A WedNURSEday's Inter:Lude!

This Wednesday is less of woe, but more of gifting and l'ving, because among myGoOdfriends are several Friday's Childe. I have in mind especially one dwelling nigh Catsville.

I'm writing a long and rambling Post today because of a conjunction of some happenings in the lust 24. And forwarning is that I'm using DDC in generous doses-- not venomous nyet! -- to deter some readers because, as I wrote Yesterday, my Comments channel went BUST! because of overwhleming response to The New Nu'espaper intro.

Yes, "lust" in the first sentence in DDC plays TWO ROLES -- the literal refers of course to "last" night w'ile the "knotty" side implies something "sexy" coming along to feed the voyeuristic tendencies in each of YOU. YOU is spelt with CAPS to remind the honourable ER here, sometimes spelt "hear" (Cos you're supposed to listen while I speak, No?) but mainly to emphasise the importance of each individual mousing in as Time's PERSON OF THER YEAR 2006.

I keep reiterating this Honour because two fellow Malaysian Bloggers are facing defamation suits. I may not agree with awe/all the things that JeffOoi (whom I regard as my Taiko) and RockyBru had written, wrote, write but I believe the plaintiffs have used a hammer to try kill two flies. I don't know who invented this "metaphor" so I can't prim and properly attribute, jest don't charge Desiderata2000.BC for "plagiarism". It may be just, not fair. Okay, remove the "comma" and let's see if there's a difference: It may be just not fair. I'm a democrat at heart, so YOU -- Time's P....... (I hear mGf the *hoRst of allofhelen.BC whispering: Cheong hee wan!) -- decide/deside.

I was concerned this morn/mourn when I received an email from a Times&Chimes reader saying that he/she could not access desiderata2000.BC. I asked her to "try again", even desperate enough to plead she went about it a roundabout way thus:
"OooohhhhhH somebody is sab(O)taging my Blog!Try again; OR go visit yantouch.wordpress.com, the*hoRst of my Borneo Post writes, and in the righthandcolumn, click on her Daily REads ~~ desi."

*hoRst is an ORI DDC from Yan in a story she related. If thou art a true-blooded Curio cat, go search in both our archives. There is not such a thingy as free catsfood, or freelunch2007.

NOW I REACH THE BODY OF MY POST TODie AFTER A LONG PREAMBLE, which is the BIGGIE for Intro, which is the short for that long INTRODUCTION. Remember in my early Desiderata.English writes, I lectured you on Essay-Writing? That a good Essay must have an arresting INTRO, with an alluring BODY, and a climactic CONCLUSION?

What I would consider a "miracle" happened when I jumped into Blogospheric writHing was on the first day, my intimation -- don't mix up with intimidation! -- of my poetic-asspirations won me a fair maidenly visitor. She was a month older, so I acknowledge her as Blogsworld Jie-Jie, who ID herself as Yan. She has since led me up the garden path in exactly 1-1/2 months to sing FirstOfMay on The BorneoPost using exquisite words, as "WORDS are all I have, To take your hear away... " We later exchanged reminiscences on the Bee Gees and Don't Forget to Remember Me, she with The Boy Next Door, and Me, with FirstOfMay "when I was small, and Christmas trees were tall..."

I had to APologise to Yan, hoRst of www.yantouch.wordpress.com -- no, not that I did not gift her an AP! -- recently when I exchanged SMS with her using an overdose of DDC. She reminded me that she's dyslexic, and in last Sunday's Inter:Lude, I had writ:

"Interruptus: *is DDC, short for Da Desi Code, for newbies to this site which I use to spice up my **'rites for I believe LIfe is already too serious so we must ENJOY Blog's rides together, hence some adventurism with humour and wordplay. I APologise to a few of my ER (EsteemedReaders) who have what is termed DYSLEXIA, which I shall write more about in another Inter:Lude."

_____________DETOUR TO FELLA BLOGGER's SOJOURN___________

Yan elaborated on her "problem" soon after on Jan 19, thus:


Being TaggedPosted by Yan under Uncategorized[3] Comments
I have been tagged byJust me on five things you don’t know about me.
Probably, the ‘big thing’ you don’t know about me is I am dyslexia. Huh? Yes, I am. I am going to tell you what I don’t know how to do being dyslexic.
I am not going to count because I don’t count. I don’t count well. I remember when I was in Primary school, when we started to learn the times table (2×2 equals 4 etc), my teacher hit hard on my palm 99 times because I only get one correct, that is 2×1 is 2. Today, still very much handicapped with the times table, thanks to technology, there is a thing called calculator.
I learnt my Chinese first. That was an advantage to a dyslexia. Because I only concentrated on one language. I learnt Chinese well, but not without tears and pains. Thanks to my father who had treasures of Chinese classic stories that attracked me.
I learnt my English only when I entered fourth form. Thanks to my Engish teacher from India, Francis! I wrote about him somewhere in this blog. read it here
I never get to settle with Bahasa Malaysia! I just could not grasp the logic of per, me, kan…
Yes, I am dyslexic. But I read pretty well. I write articles too, both Chinese and English. Thanks to God for working on me, and still working on me…. I always borrow the words of Robert Browning's to tell my significant other or good friends -
Grow old with me, The best is yet to be!
Well, it’s my prayer too!
__________________Thanks, Yan, for the reminder! ____________
From here onwards, I'm not using any DDC. The DDC used in the preamble is to demonstrate the kind of words a dyslexic like Yan would have difficulty in deciphering, and I want to tell her:

Treat my Post today as a personal challenge. Read at leisure the preamble before her Post I reprised above, and slowly but surely mull over the wordplay a friend had concocted to tease my EsteemedReaders, including thee.

My motivation is above board, which means it's gifted to a Friday's Childe with this scribe using a percious God's gift to try to lead my readers on a critical thiking path. I have had stated I'm a democrat at heart. It's tru I try to avoid didactic writing. Didactic writings are shuffed down te reader's throat, which in the main is "suffocating". May even result in mental death.

I am encouraging Yan to accept the challenge of reading my DDC writes, including the old ones, to perhaps digest them at lesiure without fear, and just maybe, with a lightning strike of "awakening" one beautiful day, her dyslexia suddenly vanishes into thin air.

Then I'll come with a killer Mr Bill, even if I have to swim across the South China Sea.

I think a wordsmith must win his readers over to te extent of ENJOYING THE BLOGGER's JOURNEY, or he would have failed in this endeavour. It is bonus to me when some readers engage me further via Email -- and hopefully, we one day become fRiends. I type the last word in the previous/precedent sentence verl slowly, that I not leave out the "R", hence the emphasis with in Cap. Otherwise, it could prove to be a fatal mistake, typo not withstanding.


I wish to address the "problem" being faced by mGf numbering SE7EN on my fingers-and-toes ledger in Life's journey. Yes, Yan, this Post is specially dedicated to YOU.

I had promised I would blog on (after some research-lah:) this subject later, so here it's served on a silver goblet of Haridas' kambing rendang teased with BlueFurongRoserie tenderiser and ever-flowing tehtarik perfumed with Catsville RedBungaRaya lacey ginger.

On googling, here comes one dictionary definition, followed by some medical information about DYSLEXIA :

1) dyslexia. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. ...A learning disorder marked by impairment of the ability to recognize and comprehend written words.
New Latin : dys- + Greek lexis, speech (from legein, to speak;...

(2) The following characteristics have been adapted from R. D. Davis,
37 Common Characteristics of Dyslexia.[20] [edit]

General Individuals with dyslexia: May appear bright, intelligent, and articulate but are unable to read, write, or spell at an age-appropriate level. Have average or above average intelligence, yet may have poor academic achievement; may have good oral language abilities but will perform much more poorly on similar written-language tests. Might be labelled lazy, dumb, careless, immature, "not trying hard enough," or as having a "behavior problem."

Because dyslexia primarily affects reading while sparing other intellectual abilities, affected individuals might be categorised as not "behind enough" or "bad enough" to receive additional help in a school setting. Might feel dumb and have poor self-esteem, and might be easily frustrated and emotional about school reading or testing. Might try to hide their reading weaknesses with ingenious compensatory "strategies". Might learn best through hands-on experience, demonstrations, experimentation, observation, and visual aids.

Can show talents in other areas such as art, drama, music, sports, mechanics, story-telling, sales, business, designing, building, or engineering. Have related problems with attention in a school setting; for instance they might seem to "zone out" or daydream often; get lost easily or lose track of time; and have difficulty sustaining attention.

[edit] Vision, reading, and spelling

Contrary to how it has been portrayed in the popular press, individuals with dyslexia do not perceive words backwards or upside down. In fact, visual problems are typically ruled out before a diagnosis of dyslexia can be made. Early studies of dyslexia did focus on the possibility that dyslexia is caused by visual difficulties, however very little evidence was found to support this theory. Likewise, there is little evidence that visual training provides effective treatment.

[21]. A popular theory in the 1970s suggested dyslexics may have Meares-Irlen Syndrome, a visual deficit in which the glare of the white page against black letters causes the words to shake, shiver, spin, etc. after a few minutes of reading. The proposed treatment was the use of colored plastic overlays that were thought help anchor the words to the page. This treatment has fallen out of favor as scientific studies have failed to support these claims. (See link below to asfedia).

Spelling errors - Because of difficulty learning letter-sound correspondences, individuals with dyslexia might tend to misspell words, or leave vowels out of words (e.g., spelling "magic" as mjc).

Reading - Due to dyslexics' excellent long term memory, young students tend to memorize beginning readers, but are unable to read individual words or phrases.

[edit] Writing and motor skills

Because of literacy problems, an individual with dyslexia may have difficulty with handwriting. This can involve slower writing speed than average or poor handwriting characterised by irregularly formed letters. Some studies have also reported gross motor difficulties in dyslexia, including motor skills disorder. This difficulty is indicated by clumsiness and poor coordination. The relationship between motor skills and reading difficulties is poorly understood but could be linked to the role of the cerebellum in the development of reading and motor abilities.[22].

[edit] Math abilities

Dyslexia should not be confused with dyscalculia, a learning disability marked by severe difficulties with mathematics. Individuals with dyslexia can be gifted in math while having poor reading skills. However, in spite of this they might have difficulty with word problems (i.e., math problems that rely on written text rather than numbers or formulas). It is also possible that individuals with dyslexia have difficulty with multiplication tables, and other mathematics which involve remembering the order in which numbers appear.

DESIDERATA hopes this little sojourn to understanding a little medical condition will inform us better. That we approach our interactors on a daily basis as human beings with strengths and weaknesses, but that as a God-fearing person, we must render each other support to enhance the goodness in each of us. With the less positive traits, we render assistance too to minimise the defects so that we are mutually enriched. I need to remind myself too of this credo, easily said, not so easily endeavoured.

Desi ends with a small prayer that all persons placed on this Good Earth will perform to the peak of their individual gifted potentials. The good Lord always has a plan and programme for each of us to walk in FAITH with Him, however and whoever YOU perceive Him to be.

I wsih all mGf, especially Yan, well as well as can be in our Times and Chimes,
For if we try hard enough, we will always hear the bells of joy ring,
We give thanks for tender mercies that come with small dimes,
We give thanks most of all for the miracles that each new dawn will bring.