Monthly Archives: May 2018

2018 Week 20 Update

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This week was so mind-numbingly boring that nothing that I did this week comes to my mind.

This is the last week of school, so I am looking forward to spending some quality time with the children and then there’s our Malaysia road trip to look forward to next month.

The other thing I want the children to work on during the holidays is to work on the subjects, especially those they did not do well in the mid-year exams.

Then there’s the perennial cleaning of rooms and clothes which both (and to an extent me) have to do.

That’s pretty much our plans for the next month.

2018 Secondary 3 Week 20

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This was pretty much results week for both GG & BB

GG first. As expected, because she moved streams, she has dropped a few points in all the old subjects (aka subjects she has been taking from Sec 1). Principles of Accounting, a new subject which she took this year was a good one for her, probably the only one where she really scored well. But I think that’s fine, since it was expected and she should be able to catch up by the end of year exams.

BB also didn’t do as well as expected. With the exception of his two math papers (Elementary and Advanced Maths), he did not do as well as expected in his sciences and other papers. I have also set up appointments to see his subject Teachers this year to see what we can do to improve for the year end exams.

Parent teacher meetings happen at the end of next week, which also will be the last school day of the term before their month Long break.

In My Hands Today…

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Village of Stone – Xiaolu Guo, translated by Cindy Carter

665158Coral and her frisbee-obsessed boyfriend, Red, live in a cramped tower block in the megalopolis that is modern-day Beijing. The epitome of disaffected youth, their already fragile existence is shattered by the arrival of a mysterious fishy package. As the smells of the sea wash over her, Coral is transported back to a traumatic childhood dominated by solitude, fear and shame. Coral was raised by silent grandparents among the stern and superstitious fishermen of the remote village of Stone. Shunned from birth as a bringer of ill fortune, and exposed to the malevolent forces of a closed-off society, she immersed herself in the minutiae of the landscape around her. At fifteen, she escaped to the big city and shut the door on the darkness of her past.

As the narrative darts between the forbidding sprawl of Beijing and the rhythms of a tiny coastal village, our narrator struggles to navigate a path through painful and hidden memories of a time spent helpless, cold and alone. But when a sick old man appears on Coral’s doorstep, the past and present shockingly converge, and she is forced to confront the secrets of her history in order to realise her dreams for the future.

In My Hands Today…

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My Enemy’s Cradle – Sara Young

1998880Cyrla’s neighbours have begun to whisper. Her cousin, Anneke, is pregnant and has passed the rigorous exams for admission to the Lebensborn, a maternity home for girls carrying German babies. But Anneke’s soldier has disappeared, and Lebensborn babies are only ever released to their father’s custody– or taken away.

A note is left under the mat. Someone knows that Cyrla, sent from Poland years before for safekeeping with her Dutch relatives, is Jewish. The Nazis are imposing more and more restrictions; she won’t be safe there for long.

And then in the space of an afternoon, life falls apart. Cyrla must choose between certain discovery in her cousin’s home and taking Anneke’s place in the Lebensborn – Cyrla and Anneke are nearly identical. If she takes refuge in the enemy’s lair, can Cyrla fool the doctors, nurses, guards, and other mothers-to-be? Can she escape before they discover she is not who she claims?