Today we took the kids to Singapore’s newest mall, Vivocity. The island’s first GAP store opened there a few months ago.
The kids loved the playground.
Also, this boat (which at first we thought was a pirate ship) is actually from Sweden and was parked right outside the mall. Pretty cool, but the ship wasn’t open to the public today so we didn’t get to board.
Well. I did it. After a week of playing Guitar Hero 2, I have conquered Medium difficulty, and gotten 5 stars on all songs. I know I know. You all are very impressed. I can tell. But now Hard awaits me, and so does Expert.
On a random note, on Match, I find it funny when people are like, “Hey, Thanks for the email, but I was about to take my profile down. You sound like such a nice a funny guy, I had to respond. I’m sure you’ll do fine here.” Um… you’re still single right? Erg!!
It poured all day today. I went running anyway, hooray for me. My running partner didn’t really want to run in the rain, but she hadn’t pooped in 2 days and really needed to go.
In Singapore, the new school year starts in January and Vince is starting K1 which is the first year they start really drilling skills in preparation for Primary 1 (there is another year, K2, in between). One is expected to read and write pretty well by the time you get to Primary 1.
Anyhow, Vince just got a new teacher who is pretty strict and who makes you stand up at the board to write things (like the word “Wednesday”) in front of the whole class and if you don’t do it right, you get scolded. (This is a pretty standard approach in Singapore.) This, understandably is driving Vince crazy. He just clung to me in fear this morning. He has been going to this school for a year and there are only 2 classrooms, so all the teachers know him and know how uncharacteristic this is for him to be sobbing before class.
I did speak to the teacher and she says that he is doing fine. Anyways, he didn’t get much sleep last night and didn’t have a good breakfast and when I picked him up after school, he said he had had a good day at school and seemed happy to be with his friends. So we’ll see how it goes…
Jeremy and I were feeling pretty smug last year when Vince loved his Nursery 2 experience at the same school and we said, ha ha, no need to send him to the American School (which easily costs 10x as much moola), he’s doing fine! He was learning Chinese, science, reading and math and having a blast. This year the Asian system is biting us in the ass, well at least for today. Jeremy mentioned this anxiety issue to his Chinese co-workers today during lunch and they all laughed and said that there is a saying in Chinese about being “hung at the chalkboard” – that feeling that you get when you are standing in front of the whole class and you don’t know the answer to the question the teacher is asking. Hmmm, sweet and encouraging system, eh?
The day got better and better after a rough start and ended with a bath and a family viewing of the Wizard of Oz.
Thursday is piano lesson day. I have missed the last seven weeks of lessons. I have not practiced for the same amount of time. I sat down at the piano today at 10am next to my teacher, Ms. Wen, and struggled to remember what pieces I was suppose to be playing. Not a good scenario.
Earlier this week, I did think about quitting my lessons, mainly because of my embarrassment of not practicing at all for the past two months, but I didn’t because I finally like my piano teacher. Today at my lesson, she did make me feel bad about not practicing, but not so humiliated that I didn’t want to come back next week. Since I started taking piano lessons as an adult, I’ve had 4 teachers…
#1. Didn’t take me seriously at all and wanted to chat about gardening and would often call an hour before my lesson to switch the time.
#2. Very serious teacher who taught me pieces that were a bit of a stretch for me and so I struggled to use the pedal correctly for the first 8 measures of a piece for 10 weeks! I swear, I couldn’t really hear the differences in pedaling that I was suppose to do.
#3. Very young teacher, right out of music school. Pointed out the already known fact that I have no rhythm.
#4. My teacher now, pretty relaxed but also corrects my mistakes and technique in a way that I can manage.
I’m not a very good musician, I hope someday to find other people who are the same not-as-good to play with. I always have a problem finding this level of person. So I soldier on, maybe this will come to something.
Hi all
My medical clearance was granted and ready to go. They did lots of tests and shots. I got my flight upgraded.
My laptop works fine. I am writing this in my room. Food here is good too. Talk to you later.
Being in a regular routine leads to very boring posts.
Things I did today:
1. Bought milk.
2. Bought calcium pills.
3. Talked to my landlord about weird leak in ceiling.
4. Washed dishes.
5. Procrastinated on laundry.
Hmmm, what else can I offer? Not much.
This is all I have been hearing about for days, something about a guy named Steve and something about iPods and phone and some big meeting somewhere.. I dunno. I am the lamest engineer ever, not really interested in innovation, more interested in the way we’ve always done things. I should get into fixing old clocks or something, or better yet – maybe typewriters.
So you might be asking, how’s the running going? Well, I did pack my running shoes when I went home, but the shoes didn’t experience any running, although they enjoyed a lot of mall walking and NYC street ambiance. I did gain enough weight over the month-long vacation to warrant a comment from my neighbor – “Ahh, you ate well!” Sigh. Here’s a photo of my slightly chubby and dumpy midsection today as I’m being served a mini quiche lorraine (yummy and oh-so-not-diet-food).
So I started running again yesterday, for the third time since I said I would start. I’m trying not to think too hard about it. I need to keep it up for a while and then I’ll buy myself some new running shoes.
Also, there is a new ice cream stand at our local mall. Green tea ice cream – not too weird – I’ve seen it before in the US, especially in Japanese restaurants. But the truly weird flavor is the wasabi ice cream and – get this – you can get it with seaweed (nori) sprinkles (lower right in the picture). Wow! Sign me up for that!
In kid news – Edda was constipated and her tummy bloated. Which freaks me out because Rett girls usually have gut problems resulting in prescription laxatives and enemas and other random poop issues that can be quite troublesome. But after 3 huge shits today, she’s back to her *cough* regular self. Lucky for you – no poopy diaper pictures.
During Edda’s therapy today, I wanted to take Vince to the library at the mall. He insisted he didn’t want to go. This is nothing unusual, he usually refuses to go anywhere, but it usually resolves itself once you get out the door. Not today. He cried and screamed the whole time while walking to the mall – a million people (commuters, students, shoppers) starting at us, a cruel mother with a wailing child behind her. (A side note – I saw a mom slap her 8 year old daughter’s face in front of the bakery in the same mall earlier today – there was no crying from the girl, just a pained expression) As soon as we are at the library – he’s fine and dashes to the children’s section to happily read. What the heck am I doing wrong to make a boy react so strongly to something he likes to do?!?
Did you see that I put photos on the side of our blog? Pretty cool, huh? I’m a bit frustrated because the randomness of the javascript isn’t really random – so there you don’t see any photos of Edda – mainly just photos of Vince when he was less than 1 year old. I’m hoping that Flickr fixes this little bug, (I did leave a nice note for them) and then you’ll be able to see more of the 5500 (!) photos I have uploaded to my account.
This late morning, I drove Mom to Augusta, GA airport. It rained heavily and plane was delayed. But, she was heading for Boston for sure.
To increase my mobility, I would like to downsize our stuff in the apartment just to fit into one car. Therefore, this coming weekend, I will take things for storage in our apartment back to Washington DC. Hopefully, they will all fit. The bunk bed is the largest one and the dining table is the second. Mom said the dinning table makes a good table for Mahjon.
I am planning to fly back to Portland, as a monthly trip home, at the end of January.