In My Hands Today…

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Their Finest Hour and a Half – Lissa Evans

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It’s 1940. In a small advertising agency in Soho, London, Catrin Cole writes snappy lines for Vida Elastic and So-Bee-Fee gravy browning. But the nation is in peril, all skills are transferable and there’s a place in the war effort for those who have a knack with words.

Catrin is conscripted into the world of propaganda films. After a short spell promoting the joy of swedes for the Ministry of Food, she finds herself writing dialogue for ‘Just an Ordinary Wednesday’, a heart-warming but largely fabricated ‘true story’ about rescue and romance on the beaches of Dunkirk. And as bombs start to fall on London, she discovers that there’s just as much drama, comedy and passion behind the scenes as there is in front of the camera …

2019 Week 21 Update

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This week has been me in the sick bed pretty much the whole week.

I have been having some issues with my eyes for a while and it was diagnosed as dry eyes for which I have been getting treatment. Last week, in the middle of the week, just before bedtime, I felt a searing pain in my right eye and it felt like something went in. I rubbed the spot and went to bed thinking it was nothing. I woke up in the morning to an eye that was completely red and looked like something out of a horror movie.

I rode out the day thinking it will subside, but when it didn’t I called the hospital where I was getting treated and asked if I could get an appointment. I was lucky that I managed to get an appointment for later today.

I also saw my GP who suspected that it may be some sort of viral infection and gave me an antibiotic cream to tide me till my hospital appointment. I was also asked to monitor the situation and go to the A&E if it becomes worse.

My eyes have become extremely sensitive to light and I can’t use any electronic device. I am able to only use my phone for extremely limited amounts at a time.

It’s only now have I realised how much I depend on my eyes and how much I need it for my daily activities including hobbies. I have to keep taking rest very often to rest my eyes and find myself sleeping a lot. I have literally slept my way through the weekend and am joking to my family that I am clearing sleep debt of a couple of years this week.

Wish me luck as I see a specialist later today that it’s just a simple infection and that it gets cleared soon. I am having a digital detox this weekend and want that to also end.

2019 Secondary 4 Week 21 Update

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We are at the last week of school now, though both BB & GG have to go back to in the June holidays for extra lessons.

Both schools are also doing intensive lessons for those who take the mother tongue languages of Chinese, Malay and Tamil. They will have their first attempt at the O level exams in the first week of June. Since both BB & GG’s mother tongue language of Hindi is not in this scheme, they, along with other classmates sit in the library and self study during this period.

We are also gearing up towards the Early Admission Exercise for Polytechnics. Both have specific courses they are interested in and will apply for them when the portal opens in end June. If they get selected in the course of their choice, it means even if their O level results do not meet the cut off points of that course, they still get in as long as they meet the polytechnic entry criteria and course base criteria.

That’s all from us for this week! We have the parent teacher session at the end of the week and I wonder what both sets of teachers will have to say for the children.

In My Hands Today…

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The Dark Road – Ma Jian, translated by Flora Drew

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Meili, a young peasant woman born in the remote heart of China, is married to Kongzi, a village school teacher, and a distant descendant of Confucius. They have a daughter, but desperate for a son to carry on his illustrious family line, Kongzi gets Meili pregnant again without waiting for official permission. When family planning officers storm the village to arrest violators of the population control policy, mother, father and daughter escape to the Yangtze River and begin a fugitive life.

For years they drift south through the poisoned waterways and ruined landscapes of China, picking up work as they go along, scavenging for necessities and flying from police detection. As Meili’s body continues to be invaded by her husband and assaulted by the state, she fights to regain control of her fate and that of her unborn child.

Memories: The time I repeated Junior KG

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Do memories become stronger as you grow old? I wonder about this because these days I have been thinking about my childhood a lot. So here’s another memory for your reading pleasure plus for me to browse when I am old and probably senile.

A small background before I start – when I was young, I remember my dad telling me that our area was designed to be an educational hub when the city of Bombay was being expanded. So if you draw a circle of around 2 km diameter around my home, you will find many educational institutions like schools, colleges and even higher educational institutions. This includes my dad’s alma mater as well as the school me and my sister went to.

This memory is around the time I was about three years old. Since we had many schools in our vicinity, it’s quite usual to see students on their way to school in the mornings. Growing up, there were many people around my age group (give or take five years) in my building and when I was around three years old, they were all in school too. My mum was handling me and my sister who was a toddler around that time. We also had a fulltime mum’s helper named Maria who would come in the mornings and go back in the evenings and her main job was to help my mum look after two young children and play with me. Maria stayed with us for about two years and then left as she was getting married. By then I started formal school and my sister was also slightly older so my mum was able to manage without a helper.

When I used to see my friends go to school and also see all the children going to school from our home, I also decided that I wanted to go to school. However, the school my mum had decided for me would only take me in for Kindergarten 1 at the age of four which was still a year away. I have spoken more about the discussions and arguments my mum and grandmother had in deciding the school I would attend in a previous post.

I started throwing mega tantrums about going to school and used to create a ruckus at home because I wanted to go to school. Exasperated, my parents decided to send me to a school which was literally next door. This school would allow me to get into Kindergarten 1 or Junior KG as it was known in Bombay then. So I started going to school and was thrilled. I think I started school after the formal term had started because I don’t remember wearing the school’s uniform and used to wear my normal clothes to school. Most days, it used to be either my mum or Maria who would take me to school around 8:30 – 9 am and bring me back around lunchtime.

I must have been a model student there because the teacher who used teach me remembered me right around the time I was in college and would ask my mum about me when she met her on the streets. I used to be so touched when my mum used to tell me about her encounters with the teacher. Someone who in her career has taught thousands of students who pass through her class still remembers this one girl who was so determined to go to school, even though she was there in her class for less than a year. I actually have no memories about this teacher and don’t remember her name or even face.

So this is how I repeated Junior KG!