The Final CountDown....

Dear All

This is the final week to what we've been preparing for over the last 6 years...Tiffany's PSLE.

I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, but I had prayed and asked for confirmation, and I believe I had received it, both through nature and a calls from other concerned mothers of her classmates. So I had decided to keep Tiffany home starting today (Mon, 29 Sep) to coach her. So far, she's been very obedient and diligent in her revision. It's amazing the tonnes of revision materials to cover and the amount of revision she did today. Chinese : 4 chapters of vocab, reading 1 compo with qns to answer, 1 full test paper covering SA2 work. Maths : complete tuition teacher's homework and some of school homework. English : 1 Paper2 test paper, plus 3 spelling lists covering letters A - C. Science : 1 PSLE revision test paper.

Tomorrow's maths tuition for Tiff with Feli going for extra chinese tuition in the afternoon. I intend to give them a good dinner break tomorrow, partly as my birthday is around the corner, plus it's about to be Children's Day, and I need to settle Tiffany's belated birthday party goodies bag for her close friends/classmates. It'll be just a small party limited to not more than 10 friends. Tomorrow's outing is something the girls look forward to as Feli just had her SA2 chinese and English compo exams today, and she found the chinese compo a killer. She was quite disheartened and said "Mummy...I don't think I'll be in the best class next year." I think she did ok but not fantastic, so she'll have to buck-up on the main papers.

Just dropped these updates as posterity to my exam blues experiences. Just finished marking Tiffany's papers and have yet to mark Feli's which is just a couple of pages, as she's had a heavy exam stress/load already today. Didn't want to stress the little one.

Nite all.

Love Theresa

Tiffany's 12th Birthday

Dear All

Tiffany just celebrated her 12th birthday yesterday, 16 Sep. She shares the same birthday as our Minister Mentor Lee Kwan Yew. I'm glad MM Lee recovered from his irregular heart rhythm and was discharged in time for his birthday. Tiff is thrilled that she shares her birthday with a very prominent figure in Singapore, and she obviously "loves" him in the sense that she admires him being instrumental to the independance of Singapore.

As with Feli, the kids would have their birthday celebrations a few times. Feli was like the whole of July! As PSLE is in about just 2 weeks' time, Tiffy is quite worried about the exams, but she managed to enjoy herself over the weekend (Sat) with Bert, Feli and myself at Seoul Gardens. They had fun bbqing their own food, which always tastes better when it's cooked by your own hands, and especially when they seldom cook their own food!

Yesterday, being Tiff's actual birthday, and she had to go for extra chinese class, Feli and I brought her out for another birthday dinner. We don't know why, but Tiffy just loves fish and chips, and doesn't seem to be tired of it! She wanted to eat at Fish and Co, so again we head out to Tampines Mall (TM). This time we also tried the grilled tiger prawns, and had the starter squid slice grilled instead of fried (as was usually done). They were delicious! We were famished, so we wolfed down the starter before I remembered to take a photo of it!! Anyway, it was gone like in less than 5 minutes, and soon we were looking around, waiting for our main meal. I noticed 1 regular staff (a guy) who was with Fish and Co for like 2 years? I remembered he started out so outgoing and chatty and tried to create conversations with us when we first visited their outlet. Now, he just calls out the usual words like "Enjoy your meal" and when we were leaving "Thank you for coming and have a nice day".

I guess being humans, we'll get tired of our jobs after some time and perhaps want some change. Anyway, being more of an introvert, I wasn't too comfortable with having to make small talk with him the last time. It was tedious and not fun for us.

I suppose with inflation and coupled with the fact that they now sell their signature mint sweets at $16+ per packet, we only got 1 miserable sweet each after our meal :( I remembered they used to be generous and gave us at least 2 each, and they were much bigger and nicer then. I used to look forward to their mint sweet as it was great, but now, the standard has fallen. Talking about mint sweet, I found 1 toffee mint sweet from Watsons. It's brown with off-white stripes and they are really nice. The mintiness is just right, but just a tad too sweet. However, it's a nice treat to give yourself now and then.

Kids do not consider treats as birthday gifts (even if it were 2 dinner treats!!). So I got her what she was craving for -- a tamagoshi version 5. I know she'll soon lose interest in it, and misplace it, but I guess I'll never learn my lesson. What do we parents do for kids, yah? Feli bought her a myuk brand pencil case. I'm not into brand names, but despite what I learned in my BBA marketing course, I'm just too lazy to check out if the price justifies the quality of the product. So, the easiest is go for brandname if you want quality. But be careful about Billabong sling bags. We bought 1 recently for Tiffy, less than 3 months ago, and the sling tore off! We never expected this to happen (it's supposed to be quality product right?) so we didn't keep the receipt and hence couldn't be covered by the warranty :(

Tiffy has some good friends, one of whom gave her a converse wallet! So ex! She must have been a pretty good friend for them to remember her birthday. Anyway, I know her girl's mum and called her to thank her for the wallet. What's more, it was a very nice, useful wallet with lots of compartments and yet was compact.

I think some other friends will be giving her belated presents today in school. She's so excited and I was very happy that she truly enjoyed her birthday celebrations especially yesterday's outing.

HAPPY 12TH BIRTHDAY TIFFANY!!

Love Theresa and Albert

A busy saturday for me....Fel's 1st sacrament of reconciliation

Today saturday is so busy for me...waking up in the morning and getting ready to fetch Tiff to Chinese tuition class and then have lunch with Fel and getting her ready for her 1st sacrament of reconciliation from 12.30 to 4pm...was asked by the cathechist to read a short passage of the examination of conscience and reached the church at 12pm with Fel while sweetie see to Tiff at her tuition class....no wonder God made 2 parents per family!...and as for me there were lots of briefing and a short rehersal for the chosen 6 parents (myself included) and the session was delayed by 40 mins...so the session started at 1.40 instead of 1pm...and guess what ...I was assigned to line up behind the discipline mistress of SACPS..at 1st did not know but quietly Fel revealed it to me....

It was a rather meaningful session for both Fel and myself though I was tired at the end of it. In between, while waiting for Fel and her entire cohort to complete their 1st confession, I shuttle back to MP to fetch Tiff and sweetie to church for cathehism class at 3.30pm...and for closing of the Fel's session..... we were told to lit up the candle...we stayed on for Novena and after the Novena is over its was about 6pm and I counted that I spent 6 solid hours at the Holy Trinity Church...but it was time well spent....Well, as it was Tiff birthday on 16 Sep (LKY's BD also), we went for a dinner treat at Seoul Garden...everyone was happy and reach home at about 9pm.

Our room the aircon was leaking tonite. We tried sleeping without the aircon but it was far too warm...but suddenly while reading the newspaper, thought of using the pail to contain the water...why didn't I think about that earlier?

Anyway while reading the newspaper, came across this case of about this man from Pasir Ris was sentenced to 4 yrs jail and 8 strokes of the cane for beating up his wife..I felt so sad for the family...it must be a traumatic experience for the children aged 2 and six and the wife...

After reading this report in the newspaper, I told myself no matter what, I must love my family (sweetie, Tiff and Fel) the way God has love me aand as much as I love God...this is what God has entrusted me to...to take care of this family and love them well...I must not fail...

Almighty God, please help me to be good father to Tiff and Fell and a good husband to Theresa, in accordance to your plan and will.

Goodnite!

AlbertY

More of Cute Things Felicia Said

Dear All

Just to share some funny things Felicia said over dinner 2 nights ago. We were sharing about the talents God had given us. Whatever talent we discover, we have to use it to serve the Lord, otherwise He would take it away and give it to someone else. Do you know what little Feli said? "My talent is eating and sleeping!!"

Bless her little heart!

BTW, the fishes the girls caught at our LC excursion had all died. The baby fish died this morning. And guess what? What Tiffy said was correct. At least 1 of the fishes was pregnant, but we missed the live birth. They only discovered the dead baby fish all lying at the bottom of the tank. It was because Tiffy washed the tank with soap that caused the rest of the fish to die. I was quite mean to tease her as "murderer". She was very quiet and seemed remorseful and greatly saddened. Not only did the new-born fishes died, the rest died as well. Bert predicted the fish won't last the week. I didn't lift a finger to help them as I wanted them to learn responsibility and how to care for pets. I guess they had learnt it the hard way, especially for Tiffany. She asked for a pet for her birthday. I dare not trust to give her any pets other than fish cos firstly, we don't have space for a pet and secondly, Feli has asthma, so furry pets are out, and thirdly, I don't wish to end up taking care of the pets...taking care of two girls are enough already!! So I told her, we'll consider a fish after her PSLE.

BTW, she's having the PSLE listening comprehension for English and Chinese tomorrow. Please pray for her, especially for Chinese. I've heard the sample and I must say the Chinese listening comprehension is quite "cheem", so she needs lots of luck and prayers.

Thanks in advance for your prayers!

Love Theresa

Sunday Sermon by Fr Joseph of Franciscan Order

Dear All

Last Sun, 7 Sep 08, seemed to be dedicated to ME and married couples.

The sermon by Fr Joseph from the Franciscan Order, was very touching. A couple who were quite young in age but married for 13 years were on the verge of divorce. The wife believed there was a 3rd party but the husband insisted that he was only out with the boys. Each party spoke to Fr Joseph, and since he knew both of them, he asked them to write letters to each other. (That is the ME way). After they wrote to each other about what they wanted out of the marriage, they realized that they still loved each other. Fr was actually talking about the many ministries of the Catholic Church, and how we do not go to our various programmes for support. Our Church is so rich with resources and support, but most of us are either do not know or are week-end catholics only.

Anyway, he preached on the beauty of ME and how it is a world-wide programme recognised by the Pope. If there's any better promotion of ME and it's programme, if can't be done better than by Fr Joseph. He himself had attended ME 11 years ago. For priests and religious, their spouse is us, the community.

He reminded us that the difference between marriage in the Church and those done outside, is the presence of God. Marriage is NOT a commitment between just 2 people, but a union of 3, including God. That is the vital difference, so he encourages all couples planning to be married to do so in front of God, and for those married outside of the Church to take note and hint of doing something about it.

He didn't want to say more as he says ME is an ENCOUNTER, so as Jesus said to his disciples, COME AND SEE. ME is not just building a better relationship with your spouse, but also remembering that GOD is the centre of our relationship. He also said that "A family that prays together, stays together" is not any old saying, but there is truth in it. Even in our family relationship with our kids, we mustn't forget that God is present.

Love Theresa

LC Excursion to Singapore (Yeah!)

Dear All

We must say that today's outing was better than expected, all thanks to Lenz and his flair for being such a great tourist guide.

For us, the best tourist spots were the Hay Dairies Goat Farm and the fish farm. Those were the places where the girls had hands-on action, not to mention, both of them had either their pants or skirt bitten by the cheeky goats! That was funny for Tiffy but scary experience for Feli. Feli felt that biting incident was a damper on her goat experience. Afterall, that was her favourite skirt.

Tiffy never knew such great expanse of land existed in Singapore. She exclaimed it's as if we were travelling in Malaysia! So cute huh?

She thought (as well as me and Bert) that the outing would be kinda kiddy, but surprisingly, it was a wonderful trip for us. I especially glad that Tiffy enjoyed herself thoroughly as she deserved a good break from her mad mad schedule of studies. You should see the joy on her face when she was feeding the goats and especially when she was catching the long-kang fish! She sat cross-legged and calmly fished out the guppies from the man-made long-kang, whereas Feli and Cynthia were hopping about excitedly, chasing the fishes every-which-way! Surprisingly, Feli got the hang of it and actually caught almost as many as Tiff's. As the girls insisted on keeping the fish as pets, we bought a fish tank, food and net for them (again!) but we told them firmly that now that they are bigger, the fish is their responsibility. As the fish were caught by their very hand, they immediately put the fish into the tank, but 1 of them had already died. Later on in the night, another died.

Feli was so cute...when I told her that the fish was dying, she said "No lah, they are day-dreaming!".

Later on, she explained to me that the fish were tired from all the chasing that day, so they were resting. She looked so serious, I didn't want to break her little heart and just nodded with understanding.

On the way home from the last stop at the fishery, we were behind this very inconsiderate and dangerous truck driver. He drove quite fast, but without closing the lid on the debris piled high on the truck. Pieces of debri flew off. We kept at least 5 car-lengths behind him. (We didn't overtake as we were still getting out of this remote part of Singapore and were getting our barings). Then, a pickup came between the truck and us. But to our horror, a bundle a size of a half-filled NTUC plastic bag fell off the top of the truckload onto the road in front of the pickup! Luckily, the pickup swerved, but then the debri was in our path! I told Bert to move such that the debri went directly under our car. I didn't manage to video tape the truck, but got a short video of it after that incident when we allowed more heavy vehicles to go in front of us, to surround that horrid truck driver. I think the license plate number is XB215 something, but don't know to whom I can report him to. The experience was scary. What happens if a bigger and more dangerous debris fell out? Someone ought to report him!! Anyway, thank the good Lord and Mother Mary for bringing us safely home.

Love Theresa

I back after a short long break..... from blogging

This week wasted 3 days of my life attending ACTA course...and till now I still don't understand why I have to attend the same course and being bonded 2 times for the same course...even the trainer also was puzzled why I was there when I showed him my certificates...any it was fun listening to his "talking rot" session and you know what...from conversation with him I found out that he is a laspse Catholic...came from a family of 12 and a devout Catholic family...I asked him whether does he go to church regularly...he told he has stop attending church but all his siblings does and you know what? Of all the churches in Signapore...it has to be the Church of the Holy Trinity! What a small world...anyway the good thing in him is that he still believes in the power of prayers and he told he just rely on prayers to secure the next job assignment (He is a free lance trainer). He does not advertised or even a maintian a web page...so all his job assignments are solely relying on the word of mouth...and he has been doing this for the past 10 years...So I think God is still with him even though he has stop going to church...which means that I still have hope...

Through some of the conversations that I had with him over the period of 3 days..he relate to me his experiences of conducting a 10 day course on customer service to group of young, sexy and beautiful ladies (mainly from the airline industry, I am sure you know which airline) gearing up for the F1 event in Singapore...they are being groomed to be ambassador role during the 3 day event...and from his facial expression the way the way he describe the girls, I can see that the girls he handle during course must indeed be very extremely good-looking and that is ultimate the society wish to see in a woman...and he actually remarked that never in his life (he is about in his 50s already) he has ever been surrounded by so many beautiful girls (about 200 in total-20 different girls on each day as it is a one day course)...at the end of the conversation...I FELT SAD...and here is why:

The way girls are being used to lure, promote the event or even to entertain some privilage spectators goes to show our world has degrade woman to such a level that is so senseless and immoral even to think of....call me conservative, old-fashion whatever...but this is certainly God will regard is as something not quite right.....To me it was an eye opener conversation as it clearly demonstrated to me how sinful this world is in today's era...has the world become more sinful compare with 30 years before...I don't know coz I was not there but certainly it is indeed sinful...I am sure some of us must have read the papers recently highlighting the grid girls for the F1 event and all seem so well...but do you know that there isn't any article written against the use of women to promote the event (at least not that I know of, correct me I am wrong)...why must it be sexy young women use to promote the event?why can't it just be a decent sporting event?....As Catholics, are we (myself included) commiting the sin of omission i.e. having doing nothing about something when we felt is morally wrong and not right? I don't know, I am not sure myself too....St Therese please enlighten me on this...Mother Mary please guide me thru in this thinking....!

Dante once wrote: The hottest place in hell is reserved for those sitting on the fence"

You have a nice day! Got to go for a meeting!

AlbertY

Wall-E the Movie (No Spoiler in post..)

Dear All

Had decided to give the girls a treat today (Mon, 1 Sep), so we watched Wall-E and ate at Ajisen. As usual, over ordered - 3 set meals 2 of which came with main course of ramen, drinks and 1 side dish (chicken wings and sushi) and the other with 2 side dishes (chicken rolls and toufu) just for the 3 of us. Amazingly, we managed to finish most of it, except for some noodles and "ta-pao" the chicken wings). We had only 1 h for dinner before the show started and guess what? Whenever you are in a hurry, the cashier is slow like a snail! With only 1 customer queuing to make payment in front of me, it took him 10 minutes to serve both of us!! Tiff was like going "hurry up, we'll be late for the show!!".

Anyway, the ads and shorts took half an hour before the actual show started. There's no spoiler here, so you can read on.

The actual show lasted about 1.5h. If you are aged 11 and above, the show is OK. Nothing really fantastic. Personally I find the story line a little draggy. Tiff finds the "go-green" theme moving and thought provoking. Feli finds the show fantastic!! She loves it!! But she was so cute...As I had told them seeing shows was quite expensive nowadays, and since Tiff was too bz with tuition and extra classes tomorrow (Tue), we couldn't go on Tue (members of GV gets tickets at $6.50 only on Tue), we had to pay more for going to the show today. Throughout the show, Feli kept telling me over Tiff (Tiff sat in the middle) in a quite loud whisper "Mummy, don't waste money seeing shows anymore OK? This is the last show for this year, OK?" I really wonder whether she was fully enjoying the show when she's like telling me this throughout the show about 4x or so. There were some touching moments, which Feli and I differ in opinion but that's OK, cos its our own experience and what we individually take away from the show. I and Feli shared this as she was interested to know what I liked best about the show.

For me, I'll give the show 3.5 popcorns. I guess if your kids are below 11 and you are a kid at heart still, it should be higher, perhaps 4 to 4.5 popcorns?

Love Theresa

Happy Teachers Day (Belated)!

Dear LC teachers

It may be a little belated, however, I had every intention to send this earlier to you all, but since it's the start of the 1 week school break, I've been bz (read as the kids are either hogging the PC OR I'm bz coaching them or clearing up the messes left about the house!).

So, here it goes : "HAPPY TEACHER'S DAY!" Without teachers, the world would not be a better place, with no one to mould and form the hearts, minds and characters of our young. Thank you, all you teachers out there amongst our LC. Your hard work is never lost to the kids nor on the parents!

Love Theresa & Albert