Private Tutors

I have been my boy's private tutor ever since he started pre-school, then kindie and now in primary school.  He is in primary 3 this year and I am so tempted to find him tutors to help him in some of the subjects especially Chinese subject to take a burden off my shoulders.

The standard of Chinese subject is getting a bit too hard for a 'semi-banana' mother like myself.  Why semi-banana?  Even though I went to a national primary school, our school had Chinese lessons, though the textbooks used were much simplified than the ones in a Chinese school.   I was the Chinese teacher's favourite back then and never failed to stay in the top 2 positions for this subject.   I always questioned my mother as to why I was the odd one in the family who went to a national school whereas my siblings all went to Chinese schools.  

I can read newspapers and novels in Chinese language effortlessly, reading here refers to understanding the content of the said reading materials.  I will be at a loss when it comes to pronouncing some of the words as I am handicapped in my Hanyu Pinyin.  I have to look up on the dictionary whenever I am in doubt of the accurate pronunciation.

Having said that, I am glad that my boy has a flair for languages as he scored highest marks in his class for his Chinese, Bahasa Malaysia and English papers during the recent school exam.  I think I will put the thought of getting him a tutor on hold, at least until next year, where and when the needs arise.  That would mean I'll have to do something to improve my Chinese language before its level gets even harder!

Got Into A Fight

My boy got into a fight with another boy in his class during dismissal time yesterday.

My boy was already in his usual assigned position in the queue outside his classroom when he suddenly realized his water tumbler and lunch box weren't with him so he went back in to retrieve them from his seat.  Another boy who was previously standing behind him, took over him and refused to move even though my boy insisted and demanded his place back.  

They got into an argument and this boy, better known as one of the bullies in the class, punched my boy in his stomach twice.  My boy told me later the blow was painful but he did not shed a tear, instead he attempted throwing the boy to the ground by applying the Aikido throwing techniques he learned from his sinsei. *roll eyeballs* Not quite successful I can see as he said the boy fell onto the ground while he lost his balance and landed on top of him, bottom first! Ouch!!!  imagine my almost 40kg boy with 'fleshy bum bum' landed on this skinny boy.. Wuakakaka... Ahem.. Sorry for laughing out loud.. It just kind of tickles my funny bones..  Hahahaha... but the way he related the  incident was simply funny and hilarious.

I put on a straight face immediately after the laughter and made it clear to him that violence was not a good solution and he should have reported the incident to the teacher on duty.  He said no teacher was around when the incident happened and he merely fought out of self-defense.  Frankly speaking hor, I was 'secretly' relieved that he was capable of defending himself in such a situation and not letting himself succumbed to bullies.  On the other hand, I don't think it's right still teaching our kids to fight back using violence.  

How would you react if you're in my shoes?

QQ Snowmix @Bandar Puteri Puchong

A night before we left for my kampung during the last school holidays, we went for Taiwanese desserts at QQ Snowmix  after having our dinner at home.  We ordered two types of desserts to share as the portion was huge!

Taro Ice + grass jelly + sweet potatoes & Taro cubes

I have seen the pictures of the above dessert in some of the blogs and it was listed as one of their bestsellers in the menu so I ordered this.  Those sweet potatoes and taro cubes didn't taste and feel original as I first expected, a bit too chewy to my liking as I believe glutinous rice flour and lots of starch flour were added, hence the starchiness and chewiness.  Hubby loved chewing on those cubes, not me though. ^.^

 

Iced Jelly.. sour and refreshing!

This one is our all time favourite!  We had this at one of the dessert shops nearby several times, price wise, it was more or less the same but the portion here was huge!  We will surely come back again for this!

Stock Investment

I sold off my apartment few months ago after keeping it for over 10 years.  The process wasn't all smooth sailing, having had a tenant from hell who refused to move out at first and threatened to harm me if I insisted and then finally ran off with months of unpaid utilities and rentals! I had to suffer episodes of mental stress and to clear his debts!  But I can see the sunlight now, the gloomy days are finally over! The legal documents had finally reached its final stage and the handover of property finally took place today. Phew!  

Now that I have quite a fair amount of proceeds from the sale of my apartment, I want to make good use of it for investment purposes.  Putting the money in a fixed deposit will not yield much interest these days.  I was thinking of investing the money in some penny stocks such as Tim sykes.  The gain from the sale does not allow me to buy and keep a lot of those expensive stocks so I think I would rather keep more units of lower price stocks.  Like the saying goes, do not put all eggs in one basket. :P

My Dream Wedding

I was once a young girl who loved nature and grew up in a small town surrounded by greens.  The small town that I lived in was surrounded not only by greens but ocean.  Those magnificent and abundance view of nature was too easy to come by, something that I took for granted then.

Now that I live in a big city, what I can see surrounding me are concrete forests with tall and amazing buildings. For someone like me who loves ocean a lot, I find ocean view in this big city something hard  to come by, one has to travel quite a journey to satisfy your longing for an ocean view.

It would be nice if one could have some green events for their weddings, family reunions, vacation and the list goes on.   For myself, I had always longed for a beach wedding, that did not materialize of course, I had a very traditional wedding myself.  For couples who plan to tie your wedding knots, it is never too late to start  planning the places to get married and making your once in a lifetime event an unforgettable one!

Sandakan - Day 1

I am blogging from my iPad so gonna make it short. We touched down at Sandakan Airport just in time to enjoy mama's home cooked lunch. I had a good time catching up with my parents and siblings while the boy was so excited to see all his cousins again.

We then went to the market to get some fruits with my mom and sister before going to my uncle's house to pay respect to my maternal grandparents.




while waiting to board the plane



The cousins having a dip in the pool in the evening.

We took the kids to the swimming pool in the evening and they all enjoyed the time together before heading home for mama's home cooked meal. :)

Ala carte Dinner @The Living Room, The Westin KL

We went to The Westin KL again last weekend to utilise the last dining coupon which was expiring end of this month.  We actually planned to have buffet dinner but alas, buffet dinner was not available during weekends.  Since we were already there, we ordered ala carte dishes from its not so extensive menu.

Free flow of iced water on the house

Bread to jump start our dinner  - The buns were a bit hard and chewy though still warm.

Oxtail soup, tasted a bit bland to me, preferred stronger taste of spices

Chicken & pasta soup

Ayam Percik c/w rice and condiments.  The meat of the chicken thigh was so tender, falling off the bone type, I likey.

The boy's Club sandwich.  

He could not finish this and no prize for guessing right which tummy the rest went to.

Mee Mamak.  Father and son shared this.  

Both commented it was a bit too salty to their liking

Hubby's black cod fish that comes with salad and sauce.

The hubs didn't realize the dish was served in a sizzling pan.  He hates any food served sizzling! ^.^  The fish fillet tasted somewhat tasteless and it's flaky, texture wise.  We still prefer fish with firm texture.

Overall, the meal was just okay and nothing to shout about.  I don't think we will go back for their ala carte dishes but for buffet... Hmmmmm.. Yes! LOL...

Paper Plate Dragon Mask

Mommy, I am a dragon! Roar!!!

The boy came home with three homework last evening, not so much but everytime when he gets his 知识画报, a compulsory magazine printed with exercises of various subjects, he sure takes at least one hour to complete all exercises in the magazine.  The weekly magazine comprises of Chinese, BM, Maths, Moral, Science and English exercises but they only need to do Chinese and Moral exercises, the 2 subjects that his class teacher teaches.  Anyway, this kiasu mommy always makes sure he finishes all exercises.  It was already 11pm when he finished all his homework except for his artwork.  Since it was over his usual 10.30pm bedtime, I told him we would do it together the next morning. 

The art craft that he needed to do was to make a mask out from a paper plate and some manila cards.  The boy should have finished and passed it up at school but he somehow spoilt his creation half way into doing it.

This morning, I googled and found this dragon mask template.  As my printer ran out of ink, I did the drawing myself while the boy helped in colouring and putting things together.  We spent 1 1/2 hours to get the things up. Phew!!  We didn't get to do a bit of revision like we usually do as by the time we finished the art craft, it was already time for lunch and off he went to school!

The end result..  

Nice or not?    I got the template from here.

Chinese Reading Frenzy

Content of the novel

I bought the boy this Chinese illustration novel when I was at Popular Bookstore two days ago.  This novel was recommended by one of my friends whose daughter also loves reading, mostly English books though, Geronimo Stilton in particular, hardly any Chinese story books.

She got this novel for her banana girl recently and to her surprise, she started flipping through the novel as it has the same funny font characters as Geronimo's, one of the strong factors why kids are drawn to the book.  As I am writing this post, the series of this novel by Odonata has just published its 4th book. 

My boy, though reads Chinese and BM story books too but he is still inclined towards English books given a choice.   I hope he will be like mommy one day who reads not only English books but Chinese and BM books too when I was his age if not older and that's how I picked up Chinese though I went to a Kebangsaan school.

Content of Geronimo Stilton books

I also bought him comics books, also by Odonata as requested by him. Yes, He requested for those Chinese Books!  Previously, he would never have asked for any Chinese books unless I bought and put them on the bookshelves, then he would read it but the priority would still be English books! 

I think he is influenced by his classmates who are mostly from Mandarin speaking families unlike his previous school where majority of them spoke English.

The content of the comics

The dinosaur comics he pre-ordered through his school.   It has become a hit among kids in his school.  One of his classmates even attempted stealing one of those books from his bag but the boy soon recovered it as someone in the class who witnessed the incident reported to the teacher, the culprit was caught red- handed. Lucky him!

And this too, to prepare him for std 4 as by then, they are required to use Chinese idioms to make sentences and write essays.

I hope by reading more books, my boy would not have to memorise those long essays they have to write during exams, it's torturing having to do all the memorising. Gosh.. And yes, now that he is in std 3, essay writing is coming real soon as the Chinese standard in his present school is higher compared to the previous one.  The boy hasn't gotten back their exam papers but he told me they already had one Chinese essay during the recent exam but much to a simplified version where some of the words were given and they're required  to fill in the blank to complete the whole essay.  

Last but not least, I must admit that he is still not quite ready to reading a 'real' novel which I bought for him at his request too.  I think this one novel gotta sit and wait on the bookshelf until he is ready. Hehehe...

A 'real' novel with no pics or funny font characters in between..

Popular Book Fair @IOI Mall (07.03-18.03.12)

I made a trip to Popular Bookstore after dropping off the boy at school yesterday.  I promised my nephew and niece that I would get them some books when we 'balik kampung' this coming Sunday. Yes!  School holidays start this Saturday and we are going back to my hometown in Sabah for a week!  Yippeeeee.... 

When I was about to march into the bookstore, I saw a banner at the entrance informing customers that they are having a book fair starting tomorrow.  Since I will make quite a bit of book purchases, I decided to hold my bullets for tomorrow but yet I still came home with a Chinese story book for the boy during my visit there.  

I got myself a tall cup of pearl milk tea from 'Dong Cha' before heading home.  Both the boy and myself enjoy drinking cold milk tea and it seems to be a trend now.  What about you? Do you like Dong Cha too as much as we do?

Pearl Milk Tea RM5.90 @Dong Cha, IOI Mall

Milk Roasted Tea RM5.90, add RM1 for pearl

@Chatime, Sunway Pyramid