Tag Archives: Weekly Updates

2018 Secondary 3 Week 5 Update

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The first month of school is done and the children are settling into what is probably the most difficult year of their school lives! The GCSE O levels is a two-year curriculum and since next year, which is the O level year will be a short teaching year since the school will complete their teaching by the middle of the year and the rest of the year be spent in revisions. This means that more than half the curriculum should be taught this year, which also means that the stress levels are pretty high for students!

I also went for the OBS briefing in BB’s school earlier in the week. The camping trip sounds to be pretty exciting and I am more excited than him who seems to be pretty blase about it! His class will be going during the September holidays and since this means that this batch will miss their holidays, they get to have their holidays earlier when the first batch goes to their camp.

At the camp, day one and five will be team building and reflections activities and the middle three days will be spent on land and sea activities as well as climbing stuff. They will also need to do a medical checkup to certify them fit for the camp which will be done in school in week 1 of term 3. The principal also introduced the form teachers of the cohort to the parents which was good to put names to faces and so I also introduced myself to her.

His form teacher is his English language teacher and she had some good comments about him. She said BB is an intelligent boy and speaks well in class. She was particularly impressed with some answers he gave in class recently which is quite heartening. But she mentioned he seemed a bit lethargic in class sometimes so I did assure her that I will enforce bedtime for him. She was concerned he was studying but I said no he was playing games! And she brought up handwriting, my perennial problem!!

Nothing much from GG’s school this week. She is up for some executive committee roles in her CCA and the Student Council Board and last night we sat down to do a short presentation on the role she is interested in and why she would be the best fit for it. The presentation to the teachers and the current board is tomorrow and hopefully, she gets what she wants!

Well have a great week folks!!

2018 Week 4 Update

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So how was your week?

This week I did something that I can tick off from my life bucket list; I watched a film alone in the theatre. It’s always been quite weird to think I could see a movie alone, but wanted to break free and do it anyway! The children wanted to watch Maze Runner Death Cure and when I checked, in the same theatre, there was a show for Padmavaat running around the same time. So I bought tickets for both movies and saw the movie. S could not make it as he had something on and anyway, he was not really interested in the movie.

I’ll post a more detailed movie review later in the week, but for now, after watching the movie, I just don’t get the hype and hullabaloo that had been and is continuing to happen in India over this film.

In another career related news, this week, I should hear back from two places I had gone for an interview earlier in the month. They had told me they will get back to me by the end of the month, so that’s now. Let’s see if something comes up from either of these.

Have a wonderful week, we’re within spitting distance to February!

2018 Week 3 Update

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We’re in week 3 of 2018 and depending on how you look at it, the year is either as slow as molasses or zipping faster than you can catch it! Which side are you in?

The cool weather I wrote about last week has ended and we are back to our hot and humid climate again where turning on the air conditioner is more of a necessity if you want a decent night’s sleep. Well, it was good while it lasted! Climate change is real people and those who are still sceptical should just read the news daily to be convinced!

As for my week, it went off quite fast. As I wrote yesterday, I went to parent support group meetings in both schools. I also walked a fair bit this week and exceeded my target of an average of 10k steps per day. I have not been reading as much as I like and am woefully behind my reading schedule for the year. This is something I would like to address this week.

As for the job front, I did meet one person, the third in this organisation and it may work out. But this organisation is not looking to hire someone under their own steam and want the successful candidate to be their own contractor. It’s something completely different than what I was led to believe and I need to do more research to see if this is something I am comfortable doing as well as if it is financially viable. I also would need to negotiate to revise upwards my rates because I didn’t take into account some of the standard perks available to employees here when I first gave them my asking rate. Let me see how this pans out as they will get back to me only at the beginning of February.

Well, here’s to hoping that the week is a joyfully productive one!

 

2018 Secondary 3 Week 3 Update

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Another week of school and the children are settling in school. It’s a new environment with new subjects for both of them. Their common tests are coming up soon, earlier for GG than BB, but I also understand that they will have class tests in the meantime.

I also went to both school parent support group (PSG) meetings this week, and the contrast between the two was quite telling! GG’s school is the older one,  but the PSG is not strong and parents are quite indifferent. BB’s school, on the other hand, has a very active support group and parents are quite on the ball in partnering with the school.

Nothing much happened in school this week as it is still early days yet, so let’s see how this year pans out for both of them.

 

2018 Week 2 Update

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Another week for us at home. The weather in Singapore has been very good for the past week. It’s been raining continuously for the past week, almost 24/7, and the result has been a windy and chilled country! This weather won’t last long according to the meteorological department, so we have to make the most of it while it lasts. As I write this, I can hear the wind singing outside my window. For those who live in countries which actually have seasons, this may be routine, but for those of us living in tropical countries, which only have one season – hot, this is novel indeed!

In other news, I’ve had a passive-aggressive thing going with someone in GG’s school parent support group. This person, whose child has already graduated, got in touch with me and started asking me what I am going to contribute to the group this year. I replied that it would depend on the activity, the time commitment needed as well as my schedule. Then this person came back and said members can’t choose the activity they want to get involved in. I lost it then because this is completely voluntary and so when pressed, I responded by saying in such a case, I am willing to become an inactive member. I expected this person, who is the admin of the WhatsApp chat group where all this was taking place, to remove me from the group, but this hasn’t happened yet. There’s a meeting this week, for which I am still in two minds about attending or not. Let me give it some more thought before I make a final decision.