Project This Weekend

When we 1st moved to PLW more than 2 decades ago, I was quite excited about being close to 'modern'/'urban' amenities like a community club and the cinema at GE. Woah, for the first time, a walk to the cinema would take only 5 minutes! How convenient! :)

In fact, we watched several movies at this cinema, the most memorable ones were those sequels with 刘晓庆 cast as Empress Cixi and that series of documentaries showcasing many many wonders of the world called 今古奇观 - including 天残地缺、天葬、两头人等等.

How very very much I miss those simple, fuss-free family movie outings we had then...............

Another wonderful thing about our new location was the wet market within a stone's throw away. I think M loves this best.

Plus, the market was actually flanked by 2 rows of different shops; there was a cake shop, 2 Chinese medical shops, 3 provision shops (for the size of the area, this was quite excessive, I thought!), a shop which offers pots and pans, a shop specialising in joss-sticks, candles, paper offerings etc for prayers and a barber/hairdresser. I cannot recall what other shops offer, but the overall feel of the place was that it was really such a 'bustle' especially on the Sunday mornings whenever I accompanied M on her marketing trips!

Over the years, there have been many many changes. The cake shop bowed out more than a decade ago - I wasn't surprised by this because they never seemed to innovate at all, and their service had remained the same - the grumpy old lady would not even thank you for patronising her shop. The provision shops were better - one joined the Econ-Minimart network while another became a member of another minimart chain called 普威联营; only the 3rd provision shop remained 'traditional'.

Unfortunately, the boss of the Econ-Minimart passed away rather young and his business ended several years ago. The 普威联营 provision shop (which we call Kim Chee Seng) run by a more elderly family has continued to remain (still there today) at its corner location. The 'traditional' provision shop (at another corner) has already moved out a couple of years ago. The shop space is now occupied by Singapore Pools.

The 'better' of the 2 Chinese medical halls stopped their business rather abruptly when I was still schooling. I always felt it was a pity because their service was really not bad. I used to buy small items from them, like Mopiko. Heard from M that there was some family dispute-driven tussle or disagreement. Sigh. The other medical hall (which I have never patronised before because their goods always seemed dustier, suggesting that no one bought these goods from them) has reduced its operation.

The pots and pans shop has stayed on. The boss and his wife still serve their customers quite cheerfully almost all the time, but they have aged tremendously - the boss' hair has gone completely white now. They had also upped their prices generally ever since they renovated their shop some years back.

The joss-sticks shop also still holds on quite well in its original location. Although the elderly uncle (who forever looks so relaxed!) has a competitor shop (which is run by a rather aggressive chap in his 30's or 40's together with his mother) just a few doors away, I think the elderly uncle's shop is preferred by many aunties, including M.

I could go on a little more about this little cluster of commercial bustle, but I think I won't for the time being. I will leave it to my next post after I embark on my Project This Weekend.



M's daily reminders that she will need to start doing her marketing elsewhere after this Sunday, somehow make me feel this pressing urgency for Project This Weekend.

Listlessness

In recent weeks, I have felt increasingly listless in the office. It's a combination of 'push' as well as 'pull' factors, lah. At times, it gets so bad that I wish I could just throw in the towel and morph into a full-time homemaker straightaway.

But I think the reality is that many many adjustments will need to be made before I can do this. And the major ones would be financial: Flat, Insurance, Enrichments. In many aspects, we will also have to downgrade: transport, household expenses/'little luxuries' (eg aircon, DVDs, new readers for boys etc).

But then, the pros for staying home are aplenty, the best being: Time and Attention for fast-growing boys and fast-aging M and F. Also Time to do something (eg exercise) for myself so as to keep my stress level and physical health in an acceptable state (I am afraid to go prematurely, actually).

Sigh. Dilemma. Dilemma.

And the irony is: I have been receiving calls from headhunters every other fortnight or so recently. It seems that the market is really quite 'hot' out there. But I don't want to jump from one hotpot into another (maybe worse) hotpot.

So how?

What is the reality? Sigh....

Viruses! Bacteria! Fungus! Germs!

Ha! Viruses! Bacteria! Fungus! Germs! Havoc-creators!!

First, they invaded my laptop in the office. And after several exasperating calls to the Helpdesk who kept a brave front and repeatedly 'assured' me that they detected no virus attack on the system etc, my laptop was finally 'cleaned up' with a fresh installation of MS Windows. This took a good 2+ days and plenty of disruption at work.

Hopefully, the bug is now truly gone and doesn't return.

Then, the day after my 'cured' laptop was brought back to me, I went on 4 days of childcare leave (Thursday + Friday, followed by Monday + Tuesday after the weekend). The sudden onset of very high fever (which hovered between 39 degrees and 40+ degrees Celsius) was very shocking, as was its persistence. Luckily, WF was generally quite cooperative in the sponging, showers, medicine-taking and 羚羊water-gulping.

The bill of the GP was $27. That of the paediatrician was $72. WF's missed stay-at-AMK holiday? Priceless. Fortunately, WY was able to proceed with the plan and had tonnes of fun at AMK with CP, WS and WP, what with Kongfu Panda and other exciting outings. In fact, WY got a 'bonus' night-stay at AMK because of WF's fever. WF and I also had to miss the 'Southern Ridges Adventure' which all (except YP) went on Sunday morning.

Last week, we decided to 'make it up' to WF by bringing him to watch Kungfu Panda on our day-off. While R and WF watched the Kungfu Panda, WY and I treated ourselves to another show in the theatre next door. Only thing was, after the show, I couldn't sleep till 2am (and till I had 'talked it out' with R); the show also kept poor WY awake till 4am. Title of show: The Happening. Selected by WY.

In order to collect the NDP tickets, I went to get Mother's NRIC from her wardrobe as per her instructions. I found it and took it with me.

Whilst at M's place, I saw to my horror the condition of F's nails when I spoke to him! Yikes! Every single one of his fingernails was 'flipped' upwards at a 45-degree angle!

Having experienced a fungal infection in one toenail during my JC-days and another in my right thumb about 2 years ago (both of which I managed to have them treated properly and cured completely), I instantly recognised that this is a bad case of nail fungal infection. I cringed at the looks of the deformed nails (I would say F's nails look at least 100 times worse than the worst stage of my condition when I had the infection) and felt very sorry for him.

F asked for M's sewing kit because he wanted to sew on some buttons that had fallen off his trousers. I offered to get him his own set.

The new kit was finally assembled (after much hassle because I had at first stupidly missed out the needles) and I passed it to F in the evening. I also bought Canestan drops for him to use on his nails and painstakingly explained what the infection is all about. Let's hope that he perseveres in the treatment and gets the infection sorted properly. I would estimate that if he is consistent with his Canestan drops and maintains proper hygiene and prevent further cross-contamination (all of which I hope he heeds my advice), the infection could easily take a year or two to clear up.

According to F, none of the doctors he consulted had prescribed anything for this fungal infection. Not the consultant he sees at the NSC for his L, nor the doctor at TTSH whom he visits for his cough, nor the Quack Doctor from B51 whom he consulted for don't-know-what. This is quite incredulous, isn't it?! So much so for being a 'medical hub' and having medical professionals who look after the 'holistic well-being' of patients! I think they forgot to qualify: the patients must not be a nobody.

In fact, the B51 Quack Doctor (yes, the one who gave him the antibiotics which caused him all the allergy problem that complicated the L treatment at first) even had the cheek to ask F to allow him to take photos of the nails 'because this is a rarely-seen condition'!!!!! That *pui* Quack Doctor! It sounded as if he didn't even realise why F's nails look this way! I reiterated to F not to see this Quack Doctor because his medical knowledge is lousy and professional ethics totally non-existent!

Sigh.

So, see? Viruses, Bacteria, Fungus! What a germy week this had been!!

Timely Article from ST

I read this article from ST today. I say a big Thanks to its writer.

FRIDAY MATTERS

Stop those scare tactics of 'sure fail' exams
Chua Mui Hoong, Senior Writer

ONE morning this week, a friend and I got together for a quick breakfast.
Topic: PSLE stress.

It isn't that either of us is taking this milestone examination of course. But her daughter and my niece are.

Many parents feel stressed when their children sit for high-stakes milestone exams like the Primary School Leaving Examination or the O or A levels.

They feel responsible for their children's performance. Even balanced parents, who understand that their role is mainly a supportive one, feel as stressed as though they are taking the test themselves.

Schools should be an ally in the gruelling preparation for this major race.
Unfortunately, many see their role differently.

Many schools use shock scare tactics that are remarkably out of date.
I'm talking about the habit of many schools to set mid-year examination papers of an unduly high difficulty level.

One parent, Ms Jessica Chong, wrote to the Forum page about this, citing her daughter's experience in an all-girls' school with a Maths paper set at such a difficult level that half the class flunked.

Concerned about the impact of this on students' motivation levels, she wrote: 'I appeal to the Ministry of Education to compare the disparity between the simplicity of published primary Maths textbooks and worksheets with the difficulty of exam papers set by schools.'

That school is by no means the only one that uses such tactics.

A friend who's a full-time mum and coaches her son personally was aghast when he scored just above 50 in his Maths paper in a mission primary school.

But the teacher assured her that it was a very good score, considering the average score across the entire school was 40-something. In other words, more than half the school failed the paper. The lowest mark was below 10.

Closer to home, my niece managed just above 40 for Maths, a subject she struggles with but usually manages to pass.

When I rang her teacher, she assured me that her score was not unduly low; the median grade in her class was, indeed, in the 40s.

If you talk to enough parents, you will know that this is a common phenomenon.

Many schools set mid-year exam papers at an unrealistically high level of difficulty, deliberately to 'jolt' students and parents into a state of panic to work harder for the PSLE or O-level exam.
When the preliminary examinations roll around later this year, the same pattern will repeat itself.

Thousands of students will be in tears over unwonted failing grades. Thousands of parents' stress levels will rise, fearing their children will do as badly in the PSLE or O levels, as they did for their prelims.

I am not a pedagogist, but it seems sheer bad educational practice to deliberately set an exam paper that seeks to fail most students.

That is not education; that is psychological manipulation of a rather negative and perverse nature.

This practice of setting punitively difficult exams in schools has been around for years.
I recall similar practices from my school days 20, 30 years ago.

Schools justify it by saying that a little bit of failure spurs students to try harder. The practice results in better grades, they may argue.

But people who argue this forget the impact of repeated failure on a child's motivation and self-esteem.

Top students who score 75 instead of their customary 90 in a particularly difficult paper may indeed feel motivated to work harder to bridge the gap. If they have good family support, they can push themselves and end up with 95 in the PSLE.

But what about the impact of repeated failure on the average child?

A borderline student who fluctuates between a B and C, is likely to be pushed into a sea of red ink when confronted with an exceptionally difficult exam.

Imagine the impact of getting four straight Ds in June, four months before the PSLE exam.
Demoralised, goaded by fear, the child works harder. Teachers raise the spectre of failure to urge the child to try harder. Tutors add on extra sessions.

Come August or September, the child sits for her prelims. The school ratchets up the difficulty level. The child gets another sea of red ink: another string of Ds or worse.

The child now feels like a total failure. Despite his best efforts from June to September, he is still failing. Anxiety rises to fever pitch. He can't do it. Self-esteem plummets. He must be stupid, he thinks. He gives up.

My question to those principals and teachers out there blithely setting examination papers they know most students will fail in: Is the child, in such a state above, in a good frame of mind to take a high-stakes national exam?

Parents and family members rush in to do repair work. We give emotional support, making the child feel loved, secure and valued despite the string of failing grades. We source for tutors. We talk to teachers. We coach the children and do our best to coax them to remain positive and motivated.

But we are frustrated when schools seem to be part of the problem. Instead of motivating children, schools' practices demoralise and discourage them.

Some principals and teachers who use this 'fail-them' exam scare tactic will point out that it has worked for years, and raises the school's average scores in PSLE.

My retort to that is simple: Your school's aggregate average grades may improve, but how many vulnerable children's self-esteem have you destroyed in the process?

And just as pertinently, how many children's zest for learning have you destroyed? And how many individual students ended up doing worse, not better, because of anxiety and stress?

In motivation theory, there is positive and negative motivation. Negative motivation - where you do something because you fear the outcome if you don't do it - has a role in human behaviour. For example, the fear of being caught or the fear of failure constrains bad behaviour.
But negative motivation destroys young children's motivation to learn, and hampers their self-esteem.

Negative motivation certainly should not be systematised to such an extent that schools across Singapore deliberately prepare exams to fail students.

The Education Ministry should monitor and discourage this perverse practice. Guidelines could spell out the difficulty level of school preparatory exams, to align them with the actual standards of milestone exams.

Schools with large numbers of students who consistently fail mid-year and prelim examinations, but who go on to do well at the PSLE or O levels, should not be praised for their students' 'improved' results, but should instead be questioned on why their internal school exams are so out of whack with the national ones.

Punitive examinations designed to fail students based on warped ideas of human motivation should have no place in Singapore's education system today.

Twice Lucky!

Aha! I received a call this morning.

"Hello, may I speak to the holder of NRIC No. XXXXXXXX?"

"Yes, can I help you?"

"Can you please repeat the NRIC No.?"

"Ok, XXXXXXXX."

"Congratulations! You have been alloted 2 tickets for NDP08 Preview. The tickets can be collected from........"

Woah! M is really fortunate! Twice lucky now - especially since they had earlier announced that they would tweak the computer balloting system such that it would be much more difficult to be successfully balloted for successive years! And Mother's NRIC No. had been picked last year already! Hahahhaa.a.....

Only thing now is, I need to get M's NRIC to go help her collect her tickets. I hope she hasn't stashed it away somewhere obscure.

Silent Birthday

I actually prepared an earlier post on F's birthday. But I had the draft deleted because it was just too mentally draining to continue it. I felt too sad.

When I passed F the 2 small angpows from YP and myself that evening, he was all alone at the balcony. The angpows were given to him quite hastily because I was rushing home to get dinner for the boys.

F looked the same as the last time I saw him. The pigmentation problem on the face seemed to have improved - his face looked more 'even coloured' now.

But he had a bad cough, so I asked him if he had seen the doctor about the cough that had recurred. He said he had just seen the doctor, pointing to the bag of medicine sitting on the dining table. They were antibiotics, he said, because the doctor told him that his lungs were infected. Sigh.

Then I reminded him to take his medicine regularly for his L, too. And I told him to call me if he needs anything or any help. Before I went home, he told me to remind R to help him change the external water filter soon.

Within minutes of my reaching home, R went down to get the water filter job done.

That night, R told me that he had observed that F's hands were cracking very badly. We both discussed and concluded that F probably needs to boost his nutrition. We also agree that his prone-ness to recurring lung infection may be due to deficiency in nutrition, too.

So, we decided to get him Ensure. To make it less of a hassle and therefore more 'enticing' to take the nutrition-packed beverage, R suggested that for a start, we would get F the canned version. D had these passed to F already, with instructions to make sure that the Ensure and antibiotics are taken at least 4-6 hours apart. But we aren't sure if F had taken them.

I think I will go check on him tomorrow.

Being In The System

Many times, I have heard this asked incredulously: "You all really so busy, meh?"

Of course, my very instant, impromptu response has always been: "Yes. Really that busy."

When this question popped up again recently albeit in one of its many variation-forms, I pondered. Then, I came to the same answer: "Yes, Really that busy.".

Perhaps, for someone who is no longer in the system and who has been living in a totally separate world for more than a decade now, it is probably inconceivable that there is no time to even sit down to dial a number and say a simple 'hello' over the cable. The fact that this seems to be the case for all of the various different sub-sets of family members makes it look even more suspicious - as if we all here try very hard to avoid contact.

Actually, I don't think we owe anyone any explanation. Nor do we need to try so hard to convince anyone that we are really very 'helpless' about the apparent passiveness in keeping touch. But still, I will try to describe my typical day. Maybe, just maybe, this can help shed that teeny weeny little bit of light and help mitigate the incredulity?

5:30am - I rise and deal with kitchen chores, prepare breakfast etc.

6:15am - I wake R and WY, who rise for breakfast and showers.

7:00am - R and WY leave for school. I deal with dishes, laundry, getting bags ready for WF etc. Occasionally, I steal 3-5 minutes to water plants and check if they are ok.

Between 7:30am to 8:00am - R returns, wakes WF and gets him ready for school. I take my shower.

On average, 8:15am - R, WF and I leave for CH School, followed by us dashing for office. ETA office? Anything from 8:45am to 9:30am (imagine our daily scramble).

Between 8:30am and 6:15pm - official office hours, sometimes lengthened by up to half hour because of last-minute 'problems' etc.

About 7:00pm - Manoeuvering with much frustration along roads jam-packed with equally rushy motorists. Sometimes, being the non-driver passenger, I can get heart-attacks from the frequent sudden brakes and nausea from the incessant filtering-in-and-out of lanes. Driver's driving gets worse (or better, depending on your perspective) by the day.

On average, 7:15pm - R and I pick WF (and WY) up from CH School.

Between 7:30pm and 8:15pm - Unpacking of bags, washing of water bottles, lunch boxes etc. WY takes his shower and WF his bath. Occasionally, R and/or I get to have our shower too. Most times, though, we join WY and WF for dinner first.

On average, 9:00pm - Dinner is finished. Between R and I, we wash the dishes (plus the multiple pots M has used for cooking our dinner), sort out laundry for wash, start the washing machine. Then we take our showers. Sometimes, WF needs to be washed because he goes to the toilet at around this time. During this time, WY and WF get to rest - they either play their toys or watch some TV. M sometimes serves them their fruits at this time, too.

On a 'good day', 9:30pm - WY starts his piano practice whilst I go through his completed work. If WY needs help in one or more questions, he clarifies at this time and completes this outstanding part. If there is mistake spotted in the completed work, WY corrects them after the corrections are explained to him. Whilst this fight-fire goes on, WF starts on his work, supervised by either R or myself. WF needs to be prompted and 'pushed' along because he tends to try to avoid doing anything more than the minimum.

On average, 10:45pm - end of work time for WY and WF. WF has his milk. WY and WF brush their teeth, wash up and prepares for bed. WY is usually 'shooed' to bed quite quickly after the clock strikes 11. WF gets to enjoy some reading/storytime with R or me before lights-off.

On average, 12:00 midnight - R and I go to bed. Sometimes, we stay up just a little while more so that we can hang the laundry and scrub the soap off the toilet floor. R is sometimes also kept away from sleep by his office work.

So, when and how to make that call??

Weekends?.............. Weekends are another story. Even more incredible. I won't try to add to the scare by setting out here our typical Saturday and Sunday schedules, but trust me - it is no easier than what you have just read.

Yes, I know you will feel very 'fortunate' in not being in the system anymore. But we are past the stage of complaining about the system. It is..... how shall I put it?

人在江湖，身不由己。

It is definitely easy to claim that it is all 'up to you'. But is it?