Archive for January, 2009

Have you started on the balik kampung exodus yet? My dad and brother are going back to hometown today. I will join them on the second day of Chinese New Year and coming back on the fourth day of Chinese New Year. Really much too short, I wish we could stay longer but hotel is expensive.

We will be travelling one day, then we only have one full day and the next day we have to check out and travel again. Usually we will travel very early in the morning, scooping the kids out from their beds, still in their pyjamas and straight into the car. They often wake up later, when its time for breakfast and a stop, surprised to find that they are in the car travelling. Hahaha. Its better this way because its not so hot and they get less fretty because they have slept through part of the journey so it doesn’t seem that long.

I wonder how mum and dad did it in our time. Travelling in the car with 5 noisy kids fighting with each other must really be terrific. lol. We used to travel for 10 to 12 hours straight on the trunk roads (back then before the highway was available). Second sister often got car sick.

Today, when the kids get back home from school, I will get them to pack their own drawers as part of the spring cleaning process. On Sunday, we will wash the porch and cars together. The kids love that. They also love to pack their own “luggage” for the trip stuffing in books and toys.

I have clipped together some angpows for hanging on our plants outside the house and made some fish made from angpow paper for decorations. I wanted to make angpow lanterns too but I have forgotten how. Haha. Each year I forget how. I had to jolt my memory by visiting this site. It has a good step by step pictorial guide on how to make the angpow fish. Its very nice and cheap decoration. We usually get one or two from the store to paste or hang as well but those are a bit more expensive and wasteful. They look colorful and nice but some of them depict a certain animal zodiac year and can’t be reused the next year.

Why bother to clean and decorate? Some people ask me. You are going away after all. Why not just pack up and go? Why all the trouble? Its for the kids. Its for the kids. Chinese New Year is not Chinese New Year without spring cleaning, decorations, mandarin oranges, f&n orange, peanuts, kuaci, cookies, open houses, new clothes, fireworks, etc etc. That is what Chinese New Year is all about.

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My Girl just got her school timetable. It is something like this. They have 5 hours of lessons per day making it a total of 25 hours of lessons per week. During one week of school, she has…..

• 5 hours for Chinese language
• 4 1/2 hours of Malay Language
• 1 hour of English Language
• 2 hours of Maths in English
• 3 hours of Maths in Chinese
• I 1/2 hours of Science in English
• 1 1/2 hours of Science in Chinese
• 2 hours of moral
• 1 hour of computer
• 1 hour of gym
• 1 hour of Music
• 1 hour of Art
• 1/2 hour of revision/overview

My thoughts when I saw the time table.

• Wuah. Only 1 hour for English? No wonder they say the kids English will deteriorate when enter Chinese School.
• Hmmm…. 4 1/2 hours for Malay. Perhaps that is a government requirement but not bad also lah so that they won’t have difficulty catching up in Bahasa Malaysia in secondary school if you intend to send them to Kebangsaan school then
• Aisay…. what for want to teach Maths and Science in two languages. Thats just overloading the kids. Just teach it in one language lah, whatever language, I don’t really mind.
• Got Art, Gym, Computer, Music. My girl will enjoy those but I heard that those classes have to make way for more academic ones later on from Std 3 onwards. During orientation, one of the parents complained that she never got to wash her kid’s gym clothes because the kid never got to run around and be kids, there was just work, work and more work and lessons…. of the academic kind.
• Wuah! Sure got a lot of homework like that.

Can you share with me your kid’s timetable and what you think when you see this timetable?

Here’s another timetable from a blogger who sends her child to a private church based school. You might want to check it out to see the difference.

Timetable for Primary 1 Private “Kebangsaan” School

I guess you can’t really compare the two as it is like comparing apples with oranges. One is a government school while the other is government aided and private sector funded. As a result, the Chinese school facilities is much better than the Kebangsaan school one.

When shopping for schools, I visited  a few, both Chinese as well as Kebangsaan school because I couldn’t make up my mind on which school to send my kid to. We had to list down 3 choices when registering our children for schools and most people would either have all 3 as Chinese Schools or all 3 as Kebangsaan School. I had a mix. Hahaha. That was how undecided I was. However the school my girl was eventually sent to was not in my 3 choices. lol.

Anyway, I visited many schools but some of them were more “memorable” than the others. For example, the Kebangsaan school nearest to my house (which I considered simply because of its proximity and convenience) was very small. It’s canteen doubled up as a hall if I am not mistaken. The canteen was very small and I didn’t see a field. When the bell rang and recess time (its good to visit during school hours to observe the actual situation), the kids ran out and some sat on the floor to have their meal.

I spoke to a Chinese teacher there and she looked at me and said “Why aren’t you sending your child to a Chinese school?” Imagine that, even the teacher there did not believe in the school she taught. So sad. I asked her about the school facilities and she simply said “Just look around you. We are very small.”

Another Kebangsaan school a little further from my home was better. They had a dedicated headmaster (Its important to speak to the heads of school when you visit). The school was clean and had reasonable facilities, a music room, a computer room a nice canteen with colorful chairs and benches almost like in a fast food restaurant, open air badminton courts, a big school field, an open air school hall. There were murals everwhere done by the school children, the garden was nice, the toilets were clean and new. I almost sent my kid there and in case Chinese school don’t turn out, I guess we will try this school out.

However, the Chinese School Facilities wins hands down, especially the newer ones (or rather the ones that I visited. It may perhaps be unfair to make this an overall and simplistic comparison because I do not have statistics nor did I visit that many schools? I probably visited 2 Kebangsaan schools and 5 Chinese Schools while school hunting)  But of course  you have to be prepared to pay in the form of donation (afterall you want your kid to use these facilities don’t you) and you have to pay higher school fees to maintain these facilities.

Classrooms are airconditioned. Every classroom has a projector. There is a big school hall with indoor badminton courts, an auditorium like the size of a cinema, a small music room, a small dance room, a computer room ( my girl’s class has 42 students and she says each kid has access to one computer and there were balance after that), a library, a big field, a basketball court, a medium sized canteen. Why, its almost like a private school accept you don’t pay so much. But the culture and medium of instruction is different of course. Facilities not so different from a private school (accept for the absence of a pool in the better ones) but if you can’t accept the culture and the way things are done in a Chinese school then its not for you. Besides, all the best facilities are useless if you are not going to use them.

How are the facilities in your child’s school? Care to share? Not comparing notes here but just for information’s sake, it’ll be good for everyone to know whats available.

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Networking With Other Parents

Have you ever met someone who is passionate in something? Whether its their work or a project of whatever. These people are truly inspiring. I’ve met a paeditrician who is passionate in breastfeeding, a gynae who is passionate in her work and a neurologist who is passionate in his work (Hey. How come they’re all doctors?) It is a joy to watch them at work. No matter how busy they are (and these are very busy people), they always still manage to have a smile, and time for you because they truly believe in their work or project. They believe in what they do and they love what they do and what they do often helps other people.

Speaking about passion for something,  I also had the chance to meet this lovely lady who is passionate in her work to create epilepsy awareness. She used to have a booth at Wisma Atria for almost 4 years promoting epilepsy awareness. She gave me her time and some answers when I was searching for one. One of the best gifts you can give to a person is the gift of time. Time to really listen, understand and help them. This is what she has done for many people in the 4 years that she had her booth.

She has to close her booth now but I believe that she will continue to do valuable work in creating Epilepsy Awareness on her blog and in other ways. Wellsphere.com (a renown health website in USA) had nominated her epilepsy blog to be part of its 1st Annual Health Blogger Awards competition.  The competition had started on 15th December 2008 and will end on 31st January 2009. 

Will you help someone who is compassionate and passionate about creating Epilepsy Awareness to further spread Epilepsy Awareness by voting for her blog? I hope that you will.

You can help to promote epilepsy awareness by voting for epilepsy awareness.  Please visit http://www.epilepsylegacy.blogspot.com/.  You will see on the top right hand corner of the blog a voting badge with her photo in it.  Click on the VOTE NOW below the photo.  You will be asked to fill in a small form to register yourself to be a member of Wellsphere.com.  Fill in your particulars.  Click SUBMIT VOTE.  Your vote has been cast for epilepsy awareness.

My husband enjoys martial arts movies, you know the kind where men fly on tree tops, sleep on ice beds and fall off cliffs and still lives. Oh, the hero usually has a few girls hankering after him too. I always complain to my husband about that. Why can’t it be the other way?

So this year, for his birthday, I decided to buy him some martial arts dvds. Being a martial arts movie fan, he has a lot in his collection by now but he does not have those really old Shaw Brothers Kungfu Classics. For the previous two years, I bought him comics online so they have ceased to become an element of surprise.

I didn’t know how to buy dvds online. Most of the suppliers came from US and had expensive shipping charges. Finally I found one from HongKong which offered free shipping. Then I had to figure out the regions. We have to buy Region 3 dvds. Region 2 is for Japan and Region 1 is for the US. If you buy the wrong region, it won’t play on your player. You also have to check the system whether NTSC or PAL whatever that means. Haha. If I am not mistaken we use the NTSC system here but most dvd players are smart enough to play both something like that.

Finally, I found my supplier. I decided to order just one first for Christmas to try it out ie check out the quality etc. It arrived one day after Christmas. Oh dearie me. Worse still, it arrived on Saturday when hubby was around. When we came home he saw a box on the porch and asked what was that. Cheh! Spoilt half the fun. I had to tell him that that was his belated Christmas present. Hahaha.

Since the Christmas dvd took so long to arrive, more than a month, I could not wait to test it so I went ahead and ordered more for his birthday. Unfortunately the Christmas one was in Mandarin whereas the description had been Mandarin or Cantonese for languages. Haiyah! It was too troublesome to return it so I just wrote to them about my disappointment and asked them to check to make sure that the next batch is in Cantonese as well.

The new batch just arrived yesterday in the mail. Hehe. All in good time for his birthday early next month. I’m so busy this month, I don’t have time to shop for his present. Besides we shop together most of the time so I can’t surprise him. Buying online is the best but online shopping is really a bit dangerous. Its too easy! If you have Paypal, its even easier. A few clicks and you have parted with your money without even feeling it. Oops! So far, I have only shopped for books and dvds online. Better stop there before all the money in my Paypal disappears. Hahaha.

I bought 5 dvds in all. Will wrap them up into 3 different packages and get the kids to present one to him each. Hahaha. So easy hor.

Well, got to run to do some more spring cleaning now. Today, I will clear our clothes cupboards. I enjoy clearning clothes cupboard. However, setting time aside to do it is the trouble.