Food for thought

Fingularity posted this video up on her site and I love love love it so much that I'm reproducing it here. This video brought tears to these eyes. Enjoy.

Learning from failure

The kids are back with their final year exam results. The two older kids did well enough, we set out targets earlier on in the year and they both pretty much got the grades that were expected of them. Sara didn't. She did extremely well for her language papers but did not pass her math exams. Sigh.

I thought she might just scrape through, but failing maths at primary 1 is like a slap on the face. Mine, I mean. She was visibly upset when she told me, so at least she knew the repercussion of not passing her exam. But she got over it quickly and was on to the next thing that caught her attention. And so, I do what I do best. I analyse (ok, the husband said unhealthily over-analysing at the most micro-level, but hey, I can't help it).

While I have been trying (and the key word here is *try*) to teach Sara mathematical concepts (that I was once bewildered with and subsequently hated with all my heart and soul), I have also been painfully aware that I was losing her interest. All the drills we were going through, I was questioning if they were helping. And on the day she came home with her result, I got my answer, loud and crystal clear.

I know I have to change my teaching style and I have been having conversations with her tutor and Kumon instructor, too. Sara is better at languages because the words describe a story to her. A story that she can act out in her head and she is free to use her active imagination and different words to describe what's going on in the theatre that exists in her mind.

I *need* to make Maths appeal to her that way. I need to make it fun for her. She's a kinesthetic learner and while she can sit down and do math drills for a little while, she is doing it because she is an obedient child, not because she thinks she's learning anything new. In other words, she is not engaged.

So this school holiday that's coming up, in addition to her Kumon worksheets (which is helping her with speed and accuracy) and tuition, we are to:
- bake cookies and cupcakes; so that she learns mass/weight and after baking we can learn division concepts
- sing songs about multiplication tables (*do not laugh* but I have bought a teaching aid which I think might just do the trick)
- walk to the park so that we may collect different types of leaves and learn division concepts and ordinal numbers from our leaf collection
- cook noodles and spaghetti, before which we study lengths
- play shopping so that we can learn counting money
- play teacher, where she will teach me maths :)

I'm hoping these would go someway into making her understand and more importantly, interested, in maths. I want to make sure she is starting primary two on the right footing, despite her primary 1 maths grade. Insha Allah. So please send me your du'a, prayers or magic dust.

Disconnected

Sometimes I feel so disconnected with the people around me. I don't feel the joy and I don't see the beauty. I know God's beautiful creations are everywhere and if I even put in an iota of effort, I will see it. But alas, I don't feel like it.

I turned 39 not too long ago and as always I wanted a quiet dinner with the kids and husband. There were a few unexpected guests who came over, with very good intentions of celebrating with us but I wasn't feeling too sociable. While they sat and had cake and chit chat, I was spacing out for most part of the time.

I feel like I am losing my mojo. Not sure what I need to do to reconnect but you know, I am also afraid that I am liking being distant a little too much. I feel like I need my space but I'm not sure what I'd do with all that space? Is this mid life crisis? Too many questions with no answers. Maybe it's time for more self-reflection...

And yes, I am exaggerating

But not by that much, really.

The trip to the Indonesian embassy was made memorable as I was interviewed by two different officers on how and why the passport went missing. Like, hello? I don't want to get all defensive but the key words were "moved house" and "passport missing" and I have only repeated it all afternoon. I told them we discovered the passport was missing a week before we made the police report as we wanted to make sure we went through all of the boxes. Only to be told that I should've waited for a month before declaring the passport lost. If looks could kill, I would've been held for murder.

The second interview was with another officer who wanted to know how much I paid my helper and how often she gets her day off. Which were harmless questions but I wasn't in a sociable mood anymore, after five hours of mostly waiting, at the embassy. And then of course, I read a story like this which makes me angry because again, employers of domestic helpers need all the bad rep they can get, right?

Preparing Sara for her math exam is taking its toll on me. I have had two bouts of migraine and I think I have finally suitably confused her with my explanations and terrified of me getting all upset when she still doesn't get the concept I was trying to desperately explain to her. I am just thankful that she doesn't need much help with her languages and that we only need to focus on Maths. I am trying very hard to keep my eyes on the ball here.

And Farah has completed her exams but is throwing herself (far too much, I think) in her school drama club. I got really upset when she came home way after dinner and didn't even bother to call to let me know. I hit the roof and gave her a piece of my mind, resulting in much pouting and sulking (her, not me).

The husband will be back tomorrow and it can't come sooner because I am about ready to collapse. And that, is no exaggeration.

Coming up for air...

What a ride. The endless visitors, the missing passport, the clearing of remaining boxes as part of the passport search exercise, and work, work, work plus exams, exams, exams. I haven't had time for kick-boxing and yoga. Grrrr.

In the meantime, enjoy this video:

Knee-deep...

...with work. And many visitors at home. No. Time. To. Rest. Helper. Lost. Passport. Horror story about my encounter at the embassy to come soon...

Outrageous!

For those living in Singapore, did you know that your phone number and address could be listed on yellowpages.com.sg?

If you didn't know, welcome to the club. A friend told me about the website and I was flabbergasted when I found out that my new address and phone numbers were listed there without me providing any authorisation.

I called my service provider up and demanded that they got my numbers removed. Here's the cherry on the cake - I could get my number and address removed as long as I pay $2.14 per month to get my details unlisted.

So, let me get this straight. My service provider gave out my details to yellow pages without informing me, let alone getting authorisation from me, and if I wanted to be removed from yellow pages, I need to pay the service provider monthly payments so that my details which I didn't authorise for them to divulge to third parties, could be removed. Someone please explain the logic to me? Because I think, if anyone gets to profit from this, it should be me. They should be paying me $2.14 per month to have my details on their website.

For now, I told them to unlist my number and I have told them I want to know who's getting the $2.14 per month and why should consumers be paying for something like this. The poor customer service person who got my tirade was obviously tired of my rant by then, and promised he would get his supervisor to call me back. It's been 24 hours and no call. But fret not, I will be calling them soon.

I am annoyed. And if you find your details on yellowpages.com.sg as well, you should be too.