This is a post I made in the old blog on Sunday, 03 December 2006 at 04:54 PM.

What can you do with RM1?

Yesterday while I was homebound, Eric joined my family members and cousins in Tuaran for my cousin’s/his aunty’s engagement party (congrats Bridget @ Nadya). After the engagement party was over, my sister Lydia got our little tots together (Aishah, Aidil and Eric) for some mini clean-up, being promised that each will be rewarded RM1. When reward time came, Eric looked at his RM1 and said to my sis, “Um, not one ringgit lah. I want one hundred so I can buy toy cars.”

Smart

Here’s Eric showing off his reward money. Right now he’s playing the PS2, trying to “circle, circle, L1, R2″ his way off the game console so he can hack more weapons (I don’t dare mention which game).

Alrighty, off to the hospital I go….

This is a post I made in the old blog on Saturday, 02 December 2006 at 08:38 PM.

Joel is currently a few days off his due date, and I am still feeling no pain despite dropping my mucous plug and leaking amniotic fluid (very slowly, I might add). Although I’m not so concerned with the delay, my better half is.If nothing happens today, our doc’s advice is to have Joel’s delivery induced tomorrow — now this is what makes me a bit anxious. Although Eric’s birth was also induced, at least I was dilated prior to that. As of my check-up yesterday, my cervix wasn’t even open.

I pray the induction is a success and I can deliver normally.

Have you ever taken your own astral chart? There’s a free online service that does just that, at Astrolabe, which generates your very own personalised astral chart based on a few details mainly of your birth. Here’s one that I made for Eric way back when, which I posted in his old online scrapbook.

Hi there, here is the interpretation of the astrological chart that you asked for.

(more…)

As we were heading home from school yesterday, Eric said, “Mommy, I have a secret to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“My class is now in 1 Anggun,” he whispered.

I couldn’t believe what I heard the first time, so I told him to say it again. So the story goes that after recess, the Year 1 students were asked to go to the assembly hall, and there they were re-sorted out into their new classes based on their recent test which I wasn’t aware was already done. Today I went with Eric to his class just to re-confirm what has happened, and sure enough I saw the new list of students pasted on the door of his new class.

Yay! It means a lot to me, as I have found that the teaching and learning varies differently depending on which class I attend. I experienced going to several different high schools, and each time having to work my way up from what the schools — not me — call mediocre classes and having to change the next semester to the “smart class”, students who excel academically being grouped together. I can feel the quality of learning and the challenges increased significantly from one class to another.

I was even more excited than Eric was when I found out about his change of class because it feels like a guarantee that he’ll do well in his academics. He himself feels good about it when I congratulated him, and now wants me to start teaching him multiplication so he can get ahead in class. Honest.

A brief conversation took place as my mom was babysitting Eric at her batik factory in Tuaran some time ago:

Old man (who happened to be there): Apa nama kau? (What’s your name?)
Eric: Don’t speak Malay. Speak in English.
Old man: Uncle mana pandai cakap Inggeris. Bapa kau urang English ka? (Uncle don’t know how to speak English. Is your dad an Englishman?)
Eric: (Paused a second before replying) Yes, my daddy is English.
Eric’s grandma: Mana ada! Daddy kau urang Cina tu, bukan English! (Is not! Your Daddy’s Chinese, not English!)
Eric: (adamantly) No! He is English!
(Just so you know, Eric’s dad is barely a Sino-Kadazan, much less an Englishman)

Kids — when they think they’re smarter than you, the things they would do just leaves you speechless….