Category: Manners

Back to school

Miss Ball and Sibo

Sjoe! I can’t believe that the holidays are over and it’s school time again.

This year started out a tad on the sucky side.  I overslept and mum had to come and wake me up the first day. I had set my alarm clock because Wayne and I wanted to get to school  long before the bell rang.

Somehow I did not set the alarm properly and instead of waking up nice and early to get ready peacefully and calmly – I ended up being in a big fat rush.

First I buttoned my shirt up wrongly and then I could not find my socks. Totally ridiculous because I knew I had put them out the night before. They were all neat and tidy on my chair with the rest of my uniform. In my hurried scramble they had rolled off under my desk. I had to grovel around to find them which took extra time.

I ended up snarfing down a piece of toast for breakfast instead of sitting quietly and enjoying my cornflakes. Plus I forgot to pack in my lunch and mum had to come charging down the garden path in her dressing gown. This really annoyed her. She does not like going outside unless she is properly dressed.

Wayne was standing at the gate tapping his toes. He too was not impressed that I was late.

We thought about running but then remembered that it’s not good to run in case you trip and land up in the road. So we walked really fast.

It was great to see our friends again. There were also some new kids lurking around on the outskirts of the hubbub going on in the playground. They looked all shy and insecure.

Shame – it’s horrible to be a new kid at school and not know anybody. Wayne, Lizzie and I went and chatted to them. Turned out that one of the new guys is in our class and he’s really nice.

It’s great to know that there is a whole year ahead of us where we can learn new things, meet new people and do different exciting stuff. Our new teacher is quite nice too.

Hope your first day at school was good.

See you next week.

Sibo

Cool word of the week.

Word: Hubbub
Meaning: A noisy situation
Example: The hubbub in the class room quietened down when the new teacher walked in.

New Year’s Resolutions

Sibo bed-head

Hi Everybody!

I hope that you all had a happy and peaceful festive season. I can’t believe that it’s almost time to go back to school.

I decided to make some New Year’s Resolutions – not too many because it is always hard to keep them. We usually start off with such good intentions and then get lazy or we just can’t be bothered. In fact, a few weeks into the year it seems like most or all of them have fallen by the wayside.

I decided to keep mine really simple as well.

I’ve written them out and stuck them up on the wall by my bed – so I can remember them each day.

  1. Smile at a stranger every single day. (More than one is even better.)
  2. Be grateful for all the lovely stuff that I have (even if I sometimes wish I had something else).
  3. Be nicer to Mum and Dad. (I can only have one hissy fit a week.)
  4. Make friends with kids who look lonely at school.
  5. Save as much water as I can. (Turn the tap off when I brush my teeth.)
  6. Remind Mum to recycle more. (Even if it means taking stuff out of the trash.)
  7. Ride my bike to school at least 3 times a week

See! They are not really hard ones – are they?  I should at least manage to do half of them.

The smiling stuff is really easy – and you know – people tend to smile back at you, which makes you feel good.

Number 6 might cause me to have some of my allotment of hissy fits with Mum. She gets fed up when I remind her to recycle – but I’m not ready to give up yet.

Number 7 might be a bit hard too, especially when it’s so hot. But the exercise is good for me and it saves my Mum petrol. Plus my friend Lizzie and I have great fun cycling to school. We are very careful because there are lots of hooligans driving around on the road who don’t always worry about bicycles.

They seem to think that we don’t have any right to be on the road – but we do.  Although some cyclists just cruise straight through stop signs or red robots – they don’t bother to adhere to the rules of the road or traffic signs.

That’s just silly.

Hope that 2016 is a great year for all of us.

Be happy

Sibo

People Protesting

Sjoe! There was fun and games on the TV last week.

Well, I know it was not really on the TV but that was as close as I came to it.

All those people protesting about University fees going up so much that they would not be able to afford them. But it seemed to me that they behaved in a very calm and controlled way instead of burning and destroying things. That always makes me mad. What’s the point?

Hope it gets sorted out soon.

I’m just a little kid – but it makes sense to me that the Government should invest in their youth. Just because you don’t have the money to study further does not mean that you should not be able to do it.

It excludes people from reaching their full potential.

Somebody might be really clever and be able to come up with an innovative idea or plan that helps save the country somehow, but instead they never get to even try. That would be really sad.

I keep wondering why nobody has come up with a plan for solar-powered traffic lights. Or if they have – where ever are they hiding it? Especially in Gauteng where the traffic is busy and the sun shines brightly most days.

Those suckers would just keep on working – never mind whether Eskom was alive or dead.

Then we would not have traffic jams and we would not be late for school. It always feels like such a silly reason to be late for school… Sorry I’m tardy Miss but the robots were not working! She always looks at me like I’m fibbing when I’m really not.

But I was thinking… if we are all going to have an opportunity to study further one day and learn lots of lovely new and exciting things, then we should better pull up our socks and start working really hard to get good grades. Probably Universities and Technicon’s will be full and so they are going to choose people with good grades first because it shows that they want to learn.

No more chatting, I’m off to do some revision now.

Good luck to all the matrics who are about to start writing exams soon.

Sibo

Cool word of the week: gripe
Meaning: protest, grumble, moan
Example: The students were all having a serious gripe about the hike in university fees.

Sibo standingMe with my socks pulled up!

Smile and wave!

Miss Ball and Sibo

Our teacher, Mrs Ball, gave us a teensy tip in class the other day.

She said we should smile and wave when cars stop to let us cross the road at the zebra crossing. She was specifically talking about the one outside our school – but then she said that any old zebra crossing would do.

We all looked at her.

Why?

Cars are supposed to stop at a zebra crossing to let people go safely across the road. But they often don’t. In fact, they speed up and zoom over it without even looking.

Wayne piped up that this really was true. He nearly got squished as flat as a pancake last week – expecting somebody to stop and they didn’t.

But Mrs Ball stood her ground. When somebody has the courtesy to stop and let you cross the road safely – it costs you nothing to look the person in the eye, smile and wave thank you. It’s a nice, kind gesture.

She reckons the world is often sorely lacking in basic human kindness.

People are so caught up in their own lives, with their own problems that they have forgotten how to be nice – for no reason at all.

That reminded me of the little smiling experiment I did at the mall a few months ago. I remembered that had worked too. When I smiled at other people – most of them smiled back at me. It also made me feel good. Plus I noticed that many of the people carried on walking down the mall, still smiling.

We had the chance to try out her idea later that day. A few of us were waiting in a group at the zebra crossing. A car coasted to a complete halt and let us all walk across.

I looked up, smiled and waved. Some of my classmates were also in the group. They did the same thing.

The people in the car smiled and waved back. They only carried on driving after we were all on the other side of the road.

Some kids that were also crossing (who’re not in our class) asked why we were waving and smiling at strange people. I explained to them what Mrs Ball had said to us.

They had just seen what a positive reaction we had received and agreed that it was a good idea.

Smile awhile!

Sibo

Your new word for the week:

Word:  gesture

Meaning:  movement or sign

Example… Smiling and waving when you cross at a zebra crossing is a nice gesture.

Texting on the go.

Sibo standing

I very nearly got trampled the other day, twice nogal!

We were saying goodbye to my auntie at the airport and I was strolling along like a normal little kid. I realised that somebody was coming towards me, towing his suitcase with one hand and texting with the other. He was not looking where he was going and he would have ploughed straight into me if I had not jumped out of the way.

However, the elderly lady behind me was not so fast and he did bump into her.

He did not even bother to apologise – just went on his way and kept on texting. She had dropped her bag and some papers went skedaddling all over the floor. Dad and I helped her pick them up. She looked a bit flustered by the whole thing.

I turned around to carry on watching the rude man – which was a rather stupid move because another lady bumped into me. She was also walking along with her cell phone glued to her hand… texting.

At least she was polite and said she was sorry.

What’s with all these people walking and texting and not looking where they are going?

Can’t they just stop for a minute – get out of the way – finish their texting business and then carry on walking. And actually look where they are going.

When we sitting at the Wimpy, waiting for it to be time for my auntie to board her plane, I checked out the place. I notice that half the people in the restaurant were on their cell phones. Often – one person was sitting there looking sad and bored, whilst the other person was busy staring at a small screen.

Sjoe! I’m not sure that this social media stuff is very healthy.

We’ve got rules in our house. Mum is not allowed to look at her phone while we are having dinner. Dad hardly ever uses his cell phone. He says it’s for work and he does not want to see it when he’s at home relaxing. He’d much rather read a book or come and work with me in the garden. Mum, on the other hand, is addicted to Twitter.

Apparently I am too young to have a fancy phone – I have what is lovingly referred to as “the brick” and it can’t do anything smart.

Watch where you walk please!

Sibo

Doing jobs properly

Remember last week I made some money at entrepreneurs’ day at school? Well that got me thinking…

Why are there so many people who lead a life of crime when they could just put their mind to making some money legally?

Sometimes it is easier to offer a service if you want to make money – like babysitting or maybe doing odd jobs for your neighbours or for older people who can’t do stuff themselves so easily. This way you don’t have to have any money to start with.

Of course if you do offer a service, you have to be really reliable and do what you say you are going to do. Like if you are babysitting – then you need to be sure you look after the kids. You have to watch them and keep them occupied so they don’t get bored and get into trouble.

Once, when I was a bit younger, mum got one of the neighbour’s older daughters to babysit me for a few hours. She ignored me totally and sat chatting on her phone to her boyfriend the whole time. I got bored and decided to investigate my mother’s make-up stuff. I made a really pretty picture with all the nice colours. Of course I knew I was being naughty but was so bored I did not really care.

When mum came home she did not yell at me I like expected her to. She yelled at the babysitter for not doing her job properly. She also refused to pay her. Even worse, she bad-mouthed the babysitter all over the place so she never got a job in our street again. I overheard mum saying that children were very precious and if somebody could not be trusted to look after them properly – then they should not have the job. I guess she was right.

I all boils down to that old saying “If a job is worth doing – it’s worth doing properly.”

Our neighbour across the road never has time to walk her dog. I’m going to ask Mum and Dad if I can become a dog-walker. My friend Wayne could come with me – we’ll share the money and then we will be safer too.

Good idea hey!

Sibo

 

Word of the week: Dollop

Meaning: A blob of something.

Example: I put dollops of mums blue eyeshadow on the paper to make the sky in my picture.Sibo and Wayne walking Zona

Life.

Sibo and mum

The other day one of my uncles passed away. When my mom told me about it my first thought was… well, okay – he was old and we did not see him very often. So how does this affect me?

I went outside to play.

But then I started thinking… I quite liked that uncle.

He always used to come and visit and produce sweets out of his pocket like magic. Sometimes he pretended he found them in my ear! But more importantly, he talked to me like I was a real person. Not just some dumb little kid. He used to ask me questions about school and what I was doing – it seemed like he cared what the answer was. He listened to me.

I just took that for granted and maybe did not appreciate it enough.

You know, we often take people for granted. We just assume that they are going to be there forever more. And then sometimes… pooof! They are gone.

People pass away. Important people in our lives, people who we care about. And once they are gone, they are gone for good.

We will never, ever see them again in real life. Sure, we can look at photos but it’s not the same, is it. You can’t touch them. Or talk to them.

We won’t be able to hug them. Or ask them questions about special stuff that only they knew about. They are just not here anymore.

But we are just little kids and we are not supposed to worry about stuff like this… are we?

I sat on the swing and thought about my uncle. Realising that he was no longer here anymore made me so sad that I cried a bit. I went inside and gave my mum a hug. I was glad that she was real, and warm… and here.

I think Mum thought I was a little bit crazy – but she hugged me back anyway.

Your uncle will always be with you, she told me. Just think about him – and he will be there in your head and your heart.

So I thought about him and could almost see him. It made me smile.

I guess people really do live on in our hearts forever.

We should appreciate the people around us. We never know when they will be snatched away.

Hugs,

Sibo

 

 

Eye spy

Sibo cutie face

Last week mum caught me out. I’d eaten the last biscuit in the box.

“Sibo” said mum – “did you eat the last biscuit?”

Heaven only knows why I did it, but I fibbed. Probably because I thought I might get into trouble for eating that last little sucker.

“No mum”, I replied as innocently as I could, looking up at the ceiling, scuffing my toe against the edge of the carpet.

“I’m not cross with you for eating it, just for leaving the empty box there,” said Mum with a smile.

I dashed off to the kitchen and threw the box away. Then I gave mum a hug. “How did you know I was fibbing?”

“That’s easy” she replied. “You never look me in the eye when you tell fibs. Your eyes wander all over the place but don’t go anywhere near my face.”

Seriously? Can people really tell that you are fibbing if you don’t look them in the eye? I decided to google it because I did not really believe that it could be true.

Here’s what I found out… Firstly we have no control over the size of our pupils (those black bits in the middle of your eyes). Your pupils get bigger when you are interested in something and smaller when you are not.

Making eye contact makes a person seem more honest, trustworthy, attractive and confident. If you look a person in the eye whilst talking to them you are more likely to win them over. Also, it shows that you are listening to them and are interested in what they are saying. Of course, if your pupils get tiny and you look away – they can see that too!

But sometimes looking a person in the eye is very difficult; especially when it’s an adult you are talking to.

Here’s a little sneaky tip – if you are having trouble looking somebody in the eye – focus on the bridge of their nose instead. Or look at one eye only – they can’t tell the difference and it’s easier to do.

It’s a good trait to learn and practise – look somebody in the eye when you talk to them.

Sibo

 

Odd, slightly naughty but very cool word for the week: Fopdoodle

Meaning – a Victorian (very old) word for a “dumbass”

Example: I was such a fopdoodle I forgot to turn off the light in my room when the power went out – so when it came back on again the light woke me up.

Be Kind to Human Kind Week

Sibo and friends

Believe it or not “Be kind to human kind week” is celebrated from August 25th-31st every year. In case you are wondering why I’m telling you this now when it’s nowhere near the end of the month – it’s because we should all give it a bit of thought and see what we can do specifically during that week. Make some plans… maybe even speak to our parental agents or teachers about what we can do.

This year it starts on Tuesday 25th and runs to the following Monday 31st August. Each day has a special topic.

Touch-A-Heart Tuesday – Spread kindness, one heart at a time. We could write a letter to an old relative or friend. We can encourage our own friends instead of dissing them. The thing is to be kind and thoughtful. Not mean and nasty.

Willing-To-Lend-A-Hand Wednesday – Offer a helping hand. Maybe there is somebody you know that needs an odd job done and can’t do it themselves. We could wash the dishes, or help with the housework. Maybe ask our teachers if they have something that needs to be done. The thing is to do something – for somebody else.

Thoughtful Thursday – Treat others well.  Remember to say please, thank you and excuse me. (Guess we should be doing that all the time anyway.) Hold the door open for somebody. Offer to help your mum make dinner. Ask your Dad if you can bring him anything when he gets home from work.

Forgive Your Foe Friday – Come together.  Learn to forgive and don’t hold a grudge. If you’ve had a fight with one of your friends or family members – say you are sorry and give them a hug.

Speak Kind Words Saturday – Say something nice.  This is really simple and it’s all up to you. Just be nice! If you can’t think of anything nice to say – say nothing.

Sacrifice Our Wants for Others Needs Sunday – Show them that you care.  Do something good for one of your family members or friends.

Motorist Consideration Monday – Drive Courteously. If you go to school by bus or taxi – make a point of thanking the driver. Walk on the pavement and cross on the zebra-crossings.

See what else you can think up.

Sibo

Cool word for the week: Foe

Meaning: enemy or opponent

Example: Dad and his foe patched up their friendship after 10 years of not speaking to each other and now they have a drink together occasionally.

Visit the “Be Kind to Human Kind” website for more ideas.

Helping Hand

Wayne being a pain

I was so chuffed for my friend Lizzie.

She’s been having hassles at school. But this time she studied very hard for the exams and did really well. She was even top of the class for some of the subjects.

I gave her some help when it came to life sciences and she even beat me.

Hah! I must be a good teacher. Mind you, Dad always helps me study – and I just passed along the hints and tips that he gave to me. Sharing is good when it means that everybody can do well.

One of my other friends, Wayne, was miffed because Lizzie beat him too and can you believe it – he was nasty to her. Poor Lizzie was so upset – she had no clue what she had done wrong.

I looked at him and asked… “What’s your problem?”

He said he always came first in Maths and he did not like it when somebody else did better than him. Now he would have to work even harder so that he could beat Lizzie in the next exams.

Oh my hat! What a chump.

I think you should be glad when your friends do well at something. You should be proud for them too.

You wouldn’t like it if they were mean to you if you achieved something special. Would you? I know I wouldn’t.

Even if they get a new bike and you’ve got an old rusty one – so what! Be happy for them.

Sadly, it seems to me that some people tend to resent other people when they do well. Even if they win the lotto or get a promotion at work – instead of celebrating with the person – they get all grumpy and mean.

Lizzie and I went out for delicious ice-cream milkshakes to celebrate the fact that she did well in her exams. We invited Wayne to come with us too – but he said no-ways. He was too busy doing his maths homework to waste time on having ice-cream. Silly boy!

Lizzie got to work out the 10% tip for the waitress while I sat back and slurped up the last drops of ice-cream with my straw.

It’s great having smart friends.

…………………..

Word for the week: Chuffed

Meaning: pleased or delighted

Example: Sibo was very chuffed when Lizzie came top of the class in English, maths and science.