this afternoon, i wanted to complete the report for the police for 2 of my students. but i could not complete as i find it very depressing to be doing this on the last day of the year.

let's recall, 2008 has been an eventful year. not mentioning many international things that happened. i'll leave this to other people to recall.

on the family front, glad to change school for my children. even though i was reluctant to, i guess in the long run, it's the convenience of going to school that finally push me to do the change. i actually like the school culture, but it's really too far and it's costing a lot for the children's transportation. so i really hope that this change is beneficial to the children. i mean it's easy for adults to say, change as the immediate benefit is to us. but you must consider that children feels shy easily and i'm not sure how they will cope on the first day of school. strangers among people who already know one another. i'm sure it freaks the adults out, so i believe that it should also freak the children out. and the sad thing is i will not be there to support them. i guess i cannot be there all the time for them, they have to learn.

on the extended family front, sad to say, after grandma's death, many things have changed. siblings are not so restrain now that they get into conflicts. it does not help that some of them still have not gotten over grandma's death. during cny, i'm not sure if all the members will turn up or not. we'll just see.

i just feel that people are very pragmatic. it's like people see that you drive big car or live in a big house, they think that you have made it rich and they start being nice to you and they start coming to your house during the cny. very pragmatic.