The first snow in Tokyo area. It fell quite heavily so that I stayed home and watched the legendary movie, The Load of the Rings. My partner is a big fan of the book and passionately told me about the author, the legendary Tolkien. According to him, this stories were written for the author's grandchildren. I can't imagine a better gift than an amazing original story with full of adventures and wisdom. It is one of classics that would be told and enjoyed from generation to generation. Like most of classics of children's literature, it has some anecdotal episodes that could answer one of unavoidable question of youthful minds: What is the point of my small being?
Having watched three hours of movie, suddenly I was struck with mixed sentiment of heartwarming and heartaching. The latter was for those children who study so hard to enter a school they (or their parents) wish to go without having time to enjoy such a fantastic story on such a cozy day. My daughter was one of them last year and I still remember the awful sentiment I had as I sent off the little fragile back to the test site. Fortunately, she passed the test and has started the completely new life last April.
Almost a year has passed and she has been into the brass band, playing trombone 7 days a week. In spite of the extremely busy schedule and daily challenges she faces as a teen, she has become cheekier, more cynical and critical, experiencing the sweet and bitter taste of a human life. Whether the school she goes to is the right one for her or not, she is in the system, trying to figure out the puzzles she finds daily. There are more than a few things I don't agree with the school policy, especially the way they force students to study all the time, focusing too much on the results, not the process, ignoring the spontaneous and autonomous intellectual curiosity that each children possesses. However, it is not my role to decide whether she should bear the complete teacher-centerd and dictator style of education or not. After numerous sleepless nights, hysterical screams and tongue-biting moments, I have become a little tougher and fairer mum. Now I, at least, try to let her hold the ownership of her life's path. And I hope I have shown her enough to know that when she falls and needs my hands again, I will be there for her.
I have no talent to come up with a story that can make a great classic for children's literature but I might be able to learn and practice the wisdom I have given from the great story.
"This task was appointed to you, Frodo of the Shire. If you do not find a way, no one will. "
I would like to share this quote from the story with my daughter and think about the meaning of the quote together as we walk along the bumpy and dusty road stretching ahead of us. Who knows! she might find such task and might become the one who "change the course of future."
Happy 2013 to you all!
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