Archive for June, 2008

If you’re not fortunate enough to be living in a gated and guarded community, or  you don’t live in a condo, then you’ve probably heard of a security patrol team by your local Residents’ Association. These have mushroomed all over our urban residential areas or housing estates in recent years.

In the past, there was never a need for such things and I’ve never heard of them before but now, you can see security patrols  by guards hired by residence patroling the housing areas. A sure sign that crime is on the rise. Many homes now carry stickers that their house is subscribing to a certain security patrol, paying an extra RM30 to RM40 a month if I am not mistaken. My house is one of them.

However, I wonder how everyone feels about this. We feel that we want very much to improve the security in our area and that is why we dutifully pay the subscription fee for extra security surveillance. We feel that since it is a community kind of thing, it will only be successful, if everyone contributes or does their part by subscribing and so we subscribe faithfully even though, its hard for us to even pay up and after paying we don’t even have a receipt.

The excuse is that since the team is manned by volunteers and so… we’re not to have overly high expectations (like getting a receipt?). Oh well…. We do receive quarterly reports about the security in our area and we feel a (perhaps a wrong) sense of security seeing the guards patrolling our area in their motorbikes and cars and having an emergency number to call, just in case.

Yesterday, I met a friend who stays in a “crime zone” (which area isn’t that now). His neighbour’s houses had been broken in (both side and opposite). He does not subscribe to the security surveillance service that is available though. His feeling is. “What is the point anyway?” Besides, “you don’t even know if the security team is in cahorts with the burglars or thieves.” he added.

I wonder what does everyone else feel about such security patrols? Are you paying extra for it? How do you feel about this? Do you think it has reduced crime?

I keep on receiving scary emails about people being hijacked from their cars and houses being broken into. I know some of these emails may not be true but some of them come from people we actually know. I used to feel safer living in a condo but apparently even living in a condo is not safe anymore. The other day, I visited the old condo where I used to live. The maintenance person there told us that they are now stepping up security to have the guards going around floor by floor every hour because of crime. According to the guy some tenants do not like this but they have no choice. The burglars now come from within ie the modus operandi is to rent the premise for a few months, then strike when their neighbours are out.

Almost everyone I know has witness a crime or has had some personal experience. I feel so unsafe. The other day, I happened to be eating at the roadside with my handbag (I normally don’t carry my handbag when I eat at the roadside) and I was very distracted throughout my meal because I have to keep on clutching my handbag close to me and glancing around every few minutes. (I’ve had friends whose had their handphones or bags snatched while they were enjoying their meal, thats why I have this paranoia). Afterall, crime happens partly because of opportunity and we can reduce that opportunity by being more aware of our surroundings and it doesn’t hurt to be extra careful, right? Can you tell me what you have done to reduce the opportunity of crime to your person, car and home?

“He is four years old. Why isn’t he in kindy yet?”

I’ve gotten used to hearing this by now. I still hear it quite often when my 4 year old boy tags along to his sister’s kindy. I hear it from the teachers, the other parents as well as grandparents. They won’t leave us alone. Everytime I meet a new parent, they’d ask this question and look at us as though we’re weird. It annoys me to no end.

The kindy where my girl attends has 

• 1 six year old class, 
• 1  five year old class,
• 2 four year old classes,  
• 1 three year old class and
• the under threes are grouped together and considered the daycare class.

Some of them come to school with bolsters, pillows, pacifiers and are still in diapers. Some of them look like they’ve just learned to walk. Notice that the kindy has more classes for 4 year olds compared to the five and six  year olds. What does that tell you?

It tells me that the entry age for kindy has been brought down significantly. Why? I suppose its because we now live in a competitive world where both parents are working and we simply have no choice and if we don’t send our kids, they will not be learning anything at home and we’re worried they will be left behind. Yada yada yada.

I guess if one really does not have a choice, its ok if you send your child to a playschool to play. But no, the kids are now subjected to at least 3 years of kindy ie K1, K2 and K3. The learning environment is structured with many subjects like Math, English, Malay, Mandarin, Science, Moral, and there is homework and tests. (Previously there was only kindy, then there was K1 and K2, now we have K1, K2 and K3. What next? K4 I suppose.) I think its crazy.

My 4 year old is at home and they think I’m crazy. Some tell me “But you have the luxury of being home to teach him.” No, I don’t have the time to teach him all the time. Sometimes I just let him watch TV but I think thats perfectly fine for a 4 year old. So I’m probably crazy. More crazy then the parents who say “But I’m so worried my kid will not learn anything at his grandparent’s.” I understand those who do not want to leave the kid alone at home with the maid but not wanting to leave the kid in the comfort of home with loving grandparents? Hmmmm….

My girl didn’t attend any playschool, playgroup, Sunday school, nursery or whatever you call it. She stayed at home with me and went to kindy for the first time at 6 years old. And no, she did not turn out to be a social pariah. (As some predicted. Those are not my words.) No, she is not left behind. No she is not miserable in kindy. On the contrary, she is one of the above average students (according to her teacher), she has many friends and she participates in class by asking questions and she loves kindy. Right from the very first day. I didn’t have to deal with any tears.

But I was worried. I was so worried that she’d be left behind. I was worried that she’d not know how to socialise (she was a very shy kid to the extent of hiding under the table when my sis came to visit). She was very clingy too.

My boy is much more clingy than her. He is like a koala bear with super glue. But I shall not worry. I shall not worry the next time I hear “He is four years old. Why isn’t he in kindy yet?” along with the weird glances we receive. I shall be sending him next year at age 5. And thats it! Just leave us alone!

Last weekend we bought plants for our home. I’ve always felt that our home was incomplete without plants. The previous owner had tiled up the entire front porch and cemented the whole backyard. Not wanting to spend too much on renovations, we didn’t change a thing. So that meant that we did not even have a little patch of green. I’ve always imagined that a house should have a small patch of green grass so you can do some gardening.

We’ve moved in for almost 1 1/2 years now but still no greens. Finally we got some plants. Yeah! We didn’t get many but I tried to get as many varieties as I could in the few that we got. So we got little ones, medium ones, leavy ones and flowery ones, green leafed ones and red leafed ones, big leafed ones and small leafed ones. So many varieties in so few plants. Haha. Like Rojak like that.

Still I am pleased with my new mini garden. We bought the kids watering cans so they are naturally pleased too. Hopefully the plants will stay lush and beautiful as it is now and not yellowed and wilted a month later.

I love food. I love trying out new foods. I think how we view food is in a way related to our upbringing a little.

I think my love affair with food began from young. Mum died early so it was just Dad and us. Dad showed his love to me with food. He was a policeman. When he came back home from late night duty, he would bring home special foods for supper for me. I would wait for him to come home eagerly. Sometimes he took me out to places to try new foods.

Later on, as a single working adult, I continued going out to try new foods with my friends. I continued to eat out often with Dad too.

Hubby on the other hand is not adventurous with food. As a single working adult he would often takeaway fast foods and eat those. He would have TV dinners ie eat his takeaway food in front of the TV. (Thats my own definition for TV dinners). When he finds a type of food he likes, he would eat it often, like every other day.  According to him, he has no time to think about food so he just eats what he likes often. This makes it easy for me. Since he has such an easy to please palate, all I need to do is cook his favourite food everyday. Haha.

Earlier on in our relationship, we had a lot of food related arguments because of the way we are so different in our love for food. However, now we have sort of gravitated towards each other in a good food way. He has come to be a little bit more adventurous now and I don’t mind having repeat TV dinners.

What about you? Do you eat to live or do you live to eat?

Birthdays are worth remembering so I’ll record down what we did on the day. I woke up around 4am with an unpleasant dream and couldn’t go back to sleep for 1 1/2 hours. When I finally did, the unpleasant dream continued. Hmm… didn’t like that one bit.

After that I woke up and fixed breakfast for everybody while daddy woke up and did some work around the house. And thats how my birthday and his Father’s Day started. With business as usual.

After breakfast, we decided to take the kids to the movies for the first time. The line was so long like a snake. We hadn’t gone to a cinema in 10 years so we were totally lost. How many tickets to buy? Do the little ones need tickets? What showtimes? Which seats? Where to buy? etc. Hahaha. But we survived it.

Finally we bought the tickets. We only managed to get tickets for the 2.30pm show for seats on the 3rd row from the front. So we went shopping and had lunch first. After the movie we went shopping some more for daddy’s present to mummy. The kids wanted to get me presents too. “Mummy, I want to buy you a present. I want to buy you a pink flower.” my girl said to me. Hmm….so how did I resolve that? “Go and ask your daddy” I said. Hahaha. And so that is how, I got two flowers nicely wrapped and presented to me by the kids and paid by daddy who had not bought me any flowers in years. Only once in all this time that I have known him. And that was the time when he was tring to get to know me. After that no more flowers from the man. Hahaha. “Can I have the flower back after I give it to you?” asked the boy. Hmm…..

Then we went to the cake shop to buy a sinful banana chocolate cake and we went home to fix a broken light in the house, went straight out again for dinner before coming home to continue fixing the lights. By the time we sang the birthday song and ate the cake it was 9.30pm! The kids then presented me with the flowers and a banner that the girl had drawn for me. Hehe. Before that the kids kept on grumbling. “How come mummy’s birthday hasn’t started?” To them a birthday officially starts only and until you sing the birthday song and cut the cake and open the presents.

Before we went to bed, we put the flowers in two vases, one for each of them and they fought over where to put their own vases. (Hey, I thought the flowers were for me!) They wanted to know how long it would stay beautiful. When I told them that it would probably last about a week because flowers need sunlight, water and food (a lesson in Science) they were sad. Hmm… maybe we should have bought artificial flowers. I noticed that the artificial carnations look like the real thing when I was choosing my roses, pink for the girl and yellow for the boy just because those are their favourtite colours.

 

What a long day. We went out at about 10.30am and only called it a day at 10.00pm skipping the children’s naps. The children were tired but happy (a little hyper and cranky towards the end of the day but still happy) and so was mummy. Only….., daddy didn’t get his Father’s Day massage from the whole family because we were all so busy. He had to work very hard ferrying his family around and paying for meals and fixing the house lights. Poor daddy. “Its ok” he said “Thats what Father’s do.” And thats why the kids and I love him. Oh and he’ll get his massage as he always does, not only on Father’s Day.