Children - Boon or Bane?

It's Saturday afternoon and I am chilling. Very stressed out Singaporeans looking for a great chill-out CD, please tune in to iRelax Anywhere. Will cost you around SGD30+ but very soothing,especially after a long day's work or screaming at your irate child who hasn't finished his homework in time for his upteenth tuition lesson that day.

Parents are seriously stressing their children out nowadays and I doubt I wanna bring another little one onto this earth to suffer the trials and tribulations of growing up in a modernized and urban society where things change in a heartbeat and tuition and self-enrichment lessons are seen as a necessity. Oh hell, why am I complaining? I make a living from it! *slap forehead*

If I ever have a child, I think I'll be caught up in the Kiasu Mum Syndrome. Shuttling and scurrying along (with child in tow) for piano, swimming, ballet, computer, drawing, speech and drama, abacus classes (to be done simultaneously with the "CORE SUBJECTS" tuition.
In short, I will be a MONSTER MUM! And all the ringgit I earn will be pumped into such a bottomless pit.

There will be no more OSIM chairs. No more travelling around the world. No more eating of crabs soaked with delicious sauce. In short, no more LIVING. In their place? Stress. A gross lack of sleep. Wrinkles. and who can forget - a baby paunch. Now tell me people, why on earth would women wanna conceive?

Hahhaha, goodness know why I am going into such a tirade. and Mum, NOPE, I ain't preggie. hahaha. Too bad /good. USA hasn't beckoned yet, you know? *grins* Actually, life is good now and I have no complaints. I am too busy teaching other people's kids and loving every minute of it.

Of course some people's kids (adults) are damn bloody irritating. But that's another story again.

It has just started to POUR and Alan is snoring from a hard morning of golf with dunno which big shot. I had two lessons (2 hours each) this morning and I am feeling it as well. But I just can't bring myself to nap. I wonder why..........

9:24pm
I baked choco chip cookies the way of today and make some coconut cake-like dessert. Gonna give some to Neeru in return for her delicious chappati and curry that filled Alan and my tummy for lunch (together with the handrolls we had purchased in Cold Storage, The Gardens last evening).

Dinner was an adventure. We went in search of some doggie cookies at Old Klang Lama and found a Petsmore there. After buying Jay Jay, the spoilt brat, some milk and cheese cookies and some greenies, we decided to try something different! We were directed to a Zi Char place called "Restoran" New View. When we arrived there, we realised that it was more like a colourful hawker centre! There was satay, wantan mee, pig stomach's soup, cuttlefish kangkong (all these were on our table) and the other stalls sold ban mee, laksa, claypot and what looked like a very popular nasi lemak! We made a vow to try all these the next round ( we have three years here, we always tell ourselves, in order to prevent ourselves from ordering too much).

Then we strode back to our car in the rain, praying that it had not been stolen.

but the zi char stall was closed.

It was a Sleepless Night. zzZzZzzz

I lay awake most of last night, alert and sleepless. Must have been the two cuppas. I am now suffering the after-effects. God I am zombified! XP

Anyway, I just came home from Mid valley mega mall. Alan had a breakfast meeting at the CB there and I popped over to CJ for a hot and steaming bowl of noodles on my own. Today marks the first time I had actually sat alone in a restaurant and had a meal. *Claps?* But technically, I wasn't alone. My company? A magazine! hahaha.

Then, I had to grab some stuff at MPH - some reading material for Avik and some cutesy things to create cards with Hayden with. Then, Alan sent me home to stone. hahaha. I will bathe the doggie later and then take a nap. The tutor has no tuition (for once) today and will therefore cook dinner this evening for The GM and herself.

The end.

Two New Students!

As the title suggests, I have been busy today. Neeru called and asked if I could start tuition with Avik today at 4pm. I juggled my schedule around and then told her that her suggestion was A-OKAY!

Hayden came at around 230pm and I got him to play a Sequence Game on the book that we had read yesterday together. He's really good and he could identify which event came first etc..We put them all together and drew a time line on a huge piece of butcher sheet. And then we traced the events and Hayden wrote them down. Then, the FUN PART began!!

Hayden drew his classic crocodile and cute lil dragonfly with more than 2 eyes and also a mouse which looked like a turtle. I gave my input : a cheeky-looking elephant, brown mouse, green dragonfly, wise-looking turtle and also some clouds to accompany the glaring Mr Sun!
We coloured the drawings with paint, crayons and markers and had alot of fun. Hayden's present today for being a GOOD BOY? A flower magnet done by Yours Truly! :D Boy was he pleased. He even got to stick his own magnet on it!!!!

Then, 15mins after Hayden bade me goodbye, I left for Avik's house for our one-hour-tuition. My first lesson with him was spent describing Mr Pele, his idol and Brazilian football star. Avik's a talented soccer player and that was a good starting ground to motivate him to write. :) I will have to print a photo of Mr Pele on my trusty printer soon to decorate his essay! :D

After a short chat with Neeru, Anviksha and Avik after our lesson, I rushed back home to await the Mahs. The father had read my advert on the internet and emailed me a couple of times yesterday. He had requested to meet me, together with his wife and my potential student, his daughter, to "ascertain" if I was suitable (read: capable enough) to teach his daughter who had recently transferred from a local private Primary School to a reputable international school in KL.

The whole family arrived early (545pm) and trooped into my apartment then. It was a long and interesting "interview". The girl looked pretty sullen and expressed rebellion towards her parents. Apparently she was upset with them for taking away her computer connection.

Her mum proceeded to announce what both parents thought was "wrong" with her and gave me a long run-down of the dear girls perceived faults. *sigh*

Anyway, suffice to say, your wonderful full-time tuition teacher charmed the pants off (metaphorically pls!) the parents and got the job!

Aside: Ok , ok . it's time to change the title of my blog to : A Day in the Life of a Tuition Teacher!!! I have 2 young students (one 6 and one 8), 3 teenagers and 4 adult students (the 31-year old will be starting in May!) I think that's even for now. I don't even have time to go shopping!!!! *pouts*

In the evening, Alan and I had a lovely dinner at Robson Heights. We had two crabs (in a special sauce that tasted like cheese - smack lips) and pork and vege. We treated ourselves to such a delicious meal which was well-deserved for working so hard !!!

An email of FreeDoM!

I forgot to post this piece of information yesterday. Alan has found me a new student! His office I.D. hahahah! We will start in May on Saturdays, I guess.

And I just received two emails from this Mr. Mah who is enquiring about English tuition for his daughter. O man. I am swamped.

Anyway, today I wrote a long and polite email to Stephanie to let her know what I really think of her. And bascially told her that that's IT! I am not taking anymore nonsense from her. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. She still owes me some ringgit and I told her to transfer the money over (like HELL she's gonna do it). But thank heavens for this decision!!!!! (FREEDOM FROM IRRITATION AT LAST!)

I had tuition with Hayden today. Today he was a bit restless. We only managed to do some spelling, read a book and then write a short review on the book The Selfish Crocodile. Tomorrow we shall do more!

There's E Literature tuition with Su-Li later tonight whilst Alan's out with his CEO. Will be working till 9pm tonight (me!)

An Irritation!

MOTIVATION VS IRRITATION

Today's Tuesday and because tuition was pushed forward to yesterday, I am relatively free-er in the day today. I am supposed to have tuition with Stephanie this evening, but I highly doubt she'd show. I've even made plans with Alan to go grocery shopping and have dinner out tonight!!! She has cancelled FIVE times on me consecutively already. *shake head*

Anyway, last night's lesson with the three young adults was very fun! Thank God (and Alan) for my whiteboard and I could better illustrate my points as well. I taught them some new words like "promote", "well-being", "marine creatures", "introduce" etc... We did some picture description and also a short comprehension with the story entitled, "Danny's New School". Sounds familiar? hehehe!

When we went through a short story which I had given them 1 week ago, I realised that the three of them had really put in the effort to understand the story and check the words that they didn't understand up in the dictionary. Sometimes, they even had to write down the meaning of the foreign word in Chinese to better aid their memories. But since I had seen their hard work and determination to improve, I was very pleased and motivated. :)

And because our classes will cease till 5 may, I piled them with homework - spelling, 2 picture descriptions, a short exercise in the assessment bk. All were received with positivism. I'm impressed! *claps*

Teaching is a really meaningful occupation. Of course, the pay is peanuts here, but I do enjoy every second of it! Hahahahah.

Ahhhh I feel like going for a swim and I probably will later on today. :D

It's 1030pm now and we are relaxing to the soothing sounds of a chill-out CD.
We've just gotten back from Siu Siu restaurant and had a steamed fish, soya sauce orawns and vege for RM77.

Alan's on the chair again and I am updating my blog and releasing some steam. Stephanie not only didn't return my three smses (one at ard 11+am, one around 2+pm and one around 5+pm) and I called her after my gym session at around 545pm , only to find out that her phone had been switched off!!!!

She is obviously avoiding me and payment to me. She still owes me RM175 in total for two lessons and she got me to buy her a book on her behalf which obviously she hasn't paid for. In total, she has consecutively cancelled FIVE LESSONS with me! How irresponsible and rude! I really really take my hat off to her. In my whole life, she is my WORST student.

ok time to sleep. Tomorrow is a long day. :D

Monday Blues?

It was barely afternoon when Hayden's mum called and requested that I push forward tomorrow's tuition lesson to today. I scampered to produce a lesson plan shortly after my baked beans and tomato soup luncheon and decided that today we would be doing comprehension and composition. ;) Every lesson, Hayden produces a one-page long 'essay' much to his mother's delight. Today will not be an exception.

H's mum had been gushing and gushing over the phone about how swiftly his reading and writing had improved (as certified as well by his form teacher). Apparently, the class had been asked to describe a leaf and Hayden had written. "The wind blew a leaf down from the tree. The leaf was cold and lonely....etc" ahhhhh.. How clever the use of personification! :) And he had also apparently used some words we had learnt in our tuition class together! :) Smart boy! Now people, you tell me, do I make a good teacher or what? ahahahaha.

245-345pm was our class and we used a prose for a comprehension QnA session. To add on to that, we adapted the story and personalised it to make it Hayden's New School instead of Danny's! It was fun and the little one was rewarded with Transformer stickers and an Ultraman magnetic bookmark!

It's 532pm now and I am waiting for my night class to begin. It would be yet another painfully excruciating session but this time round, I have my trusty whiteboard to reinforce my points!

The Busy Weekend

5 April 2008 (Saturday)

I gave Anviksha tuition from 9 -11am whilst Alan did his work at the study table. At the end of the lesson, I then taught her how to write a receipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies and we had fun in the kitchen, baking batch after batch for all to savour.

Then, we walked Jay Jay downstairs and brought him to "make friends" with the huge German Sherperds caged up for security patrol. Our little pup shivered during the close encounter. Hahaha very cute.

We ventured to the garden and Jay Jay basked under the caresses and strokes of many a resident of Sri Tiara. Even the security guards found him to be such a lovely little one. It is easy to bond with people from all walks of life with your hand holding a leash connected to a cute little toy dog.

In the early evening, we drove towards Pavilion Shopping Mall but made a detour (because the roads were closed) and ended up having dinner at a road-side hawker stall. The Hokkien Mee, Egg Horfun and Pork and vege soup did not look appetising but I ate heartily because of the lack of lunch.

We arrived at Pavilion in no time and then bought movie tickets. Instead of the Three Kingdoms (which was fully booked), we bought Nim's Island, which was a lovely and inspirational show. The monitor lizard was Alan and my favourite character in the whole movie. Hahaha. Very adorable. I want one too! Before the movie, though, we savoured some hokkien noodles in banana leave at the foodcourt of Pavilion after our short shopping stint. And also had a cuppa at Toastbox.


6 April 2008 (Sunday)

For once, we woke up relatively early and we headed to Imbi Palace for a dim sum breakfast. We ordered many dishes such as char siew pau, some interesting soup, century egg porridge etc.
Then, we went to Pavilion to satisfy Alan's urge to crone his lungs away. We signed up at Red Box and sang (yes, just the two of us) from around noon till 3pm. And then we headed off on foot to Sungei Wang to buy us some entertainment.

Now we are home, waiting for the rain to stop so that we can have frog legs for dinner!!! Yipeee....




1131pm- We had frogs legs with chicken essence, kangkong with sambal belachan and also a new specialty of the chef's , fried toufu with jellyfish. Marvelous! Then, we returned home to watch The Waterhorse on dvd.