| I went to dotters school to talk about Occupation. This is one of the few times I get to see dotter in action in class. She was very excited and might I say proud to see me in class. She completely ignored her teachers and sat with me. She was somehow still shy and whispered her answers in my ears.
The class actually seemed very well behaved. They actually listened, and answered questions I asked. They were respectful of me. I was amazed. I say this because I have spoken to 4th graders earlier and they seemed more distracted. It is possible our content was not of the right level for them since I dint have a 4th grader at home while I have a preschooler at home and hence was able to tailor the talk to make it interesting for them.
I took Dash a small robot that can be programmed to do things into the class and there were shrieks of laughter every time Dash 'danced'. They all petted Dash like he was a cute puppy, much like dotter treated it. I had some coloring pages to give the kids and immediately dotter wanted to hand out the pages. She likes control and would grab any opportunity to show it. They took a picture of me with the class, I have to savor it for life, and dotter didn't let anyone stand near me, she wanted to.
There is some room for improvement there, some middle ground between I don't care who stands where and only I will stand next to my parent. Just to watch for.
She has this very close friend now. Dotter till now has not had one friend she will always talk about, it has been a bunch of names in rotation. And this kid actually started crying when I decided to take dotter home after the talk at 3. She usually leaves first while dotter continues in extended care. Dotter gave her a hug and said we will play again on Monday in a happy chirpy voice and came off. That way she is a bit like her dad. Out of sight out of mind. I felt bad for her friend. At the same time apparently she has been telling dotter not to play with anyone else after she leaves. And when dotter said it is time to change her friend (not sure where she got that from) the friend quoted someone on friends about how friends are for life and told her they shouldn't change friends ;--P I am curious to find out what happens next.
I don't find dotter too deep and frankly find her a bit selfish. How to teach children not to be selfish and still be confident and dignified? I am still struggling that one I guess.
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Some behaviors I have noticed with people I work with that I would love to emulate.
This colleague who I replaced is in a different role now. I see her in meetings all day. She has two young kids. Her husband is in a start up and I hear not much help from his side. She picks and drops off the two kids, cooks etc etc. she leaves office at 445pm no matter what. She comes at 9. But the time in between she does not get distracted from work. It is a high profile job with ceo level visibility. I can definitely learn from her.
My GM is awesome. He is so on top of things. He wouldn't hesitate to call me and ask me a question. He has these great ideas, which some crib are hard to follow up and execute but still he shows creativity is still not dead in an established company and more importantly not just limited to the worker bees. He travels a lot for work. But I am noticing he always takes time off ( not accessible during the time) with family right after. He seems to be a hands on with his kids, teaching them skiing and swimming and stuff. I don't see him as a workaholic. Don't seem him working past 5pm. He is on a fast track to success looking at his growth.
This woman I work with occasionally, first bugged me with her ' is this urgent' 'can this wait' types questions when I ask her something. But then I realized that if I said it was urgent she would address them right away. And if they were not she would address them the next day, and would give me the right expectations. I was super awed. She has two kids, life revolves around them so she plans the time at work meticulously prioritizing her time. She also handles confrontation and negotiations beautifully stating facts on the board without getting emotionally vested in the decision. I learnt a great deal from her because I was fighting a similar fight and I was deeply emotional, as I am me. Another person I work with is soooo busy during office hours but at 445 he is logged out. He doesn't have kids but has various other hobbies from building rockets to growing tomatoes, so he said ;--)
Another person I work with is Malaysian Chinese and he is all about work. He is up at work from 4AM so I don't have to be in night meetings. He doesn't suppress others progress, doesn't mind letting someone else get visibility, will talk on his vacation if work needs to get done but importantly doesn't have the same expectation from others. Works needs to get done is his motto. No personal feelings on anything here. He takes himself very seriously, feels important, and acts like it. I have to learn from him to take myself seriously. ;--P
I guess I am in total learning phase this year.
-- One of the happy moments yesterday was picking up Mia! I missed her how much. Driving is pure pleasure again. I wanted to go on a long drive just like that, feel how effortless she makes it all seem, quietly lurching forward, overtaking cars after cars, confident and quick. So sensitive to acceleration, so smooth to break.
Happy weekend!
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