While driving on the middle lane of life, I sometimes feel as if I'm being tailgated, that another 'vehicle' is tailing me so closely that I'm forced to either speed up, or shift gears and move to the slower lane.
That's life. You sometimes cannot move at the speed you choose because of external forces around you. I was hoping for a good start to C's school year, a steady, problem-free transition to a new school, and for her to settle in quickly with her studies in her first year of secondary school. But alas, she had the challenge of having to deal with a class bully who targeted her more because she is one who does not take things sitting down. Anyway, that situation has improved after intervention by the teacher and principal and I hope it will continue to improve.
Then, there are minor changes to the school timetable. That's to be expected at the start of the school year as the school tries to find balance in distributing their teachers' time to match the needs of each class. C is re-learning Mandarin as she didn't learn much in her previous school, partly because she wasn't interested, and partly because the teacher wasn't 'interested' too. So for one day a week, her school hours are extended by an extra 30 minutes for Mandarin, an extra hour for extra-curricular activities. By the time she reaches home, it's late afternoon. It's a good thing there's not much homework so far. With music lessons two days in a week, that's about all we can handle for now.
Lunch at school didn't seem like value for money after January's trial so I'm now preparing breakfast, snack and lunch every morning for her. That means having to wake up 15 minutes earlier every morning, and planning and preparing some food the night before so it's ready to be cooked in the morning.
The weather has been very hot and dry since Chinese New Year. Water levels are low so many areas in the Klang Valley are facing water rationing. Last Friday, water supply was intermittent at my place right up to yesterday. It's a good thing we are a small family so it's not impacting us too much. We're not short of water yet, only facing the inconvenience of not having running taps in the kitchen and having to be more careful and not waste what we have in our storage tank. Laundry is done at odd hours when water supply is temporarily restored, regardless of day or night. Cooking is minimised so food stalls and restaurants are getting more business from us.
I smell smoke in the air today. Is the haze back?
The one-week school holiday is coming soon in March. I wish to go somewhere nearby since we didn't go anywhere the last long, year-end holidays. The task of finding some place affordable nearby is not so easy. I would like a beach holiday but C does not. E is indifferent. Local destinations are more affordable but will surely be fully-booked if I don't decide early. And they will surely be crowded too. Hmmm, I'm being tailgated by choices and decisions too....
Que sera sera.
By the way, did you know that 'que sera sera' is not exactly Spanish or Italian? Here's what Wikipedia says:
The popularity of the song has led to curiosity about the origins of the saying and the identity of its language. Both the Spanish-like spelling used by Livingston and Evans and an Italian-like form, "che sarà sarà", are first documented, in the 16th century, as an English heraldic motto.[6] The "Spanish" form appears on a brass plaque in a village church in Surrey, dated 1559.[7] The "Italian" form was first adopted as a family motto by either John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, or his son, Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford. It is said by some sources to have been adopted by the elder Russell after his experience at the Battle of Pavia (1525), and to be engraved on his tomb (1555 N.S.).[8][9] The 2nd Earl's adoption of the motto is commemorated in a manuscript dated 1582.[10] Their successors—Earls and, later, Dukes of Bedford ("Sixth Creation"), as well as other aristocratic families—continued to use the motto. Soon after its adoption as a heraldic motto, it appeared in Christopher Marlowe's play Doctor Faustus (written ca. 1590; published 1604), whose text[11] (Act 1, Scene 1) contains a line with the archaic Italian spelling "Che sera, sera / What will be, shall be").[12] Early in the 17th century the saying begins to appear in the speech and thoughts of fictional characters as a spontaneous expression of a fatalistic attitude, always in an English-speaking context.
The saying has no history in Spain, Italy, or France, and in fact is ungrammatical in all three of these Romance languages.[13] It is composed of Spanish or Italian words superimposed on English syntax. It was evidently formed by a word-for-word mistranslation of English "What will be will be", merging the free relative pronoun what (= "that which") with the interrogative what?[14]
Livingston and Evans had some knowledge of Spanish, and early in their career they worked together as musicians on cruise ships to the Caribbean and South America. Composer Jay Livingston had seen the 1954 Hollywood film The Barefoot Contessa, in which a fictional Italian family has the motto "Che sarà sarà" carved in stone at their ancestral mansion. He immediately wrote it down as a possible song title, and he and lyricist Ray Evans later gave it a Spanish spelling "because there are so many Spanish-speaking people in the world".[15][16][17]
In modern times, thanks to the popularity of the song and its many translations, the phrase has been adopted in countries around the world to name a variety of entities, including books, movies, restaurants, vacation rentals, airplanes, and race horses.[18]
Friday, February 21, 2014
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
About Chinese New Year
We've another 10 days to Chinese New Year. This festival brings these to mind:
Angpows - I need to go to the bank to get some new notes! ....hmmm...or recycle the close-to-new ones I get directly from the ATM machine.
Spring cleaning - is it a tradition, a must? *grin* I'm trying. Have washed all our curtains, and we're turning the study/store rooms upside down to throw away old stuff. We even bought a paper shredder and you can't imagine how much paper we've shredded and sold to the old newspaper lorryman. Major work in this part of the house, which is actually the entire top floor, which I foresee will not be done by CNY!
CNY cookies - it would be nice if I had the time to bake some, but ....
CNY gifts - just did some shopping yesterday and packed the few goodie bags to be given to immediate family members.
CNY décor - no, we don't decorate the house much. I have only one 'Prosperity' poster on my main door.
Visits - we only visit elder family and relatives close to us, and hardly anyone visits us because we don't organise any 'open house' parties and we have very few friends :-p We don't come from extremely traditional Chinese families within our current generation, there's no rule that the younger ones must visit older ones to pay respect, etc. Although E is the eldest, his younger siblings address him by name and we treat each other equally. Hehehe, I can't imagine if we were to go back a few centuries. E will be addressed as 'tai gor' and I will be addressed as 'tai soh'....
Gatherings - we have a very, very small social circle so it's only a handful of friends that we will catch up with, either some place outside or in one of our homes.
Traditions - not sure about the extent of it. Yeah, we wish our elders, we give/receive angpows. We give/receive mandarin oranges. We exchange goodie bags/hampers. We have CNY Eve reunion lunch (with my family) and reunion dinner (with E's family).
Yee Sang - tossing 'yee sang' was never part of CNY tradition in my younger days. It's actually not a 'true' tradition, but whatever...., it's 'modern' tradition in this part of my world so yeah, I'm expecting a toss or two. When I was in a 'corporate' career, I remember tossing yee sang with various groups of people as many as 10 times or more within those 15 days of CNY. Talk about overkill.
In case I don't write any more posts here pre-CNY, here's wishing one and all, "Gong Xi Fa Cai" and may the Year of the Horse bring you health, happiness and prosperity.
Angpows - I need to go to the bank to get some new notes! ....hmmm...or recycle the close-to-new ones I get directly from the ATM machine.
Spring cleaning - is it a tradition, a must? *grin* I'm trying. Have washed all our curtains, and we're turning the study/store rooms upside down to throw away old stuff. We even bought a paper shredder and you can't imagine how much paper we've shredded and sold to the old newspaper lorryman. Major work in this part of the house, which is actually the entire top floor, which I foresee will not be done by CNY!
CNY cookies - it would be nice if I had the time to bake some, but ....
CNY gifts - just did some shopping yesterday and packed the few goodie bags to be given to immediate family members.
CNY décor - no, we don't decorate the house much. I have only one 'Prosperity' poster on my main door.
Visits - we only visit elder family and relatives close to us, and hardly anyone visits us because we don't organise any 'open house' parties and we have very few friends :-p We don't come from extremely traditional Chinese families within our current generation, there's no rule that the younger ones must visit older ones to pay respect, etc. Although E is the eldest, his younger siblings address him by name and we treat each other equally. Hehehe, I can't imagine if we were to go back a few centuries. E will be addressed as 'tai gor' and I will be addressed as 'tai soh'....
Gatherings - we have a very, very small social circle so it's only a handful of friends that we will catch up with, either some place outside or in one of our homes.
Traditions - not sure about the extent of it. Yeah, we wish our elders, we give/receive angpows. We give/receive mandarin oranges. We exchange goodie bags/hampers. We have CNY Eve reunion lunch (with my family) and reunion dinner (with E's family).
Yee Sang - tossing 'yee sang' was never part of CNY tradition in my younger days. It's actually not a 'true' tradition, but whatever...., it's 'modern' tradition in this part of my world so yeah, I'm expecting a toss or two. When I was in a 'corporate' career, I remember tossing yee sang with various groups of people as many as 10 times or more within those 15 days of CNY. Talk about overkill.
In case I don't write any more posts here pre-CNY, here's wishing one and all, "Gong Xi Fa Cai" and may the Year of the Horse bring you health, happiness and prosperity.
Monday, January 6, 2014
New Year, New Template Design, Photos Gone!
Happy New Year 2014. Sigh, it's the first day of school for C. After sending her to school, I was glad I could have my mornings to myself again after 6-7 weeks of school holidays. I hadn't blogged since November 13 and I thought since it's the new year, I'd change the template design of this blog. Little did I know that by changing it, all the photos in this blog from 2009 onwards are gone. And I didn't backup the old template! Stupid me :(
A check with Blogger Help indicates that I might have inadvertently deleted them via Google+ while I was deleting some albums in my android phone (which definitely is linked to Google....). I'm not that tech savvy and didn't realise that those photos in the blog album were not merely duplicates...but I'm still puzzled why Google does not provide any warning on such intended actions to the user when choosing to delete......big, big, big sigh. I shouldn't have used Google+ simply because someone asked me to for work reasons, for ease of sharing files. Five years' worth of photos in this blog are gone....what a way to start the new year in this blog, which I have renamed, incidentally.
Pictures and photos are so important in illustrating words and feelings. How now, brown cow?
A check with Blogger Help indicates that I might have inadvertently deleted them via Google+ while I was deleting some albums in my android phone (which definitely is linked to Google....). I'm not that tech savvy and didn't realise that those photos in the blog album were not merely duplicates...but I'm still puzzled why Google does not provide any warning on such intended actions to the user when choosing to delete......big, big, big sigh. I shouldn't have used Google+ simply because someone asked me to for work reasons, for ease of sharing files. Five years' worth of photos in this blog are gone....what a way to start the new year in this blog, which I have renamed, incidentally.
Pictures and photos are so important in illustrating words and feelings. How now, brown cow?
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
An extraordinarily busy November
I am busier than usual this month with an unexpected daily responsibility which takes up my entire morning. Then I cram the entire day's routine chores and responsibilities in the afternoon and evening. That leaves me with hardly any room to breathe for anything extra. In fact, I might have to just put some routine stuff on the backburner temporarily too. Definitely no 'me' time for the longest period ever.
And school will be out for the year in a few days' time which means whatever I do, wherever I go, I have one easily irritable pre-teen like a thorn in my side, because the things I do and the places I go to may not be kid-friendly or liked by her.
Not having an extra pair of hands around the house makes it harder. It's in such a time I wish I have a domestic helper whom I can trust to do the no-brainer household chores, prepare food so that my cooking time is cut short, and keep watch on C if I need to go out to run errands for a short while.
It's difficult to not compare myself with other SAHMs who appear to have less things to worry about, less responsibilities to juggle. The list of 'if only' wishes is a long one. On one hand I wish for better circumstances, on the other, I appreciate that my circumstances are not as bad as some others'. I am amazed how some destitute, single mums with five mouths to feed keep it all together and come out triumphant.
And school will be out for the year in a few days' time which means whatever I do, wherever I go, I have one easily irritable pre-teen like a thorn in my side, because the things I do and the places I go to may not be kid-friendly or liked by her.
Not having an extra pair of hands around the house makes it harder. It's in such a time I wish I have a domestic helper whom I can trust to do the no-brainer household chores, prepare food so that my cooking time is cut short, and keep watch on C if I need to go out to run errands for a short while.
It's difficult to not compare myself with other SAHMs who appear to have less things to worry about, less responsibilities to juggle. The list of 'if only' wishes is a long one. On one hand I wish for better circumstances, on the other, I appreciate that my circumstances are not as bad as some others'. I am amazed how some destitute, single mums with five mouths to feed keep it all together and come out triumphant.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
October updates
October is coming to an end and very quickly, soon, it will be November and December and another year will be gone. This last quarter of 2013 will fly by very swiftly I foresee with all the things that we have to attend to, the activities and all.
C's year-end school exam just ended. As usual, she was cool about it. No revision, despite my frequent prodding. She continued with life as usual, and even made some bread and jelly by herself. She is teaching me to see things in a different way.
C's year-end school exam just ended. As usual, she was cool about it. No revision, despite my frequent prodding. She continued with life as usual, and even made some bread and jelly by herself. She is teaching me to see things in a different way.
During my time, as I was growing up, my generation was taught that we need to study very hard, get into university, get a good job and you're set for life. Sounds like a straight rigid path to follow, knowing what I know now. I wish I had strayed from the path once in a while to find some lovely garden in the midst of the jungle and played there for awhile figuratively speaking. Maybe I could have discovered my true passion that way.
The weekend before her exams, we spent one day exploring Batu Caves and the adjacent Dark Cave. We climbed up the 272 steps of Batu Caves so that she could see what a Hindu temple in a cave is like, the various gods the Hindus worship. On the way down, we visited the Dark Cave, a conservation site. We took the Educational Tour and learned many things about how caves form, the various limestone structures and characteristics of a cave, the unique ecosystem of a cave, and some endangered species that can be found there -- much more interesting than staying at home and memorising the formula of the area of a triangle, I must admit.
So here's my take thus far on education, parenting and life. Note that it's MY take and I don't expect anyone to agree with me. I am writing this down to remind myself because I came from a different generation who sees things differently:
1. Every child is unique, so it's useless comparing mine with others.
2. Childhood is to be enjoyed, like I did mine.
3. Children (and adults) learn better and more when it's fun and interesting.
4.The bottomline is that the child must be happy wherever he is and in whatever he is doing.
5. It is important to do well in school (and I don't mean academically only), but it is not the most important thing in a child's life.
6. Exams are over-rated. It's just a way to measure how much one has learned and understood.
7. It is ok to fail an exam, as long as the child tried and did his best.
8. It is good to go to university but it is not a must.
9. Good character and values are more valuable than a string of A's, a high-salaried job or social status.
10. Life is not a race. It is not necessary for a child to read independently at two years of age, or enter university at 12.
11. Not knowing why one is learning, being forced to learn, rote learning, not relating and applying what one has learnt with real life is pointless.
12. It is good to expose a child to many experiences and activities, but only pursue the activity further if the child is interested. This does not mean the child can be allowed to give up an activity he was initially interested in immediately when the going gets too tough.
13. Thinking independently, speaking confidently, arguing rationally, problem solving creatively are good skills to develop.
14. Children grow up very quickly. There are some things I can only do with them when they are young, like teach them personal discipline, self-control, responsibility, love for family and God, i.e. there are many tricks which I can't teach to old dogs.
That's all I can think of for now.
This week, we will be celebrating C's 11th birthday. She is busy at school rehearsing a dance for their year-end concert, she has an outdoor nature camp to attend during the Deepavali long weekend, a drum exam to take the very next day after camp, a school field trip to a batik workshop, and finally, the year-end concert before school closes in mid-November.
I hope I will be able to quote Robert Frost later in life:
“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
~ Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
The weekend before her exams, we spent one day exploring Batu Caves and the adjacent Dark Cave. We climbed up the 272 steps of Batu Caves so that she could see what a Hindu temple in a cave is like, the various gods the Hindus worship. On the way down, we visited the Dark Cave, a conservation site. We took the Educational Tour and learned many things about how caves form, the various limestone structures and characteristics of a cave, the unique ecosystem of a cave, and some endangered species that can be found there -- much more interesting than staying at home and memorising the formula of the area of a triangle, I must admit.
The world's tallest golden statue of Murugan at the base of the stairs.
The entrance of Batu Cave at the top of the stairs.
We didn't spot this spider but we spotted cave snails, other spiders, bats and cockroaches.
See here to learn more about Dark Cave.
So here's my take thus far on education, parenting and life. Note that it's MY take and I don't expect anyone to agree with me. I am writing this down to remind myself because I came from a different generation who sees things differently:
1. Every child is unique, so it's useless comparing mine with others.
2. Childhood is to be enjoyed, like I did mine.
3. Children (and adults) learn better and more when it's fun and interesting.
4.The bottomline is that the child must be happy wherever he is and in whatever he is doing.
5. It is important to do well in school (and I don't mean academically only), but it is not the most important thing in a child's life.
6. Exams are over-rated. It's just a way to measure how much one has learned and understood.
7. It is ok to fail an exam, as long as the child tried and did his best.
8. It is good to go to university but it is not a must.
9. Good character and values are more valuable than a string of A's, a high-salaried job or social status.
10. Life is not a race. It is not necessary for a child to read independently at two years of age, or enter university at 12.
11. Not knowing why one is learning, being forced to learn, rote learning, not relating and applying what one has learnt with real life is pointless.
12. It is good to expose a child to many experiences and activities, but only pursue the activity further if the child is interested. This does not mean the child can be allowed to give up an activity he was initially interested in immediately when the going gets too tough.
13. Thinking independently, speaking confidently, arguing rationally, problem solving creatively are good skills to develop.
14. Children grow up very quickly. There are some things I can only do with them when they are young, like teach them personal discipline, self-control, responsibility, love for family and God, i.e. there are many tricks which I can't teach to old dogs.
That's all I can think of for now.
This week, we will be celebrating C's 11th birthday. She is busy at school rehearsing a dance for their year-end concert, she has an outdoor nature camp to attend during the Deepavali long weekend, a drum exam to take the very next day after camp, a school field trip to a batik workshop, and finally, the year-end concert before school closes in mid-November.
I hope I will be able to quote Robert Frost later in life:
“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
~ Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
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