The road ahead (part II) : Ramblings

I had just finished reading The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. Bought the book this morning and couldn’t put it down. The book was written by Randy Pausch (book published in April this year and Pausch succumbed to cancer three months later), a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University who had pancreatic cancer.

The book was written together with a co-author after his talk “Really Achieving your Childhood Dreams”. The talk, which Pausch gave in September last year was modeled after a series of lectures retiring professors needed to give to “impart knowledge and wisdom to the world if you knew it was your last chance". Pausch gave the talk a month after receiving prognosis that the pancreatic cancer with which he had been diagnosed a year earlier was terminal.

I couldn’t put the book down because the book wasn’t about dying. It was about LIVING. What was most attractive about the book to me was his optimistic ways in looking at life. Instead of feeling sorry for himself (which is so easy to do and understandably so), he found a way to recollect his life and sum it up in a lecture and later in a book).

“I won’t be around to guide my kids through their childhood into adulthood and hopefully the book will do that on my behalf,” he said. The book talks about Pausch’s professional and personal experiences laced with anecdotes and analogies in life (I am a sucker for that!)

Ok, enough about the book (those interested can surely get a copy themselves – no need for me to give a full summary here!).

But the book got me seriously thinking: how will I guide my girls through life – from childhood, into adulthood. How do I prepare my children to face the uncertainties in life. How I raise them will surely shape their perspective on life – am I doing it right?? Will I be able to give them the opportunities they deserve and will they be proud and thankful for the decisions I helped made for them??

I guess these are the questions that run through the thoughts of every parent out there. Every word uttered, every action we do will leave a trace in their lives (hopefully the positive words and actions will imprint a significant mark and the negative ones will not blemish them so much).

The book also made me think of ways to help my girls think outside the ordinary to get an added edge in life. “Pancakes doesn’t always have to be round,” said Pausch in his book. Ok, I must confess that as much as I’d like to think that I am a person open to ideas and ideals, I am deep down a conservative kind of gal, being raised by old school parents. I play safe. I don’t seek adventure that much (though I don’t always play by the rules).

(to be continued…)

On another note

I tried to ignore it, but I just have to write it down here, laa....

When I mentioned on this blog that I am moving on, it had created a deformed perspective on what I had meant to some.

Some took my statement of 'moving on' as a declaration of my readiness to be 'back in the saddle again'... oh, you know what I mean.

I just want to make it extremely clear that no other words or gesture would hurt or insult me more than those 'friendly' hints about getting a new... oh, I can't even say it on here... it makes me want to throw up!!

I AM moving on.... with two very important people in my life -- my girls. End of story.