K attended a scheduled Parent-Teacher Meeting this morning together with Alison. He met her class teacher as well as her Mother Tongue teacher.
Both had mostly good things to say about the Allycat. Her English is excellent, her Maths is good and her Chinese, well, her reading and writing are good but her speaking, not so much. When the Chinese teacher found out that we never speak Chinese at home, a light bulb came on and he told K he now understands why Alison is so reticent about speaking up during Mother Tongue class. However, she is otherwise “very communicative”. “You mean she’s talkative,” K said to the form teacher, which earned a chuckle and assent.
The form teacher also told Alison that she really enjoys reading her English compositions, and that she found Alison’s habit of whipping out a book to read as soon as she finished her work a very good one. However, because Ally wants to get to her book as soon as she can, she tends to rush through her work – which results in mistakes, of course. We see this at home too, with her homework and Kumon worksheets.
I love how politically correct this progress report is. EE stands for "exceeding expectations", ME for "meeting expectations" and AE for "approaching expectations".
Then the issue of making Alison a prefect was raised. Alison’s teacher told her, “I wanted to make you a prefect this year but I think you’re not ready. You keep forgetting to bring things to school!” K explained that this was because she had us and Emily to pack her bag for her last year, which reduced the incidence of forgetting things, but this year we have been making her pack her own bag to instill personal responsibility in her. So inevitably there are days when she goes to school without a textbook, or a workbook, or some other item that she is supposed to bring for class. When her form teacher heard K’s explanation, she said it’s a good practice to make Alison responsible for her own stuff, but she won’t put her up as a nominee for prefect until she sees that Alison can make improvements in this area.
So, the gauntlet is thrown. Will Alison get to be a prefect as she has been hoping since last year? Stay tuned.
In other news, Alison walked to the shops to buy something for the very first time last weekend. We’ve been rather reluctant to let her because heaven knows our neighbourhood has some weird stuff going on (in the night, at least) and she’s still rather young to be traipsing around by herself, but she looked at us with pleading eyes and so we said, fine, you can try just the one time. She went with four dollars in her hand and returned safely with a carton of soya bean milk, pleased as punch at having the chance to play the grown-up.
Alison's deep tan is throwing off my camera's auto colour balance.
Of course, after that, K started making her do things like fetch him a drink – after all, when you’re grown-up you do the shitty stuff along with the good stuff, right? But I don’t know if we’ll let her repeat this exercise. She knows about stranger danger, but as my mum pointed out, she has to walk past a few doors on the way to the shops and there really is no telling what could happen even if she takes precautions to stay safe. A friend reminded me today to teach her about safe touch – I must find an opportunity to talk to her about that too.
March 10th,2010
Kids | tags:
parenting,
school |
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Or should I say, micro-preemie steps. I wanted to go for a run yesterday night, but K was exhausted and decided that he was going to bed at 10pm. He decreed that it was “not safe” for me to go running alone – not sure whether he was worried I would collapse after 100 metres or about unsavoury characters in the neighbourhood – so I ended up sitting in front of Glee and stitching until midnight after reading up about how to get started on a running routine for fitness.
This morning, he informs me that we will start tonight, but that I will “walk 1 minute, run 1 minute” and do seven repetitions of that.
“So only 14 minutes?”
“Hello!!! You are a try-athlete at this point.”
Excuuuuuuse me. It’s not like I have never run in my life – at one point I was running the 100m, 200m, 400m and their relays in school ya know. And I’ve been going for lunchtime exercise classes at work, so I definitely can make it through at least one hour of a moderate to high intensity work out. It’s just that I am currently rather – ok, very – unfit compared to my pre-K and pre-baby state, and need to start slow where running is concerned. But since K is definitely more athletic than me and reads up a lot on sports performance because he wants to beat his 40-year old booty into submission, I guess I shall listen to him and run/walk for 14 minutes tonight.
I think I will have roti prata for lunch as a reward for even thinking about this.
I attended the filming commencement ceremony for “Ge Ai” this morning. To quote from my media Q&A, the film revolves around a 40-year-old mother of two’s struggle with breast cancer. It portrays the challenges she faces as a result of her diagnosis, and how she goes through them with dignity and courage, inspiring those around her.
Zoe Tay plays the lead, and Hong Kong actor Kenny Ho plays her husband (I had to Google him although he certainly expected everyone to know who he was when he showed up). Anyway, their kids are played by Edwin Goh from “Fighting Spiders” and Regene Lim from Kelvin Tong’s new movie “Kidnappers”. Model/actress Christy Yow has a supporting role as a model at the peak of her career.
OK, I’ll turn the PR-speak off now.
Offerings to the gods for a successful movie.
This was my first time seeing such a blessing ceremony. I’d always thought that it was carried out on location on the first day of filming itself, but Clover Films MD Lim Teck told me that it’s evolved over the years as a stand-alone event because the actors need to stay focused on their roles when filming starts in earnest. So what they do now is they carry out the ceremony, film a token scene, and then actual filming might start only a few weeks later.
The pig chilling out before the ceremony.
I can’t find a description of the ceremony online, but basically what they do is they offer joss sticks and prayers for a smooth production process and a successful release, and then there is some pouring of water?wine? and then the breaking of a brown kidney-shaped thing on the floor. If you can enlighten me on the specific steps and the significance for each, please do!
The cast and crew pray for blessings as a dozen photographers and cameramen jostle to get a good shot.
After that, the suckling pig is chopped up while auspicious phrases such as “shun shun li li” are chanted, and the meat is served as part of lunch.
Welcome to the working world, pig.
This is the last significant happening before I leave my job after two and a half years at the Health Promotion Board. I’ll be leaving at the end of March. I’ve learned so much, and I’m really grateful to have had the opportunity to be where I am and do what I do. Onward to new pastures and experiences!
March 8th,2010
Work | tags:
Work |
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Bryan had his basic obedience exam today. We were the fifth pair to take the test. He did everything more or less correctly, but got dinged on things like hesitating before he did the automatic sit, and not sitting neatly in front of me on the recall. He also got distracted during the down-stay test and lost marks there. He really could have scored a lot higher than he did. He’s shown that he can do everything perfectly; it’s a question of whether he wants to. Here are some photos that K took of him and me during the exam.
On-leash heeling.
Waiting for the next set of instructions.
Off-leash recall.
We passed with 172 points out of 200!
I’m toying with the idea of moving up to intermediate class after this, but we have a lot on our plate for the upcoming months so I don’t know whether we’ll be able to fit it in and have the time to train him to the level required by Patrick. I guess we’ll see.
Bryan was supposed to be in a sit-stay so I could photograph him against the backdrop of the buildings, but he disobeyed. Oh well. This shot of him bounding towards me is nicer anyway.
Most dogs in Singapore are apartment dogs and only get to enjoy a romp in the park occasionally. Luckily for Bryan, we have a park right next to our house and he gets to visit it pretty often. I took him this morning after going through his obedience routine. He’s always super hyped-up when we walk up the hill, and sometimes forgets his manners, like when I took this photo of him.
His basic obedience exam is tomorrow. He will be tested for heeling on- and off-leash, automatic sit, stand for examination, sit-stay, down-stay and recall. Of these, his biggest problem is stand-for-examination, which Patrick says is quite common. He will stand as long as we tickle his belly but the minute we stop touching him, his bum hits the ground. This also happens when he doesn’t feel like obeying, or is very tired. He really does have a lead-butt. He did well for the assessment last week, even for stand-for-examination, so hopefully he will keep it up for the real thing
