Sneak Preview: Synopses of upcoming chapters in Miao's Collected Children's Stories

I trust that regular visitors who have exhibited a respectable amount of superhuman patience in reading my garrulous and often meaningless entries will no doubt be aware of my futile attempts at writing children's stories. I thank you in advance for your tolerance and generousity. Very unfortunately, due to my extremely cynical outlook in life, I have failed miserably in my endeavour, and have instead ended up being the luckless author of some fictional work that is highly unfit for children's consumption, since one should never taint the purity of children's souls with the stench of scepticism. Let them indulge in their own little worlds of naïveté and blissful ignorance while they are still able to - after all, childhood is fleeting.

Regrettably, due to an innate propensity to surrender to the seduction of procrastination, and also due to the fact that I have had other obligations to handle, I have neglected my work for a considerably long time. The last time I completed a chapter was approximately 6 months ago. However, recently, I felt a sudden urge to resume my project, which is to write children's stories that are really meant for adults. Several ideas have dawned upon me, and I am determined to fashion entertaining stories out of these thoughts. However, I am afraid that I can only start working on them after my exams, which will end in one month's time.

Psychologists have gathered from survey results that while men are most likely to accomplish their aims when they have role models to look up to, women are most successful in seeing their plans through when they share their goals and plans with other people. That is to say, when a man wants to get rid of his flabby stomach, the best way to motivate himself would be to paste a poster of Wentworth Miller on his bedroom wall. When a woman wants to get rid of her bulging tummy, the most effective way of ensuring that she will persevere is to announce to the entire world her intention to go on a strict diet. Apparently, other people's knowledge of her ambitions pressures her sufficiently into working hard with indefatigable will, because she is aware that any failure to pursue diligently her dreams and to fulfill her promises would reduce her credibility and crystallise into an ugly stain on her reputation. Since I assume that I am a perfectly normal female (despite the fact that I am sometimes confused about my own gender identity), I have decided that the best method to make sure that I will seriously get down to writing more children's tales is to let all my readers know about my intention of doing so. This is a pre-emptive measure against any tendency experienced in future to laze around and, as a result, give up what is a potentially promising project.

New characters will be introduced, as the plots get even more exciting. Here is a list of brief synopses, so that you'll know what to look forward to:

1) The Dogs.
A species whose members are each known by a generic English name that happens to form a palindrome when combined with the word 'God', these animals ironically do not believe in the existence of a supernatural and immortal higher being (contrast them with the Squirrels and the Chipmunks, who believe unwaveringly in the presence of an almighty God). Their philosophical outlook can be said to resemble that of the Catizens (whose school of thought, known as Catism, is often misunderstood as a form of religion, when it essentially is an atheistic system of ideas), sans the spiritual talk about searching for one's own Cat-nature. The most famous contemporary Dog philosopher is perhaps Richard Dogkins, whose ground-breaking book Doggy Logic: Advocating Dogism has attracted worldwide attention, but is banned in several hopelessly conservative religious countries.

2) The Teabag and The Teacup.
After suffering decades of accumulated frustration, The Tea Leaves (TTL), who live in The Teabag (TTB), have decided to riot against The Teacup (TTC), who has, for the longest time, subjected TTL to violent oppression. It provides a new dimension to the colloquial expression 'a storm in a teacup'. TT and TTB share a delicate relationship. TT thinks that it has sovereign power over TTB, while TTB only wishes to escape from the deadly iron fist of TT because it wants to preserve its fragrance. This has brought into international limelight the pitiful plight of the TTL, and some countries (including two prominent members of the Aksantian Union) have threatened to boycott the upcoming major sports event that is going to be held in TT because of its poor Tea Rights records, and also because of the fact that it was the source of the most virulent and fatal virus that besieged the globe not too long ago. (Of course, hidden political agendas also motivate this move.) However, The Water Molecules (TWM) who live in TT are seemingly completely unaware of the vast magnitude of this issue. Interesting, isn't it?

3) The Whales.
The Whales are a very fascinating bunch of creatures. They constitute the teeming population of what is arguably the most powerful nation in the whole world, and yet a significant number of them have remained pious religious followers in the era of modernity and secularism. Recently, a Whale commentator made a tactless remark about TT on a renowned news channel, calling TWM a lousy horde of "goons" and the products of TT a stinking pile of "junk". TWM, being very patriotic, could not control their anger and have fiercely demanded an apology from The United Waters of the Whales (UWW). What will eventually emerge from this terrible mess? We shall see.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to just drop a comment. Your feedback will be greatly valued and appreciated. If you think that you will not be interested in reading these stories, please also let me know, so that I will know that it is high time for me to redefine my notions of 'humour' and 'entertainment'.

On an utterly irrelevant note, my professor cracked me up today when he said that we were allowed to write our papers in verse if we so wished to. Although he was obviously joking, it appeared to me that he was actually receptive to the idea. Cute.