School's Out

For the past few days there has been a debate going on in the newspapers here regarding the amount of work that kids have to do in school these days and the lack of a proper childhood for them. So I thought I should weigh in my two cents worth on this topic, seeing that it is something I have pretty strong views on!

It is true that the school system here in Singapore is akin to being in a pressure cooker - both for parents as well as children. With an aim to provide a first-class education to its children, the government, no doubt started out with noble intentions, but somewhere along the line, perhaps the distinction between a world class education and too much education got blurred! At almost four years of age, in addition to their Nursery class, the Pilot and the Princess also go to Ballet (the Princess) and Piano (both) classes. Come January, I am planning to get them started with Hindi classes (both) every Saturday morning for three hours as they will be taking Hindi as their Mother Tongue language in Primary school, plus Kumon for Maths for both and Speech and Drama classes. If there is time, I also want to enrol them in Art classes.

I know this is too much for a four year old to do, but like all Kiasu (which means the fear of losing out and is a Singlish slang. For more click here)Singapore parents, I am scared that if I don't do atleast this much, they will be much behind their peers!

In my heart I know that they will never experience the kind of childhood I had, where school studies started seriously only from grade 3 and holidays were meant to be enjoyed to the fullest either staying at home or travelling. My kids will never experience that as most schools here have some sort of holiday programme on - both in June and December (when the school semester ends) and holiday homework!

That's quite sad, especially when we as parents - who should be encouraging them to let their imagination take flight, make them rein it in so that we (and they) can conform to what society expects us to do!

Aww well, this is a never-ending thing and I guess and the kids keep growing there will be more rants by me on this topic! So have a great weekend everybody!

The World around me

So Harry Potter lives....J.K. Rowling has been compared to Shakespeare for making the generation of today's kids go back to reading even with the advent of technology. I have read that many people went straight to the last page when they got hold of their copy of the book to see if Harry lives or not, and here I must admit that on Sunday I went online just to know his fate too!

The past few days the news has all been the huge floods in the United Kingdom and the equally bad heatwaves in the rest of Europe! It seems really weird to me that the same continent is experiencing such vagaries of nature. Of course, you can argue saying that the UK is not really in continental Europe, but that's really not the point! The point here is that we are not acting as responsible citizens of the world. All of us contribute to Global warning and I feel that all these unusual activity is Mother Nature's way of telling us to pull up our socks and start doing something! I have also decided to do my small part for this. I am going to do with the three Rs - Reduce, Recycle and Reuse! I plan to reduce taking plastic bags from shops, recycle things that can be recycled and what can't be used by us will be donated so that someone else can make use of it.

India has her first woman president! Ms. Prathibha Patil was sworn in as President of the largest republic of the world this week! For a country which is always mentioned in the feminine tense and who was one of the first countries to democratically elect a woman Prime Minister, this is a long overdue event! Ms. Patil will be filling in some really big shoes of Dr. Kalam, the erstwhile and well-loved President so my sincere hope is that she continues his good work and helps the country grow and prosper!

Here is a picture of the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST, formerly Victoria Terminus or VT Station to us Mumbaikars) at night all lit up for you to enjoy!

Harry Potter Mania

Tomorrow is the day when the final book of the Harry Potter series called 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' will be released (0701 here in Singapore) and us muggles will finally get to know what really happens?

So this is the perfect time for me to post my views on the latest Harry Potter movie, 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" I read this book nearly four years ago and this book has some meaning for me. I was nearly nine months pregnant with my twins when sometime in August 2003, my gynaecologist put me on an extended bed rest of about 10 days after which I had to go back to work and hand over my duties to the person replacing me and get back to another bout of bedrest before delivery and the start of my maternity leave. Since this bed rest was an enforced one (which meant I had to put up my legs for most of the day, except for some walking around every hour or so to get the circulation in my legs moving), I was pretty worried what I would do the whole day. So just before I went on the bed rest, I got the latest Harry Potter from the library (which I had reserved and just got), thinking it would be good for the next ten days. I should have known better, I finished it in less than two days and spent the next eight days just watching TV!

So on to the movie...the movie was definitely scarier and darker than the previous ones. It is still full of magic and spells, and it was also much better directed and written, with computer animation and special effects that are awesome. I loved the part where Harry, Hermoine, Ron and Neville zoom across the Thames on their broomsticks. Also the ending was awesome for it's special effects. The part where Ron's older twin brothers light up the school before deciding to leave altogether was also fantastic. The tricks that they played added to the lightness and balanced the overall darkness of the movie. The much anticpated kiss between Ron and Cho was also a bit of an anti-climax (atleast to me) and I thought there seemed more than met the eye between Harry and Luna Lovegood. There were also a lot of scenes which showed Harry as a young boy in his first year at Hogwarts and so it was nice to see the sweet and innocent Harry of then versus the more darker and angrier Harry of now.

Here is a link, if you want to see the trailer.

So see ya all you muggles and I just hope I get hold of a copy of the book soon so that I know how it all ends!

To Sleep.....Or not to Sleep?

For the past six months, I have been telling the kids that they are big now and have to start sleeping on their own once my helper goes back. So from this you can deduce that we have been co-sleeping with the twins since the day they were born. I am so ambivalent about the whole process - on one hand I am so ready to reclaim my bed and privacy, but on the other hand, I am going to miss having two warm and sturdy bodies besides me at night to cuddle and play with. Anyway I guess a mom has to do what she needs to do! So off they go in December once my parents are back in India and my helper has also gone. I just hope in the meantime, I get the house in order!

Tomorrow at the Princess and Pilot's school they have a 'Racial Harmony Day' party. 21 July is celebrated as 'Racial Harmony Day' in Singapore to commemorate the worst racial riots which took place in Singapore in July 22, 1964. Since then this day has been celebrated to renew the fact that Singapore is a multiracial and multicultural society where people of different races and religions live together in harmony. Here is link to the article in Wikipedia which talk about this day for those of you who want to know more.

So for the party in the kids school, they have to wear an ethnic outfit and bring some food to be shared with their friends. I am going to send them some Potato Bread Bullets which I picked up from Sify food (formerly known as Bawarchi) and modified a bit. The receipe seems easy enough and here goes:

Potato Bread Bullets

Mix together 4 boiled and mashed potatoes, 1/2 cup boiled peas, 4 green chilles (finely chopped or minced), 1/4 cup finely crushed cornflakes, 1 tsp ginger paste, 2 tbsps finely chopped coriander, 1 tsp finely chopped mint leaves (I may omit this as I don't have any at home), 1/4 tsp amchoor powder. Take 10 sandwich bread slices and cut off the crust. Next wet a slice of bread in milk and pat off excess moisture. Place a tsp of the stuffing in the centre in an oblong shape and fold over the remaining slice and roll between the palms gently. Make sure that there are no openings whereby the stuffing comes out. Make a batch and heat oil till smoky, deep fry till golden brown and serve with chutney or sauce

I'll try and click a picture of this tomorrow morning and also let you know how it came out.

Drama King and Queen

I am now convinced that although for a while now the Princess has been saying she wants to be a doctor, her real forte lies in acting. Yesterday when the kids were down at the playground with a few other kids, the Princes fell down and scrapped her knee on the concrete floor. Thus started her drama show! At home after a bout of crying at the playground, I asked her to come for dinner and she started by saying her legs pained and so she would eat sitting in the sofa. And how did she eat - with pillows behind her back and half recling and mommy feeding her! This morning she didn't want to go to school as her legs were hurt yesterday!

The Pilot is no less when it comes to all this drama. Last week he fell down and hurt himself and he milked it for a week. If you asked him to do anything he would say he couldn't do it as his hand/leg hurt.

Kids today - they need an Oscar on a daily basis! Wonder what they will come up with tomorrow!

Reminiscences

It's kind of weird! I posted a piece on Friday (July 13) and now it doesn't appear in the blog. But what is really funny that when I try to edit my posts I can see the post and the picture with it. Let me see if this post also has the same fate, if yes, then I will have to ask the good people at Blogspot to help me out.

Yesterday I had a cleaning frenzy and decided to clean some closets of mine. I also wanted to put the Princess and Pilot's night clothes in seperate bins, so that they can look for their own clothes to change into after they brush their teeth. Also the Pilot keeps saying that there are no "boy dresses" and I wanted to check if this was really so. When I was cleaning up the closet I came across heaps of their stuff when they were babies - the swaddling clothes, their blankets, their cloth nappies and towels. They clothes and nappies were so small and I remembered them at 1-2 months old. Life was so much simpler then...

Kids grow up so fast that their childhood seems to be so fleeting. I have decided to stop and enjoy their toddlerhood and the years of pre school as much as I can and while I can. Too soon they will be in Primary school and then life will be one busy whirl of school and activities with no time for a cuddle!

Keep smiling people!

Singapore National Service

Aagh, it's been a week now since I posted. It's not that there is nothing to write about, but it's just that I've been so tired and sleepy these days that I am just not able to garner the enthusiasm to actually sit down and write about things.

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the National Service in Singapore. All male citizens aged 18 have to mandatorily do their National Service (NS) to fulfil their citizenship obligations to the country. The papers were full of the history of the NS and the Sunday paper even had a special supplement with articles and musings about the NS.

The NS is one big equaliser where people coming from different strata of society, from different races as well as different educational backgrounds will have to learn to live and work together with the common purpose of defending the country, should the need so arise! Now since the pilot was born I was prepared mentally for this, but I had thought this was the perfect time to let him know what he is supposed to do once he reaches the magic age. This is supposed to be a rite of passage or as someone put it, "they enter as boys and come out as men". Theoritically I am not opposed to it, and in fact even welcome something like this, but what I am opposed to is the disruption it causes to their studies is what makes me have any reservations.

Ah well, there is no point in grumbling about it since the Pilot has to just do it and there is no way out of it. I just hope he gets what he is passionate about (the airforce perhaps?) and then the two years will just fly past him.

Triple Seven

First things first, you must have noticed that I have been putting up images for the last few posts. Well the only reason is that I was playing around with Blogger and saw this. So I decided to upload the snaps I take of things around me. It's a conscious decision that I will only put up pictures which do not have any people in it so that I can maintain mine and other people's privacy! This one is a picture of a cracker going off in honour of all those people getting married tomorrow. For more, read on...

So what is this triple seven? Well it's a a play on tomorrow's date - 07-07-07! Since this is a which will come probably once every hundred years, it's a date most people (especially couples) are making full use of. I read in the papers recently that about 700 couples are planning to get married tomorrow - come to think of it, we also have an invite for a wedding tomorrow - and so hotels, caterers, photographers, make-up artists and other people servicing the wedding industry would probably be inundated with orders. Phew! I do not wish to be in the shoes of a wedding guest who has to hop all around town moving from one wedding reception to the next!

There's also the Live Earth concert across the world tomorrow. My piece on saving the earth is fodder for another post, so I'll end this post here.Happy weekend people and see you real soon!

Long time post

I am back! What with the past few months being crazy at work, it was all I could do just to keep up with work-related emails. I just gave up on a lot of stuff including writing on this blog. But the reason why I was MIA for so long is done. The event, I was planning was a huge success; so much so that at the end when my boss thanked me for planning and executing it, I got a standing ovation from the delegates who were in the audience! The worst part was that I was seated right in front and didn't even know of it till someone told me after everything was over!

Anway the Pilot and the Princess have started piano classes with their other twin friends A&A. So every Sunday we troop off to the class where S (A&A's mom) and me hear shouting and banging going on inside the class! I still don't know how much they like this but I am willing to give it a shot. We've also decided to put them in Kumon and Hindi classes next year when they get to Kindergarten 1 and I am scouting for Speech and Drama classes for the two of them. Phew! so much for such little kids, but then c'est la vie!

Also my helper has decided that she would not extend her contract and would be going back to India next month to get married! My parents will be here for a few months to help me transition, but then from December I will be on my own (albeit with my inlaws support). I am prepared for this, but I guess reality will set in only after she leaves and I am actually doing it. I'll be posting regular updates, so be around to see the next exciting round of me the all round woman - wife, mom, career woman and general dogsbody!

Hope this time around, I'll be able to post regularly - atleast 2-3 times a week as this blog was primarily started to be a record of my life - a diary of sorts.

Keep well everyone and Happy 4th of July to all the Americans who read this!