她让我看到孩子的另一面

今年3月杪的最后一堂课。我吩咐承懿要和老师合照。

承懿在2008年3月开始去上理惠老师的课。基本上是一对一的课。一个星期一次。总共上了8年。一段不算短的日子。

今年3月（很奇妙的还是3月），承懿因为学校活动时间的一些调动，和理惠老师的课“撞期”，配合不到其他时间，最后唯有和理惠老师说bye-bye。

而上个月放假，我特别要求理惠老师给承懿上“假期班”， 她也答应。所以他俩再续师生缘，承懿去上了四个课程。

非常感谢用心的理惠老师， 她是承懿生命中的贵人。是真的（当初我听从她的劝告，不再让承懿服药，而是利用每天的肢体运动、协调动作来提升他的专注力）。

我要求承懿写一篇有关理惠老师的文章， 他当然呱呱叫。不过最后还是交货了。写完之后他有点夸张地说：“妈咪，要想这么多年前在 Teacher Rie那里做过的事，很难咯。也很痛苦。” 我听了大大声笑。

孩子，难也好，痛苦也好，想想这些年来她对你的用心和帮助，要好好记得。要谢谢！

妈咪尤其谢谢理惠老师让妈咪看到你的另一面。

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I’m known to be a special kid, diagnosed with dyspraxia and ADD that affects my coordination and attention. I didn’t want this, but I just happened to be born like this. So I had no choice but to live with it.

However, my mother was keen on making me change my state so that I could let all these disorder not affecting my life entirely and also, let me fit in with other people so that I looked like a normal person. Other than my mother, there was one other person who also assisted me to fix my coordination and attention problems: Ms. Rie.

I first met her when I was seven. I took a small IQ test and she was quite pleased with my results. After that, I started attending her classes every Monday for an hour in the morning when I was in primary school. I remember that I did some exercises such as throwing bean bags and balls, doing some math questions in a specific way such as model drawing, techniques to improve my handwriting and so on. I have to admit, it was actually quite a hard time doing all those things!

Sometimes, there were also other activities that did not involve throwing stuff around with both of my hands. There was some time where I made my own artwork using some materials such as special crayons that were made out of beeswax. There was one exercise that I would do when I was 8 to 12 years old, it was called the “lazy 8”. So basically, what I had to do was to get the yellow, blue and red beeswax crayons and choose one of them at first. After that, I would use the crayon to draw an “8” shape, lying on it’s side, so it looked like the infinity side. Once I was done drawing the “8” shape with one colour, I would select the second colour and continue to draw over the first “8” shape. The same rule applied to the third crayon. Later on, I realized that this activity was to test if your left and right brain were both connected to each other and to see if your mental state was balanced. It was quite an interesting activity, actually.

Also, the exercises such as throwing the beanbags and balls were meant to improve my hand and eye coordination. I would throw the objects from one hand to another, and back again. Sometimes there were also different styles to how these things were passed. One style was that I had to throw it under my leg and to the other hand. The other one involved me throwing 2 of the objects in each hand, and sometimes switching the objects to the other hand without looking! That was also one of the harder exercises that I had to do. However, it actually works and I’ve been doing this same exercise for about 7 years!

I also learnt a bit of Japanese there, and knew how to differentiate the letters of Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. In fact, the letters and phrases in Kanji were kind of similar to the phrases that appeared in the Chinese vocabulary! I learnt some basics such as how to count numbers, names of countries, and also some other basic phrases with Ms. Rie. However, I didn’t’ really manage to get good at it, and I had very few opportunities to test my Japanese oral skills in life.

Sometimes, Ms. Rie would also let me do my own art in some of her lessons. Once, I used some powder from a special crayon to make my own artwork by dabbing some of the coloured powder onto my finger. Then, I would slowly press my finger onto the paper and move it up and down, and controlling my pressure on the paper. After some time when everything was done, I had produced some artwork that looked decently nice. I would then spray the paper with some kind of aerosol so that the powder would stick to the paper. When I got home, I would place the picture somewhere visible such as the fridge, so that I could admire my “masterpiece”. (Ha-ha, not really.)

这种颜料好像是粉彩画吧。。。（我不确定）

我特别喜欢这一张。因为是小狗狗的关系吧。

Another type of drawing involved me drawing random curved lines onto a piece of paper, forming irregularly shaped areas of different sizes on the paper. I would then take 2 black ink pens and start creating different patterns in each area, so that every single area has its own unique pattern. For one area, I would make it checkered by splitting the area into smaller parts, and then colour one square black, one square white, one square black, one square white, alternating between colours to add that “checker board” feel. It felt great to look at the end product once I was done.

承懿比我厉害，　会画禅绕。

假期班的功课。用黑笔画图案，然后上水彩。

Also, recently Ms. Rie had been conducting a session called a “Brain Gym” which was basically helping me to conquer my weaknesses and also let me excel in my strengths. She had helped me to improve my listening and comprehension skills, which helped me to listen to pieces of information for a longer period of time. I also had developed the ability to type documents at a faster rate, so that I could conserve time for some other activities. It was strange about how she found out what I really needed at the time, or what was most important. I would read out a sentence, such as “I want to improve my listening skills so that I could listen to information for a longer period of time.” She would then press down on my hand, and my body would react, sending signals if that was really what I needed to do. It was strange. After that, she would let me do some exercises to help me to achieve my goals.

After these 7-8 years of “therapy” lessons, I felt that Ms. Rie had actually helped me to make an improvement in my life and I would like to thank her for all that she has done. Now, I was more able to fit into the society and I had learnt a lot of things. Now, whenever I encounter difficulties in my life, I have several solutions to solve the issues by doing the exercises she had taught me.

很可爱的纸陀罗。真的可以转。我试了。

承懿把这一块板和这一堆五彩缤纷、重叠的线
构成的图案拿回来时， 我有点呆了！
（他的努力，专注力和耐性）