To be at the end of the sisterhood feels sucky

I was coloring my (er herm... *clears throat*) Sabrina the Teenage Witch comic cover (printed it out long time ago cos i like *er herm* coloring) and my baby bro (will always think of him as my baby bro even though he is officially 9 today - yep his bday's today!) came to me and was looking at me coloring. He is very impressed by my coloring and while we chatted, he said this "Er jie, your coloring is very nice leh. My one is not bad. But not as good as yours. Oso not as good as Bin (my younger sis)." I was so heartbroken when i heard that cos he feels so lousy about himself. I can put myself in his shoes and understand how he feels. Cos all 4 of us sisters are pretty good in our studies but he's kinda lousy at it and I know he compares himself with us 4 in many things other than academic stuff, including drawing, playing games... etc. But I know he has the potential to do better. His English is pretty good just that he's too lazy to read all those lines of words cos he thinks they are too chim for him to understand. He's always so impressed with us and has a low self-esteem of himself. I think this is one of the reasons why he's not performing to his potential cos it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy where you think you're not good and you just do not try harder and in the end it ends up like what you expected. I really hope it doesn't end up like that. Did i tell you about my dream about my brother? in case you didn't, read one of my previous posts cut and pasted below.

Blog abt a dream abt Boy

This happened to me a few days ago... i had a nightmare about my brother, Daniel. I was watching him as he was playing with a few friends, cycling around the coffeeshop nearby our house. There is a large canal next to the shop and my bro got nearer and nearer to it. In a moment of a few seconds, he cycled next to the canal and fell into it... and the canal was full of rainwater and it was very dark in there. I immediately ran over and lay myself down on the grass to reach him but I couldn't. He was too far down in the water that I couldn't see him. I saw that there were a few kids in the water who were trying to save him so I thought he would be rescued and so I waited a few seconds since I couldn't do anything as well.

However, when I realised that they couldn't save him as well, I ran down and jumped into the water to rescue my brother. I tried to find him but I couldn't... it was too dark and murky to see anything. I came up above the water for air and went down again to search for him but still to no avail. I couldn't find him. Then suddenly, I saw his face in the water. I tried to touch him but there was nothing there. It was just an image... The image then started to float away from me, farther and farther... Then I realised he was really drowned but I did not want to believe that he was dead. I could not accept the fact that he had gone away from me. And then I kept crying and crying... If I had jumped right away, he would have lived. If I had not hesitated, he would have been saved.

When I woke up, I found that I was actually crying. My tears were still flowing. Does this mean anything?? I think it does... I guess I'm worrying too much about his studies... It's as if that canal of water is the education system in Singapore that would drown Boy like the water did... and I could't help him. Is this a sign or what?

*end of dream*

and being at the end of this sisterhood spectrum is so not a good thing cos my dad expects him to be just like us. And every morning he practically hollers at my bro for not doing this and doing that while my bro prepares for school. And it certainly does not help that he delays waking up. This gap between him and my father is getting so big that it's becoming unrepairable. From the way he looks at my father when he's scolding him, I can also most sense a feeling of confusion or even hatred. Cos he always sees that my dad treats us sisters better than him. This is just the surface and he can't help but see only that. It's not like that cos my dad scolded us when we were young just like he scolds him but all my bro sees is that my father is always joking and playing around with us and showing his concern for us. Fact is my dad loves my bro alot just that his way of showing his love is by scolding him. I no longer know how to bridge the gap between them anymore. i've basically stopped trying. just hope he will one day come to understand that Baba loves him like he loves everyone of us.