my ajumma notes

No, not those birds and bees but the PSLE birds and bees. After the Science paper (last paper), the boy happily told me, 'There were no bird beak questions'. I know bird beak questions (beak type - eating habits relationship) are easy for many kids but they are not among the boy's strengths. I also know this kind of 'academic weakness' can be addressed by a good diet of Animal Planet and some amount of drilling. However, for various reasons, we never got round to them. Tsk, tsk, lackadaisical parents. Is this bird carnivorous, herbivorous or omnivorous? Then came the news about the 'bees' cloze passage which, understandably I suppose, caused some to be up in arms, but which I just put down to being one of those things in life that you can't do much about. Don't blame me... For six years, I have known that our attitude towards academic performance is not quite so conventional but I think we have done what we wanted to do: have the boy go through

Life is now moving along towards the PSLE. Or no, should I say life is now still moving from day to day (which is a better perspective to have, given the recent circumstances)? Thankfully, the transitions to 'normalcy' have been manageable and kind to us. Except that, you know, there really isn't such a thing as 'normalcy'... Another life lesson: there is no 'normal'... ... although the lung function test shows that the boy's lungs are practically back to 'normal', which I choose to believe is a miracle...

Over almost two weeks, I have learnt to better understand words and phrases such as 'very sick', 'pray hard', 'exhausted' and 'bone-tired', which I currently am.

Today, not so much about the H1N1 battle but some ranting about hospital etiquette. My sister reminded me that our dad used to have a separate pair of shoes for hospital check-ups or stays. Now, that is making a lot of sense to us. People have very short memories. Wasn't it not so many years ago that they didn't want buses to pick up TTSH staff because of fear of infection? Nowadays, I think people no longer fear getting or spreading infections. Just look at the number of people hanging/walking around the hospital and their behaviour. Many hospitals have common thoroughfares for all and sundry. Like, if you are just going for your eye check-up, you could be walking at the passageway alongside someone who has being going in and out of the ICU (as a visitor). Worse, you could be getting coughed at by that ICU visitor, or you are coughing at him/her. Yet, hardly anyone is using a mask and people in and outside the hospital are coughing and sneezing at, well, all and sundry.

Still 'bearing with' the effects of Tamiflu. GP said there's a list of the side-effects in the leaflet if you want to scare yourself. If not, just bear with any effects if they are not too severe. Happily, effects are not too severe for me. But am often overcome by bouts of sleepiness (not too uncommon for me anyway). The boy is making very, very, very, very small steps in the right direction but still battling the bugs. Another life lesson for us in Singapore: health costs are truly and unimaginably HIGH. In other words, must buy health insurance . Unless you are supremely rich or something.

The boy is almost completing Day 4 in PICU. Poor boy, fighting H1N1 + some fearsome bacteria that has gotten into his lungs. It is no joke seeing your kid sedated and intubated. And here I am stuck at home because I am also down with the flu. Must say that Tamiflu is pretty effective. On me anyway. But I think it's a very strong drug and not something to be taken lightly. This ordeal is hammering home for me a number of life truths. For example, there are more important things in life than what he's going to get for the PSLE (a lesson that had already come a-knocking when some other stuff happened earlier this year), or whether we are going to be able to watch Wimbledon on Starhub (I still don't know the answer), one thing being LIFE itself. Some other things that come to mind now include 'being a good person'. I was very happy to hear recently from his teacher that he thinks the boy is a really good kid and then from my friend who told me that our priest ha

My, it took some people a mightily long time to decide that (among other things): primary school should be less exam-oriented, primary school kids should have more PE, art and music lessons, fun activities for singles need not be confined to people of a certain age group or academic qualification, etc. The changes can't come a moment too soon, especially the ones for the primary school kids. However, they will be much too late for the boy, who will probably have left primary school by the time things change. How sad. Well, I have concluded, in Week 4 of Term 1, 2009, that Primary 5 is really quite jia lat . And who was it who said that the new Chinese syllabus was easy?! Aiyoh... The serious aspects of life aside, my million dollar questions today are: Is Ana still in Melbourne? Will she turn up to watch today's semi-final? Ha ha, tune in to Spain versus Spain, leftie versus leftie .

I'm pretty sure St Peter will not be waiting at the Pearly Gates to collect copies of our children's result slips and CCA records and stuff, so why is it so hard to break free from this fixation on grades and scores? I must confess that it is so easy to drift from CA to SA to CA to SA with the mind focused more on marks than the unquantifiable things that will really count in the end, such as character, behaviour, attitude towards life, relationships with others, etc. Some years ago, my work supervisor told me that her child missed the cut-off for a particular secondary school by 1 point and she told her child to learn a more important lesson from the experience: you don't want to stand before God and miss going to heaven by 1 point because there will be no appeals and no other heavens to apply to go to. (By the way, please do not name any names or places if you recognise this story!) It is something that I have to constantly make myself remember - that in the end, there i

Parents' minds, naturally, are full of memories of the many milestones our children pass through. I remember a friend telling me that when both her sons were toilet trained, she felt she could finally move on with life. They were already in primary school at the time, but she still remembered. Perhaps some of us more sentimental sorts will even remember the first glimpse of our babies on the ultrasound screen, the first time the kid slept through the night, the first PSLE paper, etc. We have just come to another milestone. Over the weekend, the boy had his First Holy Communion , which, for Catholics, is a major, mega rite of passage. Sometimes, I find it hard to believe that he is already so 'old'. It seems like it wasn't so long ago when he was still drinking from his milk bottle in church. But now, he can share in partaking the Bread of Life. It's kind of hard to explain the full significance of this to 9-year-olds, but they do look rather pleased about the whole

I read that line some years ago and wondered how many young people actually believed that. Today, during the season of poring over our children's mid-year marks, I still wonder about it. I must admit that it's often hard for me as a parent to think less about grades than I do. We try very hard to keep our 'worries' about grades to ourselves (and our friends) and don't make a big deal about them with the boy. I'm sure we all know in our heart of hearts that each child has his/her own strengths and weaknesses and should therefore be allowed to develop accordingly and that what's more important is his/her overall well-being. However, unfortunately for many Singaporean children (and no doubt children elsewhere in the world too), we are such a grade-obsessed society. The boy has at least 2 friends who get caned for not scoring this or that mark. So sad, huh? In today's 'Which Primary School' supplement, there is this parent who figures she and her hus

Recently, we were given the stats for the boy’s latest round of tests – the highest score, lowest score stuff. For English, out of 60, the highest score in the class was in the 50s and the lowest was single-digit. First, I imagined how horribly the one(s) with the single-digit mark(s) and parents must have felt. Then, I felt really sorry for the teacher who has work with this bunch of 40 kids with such a range of abilities. And that’s just in one subject. More recently, I was reminded by this article in TODAY about how that’s just one of many things the teacher needs to worry about. Following that article about the system’s expectations of teachers, there were these two letters , one suggesting that teachers should be appraised by students! I really don’t know about this. Imagine the 40 kids rating their teacher. Even if they were 10 years older and more mature, I’m not sure if their ratings should be used. Everyone just expects such different things from school and teachers. If you g

It is confirmed! We are at the stage where the son eats more than the mother. And the mother is not even on diet or anything. I cannot believe that an eight-year-old's stomach has greater capacity than mine. How does all that food fit into his slim frame? I am reminded of a recent conversation I had with one of our neighbours. She told me that feeding her 3 teenage children was a challenge. Apparently, the teenagers are eating all the time, so she is considering investing in a couple more fridges. Anyway, everyone has always been amused at how the boy mirrors his father's eating prowess. But his father thinks he is like me... ha ha... my secret eating powers...

A rather belated post about last week. Meet the Parents is one thing; what you do with the rest of the day, since there are no lessons and you probably took time off for the event, is another. Guess where went? Somewhere near where you will see this sign: And step on a drain covers that say EPB: The boy’s choice – parent-child field trip to Asian Civilisations Museum . This cute banner has probably been taken down, since the week-long International Museum Day activities are all over. So he got to see what he wanted: Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic artefacts. He’s quite into religions these days, and ACM is the best place, I think, to see all these at one go. Don’t have pictures of the main galleries, which are rather dark. My photo-taking prowess does not extend very well into dim places. However, beside the South Asian gallery is this much brighter children’s room. They can learn about the important Hindu gods, about the life of the Buddha, about different languages of the Indian subcont

Heh heh... this is not a political post. Just experimenting with the art of using slightly misleading titles. I'm writing today about an article in the weekend edition of the International Herald Tribune . Wah, you might be thinking, suddenly so high-class, ah? From TODAY to IHT. Hee hee... I'm not so high-class, lah. Can't remember the last time I even went near a copy of IHT. It just so happened that this copy landed near me, and I glanced through it, glazing over articles like 'Gas pump geopolitics' by Thomas L. Friedman , which I knew I should read but didn't. Then I saw this: 'For Japanese children, little time to daydream' by Kumiko Makihara (Sorry no link, can't find the IHT archive on their website). Now, this is the kind of article that I will read. Kumiko Makihara writes about her 2nd grade son's packed after-school schedule: Thursday - soccer practice, then abacus class, then homework and piano practice Friday - swimming and abacus

I am looking at the 'At Your Leisure' section of the Classifieds because the boy has finally agreed to go to a kids' bake class (encouraged by me, sis-in-law, male cousin, female cousin). But only baking chocolate things, he said. Well, there isn't anything in today's that would be suitable. And I'd say that some of the courses in 'At Your Leisure' are surely not suitable for anyone's leisure. It says: Most of us are so caught up in the rat race that making time for leisure pursuits is increasingly difficult. However, a little time out really helps us recharge. Here are some courses that will give you a little 'time out' from the rat race and help you recharge : J A centre for 'inspiring confidence' in your children ( 4 -14 years old) Courses available: Total Brain Development Training, Mental Arithmetic Ya, sure, 4-year-olds need total brain development training and mental arithmetic!! J The Education Doctor Courses available: G

The husband left this evening for a short overseas trip. It is certainly not the first time he is travelling without us, but the boy started bawling his eyes out after we said bye to him at the lift. I asked him why he was crying and he said that he was sad to see him go off and that he would miss him... wah... wah... and he wouldn't be able to see him for the rest of the week... wah wah... He was comforted somewhat only when I reminded him that the week was almost over anyway, and there weren't too many days to count before he would be back. And then he remembered it was dinner time... Aiyoh, I've always known that he was a sensitive little soul but this deluge of tears caught me quite unprepared. And then I realised that this was the first time he was actually seeing him leave. Most other times, he leaves in the wee hours of the morning or late at night. Well, he must be doing something right as a dad, musn't he?

The son's first ever exams will be upon him starting tomorrow. Apart from the 4 days of PSLE marking, we also had the weekend and, because, of all things, the poor boy had a >38 degree fever for about 2 days, we had today as another 'revision day'. Maybe I shouldn't say 'poor boy'. He was not the least bit bothered about the fever or the exams. He would much rather be doing this: (drawing aeroplanes) or this: (listening to my Dick Lee CD!) Even watching birds hopping in the drizzle was better than this: Too bad, boy, you have those exams coming up...

4 PSLE marking days starting tomorrow. Poor primary school teachers. First, they have to mark hordes of PSLE scripts, then they get back to school to mark their internal exam papers. That means the boy will be home all day the next four days. He is mightily pleased about not having to go to school for 4 days and does not appear to feel one bit of 'exam stress' although I have reminded him several times that he will be doing 'exam practice' over these four days. His school is on the SEED (Strategies for Effective and Engaging Development) programme for P1 and if you just look at the pictures here (from another school) you will see why the children might still be living in the playground in their mind (or a real one, if they get their way) although the exams are round the corner. One parent I met recently commented that their classroom looks like a kindergarten classroom. I have no quarrel with that, actually, as I don't see anything wrong with making the classroom l