Category Archives: Musing

2015 Reflections

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The clock is ticking and in some 40 odd hours, 2015 will come to a close and a brand spanking new year will start. For many of us the 1st of January is a time to reflect on the year that has gone by and maybe make some resolutions for the coming year. I thought of doing a reflections post on what 2015 was to me and my family.

2015 was not a very good year, both for the children as well as me.

2015 was supposed to be a stressful year as this was the year that BB & GG were going to give their PSLE exams. We were prepared for that, what we were not prepared for was how stressful the year turned out to be! If I could rewind time, I would have started preparations a lot sooner than we when we did. I also didn’t have a lot of luck with the tutor we hired. We had gotten the name of another tutor who came recommended by a friend of S’.

Unfortunately when the children were in Primary 5, she got admission into a Masters programme lasting for a year and so she turned the children to a colleague and left. In hindsight, I should not have accepted this as fait accompli, and instead should have researched more options. The tutor P whom we had for 1.5 years left a lot to be desired. I think BB & GG were the first Primary 6 students she was tutoring and it showed. She would constantly change class timings at the drop of a hat and also skip classes which showed in the results. Also sometime after school started, around April I think, she suddenly hiked her fees, knowing parents would not skimp at this crucial year. The worst I feel was when the children texted her about their results, she didn’t reply for a while, and when she did, it was just a “Oh dear”! Anyway, that’s water beneath the bridge now. Lessons learnt and this year and onwards, I will check a tutor’s credentials very carefully before hiring them.

I think somewhere there is a sense of guilt in me that perhaps I didn’t push GG & BB as much as I should have – if I did that, would they have done better than they did? I really won’t know that, will I. Maybe this was for the the best and the two of them will shine in the schools they have been placed in.

Speaking of schools, we still have not heard back from GG’s first choice school and after reading an article in the Straits Times that schools will not be able to admit those with lesser score than their cut off point makes me more and more sure that GG will have to grow to love her second choice school.

Work-wise, this year was very unsatisfactory. I started the year with lots of hope and anticipation, which, as the months passed by started shattering down to earth (too dramatic right!). My new manager was nothing like what I expected, having had his country-man as my previous manager, who is a wonderful person and an excellent manager (the reason he got promoted and left this country I guess). When I realized this, I was in a bind, since I didn’t want to change jobs during the PSLE year. So I stayed put and now in the new year, I am going to have a conversation with Big B (aka my manager) and if the conversation does not have any news on career growth for me, then my time here will have to come to an end, sooner rather than later.

One thing I am really happy is that in 2015 I have been consistently blogging – both in this blog as well as my other one. Sometime in December 2014, I suddenly wanted to revive my blog and start writing again and though I never gave it any voice, I wanted to blog everyday, which I am really happy to announce, I Did! So kudos to me there….
So as I say good bye to 2015, I want all the negativity and bitterness (and I have a lot as you know – lots of unfulfilled wishes this year) to stay in this year and for 2016 to start on a clean slate – one that is filled with optimism and positivity!

What are my wishes for 2016? Wait for the next post….

2015 Week 51 Update

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A not-so-good week for us as GG didn’t get into her first choice school. She got into the second choice, which, initially she was not too happy with. BB on the other hand got into his first choice of school. He’s very happy as his bestie is also in the same school, though not in the same class!

We’ve appealed to GG’s first choice of school which is the school that BB has been posted to. Due to the new MOE ruling which states that unless the child’s T-score meets the school’s Cut Off Point (COP), they will not be successful in appealing, we are not very hopeful with the appeal. But, the school has a music learning programme which may work in GG’s favour since she’s been in the choir and has represented her primary school for the Singapore Youth Festival winning Distinctions…

Work-wise, this was a very short week as I was only at work for two days…But there are some serious decisions I need to take and soon here. More soon when I do a yearly update!

This is the last weekend of 2015, hope 2016 is more kind to us….

An Unforgettable Trip

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While in India, one of our smaller trips was to Bangalore to meet my maternal grandmother who is nearing close to 90 and also to meet an uncle who is suffering from a double whammy of Alzheimer’s as well as Parkinson’s!

The four of us plus my mum were supposed to be taking IndiGo both ways, with us taking the 12:30 flight from Mumbai, reaching Bangalore around 2:15. The new airport in Bangalore is very, very far away from the city and to get to anywhere in the city is at least a 90 minute drive, this is assuming the horrendous traffic that Bangalore is famous for is clear and non-existent at that point! We’d planned for a two hour drive to my aunt’s place which is in one of the outer suburbs, the other side of the airport and which should take around 70 – 80 minutes at that time of the day and had expected to reach latest by 4 pm. We’d also arranged for a taxi to pick us up at the airport.

In the morning, while getting ready to leave, I got a message from the airline that the flight had been retimed to an hour later than it was supposed to leave. Though it was irritating, we shrug it off and changed our plans accordingly. We left around 10:30 which should get us to the airport around 11:15, which would be well in time for the 1:30 pm flight. On the way to the airport I received two messages from the airlines – one after the other, which now changed the flight’s departure time to 4 pm!

I was thus, quite upset when I reached the check-in counter. The person who checked us in told me that it was a technical problem and he could check us into the next flight to Bangalore which left at 3:45 pm. When asked, he said there was no guarantee that our scheduled 12:30 flight would make it at 4 pm, but the 3:45 flight was assured to leave on time. So we did the change and spoke to my dad. My dad was by that time not interested in us going to the city, he wanted us to cancel the tickets, get a refund and return home. My mum, on the other hand wanted to meet her mum, sisters and brothers-in-law. Around 3 pm, when we were waiting to start the boarding process, I got another message from the airline saying the 3:45 flight had now been postponed to 5:30 pm.

At this point, I completely lost it! The boarding gate area at this point was resembling a small town bus stand with passengers all over the place. The domestic airport didn’t even have decent places to eat and we were hungry, bored and super angry. I then went to the airline counter and spoke to one of the supervisors. What she told me was a completely different story from what the check-in guy told me. Her story was that since all their flights originate in the northern part of India and that part was fogged up, all flights were running 3-4 hours late, there was no technical problem at all!

Then me and another lady who had to get to Bangalore also urgently spoke to her and when I told her what I was told while checking in, she decided to get it reconfirmed. That was a lie I was told initially. Then that sweet lady (I did write down her name, but now I can’t find the paper) told us she will put us back in my original flight (the 12:30 one) which was now going to land shortly and depart for Bangalore at 5:30 pm.
We (the five of us plus the two of them) then were led out of the security area and had to re-checkin for the 5:30 flight. Clear security once again and then start the wait all over again. We finally got in the bus to get to the aircraft around 5:15 pm and when we reached the aircraft, we saw that all the passengers had not disembarked. What we saw made everyone on that bus comment again! We saw groups of people who used the gangway to take photos and selfies! This sheer selfishness of people really threw me away! These people have also been delayed by 3-4 hours and they know this flight has to go to another destination, yet they spend, nay waste precious moments taking pictures that they can do outside the plane.

We finally boarded and the flight left around 6 pm. We reached Bangalore around 7:15 and got to my aunt’s place at 9 pm! What was roughly a 6 hour journey door-to-door became an almost 12 hour one!

The return journey was nothing like what I wrote above! It was a breeze and what IndiGo is renowned for and we made it home by 3 pm (We had taken the same 12:30 flight from Bangalore to Mumbai)!

This is one trip that none of us are going to forget in a hurry I am sure!

Memories: My First Day of School

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I was struggling for something to write today when I came upon this prompt – the first school memory. I have a really rich memory of my first day in school and thought of writing it down before I get real old and forget it!

This is also apt as this India trip, I am going to take my kids down and show them my school, which I have never done before – shame on me right!

In Mumbai, we start school either in Nursery (age 3) or Junior KG at age 4. When I was three years old, my sister was an infant and so I was not sent to school then. However, I remember pestering my family to be sent to school and probably thinking my mum will have some peace with me away for a couple of hours a day, I was sent to the school next to my house for a ear. This school put me in a class one year above my age which worked to my favour later. My father studied in another school which was literally 50 steps away from our home, but my mum was adamant that she wanted to send us to my school, which was a girls school and which other children in my building went. This was against my grand parents wishes who wanted us to go to the school my dad, uncle, aunt and assorted cousins went to, especially as the school was a Tamil school and the school my mum had zoomed on in was a Parsi school! Anyway, my mum got her way and I was soon taken to the school for an interview. I don’t really have any memory about the interview, but according to my parents I aced it and got admission not only in my school, but in another convent girls school nearby. Usually for Junior KG, the children are interviewed with things like name, what is this (insert object), alphabets, numbers etc. Since I had already done a year of this class, it was a breeze for me!

Also, when we were studying, we’d enter the school in kindergarten (Nursery or Jr. KG) and only leave after grade 10 which is the equivalent of the O levels. So most of my classmates have known each other from the time we were 3 or 4 years old, which make for very old friendships!

The first day of school in my memory is noisy! Some of the children came in from the nursery, but most joined with me. I remember a particular friend who cried non-stop for almost a week before she settled down. I also remember my neighbour who was in grade one when I started school would come down during recess to make sure I ate what was in my snack box! I mostly remember my teacher – Mrs S. She was already old at that time, maybe close to retirement (really and not from the perspective of a four year old! She had white hair) but was such a gentle and sweet lady! She made sure all the children learnt their three R’s and was so soft spoken that we still remember her, so so many years later!

School used to be half day for the kindergarten class and we would be dismissed at lunch for the primary and secondary sections and I remember queuing up for the bus, holding the bottom part of the uniform of the girl in front of me!

My school changed the kindergarten or the Infant department as it used to be called uniform some years back. When I was there, everyone, from the littlest infant to the school head girl, all wore the same uniform – the only difference being the shirt collar. In kindergarten and primary, it used to be a peter pan collar while secondary used to be shirt collar. Oh and the Friday uniform too – in my school in term 2 or the term after the Diwali holidays, we wore a special uniform on Fridays. Infant and Primary students used to wear something like a dress or frock and Secondary students wear their school uniform shirt with a white skirt. We didn’t wear it in term 1 as that term coincided with the monsoons in Mumbai and imagine wearing white and getting wet and dirty in the rains!

I am getting real nostalgic about my alma mater while writing this post and am really eager to meet her as well as my friends from school! I am super excited to introduce her to BB, GG and my sister’s kids next week!

I hope you liked reading this post as much as I did writing it!! More from India….

2015 Week 46 Update

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This week as the last one went by worrying about the PSLE results.

Work-wise, the usual. I actually don’t have much to do – I think I finish up what’s on my plate for the day before 10 am and then it’s trying to look busy…I am happiest when I am so busy I don’t have time to even drink water, wish those days come back soon! Intellectually I feel I am slipping, but like I wrote earlier, I will wait till I am back from my holidays to have a talk with Big B and also start seriously looking for a new position.

We looked at a couple of secondary schools this weekend and looks like both have zoomed into one. It’s not a brand name school, a bit far for us, but BB loved it for its niche programme in his area of interest and when we went there, GG also liked the school. I liked the school and my first impressions were positive. Now we’ll wait for the results to see if this will indeed be our school of choice.

Happy Monday everyone! This week I will be on tenterhooks, so please send positive thoughts our way as well as please pray to the higher being you believe in that both BB & GG do well when the results are declared!