How to Write Well

Yesterday, I was having a casual conversation with my hubby in the car. I was sharing with him that P has been progressing real well in English. Not just in terms of writing, he is also more confident and able to express himself adding color to his speech.

The conversation trailed to my own writing journey. I wasn't an English person in my formal education. On the contrary, my English department was actually weak, that was precisely why I took the easy way out to major in Mathematics in varsity. Hey, no words but numbers and symbols - that was my escapee from writing.

It was only in the recent few years that I developed a passion for writing. Below detailed three simple steps, which I have been dutifully following as in a ritual.

Step 1: Set up a Writing Bank. Start with work areas. Make time to deposit into a writing bank, eg. allocating an hour or two each week. Just like we deposit money in the bank, we should also have a writing bank where we deposit good pieces of article where we can learn from.

Slowly progressing to other areas. For myself, I am now into creative writing. As I read more, I learn about using fairytale to spice up short articles. We could also use fable to add punch to a piece of creative writing.

Step 2: Create Thinking Time. I cannot understate the importance of keeping one's body in tip-top condition. The mind and body are very much interwined. So, get into your sports attire, start an exercise regime and keep it up. Have a little notebook around to jot down ideas which flash across your mind.

Step 3: Make Time to Write. Set clear and well-defined goals and work consistently towards achieving them. Practice makes perfect. If one is no good in a particular area, there must be greater impetus to do more. By practising, your brain neurons will make more connections and you will inevitably become a better writer.

Helping Our Children Ace in School

Recently, I seem to have joined the league of kiasu parents in Singapore by enrolling my child in a number of enrichment courses - he is taking tuition for his Chinese, comprehension and essay writing for his English and well, piano which cannot be exactly be categorised under the academic umbrella.

In the recent news articles, one even quoted that a teacher advised a parent to send his child for tuition lest the young kid cannot catch up. During my time, most of my friends literally breezed through the initial school system without the stress that our kids face today. But today’s education system is different, and calls for a different set of responses and strategies.

While I don’t want to be a kiasu parent, I don’t want my boy to fall behind his peers either. Hence, in the selection of the extra lessons or should I term it as essential, I am pretty judicious.

I have no doubt that Perry need that extra Chinese lesson as our family is more of an English speaking family - though my husband thought that we do speak a mix of English and Mandarin, I supposed it's more of a colloquial, the sort that you can get by to buy some grocery from our friendly neighbourhood provision shops. The school's suggestion for Perry to be enrolled under the "Little Chinese Tutor" Scheme, whereby a student good in Chinese in the higher level to coach him, further supported my initial intuition. For English, I have read his earlier essays, they were at best, very boring. Today, they are much better. And also I can see that he enjoy writing.

Some people feel that sending the children to so many enrichment lessons take the joy out of learning. I beg to differ. If managed properly, these lessons can help the child enjoy the learning process. Once the child understands the concept, he will be less stressful, grow in confidence and yes, be successful in school.

Of course, nothing beats being involved in your child's learning journey. Some tips for sharing:

- Read together
- Establish a daily family routine with scheduled homework time
- Talk to your children and... listen to them, too
- Encourage the child to set high standards
- Keep in touch with the school

I am in love .... again

That intense feeling struck me as I laid my eyes on him. His pair of focused eyes looked firm but yet gentle on me. His light brown eyes blended well with his tanned complexion and good physique. I have had experience that before - it felt as if there were a hundred butterflies fluttering their wings in my heart.

That was more than 10 years ago when I first had that feeling. It is wonderful to experience that again.

After more than a decade of marriage, I can dare say the phase 1 without kids is the honeymoon period. Once the babies come, welcome to phase 2 of marriage - parenthood. There are stretches when being with the kids drained me dry, when their company made me feel plain fatigued and easily irritable especially when work pressures also pile in. Yet, it is also a highly fulfilling job to be responsible for moulding tomorrow's leaders. I will suppose phase 3 will come at the tail end of the family cycle when the kids are kids no more but grown-ups and we will have more time for ourselves. But only, we will be much older then.

At the cusp of the middle of my life journey, I discover that my first love remained untainted by age. I ransacked an unopened box which stashed away our precious belongings when we did a major renovation for our home. I found a card which I sent to my beloved five years ago when he was posted overseas for a working trip. Dear, I love you.

My New Working Arrangement

Starting from next month, that is July 2008, I will be embarking on a new working arrangement - telecommuting. Under this scheme, I will be clocking two days in the office, while working from home for the remaining three days of the week.

Why the Decision

My colleagues asked me what prompted me to make this decision. For my boys and also ... for myself. Since the beginning of the year, I have been trying to manage my work and family life with P in Primary One this year. Everyday was a frenetic rush - from office at 6 pm to fetch my younger boy from childcare and then off to P's Primary School via public transport to pick him up at 6.30 pm. Next on the to-do-list were the cooking chores to feed the family once back home. At times when urgent work needed to be done on the same day, you will see my two boys at my office table, pitching themselves to a race to fritter away time, while I was focusing hard on my work. But that was not before, I spent almost an hour to fetch them from the schools and buy dinner for them. 

6-months is a long time and I have learnt how to be more productive both at work and at home. At work, I am a very focused person and could work without lunch - my bums would be stubbornly on the chair until a submission is completed. At home, I prepare dinner the night before so that for the next evening, dinner would be ready at the snap of my fingers - heating up, is all that is required. 

But P is not exactly very productive at the student care. At such a young and tender age, he needs guidance to have the system and structure in place in him. Moving on to myself, I may appear to be unfazed and managing both work and family gracefully like a swan, but I am also frantically kicking my legs beneath the surface to keep myself afloat. The daily rush is exerting a toll on me. 

With this new working arrangement, I am getting my hubby to fetch the younger one from the childcare which will lessen one aspect of my daily to-do tasklist. With the office at home, it is easier for me to put in longer hours if need be, after my boys are at sleep. I must confess that rushing off on time is a very pressurising experience. I will prefer to take a slightly more leisure pace to complete my task and knock off later.

Yes, I am looking forward to this next work chapter!

In a sense the first 6-months of the year is a good training ground. Never have I been busier in my life and interestingly, to wrest some semblance of control, I started soul-searching on what I really want in life. There were little pockets of time which I literally took to stop and take stock of my life to this point. I even took leave to attend talks and workshops. I traced back the patterns of my life and pondered on life's external verities. I learnt to be true to myself to myself and prepare for the next phase of my human odyssey. 

After these soul-searching, I have found that I have a passion to write and to speak well. Both will be utilised fully in my current work portfolio. I just could not bear to give up working - save for a one year break, I have been working all my life after graduating from varsity. Work is like a creche - providing me with structure, stimulation and sustenance. But at the same time, I love my family and myself too.

Yes, I am looking forward to this new working arrangement as besides being doing what I love, it will also put my life on a more balanced keel.

Essay Writing

Yesterday, P came back from his creative writing and comprehension class with two essays. I must say that I was and still am impressed. He wrote two pieces of good work on the same set of pictorials to guide him. 

The first thing, I did was to give him a pat on his back. 

"P, this are two magnificent pieces of work!" I commented. "Tell me, how do you do that?"

"Mum, are you jealous?" He regaled and obviously pleased with the compliment. Then he explained that the teacher gave them a sample of how they should write. Next, she asked them to think of ideas. For those who had ideas, they could write them down. As for those without, they could take a look at the sample and think of how to write.

Simple method but effective. I spotted some grammatical errors and asked him to correct them. Guess what, P told me he would like to write another essay. Why? It was fun. He stayed up last night until 10.30 pm to complete his another piece of work. The latest piece was just as brilliant as the first! I have sought his permission to post his piece of work on my blog and here it is:

" It was a very hot and very boring Sunday afternoon. R was bored. He thought to himself "What shall I do?"

R decided to play with fire. He put a lot of newspapers on the table. Then he struck a matchstick. The newspapers caught fire.

Suddenly, the fire became bigger and bigger. R was frightened. He could not put out the fire. He dashed to look for his sister, A.

She quickly got a pail of water. She dashed to the fire and put it out. A scolded R. R promised not to play with fire again."

Reflections on the Last Day of June School Holidays

Today is the last day of the June school holidays. It's time to do a stock-take of what we have done during this period. 

I started by asking P last night about how he was feeling. As expected, he replied "No good." My response? "Why no good? You can start saving up again. With 20 cents a day, by the end of the week, you can remit 1 sticker with $1." That's the way, we are trying to inculcate the importance of saving in P. But in this little episode, I am trying to teach him to look at things from another perspective - look at the perks of amassing pocket money instead of the homework associated with school life. 

What Have We Accomplished this June Holidays

No, I did not send my child to tons of enrichment classes, except for Chinese which he needed as this was not my forte. But once a week, it was not exactly those intensive holiday programme. I did however, go through with him on what he was weak in and set goals as to how many marks he should be aiming for in the next class assessment. Likewise, with R, I have also sat down with the youngest man in my family to have goals - to complete his phonics program by end of the year. To do so, I have gotten them to pen down their goals and put it up in the kitchen wall.

So much for the work stuff. As the saying goes too much work and no play make Jack a dull boy. There was also fun stuff like bringing them to cinema. They particularly enjoyed the Kungfu Panda movie, which they literally laughed from the beginning of the show till the end. P was the most lucky fella in our family - he went with his friends in student care, to catch the latest Indiana Jones movie. In addition, he was the first and at the moment, the only one in our family to have gone up Singapore Flyer.

Self-Designated Family Day Last Friday

To mark the end of the holiday, my hubby and I designated last Friday as the Lims' Family Day. And so, we both took leave and pre-celebrated R's birthday in his childcare.

Birthday Celebration in the Morning

The day started early at 8 am. My hubby went to do some last-minute grocery shopping for disposable plates and forks for the birthday celebration, while I went to collect the birthday cake.

When we were at the childcare centre, the kids were all very excited by the Pikachu cake. There was quite a buzz at the centre. With all the "wows" and "cools", R was shyly albeit happily basking in the attention showered onto him that he had quickly forgotten the earlier tantrum that he threw when he insisted to have another cake design. Phew! After the birthday song, R and P were gleefully distributing the little birthday goodies we have prepared for the children.

Parents' Only Afternoon Time

After the birthday celebration, the boys were sent to their Grand Aunt's place where they indulged in the matriarch's love. At the same time, their parents could have some together time at the golf course. The three-hours at the green did wonders and help us regain some sanity in our own lives. This was something really important as we could get carried away with taking care of the kids and forget about ourselves. Just like our boys, we were also individuals with our own unique interests and needs. Thereafter, it was time to chauffeur R to get his last two cavity-infiltrated molar teeth fixed. 

Family Time in the Night

When the night has come and the sun has set, it was "Night Safari" time! It was great to be on leave and we managed to reach the zoo well before 7 pm. There, we had our dinner on a very relaxing and leisure pace with time even for the boys to have fun with coloring and just explore the surroundings.

At 7 pm sharp, we were amongst the first customers of Night Safari. We quickly went up tram and before long, we were training our eyes hard to spot the night creatures on the prowl. To have a closer look at these fabulous animals, we also set afoot very stealthily on the some of trails in Night Safari.

At the end of our tour, the two boys went up to the gongs and played some non-recognizable sounds complete with their spluttering of laughters. We knew they really enjoyed themselves and that was what matter to us most.

The Constant Dilemma of a Working Mother

This little article was written in Jan this year, when I was reminiscing my one-year break in the States with my family while surfing the net to download some storybooks for my boys.

Thanks to my hubby, I was given the opportunity to put my career on hold for a year, packed up and "uprooted" our whole family to the States, while he pursued his postgraduate study. It was not an easy decision as I enjoyed my job. But one thing that came out loud and clear was that "so what if you excel in your career if your kids turn out to be only mediocre?" As a woman, we will love to have the best of both worlds. But faced it, at that point in time which was two years back, our boys needed both of us. And once I made up my mind, there was no turning back.

As it turned out, the one-year experience was also a turning point in my life. It was the most wonderful experience I have ever had. Somehow being away from family and friends, and to be the main caregiver to my two boys, made me so much stronger. The adjustment was not a bed of roses, but I learnt new liberalising beliefs about myself, that I can DO IT if I believe I can. And I have and will continue to MAKE A DIFFERENCE to my boys' GROWING YEARS.

Oh yes, P has completed his phonics program by now and R is almost at the one-quarter mark. And yes, I will be setting an English Exam paper for P after putting up this post.

Enjoy :)
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I must say it takes perseverance - GREAT perseverance, to keep up with reading storybooks to our kids. After all, there seems so little time and so much stuff to do, especially so when one is working.

Having enjoyed a good one year with my boys, I will love to re-live that experience. But time and tide wait for no, erh, woman :P When I look at P, he is toddler no more of a handsome young boy (hey, remember beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder?)

Yesterday, he told me he wanted to complete his phonics program - the one which I had started him two years back when I was an abroad stay-at-home mum. Yes, that was a good two years ago and we were two episodes short to the completion of the 80-episode series.

"Okie, I will try." I replied with measured caution. I reasoned that I should not dampen his spirits though realistically, there was no way I could spend that amount of time to guide and encourage him like two years back. I must also add that with that short time I could spare, my temper was also short.

It is not that I am complaining. After all, there is so much that I could do with that extra income. Adding up the weekends, holidays and vacation leave, I must admit that it's a pretty decent deal. Though of course, at times, we still need to bring back stuff to work on during those supposedly non-working hours. But hey, it also gives us that sense of self-esteem when a job is done well. Not forgetting to add that it also gives us a legitimate reason to be away from the kids, not to feel guilty and have some “ME” time.

Having said that, I do miss my kids. Women, we are such strange but extraordinary creatures. Anyhow, I decided that I should sacrifice some of my beauty sleep to do a small little bit of what I usually did when I held the position of Chief Executive Child Minder. So, I downloaded some new storybooks which P and R used to cherish so preciously. I also could not resist that temptation to just jot down some of my thoughts that were fleeting by.

I bet tomorrow evening, when they see these storybooks at home, they would not be able to contain their excitement and their speech will be punctuated with words and phrases like "Wow!", "Where is Tommy doing this time around", "I love this", "Can you read this to me again".