sometimes i wonder if i'm too fierce to marcus. he seems to be unhappy. i dunno. i'll just do what i feel that it's right for him. i'm not always there to look after him. he needs to learn to be independent.

i am so angry with marcus. he lost 2 4GB game stick, and he doesn't have the slightest idea where he misplaced it.

now i'm toying with the idea of buying a new car. today went to mitsubishi car show room, not yet change, but will do calculations first.

bought mabel her birthday present. yes, it's a very early birthday present, her birthday is in october.

bought her ipod touch. now i'm seriously considering getting a iphone.

i kind of like apple stuff. well, i won't say much otherwise sounds like free advertisement. should get one and you will know.

been toying with ipod touch and stuff for so long, couldn't bear to buy it for myself, but for mabel, there was no 2nd thoughts. i told her on saturday, and on sunday i brought her to go and buy. i guess most parents are like that.

this morning, brought max to make his passport. then went down to pay the balance up of the club med trip. in the meantime, we also wanted to book a malacca trip for the whole family, 6 adults and 3 children.

my sis came along with us. at last, we decided on the travel agent and make our booking. just hope that there are hotel rooms. cos it's quite last minute.

then after all these had been settled, we went to brewerkz. then we sent our sis home, she has a concert to go tonight!

it was a grat time together.

can you believe it? i have high chloestrol. (is that how you spelled it?)

so less eggs, full cream milk, fried food, less crabs!!! omg, how can u ask me to eat less crabs? less fatty meats, ok, that one, no issue.

more exercise, gosh. and i may have urinary tract infection, need to go for further checks if i'm worried. my white blood cells count is also high....

since the beginning of term 2, mabel has not been sleeping well at night. on sunday night, she couldn't get to sleep worrying about her Chinese e-learning. she was afraid that she did the wrong exercises. even though after reassuring, she still couldn't sleep, so she came over to my room to sleep.

on monday night, she could not sleep again. i thought maybe she was afraid to sleep in the room on the top deck of the bed, (at the back of my mind, i thought she saw some stuff) so again, i let her sleep in my room.

then last night, she was again crying in the room. the maid knocked on my door to tell me that she is crying for mummy. (darn, i was already asleep) she said she didn't want to go to school. I asked her the reason why and she told me 'spelling' after reassuring her, 'cannot find yellow file'. I'm really at the point of bursting already. i think i spent like 40 mins talking to her. or would i say lecturing her.

the final conclusion to the talk is, i told her, i would not condone coward act. she has to go to school the next day no matter what. that is my ultimatum.

so i really don't have enough sleep and is grumpy today. upon reflection, i would like to find out the real underlying reason of her not wanting to go to school. but she is not telling anything. maybe the reasons she cited is true and genuine, so she must learn to face up. she cannot run away. but what i worry is that the reasons are not so simple. i tried to ask if anyone bully her, etc, maybe i'm fierce in my tone, so she didn't want to tell me.

sigh, still in standby mode, not able to process anything

so tired to blog anything these 2 nights. totally drained out of energy. labour day, planning labour day, go malaysia with my family, mum, sister and aunties. it will be great for everyone to go.

max is very cute. he stands in front of the mirror and doing funny actions to himself.

we had an eventful day today. in the morning after dropping my mil at church, we wanted to have dian xin for breakfast nearby. but we could not find any parking lot! so in the end, we went to giant tampines, had breakfast and went to shop around for a while.

then we went back to fetch mil. once we reach home, we get ready to go brewerkz. we pack some stuff so that the children have got something to do there. marcus still has to read a chinese storybook. brought the laptop as there is free access. as usual, marcus brought his psp. took some story books and drawing paper to occupy max.

when we reach there, marcus did his reading, mabel on the laptop, then max also read some books. after we had eaten the food, dear dear and me decided to play a game of pool. all 3 children joined us to watch and they wanted to try, so halfway through the game, it became their game.

they did not know how to place their left hand, so we took the rest and i think the children had great fun playing pool, including max. but he had to stand on a chair, he is too short!

after brewerkz, we came home for a rest, then in the evening, went to my mum's place.

we bought a bottle of red wine over so after dinner, the adults, including my two aunties all share the bottle of wine. we catch up with each other and we planned to go malacca during the labour day holiday. cool.

that day took some pictures of rainbow, wanted to put it up, but forgot.

ever since the 3 children take multivitamins pills, i feel that their appetite has increased. i think this is great, especially for marcus. He is able to eat 1 adult's share now. Nothing makes me happier than to see my children eating heartily.

max sings jay chou's songs. or at least he hums to the tune of it.

my learning points after attending conference

Just want to pen down some things that i learnt after attending the conference. Well, you internalise better when you write it down rather than just think, reflect and these thoughts tend to disappear if you do not take the effort to pen it down.

1)The first keynote address was very apt. The title 'retoring the spirit of service' The speaker was good, she made us think of why we do what we are doing now. it questions my belief. As adults, we are often dictated by rewards/incentives and competition and building defences. We start to find excuses for the mistakes we made. 'The recession made me got retrenched, so i'm in a dire state, so i'm frustrated.'
Have we forgotten the spirit of giving? to give something and not expecting anything in return? because sometimes we forgot that the helper does in return get helped. you become kinder, happier and more positive.

Then as an educator, how do i teach my students about this amidst the teaching? have i forgotten to develop their character as well?

2) 2nd keynote address: the speaker is from the Phillipines. he gave his speech on Gawad Kalinga, a housing project that he started. He is very sincere. no slides, just 1 video and a lot of stories to share. a bold move I would consider. but never did i once was distracted (except for answering a sms) because his stories are real!

his housing project aims to help the citizens to learn good governance, developing character by refraining from corruption. (The project also teaches the citizens to be self-sufficient) Such simple yet strong words which i have took for granted in Singapore.

Through his project, he also aims to help restore the dignity of the poor by giving them dreams and aspirations to motivate them to work. Yet another thing that i've taken for granted. With most Singaporeans, we have basic housing needs and clean piped water, something that we have taken for granted. So what do people and the youths have as their dreams to motivate them? nothing. worse still, their motivation is the latest handphone, the latest IT gadget, the latest PSP games etc.

The video made me cry. The man in the video was so grateful that this project has given his family hope and aspirations.

3) the other keynote address, 'active participation - the key to learning'. the title says it all, meaningful engagement of students. this not only makes sense to teaching students but also to service learning. i'll just quote something which i've scribbled down during the address: 'being intrinsically motivated has to do with being wholly involved in the activity itself.'

Of course there are 4 concurrent sessions that i attended, but i thought that the time for the session was too short for me to really reflect. It's more of absorbing information and establishing contacts with the presenters.

4) the project exhibits: been to many exhibition booths to find out more about what other students, young people are doing for their service learning or experential learning. established contacts with a few of them. but 2 most thought provoking ones:
a) CIP trip to vietnam: i juz stood there to watch the video. maybe i have a soft spot for children. when the students visited the orphanage, it seems that this orphanage is for the very young children. The video shows many toddlers and babies in the orphanage. the students carried the toddlers and play with them. then i can feel my tears rolling down. so embarrassed. excused myself to the toilet.

thought provoking because how can these beautiful babies not have parents? (i do not want to dwell on the reasons) they are left to fend for themselves at such a young age.

b) student teachers CIP project at myanmar. These few young adults gave so much to the villagers and the school they visited. books, even the test tubes that they brought over. again, something that i've taken for granted, or rather our students have taken for granted. they do not have a science laboratory. The teachers-to-be showed the teachers there some simple science experiment to do with every day objects.

I was speaking to this young lady, you could sense from her sharing that these teachers in myanmar was so eager to learn. not only the teachers, the students were so eager to learn too. by day 3, they put in an effort to speak English to our Singaporean counterparts. i cannot help but to compare the myanmar students' eagerness to learn vs our singaporean students' eagerness to learn. with such good facilities in school, students sometimes take for granted and forget why they are learning and who they are studying for.

my concluding thoughts: Singapore has been prospering and our standard of living improving. With such prosperity, have we forgotten where we started? have we started to take even the simplest thing such as house for granted? have we forgotten our purpose or lose our motivation in life? how can i then teach all these to my students? i cannot simply take away their stuff and throw them back into caveman's era. there must be another way and as at now, i'm still searching.

while at ubin, we took the van taxi in. the uncle was a nice and humourous uncle. so had a talk with him. little did i realise that his son is studying in our school and joins npcc too!!! what a small world.

when we alighted at camp noordin, need to do the logistics. then this FI approached me. Habil, ex student. so he in serving NS now and was sent to ubin to be FI. What a small world again!

it is a nice feeling when u meet ex students. not that it reminds you that you are old, it's just that.. it's wonderful to see them grown up and more sensible.

so it was a good time catching up with him and asking him if he is still in contact with other friends. so it was good to receive updates on them.

STM sandra

you know how absent minded i am?

1) yesterday, had to shampoo my hair. but instead of using the shampoo, i used the body shower! and the best part is, i didn't realise it, until after i had put my conditioner, then i realise i didn't use the shampoo juz now.

2) this morning, brought students to ubin. so i drove to changi village, tore the coupon then went to meet the students. when i saw the water bottle they are holding, i realised i forgot to bring down the water bottle. so went back to the car to take the water bottle. then happily, lock the door and went back to meet the students.

3) on the way to ubin on the bumboat, i realise i left my hp in the car! how forgetful can i get?

i attended a conference these two days at NIE.

1) it was a long journey, even by car. so i tell myself, not to rush, drive normally and true enough, it was a pleasant drive, enjoying the songs and just observing how other people drive.

2) on the first morning, popped over to grandma's grave first. bought some flowers for her. before my journey, i was a little worried, worried about my emotions. it must be weird to visit a grave so early in the morning. i think i was the only one and first one there.

surprisingly, i was calm. even looking at grandma, i was calm. didn't bring a cloth with me so didn't manage to give the grave a good wipe.

3) the conference was a good one. i learnt many things from there and am eager to blog down my thoughts. but at this time of the day, i think i will do the conference a dis-service if i were to hurriedly blog down. i need time to think through and orgainse my thoughts. it doesn't help if max is around and mummy this mummy that. so i will do one proper one, when i'm alone

hmmm, tomorrow need to bring students to ubin. looking forward and not so looking forward. it's good to go back to nature but i wish i could use the time to do some of my work. It's already thursday tomorrow.

just now, brought 3M to parkway parade. hmmm, no joy shopping with 3 kids. first, i did some banking, then max saw the kiddy cab, he wanted to take the 'police car', ok, so rent the 'police car' for him. problem is now, we had to take the lift. so walked one big round to take the lift to the basement, walked one big round to buy the skateboard. then walked one big round to take the lift up to the shops again. marcus said that he was hungry, so we had eclair.

then bought some t-shirts for dear dear. mabel bought an OP pencil box. then next, went to giant to buy some groceries. while at op, marcus and max quarrel and max kept calling for me. suppose to buy only 1 thing at giant, ended up buying milk, cereals and chocolates. while waiting to pay for the groceries, asked marcus to go to the vcd shop to get his 3rd instalment of pokeman cd.

so we ended up buying a lot of things. now have to carry these things to the car. after returning the kiddy cab, luckily marcus and mabel helped to carry some stuff. then max wanted me to carry him, i told him i can't.

finally and luckily and slowly, managed to get to the car and drove safely home. It was really like an adventure bringing them out to the shopping centre.

just transfer some photos from hp to laptop.

saturday: went to friend's baby one month celebration. saw old friends there, catch up with them. other than that, nothing much. sunday: bought skateboard. marcus and mabel tried the skateboard. here are some pictures and videos.

This is contradicting. I look forward to the one week break, but yet, not so look forward, because, there is a lot of things to be done and most of the days are gone for various activities.

And after the 1 week holiday, it will be bullet train in term 2. i hope that i will be able to spend some quality time with children during this one week holiday. Have not really plan what we could do together.

don't know what to blog today. Just know that i'm exhausted today and i just want to vege out and play games to destress.