The price of agelessness.

Everyone would like to be ageless – or so they might think to themselves. However, agelessness comes at a price.

Now, anyone who has ever viewed a photograph of my wife, Syahidah, cannot but be struck by how young she seems. Yet, she is much older than people think. The fact is, though, that she hasn’t aged since I met her: she got stuck in her late teens and seems essentially unchanged, since then. Fourteen years have passed, since we met but not one of those years appears on her face or body. It is as if she were a latter day Dorian Gray (though without the dissolute behaviour!)

Of course, this strange stasis leads to much confusion.

A few days ago, Syahidah took her three sons, Ainan, 11, Fintan, 8 and Tiarnan, 5, to the cinema to see the latest Transformers film, Dark of the Moon.

As she queued up to buy the tickets, Syahidah overheard an enthusiastic voice behind her –
“Look at her! Isn’t she a good sister, to be taking her brothers to the cinema!”

A quick look around revealed no-one else but Syahidah who could be described as a “sister” with her “brothers”.

Syahidah was too embarrassed for words, even though this kind of comment had been heard before.

She bought the tickets and took her “brothers” into the film.

It would be funny, were it not the source of much puzzlement on the part of others. You see, those fourteen years have seen me change, whilst Syahidah has stood still. So, now, the apparent age gap between us seems greater than it was, when we first met – yet, of course, it is the same, to the very day. What makes this situation more acute, is that it is Asians who judge Syahidah to be so young. How young would she seem to Caucasian eyes? No-one but myself and her immediate family know the truth: that Syahidah stopped any outward aging, in her late teens and looks the same now, as she did then. Yet, people who see her now, mentally subtract the age of her children, from her, now, and conclude that she must have looked much younger in the past: not so. She looked the same when I met her, as she does now. I can’t help but wonder what strange things people think, when they appraise her present appearance and make such age calculations. They have no idea how wrong they are.

Of course, I do wonder how long Syahidah will maintain this stasis of appearance. Her great grandfather was famous for not having aged much (relatively speaking, that is) – despite reaching 104. So, it seems, she takes after him. If this carries on, the day might come in thirty years time, when people think she is my granddaughter!

I am left to wonder how much our sons will inherit this curious attribute: are they going to be seemingly ageless, too? Will they look like spritely teenagers, well into their thirties? How odd it would be, for them, if this turns out to be so. We shall see.

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Luck of the Half-Irish

Sometimes, Ainan seems to be a lucky boy. Not lucky in the sense you might think - but in another sense altogether.

Today, Ainan was flipping a coin - just an average, real-life one dollar Singaporean coin. For those who don't know, this is a small, thick golden coloured coin, just over 2 centimetres in diameter.

He designated one side of the coin as "heads", the other as "tails". He flipped the coin. It came up heads. He flipped again. It came up heads. He flipped again. It came up heads. He flipped again. It came up heads. In fact, it came up heads eleven times in a row.

What are the chances of 11 heads in a row? Well, that is 2 to the power 11 or one in 2,048. Now, that seems pretty lucky - and not something you could repeat in a hurry. But then he went and tried again.

He flipped the coin. It came up heads. He flipped it again. It came up heads. In fact, he managed to get 20 heads in a row before it came up tails.

Now, that is really lucky. The chances of 20 heads in a row are one in 2 to the power 20, or one in 1,048,576. That is one in one million, forty-eight thousand, five hundred and seventy-six.

I really wish I could have videoed him doing it. Sadly, we have a Sony videocamera - which in my experience means a machine that doesn't work. We have repaired it three times since we bought it, at at least a couple of hundred dollars a time - and each time it has failed again. The last time it failed less than two weeks after "repair". So, the next camera we buy won't be a Sony. The Sony "videocamera" (for in reality it is actually an expensive paperweight), has been out of action for longer than it has actually worked.

So, perhaps if we had bought a more reliable brand, we would have been able to video Ainan's remarkable feat.

As it is, he is showing distinct signs of the Luck of the Irish, even if he is only half-Irish.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)