tall as him (I warned his mother not to freak out when it glows at night).

The skeleton was an obvious choice because he showed promising signs of being a bone expert in his school assignment (see picture below). I thought it was pretty good advice for preventing osteoporosis, coming from a 6-year old. It also made me realise how little we appreciate our "butt bones", that help us sit and do fun things like blog!

The nephew's handiwork. We are all proud of his imagination.

Sweet delirium

This is a true story. In the event that the moral of this story becomes unclear, it is this: if you don't use a certain skill, you lose it.

My father who was an Engineer by profession is very good in his mathematics. I doubt there was anyone to match him in the family, except maybe his father. There's a small chance I am being biased, but there was never a mathematics problem he couldn't solve for me. Whenever I hit a brick wall in my school mathematics, my father was the last resort I turned to. Yes, the last.

That's because in asking him how to arrive at a simple answer like for my secondary school homework, I almost always ended up getting a 1-2 hour long lecture on how to derive the formula for the area of a circle or how to calculate large sums in my head without writing it down (calculators back then were a big No). With my very short attention span, it didn't take long before I lost interest and fidgeted in my seat. I sometimes thought of clever ways to expedite the lecture like cheating at mental math calculations by counting with my fingers under the table. I'm sure he saw right through me, but he never gave up and had the patience of a saint to repeat things. I didn't fully appreciate it much back then, but the mental training helped me greatly to cope and have a sustained interest in the subject till I passed high school. After that, I didn't have to use mathematics that much. And then came mobile phones with calculators. And Microsoft Excel with formulas to think for you.

For him, it was always about understanding the logic behind a calculation and breaking it down to the basics before attempting to solve it. Any seemingly ugly and complicated problem becomes clearer and simpler when you break it down to its roots. That logic even applies to life in general! And if any teacher succeeds in making students see mathematics in this light, it probably won't be the enemy it is today and more students might enjoy the challenge of finding solutions to mathematics problems.

Every subject has its own merits and demerits. For me, mathematics in school used to be a refreshing change to all the abstract, illogical, grey and subjective answers that other subjects accepted. No matter how you arrived at an answer, you either got the right answer or you didn't. Anyone made to understand the logic behind arriving at the answer, should theoretically arrive at the same solution. So it's no surprise that literature, poetry and art weren't my best friends in school and I struggled a lot with interpreting the true meanings and intentions behind certain words, phrases and actions. I still struggle with those sometimes.

A lot of people complain about what a waste of time primary and secondary schooling was and how we aren't using most of what we learnt, or remember anything for that matter. Some say that if we spent more time doing something related to a profession as early as possible, they would be a lot more successful in life. Well, probably. But how can anyone know what it is that we were going to end up doing? How can we know what our strengths and interests are without being put through different tests?

Besides being a convenient way to keep energetic children confined in one place for several hours, school is a place that gives exposure to various subjects and opens minds. It's not all a fun experience and every time I see small weary kids being dropped off school buses lugging heavy bags, I think to myself "Oh thank goodness I'm not in their shoes!". Even subject matter learnt in university for thousands of dollars becomes forgettable and redundant after a few years.

My take is that under pressure and repetitive actions, places like these are where our neurons become programmed to think in certain patterns and our brain makes complex connections which we don't always understand in full. And these complex associations come to our aid later as we make sense of the world around us and act out. School also helps to develop discipline, build character and social skills as we are forced to interact with other humans. So really, the subject knowledge that one graduates with is as temporary as the paper that one's degree conferment is printed on. The only way to retain some of that knowledge or any skill for that matter is by putting it to practical use. In the end, we are only as good as what we practice the most.

I'm not sure how much of all that made sense because a short while ago at the doctor's, I was told my immune system is compromised with a flu bug and that I'm infectious.

I've been tasked with the burden of keeping house-related accounts. And to finally arrive at the point of this blog, last week a nearly 30-year old me, messaged my father to ask how to calculate a simple secondary school mathematics problem. I asked Ryuu first, but although the answer was correct, I received a suspicious "$12 isn't much. Just pay it yourself and ask them to buy you dinner later" answer, after which I had concerns about Ryuu's current mathematical abilities.

The moment I sent that message, I got a call from my father right away. Really, it didn't warrant a call? Turns out my mother intercepted the message, read the first line and jumped into the speedy conclusion that I was having a mental breakdown and pushed my father to call me. I kid not. After misunderstandings were cleared by both parties, we had a good laugh.

My logic was flawed. The simple answer was 9x + 30x = 52

It was a little embarrassing, but family tends to forgive.

In other developments, captive rhinos are a lot gentler than I assumed. Two massive rhinos ran us to get a token feed of bananas (and stayed behind a big log) last weekend. They had huge slobbering lips. Giraffes are a lot faster than I imagined. One moment I had a carrot stick in my hand and in a split second, a long prehensile tongue appeared and the carrot stick vanished.

Our competitors from training last week extended a friendly gesture by inviting the losing team (that's us) to join them in sharing the prize of feeding these giant herbivores