WE WANT SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS IN ENGLISH!

“PPSMI issue closed!” This is the headline in most of our dailies today. As a parent and a lecturer I am truly saddened by the outcome but I believe the final outcome is yet final, after seeing what happen in the middle east, I am confident that the people power will speak for itself, if not now, very soon.
I have two daughters that will be affected by this decision and many millions of “Anak Malaysia” will be affected. The very first instinct as a mother is to stand up and do something. As an academician myself I believe I can do something for my children, I can give extra classes to them, converse with them in English, buy them English materials and equip them to my best ability. To the more financially sound group they can send their children to International School and eventually overseas…..……….but to many million parents out there, they are simply helpless.
Whether those who are in support of PPSMI is of the minority group or not, this simple philosophy of using English to teach both Mathematics and Science should not be debated in the very first place and I find it quite ironic that we parents have to put up so much fact and come up with petitions in order to plead our policy makers/education ministry to please give us an option, yes an option ONLY…. I find this quite pathetic.
The new schooling year is less than 2 months away, yet no concrete information is being shared with the parents. I just heard from a friend who is teaching in a SJKC that for primary school students, Science and Mathematics will only be taught in Chinese for those who are going into Standard 4 (my elder daughter’s group). Can one imagine our education system (Standard 1-3, bilingual, Standard 4-6, Chinese, Secondary 1 – 5, Bahasa and in English thereafter). Yesterday I made a trip to a local bookstore, I could hardly find Science and Mathematics books (for year 4) in bilingual and worst still no more Science and Mathematics in English for Standard 1-3 at all.
Well, if we have to fight, we have to fight… for our children and for our nation. This battle is not against individuals but unseen forces that are at work. Never have I seen such a unity among strangers , strangers who fight for a common cause, the battle is not over but in fact it is just the beginning. No one can ever doubt the extend and influence of people power of a nation. Fellow Malaysians, it is time we wake up from our slumber , be concern of what’s happening, clear our eyes and ears and ACT in whatever capacity we could.

Food for Thoughts

The other day I was listening to a radio channel and the DJs were discussing issues relating to parenting, a family consultant was invited as their guest speader and was sharing his many years of personal experience. One caller called to seek advice on rebellious teenagers. His way of answering the question is very enlightening, there is no rebellious teenagers, as they matured and seek more freedom, we just have to give more responsibilities, his concept is with freedom comes added responsibilities. The reason teenagers rebel is that parents only set restrictions or simply say "NO" to the freedom sought by them but failed to communicate the extra responsibilities that come with those pair of "wings". My eldest will turn 13 in a very short time, I'm praying hard that the foundation that we've laid for the girls will be able to guide and uphold her in the paths ahead.

The girls sure grew up fast!

Blogging time has been replaced by "checking the kid's homework" time nowadays, since they have replacement class today and daddy is away for training in KL, I found myself being pampered with luxurious "me" time... hmm... thought of blogging about the girls (ages since I last blogged about them).

I caught them in action while decorating my cake this morning and took this random picture of both of them, they sure grew up fast and from the picture you can see who is the cheeky one.

Michelle is in Primary 3 this year, as always she is independent with all her homework, she make up her own bed now, I trained her to wash her own dishes, school shoes, keep her study table and room neat and nice and she has been an easy going girl all this while. However recently we observed that she can be quite impatient with her little sis, exercising her authority as the elder sister e.g. bossing and ordering her around :) She has been playing the piano quite a lot nowadays, I can see she's enjoying music and gifted too, her hair is over shoulder length now and she intend to keep it as long as mummy did not oppose to it. For the past months she has been especially clingy to daddy and it's a joy to see both father and daughter bond so well (At least release this mummy and mummy can work on Emily..)

Emily don her new uniform and is in Primary 1. She is quite independent and glad that she blends very well with her new school and friends. One thing we got to insist that she needs to follow the school rules e.g. no bling-blings and fancy clips to school, definitely no toys or what so ever treasure that she can bring to school. I believe she tried to smuggle in even though we told her not to.. anyway I already told her the consequences and it's time she learned. Still in her care free and creative nature and I think that the new KSSR syllabus really suits her, less homework, more activity based and less exam oriented. Overall she's doing quite well. Following the sister's foot steps she is also planning to keep her hair long (as long as she ties them to school) and has repeatedly stressed that no scissors shall be lay upon the tip of her hair. I think she's inspired by Rapunzel. Now Emily is still very latched to me and is real glad that she can have me all by herself (when the jeh jeh cling on to the father).

As I watched then grow, it's amazing how God has lead them thus far, He is indeed gracious to us. Only God knows the mistakes that we made as parents. As I lay down with them every single night, I'm blessed to hear them praying and thanking God for their everyday lives. I stand in witness and declare that God is indeed good... all the time :) He loves us not because of who we are but because of who He is. Now isn't that really something?

Bargaining Power

Yesterday, while I was in the bathroom, Michelle stood at the door and asked if she could watch just 2 songs from the bonus edition of High School Musical 2. House rule is no TV after 7pm from Mon – Thur, by the way I lost count of how XXX times they have watched the CD. While shampooing my body, I answered “yes” and continued with my business, a few seconds later came Emily by the door and asked if they could watch 3 songs instead of 2, below was our conversation:

Emily: Mummy, can we watch 3 songs?
Me : No, just two
Emily: Ha, three ah? (I think she act stupid and pretend hearing “three”)
Me: No… jeh jeh asked for two, I gave permission for just two
Emily: Hmm… three lar…
Me: Two means two, you either watched two or not at all
Emily: Aiyah..two lar two lar.. (walked away)

Recently they employed a new tactic and that is to nag and repeatedly plead in their poor thing look and voice. Sometimes this mummy falls into their trick and at times managed to come out of their spell and insisted on my decision.

Mama Lunch Outing

I planned a “mama lunch” last Saturday contrary to the “mama dinner” last year. The setting is quite similar, get all mama out, away from the kids and hubby, just have a good peaceful lunch (young mothers would know what I mean, not being mean to the daddies out there ya!), chat and chart the course of our “mama group” next milestone. This time we went to OXO restaurant near Queensbay Mall. I’ve been there once, the setting is quite comfortable with couches set up as seats, smooth background music and pretty lamps hanging from the ceiling. We ordered set-lunch from the menus recommended by the chef, the portion was just nice and most importantly we had a fruitful session.

We decided to start a prayer partner group, plan to meat twice a month with some family activities in between that involved the whole family and topical discussions. The ultimate purpose is to support one another in love and in truth with God’s word as our foundation for knowledge and wisdom. We hope to build closer relationship through the prayer partner activity and support each other through the word of God.

Though our membership/attendance is not very consistent (mainly due to family commitments), we thank God for supportive husbands and sure we did talked about our kids and hubbies, it’s true politics and careers are not our cup of tea but rest assured they are not gossips but means to share a part of our lives. I still remember clearly our Pastor’s wife advice to all mothers the last time we met which I think it’s very true… “God does not give us a perfect husband but He gives us the man just right for each of us” How profound…. In the same way we are not perfect mothers and wives but just the right mothers and wives for our children and husband.

Thumbs up for mothers ya! And not forgetting for daddies too…

Lil Isaac, a blessing and channel of worship

How can a bedridden boy who don't even know how to exercise his own body muscle be a channel of worship and glorified our Lord. Little Isaac is hospitalised for uncontrolled fits again and being a parent it is very heartbreaking to see a child lying on the bed and being helpless about it. We could hardly understand how the parents feel BUT I know for sure how Isaac in his condition right now serve to be an instrument of worship that glorifies our Lord.

His life taught us that men has limits, God is all powerful and able,
His life taught us the power of prayer, the power of unity through prayer,
His life taught us that life is so precious, God give us life to enjoy things around us,
His life taught us how beautiful each of us are wonderfully made,
His life taught us about patience, dependence and unconditional love,
His life taught us to be humble, thankful and hopeful,
His life taught us about things we could not have learnt in any other way,
His life is truly a channel of worship that glorifies our Lord.
So lil Isaac, I believe you are in good hands, the battle belongs to our Lord.

Oh ooh........

A friend of mine is pregnant for the fourth time and a bunch of us mothers of three and two were like “ooh and ahh..” over her courage. We congratulated her and at the same time expressed our admiration of her courage to go for four. She’s the second family in our church that has gone this far, most of us stopped at two and three.

After spoken to her, she shared that it took her a few weeks to come to the realization that the baby is real and that she’s having another baby and also to accept the fact that whatever God chooses to do, no man can stopped (no matter what type of family planning methods you are using!)

Ha… so there we were a bunch of mothers of two, sharing our tales on how we dreaded late periods, anticipating yet-to-come menses at the end of every month, fearing of another baby in our late 30s or 40s and discussing the reliability of our current birth-control techniques!

I jokingly suggested that let’s go for our 3rd one, then terminate our ability to conceive once and for all, have peace of mind as it seems that doctors only agreed or recommend to the procedure of tubal ligation (on female) and vasectomy (on male)….. when we have reached 40s with at least 3 kids. At the mean time whatever birth control we are taking is not 100%. On another hand, there’s a voice speaking inside of me and sort of reprimanding me which sounds like this “Tsk tsk tsk, why are you so afraid of receiving God’s blessings, didn’t God says children are a blessing from Him?”

You see, women in 30s are in a dilemma stage when it comes to child bearing, we are not young anymore to bear more children as some of us would gladly testifies how our body changed and “suffered” during those times, at the same time not too old to have one also. Haiz…. At the mean time, let everything be status quo and let the Master decides.

A little discovery

I discovered something this morning.................... and that is I've turned into a long winded, naggy mommy. This is what triggered me.. Michelle recently has this habit of "forgetting", when asked about her homework, she'll said, today got how many homework only, she's done with it and start occupying herself with her own activities. Last Saturday when we were preparing to go out, suddenly she remembered that she has this "Jau Chue - making sentences in Chinese language" yet to be completed. I was like... ha... "I asked you already and now that we are going out for fun and you tell me that you still have unfinished homework, arrgh...". This morning while on my way to work, suddenly she claimed that she forgot to practice her Bahasa synonim and antonim.... ha... I was like "arg....this girl, keep on giving lame excuses ha, I nagged, nagged and nagged...."

To top it up (by now she has left the house with MIL to send Emily to school), I drafted a new time table for her (the one that we currently have seems not so practical), it looked something like this:
9.00 - 9.30 am - Revise antonim, synonim and ejaan (spelling in Bahasa)
9.30 - 10.00 am - Do activity books (English, Bahasa & Mathematics, 2 pages each)
10.00 - 10.30 am - Watch High-Five (TV program)
10.30 - 11.00 am - Pack her school bag, bathe
11.00 - 11.30 am - Revise antonim and synonim again
11.30 - 12.30 pm - Lunch and prepare for school

While on the road this morning, suddenly I felt so guilty. I prayed on the spot that God will grant me wisdom to teach my girl how to be a responsible person, use constructive and positive words to motivate and inspire her to self-learn rather than nag, nag and nag. Haiz....

The Fact of Life

I'm sure parents will be asked this question at least once over their lifetime as a parent: "Mummy/Daddy, where do babies come from, how are they made?" LOL, I remember my daughters asked me this some time back, well this is how I explained it:

"One day daddy and mummy love each other so much that we decided to make a baby, well to make a baby, you'll need this. Mummy has an egg and daddy has a worm, one day, daddy's worm swam into mummy's body and met the egg, the worm joined the egg and a baby is formed, mummy fed the baby through the food that mummy takes each day and as the days passed by, the baby grew and one fine day when the baby decided to come out, mummy experienced a big "stomachache" and when mummy pushed hard, out came the baby, so that is how mummy and daddy made both of you"

While explaining this I made some action, of course they giggled and was amazed by the storylah....

On another note... for those who are concerned and eagered to know the updates... I was tested.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... negative through a self pregnancy test yesterday. Still no sign of menses, dizzyness has improved slightly, no sigh of nausea but still with a gigantic appetite throughout the day. :D

Here we are... enjoy

As promised this is going to be a fully photo post...

Picture 1: Guess who is this??


Picture 2: "Hello aunties and uncles.. my post pretty or not?"


Picture 3: "Hi meet my bear bear.... my companion when mummy too busy to entertain me"


Picture 4: "Ha ha, you think I'm jeh jeh or mei mei?"


Picture 5: "Ta da, it's me Emily, did you guess it right?"


Picture 6: "Another girl girl here, guess who am I?"


Picture 7: "It's jeh jeh?... Observed carefully before you decide
Picture 8: "Can't tell leh.."
Picture 9: "Ke ke ke, confused?"
Picture 10: "Last chance now"

Picture 11: "It's me lar.. jeh jeh"


Picture 12: "Here we are, when we were small, we fight little.."

Picture 13: "As we grew up, we fight more but we still love each other"

Picture 14: "Mom once threathen us that we will have to stay in different houses because we fight a lot..."

Picture 15: "At the end of the day, we still hug hug and kiss kiss one another, mom and dad just don't understand our language of love.. ke ke ke"

A lesson worth RM1.20

Michelle asked permission to buy a flexible type ruler. She checked the price from one of her friend and came back to inform me that it costs RM1.20. Since she’s quite keen I gave her the green light and provided her the required amount.

Yesterday while she got into the car (when I picked her up), she confessed that since the stall is not open during recess time she had used the money to buy a drink and a packet of sweets.

Back home, I bathed her and told her that I want to have a one on one session with her. She got the feeling that I’m going to punish her for her action. I let her settled down, closed the room door and begin the “disciplining” session with her.

I asked her to tell me her side of story, why she had used the money to buy something else, something I prohibited and in which she clearly understood. Yeah to many it’s just a small matter but I wanted her to learn that firstly she needs to seek permission if she wanted to use the money for something else, secondly not to be easily influenced by her peers and thirdly to be able to make a wise decision on her own in our absence.

I did not cane her but I stressed that I will not be hesitate to do so if she was to repeat her mistake. I gave her some time to think about her action, (by now she’s already crying), and if she has fully understood why I need to discipline her and later to wash her face and prepare for dinner.

I went in for a shower and saw this note on my dressing table (bear with her broken English and wrong spelling):


This is what she wrote:
"I take my friend twenty sen
can I take twenty sen back to her tomorrow
sorry mummy
plese fogive me
plese don't rod me
I love you mummy
I am sad"

Still crying she confessed that she has done something very wrong, she asked RM0.20 from a friend to buy a packet of sweets as she has lost the 20 cents I gave her earlier. She asked for forgiveness and whether she can have 20 cents tomorrow to return to her friend. Suddenly I found my eyes were in tears, not because of her disobedience but I was touched by her openness to admit her wrong doing. From her note I can see how sorry she was and how bad she must have felt for doing what she had done. She can choose not to tell be about it, quietly took 20 cents from her coin box and pretend nothing has happened, but I’m glad she choose to be honest and brave enough to bear the consequences of her action.

Michelle, mummy is proud of you and mummy will love you just the same….

This morning, she called me repeatedly while I was in the kitchen, I went into the room in which she said “mummy let’s hug hug”…ah what I wonderful moment, I won’t want to miss this for anything….. Oh God grant me wisdom to be a good mom.

Reaching out to the youth...

A church sister approached me one Sunday and asked if I could gave a short talk on dressing for a group of 13-18 year old (the teenage group in my church). Hmm... I'm certainly not an expert in this field, but on the other hand why not. If we don't teach our young generation to dress appropriately, the TV, magazine, media and especially their peers are going to do that.

For me any teaching should be coming from the Bible as it is the source of knowledge and wisdom, well did God say anything about our dressings? Sure He did... especially to ladies, it is recorded clearly that we should dress modestly..... I searched the dictionary, modest means humble, unpretentious, simple, reserved in our speech, dress and behavior. Wow... it's indeed a big word.. now how do you communicate this to a group of teenagers who advocate style, fashion, brands, individuality....

I do not want them to have an impression that being modest is to dress like their grandmothers, pale looking, old fashion, unattractive and boring, in fact being modest is being ourself (unpretentious, genuine), simple and humble and that's perfectly nothing wrong with it.

Well, I got to know that this creative lot plans to organize a fashion show kind of session, they welcome feedbacks on the dos and donts which I think is good and serve as a good entry point for me to speak to them. God helps me to be an influencer to our future leaders in church and society and most importantly to teach me to be modest in my dressings as well...

Super Duper Mom, Wife....

I once read a parenting book that while a father is the head of the family, mother is the heart of the family, therefore it is very natural that a mother's heart is always for the family especially the needs of our children and spouse.

I remembered when I first got married, I felt bad not being back home on time to cook dinner and when I had my children felt guilty of not spending more time with them, not cooking for them, not being there all the time when they were sick or just recovered from any illness, not caring enough for them....etc.

I'm sure a lot of moms out there do feel the same at certain time of your motherhood, deep inside us we want to be a super wife, a super mom, a super daughter, a super DIL and a super employee. But the fact is often times we cannot be one and the more we attempt to do so, we will end up being more stressed up, feeling inadequate and sometimes a total failure, worst still a total breakdown...

I guess it's part of the process and journey of life as a wife, mother and a woman.
I'm now learning to take things easy (though sometimes it's easier said than done), less critical on myself, expect less , plan less, things need not have to be in super orderly/systematic manner and take things one at a time.....

I believe we need to "pause" and "take five" at least once a day....to start off take a little bit more time in the bathroom.... ha ha ha... I did that at times...

I would encourage mothers to share their struggles in this area.. and by doing so we may encourage each other as we journeyed through....

The many sides of Emily...

My lil old Emily is sure one big "irritator" and who is the victim if not her one and only jeh jeh. Basically everyday I will hear "mummy, jeh-jeh do this to me" or "mummy, emily do this to me"... Hubby keeps on reminding me "Don't die on every mountain... just focused on the main ones" meaning not to be too overly concerned on the little misbehaviour of your child, just come in the picture for the big ones.

Emily always ignored my first instruction, maybe I nagged too much at home quah.. I will have to say twice or more to get my message across... When hubby instructs and stared at her with his big eyes, she will obey immediately. When asked, hubby commented "because I meant what I say, yes means yes, no means no". Somehow I admit using hubby's name to make things easier... "oh daddy is coming back.. oh daddy won't like this... oh daddy..." Hubby commented I'm giving a negative perception of him... okay I'm guilty lor...

On the other hand I realized Emily has great compassion, a good care giver and a heart full of love. She wiped my tears and kissed me on the cheeks whenever I cried over sad movies, she served me with glasses of water and sponge my forehead when I'm down with fever, she lied down with me and keep me accompany when I was unwell. She comforted me with words when I missed her poh poh.. She stroked jeh-jeh's forehead when she had a bad fall and kissed her pointer when I accidentally closed the car door(ouch.. careless mummy...)

Just yesterday I caned her for her wrongdoings...she cried and cried...poor girl but mummy got to discipline you...at the end of such session I always reassured her that I loved her and we end up in each other arms....

SAHM's tale

I have not been updating my blog regularly nowadays. Having more time at home doesn't mean more time for blogging... hmm.... because most of the time occupied with the kids and doing a whole bunch of miscellaneous tasks at home. In fact I find it quite challenging preparing lectures at home. Yesterday I locked myself in the room after negotiated with lil old Emily, I told her that I'll come out of the room when I'm done and then we could spend time playing and doing whatever she wants. She on the other hand suppose to occupy herself ( I recommended a whole list on what she could do) while I prepared my lecture.

Ha ha... after 20 minutes or so, here came the knocking... "mummy, mummy could you open the door and see what I've built"... I opened the door, looked at her work of art, kissed her and locked the door... 10 minutes passed by... the little one came knocking again, this time requesting to be in the room "I'll keep quiet, I want to accompany you, I....." Aiyah..... This follows by a series of reasoning, "threatening" and there goes my lecture.... Okay I gave up, left the door wide open so that she could come in and out of the room and I struggling to complete what I need to do.....

Kids... with them it's too noisy, without them it's so quiet...can't really live without them eh...

Awakening..

2 weeks into lecturing..... the result... a hoarse voice. Guess not used to hours of talking and talking... Hmm need to boil bird nest to soothen my voice.

What I enjoyed most are Mondays and Fridays... days off where I got to spend more time with the girls. We did a lot of random things together... like making envelopes, washing the car, cooked porridge, gardening....

You know I've not been bathing the girls for quite some time, when I bathed them lately I realized how fast they've grown up, how tall they are and the towels are too small for them when I wrapped them up. I take time to smell them too...

Lately I noticed that Michelle is a bit temperamental and Emily has became a TV addict!! and she is crazy over rings nowadays. Staying at home has also opened up my eyes on the way they spent time at home (no discipline leh) and see the "real picture" of both of the girls (they really know how to negotiate and reason nowadays.

Last night we learnt about having patience and I know I will need a lot of it from now on....

Teaching a child...

Teaching your own child can be quite challenging, I heard numerous comments from parents that they find it so difficult to teach their child be it in their studies , driving a car, playing the piano…. “You can’t teach your own child, you’ll be very frustrated, they will take advantage of you, you can’t save a tuition teacher’s fees etc”

The reason of me changing job is to have more time to coach the children at home, so yesterday I had the opportunity to revise class lessons with Michelle. I realized of all the subjects, Bahasa Malaysia (the Malay language) is definitely not a favourite subject for her. Mainly due to us also, we find it so odd to be speaking Bahasa at home so her vocab is quite limited.

On the second day of school she was already introduced to 20 words, some of them were familiar but majority were not. The bahasa was taught in both language (Bahasa vs Mandarin), hubby wanted to test her understanding by covering the Chinese characters, immediately she kept quiet, feeling so sad and wanted to cry… hubby was caught unguarded and seek my advice… (ha ha ha, see how important this mummy is)..

I brought her to my room, asked her concerns and she burst into tears, poor girl. When she got settled down, we confirm her concerns and I reassured her that we all got to learn from zero and mummy will be with her.. by the way that’s the reason of her going to school right??

I tried creative ways to help her to remember, important thing is to understand the meaning… we did a lot of role play and scene creation… in less than ½ hour she managed to remember and understand all the words and me in return learned all the 20 Chinese words lor… win-win situation indeed…

3 Paintbrush of parenting

I managed to steal some time and did some reading last week, I'm reading a parenting book by Dr.William Slonecker, halfway through I find the book quite interesting with a lot of practical insights in parenting, most importantly, it's based on biblical principles in which hubby and I agreed there could be no other better way than our God's way when it comes to bringing up and nurturing our precious gems.

The writer shared 3 must have paint brushes of parenting which are love, authority and trust, what I like about the book is there are no heavy stuff, more on principles and a lot of life experiences from the writer who serve as a pediatrician cum family counsellor for more than 40 years. It's not written for American parents, in fact I could relate the principles and his examples in our Asian family context. Therefore I strongly recommend this book to parents who are open to parenting principles based on a biblical point of view.

Happy reading, God knows how a daunting task it is being parents. :D