Small Lessons

Most days whenever I call my little brother and ask him what he's doing, he tells me "nothing." By that, I thought he meant nothing in particular. But Sunday afternoon I saw that he really means ABSOLUTELY nothing. When I scooped little man up, he was playing around with an almost empty bottle of Krazy glue. He told me that he had been gluing his fingers together and then separating them for the past day or so, and that he had purchased the bottle for that sole purpose. Fascinating. Well at least he's not sniffing it I thought to myself. I didn't see a need to intervene until I noticed that he was chewing the residue off of his fingers. "Alright, take your fingers our of your mouth."

Whoa, where did that come from?

Frightened by how much I sounded like my father, I realized that I would have to approach this delicately. As a big brother, it's my responsibility to promote good decision making without coming off as a surrogate parent, or too bossy. Once we made it to my apartment, I set him up with some soap and a sink full of water, and asked him to scrub the glue off. The whole ordeal wasn't really that big of a deal, but given that he "likes the taste of it" and that glue fumes are damaging teenage brains all over America, I thought that I should make it clear that recreational exposure to Krazy glue is a bad idea.






We started the afternoon watching all of the action scenes from 2003's THE HULK. In the interest of staying awake, we skipped all of the dialogue and just soaked up the car tossing, tank smashing action. Afterwards, he asked for some help drawing more realistic superhero figures and faces. An avid fan of comic book art myself, I used one of my books to walk him through some step by step directions. Jamal is a very good cartoon artist, but he's finding it difficult to take the human form to the next level (as most people do at that age).
Throughout the course of our impromptu lesson he grew more frustrated with his drawing and wanted to quit and do something else. I insisted that he finish his picture, and helped him make adjustments until he was more satisfied with it. I felt that it was important for me to push him a little bit, and show him the value of sticking it out. Once again, I tried my best to do this without irritating the young man or being too authoritative. In the end, he seemed pleased with his drawing, and went home with copies of some of the book's pages so that he could practice on his own.
I know that Jamal has potential for great things artistically and academically. Although I cannot instill the discipline he'll need to maximize his abilities, I hope that I have inspired him and taught him some of the things that he will need along the way.

Keep it Moving

Jamal and I have been maintaining for the past few weeks mostly in the form of phone calls with the occaisional drop in. We even managed to squeeze in a trip to the bowling alley a couple of weeks back when there was a snow day that coincided with one of my days off.
Always eager to assess his progress, I've been pressuring his grandmother to get his second quarter report card which has been available for 8 weeks at this point. I could go up to the school and get it myself once again, but I feel like it's really not my job at this point. I need to help her become more involved in his academic development. She seems to knows that generally, it's a good thing to get good grades, but has showed little understanding of how important it is to monitor the grades on his report card instead of random graded papers that trickle into the house (which she says are improving lately). Is it harsh to think that she's woefully negligent for not having mastered the art of holding a child accountable for schoolwork after 8+ children and a few grandchildren? I don't think so. But I suppose if she had been successful with this thus far, Jamal may not have ever come to my attention.
Anyway, my 3 month surgery rotation ends this week, so there should be an opportunity for Jamal and I to share another outing. I'd like to get him out and moving since he uses his asthma as an excuse for him to do no physical activity whatsoever. Of course, he has no idea where his inhaler is, and has never experienced an emergency so I'm skeptical. But lucky for him, the emergency room just happens to be right next to the campus gym.