building blocks

Adam's birthday is on the 21st September.
for this year, i gave him a 'lego' present, in the shape of a bulldozer -
like 'bob the builder', he said.
it was not the actual expensive original blocks from Lego of Denmark.
rather, it was inexpensive copycat blocks from Ligao of China (where
else?).
i bought it from a stall in tesco ampang for rm8 - real cheap.
the quality of the pieces? on the good side. snaps quite tight as you'd
expect from the original lego.
the plastic parts are without burrs on the edges - really, really important
for blocks.
of course, the models are limited, but perfect for a novice.
one setback is that the roof of the bulldozer comes out quite easily.
i suppose it is the poor 'construction' design of the model. not related to
the block pieces.

legos are my favourite when I was growing up.
my brother and I had a few models in our collection.
It was very expensive, back then (even now, still).
one of my distant cousins went to london furthering his studies when i was
in the primary school.
when asked what kind of souvenirs we would like from london, we asked him
to buy us legos.
my father went to korea for one of his training stints with ktm. he brought
back 'kawada' - much like legos.
when i did my degree in manchester, i bought a lego technic set (big one)
at a flea market - for 5 quids - very cheap! (retailed at rm200++ in
m'sia).
was overjoyed with it, but my mates couldn't understand why.
too bad, i didn't have the opportunity (rather, the drive) to go to
legoland in windsor.

the special thing about lego is that it shaped my thinking and creativity.
i could also very well agree that it also influenced my character.
legos are only pieces of plastics. it is the thinking, creativity, and
vision that makes up the models.
in the lego instruction booklet, you can learn to make a few different
models out of the supplied pieces in the box.
it is flexible in nature - the message is that things are not limited, and
you may explore to make different things.
i learnt to make out things out of only the pieces that i have in hand.
if you've seen the movie Apollo 13, there's a situation where the engineers
in houston have to figure out to make something out of available limited
resources to help bring back stranded astronauts in space.
that's problem solving with use of creativity - helped me in countless
occasion.
perhaps because of lego, i go for things that have multiple usage, although
not necessarily 'all-in-one'.
i'm sort of 'kill two birds with one stone' kind of guy.

Adam and I enjoyed the 2 hours following the instructions in the booklet
and the bulldozer came out just nice.
He's very happy with it, and i'm happy to know that he can do it very well.
just that he hasn't got the grip yet on snapping the pieces together.
within those 2 hours, i learnt quite a few traits of my 5 year old boy.
he's attentive to details (even i missed out on them).
he does things neatly.
he can judge quite well.
i love his determination and perseverence. he didn't give up when it is
difficult.
sometimes i felt like doing it for him, to make it finish faster, but i
learnt that being patient has its rewards.
he needs time, and my confidence in him.
i think i'll get a few more for him and his sister Marsya.
and i hope they'll enjoy the adventures with those blocks.