No, Thanks!

During the first week of school (a few weeks ago), my son's new class teacher told me this story of my son's behaviour in class:

My son and all the other children in his class were asked to finish some work in their workbooks but when it was time for them to show their work to the teacher and the class, the teacher found that my son did not do a single thing on his book. The teacher then proceeded to ask him why he did not finish his work. And this conversation ensued:

Teacher: Why didn't you finish your work?
My son: I don't want to.
Teacher: You will go now and finish your work.
My son: No, thanks.
Teacher: What are you thanking me for? Go to your table and finish it now!
My son: No, thanks.
Teacher: Do you want me to send you to see the Head Mistress?
My son: No, thanks.

And so the teacher gave up. He's only five after all, so she really didn't think it was necessary to send him to see the Head Mistress. So she asked him to sit at his table and proceeded to teach all the other children some maths while ignoring him completely. My son loves his numbers so he happily followed the lesson from his table but when the teacher gave out cards (probably with some simple sums) for each child to finish and she purposely didn't give one to my son - he started to feel left out. The teacher saw this and she finally gave him his card - and guess what, he did his work "beautifully."

From then on, she has never had any problems with him about his work in class. I guess I do cut a lot of slack for my kids at home, so I'm really, really quite thankful for his new no-nonsense teacher.

My son(s) can be a little stubborn at times but I try to be patient and try to negotiate with them into doing the things that I want. But this back fired when they tried in turn to 'negotiate' with me. Examples:

Tired mum: Come and take your medicine, sayang.

2 Year old: No, I don't want to. (this is his usual statement)

Tired mum: Come on...dia budak pandai (he's a clever boy)

2 Year old: Hmm..(thinking) OK! But not too much! Just a little bit.

Tired mum: Huh?..(eye brows raised)

5 Year old: Mummy, this square is senget! (he was trying to draw a square with his ruler.)

Mum: Really? Then rub it off and do it again.

5 Year old: That's ok, mummy. It's just a little senget.

Mum: Laaaa...(eyes rolling)

Always the negotiators, the both of them.

* SIGH*

Bye-bye Post Office

Online postage service launched

People will be able to buy their postage online, without any stamps, for the first time under a new initiative from the Royal Mail.

Customers will be able to pay for their postage by credit card over the internet for first-class, second-class and international deliveries. Each item of mail will be given a special barcode, which can be printed off at home, before being posted. Royal Mail said the scheme would improve choice for its customers.

The service will be available 24 hours a day and it is hoped it will reduce queues in post offices. Postage purchased online will cost no more than the normal rates. Royal Mail, whose monopoly on postal deliveries ended at the start of the year, said it believed the service would appeal particularly to home workers and to people who sell goods via eBay and other auction sites. (BBC News Online)

I definitely welcome this because I do sell books that I don't want to keep on ebay and I'm always too lazy to go to the post office to get the stamps.

I can also still go out and buy those nice birthday cards at Memory Lane or Clinton Cards and post it straightaway in a nearby postbox because the bar code stamp will already be in my handbag - printed at home.

Looks like in the future stamps will become a rare thing and the value of old stamps will increase. So if you were planning to throw out your husband's childhood stamp collection - you may want to think again. And it may be worth it to keep those nice stamps you're still getting on your mail - at the very least, as a reminder that they once exist.

The Incredible Sulk

My youngest son likes to sulk.

He sulks 2 or 3 times within the hour whenever I say the words 'NO' and 'DON'T' and whenever he does not get his way and of course, for other reasons only known to him alone. For the record, my youngest is 2 and he's trying to live up to the term 'Terrible Two' that people always associate with two year olds like him. All the pics below were taken on Saturday (16/9/06) and when he's older, I hope he'll be able to look at these pics and see the humour of it all, just like how my husband and I find his behaviour now.

In the morning, after getting ready to go out - all prepared except for his socks and shoes, I found him in the kitchen sulking about something or other that I honestly can't remember now, although I did manage to talk him out of it.

We went out and decided to go and lunch at Nandos (some of its branches here are halal, but NOT all) but the restaurant does not open until noon so we decided to go to the nearby shops for some window shopping while waiting for the doors to open. And guess what my youngest did again there, in the middle of the shop floor?

And again in a different aisle.

And then one more time.

At last the restaurant was open for lunch. The place was nice, with ambience and nice deco and my boys were behaving themselves until suddenly..

While waiting for the food, he found something else to sulk about. However, he didn't throw himself onto the floor this time - just squatted by his chair to sulk quietly until the food came.

And indeed when the food came he became a good boy once again - eating his food until most of it was gone and he was happy again. I was not surprised if the reason that he sulked before lunch was really because he was hungry.

But then we went to Tesco's to do our weekly grocery shopping and there he was in the trolley, sulking again!

And again!

And then on our way back home, in the car, on his car seat, there he goes!

Back home, some time later while I was cooking for the family's dinner and my husband and our eldest were playing footie in our backyard, there he was again sulking behing the sliding doors - because he tried playing and he couldn't get the ball. Not that the other players didn't want to pass the ball to him, but as he started to sulk even when he missed a pass - which of course, he has only himself to blame - they stopped actually passing the ball to him and simply asked him to 'join' the kicking and shuffling of the ball around the yard. But he refused and went to sulk behind the glass doors instead.

And then my husband had to come and coax him to come out and play, to join in.

And so they had to change into a game of catch instead just to include the baby in the family. And Abang was such a sport too, not 'sulking' like his baby brother just because he wants to play footie and not catch.

Only then was the 'baby' happy...

I Do, I Really Do

I remember the first time I stepped my foot on British soil, 12 years ago. My friends and I were so excited that the very morning we arrived and checked in our 3 star hotel in Sussex Gardens (all expenses paid by our sponsors, of course) we straightaway went walking along Edgeware Road, stopped by the tourist shops and bought ourselves maps and London guide books so that we can discover London as much as we can within the few days that we were here, for we were only in transit from our real destination which was Scotland.

I remember feeling so very clever at the time because I knew of a few places in London from my own reading and from stories regaled by my mother and brother for both of them spent some time in the UK years ago while they were studying here - my mother in the 60s and my brother in the late 80s. I remember that it was so very exciting discovering how to take the tube, studying the tube map and marvelling at how very easy it was to go to the many tourist destinations and by the end of the day, feeling so very tired of walking.

The first night in London was a shock to us all for when we turned on the TV, we couldn’t get any other good channels except for 1 and the show that was on was about breasts and how they react to sexual stimulation. And when we went into the phone booths to call home the next day it was another shock when we saw all those graphic sex adverts! Of course, we didn’t mean to read them but it was plastered all over the inside walls of the booth - we couldn’t very well close our eyes when we went into the booths to talk to our mothers back in Malaysia!

I remember the first place I wanted to visit was Trafalgar square, because of what my mother told me and what I saw in LAT’s cartoons when I was small. And so I persuaded my friends (who were clueless as to where to go) to visit the square first and then going around from there. It was exhilarating. I couldn’t believe that I was actually in LONDON! And then we went to the National Gallery next to the square but did not spend too much time there because my friends were not so very interested in paintings as I was. I remember one of them saying, "Kita orang tak interested la dengan paintings ni - kau sorang je! Nanti kau datang la sini sorang-sorang." (We're not interested in paintings - only you are! You should come here by yourself). And I answered with my resigned "Iyalah." (Alright.) And so we went to all the other famous tourist attractions in London; the parliament building at Westminster and Big Ben, St Paul’s Church, the Tower Bridge, London Dungeon, Tower of London, Madam Tussaud’s, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Oxford Street etc. all within the few days we were there. We had a blast before starting school in Scotland. I will never forget my first experience going around this place. But I never did return to the National Gallery again, alone, to look at the paintings.

But last weekend when my husband and I could not think of any other shopping malls to visit during the weekend (a Malaysian habit of ours, I'm afraid), we decided to just go sight-seeing in Central London. I suggested Trafalgar Square because it was within walking distance to China Town where I could go and look for some asam keping, for my stock has run out, and the children can chase some pigeons (they do delight in that!). But I also thought of going to the National Gallery again to look at those paintings. It was a very relaxed and laid back kind of weekend because we didn't really have any other agenda except for the asam keping, and so my husband agreed to climb up the stairs from the square to the gallery, although he wasn't really interested in paintings himself. I admit we didn’t really spend as much time there as I would have liked, as my 2 year old was making a racket – shouting to hear his voice echo in the large galleries and crawling under the barriers to go nearer to (and nearly touching!) the paintings and stomping his feet on the polished wooden floors as hard as he could to make maximum noise with his trainers – but I still had sufficient time to look at certain famous pictures that I have seen in books, the internet and newspapers, ones that I have really wanted to see with my own eyes.

The paintings were beautiful and I looked at many of them in absolute wonder. Because we could not use our cameras in the galleries, I could not take any pics to put in this blog but I have searched and added here some of the pics I saw in the galleries - the ones that I really liked.

Seurat, 'Bathers at Asnières', 1884

James Wright of Derby, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, 1768

(This one is so LARGE and very, very realistic - I think its my favourite.)

Monet, The Thames below Westminster, circa 1871

Constable, The Cenotaph to Reynolds' Memory, Coleorton 1833-6

(My husband's favourite was this one - it is a very elaborate and detailed painting. Breath taking!)

Manet, 'The Execution of Maximilian' 1867-8

I have to say at 30 years old, I am looking at London with different eyes. That first time it was with satisfaction and pride of actually being here, in the UK, where I have always wanted to pursue my degree. And it was also with the excitement of independence and discovery - a feeling that I think cannot be brushed off so easily for it is very potent and can make many do many things that he/she would never do otherwise. Then, I was too young and excited to really appreciate the beauty of the places and its architecture. But now, years later, after reading so many historical books (albeit fiction), and acquiring an interest in the old London, and not to mention being a little older and perhaps a little bit wiser and mature, I am more interested in the history and story behind the old buildings and streets. In short, I fell in love with London all over again with my new knowledge. I could imagine seeing the fictional female characters in my storybooks strolling along The Serpent in Hyde Park . And I could see the alpha heroes handling their pair of grays from a high-perched phaeton on the cobbled streets along the Thames River. Looking at the buildings, many already standing proud since hundreds and hundreds of years ago, I cannot help but feel amazed and awed by the fact that I am here looking at these cold stones that have seen so much history and so many people - some great, some just leading their day to day lives, but now are all dead - passing by here, right here where I was standing. And now, my humble person can claim to be one of these people.

It was a different experience altogether than the one I had at 18 years old. However much I complain about my being here, I do love London, I do. For all its ridiculously fickle weather, its congession, its effing black women drivers and its horrifying and silly Tv programmes, it is really a wonderful place.

Two Hoots For Charity

Met with a wonderful sight the moment I stepped out of Stratford Station last weekend. Two men were trying to attract people to give some donation to a children’s hospice by showing off some owls. The brown one was HUGE and did not seem at all like it was losing any beauty sleep (for aren’t these birds nocturnal?) The baby one on the man’s head was closing its eyes most of the time so I assumed it was trying to get some sleep amid all that noise created by the traffic from the road behind us. How so very pretty and wonderful! It certainly attracted a lot of attention for the hospice!

Tried and Tasted - Banofee Pie

Tried this Banofee Pie recipe from a friend's blog.




My own humble adjustments to the recipe;

For a 9" pie dish, use 300g digestive biscuits, more bananas, not sliced too thin, layered overlapping each other a little (therefore requiring more slices - which is my intention!)

And for the toffee - use a big can. And once boiled for 3 hours, should be used as soon as possible for it to be more manageable. If you decide to use it later, make sure you soften the toffee before you open up the can by boiling the can again for at least 40 mins. And the cream - definitely should be more than what I used on my pie - I used only around 1 cup of whipping cream for that amount in the pic.

Overall, very easy, nice and will definitely try again.

Good Bye Steve Irwin

I will always remember this man. He was enthusiastic, charismatic and so very knowledgeable and passionate in his work and I respect him, eventhough I would never do the things he did in a million years. I am very sad that I will never see him old with grey hair doing those wonderful things with those wonderful animals and perhaps restraining himself a little bit due to his old age.

His wife and children must be devastated. My heartfelt condolences.

News: The Crocodile Hunter Killed by Stingray