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15/09/2005

Paparazzi flock to kindergarten concert

I’ve been an assistant teacher during my younger days…in a kindergarten near my house. It was during the hols and I had nothing to do, no pocket money. so, I worked. And I was assigned to handle the screaming and kicking kids during the school’s yearly concert.

 

So, I know it’s no fun to have concerts…for the teacher, at least.

 

And for kids…it’s all of 5 minutes of fame, endless hours of dancing and singing practices, consistent nagging and scolding from teachers during rehearsals and getting dressed in corny clown costumes and having lipstick and blusher on your face.

 

Kids’ concerts are…especially kindergarten ones…in my personal opinion, are for the parents of those kids who are performing. Those ‘aw….’ moments that lasts all but a few seconds when the show begins. And then the ‘Oh, shit’ moments if the kid fouls up or grabs his crotch because he needs to visit the bathroom in the middle of the performance!

 

Parents these days go armed with luxury camcorders and expensive digital cameras and I swear…this is the only time you can see parents elbowing each other and hissing at each other in front of the stage – pretty much like the paparazzi. They want to catch the best picture of the stars on stage and they would do ANYTHING to get a good spot. The only thing missing are the car chases.

 

Oh, wait a minute. The car chases might be missing but the dissing around for parking spaces is a MUST!

 

This is not the first time I have a kid with a concert. Joshua’s had two and this is going to be my third time. And all of them are being held in my college, KDU, where, ironically, I performed endlessly during my younger college days. Call it irony but I call it bloody fate!

 

This Saturday, I am going to have to go through the whole concert-shenanigan again. But for Jared, this time. It’s his first time performing and to tell you the truth, I think Jared inherited my flare for stage dramatization. He has a knack for it, I tell you. But I am thinking about all those elbowing parents, fights for parking, runny make-up, hot and bothered, crying kids all over the place, screaming teachers…etc.

 

I am thinking to myself….Sheesh, I can’t wait. But yeah…really, on the other hand, I REALLY can’t wait!

07:43 Posted in Being human , Family , Ramblings | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

13/09/2005

My parents go hi-tech!

Because of the nature of my work, I have to seriously look into ways to keep in touch with my clients and partners. They’re located everywhere in the world, it’s not possible for me to make a phone call to them every so often. Most of them like to SPEAK to me instead of just sending emails to me, so, I have to make it a point to be available to them online.

 

Not satisfied with using just emails, I have to use my own voice conference room and also MSN and Yahoo messengers to talk with them. And this is something that I take for granted. Grabbing stripes of paper to make ‘lucky stars’ while I am chatting with my clients is the norm. I also tend to massage by kids’ feet whenever I am online chatting. I can even write an entire article about ‘how to get rid of white hair’ while chatting with my clients.

 

What I don’t realize is that internet calls is a phenomenon for some.

 

Like my sister who is just as tech savvy as the next person in Malaysia. And also my parents and auntie (who lives in Dubai, for now). I go like… ”You don’t know you can talk with instant messenger?? What century are you living in lah!!” This is, like, very old news from last decade or something! But I take it all for granted.

 

I work online, therefore, am exposed to all these stuff. They’re not funky in my eyes, but to others, damn, it’s next best thing to colored toilet paper! A couple of months back, I introduced my aunt who is living in Dubai with her husband to MSN voice. Oh, she knew we could chat on MSN but it just never occurred to her to try out the AUDIO tab on top of the messenger. I prompted her and she immediately exclaimed, “Wah, can talk wan meh?”. For sure.

 

And then my mom and this aunt is close (in fact, my mom is close to really close to all her sisters) to this aunt, so, my sister decided to try to install MSN messenger into the home PC and let my mom chat with my aunt for free. My aunt has been using Skype to talk with her family members. After a couple of glitches where my sister called me ‘David Copperfield’ *blush*, it worked.

 

Since I opened her eyes to MSN voice, she has been chatting with my mom online, I think. Hopefully.

 

You see, my point is that…I have been using instant messengers for some time now and it didn’t occur to me that it was anything wonderful. I thought it was normal and this is what everyone does, anyway, what’s the big deal? And then through my family members, I learn that I have been taking all these free facilities for granted. And come to think of it, MSN and Yahoo probably kept my business alive by providing me with all these chatting and telephone services. Sure, there are loopholes, of course, but we can live with it. It’s free, right? And beggars can’t be choosers.

 

Instant Messenger not only keeps me connected to my clients, but it keeps my mom happy as well.

 

Now, isn’t THAT cool?

20:24 Posted in Being human , Blog , Family , Ramblings , Web | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this

12/09/2005

Oh, poor Josh

No matter how hard you try to downplay the importance of homework, it will somehow surface in one form or another. I have always been the kind of mother who focused on learning-through-play method of education. I opine that the more fun you have at something, the more you will learn.

 

However, after having succumbed to pressure from my husband and my relatives, Joshua is finally in Mandarin-based kindergarten. Tonight, his eyes teared over as he related how his teacher asked him why he didn’t complete all his homework. To his defense, he was coughing, wheezing, sneezing and was feverish throughout the week! So, he missed an entire week of school. As with Chinese schools, homework can be brought forward, therefore, he’s got some catching up to do.

 

So, when he didn’t complete his homework (with my permission – how can you force someone who is running a 39.2 degrees fever to do his homework is beyond me) his teacher gave him some kind of shelling. I am not sure the kind of shelling and the level of reprimand he received, but it was bad enough to make him cry beyond bedtime. Joshua is the kind of guy who would tear up at anything – the emotional one. Jared is the one who couldn’t care less if you threatened to blow up his school bag.

 

I am thinking about sending Jared to the same school next year because I see that Joshua needs a lot of help with his Mandarin. Two years is not enough. And I am not keen to send him to YET another tuition. I will only do so if we cut one of the other classes. I am thinking to myself, “Will Chinese school change my Jolly Little Jared into one solemn guy?” I can only tolerate one Joshua, I don’t need two of them to be solemn and sad all the time.

 

But then again, like me, it’s very hard and it takes a lot to bring a guy like Jared down. No sooner are we down, we bounce right back up again. Either pretending nothing happened or have already forgotten what all that commotion is about.

 

I am not too happy with the teacher chastising my son for not doing his homework when he’s sick. I will have a word or two with the teacher tomorrow…and we’ll take it from there.

19:22 Posted in Family , Ramblings | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this