The Road to 40 Day 214/365: Talents and Expectations

This day challenged my dad-ness as a teacher to Vino.

I’ve been quite lethargic over the weekend, but I knew I had to get moving somehow. After dropping Vino off at school, I dozed off a bit at home before bringing out the treadmill.

We haven’t really used this machine as much as we wanted since we got it. Since it was raining and I needed to get moving, I got to use it again. I put on WWE Raw in the background as I ran.

I used to enjoy watching wrestling when I was younger, but eventually lost track of the storylines. Sometimes, I would read about what’s happening, so I’m still familiar with the wrestlers. The magic of it when I was younger was we thought it was real.

When we learned that it was all scripted, some of my friends lost interest, but I still enjoyed it. It’s no different from the soaps and dramas, just more fake, but really athletic action.

After running for about 20 minutes and doing some exercises, I had leftovers for lunch (Che’s lasagna from the weekend) before picking up Vino from school.

I arrived early, but he asked to play first. Usually, he’d be back by 3:30pm – right before they closed the gate. Today, he went back at 4pm, which meant we had to walk around to the front gate. There are practically no other people left in the canteen, but he still wanted to get his tablet to play with his friend more.

I’m okay with him playing, but he was being inconsiderate of the people waiting for him and his friend. I got a bit mad at him for only thinking about playing.

Since he’s a kid, I understand that it’s important for him to play. I want him to enjoy his youth, but I also want him to keep up with his academics. We’ve always allowed him to play, but I told him too much of it will not be good for him.

So when we got home, I asked him to do some math problems.

We both got frustrated – him with my pressure, and me because I expected more from him. I told him I don’t need him to be super smart, or even smarter or as smart as his classmates – I just need him to be on par with the expectations of his age group.

So when he’s making silly mistakes in subtraction or addition, I would scold him and ask what he found difficult. He got through a page, but not before shedding tears.

He’s really good in arts, Che and I think. He’s musically inclined, and he actually draws quite well when he wants to and has the time to do it – as illustrated by the cover photo. He has a creative mind in writing, and even has interesting theories about how things work.

But he is a creature of habit and order. If something is amiss from the processes that he is used to, he finds it difficult to adjust and easily gets frustrated.

I was a kid once, and I know how fun it is to play. I don’t want to rob him of this enjoyment, so I really don’t want to enroll him in academic enrichment classes. However, if he’s spending too much time playing, we might have to consider it. I’m hoping he shows me better results in our home lessons so that the only enrichment we could consider is Chinese lessons.

I whipped up a quick meal for us – my Tropical Hut-style stir-fried beef. Che had dinner out, so it was just for us two, with a little bit of extra for his lunch tomorrow.

Che asked if we were not fighting anymore, and I said we weren’t. My mood is certainly not at its best, but Vino and I don’t constantly fight. After I’ve said my piece, I usually stay quiet, while he walks on eggshells but still tries to share stories with me from time to time to gauge my reaction.

I want to try to ease up more, but sometimes it’s really difficult, especially after I got really mad and tried not to have a shouting outburst or something. It’s draining to avoid saying bad words, hitting things, and shouting, and as much as I want to try, I just couldn’t lift my mood immediately.

Che and I had a bit of an argument about my expectations, and she suggested that we enroll him in an enrichment class instead of football. Personally, it’s still not something I would want, but she insists that it’s the best course for us for me to avoid these frustrations and get Vino to do more academics.

We ended the night with no definite resolution for the issue. It’s almost Vino’s holiday season, so it’s not something we’d be pushing in the next couple of weeks at least. I’ll try to get a feel for it and we’ll talk about it again when the new year comes.