When my first son was about 7 years old a Siamese cat landed in our home, being abandoned by his owner. We named him Blue-Eye. Then he met a mate named ‘Blotchy’. During my younger days my late mother would have called him ‘Tompok’. Soon, ‘Blendy’ was born.
Since then my house has literally been a semi-welfare home for cats which was abandoned by their owners or which wanted ‘a second home’. They came in and go whenever they like.I was getting very busy running my clinic and I didn’t have much time reading to my kids as i used to. I now have 6 kids and boy!they were very active.
So I thought I better use all these stray or semi-stray cats to teach them a little bit of vocabulary and a dose of motivation.Of course I needed the motivation more than they did. So, here is the list of my cats over the past 20 years or so that come to mind.
Blendy gave birth to Jovial. The rest were from other stock. We had:
Proactive, Imperturbability(Imper), Integrity, Equanimity, Joyful, Adorable, Vision, Mission,Positive, Progressive, Persistence, Synergy, Awesome, Vibrant, Upgrade, Tenacity, Nimble Charming, Sheer Brute, Influential and about two weeks before the Malaysian general election(8/3/08) Charismatic delivered Forward Thinking, Upbeat, Catalyst and SUCCESS!
Besides the cat story, a monitor lizard which frequented my gate, I called her ZEST. She produced a cute little’WIN-WIN’ and both were chased away by the constant stone throwing of the village boys.
We had a pair of hamsters called ‘ Hopeful’ and ‘Forge Ahead’ and a pair of ‘ayam katek’ called ‘Innovative’ and Creative.
So, it’s not that difficult to use whatever time and resources to be creative, cost effective and be a good teacher to your kids.
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
Selamat Hari Guru!
N45 Dr Halimah Ali 