Week one of 2019 is done and well it didn’t feel anything special!
As I mentioned last week, I am trying to change some habits this year and so far I have been on track. I also want to read more books this year and write some solid content in this space. Will all this pan out? Watch this space!
This week will be the first full week of school for BB & GG and given that they are in their last year of secondary school, teachers are also not letting them get away with less than their best.
School really starts this week and most days they have to stay back till the afternoon. So I need to up my game to provide them with nutritious meals especially on those days.
School started on 2nd of Jan and this school week was a very short one with only three days of school.
Both schools started teaching on the second day and they both said they got near identical talks from their respective principals – mostly about being the graduating cohort and how they should set an example to their juniors. They were also told to buck up on their studies as everyone (irrespective of the stream they are in) will be giving national exams this year.
GG had her CCA on the first day of school and also on Friday because this is the competition year for them. They will step down from CCA after the Singapore Youth Festival sometime in April. In fact, given that they don’t have much time to practise there is also talk that they will practise on Friday nights till the competition! GG is already very stressed about it especially since she is her CCA VP.
That’s all from us for this week. More when the weeks leading to the O Level exam unfold.
Luis de Santángel, chancellor to the court and longtime friend of the lusty King Ferdinand, has had enough of the Spanish Inquisition. As the power of Inquisitor General Tomás de Torquemada grows, so does the brutality of the Spanish church and the suspicion and paranoia it inspires.
When a dear friend’s demise brings the violence close to home, Santángel is enraged and takes retribution into his own hands. But he is from a family of conversos, and his Jewish heritage makes him an easy target. As Santángel witnesses the horrific persecution of his loved ones, he begins slowly to reconnect with the Jewish faith his family left behind.
Feeding his curiosity about his past is his growing love for Judith Migdal, a clever and beautiful Jewish woman navigating the mounting tensions in Granada. While he struggles to decide what his reputation is worth and what he can sacrifice, one man offers him a chance he thought he’d lost…the chance to hope for a better world. Christopher Columbus has plans to discover a route to paradise, and only Luis de Santángel can help him.
No, I am not leaving WP yet! Goodbye 2018 and hello 2019
It’s a bit later than I would have liked, but no time like the present to do this post. I for one believe that at least for the first two weeks of January, you are still finetuning what you want to do in the new year and so on that note, I am not late at all!
I ended 2018 the same way as I started it, with hope that the coming year will be better for all of us. 2018 was not a very good year for us, what with the children not really doing well in Sec 3 (which is considered a harder year than Sec 4) nor with me continuing being mostly a SAHM. I did get some relief in the form of some freelance work which I have been doing for the past few months, so I am grateful for the that.
2019 is a crucial year for us as both GG & BB will be sitting for their O level exams at the end of the year. This will then mark the end of their school years and once the results are out, will start their tertiary studies. What that will be, I don’t know at this point. They both have ideas, but these will be translated into reality only when the results come out. So my nagging mode is super on these days, so much so that BB just sighs in frustration all the time. But it is for his own good and he knows that, so he just grins and bears it!
This year, I decided not to make any resolutions which I will inevitably break a month or so later. Instead, I decided to use a couple of words to guide me this year and not stress out when I slip up. My words this year will be ‘Simplicity’ and ‘Productivity’. These words will guide me to lead a more simple but productive life this year. The words will also help adjust my goals and resolutions as the year goes by.
I also decided that I will try and change habits instead of trying to fulfil resolutions. I am currently trying to track 10 habits across different areas in my life. I hope I can do them every single day, but if I slip up some days, I am still ok with it. I will come back at the end of the year or the beginning of 2020 to say how I fared with changing habits.
So that’s my plan of action for 2019. I am hoping for a more simple, minimalistic and productive year for me and you!
What have you thought about and planned for 2019? I would love to hear from you!
On the morning that changes everything, Aruna Ahmed Jones walks out of her ground-floor Victorian apartment in London wearing only jeans and a t-shirt, carrying nothing more substantial than a handbag, and keeps on walking. Leaving behind the handsome Dr Patrick Jones, her husband of less than a year, Aruna heads to Heathrow, where she boards a plane bound for Singapore and her old life. Educated and beautiful, Aruna has a desperate need to risk it all. But why? Waiting for her is a messy past and a perfect past lover she had once abandoned without even saying goodbye – a story left unfinished – until now.
Aruna is not running away from home, she is running back to the home she always had before it became impossible for her to stay. Before her father, the only family she’d ever known, passed away. Before she tried and failed, to create a life and a family with her best friend and lover, Jazz. Before her doctor delivered a complicated psychological diagnosis she’d rather forget. After years of fleeing the ghosts that continue to haunt her, Aruna is about to discover that running away is really the easy part; it is coming home—making peace with her past, with Jazz and those they have loved—that is hard.
Memories and Such 