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Happy Chinese New Year to all the readers of this blog. I am going off to spring clean my house now. If you are free during Chinese New Year, come drop by my 2012 is Year of the Dragon Squidoo lens for all things Dragon.

The kids are older now and our Chinese New Year routine has been established. Before, when they were younger, we did not have any routine but we thought that it would be very nice to have a family routine that they can look forward to each year. Now they know it well and look forward to …

1. Shopping for Chinese New Year Clothes. We limit our shopping to once a year only (unless necessary), then we go all out and have a shopping spree for Chinese New Year and everyone looks forward to having new clothes. We figured out that if you buy new clothes throughout the year, Chinese New Year would not feel any different.
2. Chinese New Year Cookies. Mummy does not bake so she will order the same cookies from the same place and when she brings them home the kids gape and go ooh and ahhh when they see the familiar cookies that they only get to eat once in a year. Then the kids will say “Please, please mummy can we eat them now?” and bad mommy will say “No, you will have to wait till Chinese New Year.”
3. Haircuts. The whole family goes to the salon and  have a haircut together. It kind of breaks the bank a little but its nice to go together. On normal days, sometimes mummy gives them home haircuts but for Chinese New Year, its off to the salon we go.
4. Chinese New Year Decorations. Now that the kids are older, they can help out. They love clipping, stringing and making homemade angpow decorations and I love listening to them work as a team in deciding where to hang each decoration. Usually, I will ask their opinion and let them decide so they can really get in the mood and contribute.
5. Spring Cleaning for Chinese New Year. Mummy gets to do most of it of course but on the eve of Chinese New Year, the kids will be roped in to wash the car and the porch. How they love the water and soap splashing fun.
6. Reunion Dinner. Usually its just the four of us because parents in law are no longer with us but we still cook up a storm anyway and everyone dons new pyjamas after dinner. Then we pack money into the red packets that will be given out as angpows and mummy and daughter will do their nails. Then mummy and daddy will give the kids their angpow and they will put it under their pillow to sleep on. Everyone stays up late and at midnight we will turn on every light in the house to welcome New Year.
7. First Day of Chinese New Year. Everyone gets up bright and early and have mee suah (vermicelli) soup then put on their brand new clothes and shoes. Then we go to the temple to watch the lion dances. After that we may go visiting or just stay home to relax and pack for the next day’s journey.
8. Balik Kampung. We will usually go back to mummy’s home town from the 2nd to the 4th day of Chinese New Year. We visit mummy’s aunties and see more lion dances, we play by the beach, go to more temples, pay respects to mummy’s mummy, play fireworks by the sea and send lighted lanterns into the sky.
9. Middle of Chinese New Year. Sometimes daddy invites his friends over and mummy cooks for them and the kids get to play host and hostess to other kids.
10. Chap Goh Meh. On the 15th day of Chinese New Year or the last day of Chinese New Year, its time to meet mummy’s brothers and sisters to have a gathering or dinner and exchange angpows with all the nephews and nieces.

That’s it. We do this every year to create a routine and tradition for the kids so that they look forward to Chinese New Year and in doing so, we enjoy our Chinese New Year very much too.

Kids, when you are grown and have your own families, we hope that you will remember fondly and continue with this routine and tradition that you have grown up with.

This year, 2012, I have a child in Std 2 doing the KSSR syllabus and a Std 4 child doing the KBSR syllabus.

So what is KSSR? What does KSSR stand for? I am sure that most parents in Malaysia know that kids start the new KSSR syllabus in 2012 but just what does KSSR stand for? Now, that’s simple. KSSR stands for Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah.

What about the older KBSR then? What does KBSR stand for? Now, that one is easy too. KBSR stands for Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Rendah.

Now that we’ve got the easy part of the way, deriving the abbreviation for KSSR and KBSR, lets talk about the hard part.

The hard part is faced by parents whose children are doing the new KSSR new syllabus. Parents whose kids are doing the KBSR syllabus can skip this post. Let me give you an example.

I have children doing both the syllabus. My standard 2 child cannot recycle or reuse his sister’s books because the syllabus has changed for almost every subject, English, Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese, Maths and Science. For example in Math, he is now taught Fractions in Std 1 and Fractions and Decimals in Std 2. Previously, it was not taught till Std 3. So if you buy the old KBSR workbooks you would have missed out two whole chapters. This is only an example of one confusion that can arise.

Worse still, the book publishers and printers are in a bind. How do they get rid of their old KBSR stocks? What’s happening is, when I went to the bookshops, I had trouble finding Std 2 workbooks or rather very few Std 2 KSSR workbooks. Std 1 is ok since there is new print for this year but not Std 2. For almost every publisher, I could find Std 1 then Std 3, 4, 5,6  but not Std 2. I had trouble finding KSSR books for Std 2, probably they will be available later on.

Then there are unscrupulous publishers who change the name of the cover to KSSR! Well, at least that is what I think because I had bought a KSSR book but when I looked inside the syllabus was the same as the old one. So before you go out to buy any workbooks for your child, make sure you look at his textbook to know his syllabus first, then make sure it matches those of the workbooks. Don’t buy blindly. Do some homework first.

Here is my tips for parents when buying primary school workbooks:

1. Std 1 and Std 2 parents buy books with KSSR on the cover
2. However, make sure you check your child’s textbook before buying. Make sure that the syllabus in the workbook matches the syllabus in the textbook
3. You will need to buy KSSR for the 5 core subjects, i.e. the 3 languages English, Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese, plus Maths and Science
4. However, you may get KBSR books for the paper 2 for English, Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese. Paper 2 meaning the Writing Practise Paper as this do not change very much. (Paper 1 is Comprehension or Pemahaman, Paper 2 is Writing or Penulisan) Note: In Std 1 and 2, there is no Paper 2 test for English, however workbooks are available for practise. There is Paper 2 test for Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Cina or Chinese though)
5. If your child is in Chinese School, go to the SJKC section to pick books. What does SJKC stand for? (SJKC stands for Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina). As for those in National Schools, buy your workbooks from the SJK section (SJK stands for Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan). They syllabus for both are different.

So many acronyms and abbreviations to learn. Parenting is hard enough without all this headache.

We used to call up friends to chat, but now we sms or write updates on our facebook walls or twitter which limits our words. We don’t have to say much anymore and we can send greeting cards to many in a click.

Then we have the ipads and many other tablet computers and eBook readers. Life has become simpler, paperless and it has made me lazy and confused.

Sometimes, I look at a device and I am not sure whether to tap it, swype it, tilt it or type on it! It takes a momentary moment, a short lapse of time for my brain to figure out how the device is supposed to work. Maybe its just me. My memory is getting worse and worse. I read in a recent research article that onset of memory loss or dementia may start as early as 45 or something to that effect. Perhaps that explains my confusion over the devices that is supposed to make life simpler but is making me lazy and confused instead.

Since school has just begun, we planned and completed most of our Chinese New Year shopping at the end of last year, during the Christmas and New Year holidays. It felt funny to shop for Chinese New Year while listening to Silver Bells playing softly in the background.

The retailers that were savvy and quick enough tore down their Christmas decorations almost immediately after Christmas and replaced them with bright red Chinese New Year decorations the day after Christmas. It was amazing to watch the almost instant transformation.

I noticed many others taking advantage of the holidays to shop for Chinese New Year as well. We were a bit early, so some places did not have free angpau packets and other freebies yet. Too bad but never mind. No angpau packets, No freebies but most importantly, No rush!

Now, all we’ve got left to do is haircuts for the whole family, clean up the house a little, decorate the house for Chinese New Year then collect our cookies and Chinese New Year 2012 here we come.

Last year I folded bunnies but this year will usher in the Year of The Dragon. I’m afraid I don’t know how to fold origami dragons and I don’t have the time this year so its store bought decorations for us this year.  I love Chinese New Year. Makes me feel like a kid again.

With the kids at home during the school holidays and the spouse on year end leave, I’ve had almost no free time to myself. That is the part I miss the most. Sure, I love my family lots but everyone needs a little time to themselves every now and then.

Now, its the beginning of a new year and back to school, back to work and back to routine. So, I’m going to have to wake all my blogs up. I have lots to write about but they are mostly in my head. Perhaps I will let some of them stay in there.

Well, its time to wake some of the other blogs now but before I do, a few quick New Year’s Resolutions.

1. Remember to exercise in the mornings
2. No going anywhere near the computer from afternoon onwards. PC time is only in the mornings and that includes blogs, squidoo lenses, facebook, twitter etc. (Phew! That’s a tough one)
3. Cook some new dishes for the family
4. That’s it! Lets not keep it too long or it’ll be hard to keep up

Time to go. After all, I’ve only got the morning to exercise and blog and make lenses and I must go wake up the other blogs now. That’s not a lot of time but since I can blog in 10 minutes its not so bad. Its only the squidoo lenses, they take at least half a day or more each but in terms of personal satisfaction, blogging is better but squidoo beats blogging in monetary terms so I guess the time spent is justified.

I’m having a good time at Squidoo. Yesterday, I received a Giant Squid 50 Level Club Member Trophy. That means I am now a Giant Squid with at least 50 quality lenses. At the same time, my Popular Kids Book Series lens received a Purple Star.

Holiday sales are starting to pick up a little bit too. Yesterday I had 2 sales directly on Squidoo as well as 5 other Squidoo related sales on my own Amazon Affiliate account. Hope to see more sales soon. It was pretty quiet last month.

No time to write more but I’ve got some udpates over at Squidoo which you can read. If you want to check me out at Squidoo, here I am over at Squidoo - My Squidoo Profile. If you want to read more about my Squidoo Journey, you can go here – My Squidoo Log.

  Join me at Squidoo

1. Bye bye Streamyx and Hello Unifi. Naturally there are teething problems but we refuse to call the chargeable 1300 number so we’ve been running around in circles changing dongers, and moving or rather switching our pc from room to room just to get connected. Have to do all sorts of troubleshooting and testing just to find the reason for the bad connection. Is it the pc problem/the network adapter/the interference from the neighbour’s wifi, need to change channel, change donger, change pc or pull out hair? blah blah blah…*Shakes head*

2. We got ourselves several new shelves and tables and enjoying our family bonding session of putting them together. The kids love this. All the banging and screwing and counting of screws and looking and following the diagrams is a delight to both the kids. They’re having a fine time with the Allen Key, Phillips Screwdriver, etc. After that we all sit back and enjoy our hard work of putting up the shelf and the kids feel proud that they were involved in putting up their own tables or drawers etc. Putting together furniture is definitely an activity where you can and should involve kids, just be mindful of safety when handling tools and sharp nails that is all.

3. I received my Giant Squid trohpy over at Squidoo. That makes me a Giant Squid now. Too bad, I am too busy to celebrate or make any new lenses for the holiday season. I guess I will just have to update my existing ones if I can find some snippets of time.

4. I have received two back to school brochures from departmental stores and I thought the school holidays has just started! Yes, it would end very soon too and then I would have a Year 2 and Year 4 student at home. Gosh. Time flies!

Well, times up. I thought I had a lot of things to blog about but I can’t remember now. If I am not careful, I will forget how to blog in no time.

Anyway, with the school holidays approaching, the kids will be home and the hubby will probably take leave here and there so that means all my time will be occupied. That means there will be a slow down in blogging. Well, no one missed me online for 2 whole days accept myself, so I guess 2 months won’t make any difference either.

What a pity about my Squidoo lenses though. Its the holiday season! Which means I should be doing more lenses, not less. Oh well, it can’t be helped. Family comes first, always. Squidoo lenses are hard to write. I need uninterrupted me time to make them. Blogging is much easier. As I have mentioned before, I can write a blog post in 5 minutes so I suppose I could steal some time here and there for my blogs still.

Well, thats my 5 minutes for this post. I’ve got a few things to get out of the way today, some filing to be done etc. The man is so organized that I must drive him crazy being so disorganized so I had better go and organize a few things today to make him happy. Time to go. Oh, but before that, I have another post to write for my Parenting Times blog. Something about being a kiasu parent. Hop over there if you are kiasu.