Little bit of tweak on the school run

Routine has changed, yet again. I'm a routine kind of person, don't quite like changes just like others in general. But I always stress to myself that we all must learn to embrace and adapt changes. Changes in life is constant, don't we all hear that so very often?

The change is quite minimal actually, but substantial to me, as my life is just revolves around the kids and the family as of now. Instead of having them having their lunch at the school canteen while waiting for me to come over and pick them up, I am going to go over half an hour earlier before dismissal to wait for them. Everyday. But only each week in 3 weeks. The other two weeks would be some other moms who stay in the same vicinity as us.

Yeah, finally carpooling. I was asked to join them in this setup as the 3rd person had withdrawn her kid. They need 5 kids in total to be able to get a fixed spot in the school compound to park our car there. Otherwise, those cars would be queuing all the way along the road come dismissal time.

Didi would be coming home for lunch, while I would be packing lunch for meimei when the driver on duty goes to school. So, imagine the change for me. From not having to worry about lunch for us, I now have to try and cook (if possible) for lunch as well. So, it will either be simple (like sandwich, burger, spaghetti, fried rice, fried meehoon, porridge) or leftover from the previous day, or just plain tapao after my gym workouts. I gather not much time to lepak with friends anymore.

Well, I'm still new to this setup and hope this works fine for me too.

The first day of school

It had been so hectic since school reopened. My work didn't end until late night. Of course, that also included some snooping around on the internet before calling it a day. Well, it's a habit that is hard to kick off already.

But I think everything going to be settled down pretty soon. I'm just so proud to see korkor in his smart all-white uniform going on to secondary. And this young chap is growing really tall. I mean, really really tall. If you haven't seen him for the past 3 months, I think you would be surprised to see his new height now.

The eve before first day of school, I couldn't sleep! By 4am I woke up and tossed and turned in my bed, urging myself to go back to sleep. But as I very know myself, I dozed back to lalaland and right at that moment, the alarm rang. I almost jumped out of bed, I had to admit I was very much excited myself.

We left the house right on time as planned, and missed the traffic chaos, but pity the kids to be in the school at such an ungodly hour when the sky was still dark. Then again, many others were so much earlier than us anyway.

After that I went home and had a relaxing time back to my coffee and papers in the crisp fresh morning air. Ahh.. bliss. I do miss that. The next few hours were spent on marketing and groceries, which filled up the big trolley to the brim! Holy cow, this is what happens when the marketing is not done on a regular basis. When I got home, I had to make 2 trips to transfer the stuffs over back home. Even with a little small trolley! Whew~

It felt good the stock was piled again, it just didn't feel right to have a home missing with lots of essential stuffs and food. It took some lengthy time to clear and sorted out the few big bags.Lots of hard work in there!

By that time, it was almost time to get back to school again. Admittedly, I was looking forward to see them and when I did, I was greeted with smiling faces and happy chatters. Felt so happy to see them so happy with their new class, new teacher and new friends.

After they were home and washed up, I took them to a neighbor for a time being while I hurriedly rush over to korkor's new school, an hour earlier than his closing school hour. Or maybe around 40 mins before. There were already many cars waiting there and being located at an inconvenient main road, I was lucky to see a slot and park my car illegally, just like many others.

Then, I hunt for a transporter to be able to ferry him home from the next day on and it wasn't too difficult. It certainly costs more to hire someone to ferry him home for me, but guess this cost is unavoidable. It's just too taxing to be their chauffeur in and out of school everyday like this.

After dinner and TV time a bit, I made sure they go to bed before 9pm and then scooted off to finish all my other household duties. That's why I was saying, my work didn't seem to end!

And going back to the gym now, it's KILLING me! Oh the pain!

School year end concert 2012

Meimei was involved in the school year end concert yet again. Last year, it was the first time both korkor and meimei were involved in some way or other and I had no choice but to drag didi along and bought 2 tickets for that show.

This year, I rather skip it. As experienced before, it wasn't like very interesting and too long, too draggy. Last year, I had to admit I felt rather bored. And had to shush didi whole night for grumbling that he was dragged into it.

The ticket wasn't cheap either, it was either 50 or 100 bucks each. Though I understand it's all for the sake of the school well being and not into  any teacher's pockets, it was still a big sum of money to many of us. Furthermore, that wasn't the only time the school asks for donations, the requests keep coming from school starts till ends.

I ignored the memo asking for orders of tickets. When the concert came closer, apparently the principal was furious that the sales of the tickets wasn't doing very well and even demanded the higher primary students to buy one from each family. Response from pri6 was the worst of all. And meimei's class teacher also persuaded meimei to persuade me to watch her performance. Oh well...

Since my mom was here to watch over the boys, I finally relented and went to watch it. And whaddaya know, it was superb actually. It was short and sweet, not as long and draggy as last year's, I suppose the school received that "wind" somehow. But that hurts the tickets sales in consequence too. Who would want to come on a TGIF night to watch some other children performing, right? Not you, uh uh.

The children gave a brilliant show, each and everyone of them, and the shows consists of a good variety of music, singing, dancing, fighting .... I actually enjoyed myself. And I think it gives a good opportunity for the children to experience it all and celebrating a wonderful year of hard work and learning. I was almost at the verge of tears! Yes, next year, I think I'm going to show my support and watch the concert again.

The night ended surprisingly soon, and we still had the rest of the weekend for ourselves, which was good.

What we did for Merdeka Day.

On the eve of Merdeka's eve, the kiddos came home from school and told me that they need to bring a Malaysia flag to school the next day. *mouth agape*

Where on earth to find 3 flags for them at the last hour?

That evening, as I was out running around for them as usual, I searched for those little mini flags and woohoo, I did find them! But whaddaya know, it costs RM2.50 each! No way I was gonna pay 7.50 just so for a little show?!

I came home empty handed and told them, they ought to make their own flags, half expecting them to give up as well, and I thought it's only an option.

I didn't care if they cared, so all of us were not doing anything about the flags until near bedtime when didi suddenly said "oh yeah, mommy, we should be coloring our flags now!". Niasing! NEED MEH???? I wanted to tell them to forget it, and go to sleep already and that they won't be penalized for not holding a flag but they were already starting to draw it up on paper. Oh well..

I helped them to draw the 14 pointy star. It looked devastating but the kids just made me so thrilled with their exclamations of "WOW! MOMMY! YOUR STAR IS SOOOO PRETTIIIIEEEEE...." *giggles with delight* At that time, I found myself enjoying the time drawing up the Malaysia flag with them indeed.

Then, I took out the water color (which is seldom used, if any at all) and helped them to color them all. If they were to use color pencils or crayons, as I suggested way earlier, they would only be off to bed at midnight! And then, again... "WAHHH!!! HOE LEANG AH, MOMMIIIIIEEEEE" *more giggles* (Yes, it looked dem fugly to me alright!)

Didi wanted to have a go at the coloring himself, and reluctantly I let him. Actually I don't mind him being responsible for his own work, but knowing him, he would be upset if it's not perfect and might even want to redo it from scratch and that would take another few hours to complete which would be way past his bedtime and I would be having a tough time getting him ready for school the next day.

Anyway, he was very careful with the coloring part, but as I feared, he messed it up a bit and as expected, he went pouty face and wouldn't want to continue with his imperfect piece of art anymore.

I told him I would fix it up for him. I took the flag downstairs, whipped up something from my bag and ta-da! the red spot on the white stripe was gone magically! He was happy about it and it was a "Mommy just do wonders!" moment. I indeed feel thrilled to be the problem solver for them at desperate times like these! I'm the Supermom! whee~~~

After coloring done, I helped them to glue a pair of those wooden disposable chopsticks at the side nicely and the kids were truly happy. Didi wanted another blank piece of paper glued to the back of the flag, hiding the chopsticks well. You see, he's indeed a person of perfection.

It was nearly 10.30 when I hurriedly finish up the task for them and shoo-ed them to bed as soon as possible. They went to bed happy and it was a magical time flags making time indeed..

The next day, I wanted to see how it go with their flags and all. Meimei actually said that those kids who waved their bought-over cloth flags were much nicer. I disagreed with her and told her, no, hers is way much nicer, as she had done it herself, with her own both hands.

As for didi, a boy told him cannot use paper flags which upset him. But I told him not to worry, it was just as good as any other and to trust me, his flag was the nicest flag among them all.

Korkor? Uhm... he didn't care much if the flag was good enough or not, or if he even has any flag at all! He's  a tween after all!

But that day after school, I could still see them holding and waving their own flags while loitering around the school compound. *grin*

Hari Sukan

When I was young, I loved sports day. 

As far as I remember, sports day during primary was held at the tiny field in our school's frontyard with some telematch games only. The group I always belonged to, never won anything before, so it was very sad.

But when we reach secondary school, sports day was a different affair altogether.

We will walk from our school all the way to YMCA field each week for training session. Each house members have their own specified day for training. I belonged to the red house.

Walking all the way there was already an exercise by itself. I used to loathe the walk, coz it was hot and the distance was so far. But come to think of it, it was also fun in a way, as we would walk in a group and hell,  did we have fun. 

The 2 hours training in the field consisted of sprint run, up and down a slope, 400m run, long jump, high jump, javelin, discus and shot putt. Wahseh, do we still have these now? It sounds like we were in some military training! But again, looking back, it was really good exercise. If it were not for these weekly trainings, I wouldn't have been able to try my hand on these athletic games.

Near to the actual sports day, everyone in the house were encouraged to participate in the events, as we would score points for the house and all these would accumulate up to the total score. I usually was able to contribute about 3-4 points in 400m run, javelin, and high jump. I always loved javelin and high jump more as the rest seemed to have too many rules and I was more aware of not breaking the rules than to perform good in them.

The actual sports day would be held in a stadium and those not participating in the events would be called to join in the cheer for our respective houses. Every year, we just enjoyed ourselves yelling our lungs out with the chant "GO RED GO!".... Those were the good old days. I wonder how sports day is run these days in my old alma mater.

This year, we attended the kids' school's sports day for the first time. For the past few years, they were not selected into any events as participants so they had an option to attend. For some lame excuses, we always choose to let it slip. 

But this year, lo and behold, all 3 of them were involved in some ways or other.

Meimei was qualified to run in a relay. Her gym school team was also asked to perform before the events start as well. Hubs also itchy butts went to put his name down for the parent-child's events for both didi and meimei. Korkor was asked to help out as kuli, to move things around the field. And I was tasked to take pictures of them. 

The day was burning hot! I would have preferred staying home in bed anytime!

We were also forced to go into the field and do the silly 1Malaysia 1Sukan aerobics exercise. Yikes! It wasn't fun at all under the hot sun, ok!

Meimei in her event on the pic above. It was so far away because I was busy fanning myself under the shade far away from where the action was.

Didi and papa in their "terompah gergasi" match. it was also a relay so 2 pairs of parent and child were in 1 team. They didn't win because hubs claimed that the pair who partnered with them were slow! *roll eyes*

Around 11am when we confirmed that they didn't win anything from those 3 matches, we decided to head home and have our cold shower. It was sooo comfortable back home in the aircon room, man!

Being careless is a big sin

Often I hear moms telling me that their kids are SOOoOO careless in their test papers that had they checked their answers before passing them up, they would have scored high marks.

And what do I have to say to that? "ohh......" *roll eyes 1 full round and another* Of course I rolled eyes at the back of my head.

Isn't that, to use my kids words, lame!

Why are mothers so concerned about getting high marks all the freaking time. Why does carelessness get to them so much? Weren't we all making careless mistakes all our lives? Is it because they don't want the kids to end up like them?

To me, I think exams is the test of skills, knowledge and their attitude itself.

The other day, the tutor for my kids summoned me to her and told me that didi told her mommy taught him not to write the numbers down when doing arrangement of words. She said that is not correct, and see, if he had not missed out on some words in his recent chinese test paper, he would have gotten more marks. What a waste, she said. And ended her lecture with a big sigh.

Aiyo, I myself am not so concerned, why la she's making such a big fuss over the few loss of marks. Then again, it's all good for me as it shows she's concerned about them performing in their tests and not just doing her job day in day out.

The thing is, they need to learn from their mistakes and how they TRY not to repeat them. And if they do not know how to solve a problem, they should be learning how to do it. THAT is my main concern. NOT over some couple of marks.

That said, I still look over their papers and pointed to their silly mistakes, a bit of admonishments and a meaningless advice "don't be so careless again, ok?" and off they go and play. But I won't go round and tell everyone "oh, they actually can score full marks, but oh so careless...." Chill....

How the kids fared in school for the year.

It's the year end, and the dreaded school holidays soon. It's also when the report book would be sent back for the year's review on the kids' performance in the school. Can you hear my heart bok-bok-bok gum tiew? Surely not! As I'm cool, ok! (so fake!)

Well, I'm glad to announce, korkor finally made it to the top 2 classes next year, the esteemed, "jing ying pan", or loosely translated as "smarty pants class". Actually he could make it for this year too, but the principal reduced the number of these classes from 2 to 1. In 2012, he could only make it so, just because the principal flipped it back to 2 classes again. ha! So, it wasn't that a feat to shout about!

Anyway, I'm proud of my boy. Tracking on his progress from pri 1, he did make a remarkable improvement over the years indeed. And that is what I want him to experience... the joy of success! From his own hardwork and determination. But I could tell he's lacking again. I told him, I'm gonna be pushing him more next year, for him to see his own potential. This guy, needs to be pushed. And hearsay, the UPSR results is detrimental for some schools' entry requirements. Not that I care a lot about it, but then again, more choices is better than having less, no?

For the other 2, both of them have made an improvement from the first half of the year as well. They could have done better, but well, there are still many more years for them to do so. I feel a bit sorry for meimei though, almost all her friends are "upgraded" to smartass classes, and she would have to make new friends again. Then again, I'm not worried about that, as I'm sure that's her core! No fret about making friends for this little chatterbox! Her academic part, well, we shall have to work more on that next year!

Didi could have done much better though, his BM improved lots and I thought this time, no-die-ler! But unfortunately, his Chinese and Moral papers pulled his total marks far down, which was a surprise to me for the former (not the latter) had really been one of his strengths from the time he starts school. It was also because I wanted to "test water" and see how he would perform with a reduced tutoring lesson to once a week this year. Guess I couldn't afford that to happen. A price to pay, but well, that's ok, now that I know.

And that's the wrap up for the year. But the best thing of all? meimei learned a lot on rhythmic gymnastics and could toss and tumble around effortlessly. It's a joy to see her doing all those acrobatic stunts! And korkor was one of his class teacher's favorites and get to picked for all the experience in participating in all kinds of non-academic school activities. As for didi, he made THREE good buddies! Wow! Aren't all THAT enough to warrant a celebration right now?

Not another one!

No la, not talking about THAT, if you are thinking about THAT!

The school's 1 week break was just over and guess what? I received another memo from school today announcing next week's 4 days' off for Pri 1, 2 and 3 for the upcoming UPSR exams for those Pri 6.

Then friday is Malaysia Day, which is a public holiday. And Monday is their school's special allocated special holiday. So that makes it 10 days front to back! Oh.My.God! *faint*

I would have loved to take the kids back to Ipoh or go somewhere for a holiday, if it hadn't been korkor who still needs to go to school for those 4 days. Guess who's sulking the most? *big grin*

Well, probably the long weekend, we might just be going balik kampung. Somehow, I missed my kampung. Seems like a long time since we last went back indeed.

Homework is not my job.

I really do get irritated when I hear about parents being too concerned over their kids' schoolwork, ting seah, spelling, ejaan and test results. To me, children should learn their responsibilities as students , to themselves and to their parents.

Homework? Is it more important to check if they had finished off all their homework and correctly as well, than to have them be alert in class and listen to what they need to do when they are back home and finish off that task BY THEMSELVES.

To me, homework is to teach them that it is their job. Their work. Not mommy's work or tutor's job to make sure they are up to it. Doing their homework by themselves teach about responsibilities.

Well, some parents think that it's very frustrating to get calls from teachers who complains their kids not finishing their homework. And perhaps very embarrassing? And that's the reason those parents prefer not to let them learn to take responsibility? Really? Which is of more concern, really?

The kids would just continue to rely on parents or tutors to ensure they do their work, and would hardly learn to do it themselves, I do believe.

So what if teachers come and complain? As a parent, that's when I punish really really hard if I hear or learn from their teachers that homework is not done. Still not doing it? Use other tactics. Hit where it hurts most. Reward them when they do well. And they WILL learn. Eventually. And that's the whole point of homework.

Do you check the homework after they claimed they finished it off? Noooooo... DON'T!

Let them do their own corrections if it's wrong. Let them know they have double work if they finish off their homework half-heartedly. Punish them even harder if they lied or forgot there was another page to do. Had to make them learn whole. Not halfway. Have to keep repeating the same exercise if they lax again. Hard work pays off, I assure you. And the sweetness WILL follow after the bitter is done with.

How about ting-seah, ejaan, spelling and other short tests in class? Need to prepare them to make sure they get 100 marks not? Is that really so necessary? Will they get smarter if their marks are all fullhouse? Will they lead a good life and make a good living because of that?

To me, it's also responsibility. You don't do your own study, you don't get good marks la. You want to feel proud of yourself, then just do your own revision la.

I have meimei's English teacher asking me, during the parent-teacher's meeting at half year, to make sure she learns her spellings every week. Tell you, till now, I didn't bother. OK, so in her recent test, she couldn't score in that question to write out the 4 shapes drawn out there, so? She scored in other parts. Oh yes, it was a pity, but does not being able to spell rectangle, triangle, square and circle would make her find a job lesser than what a teacher gets paid?

It does not impress me that your child can write A to Z when he's 3, that your child has 100% in ALL ting-seah at 4, or that your child is the top student in the whole grade either for every year. It does not impress me when they can't even do their own homework by themselves, do any research on projects given, study at their own will without any prompting or tuitions and having absolutely no idea what to do when the parents are not around to tell them what to do.

And worse still, they do not know how to laugh and enjoy themselves. Pathetic. Such childhood robbed!

The other day, I have a meimei's classmate's mother ranting to me how poorly her child performed in the 2nd test compared to the first. Aiyoh!! She is sooooo worried that her BM Penulisan had dropped to 70+! (And I was thinking, oh dear, meimei got 69 only wor, why I wasn't that bothered huh? Something wrong with me ah?)

Come on la, primary 1 only nia. Need to drill them to know everything not? So early jiao so pressure, waffor? Heiz... I have nothing to say liao.

Having said all that, this is not to say I'm not taking their studies seriously. Yes, they should strive to get good marks. Help them if and when they have problems. Like, if they are struggling with a subject or do not understand what the word or phrase of topic means, assist them. But assistance shouldn't be forming a highway without any obstacles for them to clear while providing a magic carpet to reach the endpoint. It's the journey, not the destination (which is really quite a cliche, I admit)

I'm so going to piss off many parents from this essay of mine!

Attending an orchestra performance

Sometime in this month, I went for an orchestra performance by the kids' school band together with a few other school bands. It was also graced by some other teams specially flown in from Taiwan to perform.

I took the kids along for them to experience it. When the show began, they were excited for awhile but very soon after, too soon in fact, they grew bored seeing there wasn't much to see, only music to hear. The songs weren't the current hits that they are so used to as well, hence.... *yawn* "mommy, can I play with your iPod touch?"

To tell the truth, I wasn't particularly interested as well, but trying to concentrate and appreciate the wholesome feeling of a full orchestra in progress. But guess it wasn't working very well. Tried to do some narration to the kids but dang! I couldn't find the word of that person standing in front, with his back to us and waving both his hands with a stick. I sms-ed my friends and asked what that person is called, and got the reply "conductor". Heck! I knew that! Really! The stick is called a baton, which I thought was only used in a relay run. I told the kids what I got to know then, and that's about it! I do not know what his actions mean and I do not know the different musical instrument names. How pathetic is that!

However, there was some hope yet! Somehow, I was smitten by a piece played from one band and I do not know why, I teared. Where it come from, I felt touched by the piece and felt emotional. Freaky!

Anyway, I met a couple I know later and they suggested that the 2 big projector screens should be showing live vid of the people on the stage, to make it more interesting. I have a feeling they were bored to the skin like me as well and why, that was what I thought too! Guess the organizer has a lot of room for improvement!

1sukan, 1murid, 1something..

Just recently, the ministry came up with an idea to strengthen the 1Country spirit. I am not too sure of the whole mission and purpose, but all students primary 4 and above need to go to their schools on the same day to dash a 2km run. Parents and teachers were also invited to join in the open category and we were asked to register a few days earlier by a memo given out from the kids' school.

We didn't register ourselves but closer to that date, hub said he wanna join and intend to take the whole family along for the fun run. I made an effort to go up the office to ask the curriculum head if we can still join, saying we were going to turn up in full force in supportive of the whole idea.

See see, hub was sleepy and couldn't get up on that early morning. Ended up, I took korkor to his school and we both run. Separately, of course. The younger ones went first, separated by gender, and lastly followed by the parents, also separated by gender. When korkor's class teacher saw me, she asked "eh? mana young kids?". I said still sleeping, malu aje.

I was still thinking to run or not to run by the last minute, and ended up running. Pathetically, I didn't make it to the top 10, even though there weren't many parents joining in. Well, some are pro runners, all dressed up in proper running attire, how to fight la, haimoe? I knew I should have brought my powered up super boots for that event!

The run was quite nice in actual fact, being on the feet rather than in the car on the route we normally take to school. The view, the road, the experience are all so different. The sun wasn't up shining on us yet, and it was a kinda cool morning. The run ended soon and we were seated back in the hall watching some local chinese movie on the big projector screen. I was bored and hungry so I went out to the canteen to take some breakfast.

Later, I heard some applause coming from the hall and guessed it was award presentation time. Since moe-ngor-fun, I took my own sweet time going back to the hall and eventually, took my son home before the stipulated time of 11am.

Teaching BM to meimei

It's a frustrating time teaching BM!

Meimei is making me go CRAZZZZEEEEE!!!!

For 2 days in a row, we had been going through some words in her text book and then on the 3rd day, she still shrug her shoulders when I asked what those words mean again.

Which reminds me, that's her "short memory life" when she was a toddler and will treat anyone else as stranger after a night's sleep, even though she had played and bonded with that person the day before.

Now, it's NOT funny anymore!

I was really running out of steam and ideas. There, the other 2 were happily monkeying around as I had my hands full with her alone.

Then I asked didi to come and take over from me.

It was a funny sight for a moment to loosen me up.

The lesson was on kata hubung, and there were only 4 words to learn up! FOUR only, mind you!

Didi told her the meaning of those words and then he tested her. He was running out of steam as well.

In the car, I gave the task to the boys to make her learn those 4 words. In fact, it's not even 4. One of them is "dan" and she knew that one way long time ago. The rest are "kerana", "tetapi" and "sambil". We can't even go beyond that 3 new words!

SO, in the car, didi told her to say out sambil-while for 1o times. She rattled on endlessly and then I asked her to move to the next one "kerana-because". And off she went again.

Halfway, I asked "What is sambil?"

She went, "dunno"

Both the boys gave a loud SIGH.......

haha! that totally cracked me up!

See lah! I'm so marah already that it became a joke! But the boys were also frustrated with me.

Dem! What's so difficult about learning only THREE miserable little words?? TELL ME!!

Best workable method so far

I used to get him write the malay words he doesn't know in a book, his very own self made kamus, so to speak, and read them every now and then.

It worked fine for awhile but as the pages became more and the list became a mile long, he grown impatient and refused to study the words anymore.

I was pulling my hair out on how to improve his vocab, until one sudden early morning as I woke up... *ding* a lightbulb magically appeared above my head. *ding ding*

It's actually not a very noble idea, but back to basics, using flash cards, just like how little toddlers learn from a young age. I used pieces of colored paper (to make life's more colorful) as flash cards.

While sitting down with him, going through his chapters in his text book, any words he doesn't know, I would write it down FOR HIM and write the meaning at its back in English. In a way, his vocab in English also improves, together with his spelling of the word (I hope).

Then, I would also derive some other words with that word using a few "imbuhan" I know and explain what those words mean.


So, everytime I would "flash" the words, like playing a game, testing him what it means. If the words he's able to tell the meaning for 2 or 3 times straight, I put that "card" aside and thus, the pile would not become a mountain, and he only needs to focus on the words he doesn't know. Those "known" words will be tested once in awhile, to make sure it isn't "erased" from his memory.



Well, this is so far, the best workable method I find so far. He's learning the new words like a game and soon, we are going to use those words he know into "practice", like joining them up to write an essay, perhaps? Well, not so advanced yet, but at least I can use them to ask him make sentences or jumble them up to get him arrange the words to make it into a proper sentence. Ain't I smart leh??? Don't just nod there! Say some encouraging words, dammit! *parang in hand*

But this method can't be applied to teach meimei, as the problem is... she doesn't know how to read English well yet. So I had to resort to some other technique to teach her. And that is another post altogether.

First term test results

And so that's a week passed since school starts. The dreaded time comes, those marked test papers. As expected, the boys didn't perform excellanteh in it, but no red marks so far, thank God.

Korkor's karangan came back surprisingly with rather good marks, over 70! I read his piece of work titled "Aku sebuah kereta" and deduced this malay teacher has been very "generous". LOL! His contents of all his autobiographies are ALLL the same! Anyway, not that I'm complaining.

Didi's first test paper came back marginally passed! That's very good, considering he only done 3 out of 5 pages of that paper! I ran through with him on those blanks, apparently, he does know the answers to them! What an absolute waste! I acted out dramatically how he must have been like when doing that first piece of test paper for the year, how he must have either been daydreaming, or fussing about his mechanical pencil, or staring blankly on the first page, or ogling at the girl sexy butts with a short pinafore seated in front of him.

Anyway, all in all, I'm not sweating over their poor performance. Told them it's the coming one in May I would be more interested in, as I want to see improvement rather than anything else. And we shall be pushing the gear into fast gear to see to it. And that's what I had been busy about in this week.

Looking forward to a relaxing weekend for the hardwork we had all put in.

Chosen lucky one.

After the 2nd time attending gym class in school, the instructor asked me if I would like to allow meimei to join the school team. Of course, I was elated! Well, for one good reason, it's FREE! And well, for another, she loves those time spent in the gym room! And to me, I always feel it's an honor to be selected in the school team, something I never get to do when I was a girl.

She spends another day of the week for 2 hours practising her stunts with 9 other girls of similar age and that means, I have another longer day off! Still ain't sure what the boys gonna do, but they are begging me to let them stay in the library to wait for their little sister. I am not too sure about that, but I ain't not likey making 2 trips to the school under the hot sun to fetch them to and fro.

I took a peek at her first practice and found out, it's serious practices for them, rather than the usual run and goofy around. Meimei has not complained a bit though, shows how much she loves it. I read the letter which I needed to sign and return back and only figured it's not play play, eh. Really need commitment to attend their practice lessons and no excuses are allowed to skip them. And without any good reasons, she's also not allowed to pull out from the team. Aiks! I hadn't thought of that before, but I believe, that shouldn't pose any problem to us, should it?

Just last week, she came home and told me excitedly that she learned cartwheel that day! How cool! Of course she can't do it yet, but I am so looking forward to the day she conquers it. I always think it's so so cool to do cartwheels, it never fails to make my eyes open wide and jaws wide seeing those little girls in her school cartwheeling around.

Meimei is so lucky! I'm jealous! *smile*

Coming 1st test of the year.

I do silently wish that the school NEVER give any notice on the impending tests so that the kids can be assessed on their learning and coping right there and then. After all, this is the true meaning of assessment, no?

Revision shouldn't even take place a day before tests, as the kids should have been absorbing and digesting the information and knowledge they gain from school every day. Why do they need to revise for?

I'm complaining because I feel this is a punishment to ME instead! I can't relax on the weekend before their test that's going to begin tomorrow and I feel awful guilty taking them out almost ALL day yesterday and even letting them watch movies with us at night, at home! *horror*

Well, I reasoned with myself I ought not feel guilty even slightly, since it's only *ONLY* the first test of the year and I would be able to judge where they are and how much work we need to do to propel to the front line at the end of the year. That would be an even prouder moment for us all as we see their vast improvement later of the year. Yeah, there are, let me count, around 7 more months to catch up on the final exam of the year. Ample time to study laa...

Their favorite subjects in school.

When school started, I learned that the syllabus for the pri 1 students has changed from this year and all the books are different from past year. That meant the books which I had bought for didi, are all non relevant to meimei anymore. What a bummer! I was thinking of saving some money finally by passing some books from one to the other.

Looking at the progress of schooling for meimei, I think she really has it easy. Not that I'm complaining. Whatever it is, I am glad that the BM seems not to be as tough as before. They are learning from the basics, expanding their vocab in everything around them. It does seem more like kindy stuffs, but I'm happy! Really, BM should be taught in a more structured way than before, rather than just expecting the kids to know how to make a sentence or understand a whole paragraph. Or probably I'm just lazy.

Comparatively, (not that I intended to compare), meimei seems to have more affinity to BM and Maths rather than Chinese whilst didi's subjects are Mandarin and Maths. Korkor's favorite subject, no doubt has always been science. He would be the geek.

After school hours' activities.

Ever since school started, the extra co-curriculum has started in the middle of last month as well. As korkor is compulsory to join 2 activities, one a uniformed group and the other a secret society, I had since then registered the other younger 2 in some paid ones as well so I do not need to make 2 trips to and fro to pick them up.

It's not very expensive for those activities, so we had discussed the options and I insisted that they learn something non-academic, as long as it's not class settings. Didi insisted on retaining his badminton classes and managed to be persuaded to join the gymnastics amidst the warnings from his korkor that he would be surrounded by all girls.

As for korkor, he was also kind of "forced" to join the gymnasts and when he learned he was the only guy in the whole 40+ of girls, he freaked out and went off to the scouts' teams on the first day. Served him right, since he always complained about being out under the scorching hot sun last year. He wanted to be in the library, just to enjoy the cool air-conditioning. What can I say! I say, no, he must go out and run around, hot or not hot. So, eventually he succumbed to my persuasion to try the gymnastics. He did on the 2nd day and he came home and told me he felt like being stuck in a girl's toilet! *evil laughter* I retorted that he should be soooo enjoying the privilege! Wait till you are older, I said.

Meimei loves the art classes, since she always begged me to let her join the extra art lessons after school hours last year at the kindy. But that time, it was sooo blardy expensive. Now it's much more affordable and I let her be. After her artwork, she should be scooting off to do some gym poses, it's a good stretching exercise for them young ones, me think.

The first day was chaotic, as expected. The gym teacher was missing and meimei was left roaming around on her own with her other friend.

The 2nd time when I went over to spy if they had settled down yet, I saw her roaming around still in her tees outside the lobby! I quickly took her to find her art class and then, find out where the gym is and settled her in. These poor little 7yos. I bet she's not the only one who's so lost. Her other friend didn't join her olympiad maths class too and went to the wrong gym class. I took her hand and went around to ask where her class should be and showed her around too.

For the boys, no problem. Didi seems to enjoy himself playing badminton and then, running round, doing somersaults, bending, stretching and scooting round with the other girls. Lucky there were 2 other boys with him too, so being with almost an all girls' troupe didn't seem to bother him as much as korkor.

Hope meimei has no problem finding her way around and settled down to their stayback schedule so I would have a longer time of freedom soon.

Message from the teacher.

When I think that things are going on smoothly for myself and the kids, and for didi, so far, this evening I had a shock. I opened up didi's message book and in it, his teacher wrote that one of the classmate's parents want to talk to me. And she asks me for permission to let them have my number. Am I worried, you think?

I interrogate didi what he does with that boy and just like usual, he didn't reveal much except that I get the hints both of them are not exactly the kind of good buddies where the kid's mom wants to befriend me for that whatsoever reason. *big sigh*

I don't know what it is that they want from me but I do not want to sound defensive and nonchalant about it either. So I wrote back to the teacher to ask if she could find out what they want first and let me on a bit before revealing my contact to them. I guess this sort of thing would give me some head-on first, instead of a heart attack or ambush that comes suddenly without any sort of warning at all?

Here I am, imagining some unreasonable, ah-long style parents calling me to ask for settlement to "issues". I don't want this kind of confrontations. But yet again, I am dead curious what the issues are and what they want to talk to me about. Should I just tell the teacher to "bring it on"? Sigh... I hope I can sleep well tonight.

Little Miss Chatterbox.

The other day, meimei came home and told me that her teacher changed her seat. I asked her if she had been naughty and she immediately put on her defense mode and yelled NO! She added convincingly that the same happened to some other children. Well, ok, not that it matters much.

When she brought up this subject again, I asked her if A and B changed seats too and she said no. I wondered why. After much coaxing, she finally admitted sheepishly that she was too chatty till the teacher had to change her seat! But yet, she still made it a point that she's NOT the only one.

Finally when A and B were made to change their seats, she came back and jubilantly reported to me about it. This girl! Sometimes I feel very frustrated with her that she's more sharp-tongued than her brothers and certainly more rebellious too. And now she's also the chatterbox in the class! Hope this won't turn into a big issue, man! I have enough in my hands now.